I’ve seen the general consensus that poison is the worst damage type in the game, but I’ve never seen hard numbers or a count of how many creatures are immune or resistant and how common those creatures are to see if it’s as dramatically bad as I think it is.
the reason is that I’m tied between the actually useable breath weapon of a black Dragonborn or the more lore-appropriate green Dragonborn. Half-dragon. Dragonfolk. Dragontales. Whatever.
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
Poison is really a 'use against mundane flesh and blood creatures' damage type -- undead and constructs are pretty much all immune, elementals and fiends are mostly immune.
Poison is terrible against monsters but super nasty against players. Simply because it's often paired with the poisoned condition which can quickly bring an Attack roll oriented party to its knees unless there is someone to remove the poison from your key hitters.
We had 3 player party. Monk, warlock and wizard against poison enemies. My wizard was the only one capable of doing decent dmg with save based spells and I wasn't really damage oriented at all. Monk and warlock kept missing thanks to their disadvantage. I ended up dead. 😅
It's noteworthy that the quicken + hex + eldritch blasting SorLock was usually an insane dmg machine. And he was bloody useless in that fight.
Even against PCs, poison is a bad damage type, because poison resistance is the easiest resistance to get -- dwarf, stout halfling, and green dragonborn get resistance (fire is second -- tieflings and red dragonborn), and protection from poison is both better and lower level than protection from energy (and there aren't any particularly convenient defenses against force, necrotic, psychic, or radiant).
Poison is terrible against monsters but super nasty against players. Simply because it's often paired with the poisoned condition which can quickly bring an Attack roll oriented party to its knees unless there is someone to remove the poison from your key hitters.
We had 3 player party. Monk, warlock and wizard against poison enemies. My wizard was the only one capable of doing decent dmg with save based spells and I wasn't really damage oriented at all. Monk and warlock kept missing thanks to their disadvantage. I ended up dead. 😅
It's noteworthy that the quicken + hex + eldritch blasting SorLock was usually an insane dmg machine. And he was bloody useless in that fight.
Most games don't get that high to begin with but I'm guessing your group wasn't level ten.
That being said I agree with those who state that poison is far more useful to have used against the players than to use against enemies based off how often they are resistant or immune.
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
That’s worse than I thought. Dramatically worse, actually. No doubt something will be done about it in future books but yeah I’m definitely not choosing green as my Dragonborn’s color. I believe Acid was always meant to be the late game upgrade to poison (even if it’s just as accessible in the early game) but it’s almost funny how bad poison is.
Poison has pretty much always been something that was intended for NPCs to use against PCs rather than the opposite, in every edition of the game. If you look at the list of available spells that deal poison damage, there's only 10 and most of them are either underpowered for their level, deal poison or another type of damage, or both. By comparison, there are 25 spells that deal Cold damage.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Even against PCs, poison is a bad damage type, because poison resistance is the easiest resistance to get -- dwarf, stout halfling, and green dragonborn get resistance (fire is second -- tieflings and red dragonborn), and protection from poison is both better and lower level than protection from energy (and there aren't any particularly convenient defenses against force, necrotic, psychic, or radiant).
That's kinda true. But I might argue that unless the campaign is called Surviving Poison in Poisonland, there are probably very few players who would choose these options. Choosing poison dragonborn also gets you the worst breath weapon dmg type.
The dwarf thing is solid. Stout halflings have been somewhat rare, simply because the poison resi is a subspecies feature so it just gets rare due to simple diversity. But for dwarves it's in the core so they really do benefit from it.
Protection from poison is a rare pick. In my experience it's rarely prepared unless you are expecting/worrying poison.
Lesser resto, however, is a corner stone spell of many druids and clerics in my experience.
So in my opinion it would be a very atypical party if it had more than one poison resistant character. But if you do have a druid, pal or a cleric and you expect poison then yeah it's easy to fix. 😄
Poison tends to be a bit skewed, as just about every undead and construct will have immunity or at least resistance to it, while they are also typically a group type of monster as well. I'd be curious as to the numbers not including undead and construsts.
Also, I suspect a lot of the poison resist/immunity is rolled up in the legacy of the game where poison was often death on a failed save.
