Traps, Poisons and other "evil" things?

[Larzs]

Just wondering how many actually use these? Namely to enhance their RP environment and such. Also for the actual real BGs out there how often have you found use for your Skeleton and Fiendish Servant...frankly they sucked even after the boost back in the day and I still miss my devil rat haha.

Anyways, just wondering how much use these actually get out of the playerbase.

[Fury_US]

Poisons, alas, are useless pretty much for anything aside from RP purposes. That said, my character has so many. Just, so many poisons. I have had opportunity to use them in events, and they are an integral part of her RP, so I will continue to hoard them selfishly, despite their lack of actual, practical application.

[Pimple]

Poisoning drinks and potions works mechanically though. Something I'd like to see happen more!

[Larzs]

despite their lack of actual, practical application.

Yeah, why I really want the One-Hit, Duration Forever on them lol. I got Max Alchemy all in the hopes of RPing making poisons and such, specially since most of the ones you find had such trash DC they are pretty much worthless >.<

Poisoning drinks and potions works mechanically though. Something I'd like to see happen more!

This is something I really really really want to do...lol, I tried it a few times when it was first possible. By...say poisoning a Cure Potion and leaving it out in the open. have no clue if anyone ever took the bait lol.

[cosmic ray]

Poisoning drinks and potions works mechanically though. Something I'd like to see happen more!

Be careful what you ask for.

[DeepFriedMoose]

They rarely come up for me, like Fury said. One of the problems I've found is that the DC for the save is often too low -- in the teens, mostly, with a few rare 20-somethings now and again. But, again like Fury, that doesn't stop me from hoarding them.

Poisoning consumables sounds great -- I'd like to get more of a chance to try that, but again it rarely comes up. Socializing, and getting other people drinks often does, but usually in those circumstances, the paranoid check for poisons (RIP, Jarven!), or you're hanging out with people you'd rather not poison (at that moment, anyway), and enemies usually don't take drinks from you at all, for that very obvious reason.

Injury poisons seem to be the most generally useful at this point -- coat a blade, and go to town for x rounds. If it hits, great, if not, well, you tried. But this is all for PvE. I haven't tried to use poisons for PvP, and I'm not sure I would, since the saves are so low, it doesn't seem worth it to spend the time to do it. (PvP happens so fast, there's little time for me to even think about poison).

Inhalation poisons are nice, because you can just launch them, and either kite the mob, or whatever. Like injury poisons, if it hits, great! However, the DC save is pretty low for most of them that I've found.

The ones I'm most interested in are contact poisons -- again, they seem only usable on weapons, which makes me sad, because there are SOOOO many other ways to use them. For example, I used to play in a few LARP games, usually as a rogue, and poisons there are SUPER useful, because they last until discovered (either triggered, or neutralized). Contact poisons were my favorite. Some examples:
-- You could coat a weapon handle and just lay the weapon out in the open as a trap -- the target picks up the weapon, takes the poison, and then you ambush.
-- Poisoning chests and locks, so another unwary rogue might end up paralyzed or dead if they tried to steal your loot.
-- Slipping poison into another character's drink while their back was turned.

Unfortunately, even with Ombra's Poison System, none of these are options. Player's drinks are in their inventory, which you have no access to. (MAYBE you could reverse pick-pocket a poison into a drink?) You cannot apply contact poisons to chests, doors, skeletons, etc. Pretty much the only way to poison someone is to attack them, or so obviously serve them a poisoned drink that it would be almost comical -- you could try to get around this with some VERY well planned RP, and some good bluff checks, but the gig would be up as soon as they drank it. But, with the DC save so low, the odds of it working are pretty low anyway.

So, all that being said, I have some ideas:
1) Expand the use of poisons: Contact poison on objects such as doors, containers, and placed objects. (And maybe Injury poison as a touch-attack on a character below full HP?) Application hazards still apply.
2) Allow combining poisons of the same type to increase the DC and effects. Get a stack of them, right click, and "Combine". This creates a more potent version (by certain degrees, much like grenades basic, improved, greater, perfected, etc. Or traps: Minor, Average, Deadly, etc. -- more powerful poisons require more combinations, such that, for example, to make a Deadly Poison, you need something like 20 or 50 "base" poisons.) Maybe this requires Craft Alchemy, or Poison Use, or both?
3) A greater variety of DC's for poisons in general, or sell them at shady merchant stalls. Non-stat effects should have a higher DC, to encourage their use during RP.
4) More poison varieties that do things other than Stat damage. Poisons with other effects would be nice, like Sleep, paralysis, silence, Blindness, immobilize, etc. The stat damages are nice, and are easy to RP: INT poison makes a victim liable to slip a secret, WIS poison makes them more malleable to suggestion, STR, DEX, & CON poison can make them clumsy, numb, or force them into unconsciousness. But this requires strenuous and willing RP.

[Larzs]

I have two Poison that are DC 30. One does INT damage, Intellect Decourer Poison(spelling error lol) and then I think the other is 3d6, 3d6 Str. Not sure. Also got a Sleep Poison as well. But that DC is pretty low so...anyone but a Lvl really is gonna save against it.

I would be okay with making Contact on object possible. But I would be more liking the option of combining a Spike trap and a poison of choice to make a Poison Spike trap haha.

Also, Blackguards Fiendish Servant is very much not Evil lol. Makes little sense to me, but I guess makes him a little less susceptible in PvP haha

[Face]

I remember the time where poisons would last on items even through a reset
that was great as you could poison a few arrows , a potion or a dagger in advance and use them when needed.

