What class makes the best use of the poisoner feat?

[Rfkannen]

Was thinking about the poisoner feat, and trying to decide who would make the best use of it. What class do you think uses it best?

[HPisBS]

It partially depends on how the dm rules basic poison. If it's good for the full minute, no matter what, then Fighter's extra attack(s) become a bit more tempting, since you could add +1d4 to each attack every turn. If it's only good for a single hit like this potent poison is, then that doesn't matter at all.

Either way, you'd obviously want a martial of some kind - or at least a gish - in order for enemies' disadvantage on attacks to matter. Then there's the extra damage. The best way to capitalize on that is crit-fishing. To that end, Assassin Rogue becomes the obvious choice if you can expect to set up surprise rounds (campaign dependent), since that'd guarantee you double your poison dice.

If you can manufacture basic poison more cheaply, and basic poison stays active on your blade after the first hit, and you're lvl 11+, then Champion starts to look particularly appealing since you'd crit on 19s (and eventually 18s) and get those improved crit chances more often.


Assuming ambushing is a viable strategy in your game, I'd say Assassin Rogue. Maybe even multiclass Champion Assassin (5/3) since they're both pretty front-loaded. Even when ambushing isn't an option, an Assassin could stil crit fish a little by using this attack pattern:
R1: Attack, b.a.: apply poison → R2: b.a. Steady Aim, Attack. (If you use flanking rules, then this mostly becomes unnecessary.)

[elyktsorb]

Melee classes that want to use their bonus action adding additional damage that aren't Rogue or Monk.

Rogue's have way better things to spend their bonus action on than what will amount to a very small damage increase. If I had to choice between advantage on an attack, or 1d4 poison damage, I'm taking advantage. With more potent poisons this becomes more of a thing to think about, but most powerful poisons, like Purple Worm Poison, you would probably build an encounter around so specifically needing the Poisoner Feat is moot.

Monks can't coat their fists in poison unfortunately.

People who can make multiple melee attacks with the poisoned weapon I suppose.

Though I would like to add that if you just want to put poison on a weapon as a bonus action and not waste a feat, you could just be a Thief Rogue.

As far as poison rulings go, to my knowledge, Potent Poison is the only poison that specifies it only works until it hits a target, and Basic Poison is the only poison to retain it's potency for a period of time. Where every other poison makes no mention to how long it stays effective when applied to a weapon.

[ImproperJustice]

I would say a Beastmaster Ranger w/ poison kit proficiency and a pet Giant Snake.

GM permitting he should be able to “milk” his snake every long rest or so for some potent venom to add to his attacks.

[Wraith]

If you can manufacture basic poison more cheaply, and basic poison stays active on your blade after the first hit, and you're lvl 11+, then Champion starts to look particularly appealing since you'd crit on 19s (and eventually 18s) and get those improved crit chances more often.

Sounds like a job for a Grung, and their poisonous skin. Champion/Assassin Grung dual-wielding hand-crossbows, poisoning each of their attacks every turn "as part of the attack" - so costs nothing and doesn't require an action. It kind of invalidates the second and third point of the feat, unless you specifically want to take time to make a DC14 poison instead of your own DC12, but you can try to cause unresisted damage every round quite efficiently.

Inquisitor Rogue would be pretty good, too - Insightful Fighting requires a bonus action to set up, but since our Grung isn't spending that on adding Poison to our weapon then thereafter you can Sneak Attack someone every round even if they move faster than you and stack plenty of damage.

Hmm... Grung Hunter Ranger? "As part of the attack" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but if we Duel-Wield Daggers/short swords and take Horde Breaker and Whirlwind Attack, then in theory we can attack 9 or 10 times in a round and apply Poison to each one. We'd have to be surrounded by 8 enemies within 5 feet, admittedly, so it's unlikely to come about, but the potential is there.

[whateew]

Bladesinger might be a fun concept - the intelligence to make poison, and the attacks to make it worth it. Besides, you don't often have something to do with your bonus action, so a poisoner assassin wizard, flavoured as an alchemist gone evil, sounds like a lot of fun.

