POISONS
Poisons have the following characteristics.
Type, DC, initial and secondary damage: As DMG.
Onset: This is the amount of time that passes after being poisoned before taking initial damage. The possible onset times are: Instant, 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes or 1 hour. While not automatic, higher DC poisons usually have shorter onset times.
Interval: This is the amount of time that passes between initial damage secondary damage, and all secondary damage afterwards. The possible time intervals are: 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour and 1 day. Time Intervals are usually one category higher than onset times (Instant poisons have 1 round intervals, poisons with 1 round onsets have 1 minute intervals, and so forth.)
Mechanics
When you are poisoned (by one of the for means of delivery), you must make a fortitude saving throw against the poison's DC at the poison's onset time. If you fail the save, you take initial damage. If you succeed, you take no damage, but you must still make another save after a period equal to the onset time has passed (or 1 round for instant poisons) against a the poison's DC +1 for every previous save. You keep on making saves against initial damage until you either fail the save or the poison is neutralised.
After taking initial damage, you must make a fortitude saving throw against the poison's DC after the time interval of the poison has passed. If you fail the save, you take secondary damage. If you succeed, you take no damage, but you must still make another save after the time interval has passed again. The DC does not increase with additional saves against secondary damage. If you succeed at 3 saves in a row, your system has successfully fought off the poison's effect. If you do not make 3 successful saves in a row, you keep making saves (and taking damage for failed saves) after each time interval passes until you either die from damage or the poison is neutralised.
Antidotes
For the same price one dose of a poison, you can buy one dose of Antidote for that type of poison (and only that type). An antidote neutralises the poison (as a potion of neutralise poison, but only for that type of poison).
Treating poisons
You can treat poisons normally with the Heal skill, and you can also attempt to treat the poison before it takes effect, by bleeding the target or making him regurgitate the poison. To do so, you must make a Heal test against the poison's DC +5 before the Onset time of the poison has elapsed. If your check is successful, the poison is effectively neutralised.
Making of...
First of all, I adopted this system during my conversion of Dark Sun, in which I re-examined most D&D and d20 rules and mechanics, when I realised that poisons simply didn't work in d20. At least, they don't work like poisons should.
For example, take arsenic. In D&D, arsenic is a DC 13 injestion poison which deals 1 Con dmg as initial damage and 1d8 Con dmg as secondary damage. Now, worst senario of Arsenic poisoning: Fail both saves, take 9 Con damage. The average commoner would not even die from the worst case scénario.
Now consider the fact that character will probably succeed at some saves, and dmg won't always be maximums, and dying from poison can be hard to accomplish. It gets even weirder when characters escape damage completely because of lucky rolls. Imagine someone drinking a vial of poison and coming out just fine. A bard's job becomes complex when his poisoned drink doesn't have any effect on his target from time to time...
Moreover, look at those prices!!! Man, poisons are really, really expensive for the benefits they reap! 120gp for one chance to deal 2d6 Con damage over a minute if 2 saves are missed against a DC 11? Most fighters won't even feel a thing if they're even a little lucky.
Being somewhat inspired by the CODA system, this mechanic allows for poisons to actually do their job. All those poisoned WILL feel something, unless there is no initial damage, its just a matter of time. Now, while weak poisons might just cripple someone (if saves are made), stronger poisons will probably kill the target unless he gets the antidote in time, which is kind of why people make antidotes. Heh. ;)
.*EDIT: Completed Making of...*
But only one of those is actually dead. Granted an opponent could easily dispatch a helpless poison victim, but it seems that the poison itself rarely kills (only in the case of Con damage).
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that after another ability score has gone to 0, the poison starts to deal Con damage, but I couldn't find it. Is that true or was I hallucinating? Or am I wrong about the whole mess?
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that after another ability score has gone to 0, the poison starts to deal Con damage, but I couldn't find it. Is that true or was I hallucinating? Or am I wrong about the whole mess?
I would use this option only if the intent of the poison was to culminate in the death of the victim. I would say this is an arbitrary decision to be determined by the DM.
/yoink
Strength, once all the strength has been drained from your body, ALL of your muscles seis to function including your heart and lungs.
Wisdom, once all of your wisdom has been drained, your brain sies to control autonomic functions and you die of massive system failure.
I don't think the effects of poisons should be completely bound to ability damage, however. It makes perfect sense to have other effects sleep, paralysis, vomiting, diarhea, blindness, deafness, vertigo, hallucinations, itching, cramping, fatigue, exhaustion, subdual damage, fear, slowed perception of time, ect.
Ability damage is a good vehicle/mechanic to serve at the core of many poisons, but poisons need descriptions of how they work and could use additional effects beyond just ability damage to make them more interesting. Take a look at real world poisons and drugs and consider how their effects are described, many affect certain centers of the body, and not just general attributes such as strength or dexterity.
Complete Adventurer also has adequate rules for crafting poisons.
Indeed. They are a concise version of the ones from the Arms & Equipment Guide - no changes to the system used, although the list of sample poisons is a bit smaller. It would be good to see if it's possible to break down the system used to derive Craft DCs for those poisons and apply them to the list of Dark Sun poisons in order to get Craft DCs for those as well...
*yoink!*
By the way, when I decided to add this to my d20 games, I warned my players first, making they understand that poisons are deadly things they probably won't survive without an antidote.
You should see them walk around giustenal full of these Silt Serpents and their instant 1d6, 1 round 3d6 Con poison... Can't even get them to enter most buildings! :D