Poison Crafting Suggestion

[Leanthar]

Guys.... 8bit stated this "..Also, I would like it for this post to NOT dissolve into a thread about who should and should not use poisons.."
  Lets respect that.  We have heard it from just about all directions.
 

[ZeroVega]

  Sorry, my bad. Deleting the above post and backing out here.

[Gilrod]

Eight-Bit...

I was thinking about why poisions may be limited to specific types of weapons...

I think it could be realistic rationalized if you wished to limit it to weapons that do piercing damage (like daggers, short swords, rapiers...etc).  The rationalization is that the poinson must actually be delivered INTO the blood stream in a sizable quantity.  Other types of poisons (in RL history) that are contact poisons or severe allergins (these worked by touch or through a small larceration) may not have been developed in Layonara.  Additionally, the source of the poisons in Layonara are primarily from spiders that deliver the poision via puncture and injection and therefore would likely have evolved to be deadly when introduced, hypodermically, into the blood stream.

Just thought I would offer what I consider a reasonable rational of why the weapons could realistically be limited.

Plus, these weapons are chosen weapons for thieves because piercing weapons are preferred for the sneak attack to puncture specfically targeted vital organs with precision.

Just a few thoughts.

[Guardian 452]

Gilrod - 3/10/2005  10:52 AM

Eight-Bit...

I was thinking about why poisions may be limited to specific types of weapons...

I think it could be realistic rationalized if you wished to limit it to weapons that do piercing damage (like daggers, short swords, rapiers...etc).  The rationalization is that the poinson must actually be delivered INTO the blood stream in a sizable quantity............

Add arrows and bolts to that list and your onto something!


G-452

[Gilrod]

In my limited, and realatively unimportant opinion.  I would not be opposed to permanently enchanted poison arrows.  I would find it highly unlikely that many would go through the bother of jumping through the myriad of hoops required to permanantly enchant something with poison (as skillfully laid out by Eight-Bit) when the item would be quickly expended (and is illegal).  I think the cost prohibition would prevent abuse but would allow the nefarious thief a "secret" weapon he keeps in reserve the most desperate cases.

Good point G.

[Eight-Bit]

Guardian 452 - 3/10/2005  12:21 PM

Gilrod - 3/10/2005  10:52 AM

Eight-Bit...

I was thinking about why poisions may be limited to specific types of weapons...

I think it could be realistic rationalized if you wished to limit it to weapons that do piercing damage (like daggers, short swords, rapiers...etc).  The rationalization is that the poinson must actually be delivered INTO the blood stream in a sizable quantity............

Add arrows and bolts to that list and your onto something!


G-452

How could I have forgotten? Thanks G. I did have them on there, but removed them while I was editing things. I would tend to agree.

Leanthar - 3/10/2005  11:23 AM

Yeah, I tend to agree with 8bit (on a good part of what he stated) now that I have seen his replies to my concerns and rereading it a few times.  When we have some time I will take a look at this again and perhaps do an overhaul in this general direction--with a few exceptions.

Thank you Leanthar. All I really wanted was to express the potential of the system. Thank you for the time to read it, and thank you to everyone else who took interest and posted.

[lonnarin]

I'm all for not having bludgeoning weapons deliver poison, but slashing will still come into contact with the veins leading to the heart and the rest of the system.  Animals typically inject via a pierce, but they usually squeeze their gland muscles to fill the wound.  The poison doesn't escape out as easily with piercing, but many insects often have glands around their mouths which they spit onto large sawlike appendiges.  Several mantises and beetles use that mode of entry when fighting, they spit on their foreleg cruncher claws and grapple their foe, sawing through him.  Maybe if the poison DC could lower by 4 if applied to a slashing weapon vs a piercing one, that sounds about right.

I also think that anti-venoms(remove poison, protection from poison potions) would be better crafted through poison making than through standard alchemy.  Most anti-venoms are made from derivatives of venom to build up the immune system.  This ranges from things to help you fight the poisons already in you, or to build up the immune system to prevent poisons from being as effective.  Divine potions through the enchanting pool should also have access to poison removal, though not as varied as the potential poisoncraft recipes.  A good antivenom progression would be +2 vs poison, hold poison, +4 vs poison, remove poison, +6 vs poison, +8vs and so on until about lvl 18 poisoncraft for a total immunity shake for a few hours long.

