Poisons

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Poison

A poison is a substance that interferes with the natural functions of a living creature's body, causing injury or death, typically requiring only a very small amount. The target of a poison may resist with a successful saving throw. Poisons can be delayed or cured with spells such as delay poison and neutralize poison.

Broadly speaking, when someone fails a saving throw against any poison, the poison deals some amount of non-lethal damage, which always ignores the target's defenses, and inflicts a status condition. The most common status condition inflicted by poison is Ability Damage (or ability drain).

Poisons have four categories, based on how they reach the target: contact, ingested, inhaled, or injury.

Contact: These poisons are delivered the moment a creature touches the poison with its bare skin. Such poisons can be used as injury poisons. Contact poisons usually have an onset time of 1 minute and a frequency of 1 minute.

Ingested: These poisons are delivered when a creature eats or drinks the poison. Ingested poisons usually have an onset time of 10 minutes and a frequency of 1 minute.

Inhaled: These poisons are delivered the moment a creature enters an area containing such poisons and do not usually have an onset time. For most inhaled poisons, 1 dose fills a volume equal to a 10-foot cube. A creature can attempt to hold its breath while inside the area to avoid inhaling the toxin. A creature holding its breath receives a 50% chance of not having to make a Fortitude save each round. See the rules for holding your breath and suffocation. If a creature is holding its breath and fails the constitution check to continue doing so, rather than suffocating it begins to breathe normally again (and is subject to the effects of the inhaled poison if still in the area).

Injury: These poisons are primarily delivered through the attacks of certain creatures and through weapons coated in the toxin. Injury poisons do not usually have an onset time and have a frequency of 1 round.

Applying Poison

One dose of poison smeared on a weapon or some other object affects just a single target. A poisoned weapon or object retains its poison until the weapon scores a hit or the object is touched (unless the poison is wiped off before a target comes in contact with it).

Applying poison to a weapon or single piece of ammunition is a standard action. Whenever you apply or ready a poison for use, there is a 5% chance that you expose yourself to the poison and must save against the poison as normal. This does not consume the dose of poison. Whenever you attack with a poisoned weapon, if the attack roll results in a natural 1, you expose yourself to the poison. This poison is consumed when the weapon strikes a creature or is touched by the wielder. If you have the poison use class feature (such as from the assassin prestige class or the alchemist base class), you do not risk accidentally poisoning yourself when applying poison.

Multiple Doses of Poison

The effects of poison cannot be stacked, unless different poisons are used. However, if a poisoned target is afflicted with the same poison an additional time, the non-lethal damage is applied each time the target fails the save. Multiple applications of poison do not raise the save DC of the poison, nor do they increase duration or effects of the status condition inflicted.

Types of Poison

Poisons have several characteristics, each of which are limited by the potency level of the poison. These characteristics are: damage, status, onset, frequency and save DC.

Damage: All poisons deal non-lethal damage, the amount of which is based on their potency level (see Table:Potency below).

Status: All poisons inflict a single status condition. Note, when reading the table below, the listed values for Ability Damage and Energy Drain only apply if the poison inflicts that particular status condition.

• Poisons with potency levels between 1 and 12 can inflict any Weak status condition except Bloodied, Concealed, Energy Drain and Nebulous. If one of these poisons inflicts Ability Damage, reference the table to see how much Ability Damage it can deal.
• Poisons with potency levels between 13 and 24 can inflict Moderate or Weak status conditions, except Bloodied, Concealed, Incorporeal, Invisible, Nebulous, Prone and Staggered. If one of these poisons inflicts Ability Damage or Energy Drain, reference the table to see how much Ability Damage it can deal.
• Poisons with potency levels of 25 or higher can inflict any status condition except Bloodied, Concealed, Faded, Incorporeal, Invisible, Nebulous, Phased, Prone, Staggered and Unconscious. If one of these poisons inflicts Ability Damage or Energy Drain, reference the table to see how much Ability Damage it can deal.

Onset: The onset of a poison is the time it takes for a successfully poisoned creature to succumb to the effects of the poison. The poison's damage and status condition does not trigger on the poisoned creature until the onset occurs.

