Poisons Feedback

[TurningLeaf]

I got pretty far into poisons with my BG and have some feedback observations.

Generally it seems like a great system with a lot put into it. However i would think so many of the poisons are hardly ever used, which is a shame after trying the system. The issue seems to be that a lot of the weaker poisons, the ones with lower DCs, still take a fair amount of crafting skill and/or difficult resource gathering. So by the time you might make the weaker poison, it's no longer useful to you. Like.. potion of Antidote to cure any poison is only dc 12 to make, but the weakest poisons are DC 22. Anyway that's my feedback.

[Ork]

I think a lot of the poisons with attribute damaging effects could be bumped up in DC. Poisons that apply status effects should stay the same.

For any entrepreneurial apothecaries out there in the UD, cave terror is pretty easy to make and sells well.

[Heroic Spirit]

It would be nice if poisons were a bit more accessible early on. Personally, I wish the blade poisons lasted a bit longer (or had a toggle for auto-applying again when the duration expires).

[Eldariash]

I'd say DC's do need some love.
My builds are RP and ignore uni saves on gear usually due to it unless its a no issue include.
My low end saves non divine shit bla bla are usually 15+ ish.
Add to that a die roll vs all those low DC poisons?
Under 20+DC's I wont even talk care or consider they exsist.
I'd like to see low end poisons be round the 18's maybe 15's.
Then add the bonus DC of sin and black ontop.
Now we got 11-18's being a large majority.
The higher ones maybe bump em 1-2.

And I don't use em offensivly!
This is me being only on the recieving end.
Food poisons should be fun and a reason to use detect poison now i just detect out of RP flavor only.

ps NEP protects you against most anyways!

[Ork]

This topic does come up a lot, and I often see a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to poisons posted here. Are the vast majority of potions weak? Yes, but there are a small number of them that are overpowered. Eyeblast causes rounds blind on initial success which renders enemies flat-footed and won't allow them to target you as you sneak/crit them into oblivion. The DC for this poison needs to be low since a success generally wins engagements.

Then you have poisons that affect stats on initial. These poisons are not worth your crafting points due to the low DC and as mentioned NEP can block this.

Overall, we've got to be careful when adjusting poisons across the board because there's some sneaky ones that are really, really good even when you're succeeding on 1's.

[Eyeliner]

Speaking generally maybe some could just add a few points of damage on hit as well like other essences? Like if you could get 1-2 points instead of the +d6 or +4 from a temp essence and also have that (likely 1 in 20) chance of secondary effect on a failed save it might make them more useful

[Shadowy Reality]

There are three poisons that are extremely good: Cave Terrors (fear on failed save), Eyeblast (blindness on failed save) and Carrion Crawler Brain Juice (paralysis on failed save). Pretty much all of these will either win you the fight, or force a -pray out of your opponent. They are that good, which is why as Ork mentioned the DC needs to be kept low.

As it is, it doesn't matter what the DC is for these three, even with the assassin bonus no decent build will fail the save, save on a natural one, and this is how it should be kept.

Others could have their DC raised, as their effects can easily be mitigated, but the three above need to stay as is.

[msheeler]

Are poisons worth it at all in PvE ? I have been looking at them and tried a few, but I never really saw any results from them.

[Security_Blanket]

If they lasted longer they would be, they're single use and last only a couple minutes, too inconvenient having to constantly reapply.

[xanrael]

Are poisons worth it at all in PvE ? I have been looking at them and tried a few, but I never really saw any results from them.

I've used Cave Terror (confusion*) quite a bit on my UD rogue or assassin for leveling up for the free sneak/death attacks and the fact that the ingredients are super easy to get in the UD.

For my BG I rarely used them leveling up as having a pet and being strength based the sneak attack damage wasn't a night and day difference (and would still get free sneaks when it switched to the pet anyway).

That's not to say Eyeblast and Carrion Crawler poisons are bad, but the effort to gather the materials was a bit higher so not really worth it for leveling up. I tended to just slowly make them and use them at 30 instead of getting to 30.

*I saw someone else say it was fear, was this changed recently? Wiki still has it as confusion too.

[Shadowy Reality]

*I saw someone else say it was fear, was this changed recently? Wiki still has it as confusion too.

That was my bad, it's still confusion afaik, not fear.

[Good Character]

Are poisons worth it at all in PvE ? I have been looking at them and tried a few, but I never really saw any results from them.

No due to the expenditure needed for them. A good comparison is like using a Heal pot in PvE; while there are certainly good points in PvE to use them (e.g. runic bosses) any other time is just you wasting a valuable item.

I personally hope that poisons do get a DC bump and lengthened duration, however make these damning effects (blind/paralysis/confusion) all secondary effects.

