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The reason that poison is in the DMG and not the PHB is because everything but the trash, basic poison is subject to DM approval and usually has to be made/collected rather than bought. This is why poison is almost ignored in organized play. You can't get any of the good choices.
@@dragonboyjgh Since most enemies lack ranged attacks and therefore have to move to deal melee damage, and Mind Whip forces either a Move or Attack… It’s Bonkers 😂. Cheap, targets the worst save (INT) and finally no concentration. This is what people think Stunning Strike is lmao, I’ve already decimated several bosses with it.
@@cattiston374 with how many humanoid monsters there are that can easily be handed a bow, it makes deflect missile reasonable. It’s also useful against any ranged attack so if the throw alchemist fire, daggers, like a quill, you can try to deflect it.
@@PackTacticsHi! Just wanted to mention that in the Tomb of Anni campaign I'm playing in I've managed to harvest some of the poison from giant wolf spiders - I think it does about 2d8 or something like that? Regardless, I'm saving it for when my Fighter/Rogue gets the Assassin subclass... It's going to make a DEADLY opener with that guaranteed crit on my longbow!
Even though I let my players do this (and encourage them) they still ignore poisons for the most part lol. I have no clue how they can't see how good poisons really are.
@@Macronaso an encounter with drow arachnomancer 10d6 poison damage no save. And make a dose are two as a loot not harvest so they can taste it. After that they should have some interest. And if they like they can find some mild poison. I recommend those with no save or half damage. It s easier to use with no big investment.
Honestly, I feel like poison should be an expected and base part of all martial kits. It's one of the few non-magic wats to increase damage, and it gives a good thing for martials to spend gold on in a setting where you can't just buy magic items off the shelf.
I've got a character called "scorpion:" Bugbear + pole arm master feat + battle master lunging strike + a pike + poisoning the pike = 15-20 feet radius of don't move or get opportunity attacked and suffer.
OR just go and find haste potion.... or weakest healing potion that will let you do much more then spending 300 gold to for one turn put someone to sleep as he will get woken up. And if you use them for traps/ or assassination you can buy caltrops that cost 100 times less and spread them around and they will probably still deal more then poison. Or just buy explosives or fire flasks....
My Dwarven monk used his down time every day to find and extract poisons/toxins. Medicine check for plants. Animal handling for venom. Survival checks for extracting from dead creatures.
@@greedier-7661 Did you miss the part where there's mechanics to extract poison from a monster for free? Do you think it's more fun to shut some one down in a group game rather than try and add to an idea and find a way to make something work when some one wants to do what they think is cool?
If you want more poison, then there's more chance of poison being used by monsters and other opponents. If the DM compounds more instances of poison with increasing the deadly nature of it, there's more chance of the PC being killed by poison.
Problem with poison (aside from half the manual being immune) is that it's stupidly expensive. Unless your DM gives you gold and nothing but gold an magic items literally every single adventure you go, you just won't have enough money to craft or buy that many. That's why I think Alchemy Jug is a great item, the free oil, acid, and poison it creates are super useful.
Harvesting poison is an option. Best if you have a beast master with a snake, better a winged snake. But you can have one as a pet. Now I m playing a yuan-ti artificer2samurai3 for unlimited charm snake and a winged serpent and poisoner as a free feat. One dose of 2d6 free poison and no save. Had a hard time convincing my DM but he accepted by nerfing it😭😭 no magic resistance. But now I m pretty poison focus with crossbow. Now need to convince him to let me create ice ammo with holy water and shape water for fiend and undead.
Look for a poisonous monster to harvest. It's an interesting flavorful reward in and of itself to turn a slain enemy into a weapon. There's president in the game. Wyvern venom can be harvested and used as a weapon or monster deterrent.
@@andritsiryfun fact, you can RAW have two background features from different backgrounds as long as you pick any of the Ravnica or Spelljammer ones! have fun!
