Poisons

[Simulacrum]

How's this?

Item found on the Jekkarene nobleman and arch-schemer, Baron Solfernoy (draft)

Viper Blade (complexity 5 Artifice): A stiletto knife that injects a deadly poison into the target if a two CM advantage is achieved. One CM must be Impale, the second triggers the device. The poison reservoir is in the handle, a single dose.
Poison: Potency 65, Injection, Onset D4+2 Combat Rounds, Resilience Resistance roll for D4+2 damage direct to location struck and D3+1 damage to each contiguous location. If the victim fails the resistance roll, victim dies.

 

[Dan True]

How's this?

Item found on the Jekkarene nobleman and arch-schemer, Baron Solfernoy (draft)

Viper Blade (complexity 5 Artifice): A stiletto knife that injects a deadly poison into the target if a two CM advantage is achieved. One CM must be Impale, the second triggers the device. The poison reservoir is in the handle, a single dose.
Poison: Potency 65, Injection, Onset D4+2 Combat Rounds, Resilience Resistance roll for D4+2 damage direct to location struck and D3+1 damage to each contiguous location. If the victim fails the resistance roll, victim dies.

Well, isn't the idea of stealthily murdering someone with a poisonous knife, that you can make such a small prick that it they won't find it, and assume he died of a stroke..

Impaling him certainly doesn't seems like the right

Also - only doing it on a critical (or if the enemy fumbles)? hmm.. Wouldn't it be better to say that it must be against a target unaware, or something? I know it needs to be such that you can't be too deadly in normal combat, but it seems like most assassinations would end with the target not being poisoned anyway, as crits are rare afterall.

- Dan

 

[Titus]

Ulric,

You do not have to do anything with the levels of success if you do not want to.
Critical beats success, failure and fumble. Success beats failure and fumble. Failure and fumble are both just failures.

If you want to do something special with crits and fumbles, it could be something as simple as crit is an immediate recovery and fumble halves the onset time of the next effect or double the duration of a poison effect.

 

[Titus]

I first saw the Inject Poison CM in Wraith Recon for the Scorpionfolk. I think I have seen it elsewhere since. Maybe in something Deleriad wrote? Ahh, yes, the RQ2 Blood of Orlanth upgrade. The Wyverns have the Inject Poison CM in their description. They also only have enough poison for 3 doses/injections.

I am using that CM as a standard for poisonous creatures that inject their venom, with some exceptions like giant bees.

Doses I haven't decided on, but I like the concept. It eliminates unlimited numbers of poisoning attacks and helps me define the amount of poison the characters can harvest from the venom glands once they have killed the critter.

 

[Mixster]

But, I would then also introduce a CM for really injecting the poison into the target. This could be used by a trained individual only, say an Assassin with a poisoned needle or a Cobra. This CM makes the injected poison automatically roll it's Potency on the opposed roll, thus making it extremely hard to resist.

- Dan

Could be the impale CM. Makes a reason for choosing it on a blowgun.

 

[sdavies2720]

Those numbers are about right. Point definitely taken about higher potency having diminishing returns but the same is also true in reverse if the poison has to overcome resilience and succeed at its own roll. E.g. someone with a Resilience of 90% is probably going to resist a poison regardless of whether it is 30% or 80% potency. ...

Actually, with a potency 80%, it's going to be closer to 50% than 90% -- they have to succeed (easy) and roll over the poison's roll (roughly 50% chance).

Steve

 

[Deleriad]

Those numbers are about right. Point definitely taken about higher potency having diminishing returns but the same is also true in reverse if the poison has to overcome resilience and succeed at its own roll. E.g. someone with a Resilience of 90% is probably going to resist a poison regardless of whether it is 30% or 80% potency. ...

Actually, with a potency 80%, it's going to be closer to 50% than 90% -- they have to succeed (easy) and roll over the poison's roll (roughly 50% chance).

Steve

Sort of yes and no. In the system where you are not poisoned unless the poison successfully overcomes your resilience then if:
resilience 90%, poison 80%.
For the poison to win it has to roll under its potency (80%) and do better than you. That probably works out something like poisoned 35%, not poisoned the rest of the time. Don't have time to actually calculate the numbers.

 

[RangerDan]

For the poison to win it has to roll under its potency (80%) and do better than you. That probably works out something like poisoned 35%, not poisoned the rest of the time. Don't have time to actually calculate the numbers.

Still have the little Excel sheet I prepared for above

A PC with Resilience 90% hit by a Potency 80 poison is poisoned (approximately) 42% of the time.

 

[sdavies2720]

I rest my case! :roll:

 

[batGnat]

1. How is potency derived? purely by the craft skill?

2. Also in the arms book, it implies (p155 legend) that a alchemy skill of 01-20 can create poisons that are immediate, and instant. While it takes a higher skill of to delay the onset and duration.
This seems somewhat silly. If my enemy has poison, why bother to make it delayed, he can just render me unconscious, and have his way with me.

Shouldn't a instant poison be more potent?

 

[DamonJynx]

1. How is potency derived? purely by the craft skill?

2. Also in the arms book, it implies (p155 legend) that a alchemy skill of 01-20 can create poisons that are immediate, and instant. While it takes a higher skill of to delay the onset and duration.
This seems somewhat silly. If my enemy has poison, why bother to make it delayed, he can just render me unconscious, and have his way with me.

