Ok, so I'm looking at poisons because the assassin in my campaign wants to know how they work. (I'm the DM). Based on what I have read so far there is no real locked down rules for this yet. So, I'm thinking, based on the basic poison (found below), that a vial of a poison can cover 3 successful attacks or until 1 min when in combat. Either 3 attacks using one slashing or piercing weapon or three pieces of ammunition. In the case of all poisons, I'm thinking of saying a vial of poison has 3 doses to maintain this rule of 3.
Now there is the case of the Purple Worm Poison (found below) that people could say its to strong for 3 hits. However the rules for harvesting involves a DC 20 nature check (p.258 DMG), where you only obtain one dose or 1/3 of a vial. Which means every time you kill a Purple Worm (Which is a feat of it's own) you only get 1 dose of poison, or 1 successful hit. So in a normal campaign the possibility of anyone picking up a full vial of Purple Worm poison is decently low and buying it, if you could find a seller, would be 2,000 Gp per dose or 1 hit.
All other balancing is based on how easy the DMs make it available as an drop or trade, etc...
Thank you Matthias_von_Schwarzwald for your information. An injury poison lasts until it wounds or is washed off. Meaning that it lasts as long as needed. Meaning the rule of 1 min based on basic poison, could either be a negative effect of such a basic poison or the rule for how poisons work in combat. In combat sense you are running around swinging your weapons the poison slowly drys or is "washed off" by the movement.
What are your guy's thought on this?
***The Found Below Section*** Basic Poison: You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action. A creature hit by the poisoned weapon or ammunition must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying.
Purple Worm Poison (Injury): This poison must be harvested from a dead or incapacitated purple worm. A creature subjected to this poison must make a DC 19 Constitution saving throw, taking 42 (12d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Injury poison can be applied to weapons, ammunition, trap components, and other objects that deal piercing or slashing damage and remains potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. A creature that takes piercing or slashing damage from an object coated with the poison is exposed to its effects.
One thing I ran is that having proficency with the Poison Kit also added the proficency bonus to the Save DC of resisting poisons. Personal experience has found poisons to actually be rather unreliable, and its very easy to get frustrated with them.
Oh ok. So if you have proficiency of +4 than it would add +4 to the DC.That sounds like a good way to make poison more reliable. Thank you for that Mephista
I recommend "Book of Poisons A Guide for Writers". That said it's out of print, but if you look up "HowDunit" series, you'll find something newer.
It's broken down by sections like: natural plant, natural animals, things from under your sink... It deals with required dose, called LD:50 or lethal dose to kill 50% of humans.
That said, I agree with Mephista. I don't think the rules work in a way that feels good for a player. It's actually not that hard to make poisons, but I guess when you're in a world with a much lower level of education (fantasy settings are usually quasi-medieval) then it's like the quote from Team Fortress 2 "Am I a good demoman? If I wasn't a good demoman I wouldn't be here!".
I think if the Assassin had a subclass closer to what the Battlemaster does it would have been more satisfying. What I mean by that is you have short/long rest abilities that refresh where you concoct different kinds of poisons. You choose to know a limited number from a larger list and they could be much more easily balanced. It sounds very "Witcher" when I say it out loud, but I think that's the hard part with how they did it. There are NPCs with great poisons and a poison user is definitely an arch-type players want to play... but I don't think the rules are not satisfying because it's not balanced within a class so it's balanced with money so the price is exorbitant and not worth doing. On top of that the number of creatures resistant/immune to poison is very high.
My best "poison user" so far has been a Moon Druid, that turned into venomous animals. Even then it felt rather underwhelming (bear is still better)
Going to concur that poisons in 5e are exceedingly underwhelming, and the rules feel very poorly thought out and balanced regarding them. Just so you know, it's worse than you think, the prices in the DMG are per Dose, not per 'vial', so a single use (which must be applied mid combat since it only lasts a minute before 'drying out') of wyvern venom, as an example, covering 3 ranged attacks or at max 10 rounds of melee combat, costs 1200GP if and when it can be purchased. In contrast, a permanently enchanted magic weapon providing +2d6 damage to an enemy which does Not allow a save, which Can be doubled through crits, and which does Not require any special in combat actions to benefit from, has a suggested retail price of 500 to 5000GP, if and when it can be purchased. Even at the highest end of that range, that's at most 4 individual, one time uses of poison, or a permanent magical weapon. Think on that for a second. Harvesting yourself is very difficult, provides 1 dose, and has no detailed rules at all about how often it can be done on a creature which is not dead. So I've homebrewed pretty much all aspects of poison in my games. If you want my houserules, it's a DC10 check with a cooperative animal, market value is 1/10th listed price unless it's illegal, and is 4x the cost then (or 4/10 the DMG pricing); the requirement is that it be incapacitated, dead, or cooperative; and 1 dose can be extracted from a creature per day.