I love that Inhaled poisons still affect you if you don't inhale them. I mean, yeah, there are absolutely harmful gaseous substances that will affect you regardless of whether or not you breathe them in. But those aren't *inhaled* toxins, they're *gaseous* toxins. If something is an inhaled toxin, *YOU HAVE TO INHALE IT FOR IT TO WORK* that's what the fucking word means! 5E's terminology always makes me rage. Don't even get me started on actions and bonus actions.
Awesome video! I just ran my party through a goblin warren and various poisons (and alchemical items) were the main way I created threat. For context, I have 6 players at level 8 who have pretty crazy stats. While most of them have really good CON saves, half damage and just forcing repeated checks round after round produced a challenging series of combats that kept them on their toes. As a player, I ran a lizardfolk thrower build (BM/alchemist) who aguemented his attacks heavily with a variety of poisons. It was a tonne of fun and I recommend it!
7:25 "Maybe your druid wild shaped into...Never mind, that's weird" Not sure what beast you were thinking about, but prudeness is sub-optimal 😛 That's a good idea: moon druids can turn into Giant Scorpions (CR 3) starting at 9th level, which have a decent poison (4d10 damage on a failed DC 12 constitution saving throw, or half damage on a successful one).
Even the lowest level of wildshape gets to become a giant wolf spider which gets an acceptable early game poison. (atleast on the statblock its dc 11 con save for 2d6 or half on a fail. If the poison drops you to 0 you are stable but paralyzed for 1hr) Considering its available at level 2 that is a decent bump to your martials' damage output and even a decent way to capture people alive. And its also expected of a beast intended to be fought by lower level parties. Obviously circle of the moon can get the strongest wildshapes which means it can get the strongest poisons making ot most optimal for late/mid game druid poison milking.
I played a Whispers Bard with the Poisoner feat. Me and my DM had a blast coming up with poisons and ways to use them. Between the poisons and the psychic blades ability my bard hit like a frieght train. I absolutely love poisons and wish they were better implemented in DND
It is! Personally tho I'd have the druid take damage tho, cause that's VERY EASY access with no challenge behind it. That said I wouldn't say that much damage, maybe something like 1d4 to 1d6. Something small, or one dose per transformation only
@@kelmirosue3251 Yes, I also take damage when I give other people my saliva. Also, even if you want to put that limitation on it, it's a meaningless one anyway, since they're wild shaped and that damage comes from rented hit points.
@@renatocorvaro6924 you sound so dumb when you spoke you know? 1: Venom doesn't come from a snake saliva, it goes from a small sack in their body 2: Venom is ejected out of a snakes teeth, not their own saliva 3: Venom has to be injected into someone through injury for it to work. Meanwhile poison does not have that limitation So please before speaking read 1: the ops comment. 2: Re-read what I said. Finally 3: Then think of why I wouldn't allow it
Venom and poison aren't the same thing though. Snake Venom is just protein. Assuming I have no wounds in my digestive tract I can drink Venom and be fine.
You literally just whipped this out at the perfect time. I was a bit worried about my choice of poison kit before my first campaign in years because I never see anyone speak about poisons, but I felt like they were overlooked by others honestly. Thanks for more info !
Having a lot of irl knowledge of poisonous/toxic materials, and the historical uses of such, i have long loved their use in games, but generally thought that the implementation of most poison systems are pretty sub standard. I generally make crafting poison a multi-step process that allows for binding agents, catalysts, preserving agents, and more to be added to base materials, and for weapons to be crafted to better hold/spread a given poison. When i eventually finish my RPG system you can bet that poisons will be considered a common upgrade medium for most weapons, and in some cases even spells (optional material component with types limited by spell in question, or use of specific specialized foci). Its actually one of the best ways to keep martial characters, and non-standard-attack casters up on par with the rest of the team. And, knowing what i do about “poisons”, you can also create medicinal poisons that allow you to give aid to people via non-magical ways. Generally weak effects unless you use potent materials, but hey, the right powder, spray, or injection can definitely aid someone… even if many of those have side effects.
