Nothing instills more dread to a high level character than hearing “make a save vs. poison” knowing that their character has a chance of death. Now of course this can be dependent on a variety of factors such as race/class, Constitution modifier, or even if the referee throws you a bonus for something. But still, DEATH is permanent (usually). This type of save is quite fun and exciting at low levels, tying into an enjoyable level of “lethality” in old school games where punishment is expected.
However this can feel more punishing and less fun if your campaign has been running for years and some characters who have taken on the scars of dungeon delving and high adventure can suddenly eat it and die. Like if Sir Mighty has endured many blows to the head to rest and recover due to having an accumulated 8 hit dice worth of hit points but as soon as he drinks the wrong potion he is done. So much for reaching name level! Hope your henchmen also survived!
I do like save vs. poison as written, especially in the context of low level player characters or convention play. What makes those situations different from a longer term game is that they are low stakes so immediate death is exciting! And it's also great because you can easily roll up a new character at 1st level or the referee at the convention hands you a new character. The home campaign where your players have invested in their characters and the campaign setting feels more like a sneaky “gotcha!” that Gygax was quite fond of that feels unsatisfying; especially with 50 years of reflection into the hobby and game theory. There are countless house rules out there that seek to “fix” this problem with poison, including the one I published in Demesnes & Domination. Again, I don't think immediate death is a problem in a variety of contexts and I truly think it adds plenty of excitement. I just don't think it scales well for high level gameplay. So let's take a look at a variation of Save vs. Poison and its function!
My main design focus for this is to touch on a couple of ideas
Strength: Keeping Poison lethal especially for lower level/Hit Die PCs, NPCs, and monsters but a chance to recover from it at higher levels
Time: Making poison time sensitive by having it continually harm over a duration of time until it is treated, much like how “bleeding out” can work in RPGs.
Variables: Make poison customisable with weak and strong poisons as an option, allowing it to be scaled up or down if desired. Players can craft poison along these parameters as long as they have the components to do so.
Here is Poison as described in Demesnes & Domination:
“Poison deals 1d6 of continuous damage every time the target fails their poison save per round. Any successful save will then stop this ongoing damage. Once a target’s hit points reach zero, they are considered dead unless they receive antivenom or the spell Cure Poison within a number of turns equal to their Hit Die.
Example: if a target with two hit dice is poisoned and drops to 0 hit points, then they have two turns (twenty minutes) to be cured of it otherwise they die completely.
Alternatively, the referee can rule that poison deals a flat 6 damage per round to increase the lethality of poison, as depicted in the original game rules. Applying poison to an item such as a weapon, drink, etc. there’s a 5% chance that the person handling the poison will accidently poison themselves as well. This range increases to a 10% chance of being done by an individual without specialized knowledge of poison and the use of them as determined by the referee.
Low HD monsters, NPCs, and players still have a chance for a quick death by poison as per the original rules. Any target with less than 1 hit Die will immediately die regardless, which is most Normal Men as well as monsters with 1HD-1.”
Let me explain my rationale:
1d6 damage was chosen because a d6 is the average damage done in OSR games, with OD&D having it be the only damage form. It is also the midpoint between a d4 and d8 which are the PC hit die range and most weapons as well. I figured this would scale well as an average for damage. Plus, low level PCs have a chance to succumb to poison as originally designed or at least take a notable hit to their hit points.
Per Round was added to allow for multiple chances for both saving and taking damage while under a familiar structure of combat where poison attacks are likely to happen. The 10 second round also allows for a more time sensitive pressure to solve the problem of poison Meaning, every failure means a d6 of damage is taken until there is a success. I chose rounds to give a sense of immediacy for recovery whether by magic, consumable, or an eventual success. Succeeding is inevitable, especially for higher level players, but its more of the damage they took from the damage, making the players figure out their resources to aid with recovery.
Using these bases, referees can choose to make poison more powerful, such as 2d6 damage, 3d6 damage, etc or have slow acting poison where the PC makes a save every turn or hour. I also rule that any monster that deals poison deals a number of d6s equal to their hit die per round. Meaning that a 1HD Pit Viper would inflict 1d6 damage of poison per round while a 8HD Green Dragon’s gas cloud will deal 8d6 damage per round. Other methods of poisoning such as a spell like Cloudkill will deal damage equal to 1d6 per caster level.
Crafting Poisons is based around having the following:
Knowledge: The player seeking to make poison must learn how to make it, similar to a magic-user trying to find a new spell in a spell book or the PC can hire a specialists like an alchemist or assassin to teach them for 500gp
Crafting Material: the PC requires 6 “harmful components” and takes 3 hours (1 hour per 2 components) to process the components into a usable dose of poison.
Crafting Success: The PC succeeds one making a dose of poison on a 1-on-a-d6, with a chance of accidentally poisoning themselves on a 6-on-a-d6. Any positive Wisdom modifier is added to the success chance (a +1 mod means a 1-2 on a d6 is a success) while a negative wisdom modifier increases the chance of self poisoning (a -1 mod means a 5-6 on a d6 is accidental ingestion) any base result of a 2-5 is inert. The check is made after the components and time have been used to craft. Specialized classes such as the Alchemist or Hexer use their crafting percentage skill instead.
Concentrated Poison: Players can make the poison more powerful by increasing the amount of components required. Making a dose of poison that deals 2d6 requires 12 harmful components and takes 6 hours to make, a poison that deals 3d6 requires 18 harmful components and 9 hours to craft, etc.
Harmful Components cost 50gp each while Beneficial Components cost 10gp each. Components can be purchased from an apothecary or similar specialists or can be found in the wild with foraging (I outline foraging on pg. 79 of Demesnes & Domination). Beneficial components can be used to make Antivenom and healing salve.
Antivenom allows for an additional and immediate save vs. poison per 1d6 poison if the PC failed a save vs poison. Antivenom can be made to be more potent to allow for making a save against any poison that is more than 1d6. This can be prepared similar to making poison more potent.
Healing Salve: This is a general wound paste that heals 2hp and stops bleeding.
Both Antivenom and Healing Salve are crafted in the same way as poison.
I use “Components” as a catch-all term for any herbal or harvested items instead of listing individual herbs. I found this to be much easier to manage as a resource for players. That doesn’t mean you can’t still refer to Belladonna or Wolfsbane, but they would be considered a Harmful Component.
In general, a main focus of my game design is the use of time as a resource. This is essential for players to not only have a sense of structure such as rounds, turns, etc. but also for how long it takes to make something. In my experience, having time as a primary focus in the game allows players to make informed decisions with what they do. This makes the setting feel more interactive and the players feel like they have more control over decisions. This isn’t a new concept, Gygax starts off the DMG hot with this idea, and is a part of OSR game design dialog. Crafting takes time, making a poison takes time, recovery from an injury takes time, etc etc. How do the players want to spend their time? Does the ranger want to sit out for a day and make a strong poison to fight that troll they saw lingering in the dungeon, while the rest of the party checks out the unexplored section? Or does the party spend the afternoon hopefully foraging for harmful components to make minor poisons to coat their weapons for their raid on the bandit keep?
How do you use poison in your game? Comment below!