For me, the Homebrew rule I made was for an Arcane Trickster who wanted to have a snake familiar to get venom from. The player could have up to 3 doses on venom at any one time and can generate 1 dose every Long Rest. It can't be sold for gold. I had the player use the snake venom stats instead of the one from the poison item.
Mah... well, I basically treat poison like its a magical potion, and can be crafted as making magical items rules in Xanathar's. The damage-dealing poisons I eliminate the saving throw on, while other poisons I allowed the DC to bump up based on your Proficency if you can use a poisoner's kit.
It always struck me as extremely odd that the basic poison needed a successful hit AND a save AND damage rolls. That's three rolls - nothing else in the game does that. You either have an attack roll, or the opponent rolls a save.
Thank you all for your advice and opinions so far. :)
I think I'm going to treat the costs in the book as per Vial or 3 doses, I'll probably still have to mess with the costs though to make it fair. I think adding proficiency based of poisoner's kit is a must to make using Poisons seem more useful to my players.
FullMetalBunnyI think your completely right about there needing to be a subclass devoted to this. That way a player gets poisons based off of their class and not just what money they have on them. Also, it does sound very Witcher like :) But those are good games.
If you make it as a subclass.... I would suggest the following. Use Rogue as the base for hopefully obvious reasons, but copy the method that Arcane Archer uses instead of Arcane Trickster / Eldritch Knight. You get a number of uses per rest (or day, if you don't like short rest), functions like the Booming Blade cantrip (attack with magical riders), but you get the benefits of the appropriate poison from the DMG. The Save DC scales as 8 + INT+ Proficiency. As you level, the number of poisons you can produce increase.
If you make it as a subclass.... I would suggest the following. Use Rogue as the base for hopefully obvious reasons, but copy the method that Arcane Archer uses instead of Arcane Trickster / Eldritch Knight. You get a number of uses per rest (or day, if you don't like short rest), functions like the Booming Blade cantrip (attack with magical riders), but you get the benefits of the appropriate poison from the DMG. The Save DC scales as 8 + INT+ Proficiency. As you level, the number of poisons you can produce increase.
This is a good idea. Is anybody working on it? My suggestion would be to revise the Assassin subclass and swap out one of the features. I've actually been thinking about using the options from the contagion for different poisons and diseases.
Read the FAQ. You cast it, pick a disease, and roll to hit. IF you hit, then the target is sort-of-infected. (asymptomatic?) Then the target makes saving throws at the end of each of it's turns until they have failed/succeeded on 3 saving throws, so 3-5 turns. IF they failed 3 then they are infected otherwise nothing happens.
Unless your a Divination Wizard with two *really* bad rolls to give the target, it's unlikely to ever go off. Not to mention it's 3-6 turns before it might do something. (1 for your turn and 3 to 6 depending on where the target is in the initiative order vs the caster)
Read the FAQ. You cast it, pick a disease, and roll to hit. IF you hit, then the target is sort-of-infected. (asymptomatic?) Then the target makes saving throws at the end of each of it's turns until they have failed/succeeded on 3 saving throws, so 3-5 turns. IF they failed 3 then they are infected otherwise nothing happens.
Unless your a Divination Wizard with two *really* bad rolls to give the target, it's unlikely to ever go off. Not to mention it's 3-6 turns before it might do something. (1 for your turn and 3 to 6 depending on where the target is in the initiative order vs the caster)
Never commented on the quality of the spell. I just think that the effects it can cause are reasonable inspiration for modeling other poisons and diseases using the DMG rules. Nobody has to argue that the same saving throw structure should apply to these other cases.
But in the defense of the spell, if a PC is hit by a disease and manages to fail three, they''re affected for 7 DAYS without another save. If you look at blinding sickness, an unprepared party (sans Paladin or well-armed Cleric) in the wilderness could wind up with a character that takes disadvantage on every single attack and grants advantage to every enemy attack for an entire week. If you have a caster or rogue/ranger with a low Con score, there's a reasonable chance to essentially take them out of commission in both combat and exploration. On the other hand, by the time enemies are likely to pop up with this spells, players should have a host of options for healing diseases.