Also irl "poisons" have about as many pathways as we have unique chemical reactions needed to stay alive. "Poisons" in a high magic fantasy setting like DnD should have varied effects that interact with all systems in the game. Their should be a "mage slayer" group of poisons that mess up spell casters. Maybe one deals damage every time you cast a spell (1d6 per spell slot level with 1d4 for a cantrip for example), and maybe another that disables spell casting all together (like when a warlock angers their patron). But other classes too, like blocking a druid's wildshape or a barbarian's rage, or even as simple as breaking your attunement to a magic item. Point is get creative, a poison doesn't have to just deal damage and possibly paralyze/incapacitate. You could also replace every time i said "poison" with "disease" and get the same complaint. Both of these are very underdeveloped systems in DnD 5e.
but Kobold, there are plenty of naturally based poisons from common plants and animals that would be so much easier to get ahold of in large quantities by just maintaining a small vegetable garden, no coin investment required...
I must say that poisons are really strong, really help boost our Rouges damage, heck, it even ended a powerful encounter with the Mad Mage thanks to that one poison that puts people to sleep!
My biggest issue with poison is how expensive the most basic version is for such a lackluster effect, it might be the sort of campaigns I've been in but 100 gold for a single use item is way too steep for me.
7:52 RAW you can't command a target to sleep. Command only forces them to attempt to comply with the command, and if they are not physically capable of complying the spell ends with no effect. As most creatures that understand a language are not physically capable of instantaneously rendering themselves unconscious, command sleep would do nothing.
Had a rogue that used poisons to great effect. She had like, 13 different daggers in specially made sheathes to keep it from being washed off when she like, got randomly splashed by a cart hitting a pothole with some water in it. Used Sharpshooter to allow her to throw them nice and far as well (as the first two pips of the feat do work with thrown daggers, removing the short range, allowing you to throw to the long range without disadvantage, and the removing half and three quarters cover. The -5 attack and +10 damage one does not apply to thrown daggers though)
I'm straight up making poisons work in a high level game! It's been a blast so far to try and use them effectively. They've lead to some amazing roleplaying when they both failed and succeeded.
inhaled poisons are even better if your GM allows you to combine it with smoke bombs, allowing it to poison a larger area (some assembly required of course) the trade off is you sacrifice subtlety for more AoE
It's not JUST Basic Poison. Poisoner Feat Potent Poison also only lasts a minute. Basically, it's the two you can create with a kit without needing to harvest it or buy it on the black market.
Im playing a gnoll and one of his race feats is being able to apply poison on a bite attack First thing i sent to my dm after watching was "CAN KEL MILK HIMSELF FOR POISON" with a link to the vid lmao
Listen, this is a lose-lose for your DM. If they say yes, you get unlimited poison. If they say no, they're literally squashing bodily autonomy in D&D. :P
I got a whole NPC designed around poison. One of the mechanics of my world is "talents," some people naturally have the ability to cast one spell at will and at, and over time the spell will evolve and become a new spell. For example fireball became fire bolt and delayed blast fireball. This NPC has the can cast detect poison at will and can not only detect poison but analyze it. What it is, how it kills, how to cure it, how to create it. She started off as a slave used to detect assassination attempts, and now she's a high level rouge and the world's leading expert on poison, she even wrote a book on it (which isn't selling well.) Anyway, if you want to poison something that's immune to poison, become immune to poison, obtain a poison that doesn't kill you to fake you're death, or anything else, she's the one to go to.
Creation bard!!!! You can make any poison you want by level 13. Yeah a lot of things are immune, but many are resistant. A creation bard with poisoner can apply purple worm poison to the spikes of your flying chariot spikes! Also using PW poison on a hand crossbow is a really good use of your free creation if you have a dancing item already. Imagine pw poison on a crossbow, bonus action bardic inspiration on your animated object (also coated in poison) and use that same BA to trigger your item to attack while covered in pw poison!
