What would make a Poison cantrip worth it?

[Aimeryan]

the status effect changes.

when a poison effect is no different from a punch or sword, it lacks the intimate fear that poison can have.

the unknown lingering effect, a mobility status effect, a lost attribute point,

or possible DoT damage.

poison evokes fear because you don't really know which poison hit you and instead of a cure spell, you want the target to feel they need a remove poison spell, kind of like remove curse treats curses.


Even if a spell only did DoT 1 hp/minute for 10 minutes, with a saving throw to see if the poison continues every 10 minutes, it's enough to put fear into the target.

Structurally, poison is a psychological attack. Its a potential Debuff or Deadly.

The increments themselves, like a -2, or half movement, or whatever, these aren't as important as the fear of the unknown.

While I like this as a DM spell, it would be fairly poor as a player spell; few enemies have any existence outside of the players short-lived encounter with them. Why would the players care about how some generic minion (who escaped) feels about this long duration poison? How would they even know? In a creature hunt (like a dragon or a beholder) the players might care about such things with that particular creature, but only if multiple encounters are to be expected.

As a DM spell, it doesn't need to be a cantrip - unexhaustible resources for enemies are rarely important. It could be a level 1 spell. It could be a level 5 spell. It wouldn't really matter as long as it was balanced. Limiting the spell with such a long duration effect to a cantrip would just mean the effect would be really minor (or be way overpowered for the spell level, even if it was really just a DM spell).

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My take, I agree with the 10ft cone; it would have a niche then, even if that niche was quite uncommon (multiple enemies in a 10ft cone, not immune to poison, safe enough to get close, not worth using a spell slot on). Would it be taken in a limit cantrip setup? Maybe.

If you wanted to make it particularly unique; 10ft cone, d4 damage at the start of an affected target's turn until a Con save is made, repeat applications stack damage (all are removed on save). Scales on d4 cantrip progression.