[3.5] Building a Poisoner at level 3

[PanNarrans]

My girlfriend has very interesting fluff planned for an upcoming level 3 character; we just need to make the crunch equally effective. I thought the playground would be able to help.

The character is a healer dabbling in all sorts of strange remedies, nostrums and poisons. How can we build a good poisoner at level 3, to be effective in combat?

Ideas so far include a level in Psion (Shaper) to get early access to Psionic Minor Creation and plant based poisons, and access to the cantrip Launch Object to fling poison vials at people.

[crazedloon]

how much cheese are you willing to deal with for the build?

[FelixG]

Take the poison dusk race they get racial poison use, also put alot of points into craft (poison) so she can create her own poisons for a fraction of the cost of normal.

Also drow poison is a solid choice for low (or even high) level encounters.

DC 13 fort save or get knocked out, allowing a fighter or rogue to kindly slit its throat without much fuss.

Ranged weapons should be her choice of gear, and be sure to carry a set of poisoned ammo and unpoisoned (no reason to waste poisoned ammunition on something that cant be poisoned like undead or constructs.)

[Mnemnosyne]

Make sure to be a race that's immune to poison, or take that feat from Drow of the Underdark that makes allows you to handle poison without that chance of poisoning yourself and so it can be applied as a swift action.

The two main issues are whether you'll be required to make Craft (Poison) checks to create poison even through psionic minor creation, and delivering the poison, from what I can see. After that level of Shaper, you probably want to focus on being able to hit stuff if you're planning to use the poison in combat. Since the character's a healer, a melee-focused cleric should work pretty well. Alternately, a sneaky type can poison people out of combat quite effectively. Cleric can also take Lolth as a patron deity in order to get access to Lolth's Caress, which forces the second saving throw immediately. Otherwise combats tend to be over before the secondary damage hits.

Also, if you haven't checked it already, the poison handbook has a lot of good stuff.

[crazedloon]

You will "require"
-bard w/ word of creation and inspire greatness
-the ability to use the power Psychic reformation (power stones should work)

at level 1
-you can have the bard sing your HD to 5
-reform your skills so you can put 8 ranks in hide (since max skill points is based of HD)


This allows you to enter the black dog prestige class (dragnonmarked) which can apply poisons with the spell like abilities and later gains the ability to magically make them and make them more powerful.

To stick with your psion idea you can go with a Ardent from comp Psi with the Creation mantle and you can retain your manifester level through the levels of black dog. The only "issue" is that you need to jump through a hoop to gain hide as a class skill but that should not be to hard as there are plenty of ways to do that.

[Amphetryon]

Jungle Halfling (listed in the SRD) is a good choice for a poisoner. DEX bonus makes delivering the poisons through Sleight of Hand easier, they get Poison Use, and if in Eberron, they get access to the Black Dog PrC, with its awesome Empower Poison ability. There's a handbook, here.

[Telonius]

Is homebrew allowed? I made a PrC and some feats for it awhile back, might be something in there to help.

[137beth]

Of course homebrew is allowed! That's a great poisoner class you have by the way.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Marrulurk in Sandstorm (page 170) is a small monstrous humanoid which gets three racial HD and a +1 LA. Starting at level 3, you can probably start her out with only two of the racial HD and fewer racial abilities, and she'll have to spend her next level on the third HD and get the rest of its benefits. At 3 HD it gets spectacular ability score bonuses, point blank shot and rapid shot for free, 2d6 sneak attack, death attack like the Assassin PrC grants, poison use, and some other miscellaneous benefits. Monstrous Humanoid HD grant Fighter BAB and good Reflex and Will saves, so it's actually a spectacular choice for an assassin-type character.