I remember when DM was forced to sacrifice a whole session and half for our party trying to find black market to buy poisoner's kit for my character🤣 We made some mission impossible kind of deal from it, finding shady alchemist... discovering underground drug facility and in the end we uncovered assassination plot but didn't found poisoner's kit cause they managed to burn the evidence... though we made a deal with a politician guy to order one for me ☠ (I have poisoner's feat)
My favorite trick with poisons is to take the locate plants and animals spell, cast it to find Giant Poisonous Snakes, and then extract their 200 gp poison to sell in-town
It should also be mentioned that a fun cheese with the dc's of poisons is to give to the chain warlock who has chain master's familiar because that Invocation effects any dc the familiar causes
Our DM has a table where we can forage for poisons using nature or survival. table is split into 3 parts, 1-10, 11-20, 20+ based in you roll for foraging. Then you roll for which poison you can make. Nothing like purple worm poison, but there are some that get up to 10d6 from local plants and animals. Some for sleep, some for incapacitate, some for madness. Its pretty cool and makes our ranger a lot more dangerous.
I’m more than a little surprised you didn’t go into the Poisoner feat. I wish the DC for the poison it lets you make wasn’t preset and it bypassed immunity, but who knows. Maybe if we are going back to leveled feats there could be a Poisoner Master feat
I just wish poisons worked a little differently in D&D 5e most things already have a good constitution and that part is understandable because constitution controls HP but the two things that should change is there should be more things that are resistant to poisons versus things that are immune that will give more value to the poisoner feat and I’ve bumped into too many things that have advantage on a poison con save if those two things were tweaked I think you’d see more players, trying to use poisons early on in my D&D 5e adventures I did try and failed miserably so if I do you ever use a poison it’s more for a Hail Mary play and definitely not something that should burn too many resources on trying to acquire but I love the idea of poisons and just wish they worked better
Got a fun little one in my setting, being "Illyrian Sweat" Which is an Injury type poison with a Dc15 that causes the sufferer to have their perception of time accelerated, causing time to appear to crawl past to them This causes the sufferer to succeed another check everytime they attempt to use a point of action economy, skill points or spell slots, failing to be able to use it on a failed save and be completely shut out from reactions As clued in by the name, the Poison is the sweat of a species of Unseelie Fae known as an "Illyrian", who are known to live quite mercenary life styles. They produce the poison from their palms and smear it on their weapon to inflict the effect while in combat
I'd be interested to see you go over all the diseases. While ik its not something players can access easily, it'd be interesting to see your opinions on them for the DM's to use to help make their campaigns more interesting and challenging without having to make long encounters
See, I keep wanting to make a poison user, but everyone always says "don't do that, everything is immune, do something better instead". I love the idea of a discreet poison user, a ghost who kills without leaving a trace. Happy Pride!
nice guide as always! A thing to note: as a DM if you spamming conjure familiar to harvest for poison from sudodragon, i will change your alignement to evil, and your find familiar will be either terrorize by you, sarcastique, evelish and sometime being a nuisance. he always obey your command, but can act independantely, he could leave a message on the ground to help foes, insult someone in a middle of a conversation. nothing in the spell say that the spirit is always the same or not, or if they know each other
A rogue in one of my campaigns managed to get her hands on a briefcase full of Purple Worm poison... plus 14th level sneak attack and an Oath Bow... there be a lotta-damage!
I love poisons as a concept, but single-use things like that with a chance of failure really make my frugality senses go into overdrive. They're much better if you're not purchasing them, but even then if you harvest Wyvern poison or something, that's a hefty amount of gold you could use to put toward something else more permanent. Also, I'm primarily a 3E/Pathfinder player, and poisons are (with a couple exceptions) absolute trash in those systems, so though they're way better in 5E due to the lower numbers monsters get for saves, there's still that inherent bias that makes me wince seeing their statblocks. In a vacuum, they're amazing. In practice, there is a big question of opportunity cost. What else could you be purchasing with that money? Still though, harvesting is a great option and a good option for treasure a DM can give you.
