How effective is poison in later levels??

[animewatcha]

I know it depends upon campaign and what not. However, as a general overall thing, how effective is poison in the later CRs? I ask cause I did a re-read of Rattlesnake Strike feat. Instead of stunning, it does an instant con damage (if fail save) and 'one minute later'. However, I noticed that the feat didn't carry the usual (unless I missed something) 'if immune to stun and/or critical hit' non-sense. So yeah how effective is 'poison' in the later CRs?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A few things to think about:

1.) Individual poison DCs do not scale. They're static.
2.) Poisons get very expensive very fast.
3.) Monster saves get really high really quickly.
4.) Poison immunity is incredibly common.

You can do your own math on that.

[JNAProductions]

A few things to think about:

1.) Individual poison DCs do not scale. They're static.
2.) Poisons get very expensive very fast.
3.) Monster saves get really high really quickly.
4.) Poison immunity is incredibly common.

You can do your own math on that.

This DC scales.
This has no monetary cost.

This isn’t actually poison, just mimics one.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Just looked at it, and the base is definitely better than the majority of poisons, but the DC still scales too slowly (as monster saves tend to skyrocket much faster than that, especially Fort saves for bruiser types), although that secondary Con damage is usually pretty useless, unless you can somehow hit something then escape for a minute, while both remaining close enough to take advantage after the damage but far enough away to not engage.

It's also Con damage, which scales on its own with the number of HD the target has, but it's also not very much Con damage (average for both sets of damage together: a whopping 4).

You'd be better off adding Con damage to your attacks, I think, such as via a ward cestus, knuckle dusters, a spinning sword, or a necklace of natural weapons to add it directly to your unarmed strikes.

[Darg]

I know it depends upon campaign and what not. However, as a general overall thing, how effective is poison in the later CRs? I ask cause I did a re-read of Rattlesnake Strike feat. Instead of stunning, it does an instant con damage (if fail save) and 'one minute later'. However, I noticed that the feat didn't carry the usual (unless I missed something) 'if immune to stun and/or critical hit' non-sense. So yeah how effective is 'poison' in the later CRs?

I think it mostly comes down to how effective you think that 1d3 con damage is going to be. If you want some fun unarmed strike effects I would recommend you take a look at oriental adventure's feats. Two of my favorite are Freezing the Lifeblood and Unbalancing Strike. The latter is just really nice to have regardless as it doesn't use your stunning fist uses.

[Biggus]

On its own it's not that strong, but it could be quite powerful if you're willing to sink some more feats into it. Rapid Stunning (CW) allows more uses per round (it specifically says it applies to special abilities which cost daily stun uses as well as actual stuns) and can be taken multiple times. Ability Focus can also be applied to it to increase the DC. Three or more times per round it could be pretty deadly.

Of course, this is going to work best against creatures which don't have high fortitude saves, so it would work best if there's somebody in your team who has a lot of knowledge skills suitable for identifying monsters and can thus advise you of good times to use it.

To make it really strong you'd have to sink most of your feats into it though, so even in the best case scenario it's questionable whether it's worth it. On the upside, if you can get them to fail one save against it, their next saving throw will be one lower, meaning it get deadlier every time you successfully use it again a particular opponent.

[Troacctid]

Dealing 1d3 Con damage is almost universally worse than stunning the target for 1 round. The save DC is the same, and the vast majority of enemies who are immune to stun will also be immune to your venom. So, yeah, Rattlesnake Strike is very bad!

[Darg]

Wouldn't be bad if it didn't use your stunning fist uses, or it applied to all your attacks like fiery fists.

[Biggus]

Dealing 1d3 Con damage is almost universally worse than stunning the target for 1 round. The save DC is the same, and the vast majority of enemies who are immune to stun will also be immune to your venom. So, yeah, Rattlesnake Strike is very bad!

Multiple stuns in a round don't have any cumulative effect, but with Rapid Stunning you can do several Rattlesnake Strikes, potentially even killing a low-Con opponent. So it's situationally useful, but I agree it's not a strong option in general, or on its own.

[Troacctid]

Multiple stuns in a round don't have any cumulative effect, but with Rapid Stunning you can do several Rattlesnake Strikes, potentially even killing a low-Con opponent. So it's situationally useful, but I agree it's not a strong option in general, or on its own.
Multiple stuns in a round has the cumulative effect of forcing multiple saves instead of just one. But also, you really shouldn't be taking Rapid Stunning either. You can do so much better out of your 9th-level feat slot. And it means taking Combat Reflexes on top of that, which, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's fine, but it's not exactly synergistic with the unarmed fighting style, you know? (And don't @ me about polearm flurry builds. We all know polearm monks probably aren't building around Stunning Fist.)

[pabelfly]

The problem I see with poisoning, stunning, etc is that it's nearly always more effective to use the same resources to do more damage. Poison and stunning may or may not work, for the myriad of reasons mentioned previously, but damage always does, and extra damage can mean the difference between an enemy being on low health or no health.

[Darg]

The problem I see with poisoning, stunning, etc is that it's nearly always more effective to use the same resources to do more damage. Poison and stunning may or may not work, for the myriad of reasons mentioned previously, but damage always does, and extra damage can mean the difference between an enemy being on low health or no health.

This feat is actually a decent amount of damage. You have a 66% chance to do #HD hp reduction. In two rounds it could be worth 1-3 #HD HP just gone. 99% of groups aren't going to optimize to drop 1 enemy per character every round. Wisdom is also literally the easiest ability to increase.

For a monk, stunning fist is literally just trading away improved grapple and then it's a separate daily resource you can use in addition to your normal attacks. If it lands you deny your opponent a turn, -2 AC, and deny them their dex to AC. It's probably one of the more powerful abilities in the game.

[Promethean]

A few things to think about:

1.) Individual poison DCs do not scale. They're static.
2.) Poisons get very expensive very fast.
3.) Monster saves get really high really quickly.
4.) Poison immunity is incredibly common.

You can do your own math on that.

Poison is kind of weird in that if you use it right, the Save DC doesn't matter at all.
The biggest reason for this is using multiple poisons. Enemies are forced to save against each and every dose poison you apply Every Time You Apply them. Their affects also stack.
It's also very easy to get effectively infinite amounts of plant-based poisons thanks to certain spells.
All of that is before feats, magic items, and spells that increase the attributes of your poisons like save DCs, damage, time between save, number of hits on a weapon, etc.
All of the above mean it's very doable to make it mathematically impossible for enemies to survive your poisons, even using only Dc 10-15 poisons.

The biggest things are the fact that A.) it isn't possible to get around poison immunity pre-epic and B.) The DM is likely going beat you to death with their DMG if you make them roll a bucket of dice for Every. Single. Creature.