Poison Duration on weapons/arrows

[s0ulz]

Crippling strikes only stack up to -8 str if I remember correctly. So there is a cap to what can happen. I would imagine that there would also (or should) be a cap on how much a poison can act. It's not realist but at least it would be a compromise.

 
This is incorrect.  I've taken a 72 strength enemy down to 4.  So unless my GM co-tester was lying, it goes as far as you can continue to hit things.

As far as I know, in NWN, ability point reductions cap at the scripted minimum of 3. So you'd lower the targets strength to 3, where it caps. This also goes for poisons and other means of lowering ability stats.

[Hellblazer]

@ weebs, most giants (hill, desert) I've fought alone, only took 5 good sneak attack to take down range of 35-50 (not even criticals) And one place that crippling strike was useful was the misted village.

[jan]

Crippling strike has a built-in catch 22. You need to sneak for it to work. But if you can sneak, then you are most likely ditching out tons of damage anyway, and the monster would go down quickly and the effect would have no time to stack. A non-powerbuild rogue (i.e. not 1342 attacks/round at 2883 AB) would probably need about a minute to ditch in enough attacks (10?).

I'm not a big fan of only using part off peoples posts , but in this case you say it better then i could ......

Now change the " crippling strike " to " constitution lowering poison "

To me that adds up to : " ditching out tons off damage " with a plus from lowering constitution that at 30 points ( ? ) is higher then any other bonus someone COULD get on strikes .( correct me if I'm wrong and PLEASE tell me how to achieve that if i am )

The idea off having poisons as potent as that , requiring 13 + ( epic ) rogue lvl's to be able to use them sounds good and indeed will make the rogue unique .

[Weeblie]

You still miss the core problem with poisons: DC

Playing a WM character, I'm quite certain you are all aware of the feasibility of receiving 100+ in damage on each crit. Now... consider the chance of critting and the chance of a level 30 monster to fail the save? You will directly see that the critting chance is far, far greater than the chance of failing a DC 26 fort save (if I recall correctly, DC 26 poison is the highest DC ones existing).

You can't take the best arguments for use of a high level creature and then apply them on a low level creature.

Low HD = low saves = always low damage from con poison
High HD = high saves = on average still low damage from con poison

[jan]

Looking at the statistics for critical hits , you should take into account that WM characters only have better odds because they spend feats on it to improve it .

So unless there is a way for other characters to take feats that make the saves others need to make higher , you should disregard them .

You will find that a WM who doesn't infest in strength and feats falls back to the critical range of the weapon they use .

So in my case 19-20 for critical hits ( longsword )

I don't know what you calculate it to be , but i come on a 19-20 that HAS to be thrown on a 20 sided dice .
Nice odds right ?

Low HD = low saves = low HP's .
High HD = high saves =higher Hp's.

The loss of HP's on high lvl's might not be much , but if you only have 30 HP to begin with and you lose 1/3 on EXTRA damage ( possibly per round )then it is substantial.( Especially if it stacks for a few rounds )

I'm not sure which character has what high saves , but i know that the will save for fighters is always low ( without specialised gear anyway ) , so i suspect other classes have their lower saves as well.

[s0ulz]

Looking at the statistics for critical hits , you should take into account that WM characters only have better odds because they spend feats on it to improve it .

So unless there is a way for other characters to take feats that make the saves others need to make higher , you should disregard them .

You will find that a WM who doesn't infest in strength and feats falls back to the critical range of the weapon they use .

So in my case 19-20 for critical hits ( longsword )

I don't know what you calculate it to be , but i come on a 19-20 that HAS to be thrown on a 20 sided dice .
Nice odds right ?

Low HD = low saves = low HP's .
High HD = high saves =higher Hp's.

The loss of HP's on high lvl's might not be much , but if you only have 30 HP to begin with and you lose 1/3 on EXTRA damage ( possibly per round )then it is substantial.( Especially if it stacks for a few rounds )

I'm not sure which character has what high saves , but i know that the will save for fighters is always low ( without specialised gear anyway ) , so i suspect other classes have their lower saves as well.

I'm pretty sure that if you're a WM in longsword you must have improved critical in the weapon chosen, which doubles your critical threat range to 17-20. In addition every WM with 7 levels gains another additional threat range boost, so I wouldn't say that WM's should be left out of this discussion due to feats spent. Your and pretty much every melee maximizes their threat range to be more effective.

On point though, as Chongo and Weeblie have tried to establish, DC based poison attributes as they are, are only useful in the front end spectrum of levels. In epic levels they become pretty much useless and only remain an asset in quests. Epic level encounters tend to have high saves which overcome the poison DCs most of the time. Targets would fail their DCs much more seldom than a melee crits.

Either way, this discussion has become pretty much moot, because as the system currently is, poisons are not worth the effort. Some sort of overhaul would definitely help the situation.

[Weeblie]

Uh... yes, it is in theory possible to create a WM without increasing the threat range at all (just use another weapon), that simply does make no sense. In your case, the threat range would be 19-20 as base, doubling it because of Improved Critical and another +2 from Ki Critical for a grand total of 15 - 20 (6 in 20 chance on each hit). And this is with a completely normal weapon and not something fancy with a base 18 - 20 crit range and/or keen.