That chart in the beginning. That link to Cephalon is Condition Immunities. Where is that Damage Type Immunity chart you showed? Thank you. Great work.
One system I've been toying with is making poisons and other consumable items that mimic the weapon buff items from the SoulsBorne games. Anyone with the poison or elemental damage item can take a bonus action to apply that item to their weapon or ammo. If you have a feat or class feature that lets you "Handle poison without poisoning yourself" then applying the poison is your free object interaction for the turn. These items add conditions and bonus damage to weapon attacks for a time. The general rule of thumb is the damage amount varies with rarity, but does not exceed a number of d6s equal to or less than the number of d8s the paladin can smite for if they burn their highest spell slot. The non consumable high level version of this system is slotted weapons and materia gems that do the same but last forever.
I run with the save or die mechanic with some poisons. Most poisons in my games do further damage if the save is failed, but some are just plain nasty enough to exact the ultimate price for failing the save. Save vs poison or die.
Poisons are incredible! You can also try to harvest it from plants, fungi and other environmental elements. One of my PC used summon greater demon to get some shooshuva paralysing poison and then helped the group to solve a cult problem without using violence and turned them to the authorities. They are perfect for creative gameplay that's optimal!
One of my characters is an alchemist artificer who specialises in poisons, and while I unfortunately haven't had much of a chance to play her properly I absolutely love poisons in 5e One thing I've been finding particularly fun is trying to figure out ways to make poisons that might bypass the resistances of certain creatures, for example using holy water in one to make an anti fiend/undead poison, it's a neat little thought experiment
Playing in a feywild adjacent campaign currently called "The Vale." I made a custom background called "Vale Wanderer" about how I am of the area and am in tune with nature. DM approved my background feature where I can forage for 1 goodberry or 1 poison berry (PHB basic poison) proficiency bonus times a day. My arcane archer going crazy with a little bit of poison on my arrows and blowgun
7:24 That just makes me remember Ginny Di in druid cosplay and her D&D flirting videos. "I can allow you to milk my snake... wild shape". Definitely weird =D
Can confirm that poison's are great, even at high level. While we're a bit out of money a lot of the time (every party member has some big character focused goals to spend money on). Our rogue has the Poisoner's Kit's proficiency and been trying to extract poisons from wherever they can. And these poisons are a life saver, I remember a poison blinding an Frost Giant one combat. Allowing us to deal with it's minions easier before taking out the big guy themselves.
Our DM made this whole process with adventurers gear and purchasable magic items so simple. Your level is your adventure guild level and that shows on your license. Using the license you can get access to better stuff at the guild sanctioned shops that are always right next to the adventurers guild hall. There is also the close by tavern that all the adventures hang out at, hotels, stables, and other adventurer focused stuff. Then of course if you ask the right people the right questions they can lead you down hidden alleys for all the black market shops. All the normally looted stuff can be sold at the adventurers guild and black market. There are laws that require a guild license for ownership of stuff like poisons, magic items, weapons in the city, no toll fees, and so on and each has a required level. If someone is freely walking around with a magic weapon they are big shots and everyone knows who they are. The smaller the city the lower the level cap of the stuff they have which directly translates into fewer services too. At the other end the biggest cities have the arenas in the adventurers district where you can sign up as a gladiator to fight captured monsters. If we have a short session the arena is always a fun time. He has a whole list of prebuilt battle encounters we can do there to just jump into it. Again the fights are determined by your level/adventurer rank.
Thing is: 100gp for a ONE use thing that could fail, especially so at a relatively low DC, is just not worth the effort, to me. And all the fun stuff (harvesting and designing new ones) depends too much on the GM willing to put work in, over which I have no control.
One thing that I made recently with my Scout Rogue was hunting some snakes and scorpions. The DM choises to give to me Basic Poison instated to the animals poison but removed the Harvest test so was ok. I din't use that poison yet but I have interest to use and remember everyone about that roll.
