A player in my campaign is a warlock of the chain with a pseudodragon familiar. This warlock has investment of the chain master, so the familiar uses the spell, save DC of the warlock for it’s poison.
Long story short, the 5th level player can now craft, using a poison kit and herbalism kit, a poison with a DC 17 poison effect, as well as a DC 12 unconsciousness effect.
what should I let them sell this for? Is it terribly better than Drow Poison?
They can set whatever price they like, but every NPC will have their own ideas of how much they want to purchase it for. Some will only sell goods, some will haggle, and some will flat out refuse to buy it, and some may report them to the guards for possession of poison. Drow Poison (Injury) is quite hefty at 200 GP, and the DC for it is considerably lower. Maybe it is absolutely worth 200+ GP, but can people afford it (especially if it's being manufactured rather quickly)?
Maybe there's an NPC or other interested parties in knowing how to craft this poison, who want to buy the recipe... or take other steps to learn it. It could lead to an interesting side quest, or it could result in favours more valuable than gold... and enemies.
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Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
I get what you’re saying, but I have a hard time figuring out how any poison is worth it. Look at the cost of things: an aristocratic (rockstar) lifestyle costs 10gp a day. Poisons cost anywhere from 15-200 days worth of the finest living Faerun has to offer. Why would anyone pay that? Add to that the rationally low cost of harvesting poisons (ie: a guy in a trailer park with gallons of deadly rattlesnake venom) and the coats already makes no sense. I think the only way to make sense of it is to base it off of existing poisons, but I’m not sure how to do that.
It's also worth mentioning that once the poison is removed from the familiar it could easily lose some of its potency since it is no longer in the nice poison sac. (This could reduce the DC and/or the damage.)
I get what you’re saying, but I have a hard time figuring out how any poison is worth it. Look at the cost of things: an aristocratic (rockstar) lifestyle costs 10gp a day. Poisons cost anywhere from 15-200 days worth of the finest living Faerun has to offer. Why would anyone pay that? Add to that the rationally low cost of harvesting poisons (ie: a guy in a trailer park with gallons of deadly rattlesnake venom) and the coats already makes no sense. I think the only way to make sense of it is to base it off of existing poisons, but I’m not sure how to do that.
I appreciate the Insight :)
Don't forget that, whilst we in the "civilised" world live in a manner where most of us can scarcely afford to live inside, in the fantasy world, there are likely more people who live far more cheaply than we do. (almost like a capitalist society drives up the prices of everything indefinitely). So don't think that "to live a life of luxury in the real world is £10k a month, so poison costs £150k-£2mil a bottle". Instead think "The people of this fantasy world have not put an exorbitant price on just living, because they know it's a persons right to do so - instead, they've put that price on things to kill people!"
(almost like 'Murica has it backwards, where the guns are cheap and the rents are expensive...)
I guess looking at the historical prevalence and ubiquity of poisons it just doesn’t make sense that they are so expensive. I feel that, on one hand, I could tell a player that poisons just aren’t that valuable when sold. The problem is, I guess, that they could then argue that they can buy them more easily.
Anyone can dig up some hemlock or pick some foxgloves and make a poison which will cause discomfort and eventually death, but that's not what the D&D poisons do - they take effect immediately, in a big way.
To refine a poisonous plant into something which can do this will take complex and often fragile lab equipment which will take some time to set up, and must be set up right. The risks involved are high as well - oops, a drop got on my skin, goodbye world - and the scientific knowledge of which parts of the plants make-up are toxic and which are not, to properly distil them, is key.
I would consider a Poisoners kit would be a kit with the relevant equipment to safely apply a poison to a weapon, with a selection of such poisons. I would consider a poison-makers kit to be the size of a briefcase at least, and for the creation of the poisons to be time consuming.
The book "Best Served Cold" by Joe Abercrombie features a poisoner character who creates and administers poisons. Their setup is large and expensive; lots of glass tubes, pipes, distilleries, etc. Sure, you could make it out of copper, but glass is non-reactive, so copper might make the poison less effective.
I must get around to making my poisoners handbook for D&D. I was rewriting how they worked entirely (as they are currently just a "do more damage for one turn" thing which sucks).
But anyway, refining something into a proper poison is going to take time, money, and risks. What they have done now is collect the ingredients using their kits. I would go along the lines of:
- collecting ingredients normally is unstable, so they will lose potency. They can be used as ineffective poison. - Collecting ingredients with a poisoners kit is stable, so they last until needed,and their effectiveness is determined by a tool check. - Refining the ingredients into poison requires glass jars and vials, as well as sacrificial ingredients, basically warranting an expenditure of money to create a poison. the poison is way more effective than the ingredients, because everything non-poison has been removed. There should also be a tool check to see if they are injured whilst creating the poison, and a nat 1 also fails to make the poison. A nat 20 gives the poison extra damage.
The price is so expensive because most local authorities had made them illegal.
A PC openly trying to sell poison will gain some bad attention from local authorities.
If the PCs are too powerful for the local authorities, then they will gain a bad reputation in the area and probably find it more difficult to interact with settlements in the future.
What about the use of Curare? Cultures on literally every continent used poisoned efficiently in hunting well before the advent of modern western chemistry. I often read posts about how complex some of the things we expect to find in fantasy settings are, and they simply weren’t, historically. Find a plant, boil it, put the paste on an arrow. You can also crate a deadly toxin from boiling tobacco. Arsenic became ubiquitous in the Middle Ages because it was easy to mine and often sold cheaply to kill rats.
i have the requisite tools and knowledge at home to make deadly poison with a camp stove.