If you really feel like it's lackluster, then a simple modification would be to call the effect a magical disease, or allow a higher-level slot to force an affected party to blow a lesser restoration or greater magic to cure the condition. Also, since the description calls the condition a natural disease, there's no reason why a mean DM couldn't make everybody in the party roll saves to avoid contracting the disease as well, obeying the normal rules for incubation.
Contagion is basically a world-building spell, meant more for the forces of evil to spread disease around rather than for the "good guys" to use it as a weapon. Its basically a glorified curse and plot point than something to see play by the PCs.
One thing of note, however, that I feel like I should point out. Diseases and Contagion seem to have the ability to affect saving throws, whereas poison very specifically affects everything but saving throws. That's something to keep in mind from a balance perspective - how much do you want to allow that to happen? Its very rare for PC abilities to affect saving throws by design.
The rules actually make it impossible for poison injury traps to work. The time limit is kinda silly. Weapon poisons should be oil based or dry and work a few times before they are washed off. Most venoms will still work when dry, the blood adds the moisture needed to activate them. I like the disadvantage rule, cause they make you sick, and adding a time before damage/effect would be nice (like 1 min or 2 rounds etc. before effects are felt). It would balance it because the victim could withdraw and heal before bad stuff happens if the poisoning was noticed unless the poison was stupid strong.
Read the FAQ. You cast it, pick a disease, and roll to hit. IF you hit, then the target is sort-of-infected. (asymptomatic?) Then the target makes saving throws at the end of each of it's turns until they have failed/succeeded on 3 saving throws, so 3-5 turns. IF they failed 3 then they are infected otherwise nothing happens.
Unless your a Divination Wizard with two *really* bad rolls to give the target, it's unlikely to ever go off. Not to mention it's 3-6 turns before it might do something. (1 for your turn and 3 to 6 depending on where the target is in the initiative order vs the caster)
3-6 turns...
Where does it say this is only usable in combat? it says make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach, on a hit the target is poisoned. You don't need to be in combat to attack someone.
At the end of each of the poisoned target's turns the target must make a consitution saving throw. This definitely implies combat though, but also should mean, every 6 seconds. So in a non combat setting. Stomach cramps up... and passes... a few times until sick kind of thing. And since it's duration is 7 days... that seems like... the longest battle in the history of battles. Call me crazy or stupid, many people do, but this spell does not seem like it's designed for COMBAT use. It seems like its designed for non-combat use in a social/RP setting prior to a combat beginning, or when trying to avoid combat completely. Additionally, unless the person you touch knows exactly what spell is being cast on them, or is very skilled in medicine/arcana. It is meta for them/anyone but the caster, to know contagion has been cast on the target, unless the caster says otherwise.
I picture the use of this being a gnome, turning invisible, sneaking up to a sentry somewhere and casting contagion on them. Or to assassinate a king/queen/dictator/noble.
If you're casting Contagionin combat to neutralize a target, 3 turns is usually too long to wait for a payoff to make using a 5th level spell slot 'worth it', because you can probably just kill them by then.
If you're casting Contagionout of combat to sneakily assassinate or mess with a target, 3 "turns" (18 seconds) is far too short an incubation period to allow one to escape unnoticed and free of suspicion, it's painfully obvious that the person that bumped into the target right before they collapsed or shook their hand is responsible for the festering sores opening up.
It just is a weird spell that feels like it's trying to be two things at once, and as a result doing neither very well.
Ok, so I'm looking at poisons because the assassin in my campaign wants to know how they work. (I'm the DM). Based on what I have read so far there is no real locked down rules for this yet. So, I'm thinking, based on the basic poison (found below), that a vial of a poison can cover 3 successful attacks or until 1 min when in combat. Either 3 attacks using one slashing or piercing weapon or three pieces of ammunition. In the case of all poisons, I'm thinking of saying a vial of poison has 3 doses to maintain this rule of 3.
Now there is the case of the Purple Worm Poison (found below) that people could say its to strong for 3 hits. However the rules for harvesting involves a DC 20 nature check (p.258 DMG), where you only obtain one dose or 1/3 of a vial. Which means every time you kill a Purple Worm (Which is a feat of it's own) you only get 1 dose of poison, or 1 successful hit. So in a normal campaign the possibility of anyone picking up a full vial of Purple Worm poison is decently low and buying it, if you could find a seller, would be 2,000 Gp per dose or 1 hit.
All other balancing is based on how easy the DMs make it available as an drop or trade, etc...