Aside from that, perhaps a war cleric? Casting a buff / spirit guardians with an action and then coating your weapon before going to strike seems like a nice combo, and it also gives some use to that wis uses of a bonus attack - you only use it with poison, the rest of the time you just cast spells as normal.
In fact, on reflection this might be one of the best options - aside from a critical failure, your channel divinity + prof bonus + 3 str / dex is a bonus of 15, minimum. As long as you don't critically fail, your shot is all but guaranteed to hit most enemies, making the most out of risky one chance poisons. You don't even need to increase your attacking stat to make use of this, and it works with a shield too - cast spell 1st, then apply to your weapon. Then, draw and murder.
Further, perhaps you can argue poison is a wis (medicine) related check, so you would possibly be an expert at crafting poison.

Thematically, spores druid would be fun, but they have a poor numbers of attacks per round, and have a busy bonus action.

A poisoner paladin also would be a fun way to increase your nova potential without costing spells like a bonus action smite might. They don't make particularly notable use of this though.

Lastly, barbarian - you don't get to use it first round, but the beast barbarian makes a lot of attacks, so lots of poison damage and reckless can help make sure your valuable poison hits. Besides, it's a fun flavour - an animal using animalistic poison - and most enemies don't like being poisoned, so they'll focus you while you have resistance to damage - seems good to me!

[jojosskul]

It partially depends on how the dm rules basic poison. If it's good for the full minute, no matter what, then Fighter's extra attack(s) become a bit more tempting, since you could add +1d4 to each attack every turn. If it's only good for a single hit like this potent poison is, then that doesn't matter at all.

Either way, you'd obviously want a martial of some kind - or at least a gish - in order for enemies' disadvantage on attacks to matter. Then there's the extra damage. The best way to capitalize on that is crit-fishing. To that end, Assassin Rogue becomes the obvious choice if you can expect to set up surprise rounds (campaign dependent), since that'd guarantee you double your poison dice.

If you can manufacture basic poison more cheaply, and basic poison stays active on your blade after the first hit, and you're lvl 11+, then Champion starts to look particularly appealing since you'd crit on 19s (and eventually 18s) and get those improved crit chances more often.


Assuming ambushing is a viable strategy in your game, I'd say Assassin Rogue. Maybe even multiclass Champion Assassin (5/3) since they're both pretty front-loaded. Even when ambushing isn't an option, an Assassin could stil crit fish a little by using this attack pattern:
R1: Attack, b.a.: apply poison → R2: b.a. Steady Aim, Attack. (If you use flanking rules, then this mostly becomes unnecessary.)

The issue here is that with basic poison, and even with potent poison from the feat, the damage comes from a saving throw. Saving throw damage doesn't crit, even if it's part of an attack. So while you still want as many attacks as possible for basic poison, crit fishing sadly doesn't help much.

Back to the main question, for the poisoner feat to be effective in my opinion you need three things:

1. Extra attack (the more the merrier)
2. The ability to harvest poison when the opportunity arises (It's an Int based Nature or Poisoner's Kit check, if you fail it's bad so expertise is prefered)
3. A bonus action that isn't too busy

So, that leads me to three Int based options, of which I think one is vastly superior. I'll go through the two I don't like as much first, followed by the one I do like and why.

1. Bladesinger Wizard - This gets you a high int class and extra attack. However, you don't have expertise and your bonus action is SUPER busy pretty much all the time (bladesong, shadowblade, cantrips after 6)

2. Battle Smith Artificer - This ALMOST won out for me. Expertise in poisoner's kit is easy to get, and you're int sad, plus extra attack. The issue here is your steel defender. Both applying the poison and the defender need your bonus action. This isn't as bad as the Bladesinger, you could forgo a turn of defender attacks to apply the poison to ammunition or use basic poison on a melee weapon so you still use the defender MOST of the time. But, depending on the poison, odds are you're probably still better off attacking with the defender.

