Not quite clear on how some poisons work

[The Benj]

The warning about choking being potentially fatal seems kind of moot. 30d is rather likely to kill you.

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

So, on a failure, do you suffer coughing, choking (can't be both, they're incompatible)

Speaking from personal experience as someone who had a full throat dissection to remove thyroid cancer, you actually can do both if your throat muscles have some reason to be weak. I did for about 3 weeks after my surgery.

Er... well, I suppose technically I was alternating between coughing, choking, retching, and vomiting.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Given that most poisons are (a) not binary in effectiveness, and (b) cumulative, I suspect an awful lot of poisons would be best represented as toxic damage where the listed symptoms are just alternate damage effects. Suggested modifiers:

• Alternate Incapacitation: +0%. Someone who fails a consciousness check due to the effects of this attack is instead incapacitated in a different way. Pick up to 200% in Affliction effects that occur in place of the normal Unconsciousness (+200%).
• Alternate Mortal Wound: +(effect value-250%)/5, minimum 0. Someone who is mortally wounded by this attack has an effect other than a normal mortal wound.

This is fairly close to how I modeled snake venom in Animalia
http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/animalia/r...s/Elapids.html
http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/animalia/r...ae/Vipers.html
except that I used a lot of No Wounding damage and Symptoms.

Luke

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

except that I used a lot of No Wounding damage and Symptoms.

Huh. I was under the impression that No Wounding and Symptoms were incompatible, but RAW is inconsistent. On the one hand we have:

Symptoms are effects that occur if the cumulative damage...

and on the other hand we have the example:

Example: ... but as a Symptom that occurs when the victim has lost half his HP...

and

Symptoms abate only when the damage that caused them is healed.

Damage does not cause HP loss and cannot be healed -- that's wounding. I suspect this should be errata, in which case No Wounding and Symptoms are incompatible.

In any case, symptoms do work, but most poisons are going to be detrimental to your ability to survive injuries (and vice versa), and will kill directly in high enough doses, so it's not like No Wounding is required. Perhaps a Quick Healing limitation of sorts for some poisons, as many will be flushed out of the body and cease to be a problem on a much shorter timescale than injuries, but we're still usually talking multiple hours to a few days.

[The Benj]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure No Wounding means Symptoms just won't work.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In any case, symptoms do work, but most poisons are going to be detrimental to your ability to survive injuries (and vice versa), and will kill directly in high enough doses, so it's not like No Wounding is required. Perhaps a Quick Healing limitation of sorts for some poisons, as many will be flushed out of the body and cease to be a problem on a much shorter timescale than injuries, but we're still usually talking multiple hours to a few days.

The problem is that a paralytic, say, might kill you but makes your body no less able to resist being the effects of a wound after being stabbed or shot (except insofar as it makes it harder to call out for help or crawl to the medic). The same would occur with a digestive poison that made you nauseous; or various botanical alkaloids that cause fevers, confusion, and dried up secretions (belledona, jimsonweed, etc.).

The effect I was going for was a parallel damage track. The damage from a poison will not force unconsciousness or death checks, cause major wounds, or stack in any way with injury damage. It does accumulate and it does heal at the normal rate (or possibly at an accelerated rate, for something like cyanide or carbon monoxide), but the only effect of the damage is for the purpose of causing Symptoms. Since I don't care so much about rules lawyering as describing the effects, and No Wounding is the closest to this effect, I slapped that modifier on it.

Luke

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

The problem is that a paralytic, say, might kill you but makes your body no less able to resist being the effects of a wound after being stabbed or shot

Most poison effects will make you less able to resist going into shock, which is the primary kill mechanism for cumulative wounding anyway. For poisons where this is a minor effect, use symptoms at a HP/3 threshold, by the time that's really relevant to death you're well into the overdose range.

