Topic: How do you handle poison on weapons?

[Druss_the_Legend]

How do you handle poison on weapons?

Since I now have an assassin in my campaign i am wanting to give him access to poisons (they will be expensive and hard to get).

When applied to a weapon such as a blade, arrow or dart, how do you handle this in combat and how much poison is needed? For example if you have 5 doses, how many doses is needed for a sword (all 5?) dagger (2-3 doses?) darts (1/2 dose?).

Im thinking that liquid and paste based poisons will be best for weapons.

I was going to rule that only on a crit result does the poison work. Is this what other GMs do?

[Spectre771]

I don't recall if there is a chart from RM2 that shows a dosage amount to be applied, but I know there is a chart that lists how many PP's of magic an item can hold.  You could use this as a guide for "How many doses are needed for a weapon."  That just popped in my head as I was getting ready to write my response and I wanted to get it out before I forgot.


We handled poisoned weapons thusly:

- One dose per weapon.  The poison only needs to cover the part of the weapon that will actually be penetrating into the opponent.  You wouldn't put poison on the flights of your arrow or the shaft, only the arrowhead.  A 2H axe only needs the cutting edge to be coated, not the entire surface of the axe-head (both sides), or the haft.

- A crit other than Krush needed to be attained in order to "show" that the weapon bypassed armour and pierced the body to allow the poison to be introduced into the organism.

- The poison stayed on the blade only for 5 rounds of fighting (not attacking in a round didn't count) before it needed to be reapplied to the weapon. 

- If the attack was high enough to appear on the attack table but yielded 0 points damage, it didn't count towards the five rounds.  It was considered a blocked weapon or ineffectual attack with the "wrong" part of the weapon. 

- If it yielded concussion damage, but no crit, it counted towards the five rounds.  The attack had the intent of delivering the poisoned bit into the organism but hit armour and wasn't enough to penetrate the skin, therefore some poison was wiped off on armour or clothing.

- Once the poison was successfully delivered into the organism, the poison needed to be reapplied to the weapon, whether it was the 1st round or the 4th round.  The attacker couldn't successfully poison five targets with a single dose on a weapon.  After entering the organism, the entire poison dose was effectively used.

It seems restrictive in that the attacker needs a critical and a non-Krush crit at that, but the attacker is given five chances to introduce the poison into the body.  Upon success, the organism needed to make the Poison RR or start to suffer the effects of the poison.

[HawksNut]

The RMSS "Gamemaster Law" has a good section on poisons. You might have to create your own for your campaign but that is covered in the GM Law as well. I agree, oily poisons or paste type poisons would work best.

[Druss_the_Legend]

I don't recall if there is a chart from RM2 that shows a dosage amount to be applied, but I know there is a chart that lists how many PP's of magic an item can hold.  You could use this as a guide for "How many doses are needed for a weapon."  That just popped in my head as I was getting ready to write my response and I wanted to get it out before I forgot.


We handled poisoned weapons thusly:

- One dose per weapon.  The poison only needs to cover the part of the weapon that will actually be penetrating into the opponent.  You wouldn't put poison on the flights of your arrow or the shaft, only the arrowhead.  A 2H axe only needs the cutting edge to be coated, not the entire surface of the axe-head (both sides), or the haft.

- A crit other than Krush needed to be attained in order to "show" that the weapon bypassed armour and pierced the body to allow the poison to be introduced into the organism.

- The poison stayed on the blade only for 5 rounds of fighting (not attacking in a round didn't count) before it needed to be reapplied to the weapon. 

- If the attack was high enough to appear on the attack table but yielded 0 points damage, it didn't count towards the five rounds.  It was considered a blocked weapon or ineffectual attack with the "wrong" part of the weapon. 

- If it yielded concussion damage, but no crit, it counted towards the five rounds.  The attack had the intent of delivering the poisoned bit into the organism but hit armour and wasn't enough to penetrate the skin, therefore some poison was wiped off on armour or clothing.

- Once the poison was successfully delivered into the organism, the poison needed to be reapplied to the weapon, whether it was the 1st round or the 4th round.  The attacker couldn't successfully poison five targets with a single dose on a weapon.  After entering the organism, the entire poison dose was effectively used.

It seems restrictive in that the attacker needs a critical and a non-Krush crit at that, but the attacker is given five chances to introduce the poison into the body.  Upon success, the organism needed to make the Poison RR or start to suffer the effects of the poison.

this is all sounding really good. Thanks for sharing. i like the 5 round restriction and the conditions for it to actually work. It will mean that certain weapons will be best for poisoned attacks, but that is common sense. arrows, dagger and darts would be best as they can puncture more often on the weapon table right? missile weapons may be more effective and i think i would allow each individual arrow or dart a chance to work as opposed to a melee weapon where you will potentially get 5 chances for it to work and then its gone.

in terms of the amount of poison needed i will go with this for now:
1 any sword/axe = 5 doses
1 dagger = 2 doses
1 arrow/crossbow bolt =1 dose
1 dart = 1/2 dose

when a player buys the poison (liquid or paste) they will get 5 doses worth to use on any combination of weapons or a single larger weapon eg.sword

with the appropriate skills a player could turn a powdered poison into a paste or liquid although there would be a chance they would dilute or lessen the effects of the poison if they rolled badly. Just like in life its always cheaper to learn to make and repair items yourself instead of paying for someone to perform what is actually a pretty straightfowrd task, once you know how it is done.