3. Eldritch Knight Fighter - Highish Int, multiple attacks, and while they have some bonus action features they're more situational then the ones for the Bladesinger and Battle Smith. The thing you're missing is expertise in Nature. But you're a fighter, so you get extra feats/ASIs. Start Vhuman, grab poisoner to start. Pick a stat to start with an odd number, like Int or Con. At level 4 (or 6) take skill expert, bump it up, and take expertise in Nature.

All my opinions of course, but hope this helps!

[HPisBS]

The issue here is that with basic poison, and even with potent poison from the feat, the damage comes from a saving throw. Saving throw damage doesn't crit, even if it's part of an attack. So while you still want as many attacks as possible for basic poison, crit fishing sadly doesn't help much.

Damn. In that case, you'd want multiple attacks with a kind of poison that doesn't involve saves. Flying Snakes come to mind. So be some flavor of Ranger and reach lvl 9, I guess.


Or rather, add 5 lvls of Druid to my earlier post.

[Man_Over_Game]

My vote's for the Battlemaster Fighter. Gets the most amount of attacks in a round with a single weapon than any other character (at low levels, anyway), after considering Riposte. Level 5 means 4-5 attacks in round 1, and 2-3 attacks every round afterwards.

[stoutstien]

My vote's for the Battlemaster Fighter. Gets the most amount of attacks in a round with a single weapon than any other character (at low levels, anyway), after considering Riposte. Level 5 means 4-5 attacks in round 1, and 2-3 attacks every round afterwards.
I wonder if loxodons trunk is fair game for this feat.

Welcome back MoG

[Man_Over_Game]

I wonder if loxodons trunk is fair game for this feat.

Welcome back MoG

Thanks, bud! I'll admit, it's temporary. Mostly came back on to research some way to playtest the card game I'm making, and I guess my curiosity got the better of me.

Although it's about damn time that they finally fixed the whole Poison Resistance problem, and started adding feats that didn't specialize well (and instead broadly fit a large category of concepts in a minor way), which is something we've been saying they needed to do for a long ass time.

[stoutstien]

Thanks, bud! I'll admit, it's temporary. Mostly came back on to research some way to playtest the card game I'm making, and I guess my curiosity got the better of me.

Although it's about damn time that they finally fixed the whole Poison Resistance problem, and started adding feats that didn't specialize well (and instead broadly fit a large category of concepts in a minor way), which is something we've been saying they needed to do for a long ass time.

Aye. It feel slightly off the mark but the effort was appreciated. Tasha's been getting a lot of flack but they tried to address so many concerns at once it felt like a sudden shift not wanted.

[OvisCaedo]

Although it's about damn time that they finally fixed the whole Poison Resistance problem, and started adding feats that didn't specialize well (and instead broadly fit a large category of concepts in a minor way), which is something we've been saying they needed to do for a long ass time.

There's about 15 cases of poison resistance across the three main monster sourcebooks, though. And 199 cases of complete immunity that the feat does nothing about. Though if you're ever in a campaign going up against a whole lot of dwarves or stout halflings, I guess poison resistance might become a lot more common!

[HPisBS]

It's fairly easy to find on PCs, or PC-like characters in general.

[LordShade]

I have seen people recommend Alchemist artificer for poisoner builds. The class itself is weak, unfortunately, but it tends to have free bonus actions and can make good use of poison damage.

[HPisBS]

I have seen people recommend Alchemist artificer for poisoner builds. The class itself is weak, unfortunately, but it tends to have free bonus actions and can make good use of poison damage.

As spells, sure, but it has little inherent synergy with the Poisoner feat, since it doesn't really support weapon use at all. The only point of synergy is ignoring poison resistance, which, sadly, is the least impressive of Poisoner's features when you look at how few monsters resist poison in the first place.

[Lokman]

Monks become immune to poison at 10th level and you could put poison in both hands, both feet for unarmed strikes and in your monk weapon if you have at least 1 or 2 rounds to prepare before battle

Also Grungs are immune to poison damage and the condition and have their own poision, so maybe you could stack the grung's poison with the feat's potent poison.