Also, so far we've only covered poisons that enter the bloodstream directly through the veins.  This means that when we catch a breather to work on this CNR a bit more, we can play around with inhalant gasses, contact poisons, and edibles.  (animal monster script that makes them run up and eat the dropped poison bait like feeding chickens, heheh.  Meat for bears, berries for skunks, mushrooms for piggies... etc)  That'd be pretty funny.

The gas bombs made from beetle bellies actually could be moved to poisoncraft, while the acid flasks and alchemists fire strictly on the alchemy bench.  We can also have a bit of fun with magical poisons that require enchanting oils or spells to craft that target mental stats and do things like bestow arcane failure, decrease movement speed, things like that.  Other fun poisoncrafting recipes we can play around with are already covered by natural poisons of our day... ie: paralysis, sleep, confusion/hallucinatory effects, sluggishness(decreased movement rate), all sorts of fun side effects.

We have a good many untapped poisonous critters out there to have fun with the recipes.  Snakes, manticore, yuan-ti, scorpions, myconoid spores, various flora and fauna currently used in alchemy, etc. A Silver/Belladonna/Bless mix would make a great lycanthrope slaying venom!  Other than that one, we should steer away from instant death poison recipes, as they pretty much kill us humans through Con or Str draining by a long, slow process through a failing immune system.

[Eight-Bit]

lonnarin - 3/11/2005  1:55 AM

I'm all for not having bludgeoning weapons deliver poison, but slashing will still come into contact with the veins leading to the heart and the rest of the system.  Animals typically inject via a pierce, but they usually squeeze their gland muscles to fill the wound.  The poison doesn't escape out as easily with piercing, but many insects often have glands around their mouths which they spit onto large sawlike appendiges.  Several mantises and beetles use that mode of entry when fighting, they spit on their foreleg cruncher claws and grapple their foe, sawing through him.  Maybe if the poison DC could lower by 4 if applied to a slashing weapon vs a piercing one, that sounds about right.

I also think that anti-venoms(remove poison, protection from poison potions) would be better crafted through poison making than through standard alchemy.  Most anti-venoms are made from derivatives of venom to build up the immune system.  This ranges from things to help you fight the poisons already in you, or to build up the immune system to prevent poisons from being as effective.  Divine potions through the enchanting pool should also have access to poison removal, though not as varied as the potential poisoncraft recipes.  A good antivenom progression would be +2 vs poison, hold poison, +4 vs poison, remove poison, +6 vs poison, +8vs and so on until about lvl 18 poisoncraft for a total immunity shake for a few hours long.

Also, so far we've only covered poisons that enter the bloodstream directly through the veins.  This means that when we catch a breather to work on this CNR a bit more, we can play around with inhalant gasses, contact poisons, and edibles.  (animal monster script that makes them run up and eat the dropped poison bait like feeding chickens, heheh.  Meat for bears, berries for skunks, mushrooms for piggies... etc)  That'd be pretty funny.

The gas bombs made from beetle bellies actually could be moved to poisoncraft, while the acid flasks and alchemists fire strictly on the alchemy bench.  We can also have a bit of fun with magical poisons that require enchanting oils or spells to craft that target mental stats and do things like bestow arcane failure, decrease movement speed, things like that.  Other fun poisoncrafting recipes we can play around with are already covered by natural poisons of our day... ie: paralysis, sleep, confusion/hallucinatory effects, sluggishness(decreased movement rate), all sorts of fun side effects.

We have a good many untapped poisonous critters out there to have fun with the recipes.  Snakes, manticore, yuan-ti, scorpions, myconoid spores, various flora and fauna currently used in alchemy, etc. A Silver/Belladonna/Bless mix would make a great lycanthrope slaying venom!  Other than that one, we should steer away from instant death poison recipes, as they pretty much kill us humans through Con or Str draining by a long, slow process through a failing immune system.

I'm just going to be rather blunt, and say that nearly everything you suggest would involve extra scripts, most of them heartbeats. And that would just be excessive lag for such a small payoff. The Antidote and Ironguts potion however are a grand idea.

I am a firm believer that things are best when they appear complex but work very, very simply. Which is why if any changes are made to the poison crafting system, I hope the base items are kept to the NWN standards. The various "on hit:" bonuses you suggested are very, very powerful. And even with a duration they are still quite excessive. Almost all of them mean instant sneak attacks for any rogue.