[Wandering_Woodsman]

Reminds me of my days reading my Ultima Online guidebook.

Farmer can't handle a bear that's marauding his sheep. So, what's he do? Hire an alchemist to make some poison. He laces some raw meat with poison, and leaves it out.

Day or so later, that bear isn't a problem anymore.

[Larzs]

I remember the time where poisons would last on items even through a reset
that was great as you could poison a few arrows , a potion or a dagger in advance and use them when needed.

That is what I want lol. Mainly so I don't have to break stealth to apply it...

Also found another poison. Blindness/Deafness on the effect. Again, trash DC :/

And here is another thing I wondered...would an Elf be immune to Sleep Poison. I mean, they clearly fail the poison roll(cause...I mean they are an elf lol) but would the engine just decide Nope: Immune cause Elf immunity to Magical Sleep and such. Even though it isn't Magical?

[NeonAvenger]

... or sell them at shady merchant stalls. Non-stat effects should have a higher DC ...

There are a couple of surface merchants that sell nothing but poison, I assume at least one in the Underdark as well.

More poison varieties that do things other than Stat damage. Poisons with other effects would be nice, like Sleep, paralysis, silence, Blindness, immobilize, ...

I have definitely seen poisons with sleep and blindness on them I'm guessing the others are possible but would require someone with scripting knowledge to sort it out.

... coat a weapon handle ... Poisoning chests and locks ...

The problem I see with this is that:

1. It's indiscriminate, which will lead to much OOC complaining when people start poisoning all the chests in low level areas (And you just know someone will. There's more than one kind of troll on the server).
2. Logically it wouldn't be very effective. In theory "locksmiths", wizards, and longbow archers wouldn't wear full gloves, but in game? Just about everyone wears gloves, gauntlets, or other hand coverings.

To my mind the two big problems with poison are:

• Death Ward and the way it protects from all statistic loss. While I can see how this is intended to protect from things like a shadow's strength drain it leads to the stupid situation where it makes you immune to almost all poison.
• The low DCs of poison. Of course this them leads to a nigh impossible balancing act.
  • How do you set the DCs to avoid insta-killing even epic tier pure rogues and wizards while still managing to at least slightly worry characters that have 30+ in every save?
  • And how do you stop twinked low level characters from just laughing and killing high level mobs with expensive poisons?

would an Elf be immune to Sleep Poison

Elves are immune to "Sleep spells and effects". They just don't sleep at all, so it shouldn't do anything.

[Larzs]

• And how do you stop twinked low level characters from just laughing and killing high level mobs with expensive poisons?

You can restrict it to Use Poison Feat, which for what I know...only 2 classes get(actually there is probably more with all the PrC, but the point is only those such classes get it) Or you could make the Application DC high to reflect that to which that Lowbie is pretty much likely to kill themselves applying it.

would an Elf be immune to Sleep Poison

Elves are immune to "Sleep spells and effects". They just don't sleep at all, so it shouldn't do anything.

Hmmm, I suppose so. But I could imagine the poison doing what it does just then knock them unconscious, to which that can happen to Elves. That is pretty much what happens anyways, I know Elves gotta go into trances and such to regain spells and abilities.

[Valefort]

There are a bunch of dc 30 poisons, against wizards or rogues they're extremely effective already, spellcraft bonuses do not apply. Examples :

Take a random mage wiz 20/asoc 10 with 12 CON : base fort save 10, give him bear's endurance, greater heroism, superior resistance and he goes up to 22, against spells thanks to spellcraft and ASOC he is at 30+ everywhere.

Attack with DC 30 poison, in Ombra's poison system the poison charges only dissapear when you actually hit and you have 3 charges. Let's say 2 attacks connect, our mage has to roll twice.

12/20*12/20 = 144/400 = 36% of making both saves, those are pretty good odds, and when the wizard loses 8 INT it'll screw his spellbook and make him much less of a threat.

Now think about that Rogue 16/assassin 9/ IB 5 build .. 10 base fort save as well, let's say he has heroism on as well as +5 to saves due to gear .. a whooping 17 fort save ! Attack .. if we say 2 connect that's :

7/20*7/20 = 49/400 = 12.25% of making both saves, that guy is a goner almost sytematically.

How do you set the DCs to avoid insta-killing even epic tier pure rogues and wizards while still managing to at least slightly worry characters that have 30+ in every save?

It's not possible, the DCs are already quite high and dangerous as they are, the examples above are level 30 PCs. If you try to use saves-dependant weapons against buffed high saves PCs you're simply not being smart ... annoying for an assassin

What annoys me is that poisons are very rarely used in PvE, you don't need them against regular mobs (or if you do you have issues ..) and bosses have sky high saves (thanks to casters, thank you casters ....).

[Steve]

Yeah, Ombra's Poison System wasn't working properly last year/earlier this year, but its fixed now, right? And if it is working as Valefort outlines, it is pretty damn good, especially for PvP (oops...is it going to get nerfed now?!? )

Don't knock it till you try it!

[Laughingman]

Everytime I see a potion in the open, near the FAI for instance, I cast detect poison on it. Nearly a 50/50 chance it will be poisoned.

Traps revert from epic to a lower tier. Apparently people couldn't handle them and probably stacked them at transitions.

Undead are pretty much the most powerful non gate non epic summons. They are like the only creature people don't argue about whether it deserves the benefit of the doubt. Elves fight to protect drow. Dwarfs fight to protect orcs. Nobody fights to protect a necromancer. Thus their use is limited to bad guys who are out of the closet so to speak.