One thing I liked to do with my eldritch knight was smash a alchemist fire over his head to cast absorb elements for a pseudo smite. I basically turn 1d4 damage into a number of d6’s equal to the spell level.
"I don't understand why people don't talk about them" "Chapter 8 of the DMG-" There's your answer. If it's in the DMG it's optional, so it might as well not exist.
You know what I love about DnD is something as functionally simple as poison ties into player morality and the opinions of the gods. For example say a player taked poisons and puts them into a cake. They put the cake into the cabin of a murderer expecting him to think his wife made it for him and eat it whike his wife is out. What you didn't count on is his 10 year old son coming home from tutor early and finding the cake first then eating it. This happened because you put the poison there. Some players would argue the player is "wrong" and "at fault". Some would say innocent and not even to worry about it as long as you're not caught. Some of the Gods might say the player is responsible and some gods wouldn't be bothered ay all. Some evil gods might be glad you did it but refuse to give you credit or a blessing. Other evil gods might give you a boon and a mark you don't even want. There's so many different things that could happen here from an accident from a mundane item.
I always put proficiency in survival for the sake of better harvesting natural loot from my enemies. Such as exactly poisons. In my last campaign , by harvesting giant spiders I managed to aquire 10 doses of 2d8 poison damage spider poison that puts enemies into unconciouss , paralyzed state if they drop to 0 hp. (Our dm allows to harvest things from monster either by proficiency with nature or survival, aswell as on a successful throw you roll additional d6 or more and that numbers says how much doses or materials you harvested. I harvested 2 giant spiders rolling d6 every time for the spoils and got 4 and 6, so thats those 10 doses. I think thats pretty neat system)
In my last session my rogue stole a cockatrice spine. The dm ruled it the same as a dagger plus when I hit someone with it, they have to role a DC 11 con save or be petrified by the cockatrice venom for 24 hours. Earned that weapon the hard way by being petrified by it first. Luckily the sorcerer befriending this weird celestial flying snake thing that cured me and I got to keep the spine. Instead of a dagger though I use it as crossbow ammo.
I love poisoner feat and some harvest poison are pretty good and easy to find. A pet winged snake is good, with no save to poison damage. For a fighter it's a must but 20 skill check to harvest is limiting
I’m playing my first D&D as a rouge, poisons we’re the first thing I started investigating, they seem OP, I’m also a Tabaxi, so poison coated claws sound badass.
As an artificer, I used almost 100% of my downtime to product poisons, acids and scrolls. Usually just sold the poison n acid, sure, but I always kept at least 4 of each for the few humanoids we fought and some Catapult shenanigans
What I really love with poison is with artificer Infusion alchemy jug and poisoner feat. You can be the criminal that sell illegal thing. I did pay our paladin plate with it. We had a blast RP when shopping. Love it with how lawful the paladin was, refusing the rogue money because it s illegal source.
It's great seeing someone as entheusiastic about D&D poison as I am. "But a crossbow does so much more damage" Yeah, but it's thematic having my forest prowler have a blowgun and numerous types of creature poison to take down various types of prey
I now want to play a druid who has a side gig of supplying a dealer of poisons with the venom he makes when he wild shapes into different types of snakes. Set up a small receptacle for each wild shape they plan to use. Coil around the jar & bite the leather cap bound to the top & fill'er up. The same could be done for Polymorph spells to get more obscure types. Is it weird ... Yes. Is it profitable? Hells yeah!
Diluting and refining and mixing poisons should work too. The former two decrease/increase the save DC to gain/lose extra doses. The latter forces multiple saves but each with a lower DC. Maybe the durations and effects decrease too for balance reasons.
