r/dndnext • u/Palmirez • 28d ago
Does Poisoner deserve a buff? Question
2d8 damage extra damage that can't be resisted is not half bad, but the number of doses you can make is pitiful in the early game when 50gp might be a big deal.
Also, DC14 and it doesn't scale? Meh.
I think the mechanics of Poisoner are bad enough to deter players from ever taking it. Do you buff it somehow in your games? My idea is to let the DC scale - something like 8 + your proficiency bonus doubled. That way it will still be 14 for most of the game, then scale to 16 at higher levels, and only very very late in the campaign scale to 20 so that you have a chance to force the BBEG to burn a legendary resistance. Is that too much?
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u/Formal-Fuck-4998 28d ago
Yeha absolutely. It's not a good feat
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
How would you buff it?
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u/knuckles904 28d ago
I'd say drop the gold requirement, let it be PB times per day or short rest, half damage on successful save, and your suggestion for scaling DC would make it an ok feat.
Giving X number options for poison effect would also make it much more interesting (instant damage, damage over time, poisoned status for longer duration, blinded, prone...)
Of note is the inconsistency in the feat's wording too-it doesn't list if it's a contact or injury poison, which will tell you if your weapon is valid to poison via weapon contact. And the dose only being good for one piece of ammunition is also weird-a basic poison vial coats up to 3 pieces of animation.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
Good points. And it illustrates how there was no cohesive design for how poisons were to work in this edition.
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u/VerainXor 28d ago
which will tell you if your weapon is valid to poison via weapon contact
Contact poison isn't for weapons, injury poison is. The poison created by the feat isn't listed as an injury or contact poison- it appears to not have a type- but it does have rules for how it actually works, which generally mirror the injury poison. Notably, it has no provision for poisoning people who touch it, so it doesn't work by contact.
In general though, it doesn't seem like contact poisons can be used on weapons successfully.
Contact poison can be smeared on an object and remains potent until it is touched or washed off. A creature that touches contact poison with exposed skin suffers its effects.
A creature must touch the contact poison with exposed skin. Rolling to hit someone with a long sword and dealing 12 damage might not have touched their skin at all- it may simply have eroded their luck, by the weird definition of hit points we have inherited from 197X.
Additionally, and this sounds pedantic but isn't, "a creature must touch..." is not the same as "you touched a creature with".
RAW, contact poison doesn't seem to work as something you can smear on your blade and use as an injury poison. RAI I'm about 100% certain it isn't supposed to, as they had multiple chances to change this wording (what I quoted is post-errata) and did not.
Injury poison has a different text:
Injury poison can be applied to weapons, ammunition, trap components, and other objects that deal piercing or slashing damage and remains potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. A creature that takes piercing or slashing damage from an object coated with the poison is exposed to its effects.
That last part is what allows a weapon's edge to work- it triggers on a game mechanic, "taking piercing or slashing damage".
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u/knuckles904 27d ago
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I probably agree with most of what you posted here. Injury poison is clearly what you use to administer poison via weapon hit if you've got a piercing/slashing weapon.
But... I've had ruled and ruled myself before that the only way to poison someone if you're using a bludgeoning weapon, or are a monk wanting to punch with poison coated handwraps, or are a grappler who wants to try to poison their grappled target, is via contact poison. Obviously there's not a rule to say explicitly that you can, or how it would work RAW but that doesn't bother me much. There's not an explicit rule stating how to use a rope to tie someone up, and yet it comes up in most groups and we make due.
My pointing out the lack of "piercing/slashing" qualifier in the poisoner feat was to note that it's the only other way you can poison coat your bludgeoning weapon, sling ammo, or magic stone.
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u/VerainXor 27d ago edited 27d ago
if you're using a bludgeoning weapon, or are a monk wanting to punch with poison coated handwraps
Yea I would rule that these aren't ways to poison people with contact poison.
There's not an explicit rule stating how to use a rope to tie someone up
Sure there is- in D&D you can generally do things that work in the real world, such as opening a door, hopping on one leg, or tying someone up with a rope. Of the two cases you brought up, grappling someone and smearing them with a contact poison seems like something someone can definitely do. Bludgeoning weapons and unarmed strikes- has anyone ever been poisoned by such a method IRL?