Speaking of death and saves -> Death saves. Over time poison damage is awful because it doesn't end when you are incapacitated... So to my knowledge, it practically means that you fail a death save automatically each time the poison damage ticks.
Poison damage doesn't inherently cause damage over time, and the Poisoned Condition doesn't confer damage, so I'm not sure where you're coming from?
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
I think more important is the reply to your post from Andras that breaks down the poison distribution.
As has been already said here, the poison immunity is mainly due to the undead/constructs/fiends so if your campaing is heavy into those, then yeah poison sucks (but same can be said for fire if your campaign is se in the elemental plane for example). Your generic low level canon-fodder (animals, orcs, bandits, goblins...) are generally normally affected by poison.
TLDR: ask your DM during session 0 if there's a lot of UD/constructs in the campaign and if not, then poison is fine
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
I think more important is the reply to your post from Andras that breaks down the poison distribution.
As has been already said here, the poison immunity is mainly due to the undead/constructs/fiends so if your campaing is heavy into those, then yeah poison sucks (but same can be said for fire if your campaign is se in the elemental plane for example). Your generic low level canon-fodder (animals, orcs, bandits, goblins...) are generally normally affected by poison.
TLDR: ask your DM during session 0 if there's a lot of UD/constructs in the campaign and if not, then poison is fine
That’s the issue I’m most concerned with, poison having a real hard time keeping up with anything beyond tier 1 and even then being subpar unless it’s an ability that can actually inflict the poisoned condition. Because those enemies mentioned and many others that are resistant/immune to poison are most often the main villains of a campaign.
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
I think more important is the reply to your post from Andras that breaks down the poison distribution.
As has been already said here, the poison immunity is mainly due to the undead/constructs/fiends so if your campaing is heavy into those, then yeah poison sucks (but same can be said for fire if your campaign is se in the elemental plane for example). Your generic low level canon-fodder (animals, orcs, bandits, goblins...) are generally normally affected by poison.
TLDR: ask your DM during session 0 if there's a lot of UD/constructs in the campaign and if not, then poison is fine
That’s the issue I’m most concerned with, poison having a real hard time keeping up with anything beyond tier 1 and even then being subpar unless it’s an ability that can actually inflict the poisoned condition. Because those enemies mentioned and many others that are resistant/immune to poison are most often the main villains of a campaign.
For the purposes of which dragonborn to play it is swings and roundabouts, and I think green is a better option than black from an optimisation point of view.
Yes lots of creatures are immune to poison but you should have other options to attack that do other types of damage. Conversly far more creatures deal poison damage than acid damage, so poison resistance is worth a lot more than acid resistance..
I’ve seen the general consensus that poison is the worst damage type in the game, but I’ve never seen hard numbers or a count of how many creatures are immune or resistant and how common those creatures are to see if it’s as dramatically bad as I think it is.
the reason is that I’m tied between the actually useable breath weapon of a black Dragonborn or the more lore-appropriate green Dragonborn. Half-dragon. Dragonfolk. Dragontales. Whatever.
This post only covers the Monster Manual, but that should still give you a good idea of the trends. 100 creatures have either a resistance (5 creatures) or immunity (a whopping 95 creatures) to poison damage. This eclipsed damage from nonmagical weapons (87 total, 60 resist, 17 immune), Fire (77 total, 37 resist, 40 immune), and Cold (66 total, 46 resist, 20 immune). Lightning comes in after a big drop to 45 total, there is another drop to 33 for Acid, then there is a cluster there in the 1-22 range representing the other damage types.
Poison has the double whammy of both having the highest overall number and 95% of its number being an immunity. That means, not only are you more likely to encounter poison-resistant creatures, those creatures will likely take no damage from your attacks. That means, unlike other damage types where you might accept the half damage for other utility effects, with poison you are just doing nothing and will have to use another spell.
Poison is really a 'use against mundane flesh and blood creatures' damage type -- undead and constructs are pretty much all immune, elementals and fiends are mostly immune.
It is something like 25% (671/2612) of monsters being fully immune to it (about 4% only resist it).
It is by far the most resisted damage type.
Also keep in mind that a lot of poison has a con save attached to it. Since many monsters have high con, they are more likely to make the save.