Frequency: The frequency of a poison is how often the poison's effects renew or trigger again. A poison's frequency only applies if the victim of the poison has not successfully saved against the poison yet. Poison frequency is determined by the category of poison used and cannot be adjusted. Namely:

• Contact: once per minute
• Ingested: once per minute
• Inhaled: once per round
• Injury: once per round

Save DC: The save DC of a poison is determined by its potency level (see Table:Potency below). Note that once a creature fails the saving throw to resist the poison, it may not make another save to get rid of the poison until the end of any round after which the poison's effects have triggered. Note that poison effects always trigger at the beginning of a character's turn on the round they trigger. That is, an ingested poison, which has a frequency of 1 minute would trigger at the start of a character's turn 10 rounds after that creature failed its save to resist the poison, and may only be saved against at the end of that round. Assuming it fails the save, it could not attempt another save until another minute had passed and the poison's effects had once again triggered. Similarly, character afflicted with an injury poison suffers the poison's effects at the start of each of the creature's turns, but gets a new saving throw at the end of that creature's turn.

Table: Poison Potency

In addition, poison costs (and craft DC's) are modified by three other characteristics: category, duration and save quantity. Use the tables below to adjust the base cost accordingly.

Category: The base cost of a poison assumes it is an injury poison. If a different category of poison is desired, modify the cost, per the table below:

Duration: The default duration of a poison is 5 times the frequency. If the poison has a different duration, modify the base cost per the table below:

Save Quantity: The base cost of a poison assumes that a single successful save will end the poison's effects. However, some poisons require more than one save, and in some extreme cases, those saves must be consecutive successes. These changes to the save quantity adjust the base cost of the poison as described in the table below:

Alcohol and Drunkenness

Perhaps the most common form of poison in any fantasy game is drunkenness. Nearly every tavern is happy to help lighten an adventurer's purse of all that ill-gotten gold, in exchange for a rarely-remembered bout of hedonism.

Outside of combat, alcohol behaves like any other ingested poisons, with an onset time of 10 minutes. It is assumed that most characters who drink alcohol are forgoing the saving throw, though, like any poison, a Fortitude save will negate the effects, if successful. Upon onset, alcohol lasts for 10 minutes per drink (a standard drink of alcohol is often much larger than a normal dose of poison; a beer, for example, is a pint (16 oz), which is assumed to have roughly the same efficacy as a 5-ounce glass of wine, or a 1-ounce shot of spirits).

Prior to becoming drunk, most characters will achieve a degree of light-headedness, reduced inhibitions, and, depending on the drinker, a tendency to see the best or worst in other people.

The effects of alcohol persist for 4 hours, minus 10 minutes per point of Constitution modifier. For example, a character with a CON of 18 (a CON modifier of +4) would only endure the effects of alcohol for 3 hours and 20 minutes. A character with a constitution score of 58 or higher (constitution modifier of +24) cannot get drunk, since the duration is reduced to zero. Similarly, anyone immune to poisons is unable to gain any effects from alcohol.

Buzzed

For each drink imbibed prior to achieving drunkenness, alcohol has the following effects (assuming the Fort save is either eschewed or failed):

• 1d6 points of non-lethal damage per drink
• 1d6+1 temporary hit points per drink, which stack with any other temp hit points gained from alcohol
• a -1 penalty to Sense Motive skill checks per drink (max of -5)

Drunk

Drunkenness, occurs at a number of drinks equal to the character's Constitution modifier. Once drunk, the character sustains the following effects, in addition to those from Buzzed:

• the character suffers a -2 penalty to any Dex-based skill checks
• the character suffers a -5 penalty to any Int- or Wis-based skill checks (replaces the penalty to Sense Motive)
• the character gains a +2 circumstance bonus to Cha-based skill checks

Stupor

If a character drinks a total of drinks equal to at least twice his Con modifier before the alcohol's duration expires, he enters a Stupor, which causes him to sustain the Rattled status condition until the alcohol's effects expire.

Unconscious

If a character drinks a total of drinks equal to at least triple his Con modifier before the alcohol's duration expires, he is rendered unconscious, regardless of whether the alcohol's non-lethal damage has actually exceeded his hit points or not.

Crafting Poisons

Potency Level	Damage	Ability Damage	Energy Drain	Save DC
1