Gorgon's Hair Clarification

[cupkeyk]

I am not a huge Millia Rage fan but I realized that flpping your hair around and whipping your opponent counts as an unarmed strike. One of Jet Li's opponents had a similar tactic/fighting style in Legend of Wong Fei Hong(I dunno which part of the series).

Then reading through my Complete Scoundrel I saw Gorgon's Hair and I thought it would be awesome if a monk could slap her hair around and deliver the poison.

Just a question... is it stupid of me to assume that consuming Gorgon's Hair counts as TOUCHING it. And thereby you are also subject to the saves and possible the STR damage?

[AtomicKitKat]

Contact Poison > Inhaled Poison > Injury Poison > Ingested Poison

At least, that's how I always pictured it.

Contact just needs to touch you. Inhaled just requires that you breathe it in. Injury requires breaking your skin. Ingested requires you to actively swallow it. A case could be made that Inhaled doesn't work if you break it through the skin, but a case could also be made that putting it through your skin infects your bloodstream, same effect as inhaling it, etc.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Hang on, DnD Gorgons don't have hair...

Hah! Gary Gygax's flawed logic once again defeats his followers.

And Millia Rage would be more of a Fiendish Graft. No, don't try to make that work.

[oriong]

Yes, swallowing contact poison still counts as contact, if anything it's easier for the poison to get you.

[Were-Sandwich]

I like inhaled poisons that you can put in eggshells like it suggests, for gas bombs. Unfortunately, the inhaled poisons suck.

[SpiderBrigade]

Yah, I think in the rules you would be subject to the poison...but I think the POINT of it is that, somehow...you aren't.

If you wanted to...err...creatively interpret the rules to make it work that way, you could say that when you ingest the poison, the immunity effect happens before the ability damage, thereby preventing it.

I mean, otherwise the poison is pretty silly. It says in the description that "those who fear being attacked by gorgon's hair might also protect themselves by consuming the poison," which wouldn't really work if in order to do that you had to poison yourself.

[silvermesh]

I mean, otherwise the poison is pretty silly. It says in the description that "those who fear being attacked by gorgon's hair might also protect themselves by consuming the poison," which wouldn't really work if in order to do that you had to poison yourself.

better to poison yourself in a controlled environment where you have antidotes/clerics/doctors/etc than to risk being poisoned out in the field.

[SpiderBrigade]

Okay, fair enough. I still think the ingestion is not intended to poison you, though.

[Olethros]

Injesting the poison in "pill" or "Capsul" form, say wrapped in beezwax might allow the poison to reach the stomach before contacting the rest of the mucas linning.

Also, there are many venoms (injury poisons) that have no effect when injested. The mucas menbrane of the mouth and essophogus are non-absorbant.

[daggaz]

ALL mucus membranes are highly absorbant to a wide variety of chemicals and organic substances. The reasons certain poisons dont work thru ingestion are a little more complicated than such a simple (and fairly inaccurate) reasoning.

[Amiria]

In Dungeon #120 there is an evil fighter/monk who fights with an interesting exotic weapon - a braid blade, tied to the end of her hair ... and poisoned. The idea is apparently to use it like a scorpion's stinger, she also has the Scorpion's Grasp feat from Sandstorm.

[Quietus]

In my homebrew world of Vethedar, I have a group of amazonian-style women. Average level of the warriors is Ranger3, with emphasis on sneaking and bow use, while they pack Improved Unarmed Strike, and Improved Grapple. Aside from packing a great deal of strength, these ladies have a cultural taboo against cutting their hair, and are trained from a young age to wear it long, braided, with a weighted ball at the end to help keep it straight. They've gotten used to the headaches that would normally come from having hair that goes well below their backs, even when braided.

Whenever they need to bring someone back unharmed, they can sneak up behind them, and use their hair like a garrote, grappling and strangling their targets. And if ever they find themselves without their bows, they can even use the weight as a light flail with no penalty, as it's a cultural thing that everyone learns to do.

[Olethros]

ALL mucus membranes are highly absorbant to a wide variety of chemicals and organic substances. The reasons certain poisons dont work thru ingestion are a little more complicated than such a simple (and fairly inaccurate) reasoning.

The mucus membranes of the throat and mouth are not greatly absorbent; they have evolved as barriers to incoming material until that material passes through the stomach. Yes they admit certain chemicals but on the whole serve as a barrier against access to the blood stream and tissues.

Yes, the reason that you can eat many injected poisons, such as many snake venoms, is in the end more complicated than a non-absorbent mouth and throat. For a complete explanation I would have to detail the effect on low ph environments on protein sequences, in combination with a recounting of the order of absorption within the digestive tract and examine the nature of effect for each venom in turn. But I really don’t think anybody wants to hear me recount sporadic elements of a biology degree, masters, and part of a PhD for completeness sake.

The point obviously missed is, a poison that has a specific method of action, may be completly harmless in another vector. If you could find a way to get the hair into your mouth without it touching your skin, it may be harmess. It seems unlikely that this is the case, but possible. By the same token, it is possible that an injested poison injected directly into the blood stream be harmless and etc.