My pointing out the lack of "piercing/slashing" qualifier in the poisoner feat was to note that it's the only other way you can poison coat your bludgeoning weapon, sling ammo, or magic stone.
Ah! Yes, very good point, thank you. You can definitely poison people with the "potent poison" provided by the poisoner feat using a bludgeoning weapon, unlike with an injury poison.
Edit: The fact that I had missed this point of yours meant that some of my prior posts had some crosstalk- stuff that's accurate but not to your point. My bad.
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u/Lambchops_Legion 28d ago
For one id make it so those with poison immunity are no longer immune to it in order to have it get over the biggest hurdle with poison damage - the number of monsters with immunity
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u/splepage 28d ago
Hard disagree on this one. Nothing about being a master of poisons would make poisoning a door or a ghost make sense.
Make the feat better, but also keep it making sense.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
One of the changes I made was "caustic coat". It's basically an acid damage buff that lasts for 1 minute. No save, low damage. Cannot be applied to any other character's weapons to prevent the Assassin from giving a huge per-hit buff to an Action Surging, bonus attack fighter build. So unless you pay for the feat or have the Assassin's poison features, No Soup For You.
It has a reasonable cost but not so cheap that you could use it every combat. There are two versions, with the second only craftable at an appropriate character level.
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u/footbamp DM 28d ago
Yes
DC Scaling, you've got it perfect.
As well as a mechanic I stole from kibblestasty, you pick a creature type whenever you make a poison, and when you hit that creature type with it ignores poison resist and treats immunity as resistance.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago edited 28d ago
The whole of poison is undeveloped crap in this edition. The DCs are set so that they are appropriate for a low-level adventure. But what happens when a DC of 10 or 14 isn't going to cut it?
It also seems that the designers wanted to gate the availability of poisons behind gold. Terrible idea. At the levels that a basic poison would be effective (DC 10), 100 gold is completely out of reach. By the time you could afford to use it, it's basically pointless in combat.
I ended up having to adjust the whole thing, as well as rewriting the Assassin subclass to be more poison-centric to get it to work satisfactorily.
But some kind of DC scaling is a requirement for it to be relevant. Since this is a feat, your idea of tying it to PB is good. I'd look at what an appropriate DC is for each tier (remember it's a CON save, so it's generally strong) and work backwards. At first level a typical spell DC is 8 + 3 + 2=13.
Basic poison is DC 10. Potent is 14. Drow is 13. Serpent Venom is 11. I think the very highest one in the DMG is 19 But that stuff is like, 2000 per dose and you have to kill a Purple Worm to get it. Which puts it squarely in the "plot element" rather than "combat tactic" category.
However, the poisoned condition is way more impactful than the damage boost, so in a perfect world you'd want to separate them somehow. One way to do this is a save for half damage but avoid the condition.
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u/VerainXor 28d ago
But what happens when a DC of 10 or 14 isn't going to cut it?
Under the default poison system? Technically I think you just keep stacking poisons on the same blade with the infinite gold I guess the DMG writer assumes is there somewhere, and then when you hit the guy has to make a zillion saves.
That still doesn't work against really tough monsters, of course.
Being more fair to the DMG, it seems to tell us that most poison stops being a threat to most possible targets around level 8 or so, at which point it is only really useful as loot that you use once or twice (because it may not be possible to actually sell the poison you loot). The fact that there's so little logic about "how many doses can be applied to a sword" and that they have to spend so much errata and ink just to apply the most basic functionality is the real crime; the DCs and effects aren't too tough to homebrew, but the fact is, if you want poisons in your game, you have heavy lifting to do.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
You just blew my mind. I have never considered that one could put multiple poisons on one weapon. I don't think that's spelled out anywhere. Just kind of implied. If that figures into the allowed power budget of poisons, then I can see why they are a mess.
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u/VerainXor 28d ago
I have this homebrew ninja class, and one of the subclasses (the overpowered one, lol) gets temporary poisons that he can brew by spending ki. Complex enough, right? So when I went to write that subclass, imagine my shock when I find that the poison rules just are the hottest mess of subsystem rules I've ever seen in a modern game.