You could choose a race with that immunity like a zombie and become a barbarian/fighter grappler with unarmed fighting style

With that feat you could coat 2 weapons or parts of your body per round and the feat doesn't say you need to deal piercing or slashing damage for it

[LudicSavant]

Although it's about damn time that they finally fixed the whole Poison Resistance problem, and started adding feats that didn't specialize well (and instead broadly fit a large category of concepts in a minor way), which is something we've been saying they needed to do for a long ass time.

The thing is, Poisoner doesn't really do this. For example, it only ignores Resistance, not Immunity. There's hundreds of monsters with Poison Immunity (as well as ways to get it from spells, class features, etc). By contrast, there's rather few monsters with Poison Resistance (just 15 in MM+Volo's+MToF combined).

[Sorinth]

Keep in mind coating a weapon in poison is 1 melee weapon or 3 pieces of ammunition. So it's probably best to go with a ranged Fighter. BA to coat 3 arrows and attack 3 times as an 11th level Figher, but after that maybe multiclass into Rogue.

EDIT: Also regardless of the poison you can make with the feat, there are some good poisons in the DMG. The only problem is it's an expensive hobby, so you will need to ration your supply and only use the good stuff in important fights.

[Amnestic]

Paladins typically don't use their bonus action for a lot of things, save smite spells. If you're not going into a PAM or dual wield build, a poisonous paladin might be quite intoxicating.

[Greywander]

I think people might be slightly overstating how much poison immunity there is. According to this one website, out of 2323 monsters (which I think includes every official monster, even from modules), 532 are immune, which sounds like a lot. But, once you remove constructs, elementals, fiends, and undead, that number shrinks to just 85 monsters (out of 1765). And the nice thing about this is that constructs, elementals, fiends, and undead are generally pretty conspicuous; you usually know when you're fighting one of those, and thus know not to use poison.

So poison doesn't work against every monster, but you usually know it's not going to work. You'll want other options for dealing with those types of monsters, but you won't often find yourself wasting a turn trying to poison an enemy who is immune. And there are a lot of common enemies who aren't immune. Also, once you discount those four creature types, there are actually 96 monsters that are resistant to poison, more than are immune (and it looks like 90% of them are dwarves, so maybe not that useful).

[MrCharlie]

Beast Barbarian. To summarize the core problem here-two-handed weapons have better feats and sword/board lacks a free hand normally, so we need a "sword" that doesn't use your hand. That means natural weapons, but poisoner doesn't fix natural weapons sucking normally. So we need beast barbarian, which has worthwhile natural weapons and doesn't use bonus actions.

There exists a small niche where poisoner is extremely good, basically where if you are rich as hell or have access to wyvern or purple worm venom through another source. I suppose it's technically possible to have a pet Wyvern that you milk for venom constantly, and if so the answer to "Who wants poisoner" is "Everyone and the dog". Even a wizard would want it then, simply so they can envenom daggers for booming blade when they are out of spells.

Outside of situations where the PCs have Grandpop Locusta's credit card, so to speak, you're mostly dealing with basic poison or crafted poisons with the feat. Those are still not cheap, but within the affordable price range of a tier 2 adventurer for special occasions. They are decent damage for a bonus action. But ranged characters and two-handed melee characters have crossbow expert and polearm master for bonus action attacks, making poisoner worse than other feats that it competes with. Every other class with a natural weapon or pseudo-natural weapon either has bonus actions already, or does not deal piercing or slashing damage (monk, armorer artificer).

That leaves beast barbarian, who can sword/board with natural weapons, leaving it with a free-hand to apply poison (to that hand) even while wielding a shield, as the best remaining choice.

Arcane tricksters using booming blade can also benefit from it, but for a feat they can get shield proficiency-which is probably more worthwhile holistically, if we're talking uses for their off-hand.

