Avoiding death by poison - SPOILERS

[Sumath]

Last night I GM'd my group on Roll20 for the final battle against the Dragon of the Thunder Hills. Spoilers ahead.

One of the party is a Storm Bull, who was equipped with Berevenenos' iron cuirass and silver helm, and feeling invulnerable he ran headlong at Yerezum Storn. She promptly exhaled her toxic breath, overcoming his resistance with her POT 18 systemic poison. The Storm Bull only had 15 hit points, so it looked like curtains for him, but my clever players found a way around this. Even fast-acting systemic poison takes 3 melee rounds to act, so he would not take the damage immediately, but equally they could not apply healing spells (as damage had not yet been done) and none of them had any antidotes.

In order to stave off death, the Storm Bull cast Berserk on himself, raising his CON by 7 points and thus his hit points too, so that when the poison took effect at the end of MR3 he would still have 4 HP left.

In the meantime, the rest of the party managed to take down the dragon with two solid hits from Chest Breaker and a standard broadsword impale. The obsidian sword was used to behead the beast, but when the dragon's head began talking and tried to bargain with the party, the still-Berserk Uroxi began hacking lumps out of it. All during Orgorvale Summer's divine manifestation and appeals for the party's thane to be the founder of her cult, the Storm Bull was in the background astride the bloody head, smashing out teeth and eyes. The party's Humakti cast Heal Wound on him, so that when the Berserk spell eventually ended, the Storm Bull keeled over off the dragon head, unconscious but still alive.

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Sumath said:

but equally they could not apply healing spells

FWIW, poison actually can't be cured with healing spells. At least, going with rules-as-written.

Quote

This damage cannot be healed by ordinary Healing spells. The effects heal naturally at the adventurer’s healing rate.

If the adventurer resists the poison, they take half the poison’s POT as damage to their hit points. If they survive the poisoning, the adventurer heals at the usual rate for poison. Again, ordinary Healing spells do not heal this damage. (RQG 157)

I don't know if "ordinary Healing spells" makes a distinction between the spirit magic spell Heal, or Heal Wound, or what. And it's definitely a rule I think feels reasonable to YGMV away.

1 hour ago, Sumath said:

the Storm Bull was in the background astride the bloody head, smashing out teeth and eyes.

Good on 'im! Who needs to pay attention to a pesky goddess when monsters need a good thrashing, anyhow?

[gochie]

43 minutes ago, Crel said:

FWIW, poison actually can't be cured with healing spells. At least, going with rules-as-written.

I don't know if "ordinary Healing spells" makes a distinction between the spirit magic spell Heal, or Heal Wound, or what. And it's definitely a rule I think feels reasonable to YGMV away.

Good on 'im! Who needs to pay attention to a pesky goddess when monsters need a good thrashing, anyhow?

I feel like there should be a "heal poison damage" spell or something, if that's the case. Or have Rune magic heal poison damage, but not spirit magic.

[Austin]

39 minutes ago, gochie said:

I feel like there should be a "heal poison damage" spell or something, if that's the case. Or have Rune magic heal poison damage, but not spirit magic.

Like Cure Poison?

Quote

Cure Poison

1 Point

Ranged, Instant, Nonstackable

This spell cures any poison and stops its effect immediately. The damage resulting from the poison may now be healed by other magic

Or do you mean a spirit magic spell?

I could see it as a shamanic ability too, for sure.

[gochie]

4 minutes ago, Crel said:

Like Cure Poison?

Sorry, yes, I meant a spirit spell. It just seems so deadly to NEED a Chalana Arroy cultist around when poison attacks are fairly common, and so fast-acting. Also the fact that even resisted poison deals half damage makes it deadly no matter what.

Perhaps making resisted poison damage healable? Or maybe I should just make the vast majority of poisons take longer to kill someone (like in real life?) and then players will have time to seek-out a CA healer.