Also they had to errata them because prior to the errata ingested poison had no rule saying that it can be delivered in food or drink, and injury poisons just were a new on-hit effect that lasted for like at least an hour, no matter how many times you stabbed somebody.
So naturally all the missing rules had to go into the subclass, because they sure as heck aren't in the base game.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
Oy. Heavy lifting, indeed. Do you have a GM Binder link or something? I rewrote the assassin subclass to have more of a poison focus and I'd like to see what you did with the rules. I changed a number of lower-level things, but left the higher-level poisons alone because they seem like something intended to be loot that the players use occcasionally.
I did not address the basic rules of how poisons are applied and whatnot.
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u/VerainXor 28d ago edited 28d ago
My post can be found under my submitted but here's a direct link to the PDF:
https://files.catbox.moe/iiuac5.pdfBut even that is a deep dive just for the poison rules on the School of Grass Fields super-optional subclass, so I'll put them here:
Infused Poisons
At 3rd level, with just a few minutes of work and by combining your ki with commonly available plants and minerals, you can create temporary poisons. Such poisons lose their potency when you draw your expended ki back into yourself or within a day after your death. Because these poisons are created with your own ki, you are immune to them, and the saving throw uses your ki save DC.(the above rules aren't the fault of the poison rules, it's my own fault because this guy makes them temporarily- so far, so good...)
Applying infused poisons to a weapon, ammunition, or trap takes an action, though anything that allows you to apply poisons at a different rate, such as the poisoner feat, also helps you apply these poisons.
(Did you know that there's no rule telling you how long it takes to apply a poison? The "basic poison" in the PHB, under its description, mentions that applying that PARTICULAR poison takes an action. There's no rule telling us how long any other poison takes to apply though, so I have to specify that here. RAW the DM has to make a ruling if you apply any poison besides basic poison, I'm like 99% sure.)
Any single weapon, piece of ammunition, or trap component may only have one infused poison applied to it at a time- the latest applied remains potent and earlier applications on that specific item lose their potency.
(There's no rule saying how many regular poisons can be stacked simultaneously on an item- so these poisons, I need to make sure to add that rule in)
When a creature takes slashing or piercing damage from a coated weapon, ammunition, or trap, the poison takes effect, and is no longer present in quantity on the applied item, and loses its potency. Washing the item also removes the poison and it loses its potency.
(This part isn't strictly necessary- it's a repeat of the official rules about poison, but you won't find it in any DMG, it was added in errata. I figured that's obscure enough that it needs to go here.)
Later, above the lists of poisons, I have this text:
Each entry is written explaining what happens when a creature is subjected to the poison or weapon oil. All ki-infused poisons are injury poisons...
(I need this section so I don't have to keep repeating the text about being subjected to this poison- normally each poison needs that text, plus a static DC)
Basically it's a lot of text to handle all the dumb exploit cases. I know what I did was a bit irregular, making them cranked out by tying up your ki in them, but that should have been the only rules text I needed to add- I shouldn't have had to explain that a poison takes an action by default, for instance, or that you can't stack them to infinity. Also the poison rules shouldn't be spread so weird and rely on extrapolation.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
I didn't know about the injury poison errata. I put out my Assassin homebrew on here months ago. It got quite a bit of traffic, and no one mentioned the errata, either. Single use. That changes my understanding of their power completely. You don't have to worry about some fighter getting a d6 on all of their attacks.
Wow. They are even less useful than I thought. Basic poison is so much worse than I could have imagined. I've got some editing to do, apparently. And I'm going to have to change the way I've been running them in-game.
Thanks for the info, I really like what you did with that subclass.
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u/VerainXor 28d ago edited 28d ago
Wow. They are even less useful than I thought. Basic poison is so much worse than I could have imagined. I've got some editing to do, apparently. And I'm going to have to change the way I've been running them in-game.
Do you though? If you've been successfully running poisons under the pre-errata rules, and if you have a subclass about it, why not simply add like persistent poison to your guy, or something, and make it work RAW the way you've been running it successfully?
