Poisoner feat for Rime of the Frostmaiden

[Seekergeek]

Hey gang! I'm about to embark on a new frostmaiden run, and am putting together an artificer for the gig. My DM is playing his cards a little too close to the vest for me in that I've asked if the poisoner feat from Tasha's would be a good or bad investment and he's declined to give me an answer. I am asking for zero spoilers, but instead opinions on the feat itself and on it's viability in the context of this module. I'll be playing as either an alchemist or as a forge adept (from Exploring Eberron) depending on how things go with the rest of the party from level 1-3.

[HolyDraconus]

The DC can't be manipulated, you don't gain resistance to your own poisons, it doesn't bypass immunes and it uses your bonus action, instead of being part of your action to attack. It's fine for what you want to do with it, if you're building around it anyway.

[kalkyrie]

The Poisoner feat is an odd duck, since it doesn't really help you with using poisons apart from the one bundled with the feat. That's because the best poisons from the DMG are 'save or suck' poisons which don't need to be applied to a weapon in combat (either due to different delivery methods, or not becoming inactive in a minute).
That makes the 'ignore resistance' and 'apply with a bonus action' nice, but not worth a feat.

This means we can focus on the 2d8 poison in the feat.


If you had vast numbers of attacks, lots of the poison and a bonus action available every turn, this is *roughly* equivalent to getting an extra weak attack. (Since we can assume you could hit with one or more attacks a round and a DC14 check is *roughly* as hard to fail as an attack roll is to make). The poisoned condition is nice, and roughly balances out creatures with poison immunity.

That would put it a little behind the top tier feats like Polearm Mastery, even if you get enough poison to use it every turn.

I wouldn't get the feat if you are playing an Alchemist. They only get one attack, so it'll be much worse than the top tier feats. And to be honest, if they are attacking in melee, something has gone wrong.
The UA Forge Adept is a bit more interesting though. They get extra attack, and no standard use for their bonus action. While it's still 'weaker' than other feats, it's at least interesting if you get lots of GP, time and materials to make the poisons.


If you do go down this route, you definitely want to talk to your DM on how easy it will be for you to get the components to make the poison. While I don't have access to this adventure, I know that several other adventures don't give you a home 'base' for you to spend the time and money to get the poisons you'll need. (Three out of four of the 5e hardback adventures I own have you leaving a home base for multiple levels. Two have you heading into a wilderness from around level 5 to 13, under a time limit).

You'd also want to flag the *amount* of poison you'd be using. Past level 7 or so, I'd be wanting to use the poison bonus action every turn of important fights.
That could easily involve carrying 50+ doses of poison whenever you leave a major settlement. Would your DM be ok with that?

[elyktsorb]

Hey gang! I'm about to embark on a new frostmaiden run, and am putting together an artificer for the gig. My DM is playing his cards a little too close to the vest for me in that I've asked if the poisoner feat from Tasha's would be a good or bad investment and he's declined to give me an answer. I am asking for zero spoilers, but instead opinions on the feat itself and on it's viability in the context of this module. I'll be playing as either an alchemist or as a forge adept (from Exploring Eberron) depending on how things go with the rest of the party from level 1-3.

Biggest problem with the Poisoner Feat is that it takes an hour to make an amount of doses equal to your Proficiency Bonus.

This hour can't be a part of a rest. This would take up an entire short rest, and it's debatable if crafting a poison is considered an 'adventuring' activity, but I would say it is, meaning it can't be done during a long rest.

So firstly you need time to even make the Poisons.

Secondly the Poisoner feat doesn't scale too well with a static 14 con save.

[JackPhoenix]

That makes the 'ignore resistance' and 'apply with a bonus action' nice, but not worth a feat.

And barely anything resist poison damage instead of being flat-out immune, so the first advantage is dubious, unless you're in a campaign where you fight a lot of dwarves.

[Emongnome777]

Per D&D Beyond, there's only 4 creatures resistant to poison, two of which are named, therefore unique. None above a CR 2.

There's 28 listings for creatures immune to poison, several of those are creatures likely to be encountered once, or at least it seems that way without knowing any more about it. As expected, it seems to be mostly constructs and undead on the list. Any more than that and it'll be a spoiler.

[Seekergeek]

Thanks for the feedback, all - and for the campaign specific poking around, Emongnome777. Between that information and the cost of crafting the poisons, I think I'll skip the feat.

Cheers!

[Unoriginal]

Thanks for the feedback, all - and for the campaign specific poking around, Emongnome777. Between that information and the cost of crafting the poisons, I think I'll skip the feat.

Cheers!

I can tell you without spoilers that Poisoner works as effectively in RotF as it does in any other campaign.

Problem is, as you and others noted, it's not a very effective feat.