[Austin]

23 minutes ago, gochie said:

It just seems so deadly to NEED a Chalana Arroy cultist around when poison attacks are fairly common, and so fast-acting.

I think another factor is that they're so dangerous, often because they're connected with a creature's CON. So a high-CON creature is harder to kill (more likely to get a poison hit in), harder to resist, and deals more damage even if you do resist.

It's tricky. I feel like even just giving full-healability to poisons works OK, because of how much damage they do. Taking 3-6 points of unhealable damage feels okay to me. Not great, but okay. The unhealable rule has felt, to me, kind of like "have all antidotes on hand at all times, or roll a new adventurer," when you factor in all the different sources of poison. It feels like it's a rule aimed at low poison amounts, that just sort of stuck around for CON/POT 18 autokill monsters.

[Sumath]

3 hours ago, Crel said:

FWIW, poison actually can't be cured with healing spells. At least, going with rules-as-written.

Ah, I missed that.

But hell, it was a clever move by the players so I'm happy to have rewarded their ingenuity. Plus the ensuing Berserker rage was too entertaining to pass up.

[Austin]

13 minutes ago, Sumath said:

But hell, it was a clever move by the players so I'm happy to have rewarded their ingenuity. Plus the ensuing Berserker rage was too entertaining to pass up.

Oh, you definitely made the right choice—I wasn't trying to critique your gamemastering!  That's a great story-telling moment.

[soltakss]

7 hours ago, Sumath said:

In order to stave off death, the Storm Bull cast Berserk on himself, raising his CON by 7 points and thus his hit points too, so that when the poison took effect at the end of MR3 he would still have 4 HP left.

We used to do that, cast Vigor or Berserker, then drink down a poison antidote if we could get one out of our packs.

We also played that a Treat Poison roll that wad one before the poison took effect reduced the POT of the attacking poison, but when applied after the effect reduced the damage taken.

4 hours ago, gochie said:

Sorry, yes, I meant a spirit spell.

I used Poison Purge (Variable, Instant) that subtracts its points from the POT of the Poison, so casting Poison Purge 4 on a POT 12 Poison reduces it to POT 8. The PCs got it on a HeroQuest, I think.

[gochie]

50 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I used Poison Purge (Variable, Instant) that subtracts its points from the POT of the Poison, so casting Poison Purge 4 on a POT 12 Poison reduces it to POT 8. The PCs got it on a HeroQuest, I think.

Nice idea!

Can you cast it more than once on the same player? IE. casting Poison Purge III three times in a row removes 9 POT?

Edited April 9, 2020 by gochie

[Dissolv]

I like that Poison is so deadly.  It (and acid) gives the players something much worse than a nasty cut or broken bone to worry about.  Thor died from poison after all, I'd want the players significantly tougher to do better.  😈

Or they can learn what the specific hazards of the monsters are via RP actions and/or skill checks so that they can be prepared, like a normal human would have to.  😉  

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, gochie said:

Can you cast it more than once on the same player? IE. casting Poison Purge III three times in a row removes 9 POT?

It depends on the GM.

Under RQG, you can heal the same location multiple times, which differs from RQ2/RQ3, so why not?

I would say that Poison Purge has no effect once the Poison has had its effect, though, as this stops people casting it until the poison is all countered.

[soltakss]

54 minutes ago, Dissolv said:

I like that Poison is so deadly.  It (and acid) gives the players something much worse than a nasty cut or broken bone to worry about.  Thor died from poison after all, I'd want the players significantly tougher to do better.  😈

Poison is deadly, or can be. If you have a CON 30 scorpion man, or a CON18 scorpion man with several Venom Boostings, you wquickly get into the territory of half POT means death for a normal PC, so you die whether the Poison succeeded or failed.

To survive Poisons, you need to stock up on Antidotes and Poison-Healing spells.

My Players were so relieved to get a spell that helped them against poisons even a little bit.