Feyduster +1 shortswords are already one of the best Rogue weapons out there, simply because of their daze effect.

[pulindar]

excuse me i know this hasn't been posted in in a long time but were there any decided changes.  And if there were what are they.

[pulindar]

hello sorry to get a bit pushy about this but it does affect Ceala a bit and i was wondering if anything did get chosen to be changed?  also sorry for double posting it just didn't seem like it was getting responded to.

[Leanthar]

It is on our list, to look at the very least.  But no, nothing has been done as of yet.  There is a lot going on.

[pulindar]

ok thanks L i know that you guys are doing all you can

If you are a rogue, in which poison was used to put your opponent to sleep so that you can steal him blind, or as an assassin to cause a slow death, when you are safely well out of reach of the local law enforement.
A cleric might use it for bringing him close to death for a vision quest, much like the Hopi and Navajo indians did with snake poison, to get closer to the all-father.
A druid would use it for the same purpose.
A ranger may use it, though poison is a bad idea as it poisons the meat.
A paladin might never use, and unless to use it much the same way as a cleric.
A mage would probably be the one to use it in a spell component or potion, for the purpose of speeding the effects of a potion, Though it would probably be diluted.

There are a great many spells that could be a poison, and it would be fun, with the alchemy craft, to be able to make poisons that mimic certain spells.
Sleep
Flesh to Stone
Paralysis
Destruction

You would probably need the craft enchantment as well, but you could make poison to mimic the effects of,
Power Word, Stun
Power Word, Kill

just some ideas.

[steverimmer]

One of the things that should be done with poisons firstly is to change the item that is used to make the poison.  At the moment it is a mace and that excludes druids from poison making.  This has always seemed a bit odd to me mainly because a lot of the druids combat type spells seem to be poison based. This is not suprising really if you consider how often poison is used as a means of both offence and defence in nature.  With other characters; clerics, rogues, fighters etc poison may have a question of morality attached to it but not with druids.  A druid is living 'in nature' so much so recieves all his powers from the natural world and can even shift into other forms from nature...yet he is excluded from crafting poison, which is found all over the natural world, due to the mace that is used in CNR.  I honestly feel that this should be changed to another item...perhaps a club or something like that maybe.

What I know of poisons in RL (don't be afraid)
everyone knows of snakes, spiders, scorpions, some fish, jellyfish and crustaceans.
some commonly known plants: belladonna, witch hazel, tobacco, and currari.
some commonly known fungi: magic mushrooms
some cactii: peyote
but there are many others, that are little known, and when you compare them to the fantasy world, it becomes a very scary place indeed.
pitcher plant has digestive enzyme that could be make a liquid poison
venus fly trap stores its digestive enzyme in its roots, which is another liquid poison
the sundew secretes a sticky substance on the end of its tenaburs. which would allow one to make a poison to coat weapons, instead of using pine gum
cedar oil repels insects, because it is poisonous to them, and they know it, good oil to use against beetles and other giant insects
just examples.
most people do not know this, the reason why nightshade is poisonous, it causes the body to poison itself by blocking the bile, which builds up in the body, turning lips and finger nails blue. but you see, nightshade can be used to heal as well, it can be used to slow a persons immune system down so that other healing remedies can be administered, without the body trying to do it on its own.
smoking was the fastest way to administer herbal medicines to the body, as nicotine, being a poison in concentrated amounts(ingested), enabled medicine to be absorbed directly into the bloodstream via inhalation.
some things to keep in mind when revising poison crafting for druids.
druids would have no solid knowledge of mineral poisons, that is the domain of alchemists
druids are very much aware of more the natural poisons of animals, plants and their giant-sized kin.

[Frendh]

Not having slashing weapons be able to use
poison would be very very "not smart".
Especially with the reason it would not
deliver enough poison into the blood stream.

So a piercing weapon generally go deeper and
hits an artery more easily. But slashing weapons
would hit a great deal more, though veins insead.

It's not like you need to deliver a great amount
of poison anyways, how much poison do you think
a black widow has?

Bludgeoning weapons no being able to have poison
applied is fine by me in most occasions. There
are those with spikes and such attached to them
though.

I actually do not think poison crafting is dull
the way it is. Every time I grow tired of doing
the things I usually do I go dabble a bit with
poisons.  It's quite satiesfying compared to
all other crafts I've tried.