In either case, it doesn't really matter.

Your argument of that con penalties are severe and good replacements for doing normal damage is all based on the assumption of failed DC. As I mentioned before, the DC is so very low so it makes no difference. A level 30 creature having a decrement of 2 con from poison gets a -30 to HP sounds a lot, but then consider that the chance of failure is about 0 in 20. Or even with a nice 3 in 20, it would mean an estimated "extra" damage of 4,5 and capping after a few hits.

After all, one reaches the second catch 22: High constitution = high fortitude save = cannot fail. Low constitution = capping quickly.

[Chongo]

Jan, arguing the weakness of a weaponmaster is an effort of utter futility.  Particularly in the case of the WM class, the only fault of imbalance lies with the player.

[jan]

Jan, arguing the weakness of a weaponmaster is an effort of utter futility.  Particularly in the case of the WM class, the only fault of imbalance lies with the player.

I'm saying that WM get its strength from feats .

Want to overhaul poisons and their durations ?
Make them effective so the DC will not stop the usefulness on higher lvl's ?

Over haul it and get it covered with feats , just like every other character needs feats to open up their strength-points .

First feat : poison use 1 , the ability to put durable LOW poisons on a weapon and a - 3 to saves for those suffering the attacks on the appropriate save .

Second feat : poison use 2 , the ability to use durable Medium poisons on a weapon and a - 6 to saves for those suffering the attacks on the appropriate saves .

Thirth feat : poison use 3 , the ability to put durable High poisons on weapons and a - 9 to saves for those suffering the attacks on the appropriate saves .


The feats should be lvl dependent and based on having some skills ( like healing skill )

That will prevent that use off poisons will be abused and that there will be a price payed for potentially extra damage .


PS @ chongo

This is not place to discuss WM , but if it gets used i will answer and if you read correctly then you know as well as every one that there is no WM if you don't take the subscribed feats and skills .

[Chongo]

Thank you for your input and opinions on the matter Jan.  They will be taken into consideration.

[Dorganath]

There will be no overhauling of anything.

As far as I'm concerned, the case has been sufficiently made both for and against the original suggestion.  At this point, it's a determination as to whether poison is now as it is intended to be (i.e. making the crafting and use of poisons largely for RP value) or if the mechanics of poison use were simply overlooked.

[Weeblie]

Poison is available for all and not class dependent (but heavily restricted due to RP reasons). A change on it changes it for everyone. The only bonus assassins and blackguards get is the ability to apply the poison without any failure rate (otherwise, a dex check of some sort). Would you find it super icky good still with the present DCs? Why not use it yourself?

If anything item-wise should be blocked, it should be those items giving spells.

Healer's Hug? "Item Proficiency I (Cleric)".
Helmet of Armor II? "Item Proficiency I (Druid)".
Dragon-foe-thingy? "Item Profiency III (Cleric)".

I don't think that would be a good idea...

[Weeblie]

As an added side note...

Poison in its current shape and form isn't completely as useless as one thinks. Yes, it's use in normal game play is quite zero.

But on a quest or in the presence of a DM...?

[s0ulz]

A weaponmaster gets its strengths from the class, not feats. Once you go WM, you gain things with levelup abilities. You don't have to burn any feats to get the extra AB or Critical Threat Range, only the prerequisite ones that every prestige class has demand for.

There is no grounds on comparing a WM's power to the potential imbalance of these poisons. Every prestige class has prerequisites and that's that.

Regarding the poison system I don't think it would be as fair to incorporate them as feats. NWN forces most builds to be feat intensive as it is and if we were to make poison usage a feat based ability, it would have to be of much greater effect that we've discussed here. That on its own would make it a lot harder to balance.

Just in case I also want to state that I hope I'm not coming off too rude, but NWN will never be totally balanced. Some classes will be superior in any given situation, therefore I suggest we focus on finding ways of making the poison system effective, not run around in circles trying to find proof in its possible imbalance issues.

[stragen]

Disclaimer: None of my characters use posion.

Barion -like many of the monsters out there- is immune to the effects of posion.

For characters without this immunity posions are deadly.  However, for monsters, this isn't the case.

So what I'm suggesting is the duration increased, one minute would be perfect

1 RL minute seems fair to me.  

Cheers,

Stragen

[Dorganath]

OK, with 3.01.5 (latest update) we're trying some increased durations.  See my update notes for details.

This is a trial basis only at this point.  Be responsible, and it stays.

[Dorganath]

Can I get some feedback on this?

It's been in-place for a month now, and there's been no comments. Can I assume the results are satisfactory?

[Stug3]

Much better than it was...The dex check to apply is a bummer but oh well.

[Eight-Bit]

It's my personal belief that doubling the DC and removing the duration, but making poison a one-hit enhancement would effectively counter the utter uselessness while keeping the system balanced.

[darkstorme]

Unfortunately, while increasing the DC and duration are easy, "poisoning a weapon" is built into the game by Bioware, so drastically changing the mechanics would be non-trivial.