When they work they are cool. 1/3rd of the monster manual is immune. Player races are resistant, Dwarves, Reborn, Warforged, Green Dragonborn, Yuan-Ti, and Stout Halflings, autognomes, and I think there is another but that's just a list. Poison has been made a lot less useful so when it works it really really works. But to invest in a damage type so heavily resisted is not worth it unless you know you aren't doing undead, demons, or yaunti based campaigns.
Wait....can you stack different poisons on a weapon? Unless you consider applying a poison to a weapon as 'washing off' the first poison then RAW of injury poison rules seems to suggest that multiple poisons can be applied (and triggered) on the same weapon at the same time.
Wow, what a great resource, hey, Cephalon? Any chance you would be willing to make resistance and vulnerability tables like that as well? I know its probably a big ask, but man would it be very useful.
The way i see it is that there are 3 major issues with using poisons in d&d: The actual enemy types its good against, the players being able/willing to actually seek out and acquire them, and the fact that damage type effectiveness is actually REALLY underused in 5e. Lets start with the first. Question: how often do you ever fight a large number of any of these creature types? Humanoids are arguably the most common type in the whole game, but they're (obviously) the most involved when it comes to the law of the land so caution is advised when using poison against them. You've very likely to run into at least one dragon, giant, aberration or ooze in a campaign but surprisingly not that many for poisons to matter, they're very few in number (though I will admit if there's any creature type I'd say "take no chances with" its aberration so results may vary). And finally Plants, the most unfortunate type in the whole game with (at least I'm pretty sure?) the least number of creatures in it to begin with and they're rarely used. I think they don't even have a member past CR 9 or 10. Secondly, good aligned characters I've found aren't really the interested in poison unless they have a gimmick or major grudge. Finally... D&d just doesn't use damage types like they should. Enemies with vulnerabilities are really too rare to even care about them unless you're using one an enemy resists or is immune to. I try to fix that as much as I can with modified monsters. Like the River Hydra I made yesterday that's actually weak to poison damage as well as fire and lightning, though its immune to necrotic, resists standard non-magic attacks, and now has a breath weapon. So yeah, poisons are alright and do benefit a player but they're also not exactly missed if you can't get them.
I definitely need to give my artificer some poisons. Anyone have a link to that cephalon damage resistances page featured in the video? The description links the condition resistances, not damage ones, and I can't seem to find the correct one on their site.
Nothing in DND is made to affect everything. It’s very powerful, just like fear, to avoid speed running every combat it makes sense. Also they’re are some abilities that allow you bypass resistances and such.
@ianweber1990 .... look at immunities to fear, then compare it to poison. The list of poison Immunities surpasses multiple lists of other Immunities combined. The logic of "this monster is venomous so they must be immune to poison" is dumb, do you know how many snakes eat other snakes using venom, how many frogs stop snakes from eating them using poison? It's not balanced at all
That should be everyone. Run a company, make connections. Fund it with treasure. My warlock runs an orphanage because he doesn't want others to go through his terrible younger years.
You linked to Cephalon's "Condition Immunities by Creature Type," I wasn't able to find "Damage Immunity to Monster Type" on their website. Do you have a direct link to that chart?
The reason people don't talk about this and scrolls and to a lesser extent potions is that D&D has not given us tools for meaningful in game economies. As a DM, my players want to buy poisons, scrolls, magic items in general, and I have no idea what good prices are, what number of items becomes game breaking, and so on. In a game that rewards players with gold and other monetary treasures, the guidance on what to spend it on is very sparse.
I think part of the reason players disregard poisons is that the first one they see (and indeed the _only_ one unless they look at the DMG!) is Basic Poison, which is _ridiculously_ priced for what it is and does. An injury poison that only lasts one minute, costs 100 GP, and is good for a maximum of three attacks (if you apply it to ammunition rather than to a melee weapon) - and on top of all that, you get 1d4 damage _with a mere DC 10 CON save_ to _utterly negate_ it. Even if you harvest or craft it, the action economy on that is just awful. Other poisons are far better, but are much more expensive and/or harder to harvest. There are ways to work around this - harvesting beast venoms is an excellent example! - but by the time they're under consideration people have already anchored on the basic poison and dismissed the whole category.