What could be added though, would be poisons
of the same sort but with twice or even longer
duration. But a poison with twice the duration
should take four times or so as many poison
sacks as the original.

[Eight-Bit]

Wow, would I like to stir up a dead horse with this one. If it is at all possible may I have the relevent scripts for the Poison Crafting aspect of the CNR with the proper tags for:

-Essense of Dexterity
-Essense of Strength
-Essense of Constitution
-Glass Rod 1, 2, 3, 4.
-All spider venom sacks
-Enchanted Alexandrite of Bulls, Endurance, and Cat's
-Enchanted Diamond of Bulls, Endurance, and Cat's.
-Enchanted Emerald of Bulls, Endurance, and Cat's.


I would like to submit this to the player submission forum for further review. I believe that I can handle it, and I will try to use it with Foresettii's nifty Enchantment scripts he made back in the day for dynamic weapon enchantments, but have it check and only work on certain weapons, possibly only in the rogue proficieny. Not beyond me, and certinally something to do when I get out of work to atleast chill out before I get in game. Thanks you either way.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Couple of things.

Firstly, Piercing and Slashing weapons only - that's how poison works, PnP.

Secondly... I like the idea of charged poisons. It's either set a certain number of charges (though I'm not sure how that would work) or set the duration for a heck of a lot longer, as has been suggested and accepted.

Third. Essence of Grace and Power, 8Bit. There's no CON essence - it just takes a lot more Essence of Power. Though I do like the idea of making poisonish enchanting rods.

Which brings my fourth point. Some poisons are designed to be liquid on the blade, but what about the ones that are made to last? If you're going to poison a blowdart or arrow, you burn the poison onto the tip. So, permanent poisons are a reasonably good idea, if we ignore the fact that they'd have to be re-applied every few weeks, for the sake of easier scripting.

Fifth. Moving the poisoncraft tables sounds grand; Pyyran's started to wonder about the odd figure who he doesn't know is actually a Coranthite making all that poison... Putting them below the Surge, and in the Scamp, would do several things: One, they would get the poison tables out of the public eye, two, they would add a bit to the places themselves (after all, why would Yastin or Salles let such a thing be? Hmmm?), and three, they would put them in places that just fit a bit better.

Anyway, I've got to run... Best of luck. I'll be back to this thread later.

[Faldred]

I like the idea of charged poisons. It's either set a certain number of charges (though I'm not sure how that would work) or set the duration for a heck of a lot longer, as has been suggested and accepted.

Or both, as was suggested (lasts until a max number of uses or a certain time).

Another possibility -- and I have no idea if/how this can be done in the scripting -- would be that each successful "hit" would reduce the DC of the remaining poison on the weapon, until after a hit using the weakest possible posion DC, the whole effect wears off.  The idea being that the first use would be "full strength", and that future uses would be with less potency, as the edge/point is no longer completely coated.  Applying more poison to the weapon woulodn't stack, but would just restore the original DC.

In any case, using poison on stackable missile weapons needs to have balance considered pretty heavily.  It would be pretty lopsided for a melee weapon to use a vial of poison and get a handful of hits in (and if using the decreasing DC suggestion, each one with a lower DC), and then turn around and have the same vial produce 20 arrows at full-strength DC.  Arrows, bolts, and darts would probably have to be made specifically for poison (for example, hollow-tipped arrowheads to hold the poison), and the difficulty or amounts would need to be high enough to compensate for the extra power.

Actually, hollow-tipped arrowheads could be fun to play around with for more than just poison... there really doesn't need to be anything restricting what you could put in them, which could make them useful for "good" characters too.  For example, filling the tips with Holy Water could add a small damage bonus against undead.  Alchemist's Fire or Acid Flasks might be used similarly.  In any case, it would need to be built into the weapon at manufacture time, requiring, say 5 flasks/vials/potions/whatever for a stack of 20 missiles.  The crafting percentages should also reflect the added difficulty -- hollow-point arrowheads should be (significantly) harder to make correctly than regular arrowheads.  The flectching task of not just making the arrows/bolts, but filling them (and then sealing) with the proper item correctly would be harder than just assembling regular arrows/bolts.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Why not just have hollow-tipped arrows or bolts as a product, then either in another crafting process, or as a "Use Item" thing, have the Fire/Acid/Water/Poison applied?