[yammahoper]

http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2002/sep/optionalpoisonrules.html

[Druss_the_Legend]

http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2002/sep/optionalpoisonrules.html

interesting optional rules here. thanks for posting. seems a little complicated at first glance.
im going to say if the poisoned weapon does any type of puncture or slash crit, it works but they still get an RR.
I like that there is still a small % chance there is even if not crit is delivered but thats another roll to make. i think ill just say it doesnt take affect but will give them a penalty to their RR depending on the severity of the crit. -10 or -20 per severity.

[markc]

That extra roll might be able to be fostered off on another player, ie the person who uses poison rolls the attack and the GM or the player to the right, left, etc rolls just in case they have a chance that they might be poisoned.
Or you can simply print out a sheet a random D100 rolls and just cross one off every time that person attacks, print a new random table for each session and use it for everything a PC would need to do in which they should not know the number, ie hiding, sneaking, trap detection, trap removal, etc.


I have used some combo of each or each of the above methods in various games and they all have their trade offs.
MDC

[Spectre771]

in terms of the amount of poison needed i will go with this for now:
1 any sword/axe = 5 doses
1 dagger = 2 doses
1 arrow/crossbow bolt =1 dose
1 dart = 1/2 dose

when a player buys the poison (liquid or paste) they will get 5 doses worth to use on any combination of weapons or a single larger weapon eg.sword

with the appropriate skills a player could turn a powdered poison into a paste or liquid although there would be a chance they would dilute or lessen the effects of the poison if they rolled badly. Just like in life its always cheaper to learn to make and repair items yourself instead of paying for someone to perform what is actually a pretty straightfowrd task, once you know how it is done.

That looks like a pretty good convention.  You may consider lowering the axe dose to maybe 3 or 4 as the cutting edge of an axe is less length than the cutting edge (sometimes two edges) of a sword, unless you have one of the really large Halberd blades.

For mixing the poisons, there are plenty of skills you can implement to make it more interesting for the poisoner.  Use/Remove Poison, Poison Lore, Herb Lore, Flora Lore, Cooking, Brewing, First Aid.  You can mix and match any combinations of skills and go as in depth as you'd like.  I'm not sure which system you're using, but RM2 offered those skill options.

[markc]

What about a custom skill or a present skill be modified to be able to deliver poison? ie make an anatomy roll, armor roll (determine how to get through it), ambush roll, etc.
But the problem I see with having a skill be partly responsible to deliver poison is that it could become a lot more prevalent but then again that might prompt more laws, magical healing, magical detection, crack down on makers/sellers/ etc.
I guess it can really just depend on where you want your game to go. 
MDC

[GamemasterAlf]

The main thing I do not agree with on the optional rules is setting everyone to a level 1 for RR purposes. Yes poison is deadly but no more so than magic could be so should everybody be level 1 for that as well?

Toxins will have various potencies and people will have various tolerances
A real life example is scorpion venom (depending on species of course) can often deadly to the very young and old/infirm but not normally deadly to an adult. Same venom same potentcy but with highly differing results

I typically think of levels for RR purposes as luck, fate, other whims of the gods and whatever else you care to name it. If you are thinking of them as your bodies direct ability to metabolize poison then you should go with level 1 and take your 50 /50 chance to live through the next bee sting your character gets.

I also agree with a critical being required to deliver poison although I did not see any commentary on a "contact" type of poison. This could be delivered with just hits or the rules for "touch" .
An interesting development with this type of poison could be - it wears off the weapon, but on what? The poison does not get delivered until the target goes to take off his armor that night and touches it? (I don't think I would ever play any poison this way unless it were a legendary poison of some sort though)

[Majyk]

Yup, we indexed the numbers on the Herb/Poisons chart for Rarity with how many Ranks one needed in the appropriate Lore skills(Herb/Poison) in order for the Poisoner to be able to fully understand the use of whatever they were after.

Then, the requisite RM roll on the Move/Man table to harvest the thing properly - again using the Rarity number to help move the Difficulty down the track(1=Routine, 2=Easy, etc.).

For how many doses were found, I'd let the PC roll a 2d10-Rarity#/Rarity# so most times very rare herbs/poisons remained just that...

For buying from an Apothecary, I'd grace the PC with a bonus from the salesman imparting instructions on its use and lowering the column by a few notches(1-? depending on the NPC's own Ranks/5).

The one thing is how long the poison lasts on a blade as I hated one-shot uses, and always gave a declining exponential % for the poison still being effective after Hit / Crit.
100%\50%\25%\13%\etc.


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We get old because we've stopped playing!"
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