Poison (NEW!)

These rules will appear in the “Additional Rules” section.


POISONS
As detailed in the Monsters chapter, many monsters have deadly natural poisons. If the Judge permits, other characters or monsters may use poison. Poisons can be acquired from three sources, monster venoms, plant toxins, or magical poisons. At the Judge’s discretion, certain markets may also sell monster venoms, plant toxins, and magical poisons, so gp costs are listed below for each type of poison.
Monster Venoms
Characters with Naturalism proficiency can identify venomous monsters and distinguish their different poisons with a successful proficiency throw of 11+. Extracting venom from a slain monster requires 1 day and a successful Animal Husbandry proficiency throw of 11+. If the character’s proficiency throw to extract venom is an unmodified 1, he has accidentally gotten scratched by a fang or stinger. The character must immediately save versus Poison, as if hit by the monster.
Once extracted, monster venoms can be applied to weapons. Each monster yields one dose of its venom. A dose is enough venom to treat twenty missiles (arrows, bolts, or darts) or one melee weapon. Note that venoms applied to missiles and melee weapons are not as effective as they are when coming from the monster itself. Venomous monsters penetrate their prey’s skin with hollow fangs or tubular stingers, then use muscles attached to their venom reservoirs to forcibly squirt venom deep within the target’s body tissue. In comparison, a sword or arrow is simply a less effective mechanism for delivering poison.
The Monster Venoms table shows the market cost, onset time, save modifier, and effects of monster venoms when applied to missiles and melee weapons.
Monster Venoms
Monster
Venoms Cost /Dose Onset Time Save Mod. Effect on Failed Save
Giant Centipede 50gp 1 turn +2 Sickness 1d10 days*
Spitting Cobra 100gp 1 turn +2 1d6 damage
Giant Crap Spider 100gp 1d10 turns +4 1d10 damage
Pit Viper 200gp 1d10 turns +2 1d10 damage
Giant Killer Bee 250gp 1 turn +2 1d10 damage
Carcass Scavenger 250gp 1 turn +2 Paralyzed 2d4 turns
Sea Snake 275gp 1d10 turns +2 4d4 damage
Giant Black Widow 300gp 1d6 turns +2 4d4 damage
Giant Rattlesnake 300gp 1d10 turns +2 2d10 damage
Giant Tarantula 350gp 1d6 turns +2 2d10 damage
Giant Scorpion 400gp 1 turn +2 2d10 damage
Rockfish 500gp 1 round +1 4d6 damage
Wyvern 700gp 1 round +1 6d6 damage
Purple Worm 1,500gp Instant - Death
Dragon Blood 1,500gp Instant - Death
Sickened characters move at ½ speed and cannot fight or perform other actions.
Plant Toxins
Characters with Naturalism proficiency can find 1d4 raw poisonous plants in the wild each month with a successful proficiency throw of 11+. The Judge should determine which plants are found randomly. Raw belladonna and wolfsbane are commonly available in most markets due to their supernatural effect on lycanthropes.
Extracting the toxin from the raw plant takes 1 week per plant and requires a successful Alchemy proficiency throw of 14+. If either the proficiency throw to find the plant, or to extract the plant toxin, is an unmodified 1, the character has accidentally exposed himself to the toxin. The character must immediately save versus Poison or suffer its effects.
Each plant yields one dose of its toxin. Some plant toxins can be used to treat weapons. For these toxins, a dose is enough to treat twenty missiles (arrows, bolts, or darts) or one melee weapon. Other toxins can be used to poison food or drink. In this case, one dose will is enough to poison one meal or drink. Extracted plant toxins generally cannot be detected by smell or taste. The Plant Toxins table shows the market cost, onset time, save modifier of the various plant toxins.
Plant Toxins
Plant Toxins Cost /Dose Onset Time Save Mod. Effect on Failed Save
Belladonna 350gp 1 turn (injury) 1d3 turns (ingestion) +2 2d8 damage and confusion 1d4 turns
Curare 1,500gp Instant (injury) - 2d12 damage and paralysis 2d4 turns
Foxglove 300gp 1d6 turns (ingestion) -3 2d8 damage and confusion 1d4 turns
Hellebore 100gp 1 turn (injury) 1d3 turns (ingestion) +2 1d6 damage and sickness 1d10 days