So for price of hundreds /thousands of gold you make enemy roll constitution save (that is most of the time highest stat in enemies) and you can give disadvantage sometimes, small amount of damage, or put enemy for one turn most of the time as people would attack him or his allies would wake him up. In harvesting you have rare chance to find poisonous enemy and then you have to pass DC20!!! check to get poison of that enemy which most of the time will be just d4+poisonous condition that can most of the time be cured by basic healing spells/abilities. And that is if enemy is not resistant to it... And why would you use poison when you have 8 lvl spells, why waste money on that. You could just buy tons of scrolls at that time and at that level much more enemies are resistant to conditions and effect and poison. And you always have to hope that when you have poison it is not digestion type as those would hardly be useful unless you have some evil campaign. Poisons are horribly expensive item with extremally low effectives and are hard to find and to use. They are also easy to cure. Just buy potions with your money by abusing them to wake up character from incapacitation. Even at higher level they are useful in this regard and can let you have value in 20 for weakest healing potion. You could also just look for potions of haste and not worry about concentration. Spell casters could just look for scrolls. Like scrolls of magic missile (or just wand of it) and have sure to hit dmg every turn. Poison is waste of money for high level parties and low level parties can not gain it, afford it or find it.
Just dip 2 levels Conjuration wizard and conjure the poison. It's a mundane item, and Minor Conjuration doesn't specify that the thing you conjure can't be worth any gold. It will disappear after/if it does damage, but if the thing you are fighting doesn't die to a single hit of Purple Worm poison, you have more pressing concerns. You only have to have seen the poison to have the ability to conjure it, so merely piercing the poison sac of a dead Purple Worm is enough to be able to conjure it infinitely. It even emits light to make it so that you can see the thing you have to kill. Conjuration wizards who happen to know alchemists and poisoners would easily make terrifying war criminals if they decided to use their powers for evil, especially given that incapacitating poisons exist... Also, a Conjuration Wizard with access to both Simulacrum and Wish can easily just conjure the ruby dust to cast Simulacrum and then have the Simulacrums do things like cast Wish to make their original resistant to all forms of damage and such. Excerpt from the book on this feature in specific: Starting at 2nd level when you select this school, you can use your action to conjure up an inanimate object in your hand or on the ground in an unoccupied space that you can see within 10 feet of you. This object can be no larger than 3 feet on a side and weigh no more than 10 pounds, and its form must be that of a nonmagical object that you have seen. The object is visibly magical, radiating dim light out to 5 feet. The object disappears after 1 hour, when you use this feature again, if it takes any damage, or if it deals any damage.
Poisons are unreasonably costly to make, tbh. I wanted to make a poison specialist rogue character, but 100 gp for a basic poison vial in the early game? 50 gp just to make it
In a campaign I'm in my bard recently and got his hands on some wererat blood (4 doses of blood of lycanthrope (injury) poison to be exact), not sure what I'm going to do with it but I can only hope it will be fun 😂
Question: is poisoner actually good as a feat for using poison in combat? Going off the idea of “damage now is better than damage later” is a bonus action to apply a damaging poison over an action good enough for a feat? Or should poisons be applied before combat even starts?
The poison effects are cool, but the enemy still has to be poisoned for them to work. If some of them had the effects work even IF the enemy wasn’t poisoned, then we’d really be talking
I have cobbler tools proficiency, and I used them on my boots of flying to create secret compartments that I can open with hidden triggers by banging the heels together... When I fly over opponents, as a way to weaponise my object interaction I open the compartments and drop crushed glass powder, coated in poison, in the eyes of my enemy. Get blinded and poisoned in the same turn and probably do more damage as you try to wipe glass dust out of your eyes. Best part is, healing doesn't work cause of poison, restoration can fix the damage... until you blink. You're probably going to need to get out of combat and have magic to fix yourself. Bwahahahaha