Once she starts getting class levels she can even buy off the +1 LA at her third class level (ECL 7). This would only put her a few thousand XP behind, and at a lower ECL she'd get more XP per encounter, so she'll eventually catch up instead of carrying a permanent one level handicap. If she takes levels in Assassin she could add those levels to her racial HD to determine the DC. I'd stick with your Psion idea and go into Psychic Assassin, taking Practiced Manifester to qualify quickly. I'd probably only take eight levels of that to get Mind Cripple and Hide in Plain Sight, then go into Slayer or if you can afford the feats Elocater. That would be something like Monstrous Humanoid 3/ Psion 2/ Psychic Assassin 8/ Slayer 7, since you get Point Blank and Rapid Shot for free I'd get Precise Shot and Venomous Strike with your racial HD. Take Practiced Manifester as your Psion 1 bonus feat, and Sickening Strike and Terrifying Strike would be useful for lowing your target's saves, you can find those in Drow of the Underdark. Darkstalker in LoM is absolutely necessary for a sneaky character, and Woodland Archer from RotW is great for ranged attackers. Mind Cripple alone is enough to outright disable big dumb brutes in a few full attacks, so resort to that against anything that easily resists your poisons.

Go ahead and check some of those poisoning guides, I'm sure you'll find some great stuff there.

[subject42]

If I were going to do it, I would start with a Warforged factotum. They get poison immunity, they're fairly SAD, and they get all sorts of other nifty abilities, plus a large number of skillpoints.

If you want to get really cheesy, you can use the "all factotum casting uses a standard action" interpretation of SLAs to generate absurd amounts of poison with the creation line.

[ericgrau]

Level 3 is a fine level to use poisons as-is. You can blow a few hundred gp on around 10 doses, and even the fighter is sporting a +5 fort save. The average baddy has a +3 fort save. Only 100-200 gp (I doubled poison costs to account for passed saves and misses) to insta-gib a major threat is simply amazing. Sure beats being forced to pay for a raise-dead/reincarnation after a difficult low level fight at least. Drow knockout poison is probably your best bet, but even doubling your damage on one hit using con poison or debilitating an enemy's attack with str or dex poison isn't too bad. Against minor threats 100-200 gp is a lot to blow, and you of course would not use poison on them.

At higher levels where you get more money and the weaker lower save enemies are your best targets, you can get more liberal with your poison. Plus at that point, against the more significant threats, you'll want to spam arrows/bolts so that even though he may pass the first save easily enough, he probably won't pass the 2nd and 3rd save too.

[Morph Bark]

Level 3 is a fine level to use poisons as-is. You can blow a few hundred gp on around 10 doses, and even the fighter is sporting a +5 fort save. The average baddy has a +3 fort save. Only 100-200 gp (I doubled poison costs to account for passed saves and misses) to insta-gib a major threat is simply amazing. Sure beats being forced to pay for a raise-dead/reincarnation after a difficult low level fight at least. Drow knockout poison is probably your best bet, but even doubling your damage on one hit using con poison or debilitating an enemy's attack with str or dex poison isn't too bad. Against minor threats 100-200 gp is a lot to blow, and you of course would not use poison on them.

At higher levels where you get more money and the weaker lower save enemies are your best targets, you can get more liberal with your poison. Plus at that point, against the more significant threats, you'll want to spam arrows/bolts so that even though he may pass the first save easily enough, he probably won't pass the 2nd and 3rd save too.

Don't forget it's also better to apply the poison to ammunition (do shuriken count as ammunition for this purpose?), since you can apply a single dose to... what, 30 arrows/bolts? That's much better than needing that single dose every time you try to hit someone in melee.

[Flickerdart]

Paying for poison is for saps. A 3rd level Druid can take Vermin Companion and milk poisons from her companion with a DC15 Handle Animal check.

[Escheton]

You could make vials of poisonous(contact) acid. Or alchemist fire. It drops the dmg but it's nice to dmg and poison everything in a 5ft burst.

[Fouredged Sword]

A druid is good in melee and can have an animal comp that you can milk. A wizard or sorcerer can have a tiny viper familiar.

Take a level of ether to get poison.

Or you could just have ranks in handle animal and tame a few vemon bareing animals for milking to cut costs alot. A ranger has an animal comp / handle animal / heal / full bab / ect. I would start there and see what else you can add on.