[BraselC5048]

Here's Kromm's reply, in full:

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
The non-injury effects of a poison depend on which of these options the poison uses:
Per p. B438, symptoms triggered automatically by injury persist until HP recover to above the relevant threshold: 1/3, 1/2, or 2/3 of HP. (Poisons may use fatigue thresholds and FP instead, but it's the same idea.)
Also per p. B438, effects triggered by failed resistance rolls specifically for those effects, separate from any rolls to resist injury, normally endure for minutes equal to margin of failure.
Ill effects that don't fall into the first two categories share the poison's duration: until all remaining cycles are up. Effects end when the final cycle ends. If a poison offers resistance rolls, then "all remaining cycles" means however many cycles you fail rolls for; if the poison cannot be resisted, then that's the full course of cycles.
Specific poisons might make exceptions – but if no exception is noted, then assume none is needed.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
This one is indeed unclear because the wording sounds like option #2 above but doesn't fully respect those rules. As far as I can tell, it's really option #3 with open-ended cycles, meaning that the effects don't end until someone gets treatment for time equal to that needed to recover from a lasting crippling injury. However, the effect is actual paralysis (i.e., you can't move) – it just includes being unable to breathe as well.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
The seizures last for 2d hours, since that's how long the poison lasts. The rolls to avoid choking occur every five minutes during that time until you pass one. This is spasmodic, not paralytic, so I'd use the standard rules for duration: minutes equal to margin of failure. I would allow ventilation to work if choking occurs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Ricin - Now I know that choking is if you both fail the first roll and a future roll (it was ambiguous, but now it makes sense). If you pass a roll, do you still have to make future rolls? And how long do the effects last, of course, plus would ventilation help if you do start choking?
This appears to be a standard case of rules option #3: The effects last while you continue to fail resistance rolls. The first successful resistance roll ends the cycles (again, per p. B438). As long as you keep failing, though, the non-injury effects persist. If choking sets in, then yes, ventilation would help. Ventilation is a specific treatment for choking regardless of its cause.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
As with all cyclic poisons, "repeats" implies an initial cycle. Something that repeats four times has a total of five rolls. The average HT 10 person is going to fail all five HT-6 rolls (90.8% chance), suffer the full run rather than shake it off early, take a net 10d injury (avg. 35 HP), go to -2×HP, have to make two HT rolls to avoid death (75% chance of failure), and thus die of pure injury 68% of the time. Of course, if he critically fails by rolling 14+ against HT - 6 = 4 at any point, he'll choke as well and be even more certain to die without ventilation.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
Yes, you can. If you have n doses of poison, you'll need n doses of DMSO to deliver it, but that's fine. Realistically, huge puddles of DMSO would tend to diffuse, cover too much area to fully contact the skin, and of course be visible. I'd say that each doubling of dosage gives +1 to rolls to notice the poison. I'd also say that the multi-dose benefits of poison stop at four doses, if you're relying on casual contact rather than literally pouring the entire dose on someone, but that the +1 per doubling to rolls to notice the poison continues.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
As with all cyclic poisons, "repeats" implies an initial cycle. Something that repeats four times has a total of five rolls. The average HT 10 person is going to fail all five HT-6 rolls (90.8% chance), suffer the full run rather than shake it off early, take a net 10d injury (avg. 35 HP), go to -2×HP, have to make two HT rolls to avoid death (75% chance of failure), and thus die of pure injury 68% of the time. Of course, if he critically fails by rolling 14+ against HT - 6 = 4 at any point, he'll choke as well and be even more certain to die without ventilation.

BraselC5048:

Kromm:
For ricin, the damage does indeed cycle:
Regardless of the roll, he suffers 3d toxic damage, nausea, and vomiting; failure means he also experiences coughing. This repeats at eight-hour intervals for 10 cycles . . .
For botulin, it does not:
At the next 12-hour interval, he must make a HT-1 roll to avoid paralysis . . .
Note that that it says nothing about damage being repeated. Botulin kills you by paralyzing your respiratory system semi-irreversibly, not through immediate toxic shock.

Somebody should put the above in some sort of FAQ or something.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Somebody should put the above in some sort of FAQ or something.

Did you PM Vicky? There's no guarantee he'll see this otherwise.