Thank you Matthias_von_Schwarzwald for your information. An injury poison lasts until it wounds or is washed off. Meaning that it lasts as long as needed. Meaning the rule of 1 min based on basic poison, could either be a negative effect of such a basic poison or the rule for how poisons work in combat. In combat sense you are running around swinging your weapons the poison slowly drys or is "washed off" by the movement.
What are your guy's thought on this?
***The Found Below Section***
Basic Poison: You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action. A creature hit by the poisoned weapon or ammunition must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying.
Purple Worm Poison (Injury): This poison must be harvested from a dead or incapacitated purple worm. A creature subjected to this poison must make a DC 19 Constitution saving throw, taking 42 (12d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/dmg/running-the-game#Poisons
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One thing I ran is that having proficency with the Poison Kit also added the proficency bonus to the Save DC of resisting poisons. Personal experience has found poisons to actually be rather unreliable, and its very easy to get frustrated with them.
Oh ok. So if you have proficiency of +4 than it would add +4 to the DC.That sounds like a good way to make poison more reliable. Thank you for that Mephista
Someone contact the police.
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I own the police! *makes it rain!*
I recommend "Book of Poisons A Guide for Writers". That said it's out of print, but if you look up "HowDunit" series, you'll find something newer.
It's broken down by sections like: natural plant, natural animals, things from under your sink...
It deals with required dose, called LD:50 or lethal dose to kill 50% of humans.
That said, I agree with Mephista. I don't think the rules work in a way that feels good for a player. It's actually not that hard to make poisons, but I guess when you're in a world with a much lower level of education (fantasy settings are usually quasi-medieval) then it's like the quote from Team Fortress 2 "Am I a good demoman? If I wasn't a good demoman I wouldn't be here!".
I think if the Assassin had a subclass closer to what the Battlemaster does it would have been more satisfying.
What I mean by that is you have short/long rest abilities that refresh where you concoct different kinds of poisons. You choose to know a limited number from a larger list and they could be much more easily balanced. It sounds very "Witcher" when I say it out loud, but I think that's the hard part with how they did it. There are NPCs with great poisons and a poison user is definitely an arch-type players want to play... but I don't think the rules are not satisfying because it's not balanced within a class so it's balanced with money so the price is exorbitant and not worth doing. On top of that the number of creatures resistant/immune to poison is very high.
My best "poison user" so far has been a Moon Druid, that turned into venomous animals. Even then it felt rather underwhelming (bear is still better)
Going to concur that poisons in 5e are exceedingly underwhelming, and the rules feel very poorly thought out and balanced regarding them. Just so you know, it's worse than you think, the prices in the DMG are per Dose, not per 'vial', so a single use (which must be applied mid combat since it only lasts a minute before 'drying out') of wyvern venom, as an example, covering 3 ranged attacks or at max 10 rounds of melee combat, costs 1200GP if and when it can be purchased. In contrast, a permanently enchanted magic weapon providing +2d6 damage to an enemy which does Not allow a save, which Can be doubled through crits, and which does Not require any special in combat actions to benefit from, has a suggested retail price of 500 to 5000GP, if and when it can be purchased. Even at the highest end of that range, that's at most 4 individual, one time uses of poison, or a permanent magical weapon. Think on that for a second. Harvesting yourself is very difficult, provides 1 dose, and has no detailed rules at all about how often it can be done on a creature which is not dead. So I've homebrewed pretty much all aspects of poison in my games. If you want my houserules, it's a DC10 check with a cooperative animal, market value is 1/10th listed price unless it's illegal, and is 4x the cost then (or 4/10 the DMG pricing); the requirement is that it be incapacitated, dead, or cooperative; and 1 dose can be extracted from a creature per day.
For me, the Homebrew rule I made was for an Arcane Trickster who wanted to have a snake familiar to get venom from.
The player could have up to 3 doses on venom at any one time and can generate 1 dose every Long Rest. It can't be sold for gold.
I had the player use the snake venom stats instead of the one from the poison item.
Mah... well, I basically treat poison like its a magical potion, and can be crafted as making magical items rules in Xanathar's. The damage-dealing poisons I eliminate the saving throw on, while other poisons I allowed the DC to bump up based on your Proficency if you can use a poisoner's kit.
It always struck me as extremely odd that the basic poison needed a successful hit AND a save AND damage rolls. That's three rolls - nothing else in the game does that. You either have an attack roll, or the opponent rolls a save.
Thank you all for your advice and opinions so far. :)
I think I'm going to treat the costs in the book as per Vial or 3 doses, I'll probably still have to mess with the costs though to make it fair. I think adding proficiency based of poisoner's kit is a must to make using Poisons seem more useful to my players.
