A Poison Question

[Golan2072]

According to the poison rules on p.74, poison works like disease (p.73), but without intervals (damage is applied immediately). Does that means that you receive damage only once from each dose of poison, or that if you fail an Endurance check you continue to roll Endurance checks and take damage from each failed one until you succeed an Endurance check?

Personally I think it's the latter...

 

[SSWarlock]

According to the poison rules on p.74, poison works like disease (p.73), but without intervals (damage is applied immediately). Does that means that you receive damage only once from each dose of poison, or that if you fail an Endurance check you continue to roll Endurance checks and take damage from each failed one until you succeed an Endurance check?

Personally I think it's the latter...

The answer is...possibly yes but most often no.

Page 74 states "Most poisons do not have an interval..." so, technically, you can come up with a poison that has an interval. But since the general intent is for most poisons to "...apply their damage immediately...", I'd say it's the former part of your question (i.e. you receive damage only once from each dose of poison).

Succeeding at an Endurance roll fends off the effects of the poison in a manner similar to that of disease unless the GM rules that the poison has an interval.

 

[Golan2072]

Succeeding at an Endurance roll fends off the effects of the poison in a manner similar to that of disease unless the GM rules that the poison has an interval.

But what happens if you fail that Endurance test?

 

[SSWarlock]

Succeeding at an Endurance roll fends off the effects of the poison in a manner similar to that of disease unless the GM rules that the poison has an interval.

But what happens if you fail that Endurance test?

Then the character immediately suffers the damage/effects from the poison. Using the example poisons in the book, arsenic would immediately cause 2d6 damage, tranq gas would cause the character to immediately become unconscious, and a neurotoxin would immediately cause the character to lose 1d6 Intelligence.

The way I interpret the book, poisons without an interval are "all or nothing".

 

[Golan2072]

*BUMP*

How do the rest of you interpret this rule?

 

[Golan2072]

Another question about poison and disease: how do you handle medically treating them? P.56 gives a task, but does this task completely remove the poison/disease (i.e. is that counted as a successful Endurance test), or does it simply remove damage caused by the poison/disease?

 

[SSWarlock]

Another question about poison and disease: how do you handle medically treating them? P.56 gives a task, but does this task completely remove the poison/disease (i.e. is that counted as a successful Endurance test), or does it simply remove damage caused by the poison/disease?

Since poison act like diseases but have an immediate effect, I look first to the section on diseases. It states explicitly that the Endurance test is to resist the effects of the disease. Only if the test is failed is damage taken. If the test is successful, then the disease has been fought off.

Since poisons are just like diseases but have an immediate effect and no interval, the above applies to poisons as well.

Therefore, the Endurance roll is the character's metabolism fighting off the effects of the poison. So if the poison has no interval, no damage is taken if the roll is successful. Once the poison does take effect (i.e. the END roll is failed and damage taken) then medical treatment and natural healing (see page 75) is necessary to remove the damage, assuming the poison didn't kill its victim.