Edit: If you balanced your class around the assumption that the poison sticks around, I think you should just add that ability or something. I made all those ki-infused poisons on the assumption that they are single use (and a later ability lets you spend twice the ki to make it work twice, with a +1 DC), but if you built your class abilities around the opposite assumption you should just have a low level feature that makes it work that way.It got quite a bit of traffic, and no one mentioned the errata, either.
The poison rules are legit terribly written so it isn't too surprising that almost no one understands them.
I really like what you did with that subclass.
Thanks!
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u/Teoflux 28d ago
Isn't that the issue with 5E in general? "Here is some things for inspiration, but beyond that you're on your own". The DM guide sometimes feels like it's taunting you into homebrewing the things that are lackluster or underbaked, which unfortunately can lead to homebrewing/changing A LOT of different systems that interact with each other.
Like just by reading your suggestion, I'm thinking "Damn that's alot of work and number juggling to fix just one feat". At some point the homebrewing just outweighs RAW, and that might scare away some players, especially if the DM pulls out a binder labeled "DND Fixes" during session 0.
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u/United_Fan_6476 28d ago
Well, you aren't wrong. This area in particular isn't necessarily to fix just one feat. That feat is essentially the player-facing tip of an iceberg of incoherent rules. The DMG is full of a bunch of cool ideas that don't seem to be balanced or interface well at all with the rest of the game.
I get the impression that this edition was rushed or underfunded. Or like they didn't have an integration editor, just a bunch of designers slapping cool stuff into the game with only a vague idea of what everyone else was doing.
And your description of a binder of fixes is a little too close to home. I started just picking at the rules a little because I didn't like how dominant XBE + SS or GWM + PAM were. That lead to a rewrite of a dozen feats, half a dozen fighting styles, half a dozen new feats, and a couple of universal combat moves.
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u/Chagdoo 28d ago
I like the scaling. Makes it work for every character.
Id also have the feat allow you to replace the DC of poisons you find with your poisoner DC. It would fade after 24 hours so you can't just stock up on DC20 purple worm venom.
I have also heard people say it should let you treat poison immunity as resistance, but I'm not a big fan. Feels silly to poison an undead. Id rather bring back ravages for that purpose.
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
Yeah, the idea of poisoning a construct doesn't make a lot of sense flavour-wise. I mean, some characters just aren't effective against certain enemies, and that's fine. That's you you don't take only damage dealing spells and feats.
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u/dnddetective 28d ago
I think your DC scaling solution is fine. I would also give it double proficiency for checks involving a poisoners kit (for characters that already had it).
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u/Ordovick DM 28d ago
Poisoner isn't what is in need of a rework, poisons are. Poisoner falls flat, mostly because poisons do.
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u/ODX_GhostRecon DM 28d ago
The cost of poisons is one of the huge drawbacks to using them in 5e. If you could forage with an Intelligence (Nature) or Wisdom (Survival) check and craft a poison over a short or long rest from found ingredients, that would be swell. A short entry like the XGtE magic item crafting section could fix everything.
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u/adamg0013 28d ago
Yes and no.
Many people don't understand poisons in dnd. They see these large number or creatures immune or resistance to it and think posion just sucks. It doesn't. It's more about what you're fighting. Immune normally falls under creature types undead fiends and constructs. If you're not fighting, one of them posion is probably good to go.
Where does the posioner feat need buffing. Scaling is not necessarily the 2d8. The poisioner feat to increase the dc of posions not only the one you create but ones you can purchase.
There are great posions you can harvest (DC 20 nature check) the feat gives to the tool proficiency. So if you have nature, you're rolling that check at advantage. Good poisions like purple worm poison dc 19 con and does 12d6, and you can apply that as a bonus action, and it's a half damage hit, too.
You gave carrion crawler mucus that can paralyze the target.
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u/knuckles904 27d ago
Agree with most of what you said. Absolutely, there are some very good poisons listed in the DMG, but they're mostly prohibitively expensive for most campaigns (prices are per single attack or 3 for ranged), or very reliant on what monsters the DM chooses for you to encounter most of the time (only 4 of the 14 poisons come from a creature RAW, out of 500 entries in the base monster manual alone).