[J-H]

Fighter or perhaps barbarian because it gives a reliable use for a bonus action, and a nice debuff chance on hit.
Rangers, rogues, and monks have too many other BA uses.

[Hael]

Warlocks have cloak of flies, as well as some chain pact familiars with some poison attacks.

[kazaryu]

Was thinking about the poisoner feat, and trying to decide who would make the best use of it. What class do you think uses it best?

fighter. hands down. rogue/monk BA are too busy. and while a barbarian is on par with the fighter in theory, their first BA is always going to be to rage, so they don't even benefit from it until the second round of combat. rangers are ok for it i suppose, but melee rangers don't have anywhere near the support that ranged ones have (as far as i can tell. specifically referring to ranger spells) and are generally worse for melee than fighters. Paladin is almost on par, (pre lvl 11 anyway) but their smites already to their damage per hit, making the poison a lower %. they also have a few BA spells/spells that give them BA (like aura of vitality). full caster gish aren't really worth considering IMO since taking the attack action is already a nerf to what they could normally be using their action for.

fighters OTOH: get the most attacks and have fewest modifiers on their damage, and their biggest BA is second wind, which is used reactively rather than proactively, so while it does take away a turn of poisoning, it doesn't interupt the flow as much as having a guaranteed BA right at the start of combat. as far as subclass i'd want to say echoknight, due to the extra extra attack they get...but their BA is also super busy. Rune knight retains the extra attacks (post 11) from gither but their first BA is also taken up, similar to a barbarian. so probably battlemaster

[Eldariel]

Bladesinger obviously. 1-10 you have the same attacks as everyone else except more advantage to land that poisonous attack and such (level 5 being the singular exception), eventually spells get you most attacks (Magic Jar and Shapechange especially), your bonus action is largely free (you need one to bladesing and then you can do whatever), your spells can easily generate whatever poison you want (e.g. Creation is superb for this), you don't really need other feats, etc. Of course, it's not necessarily good anyways but it's by far the easiest; just not having to pay for the poisons alone more than once is sweet (Creation of vegetable matter lasts for a day and you just need to see the poison once to reproduce - mineral poisons last for 12 hours too).

[Segev]

People keep saying poison is expensiVe, but one of the ways to get poison is by milking cooperative or helpless creatures. The trouble is that the rules provide no limit for how many times you can do this, and most such creatures poison on every bite or similar attack, so you can actually get a nigh-unlimited supply with a day's work.

[elyktsorb]

People keep saying poison is expensiVe, but one of the ways to get poison is by milking cooperative or helpless creatures. The trouble is that the rules provide no limit for how many times you can do this, and most such creatures poison on every bite or similar attack, so you can actually get a nigh-unlimited supply with a day's work.

I mean the biggest issue with poison is that getting any good poison, or any outside of the feat, is entirely up to the dm(baring like, a few avenues), who generally controls what animals you get to encounter, even druid's technically have to see the creatures in question, which is just another way the dm can restrict access to poisons.

I personally still don't know why anyone even considers this feat. The first point - bypassing resistance - is almost a moot one unless you wanna kill a bunch of dwarves, the second point, can be accomplished by any Thief Rogue without taking the feat, and the third is useful at low levels, but quickly falls off because of a non-scaling con save.

At this point the poisoner feat should do nothing more than allow you to apply poison to a weapon or ammunition as part of an attack action (once per turn) so classes that actually use their BA can still use poisons. Fleshing out poisons in general is something they should have done when making the feat in the first place.

[stoutstien]

I mean the biggest issue with poison is that getting any good poison, or any outside of the feat, is entirely up to the dm(baring like, a few avenues), who generally controls what animals you get to encounter, even druid's technically have to see the creatures in question, which is just another way the dm can restrict access to poisons.

I personally still don't know why anyone even considers this feat. The first point - bypassing resistance - is almost a moot one unless you wanna kill a bunch of dwarves, the second point, can be accomplished by any Thief Rogue without taking the feat, and the third is useful at low levels, but quickly falls off because of a non-scaling con save.