Shouldn't a instant poison be more potent?

1. I'm beginning to think that the Craft roll to make the poison, rather than the skill itself is what should set the potency, eg Craft (Poison) 70%. I gather the ingredient(s) and begin brewing, perhaps a simple tea like concoction to induce the Nausea condition for 1D3 rounds with an immediate onset. I make my Craft roll at the end of the brewing process and score 35%. I have achieved success and the Potency is 35.
2. Poisons at this level are extremely difficult to make and insanely easy to resist. To manufacture I have to roll under 20% - 1 in 5 chance of success and the maximum Potency is 20% which means that someone with Resilience of 60% will resist 66% of the time. As my skill improves I gain more control of my craft and can add more conditions and mix and match the onset delay and duration to suit my needs.

 

[batGnat]

In the book, it gives examples.

Lets take Blade Venom. It states that the potency is 55; not a variable figure based on a skill.

Therefore wouldn't you, when creating it, need to roll a skill check higher that 55 (but below skill) to create the poison, or it is useless?

That makes more sense to me. Determine the specific poisons potency, and then see if you can actually make the item.

 

[Fonso]

2. Also in the arms book, it implies (p155 legend) that a alchemy skill of 01-20 can create poisons that are immediate, and instant. While it takes a higher skill of to delay the onset and duration.
This seems somewhat silly. If my enemy has poison, why bother to make it delayed, he can just render me unconscious, and have his way with me.

If you want to poison a king or another VIP, it might be much better if he dies when you are gone and there is a long distance between you and his guards eager for revenge.

In such cases, the longer delaying, better is the poison.

 

[DamonJynx]

In the book, it gives examples.

Lets take Blade Venom. It states that the potency is 55; not a variable figure based on a skill.

Therefore wouldn't you, when creating it, need to roll a skill check higher that 55 (but below skill) to create the poison, or it is useless?

That makes more sense to me. Determine the specific poisons potency, and then see if you can actually make the item.

I see your point. To make an existing poison, I agree with you as the poisons Potency (for that recipe if you like) has been set the first time it was made. As we have no indication of what the makers skill level of Blade Venom was nor any idea of how the Potency was calculated how do we know it was not created in the manner described, or created at that level to give victims a more or less 50/50 chance of resisting? It is an 'example' after all.

 

[DamonJynx]

2. Also in the arms book, it implies (p155 legend) that a alchemy skill of 01-20 can create poisons that are immediate, and instant. While it takes a higher skill of to delay the onset and duration.
This seems somewhat silly. If my enemy has poison, why bother to make it delayed, he can just render me unconscious, and have his way with me.

If you want to poison a king or another VIP, it might be much better if he dies when you are gone and there is a long distance between you and his guards eager for revenge.

In such cases, the longer delaying, better is the poison.

Fonso, what Batgnat is referring to is a PC who wants to use poison in combat. All the poisons he has created have an immediate onset delay.

 

[Fonso]

Sure, in combat, the faster poison the better.... except when you are the target. :lol:

What I meant is that in other circunstances, a slower action poison can be better. I did not realize he was speaking about use poison only in combat.

 

[soltakss]

2. Also in the arms book, it implies (p155 legend) that a alchemy skill of 01-20 can create poisons that are immediate, and instant. While it takes a higher skill of to delay the onset and duration.
This seems somewhat silly. If my enemy has poison, why bother to make it delayed, he can just render me unconscious, and have his way with me.

If you poison someone's drink it doesn't always make sense for them to drop dead straight away, you might prefer them to drop dead days later.

Shouldn't a instant poison be more potent?

Nope, you could have a wasp sting that is instant but annoying or a snakebite that could take hours to kill you. Speed of effect doesn't necessarily match deadliness.

 

[Simulacrum]

It's important to bear in mind the effects of the poison (no matter how deadly) and the Potency score are not connected under the Legend rules - they were under older RQ editions. The POT only measures how likely the poison is to cause its harm.

It would therefor be reasonable to allow the Potency of a poison to slide up or down in accordance with the maker's Alchemy skill while the effects do not change. For a natural venom, it can be a multiple of creature CON that sets the POT.

Where there is a poison described in the rules - like the example of Blade Venom mentioned upthread - you might use that as a cap, because it takes on board the difficulties of getting enough of the stuff into a wound. You might have the POT be the lower of the Alchemy skill and the poison's description. Alternatively you might houserule that Blade Venoms all have a POT of 50, but the Alchemist can add his critical Alchemy skill to the POT if he chooses.

As noted above, Arms also specifies that certain types of effect require certain skill levels for the alchemist to achieve. This is fine in principle if the poison is an entirely artifical construct, which these rules pretty much cover. But most are not - if the poisonous nature of a substance is derived mostly from its natural state - such as a mineral, or plant - then the basic characteristics of that poison are already be in place. It is up to the skill of the alchemist to tailor or modify them, and work out an appropriate means to get them ino the target's system. Sometimes this will involve ensuring a delay in effect to a substance that is otherwise fast-acting, sometimes the reverse is true. In either case it is the extent of modification that demands the skill level.