Poison is terrible against monsters but super nasty against players. Simply because it's often paired with the poisoned condition which can quickly bring an Attack roll oriented party to its knees unless there is someone to remove the poison from your key hitters.
We had 3 player party. Monk, warlock and wizard against poison enemies. My wizard was the only one capable of doing decent dmg with save based spells and I wasn't really damage oriented at all. Monk and warlock kept missing thanks to their disadvantage. I ended up dead. 😅
It's noteworthy that the quicken + hex + eldritch blasting SorLock was usually an insane dmg machine. And he was bloody useless in that fight.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Even against PCs, poison is a bad damage type, because poison resistance is the easiest resistance to get -- dwarf, stout halfling, and green dragonborn get resistance (fire is second -- tieflings and red dragonborn), and protection from poison is both better and lower level than protection from energy (and there aren't any particularly convenient defenses against force, necrotic, psychic, or radiant).
Most games don't get that high to begin with but I'm guessing your group wasn't level ten.
That being said I agree with those who state that poison is far more useful to have used against the players than to use against enemies based off how often they are resistant or immune.
That’s worse than I thought. Dramatically worse, actually. No doubt something will be done about it in future books but yeah I’m definitely not choosing green as my Dragonborn’s color. I believe Acid was always meant to be the late game upgrade to poison (even if it’s just as accessible in the early game) but it’s almost funny how bad poison is.
Poison has pretty much always been something that was intended for NPCs to use against PCs rather than the opposite, in every edition of the game. If you look at the list of available spells that deal poison damage, there's only 10 and most of them are either underpowered for their level, deal poison or another type of damage, or both. By comparison, there are 25 spells that deal Cold damage.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
That's kinda true. But I might argue that unless the campaign is called Surviving Poison in Poisonland, there are probably very few players who would choose these options. Choosing poison dragonborn also gets you the worst breath weapon dmg type.
The dwarf thing is solid. Stout halflings have been somewhat rare, simply because the poison resi is a subspecies feature so it just gets rare due to simple diversity. But for dwarves it's in the core so they really do benefit from it.
Protection from poison is a rare pick. In my experience it's rarely prepared unless you are expecting/worrying poison.
Lesser resto, however, is a corner stone spell of many druids and clerics in my experience.
So in my opinion it would be a very atypical party if it had more than one poison resistant character. But if you do have a druid, pal or a cleric and you expect poison then yeah it's easy to fix. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Poison tends to be a bit skewed, as just about every undead and construct will have immunity or at least resistance to it, while they are also typically a group type of monster as well.
I'd be curious as to the numbers not including undead and construsts.
Also, I suspect a lot of the poison resist/immunity is rolled up in the legacy of the game where poison was often death on a failed save.
- Loswaith
Speaking of death and saves -> Death saves. Over time poison damage is awful because it doesn't end when you are incapacitated... So to my knowledge, it practically means that you fail a death save automatically each time the poison damage ticks.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Poison damage doesn't inherently cause damage over time, and the Poisoned Condition doesn't confer damage, so I'm not sure where you're coming from?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I think more important is the reply to your post from Andras that breaks down the poison distribution.
As has been already said here, the poison immunity is mainly due to the undead/constructs/fiends so if your campaing is heavy into those, then yeah poison sucks (but same can be said for fire if your campaign is se in the elemental plane for example). Your generic low level canon-fodder (animals, orcs, bandits, goblins...) are generally normally affected by poison.
TLDR: ask your DM during session 0 if there's a lot of UD/constructs in the campaign and if not, then poison is fine
That’s the issue I’m most concerned with, poison having a real hard time keeping up with anything beyond tier 1 and even then being subpar unless it’s an ability that can actually inflict the poisoned condition. Because those enemies mentioned and many others that are resistant/immune to poison are most often the main villains of a campaign.
For the purposes of which dragonborn to play it is swings and roundabouts, and I think green is a better option than black from an optimisation point of view.
Yes lots of creatures are immune to poison but you should have other options to attack that do other types of damage. Conversly far more creatures deal poison damage than acid damage, so poison resistance is worth a lot more than acid resistance..
I did a quick count and found 461 creatures that are immune to poison. So roughly 22.2% of them.
Though 230 of them are constructs, vehicals, or undead, which it makes sense they are immune.