At this point the poisoner feat should do nothing more than allow you to apply poison to a weapon or ammunition as part of an attack action (once per turn) so classes that actually use their BA can still use poisons. Fleshing out poisons in general is something they should have done when making the feat in the first place.

It maybe a weak feat but it gets points for flavor. I'd consider it if I really wanted to lean on the theme and the campaign supported the damage type.

[MrCharlie]

People keep saying poison is expensiVe, but one of the ways to get poison is by milking cooperative or helpless creatures. The trouble is that the rules provide no limit for how many times you can do this, and most such creatures poison on every bite or similar attack, so you can actually get a nigh-unlimited supply with a day's work.
In practice, a creature with poison almost never gets to attack more than six times with the bite, because the number of combats where melee combat lasts more than six rounds without someone dying is absurdly rare. This means that giving a party more than two or three vials is a bit absurd, even by the parity logic.

[Sorinth]

People keep saying poison is expensiVe, but one of the ways to get poison is by milking cooperative or helpless creatures. The trouble is that the rules provide no limit for how many times you can do this, and most such creatures poison on every bite or similar attack, so you can actually get a nigh-unlimited supply with a day's work.

Yeah the rules don't say how much poison or how often you can milk a creature for poison but it's a weird take to claim because it's not defined it means unlimited doses.

[Segev]

Yeah the rules don't say how much poison or how often you can milk a creature for poison but it's a weird take to claim because it's not defined it means unlimited doses.

It says you can do it. It doesn't say you can't do it repeatedly, nor how long between milkings you have to wait. And there's no wait time save "their next action or opportunity attack" between dispensations of doses.

Either you can only milk them once, ever, but they cna keep biting forever after that, possibly multiple times per round, and poisoning despite never being able to be milked again, or you can milk them indefinitely. Unless the DM makes a judgment call as to a refractory period. In which case, he has to just spitball it, or do real-world research, because the game provides zero guidance.

[MrCharlie]

It says you can do it. It doesn't say you can't do it repeatedly, nor how long between milkings you have to wait. And there's no wait time save "their next action or opportunity attack" between dispensations of doses.

Either you can only milk them once, ever, but they cna keep biting forever after that, possibly multiple times per round, and poisoning despite never being able to be milked again, or you can milk them indefinitely. Unless the DM makes a judgment call as to a refractory period. In which case, he has to just spitball it, or do real-world research, because the game provides zero guidance.
To be fair, they need to do that anyway. Otherwise you could kill a snake and milk it for the rest of reality, despite that it's dead. The rules don't include any text on corpse decay, because that's not what they're for. There is a reason this is in the dungeon masters guide, after all.

One way to at least attempt a RAW reading is that the text says they can't harvest any poison on a failed check, so if they fail they can never harvest poison from that target ever again. In most casual parties that's good enough, as even a 20th level character will only walk into it with a 50% chance of success. It's entirely possible to make failure impossible though, at which point the problem comes back.

[Greywander]

I mean, I think it's just a case of "they can't have rules for everything", as otherwise the book would be thousands of pages long, and it would be borderline impossible to actually know all the rules. In a situation like this, I think the best option would be to research how often snakes can be milked in real life, and then just copy that over to D&D. If there's a pretty wide variation between different venomous animals, and there doesn't seem to be any correlating factor (e.g. size), then just pick something in the general range or use an average. If that's too much trouble, then a reasonable ruling would probably be that you can milk a creature once per long rest. However you do it, the DM will have to be the one who decides, since the rules can't be bothered to go into detail on something so specific. (Still, a general rule that applies equally to all creatures probably should have been included in the rules for the poisoner's kit.)

The lack of a rule doesn't imply anything about what the rule should be. Just because a rule doesn't exist doesn't mean it is impossible, nor does it mean there are no limits on thing in question. It means that it's up to the DM to decide how that thing should be handled.

[Segev]

To be fair, they need to do that anyway. Otherwise you could kill a snake and milk it for the rest of reality, despite that it's dead. The rules don't include any text on corpse decay, because that's not what they're for. There is a reason this is in the dungeon masters guide, after all.

