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drengnikrafe
2008-09-21, 02:34 PM
There's been a small amount of talk in the OOTS forums about Poison, and it suddenly made me curious about something...
Does anyone know of a poison that could be effectively used at 3rd-ish level? I mean, like, something that could be used at least once in almost every battle without "breaking the bank", so to speak.

Alterntely, if anyone knew what book(s) good poisons would be in, that would also be very helpful.

The Glyphstone
2008-09-21, 02:44 PM
I don't know of any published poisons outside the DMG, or the SRD here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison). Drow Poison is the cheapest - crafting it yourself for 25 GP/dose is still pretty expensive, but it's a save-or-lose with a decent low-level save DC and can get them on the second save sometimes.

Mastikator
2008-09-21, 02:45 PM
Natural poisons produced by living animals or plants should have a zero price if you extract the poison yourself. Well, you'll have to feed the animal, but it shouldn't be cost hassle.

Though I wouldn't let a character get away with it unless s/he has ranks in handle animal. And an actual animal that produces poison, like certain snakes, and scorpions and stuff.


I don't have any books on this or anything like that. But I don't really care for how poisons are handled anyway. I mean common, 90 ponds of gold for 1 dose of black lotus extract!? Yeah, just no.

Grynning
2008-09-21, 02:56 PM
Complete Adventurer and Complete Scoundrel both have new poisons, and CA has rules for how to craft them yourself, which reduces the cost a bit.

Drow poison is still the cheapest, and it's effect is pretty nice. The second cheapest is Small centipede poison, but it's pathetic - only a DC 10, 1d2 Dex/1d2 Dex.

If you want to make a poison focused character, go to page 80 of Scoundrel and check out the two feats there, they help considerably.

The Glyphstone
2008-09-21, 02:56 PM
Actually, Complete Adventurer addresses that - it says that if you have a ready supply of access to the raw venom or plant (for example, said pet snake) the materials cost 1/6 of the poison's price instead of 1/3. It's up to you what the materials you're still buying are - maybe some sort of additive to keep the venom from losing potency outside the critter's venom sac?


EDIT: Ninjaed.

drengnikrafe
2008-09-21, 02:58 PM
I like this Drow Poison, and I think the next time I can find my copy of Complete Scoundrel, I'll see about those feats.

Many thanks.

Eldariel
2008-09-21, 03:03 PM
Having Wildshape and extracting poison from yourself is a good way to go. That's level 5 though. Before that, if you've got ready access to a set location and some kind of a venom garden or something, things work out (sufficient Handle Animal), but the cheapest poisons are hard to gain. Really, poisons as implemented in DMG suck. We're rebalancing 3.5 rules over at brilliantgameologists and it'll probably include a complete rewrite of the poisons - all, how they work, how much they cost, their alignment-related factors and the very list of poisons available (DMG is specific about how it's fully possible to craft poisons to use vs. undead, outsiders and other such creatures and then proceeds to list few sorry excuses for poisons [CAdv follows the suite], overprices them (like all the others) and leaves it at that - also, there's no real compulsion/truth serum-kinda poison, very few that at all affect the mind even though that's often the primary target of the poisons, and the even the ones that affect the body sucks; the whole list needs rewriting).

Grynning
2008-09-21, 03:03 PM
Thinking about it for a sec, I could have sworn that there was a Rogue ACF that let you get poison use instead of trapfinding, but I can't seem to find it. I have a horrible feeling that it was a Drow only thing from DotU, but hopefully there's one that works for everyone.

Eldariel
2008-09-21, 03:07 PM
That's the one. It's reasonable to use it for non-Drow too though. DoTU has a lot of material that makes sense for others too - that's one of them. There's also "Master of Poisons"-feat in the very same book - it gives you Poison Use and allows you to apply Poison as a Swift Action.

Burley
2008-09-22, 08:00 AM
That single feat slaps Ninjas and sends them home to their mommies...