[3.5] Spellvials of Seething Eyebane: viable?

[Uncle Pine]

So, spellvials! They works just like normal potions, except you can throw them at people and they cost one and a half the price of a potion of the same spell. You need an Alchemist Savant (Magic of Eberron) to make one, but everyone can use it.

Enter Seething Eyebane, a 1st level corrupted spell from BoVD that makes your target's eyes go kaboom (Fortitude negates) for the mere price of 1d6 Con damage. Yep, it sucks. However, it's worth to notice that if a corrupted spell is put into a magic item (scroll, potion, wand, etc.) it's the user that has to pay the corruption cost whenever she uses the items. This means that if you can make someone drink a potion of Seething Eyebane they'd first take 1d6 points of Con damage (no save) and then roll Fortitude to avoid complete blindness. This isn't bad per se, as such potions are pretty cheap (50 gp), but you'd either need to go to great length to trick an opponent into drinking a potion, or your target must be too dumb to live.

But what if you bought a spellvial of Seething Eyebane instead? For 75 gp, you can debuff any opponent you can hit with a touch attack (assuming it's susceptible to Con damage).
It's clearly not game-breaking, just something interesting I came up with. It also made me wonder why I bothered to plant a bunch of potions of Seething Eyebane labeled as "Cure Moderate Wounds" in a loot in a campaign of mine instead of just handing spellvials to a bunch of trained monkeys (note that the players ended up forgetting about those potions thanks to healing belts).
Compare the cheapest poisons that can deal Con damage with a Fortitude save and can't blind opponents, but cost more: arsenic (120 gp), black adder venom (120 gp), bloodrot (100 gp), greenblood oil (100 gp).

What do you think? Would you allow your players to buy some? Would you make an Evil Alchemist Savant with lots of minions use them? Does all of this actually not work because I've missed a single important detail?

[Deophaun]

So, spellvials! They works just like normal potions...
No, they are brewed like normal potions. Nowhere does it say they work like them. So, the entire exercise doesn't work.

[DrMotives]

Even if your mad alchemist had regular potions of seething eyebane and labeled them as cure light wounds, it wouldn't do you're suggesting. The drinker would take the con damage, but then gain a 1-use touch attack to explode someone else's eyes; it wouldn't immediately target the drinker with the effect. That would only happen if when prepared and cast normally the spell put all the bad news on the caster, which it doesn't.

[ExLibrisMortis]

A spellvial is thrown as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet; a spellvial that is consumed has no effect on that creature, even if the spell it holds is beneficial (such as a spellvial of cure light wounds). If the spellvial hits the target, treat the target as if the spell had been cast on it; saves and spell resistance apply normally.
No, it doesn't work. It's unclear who would be the caster of a spellvial. I would allow the corruption cost to be negated, treating no creature as the caster. It is a small benefit compared to the gp cost. Whatever happens, though, the corruption cost won't be paid by the target.

[Uncle Pine]

No, they are brewed like normal potions. Nowhere does it say they work like them. So, the entire exercise doesn't work.

No, it doesn't work. It's unclear who would be the caster of a spellvial. I would allow the corruption cost to be negated, treating no creature as the caster. It is a small benefit compared to the gp cost. Whatever happens, though, the corruption cost won't be paid by the target.
Ops, you're both right. Too bad, cheap bombs that dealt 1d6 Con damage and made people's eyes explode sounded really cool.


Even if your mad alchemist had regular potions of seething eyebane and labeled them as cure light wounds, it wouldn't do you're suggesting. The drinker would take the con damage, but then gain a 1-use touch attack to explode someone else's eyes; it wouldn't immediately target the drinker with the effect. That would only happen if when prepared and cast normally the spell put all the bad news on the caster, which it doesn't.
That's not what the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#creatingPotions) says:

The imbiber of the potion is both the caster and the target.
So just like you don't get a 1-use touch attack to heal someone for 1d8+1 when you drink a Cure Light Wounds potion, you don't get one in this case either.