[Dissolv]

I get the impression that I typically run a lower power level campaign that you might be doing, so even a 12 point potency poison is a very serious setback for an unprepared player, or heck a whole party.  They may win the fight, but are severely diminished for the next one.

Very rarely, and only with significant foreshadowing, will I toss out a huge potency poison.  (Unless as a plot hook, such as when the adventure is basically for the non-combat types to race to save the gas-poisoned Humakti.  i.e. the medical drama mission).

My usual gimmick is to keep such things in the back pocket to emphasize a greater threat, or willingness to be really nasty about it, in the case of blade venom, and then some of the adventure will revolve around trying to get some plant that is necessary to make more of the antidote or such.   

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Dissolv said:

I get the impression that I typically run a lower power level campaign that you might be doing

As I said, my Players were so relieved to get a spell that helped them against poisons even a little bit. Their PCs were Rune Lord-Priests and HeroQuestors, very powerful, fully able to take on the Horrors of Dorastor, at least at the end of the campaign. Even so, Poison was one of the things that they did not like at all and were pleased to be able to get a spell that reduced its Potency.

You can get high powered poison fairly easily. Venom Boosting 4 adds 4D6 to the POT to Scorpion man venom, so a Scorpion man with CON 18 could get POT 42 Venom, enough to kill any normal PC.

[GAZZA]

14 hours ago, Dissolv said:

I like that Poison is so deadly.  It (and acid) gives the players something much worse than a nasty cut or broken bone to worry about.  Thor died from poison after all, I'd want the players significantly tougher to do better.  😈

Or they can learn what the specific hazards of the monsters are via RP actions and/or skill checks so that they can be prepared, like a normal human would have to.  😉  

I honestly don't think lack of "deadly things" is a problem RuneQuest has ever really suffered from; I'm sure plenty of veteran players have RuneLords that were killed by a critical trollkin slingshot roll. (Though I believe @soltakss had players with contingencies for that sort of thing, or just the ability to treat death as a minor inconvenience).

If I recall correctly at least one version of RQ - possibly from the Mongoose line - treated poison as damage to the abdomen. That seems like a perfectly reasonable alternative; it's not as if general hit points reflects anything real after all, it's just a game mechanic.

[Akhôrahil]

On 4/9/2020 at 2:36 PM, Crel said:

FWIW, poison actually can't be cured with healing spells. At least, going with rules-as-written.

Heal Body works - it heals damage regardless of source. So while it doesn’t cure the poison, it heals up all the damage afterwards (which lesser healing spells can’t).

[Dissolv]

4 hours ago, GAZZA said:

players with contingencies for that sort of thing, or just the ability to treat death as a minor inconvenience)

Yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear.   Most players focus heavily on preventing and recovering from physical damage.   Heal 6 on multiple PC's, allied spirits, bound spirits, is just the start.  Heal Area, Heal Body -- it all starts stacking up as you play.  And of course there is always Divine Intervention.  The nature of RQ combat is that while you want to avoid damage if you can, sometimes criticals happen (or ambushes -- always good to catch an enemy with no parry and not protective spells up).   It can be very tough to "push" a group of experienced players running powerful adventurers, as they have so many tools for overcoming most situations.  Poison can act as that curve ball that the players might not necessarily be ready for (at least once or twice), and it helps to underscore the severity of the encounter. 

By using it sparingly, it tends to preserve the dramatic impact, although Scorpion men tend to have a problem landing that sting attack, as it gets prioritized like nothing else.  Elves from ambush with the poison arrow, on the other hand, is a lethal threat that so far none of my players ever were able to solve as a tactical problem.  One group's solution was the burn as much of the forest as they could and bail. 

I learned from that, and my Garden elves in the Big Rubble are few in number but sporting various low grade poisons as a matter of course (8 seems a good number for not lethal but with serious consequences).  That actually makes the region a complete no-go to a lot of players as soon as they hear the rumor.  They'll mess with the trolls, rebel against the Lunars, purge the chaos pits, but step foot in not the Garden.