Edible poisons absolutely need a DC bump. 1. You need to somehow get the person to eat it, and 2. Detect Poison is an absolute counter and currently underutilized because the DC is so abysmal for almost all of the edible poisons.

Also, can people confirm if the ability score maluses are being ignored by NEP? The Wiki explicitly states they shouldn't be ignored aside by poison immunity-type feats.

[Scurvy Cur]

That's because NEP doesn't provide poison immunity. It provides ability score reduction immunity, which last I checked is not bypassed by poisons.

[Good Character]

Yeah, that's what I was meaning. The custom poisons allegedly should ignore ability score reduction immunities like NEP (aside from poison immunity).

"These poisons ignore Negative Energy Protection, or other effects (excluding poison immunity) that would normally prevent the ability damage of the poisons."

If they aren't ignoring NEP, that is definitely a real kick in the nuts.

[Arienette]

Copy and pasted from my post in another feedback thread about a month ago.

The Arelith Custom Poison System

Obviously not a class, but this one really baffles me. Some awesome person CLEARLY put a lot of time and effort into devising this! They came up with TWENTY FIVE custom poisons, created and implemented crafting recipes, etc. But the DCs are so low, that virtually ALL of them end up as "fishing for 1s". With the aforementioned BG and Assassin bonuses, 2 or 3 of them enter the realm of "fishing for 2's/3's", only for targets with the very lowest Fort Saves. In PvE, I seriously doubt there are any mobs in the module that have low enough Fort saves to make use of poisons who you wont kill in 1 flurry or round anyway.

Then, you have the secondary effects. My understanding of how poison in general works in NWN is that if you fail the DC initially, you get the primary debuff. And then, after one turn, they make ANOTHER fort save roll and if they fail it they get the secondary debuff. So to get the secondary debuff, the target would have to roll two 5's in a row. I'm no mathematician, but in this condition, the secondary effects may as well not even exist.

Three of the poison's have NO initial effect, only a secondary. I really cannot imagine a situation in which a Player Character would even attempt to use any of these poisons. 1. Being/Finding a Poison Immune Herbalist, 2.Collecting the ingredients, some of which can be troublesome to find, 3. Crafting the poison, 4. Applying the poison, all for a 1 in 400 chance of landing a secondary effect (assuming the target doesnt clear the poison after rolling a 1 on the first fort save) truly seems like nobody would ever actually do in-game.

Again, this one isnt a class but its a system someone clearly put some serious effort into and its a shame that it is largely useless. Yes, I know that it is worth it to apply some of these poisons and fish for a 1. But what about the rest of them?

[Scurvy Cur]

Then, you have the secondary effects. My understanding of how poison in general works in NWN is that if you fail the DC initially, you get the primary debuff. And then, after one turn, they make ANOTHER fort save roll and if they fail it they get the secondary debuff. So to get the secondary debuff, the target would have to roll two 5's in a row. I'm no mathematician, but in this condition, the secondary effects may as well not even exist.

Three of the poison's have NO initial effect, only a secondary. I really cannot imagine a situation in which a Player Character would even attempt to use any of these poisons. 1. Being/Finding a Poison Immune Herbalist, 2.Collecting the ingredients, some of which can be troublesome to find, 3. Crafting the poison, 4. Applying the poison, all for a 1 in 400 chance of landing a secondary effect (assuming the target doesnt clear the poison after rolling a 1 on the first fort save) truly seems like nobody would ever actually do in-game.

I'd go farther than this.

The way NWN poisons work is that, once poisoned, you will not be checked for additional poisonings while the secondary effect is still pending. So any time you fail the initial save on one of those "doesn't do anything as a primary effect" poisons, you're immune to all other poison applications for that turn.

As a result the only poisons you should ever use are the ones which force an immediate response from the victim or pin them with an immediately debilitating effect. As mentioned already, there are three of those: cave terror, eyeblast, and carrion crawler brain juice. Each of these applies a seriously debilitating effect on the first failed save. If you hit someone with terror or carrion crawler while they're not expecting it, it forces a pray. Eyeblast is a little gentler, carefully prepared players will have remove blindness/deafness, and should use this instead of dealing with the poison, since it will render them immune to further poisonings for a minute, but the upside is that you can't immunize yourself against the eyeblast effect.

[TurningLeaf]

The higher end poisons seem good to me, you're mainly fishing for 1's yes but the effects in conjunction with the greater # of attacks a higher level character gets balance it out. There is even a new fishing based one (edit: Stonefinger Toxin) I noticed on the wiki that actually does seem OP, slow then petrified at 28 base DC? Don't lose Freedom I guess or it's over. Probably the ingredients take a lot of time to gather, I don't know.