Hemlock 150gp 2d4 turns (ingestion) +4 2d12 damage and sickness 1d10 days*
Henbane 350gp 1 turn (injury) 1d6 turns (ingestion) +2 1d6 damage and feeblemind 1d4 hours
Wolfsbane 350gp 1 turn (injury) 2d4 turns (ingestion) +2 2d8 damage and paralysis 2d4 turns
Yew 100gp 1 hour (injury) 1d6 hours (ingestion) +4 1d10 damage
*Sickened characters move at ½ speed and cannot fight or perform other actions.
Use of Poison
Once applied, poison evaporates quickly, diminishing its effectiveness. On the first day, it will do full damage, on the second day half damage, and by the third it will be gone. Partially evaporated deadly poisons allow the victim a +2 bonus on his saving throw after the first day, and +4 after the second. Each hit with a melee weapon is equivalent to a day’s evaporation, e.g. the poison will do half damage on its second hit and then be gone.
Using poisoned weapons is not without risk. Whenever a character’s attack throw with a poisoned weapon is an unmodified 1, he has accidentally pricked himself. He must immediately save v. Poison or suffer its effects.

And also some new healing herbs… to take the pressure off the Clerics a bit.


Birthwort: Birthwort, also known as snakeroot, is a healing herb used as a remedy for snake bites and other poisons. Birthwort can be applied as a poultice to a poisoned wound by an adventurer with the Healing proficiency. Used in this manner, it provides a +2 bonus on the Healing proficiency throw to neutralize poison.
Comfrey: Comfrey, also known as bruisewort and knitbone, is a powerful healing herb. An adventurer with Healing proficiency can use a poultice of comfrey to treat a wounded character immediately after a battle. This restores 1d3hp of damage. A character cannot be treated with comfrey more than once per day.
Goldenrod: Goldenrod is a healing herb used to treat diseases such as rheumatism, gout, and consumption. An adventurer with Healing proficiency can use a goldenrod tincture to treat sick characters. Used in this manner, it provides a +2 bonus on the Healing proficiency throw to cure disease.
Woundwart: Woundwart, also known as heal-all or lamb’s ears, is a herbal medicine with curative properties. An adventurer with Healing proficiency can use a woundwart tincture to treat injured characters. Used in this manner, it provides a +2 bonus on proficiency throws to cure light wounds and cure serious wounds.

Duskreign’s Minion here.
Alex, this looks awesome. I am so excited to start poisoning Duskreign’s favorite NPCs. I have a few questions.

  1. Animal Hubandry, Alchemy, and Naturalism are all proficiencies that can be selected multiple times. As such, would the throws listed above drop by 4 for each level taken? For example would an Alchemist (3 ranks) need a throw of 7+ instead of 14+ to extract the toxins from a raw plant?
  2. Healing herbs look fantastic, but as of yet there is no cost for them.
  3. It seems odd that one dose of poison will give you 2 hits with a melee weapon but 20 arrows. I understand that if you miss with an arrow you lose it and the poison, but it still seems to favor coating ammunition over melee weapons. Was this intentional?
  1. Yes, multiple ranks reduce the proficiency throw by 4 each
  2. For now I have them listed as 10gp each. I may tweak that after deeper analysis.
  3. It was intentional. Historically missile weapons have been poisoned by many cultures (Parthians, Scythians, Indians, Gauls, Amazon tribes, African tribes, Australian tribes, etc) but melee weapons seem to be rarely poisoned except by assassins. Do you think it’s a bad game mechanic? i.e. is poisoned missile bad compared to poison melee?

Great additions, and nice broadening of the usefulness of those proficiencies.
The whole point of poison is to increase the lethality of something that wouldn’t necessarily have a good chance of killing someone (thus all the small ranged ammo). Once you’ve hit them with a sword, poison is just overkill. Makes sense as it is to me.

Duskreign’s Minion here.
The idea of giving the advantage to ranged weapons makes a lot of sense to me. Once coated with poison ammunition can be left undisturbed. A sword, on the other hand, spends most its time in battle being parried or parrying; maybe not the best example, but it nevertheless feels right.
10gp for healing herbs seems like a bargain. I have no supporting arguments other than that.