[Kromm]

With formatting.

—

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

If an effect (such as seizures) happens regardless of a HT roll, how long do they last once you pass a roll? Or if they happen on a failed roll, how long do they last after you pass the second or later rolls?

The non-injury effects of a poison depend on which of these options the poison uses:

1. Per p. B438, symptoms triggered automatically by injury persist until HP recover to above the relevant threshold: 1/3, 1/2, or 2/3 of HP. (Poisons may use fatigue thresholds and FP instead, but it's the same idea.)
   
2. Also per p. B438, effects triggered by failed resistance rolls specifically for those effects, separate from any rolls to resist injury, normally endure for minutes equal to margin of failure.
   
3. Ill effects that don't fall into the first two categories share the poison's duration: until all remaining cycles are up. Effects end when the final cycle ends. If a poison offers resistance rolls, then "all remaining cycles" means however many cycles you fail rolls for; if the poison cannot be resisted, then that's the full course of cycles.

Specific poisons might make exceptions – but if no exception is noted, then assume none is needed.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Botulin Toxins - Seems I've been able to figure out that you keep rolling until you get the antitoxin, and if you fail a roll, you're not only paralyzed, but need to be on ventilation, or you die. In other words, respiratory paralysis, or in game terms, choking, not paralysis.

This one is indeed unclear because the wording sounds like option #2 above but doesn't fully respect those rules. As far as I can tell, it's really option #3 with open-ended cycles, meaning that the effects don't end until someone gets treatment for time equal to that needed to recover from a lasting crippling injury. However, the effect is actual paralysis (i.e., you can't move) – it just includes being unable to breathe as well.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

With Strychnine, it's still not clear. Do you have to make dozens of rolls to avoid choking, or do you only have to pass one? If dozens or more, it's really deadly - effectively a 100% fatality rate. If it's one, then the fatality rate is about 50%. And of course, the "how long do the seizures last" question. If you do suffer chocking, can being put on ventilation in a hospital keep you alive?

The seizures last for 2d hours, since that's how long the poison lasts. The rolls to avoid choking occur every five minutes during that time until you pass one. This is spasmodic, not paralytic, so I'd use the standard rules for duration: minutes equal to margin of failure. I would allow ventilation to work if choking occurs.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Ricin - Now I know that choking is if you both fail the first roll and a future roll (it was ambiguous, but now it makes sense). If you pass a roll, do you still have to make future rolls? And how long do the effects last, of course, plus would ventilation help if you do start choking?

This appears to be a standard case of rules option #3: The effects last while you continue to fail resistance rolls. The first successful resistance roll ends the cycles (again, per p. B438). As long as you keep failing, though, the non-injury effects persist. If choking sets in, then yes, ventilation would help. Ventilation is a specific treatment for choking regardless of its cause.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Curare - Only a 41% fatality rate for Joe Average, is that right? And nobody really knows if the total number of rolls is 4 or 5.

As with all cyclic poisons, "repeats" implies an initial cycle. Something that repeats four times has a total of five rolls. The average HT 10 person is going to fail all five HT-6 rolls (90.8% chance), suffer the full run rather than shake it off early, take a net 10d injury (avg. 35 HP), go to -2×HP, have to make two HT rolls to avoid death (75% chance of failure), and thus die of pure injury 68% of the time. Of course, if he critically fails by rolling 14+ against HT - 6 = 4 at any point, he'll choke as well and be even more certain to die without ventilation.

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

DMSO - Just came up with the question, can you use more then one dose at once (for 2 doses of poison)?

Yes, you can. If you have n doses of poison, you'll need n doses of DMSO to deliver it, but that's fine. Realistically, huge puddles of DMSO would tend to diffuse, cover too much area to fully contact the skin, and of course be visible. I'd say that each doubling of dosage gives +1 to rolls to notice the poison. I'd also say that the multi-dose benefits of poison stop at four doses, if you're relying on casual contact rather than literally pouring the entire dose on someone, but that the +1 per doubling to rolls to notice the poison continues.