FullMetalBunny I think your completely right about there needing to be a subclass devoted to this. That way a player gets poisons based off of their class and not just what money they have on them. Also, it does sound very Witcher like :) But those are good games.
If you make it as a subclass.... I would suggest the following. Use Rogue as the base for hopefully obvious reasons, but copy the method that Arcane Archer uses instead of Arcane Trickster / Eldritch Knight. You get a number of uses per rest (or day, if you don't like short rest), functions like the Booming Blade cantrip (attack with magical riders), but you get the benefits of the appropriate poison from the DMG. The Save DC scales as 8 + INT+ Proficiency. As you level, the number of poisons you can produce increase.
This is a good idea. Is anybody working on it? My suggestion would be to revise the Assassin subclass and swap out one of the features. I've actually been thinking about using the options from the contagion for different poisons and diseases.
contagion is a terrible spell.
Read the FAQ.
You cast it, pick a disease, and roll to hit.
IF you hit, then the target is sort-of-infected. (asymptomatic?)
Then the target makes saving throws at the end of each of it's turns until they have failed/succeeded on 3 saving throws, so 3-5 turns.
IF they failed 3 then they are infected otherwise nothing happens.
Unless your a Divination Wizard with two *really* bad rolls to give the target, it's unlikely to ever go off. Not to mention it's 3-6 turns before it might do something. (1 for your turn and 3 to 6 depending on where the target is in the initiative order vs the caster)
If you really feel like it's lackluster, then a simple modification would be to call the effect a magical disease, or allow a higher-level slot to force an affected party to blow a lesser restoration or greater magic to cure the condition. Also, since the description calls the condition a natural disease, there's no reason why a mean DM couldn't make everybody in the party roll saves to avoid contracting the disease as well, obeying the normal rules for incubation.
Contagion is basically a world-building spell, meant more for the forces of evil to spread disease around rather than for the "good guys" to use it as a weapon. Its basically a glorified curse and plot point than something to see play by the PCs.
One thing of note, however, that I feel like I should point out. Diseases and Contagion seem to have the ability to affect saving throws, whereas poison very specifically affects everything but saving throws. That's something to keep in mind from a balance perspective - how much do you want to allow that to happen? Its very rare for PC abilities to affect saving throws by design.
The information Mathias gave you doesntt state the poison is used up if it wounds.
That's like saying the oil of sharpness is gone after you wound something, It's not.
The rules actually make it impossible for poison injury traps to work. The time limit is kinda silly. Weapon poisons should be oil based or dry and work a few times before they are washed off. Most venoms will still work when dry, the blood adds the moisture needed to activate them. I like the disadvantage rule, cause they make you sick, and adding a time before damage/effect would be nice (like 1 min or 2 rounds etc. before effects are felt). It would balance it because the victim could withdraw and heal before bad stuff happens if the poisoning was noticed unless the poison was stupid strong.
3-6 turns...
Where does it say this is only usable in combat? it says make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach, on a hit the target is poisoned. You don't need to be in combat to attack someone.
At the end of each of the poisoned target's turns the target must make a consitution saving throw. This definitely implies combat though, but also should mean, every 6 seconds. So in a non combat setting. Stomach cramps up... and passes... a few times until sick kind of thing. And since it's duration is 7 days... that seems like... the longest battle in the history of battles. Call me crazy or stupid, many people do, but this spell does not seem like it's designed for COMBAT use. It seems like its designed for non-combat use in a social/RP setting prior to a combat beginning, or when trying to avoid combat completely. Additionally, unless the person you touch knows exactly what spell is being cast on them, or is very skilled in medicine/arcana. It is meta for them/anyone but the caster, to know contagion has been cast on the target, unless the caster says otherwise.
I picture the use of this being a gnome, turning invisible, sneaking up to a sentry somewhere and casting contagion on them. Or to assassinate a king/queen/dictator/noble.
Blank
If you're casting Contagion in combat to neutralize a target, 3 turns is usually too long to wait for a payoff to make using a 5th level spell slot 'worth it', because you can probably just kill them by then.
If you're casting Contagion out of combat to sneakily assassinate or mess with a target, 3 "turns" (18 seconds) is far too short an incubation period to allow one to escape unnoticed and free of suspicion, it's painfully obvious that the person that bumped into the target right before they collapsed or shook their hand is responsible for the festering sores opening up.
It just is a weird spell that feels like it's trying to be two things at once, and as a result doing neither very well.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.