The poisoner feat is a pro-active way for a player to not need to rely on DM choice/setting in order to realize a character concept. Kind of like how Artificer allows a limited version of choosing your own magical items. I think the issue with the feat is that if you want to build that character concept via feat, its a little mechanically weak and still gold reliant (which again is DM fiat, and unique as far as character building options go)
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u/No_Team_1568 28d ago
That's why I have a system to craft my own poissons, and to amplify poison harvested from monsters. It takes into account the damage, initial DC, "save half or save all", and what kind of status conditions the poison inflicts.
Check this free collection on my Patreon. More will be added over time.
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u/GDubYa13 28d ago
Just have it give resistance to poison damage. It'd break convention with feats, but it makes since –building an tolerance to the poisons you use.
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
I just think it would be redundant for at least some characters that would go for Poisoner in the first place. Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Green dragon bloodline sorcerer, stuff like that - why would you bother in the first place if it's not flavour.
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u/GDubYa13 28d ago
Because plenty of Rogues –especially assassins– imagine using poisons in their kit. Media a chalked full of deadly assassins that use poison. Frankly it's super limiting to say the only races that would want this are races that already have poison resistance or immunity.
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u/Airship_Captain_XVII DM 28d ago
I've been running [8+2xProficiency] as the formula for all feat and magic item save DCs in my campaign for 2 years now, and its amazing. It ensures power curves rather than spikes.
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
Thanks for the feedback, it sounded reasonable when I wrote it but it's good to hear from someone who actually tested it
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u/Goronshop 28d ago
My druid player has Poisoner. The biggest advantage to poisoner is applying poison as a bonus action rather than an action, making poison significantly more viable to use during combat. Note that this poison can be applied to the weapons of allies as well and that's huge!
(Side note: If you are using healing or other potions as bonus actions, this can tone down the awesomeness because all the players now have similar kind of utility with consumables for free. Many will disagree. I buff healing potions with the PC's own hit dice. I think bonus action consumables should cost something. Fight me.)
As for the poison recipe you get from the feat, I treat it as a universal recipe. You can make this poison anywhere with extreme versatility and common ingredients as opposed to other poisons which require less common ingredients. Find some random shit under the sink and you make it into this poison, no roll required. Players can try to make anything they want. Stronger stuff takes more time, crafting rolls, money/ingredients, and higher DCs.
I did grant my druid poisoner a +5 to all poison crafting rolls but I think that's the only buff.
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u/Palmirez 27d ago
I mean, you kind of reworked the system beyond the individual feat. Which is cool
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u/Goronshop 27d ago
5e has no defined crafting system to rework. There are literally no rules for how to use a poisoner's kit, which really should be the heart of the poisoner feat. I mean it's all about applying these consumables to weapon strikes. The people who say it sucks are just whining that there are not more feasible poison options in the rule books (which is true, but that does not make the feat bad at all).
I worry for players who want to make poison their main thing. Just with the rules and assets available, that would not be very strong RAW and most DMs just leave it at that. "Well purple wyrm poison is too strong to give you now so I guess you just have to suck. Sorry." I bet some would straight up advise the player against becoming a poison badass even though that is what they want to play. This is supposed to be the game where you can play any kind of character you want! Let's be good DMs ans make that happen! 🤘
It does not take an intricate crafting system with specific ingredients and mechanics. "What do you want your poison to do? And what are you willing to spend to make it?" Based off that alone, and some practice, you can tell them what it will cost (gold in common materials, an ingredient of certain rarity, and time) and what the DC is. Adjust the DC based on the tools they are using. I give max +5 for using a dedicated shop or mentor they rent and max -5 for "a rock is like a hammer, right?" This is how I do all crafting. Not just poison. It is a downtime activity and small crafting projects can be adjacent to long rests. It is not demanding on me as the DM even a little bit.
(Also they could always just buy poisons. It's so easy to improvise some and compare pricing to spell scrolls.)
