OD&D Poison mechanics for OSE/B/X

[Cruentus]

Hello, I was hoping to get some additional brainpower on the issue of Poisons in old school gaming, particularly OSE and B/X style games. The main rules for poisons tended to live in monster stat blocks, with the majority of them being "save or die" mechanics with either a penalty, bonus, or no effect on the saves. So, pretty binary.

The Rules Cyclopedia says " A character hit my poison who fails a save vs poison dies; if he makes his saving throw, he is unaffected. Optionally, poison may inflict damage - for example, d6 per Hit Die of the creature, with a save for half damage."

OSE Advanced rules (p98-99) have poison Types, with onset time, and fairly straight/strict damage numbers (i.e. Type I, +6 save Mod, onset d4+1 rounds, 15hp damage on failed save, no damage on save.

And then a system like the Toxins of Cerilia from Dragon Magazine, March 82, expand on the Types of poisons, with names, onsets, course timing, variable damages, etc.

How do you make poisons more interesting? I get the all or nothing nature of it, but it also doesn't help build any tension. Foe example, if you were poisoned, there is literally no time to seek an antidote (except for the OSE:A onset time - get poisoned, know you're poisoned? - figure you have a round or two to get an antidote - then??, the poison doesn't do damage over time, doesn't affect stats versus just straight HP damage, etc.

All of those being the baseline, how would you implement poisons in an OSE Advanced game to make them more interesting? How could you build a fairly simple poison system that, while deadly, isn't instantly deadly and allows for the character to try to seek help, or that could affect ability scores instead of HP? Is this possible?

As I've tried to massage something, it either ends up fairly complicated with bookeeping (ex Cerilia, take total damage, divide by how long to run its course, apply damage every round, etc.), or "failed save = drop dead".

Ideas?

 

[overgeeked]

The first question to ask is: how important do you want poisons to be in your game? Because unless they’re going to be a central element, like say a thieves’ guild or assassin-based game, then you time is probably better spent on something else.

I like DCC so I’d start there. You have these elements: name, delivery method, DC or save mod, damage on save (if any), damage on failed save, and recovery. Add in onset time and antidote and you’re covered.

Damage includes HP damage, stat damage, and conditions like paralysis or petrification or amnesia or death. These can be temporary or permanent. Healable or not. Fixed damage or variable. In DCC stat damage heals at 1 point per night of rest or 2 points per full day of bed rest.

They can be healed normally, cannot be healed, only healed if saved against, etc.

It shouldn’t take much to do. Just include one interesting thing about a given poison and it should work.

 

[Cruentus]

Thanks for the reminder about Dungeon Crawl Classics. I have that, and often mine it for ideas.

On the one hand, in one campaign I am running, there is an Assassin character who is looking to collect and potentially use poisons, though I think he has forgotten about it

The other is on the other end, where I wanted to find a way to make poisons act as a sort of countdown clock in some instances - like the poison might block natural healing (or all healing) until neutralized, and slowly drain HP or abilities over time. Does the party press on, hoping to find an antidote going forward, or return to town, and can they make it in time?

I appreciate the ideas!

 

[Composer99]

How about having what amounts to two different poisons:

• poison that does extra damage when you fail a saving throw (if you want it to be a consistent threat across levels, make the damage a fraction of your maximum hit points instead of a fixed damage expression), or half as much on a successful save
• poison that eventually kills you

For the poison that eventually kills you, I would suggest, if you want a very simple implementation that adds a touch of granularity/interactivity, cribbing the "save until you get three failures, then you're dead" idea from 4e/5e D&D death saving throws.

In short:

• When you're exposed to a poison that eventually kills, you roll a saving throw; you avoid becoming poisoned on a success.
• On a failed save, you become poisoned; this could be a simple "poisoned" condition (like 5e has), during which time you also make saving throws against poison.
• At the start of each time unit over the scale the poison acts at (could be rounds, dungeon turns, hours, or even days for something very slow-acting), roll a saving throw vs poison.
• Keep rolling until you collect three failures, whereupon you die. You start keeping track once you're poisoned, so the initial save doesn't count towards the number of failures.
• Successes just keep you from dying. (Better hope you have an antidote or magic to hand!)

Poisons that would originally have instantly killed you now act on a scale of rounds, so you're still dying pretty quick.

---

If you want to get fancy, you can have different kinds of poisons that have different effects, or poisons that become progressively worse as you fail saving throws, or poisons that have long-lasting effects but take multiple doses to kill you. But I wouldn't add all that in except specifically in games where the PCs are interested in using poison a lot.

Also, poisons that still do instantly kill you could reman in the hands (or stingers or fangs) of a few especially dreaded monsters.

 

[Yora]

One poison mechanic that I came up with but never used yet is to have attacks that do poison do additional damage every round until you make a saving throw against poison. For simplicity, the poison damage roll is the same as the normal attack damage.

"1d6 + poison" means you take 1d6 normal damage and then make a save or get 1d6 additional poison damage. If that save failed and you took poison damage, you have to make another saving throw on your next turn and take another 1d6 damage if you fail. If you make a save to avoid damage, the posion has ended.

Exactly the same system can also be used for constricting snakes or any monster that squeezes you to death, but with a saving throw against paralysis.

The main advantages I see with this is that it's not instant death, can probably still kill you at lower levels, and most importantly is very easy to remember because it's consistent for all poison attacks.