One way to at least attempt a RAW reading is that the text says they can't harvest any poison on a failed check, so if they fail they can never harvest poison from that target ever again. In most casual parties that's good enough, as even a 20th level character will only walk into it with a 50% chance of success. It's entirely possible to make failure impossible though, at which point the problem comes back.I actually like that as the result for a dead creature. But for living ones, the idea you can never milk them again is weird since they still can poison. It also, being a skill check, could theoretically become un-failable, especially on a mid-level rogue. Of course, if a mid-level rogue has devoted expertise to his poisoner's kit, maybe just letting him have poison as a class feature is fair enough.


I mean, I think it's just a case of "they can't have rules for everything", as otherwise the book would be thousands of pages long, and it would be borderline impossible to actually know all the rules. In a situation like this, I think the best option would be to research how often snakes can be milked in real life, and then just copy that over to D&D.While I am sympathetic to the argument that you can't have rules for everything, this is a case where they provided a rule for milking, and just failed to provide a rule for how often it can be done or how many times it can be done on a corpse. This is an oversight, I feel, that one can point out was erroneous to make, rather than just a place they reasonably didn't have cause to come up with something.

[MrCharlie]

I actually like that as the result for a dead creature. But for living ones, the idea you can never milk them again is weird since they still can poison. It also, being a skill check, could theoretically become un-failable, especially on a mid-level rogue. Of course, if a mid-level rogue has devoted expertise to his poisoner's kit, maybe just letting him have poison as a class feature is fair enough.

While I am sympathetic to the argument that you can't have rules for everything, this is a case where they provided a rule for milking, and just failed to provide a rule for how often it can be done or how many times it can be done on a corpse. This is an oversight, I feel, that one can point out was erroneous to make, rather than just a place they reasonably didn't have cause to come up with something.
The real concern is an artificer casually strolling up with expertise and maxed INT for +11 to +15, with enhance ability and guidance on. You aren't making any unusual choices besides to have a poisoners kit, and you've suddenly reduced failure to sub 10% odds. At that point failure is basically irrelevant.

I agree that simply not having frequency rules was a poor decision. They seem to have assumed that a DC 20 is high enough that the eventual failures by >5 will drive you to stop, but that's a poor excuse when skill checks are so exploitable.

[Sorinth]

It says you can do it. It doesn't say you can't do it repeatedly, nor how long between milkings you have to wait. And there's no wait time save "their next action or opportunity attack" between dispensations of doses.

Either you can only milk them once, ever, but they cna keep biting forever after that, possibly multiple times per round, and poisoning despite never being able to be milked again, or you can milk them indefinitely. Unless the DM makes a judgment call as to a refractory period. In which case, he has to just spitball it, or do real-world research, because the game provides zero guidance.

You're right it doesn't say how often, but assuming that means infinite or even one time is strange. 5e especially asks DMs to make judgement calls for all sorts of things and this is no different.

[Segev]

You're right it doesn't say how often, but assuming that means infinite or even one time is strange. 5e especially asks DMs to make judgement calls for all sorts of things and this is no different.

It's just that this is a point it should not have remained silent on. Even acknowledging that the DM needs to decide for each poisonous creature would indicate they at least thought about it.

[Eldariel]

It can be worth it iff the DM either homebrews an elaborate poison system (such that you can make poisons for outsiders and fey and undead and all sorts of creatures that certainly have very strong natural anathema if arsenic isn't the thing) or if you homebrew one yourself. Otherwise the feat is **** and poisons are **** because WotC never bothers (seriously, poisons sucking and making no sense is consistent across ALL WotC editions).

[XmonkTad]

If we're talking about poison then Conjuration Wizard 2 needs a mention. While a poison created with minor conjuration will disappear after you do damage with it, it still does that damage. Poisoning and then throwing a dagger makes for a nasty attack if you're looking to save spell slots.

[4d6]

Yuan ti pureblood creation bard.