Topic: External/Internal Poison crit tables

[Bruce]

I'm a little confused about something and hopefully someone (ICE?) can help me with this. Why do the External poison crit tables do so much more damage (hits) than all the other attack types? Okay one or two match it at tiny crit levels but nothing comes closer than 10 points lesser on a huge crit attack.  The internal poison crit table is not as bad but it is still high and to me it just doesn't make sense when compared to the other damage types. IMHO poison crits should not do as much in hits but a little better in the other areas (i.e. bleeders, stuns, modifiers, etc..).
Hopefully someone who understands this can extrapolate for me.

Bruce

[Thom @ ICE]

We don't have the details as to why the individuals who drafted the first version of HARP did what they did in this area.  It was not identified as a significant issue when we went through and did the HARP enhancement.  No official updates that may impact this are expected in the short term.

[Turbs]

my opinion was that it was generally only used as a secondary crit.

so you coat your blade in poison, you roll your slash attack / crit then you apply the same poison crit if they fail the RR.
it is generally lower due to it being "bonus damage"

/my2cents

[Bruce]

it is generally lower due to it being "bonus damage"

/my2cents

Well that is the problem, the crit damage in the internal and external poison crit charts (in HARP Fantasy) is higher than anything else.

Bruce

[Thom @ ICE]

Conceptually, poison is a killing attack.  The difficulty is getting the poison into the target, but once it is there it is devastating.  There should probably be lots of negatives on the attack side, but then lots of damage on the crit charts. 


Using a poison tipped arrow... The liquid may come off the arrow in flight, when striking the target (even plain clothing may wipe some away), when the puncture strike is converted into a crush-like damage but never pierces/touches skin, etc.


Now an ingested poison is far worse because there are no reductions.  Once someone swallows it the battle becomes internal where the individual's resistance and fortitude are up against the poison's strength. 


There are no other attacks that I am aware of that if they strike successfully have such a high chance of death - and it is reflected in the crit charts.