4e poison rules

[oxinabox]

How would you make poison work right in 4e.
make it more 3.5ish.

I want to make chance for people to posion them selves when applying possible (avoid with a feat)
and I don't want a standard 4e saving throw.

SAVING THROWS
✦ End of Turn: At the end of your turn, you make a
saving throw against each effect on you that a save
can end. Roll a d20, with one of the following result
Lower than 10: Failure. The effect continues.
10 or higher: Success. The effect ends.
✦ Choose Order: Whenever you make a saving throw
you choose which effect to roll against first, which
effect to roll against second, and so on.
✦ Modifiers: A saving throw normally doesn’t include
modifiers; it’s just a d20 roll. Some powers, feats, or
racial traits might modify a saving throw.

Poison
✦ Poison vector: poison can be applied with a
weapon, to a trap, to darts or needles, smeared in
such a way as to seep in through the skin, or dis-
persed in a powder or gas so it’s inhaled. poison in
food or drink takes effect when it’s ingested unless
otherwise noted. The poison attacks the victim
when it makes contact through any of these means.
Some poisons, as noted in their descriptions, can
be administered only by specific means, such as in
food or by a weapon that has been coated with the
poison.

✦Poison Characteristics: poisons are consumable
items (similar to magic items). They af fect you
with an attack power. Some poisons have afteref
fects, which apply after you save against the initia
attack.

✦Poisoned Weapon attacks: You must apply a
poison to a weapon. The poison takes effect the
next time the weapon hits and deals damage. The
poison’s effect is a secondary attack against the
same target. if a poisoned weapon hits multiple tar
gets, the poison attacks only the first target hit.
✦ Apply a Poison: apply poison to a weapon. This i
a standard action. poison applied to a weapon lose
its potency at the end of the encounter or after 5
minutes have passed.

I guess i could leave it as it is, making posions weaker (easier to save) but useable on a weopon for longer, and not makeing PC spend a feat.

[Gralamin]

How would you make poison work right in 4e.
make it more 3.5ish.

You do realize 3.5 poisons sucked right?

I want to make chance for people to posion them selves when applying possible (avoid with a feat)
and I don't want a standard 4e saving throw.

I don't see why you'd ever want this, but When people apply poison, have it make an attack against their reflex and then fortitude. If both hit, they poisoned themselves.

I guess i could leave it as it is, making posions weaker (easier to save) but useable on a weopon for longer, and not makeing PC spend a feat.

The Poison-using feat tree from Dragon, whose name I forget off the top of my head gives some nice benefits.

[oxinabox]

also how many uses should ingested poisons have?

[oxinabox]

Oh THe saving throw i was talking about was that for the target.

I guess the fact that you can make multyipl attacks with the same poision is balanced by the fact that they will save from it 50% of the time at tthere next round.

But again, ingested poisons.

I don't have an insider subscription.
any chance you could post the relevent points?

[RTGoodman]

I'm guess you know about the pre-existing poison rules in 4E, but if not, here's a rundown:

Adventurer's Vault, and a few other sources, have a bunch of poisons as "Alchemical Items," and anyone can brew 'em up with the Alchemist feat and proper "recipe." Basically, they're consumable alchemical items that you can use against opponents, and they have their own attack values and effects that come into play in addition to your own attack stats. Example:

Spoiler

Show

Spotted Toadstool Venom
Level: 10
[...]
Power (Consumable • Poison): Standard Action. Apply the spotted toadstool venom to your weapon or to one piece of ammunition. Make a secondary attack against the next target you hit with the coated weapon or ammunition: +13 vs. Fortitude; the target is weakened until the end of your next turn.

Dragon #373 also has a whole series of feats for Poisoners, as series of "class-less" multiclass feats; the first lets them ignore poison immunity and resistance, and the others give "power swap" options that are poison-related.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If you wanted to make it more 3.x-like, well, I guess you could say that anyone without the Poisoner feat (the first in the D373 feat chain) must make a Thievery check with a DC of [10 or 15 + 1/2 the level of the poison] or risk poisoning himself. I personally wouldn't do it, though.

As far as making poisons last longer, I think it's part of the balance of combat - if you don't have to spend the Standard Action to apply your poison in combat, then you could just pre-apply it to several weapons without taking the penalty.

I don't really know what to tell you about making poisons stay in the system longer. I guess you could change them to mirror Disease rules, but that'd be a BIG rewrite. Maybe just increase the level of every poison by one or two, and give it an additional 5 ongoing poison damage, and an aftereffect of 5 ongoing poison damage (meaning after they make their first save, they still have to keep taking damage until they make another).

Really, though, I'm not really in favor of making any changes to them.

[oxinabox]

dragon 373 sounds exactly what i want.
I'll go find a friend who has it.
I klnow 2 people with insider. One will give it to me i'm sure

[Alteran]

dungeon 373 sounds exactly what i want.

Dragon. He said Dragon 373.

[The New Bruceski]

also how many uses should ingested poisons have?

One. Would YOU want to collect it again after they ate it? And how would you convince someone to eat it a second time?

[oxinabox]

One. Would YOU want to collect it again after they ate it? And how would you convince someone to eat it a second time?

Not what i ment.
By putting a whole bottle of poison on a blade, you get 5 minutes=50 stabs worth of poison out of it.

Therefor shouldn't you be able to use a bottle of posion in food 50 times?


THe stuff from Dragon 373 is good. has some stuff my group would be interested in.
But not great.
All the Poisoner multiclass feats , have nothing to do with actually poison.
(except the first one), all the rest are about getting to poison, without actaully having any poison at hand.

EDIT: I take that back Poten poison allolws you to reroll an attadck that had the poison keyword or effect

And there nothing about ingested poison or about marking them more persistant (better than 50% save is terrible), esp when the poisoner has a very low chance to hit. (warlocks shouldn't use dagger...)
Maybe if i through in; use you highers attibute, for determining to hit with poisoned weopons.
but so not right.

edit:

The Carion Crawler says that siving throws agaist it's poison attacks are at a -2 penalty.
I think i'll make a feat, add it to the multiclass feat progression, that does that.'

Improved posion usage
Req: Posioner, lvl 6;
Targets take a
-2 penalty to saving throws again your posions (only applies to attacks made with proper poisons, not just attacks with the posioninng keyword. as it works of you applying the poison in just the right way)
increase to -3 at lvl 11
increase to -4 at lvl 21

[Asbestos]

I don't see why you'd ever want this, but When people apply poison, have it make an attack against their reflex and then fortitude. If both hit, they poisoned themselves.

Solution: Gloves.

Sorry, the self-poisoning was a big gripe I had/have about the 3.x poison system. Anyone who can clean a knife can apply an oil/tar/whatever to a knife.

[Tough_Tonka]

Why not give certain poisons the same rules for 4e diseases. I figure it would give the poisons the slower but more deadly effect you might be searching for.

[oxinabox]

Ignore what i said about a posioned weopon poisoning for the next 5 minutes (/50 attacks) it only poisons the next attack