My issue was that there's some of them seem, in terms of save DC and effect, to be designed for lowbie use. But then they're still over 20 craft DC , so if I suggested anything it would probably be to lower the crafting DC on the lowbie poisons and perhaps tweak some ingredients. Like Greenblood oil a lowbie might have some interest in using but DC 22 to craft and flask of oil in ingredients means basically nobody will use it, since higher levels would want a higher save DC and better effect.

[msheeler]

So my next question is what would make these better in PvE. I am separating that out since PvP will likely remain a fishing for 1 in these instant win situations.

Frankly I'd like to see poison an actual thing that is something other than the UD. You know, maybe something that rogues in general might use.

[Hazard]

So my next question is what would make these better in PvE. I am separating that out since PvP will likely remain a fishing for 1 in these instant win situations.

Frankly I'd like to see poison an actual thing that is something other than the UD. You know, maybe something that rogues in general might use.

Personally, for my characters, the main reason I might not bother using poisons in PvE is the duration. They really don't seem to last very long. On top of that, so many mobs are poison immune/just have very high saves.

[Archnon]

So my next question is what would make these better in PvE. I am separating that out since PvP will likely remain a fishing for 1 in these instant win situations.

Frankly I'd like to see poison an actual thing that is something other than the UD. You know, maybe something that rogues in general might use.

We have all these new damage types. Have poisons do X poison damage similar to essences.

[Ithalan]

It'd be neat if there were other methods of delivering poison in combat than just applying it to weapons, to broaden the number of character archetypes that can make use of it to include casters. Maybe craftable poison bombs that tries to poison every creature in the area of effect?

[Good Character]

It'd be neat if there were other methods of delivering poison in combat than just applying it to weapons, to broaden the number of character archetypes that can make use of it to include casters. Maybe craftable poison bombs that tries to poison every creature in the area of effect?

I think the issue with this is that they would have to be very cheap to make or plentiful when obtained, because they're a one-time use concept. However, the other end issue with that concept is that they'll likely end up being overpowered (i.e. need to make the most out of that one-time use so you give it a high DC) or underpowered (i.e. people start dumping the poison in large teamfights, so you have to lower the DC before it becomes oppressive but now it's pointless and/or expensive for PvE).

So my next question is what would make these better in PvE. I am separating that out since PvP will likely remain a fishing for 1 in these instant win situations.

Frankly I'd like to see poison an actual thing that is something other than the UD. You know, maybe something that rogues in general might use.

Increased duration on the weapon, increased DC. If possible, give rogues a feat they could take one as one of their special bonus rogue feats that eliminates the DC requirement for the Secondary Effect of a poison if the Primary Effect was failed by the victim. This would synergize really well with rogues by forcing victims to use heal kits or a scroll which in turn would flat-foot them which in turn would make them susceptible to sneak attacks.

[Mattamue]

The dc delivery system of a roll vs a melee hit, or a grenade, or whatever is just kind of flawed like we see with spells.

I think Dark Souls has a good poison system. With NUI we could have a bar that starts to fill as a poison weapon makes contact, or you stand in a cloud, or you stand in a swamp. Then have the dc check when the bar fills and it can be a higher check. Or maybe no check and the initial effect is applied when the bar fills.

There would be counterplay built into the poisoner knowing that the target either had to be already immune or the target needs to drink an ironguts once that poison bar starts to fill. Not quite as brutal as ds. I'm learning NUI so maybe I'll just make that and put it on the vault for arelith or anyone to use.

[Archnon]

The dc delivery system of a roll vs a melee hit, or a grenade, or whatever is just kind of flawed like we see with spells.

I think Dark Souls has a good poison system. With NUI we could have a bar that starts to fill as a poison weapon makes contact, or you stand in a cloud, or you stand in a swamp. Then have the dc check when the bar fills and it can be a higher check. Or maybe no check and the initial effect is applied when the bar fills.

There would be counterplay built into the poisoner knowing that the target either had to be already immune or the target needs to drink an ironguts once that poison bar starts to fill. Not quite as brutal as ds. I'm learning NUI so maybe I'll just make that and put it on the vault for arelith or anyone to use.

This would be amazing. Or even a bar that as it goes up, increases the DC of the on hit. You could also do it with stacks, like bleed damage. If every time poison hit, you got 1, 2, or 3 stacks and 1, 2, or 3 poison damage on hit. Every 10 stacks increases the DC of the next hit by 1. The effect hits when you fail the DC and the effect hitting clears the stacks.

[Hazard]

Sounds pretty far removed from anything to do with d&d.