natural bite attack vs a vishkanya (poison blood)

[flamewolf393]

So a player wants to play a vishkanya, which i dont have an issues with. My problem is how to handle early game encounters with animal attacks. The vishkanya has poisonous blood, so I can imagine animals would a) have an aversion to biting them in the first place or b) when they bite them, they become nauseated and dont want to continue fighting.

How can I prevent this character from making animal encounters a non-issue?

[Geddy2112]

RAW, this is not an issue. Vishkanya venom is only encountered as an injury poison when the vishkanya chooses to put it on a weapon. Creatures biting a vishkanya do not suffer this.

Note that they never say the word poison, which is a big deal. They use the word toxic.

Venom is different than poison-if you bite it and you die, it is poison. If it bites you and you die, it is venom. Vishkanya have venomous blood/salavia, not poisonous. A real life example is rattlesnake venom-it has to be injected to be toxic . If you drink pure rattlesnake venom, you would be fine(Unless you had an ulcer or something along those lines).

If you were feeling generous and made it a poison, it is still an X/day use with a save, meaning they could activate their blood if bitten, but only a few times a day, plus there is a save, plus it is only minor dex damage.

[bahamut920]

Anything that primarily attacks with claws, slams, tail stingers/slaps, tentacles, or basically anything besides their mouth doesn't care. Let the character enjoy his immunity to wolves and sharks; that's pretty much all his poison blood gets him.

[Psyren]

As written, their poison is injury poison; you could chug it like beer, it won't actually do anything unless it is on a weapon that damages the target. If you have trouble rationalizing it, think of it like a germ of some kind that gets deactivated by the animal's saliva or stomach acid.

[flamewolf393]

The ability states that they have to be injured and use the blood for said poisoning of the weapon (if a little poisons a weapon imagine how a mouthful affects you), and their description specifically says their blood is poisonous. I cant just ignore this fact when dealing with creatures with bite attacks. Its a rather important detail to just gloss over when both the players and the dm are wondering how it should work.

[bahamut920]

It's an injury poison, so it has to get into the target's bloodstream directly in order to be toxic. Just imagine that a biter's stomach acid or saliva does something to it to prevent it from being effective if ingested.

[lord_khaine]

For that matter, most organic poisons are rather complex and fragile molekules. Most will be wrecked by the rather strong acid in the stomac.

Also it would take a lot of bleeding to even produce enough blood to be certain it got into a biters mouth. Its just as likely that the bad taste will make the biter spit it out instead of swallowing.

[Necroticplague]

The ability states that they have to be injured and use the blood for said poisoning of the weapon (if a little poisons a weapon imagine how a mouthful affects you),
Not at all. It's an injury poison, so eating it is completely harmless. This is consistent with real-life venoms, which typically require specialized organs to get the venom into the blood where it can have any affect.

and their description specifically says their blood is poisonous. I cant just ignore this fact when dealing with creatures with bite attacks. Its a rather important detail to just gloss over when both the players and the dm are wondering how it should work.
No, it states their blood and saliva is venomous, not poisonous. If it affected monsters that bit them, it would say it did, like the Gripilli's Poison Skin, or the Death Worm's poorly-named Venomous Skin. The mechanics inform us about how the world works.

[Vhaidara]

The way I remember it being explained
If it's venomous, you can bite it, but don't let it bite you.
If it's poisonous, it can bite you, but don't bite it.


If you drink pure rattlesnake venom, you would be fine(Unless you had an ulcer or something along those lines).

To back this up, iirc, there are some parts of the world where cobra venom and vodka shots is a thing.

Basically, 3.X injury poisons would be more accurately called venoms, but because people are lazy and it's simpler to have one catch all term for how things work mechanically, WotC called them poisons and when moving to PF Paizo elected not to change the name.

Additionally, just because you bite something with poisonous blood doesn't mean you start chugging or even swallow.