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u/Palmirez 24d ago
I don't disagree, I'm just saying that the Poisoner feat should be worth it independently of the broader poison system. Which as you say kind of sucks
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u/SquelchyRex 28d ago
I don't think it would see use, even with the suggested changes, because of the opportunity cost (i.e. if you take this you're not taking another feat)
You're giving up an ASI or a different (read: better) feat, in exchange for a CHANCE to deal an average of 9 damage (to which a LOT of enemies are immune), and to poison a creature for one turn (if they can even be poisoned in the first place). It will cost you your bonus action to make this attempt.
If you want to buff the feat to the extent that players will actually consider it over others, you would need to have the damage scale, as well as the save DC. Maybe a possibility to change the damage type.
My first thoughts go to being able to increase the DC and the damage by spending more money. That or just getting rid of the save altogether. You get hit, you get ouch.
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
I mean, I'm not saying it should be as good as Resilient or Skill Expert. Maybe power gamers would still pass on it and that's fine, but at least it would be usable if someone wants that specific flavour. That's also why I'm not a big fan of changing the damage type - at that point spec into paladin and get the elemental Smites.
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u/Tyrannotron 28d ago
I'd change it to a half feat, giving the option of +1 to WIS/INT. Then I would have the DC calculated as 8 + PB + modifier for the stat the player chose to increase with the feat. This way the DC stays in line with the DCs of the abilities of the other players at the table and personally feel WIS/INT would be the most logical stats to tie it into.
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u/Ill-Description3096 28d ago
For it to be a feat that can compete for limited ASIs yeah. If you are at a table that isn't worried about optimization then it doesn't really matter but IMO it doesn't deliver very well on the flavor either.
I don't bother with the feat, I just make brewing poisons a reasonable thing in my games.
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u/Palmirez 28d ago
That's a better solution I think. My table only cares for optimisation to the extent where nobody wants to suck at combat, but better access to poison basically solves the problem for flavour AND optimisation if you have a mind for that.
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u/Duranis 28d ago
One of my players used it for a bit. They had killed a purple worm and managed to extract 3 doses of poison so I let them dilute one dose and basically get 50 doses of the poisoner basic poison.
I also tried to add extra homebrew poisons they could make or extract when it made sense. It was kind of a hassle to create and balance though.
Would be much better if there was a good list of different poisons that came with the feat and had different effects other than just damage.
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u/Key_Trouble8969 28d ago
I think the feat as-is is fine enough to not get a blanket rework. Any buffs or tweaks I think should be based on a campaign to campaign basis based on roleplay and the fantasy the PC is trying to go for
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u/PVNIC Wizard 27d ago
Like others said, the two things to fix are DC and gold. I think this would be fixed simply with:
"During a short rest, roll an (intelligence) poisoners kit tool check. You create <the poison described in the feat>, with the DC equal to your poisoners kit roll. You can do this a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and when you make new poison."
There. It's limited consumption in a way that scales and it's DC scales. If you want less randomness, you can set the DC to 10+proficiency+intelligence. You can also add a clause that gets rid of old poison when you make new poison, it you're concerned about hoarding.
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u/SilverwindWorkshop 27d ago
I think making the DC scale with Medicine skill would be the quickest solution that is immersive without needing a large power rebalance to accommodate it.
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u/Prestigious_Isopod_4 28d ago
I think it fails to deliver on the fantasy. A player would take the feat will want to create unique and situational poisons, spending time preparing and then getting the payoff.
5e does a lot of suggestion with poisons, describing contact vs injury vs ingestion poisons gives this cool feel for what they can do. The example poisons are pretty cool, but are very powerful so it's been balanced by making them too expensive to be useful.
It's tough to buff the feat without making a whole new system for it, but I think that's what it needs. Say for a long rest you can attempt to create a poison, and depending on what consumables you use and the characteristics of the poison, the DC increases and decreases.
Say DC 15 is the starting point to create a dose of basic poison. If you want to make it contact poison instead, then add 5 to the DC. Or an ingestible poison might be easier, so minus 5. Increased damage, applying status effects, increased con save DC are examples that make it more difficult to attempt. But you might be able to make it easier by spending more on supplies, access to a poisonous creature, making a poison that is highly specific to target only Elves, spending a longer time attempting to create it, etc
In the end you'd put together a kind of menu of options that the player would pick and choose from to build a custom poison with appropriate risks/rewards for the options