Better Poisons (3.5e Variant Rule)

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Author: Surgo (talk)
Date Created: 9/21/2012
Status: Add more poisons
Editing: Add more poisons
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Better Poisons

The default D&D rules for poisons are very unsatisfying. They are either extremely overpowered or extremely underpowered, depending on whether you abuse them or just use them. The rules for creating poisons are extremely unclear and at times contradictory. Simple use of minor creation would give exceptional power to characters at very low level. Once you hit the double digits the power of poison would immediately fall off a cliff, as everyone began making their static DC. We want to improve this situation and make poison-users a viable and desirable character to have on the team. To that end, we introduce the following rules to poison:

  • You need a Craft (Alchemy) check to make poison. The DCs are given in the poison table below.
  • The poison DC will scale. It is a fortitude save, equal to 10 + 0.5 ½ CR + the Int or Wis mod of the creator, whichever is higher. Poison with the "magic" makeup has a minimum DC, listed in the table in parenthesis.
  • Poisons have a specific makeup they are crafted from. This is either animal, vegetable, mineral, or magic matter. Yes, this means you can use minor creation and similar spells to create poisons, so long as you make your Craft check. Magic matter can't be created short of a polymorph any object or spell specifically designed to create the matter.
  • Secondary damage does not exist. Nobody cared about it anyway, because 10 rounds was after combat ended. Now you don't have to track another number. Some poisons have delayed effects and don't work in combat times; this is marked on the table.
  • Only one status effect per round. Regardless of whether they make a successful save or not, a target can only take the effect of any single non-damaging (including ability damage) poison per round. So if someone is targetted with two Drow Poison arrows, and they save against the first, they can no longer be affected by non-damaging poisons that round.

To balance out poisons, we have introduced a new poison table. If you see something, like animal parts, that should be poisonous but aren't on the table, use the closest available item on the table. For example, the venom of most snakes would fall under "Wyvern Venom".

Table: Revised Poisons
Poison Type Craft (Alchemy) DC Makeup Delay Damage Price
Black Locust Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Con 5 gp
Drow Poison Contact 25 Magic (14) Instantaneous Sleep (5 rounds) 300 gp
Hypnotoad Extract Contact 25 Animal Instantaneous Confusion (10 rounds) 300 gp
Id Moss Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Int 5 gp
Lich Dust Inhalation 30 Magic (18) Instantaneous Paralysis (permanent) 600 gp
Magic Mushrooms Ingestion 25 Vegetable 1 Hour 2d8 Cha 150 gp
Myconid Extract Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Cha 50 gp
Nightshade Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Wis 5 gp
Poison Dart Frog Contact 25 Animal Instantaneous Daze (2 rounds) 300 gp
Purple Worm Poison Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Str 50 gp
Scorpion Venom Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Dex 50 gp
Snakeroot Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Str 5 gp
Striped Toadstool Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Cha 5 gp
Terinav Root Injury 15 Vegetable Instantaneous 1d6 Dex 5 gp
Treant Sap Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Wis 50 gp
Troll Blood Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Int 50 gp
Wyvern Venom Injury 20 Animal Instantaneous 1d8 Con 50 gp

Balance Analysis

Poisons should no longer have a power curve that looks like exponential decay. It is expected that characters who want to use poison (mainly rogues and similar classes) and are willing to make the skill investment will have access to all the basic ability-damaging poisons from a very low level, thanks to psionic minor creation and the use magic device skill. This should be okay, and they get some cool status effect on top of their sneak attacks, but it isn't an instant-kill on everyone ever like it was in the old rules.

As these characters level up and gain access to spells like major creation and can make the higher Craft DCs, they gain access to more awesome status effects in-line with other abilities available at their level. This is controlled by the Craft DC. In addition, if the DM feels like dropping some awesome poison into the party's lap (via a corpse of a slain enemy or something), they can do that with the Magic poisons that aren't otherwise creatable by lower-level spells.


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AuthorSurgo +
Identifier3.5e Variant Rule +
Rated ByHarrowedMind + and Ghostwheel +
RatingRating Pending +
TitleBetter Poisons +