[4E] Poisons & PCs

[Oracle_Hunter]

In my 4E campaign, a new player is coming in with a 9th level Rogue - and he wants to use poisons.

Now, I hadn't given the poison rules a close look before, so I thought it'd be a good idea to ask around about them.

Summary of Poison Rules

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It takes a standard action to apply poison to a weapon. That poison is triggered by the next successful hit and is used up. At the longest, an applied poison lasts for an Encounter or 5 minutes - whichever comes first.

Making poisons requires a different Alchemy Ritual for each poison

Now, this doesn't seem too bad, but the player also wants an AV2 item - the Poison Glove:

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Poison Gloves

You can store a nasty surprise in these plain-looking gloves to
envenom a weapon at a moment’s notice.

Level: 4
Price: 840 gp
Item Slot: Hands

Power (At-Will): Standard. You store one dose of poison that can be
applied to a weapon in these gloves. The gloves can hold only one dose
of poison at a time.

Power (At-Will): Minor. You apply the stored poison to a weapon you’re
holding; doing so consumes that dose of poison.

This means he can store a poison in the gloves indefinitely, and then use it as a minor action. Admittedly, it is only 1 dose at a time, but since this upgrades a given attack to an Ongoing Damage + Status attack, I worry.

So I'm proposing the following Houserules

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(1) There are only 3 Brew Poison Rituals - Brew Heroic, Brew Paragon, and Brew Epic. All Poison Rituals require the use of Venom Reagents and no other. All Brew Potion Rituals take 30 minutes to produce 1 dose of poison.

(2) Venom Reagents are the odds & ends needed to turn natural (and unnatural) poisons into substances potent enough (and sticky enough) to be used on weapons. They are non-magical and, because of their nature, not available in legal markets.

Someone Trained in Nature may harvest Venom Reagents from monsters that have a Poison attack. If you make a DC 20+1/2(Monster Level) check, you get Venom Reagents worth 1/5 of the cost of a Poison of the Monster's Level.

(3) A brewed poison must be stored in a tightly stoppered container that takes a minor action to open. Once exposed to air, the poison decays within 5 minutes (or at the end of the Encounter) if not used beforehand. Even within a vial, a poison loses potency after 24 hours (or after an Extended Rest).

A decayed poison may be harvested for Venom Reagents within 6 hours of the time of decay. Harvesting in this fashion requires a DC 15+1/2(Poison Level) Nature check (Trained Only) and it recovers 1/5th of the Poison's cost.

How's that sound? And does anyone have experience with players using poison in a game?

[Ent]

It will take up his hands slot. I would rule that he must keep the gloves on to keep the dose stored inside.

[Mando Knight]

They seem reasonable enough to me. Not sure exactly why you've got three poison brewing rituals, but it's still reasonable. It should be noted that a poison-focused character has to spend extra money to deal that extra damage... which makes sense.

[Kurald Galain]

How's that sound? And does anyone have experience with players using poison in a game?

I find that pretty much all of them are too ineffective for their cost, so obviating this by harvesting it from monsters sounds like a good idea.

Furthermore, it is only rarely worth a standard action in combat to apply poison to a weapon, so I don't think the gloves are overpowered at all.

[Oracle_Hunter]

They seem reasonable enough to me. Not sure exactly why you've got three poison brewing rituals, but it's still reasonable. It should be noted that a poison-focused character has to spend extra money to deal that extra damage... which makes sense.

Basically because I like having more Rituals

Also, because the original Poison Rituals required a different Ritual for each kind of poison - which struck me as a bit excessive, all things considered. So I changed it from N Rituals to 1 per Tier. Ideally, if this turns out to be a fun thing, I might introduce other Rituals like "Speed Brewing" (takes 15 minutes instead of 30) and the like.

EDIT: The reason why I was concerned about the power of poisons is that they can turn any attack into something much more powerful. Yes, there is a gold cost, but allowing a Rogue to turn any attack into a +Sleep attack worried me (See Drow Poison )