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A player in my campaign is a warlock of the chain with a pseudodragon familiar. This warlock has investment of the chain master, so the familiar uses the spell, save DC of the warlock for it’s poison.
Long story short, the 5th level player can now craft, using a poison kit and herbalism kit, a poison with a DC 17 poison effect, as well as a DC 12 unconsciousness effect.
what should I let them sell this for? Is it terribly better than Drow Poison?
They can set whatever price they like, but every NPC will have their own ideas of how much they want to purchase it for. Some will only sell goods, some will haggle, and some will flat out refuse to buy it, and some may report them to the guards for possession of poison. Drow Poison (Injury) is quite hefty at 200 GP, and the DC for it is considerably lower. Maybe it is absolutely worth 200+ GP, but can people afford it (especially if it's being manufactured rather quickly)?
Maybe there's an NPC or other interested parties in knowing how to craft this poison, who want to buy the recipe... or take other steps to learn it. It could lead to an interesting side quest, or it could result in favours more valuable than gold... and enemies.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
I get what you’re saying, but I have a hard time figuring out how any poison is worth it. Look at the cost of things: an aristocratic (rockstar) lifestyle costs 10gp a day. Poisons cost anywhere from 15-200 days worth of the finest living Faerun has to offer. Why would anyone pay that? Add to that the rationally low cost of harvesting poisons (ie: a guy in a trailer park with gallons of deadly rattlesnake venom) and the coats already makes no sense. I think the only way to make sense of it is to base it off of existing poisons, but I’m not sure how to do that.
I appreciate the Insight :)
It's also worth mentioning that once the poison is removed from the familiar it could easily lose some of its potency since it is no longer in the nice poison sac. (This could reduce the DC and/or the damage.)
Don't forget that, whilst we in the "civilised" world live in a manner where most of us can scarcely afford to live inside, in the fantasy world, there are likely more people who live far more cheaply than we do. (almost like a capitalist society drives up the prices of everything indefinitely). So don't think that "to live a life of luxury in the real world is £10k a month, so poison costs £150k-£2mil a bottle". Instead think "The people of this fantasy world have not put an exorbitant price on just living, because they know it's a persons right to do so - instead, they've put that price on things to kill people!"
(almost like 'Murica has it backwards, where the guns are cheap and the rents are expensive...)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
True. This would apply to all poisons not properly preserved with a poisoners kit etc…
I guess looking at the historical prevalence and ubiquity of poisons it just doesn’t make sense that they are so expensive. I feel that, on one hand, I could tell a player that poisons just aren’t that valuable when sold. The problem is, I guess, that they could then argue that they can buy them more easily.
Poisons have different potencies.
Anyone can dig up some hemlock or pick some foxgloves and make a poison which will cause discomfort and eventually death, but that's not what the D&D poisons do - they take effect immediately, in a big way.
To refine a poisonous plant into something which can do this will take complex and often fragile lab equipment which will take some time to set up, and must be set up right. The risks involved are high as well - oops, a drop got on my skin, goodbye world - and the scientific knowledge of which parts of the plants make-up are toxic and which are not, to properly distil them, is key.
I would consider a Poisoners kit would be a kit with the relevant equipment to safely apply a poison to a weapon, with a selection of such poisons. I would consider a poison-makers kit to be the size of a briefcase at least, and for the creation of the poisons to be time consuming.
The book "Best Served Cold" by Joe Abercrombie features a poisoner character who creates and administers poisons. Their setup is large and expensive; lots of glass tubes, pipes, distilleries, etc. Sure, you could make it out of copper, but glass is non-reactive, so copper might make the poison less effective.
I must get around to making my poisoners handbook for D&D. I was rewriting how they worked entirely (as they are currently just a "do more damage for one turn" thing which sucks).
But anyway, refining something into a proper poison is going to take time, money, and risks. What they have done now is collect the ingredients using their kits. I would go along the lines of:
- collecting ingredients normally is unstable, so they will lose potency. They can be used as ineffective poison.
- Collecting ingredients with a poisoners kit is stable, so they last until needed,and their effectiveness is determined by a tool check.
- Refining the ingredients into poison requires glass jars and vials, as well as sacrificial ingredients, basically warranting an expenditure of money to create a poison. the poison is way more effective than the ingredients, because everything non-poison has been removed. There should also be a tool check to see if they are injured whilst creating the poison, and a nat 1 also fails to make the poison. A nat 20 gives the poison extra damage.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
The price is so expensive because most local authorities had made them illegal.
A PC openly trying to sell poison will gain some bad attention from local authorities.
If the PCs are too powerful for the local authorities, then they will gain a bad reputation in the area and probably find it more difficult to interact with settlements in the future.
What about the use of Curare? Cultures on literally every continent used poisoned efficiently in hunting well before the advent of modern western chemistry. I often read posts about how complex some of the things we expect to find in fantasy settings are, and they simply weren’t, historically. Find a plant, boil it, put the paste on an arrow. You can also crate a deadly toxin from boiling tobacco. Arsenic became ubiquitous in the Middle Ages because it was easy to mine and often sold cheaply to kill rats.
i have the requisite tools and knowledge at home to make deadly poison with a camp stove.