Any core rules on extracting poison from a wyvern?

[Kai Lord]

My Ranger will be needing some good strong poison to coat his arrows with for an upcoming battle, and wyverns will be a good in-world source for it. Rather than heading down to Poisons-R-Us and shelling out 3,000 big ones per dose, I'd like him to actually hunt down a couple wyverns and extract it himself.

I glanced at the indexes of all three core books and found no references to extracting poison. How the heck did the guys who sell it for 3,000 gold per vial get it in the first place? Any rules on this?

 

[Kershek]

We just ran into this in our last session. They killed three of them and wanted their poison. Since they didn't have any poison crafts, I told them that a high enough Knowledge: Arcana roll (since they are dragons) would tell them the area of the beast that had the poison sack. They just cut that area out and took it to the local thieves guild, which one of them was a member. I said that one usable dose was available from each sack and they paid 2,000 gold for each one. Normally, IMC poison is purchased by a thieves guild for market or near market price. They lowered the price because of the work that needed to be done to get the poison.

When I looked up normal treasure amount for 3 wyverns, it came out very close to 6,000 gold, so I think they got a proper reward.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think you should use craft (poisonmaking) somehow.

But the problem galls me as well.

Maybe there's a d20 Book of Poison or something out there?

 

[Plane Sailing]

No core rules.

You'll have to encourage your DM to make some suitable house-rules for it. I've just made up some house-rules for almost exactly this purpose for a player in my own campaign.

Cheers

 

[Vaxalon]

There are no core rules.

You could extrapolate and say that it's "Craft (poisonmaking)" and use the wyvern's tail as the raw materials.

The question would be, how many doses can you make from one wyvern's stinger?

I'd argue one batch of 1d10 doses. Any venom you don't use will spoil before you can start making a second batch.

 

[Gregor]

Why not make a Knowledge: Nature check to see if you can locate the poison organ, sack etc in the wyvern's anatomy. Success in this check also allows you to remove it from the corpse. However, unless you have poison use (like the assassin) you need to make the proper Fortitude Save or infect yourself. Then, simply take the recovered poison to an alchemist or use the alchemy skill to extract some doses for your use. Simple.

Cheers,

 

[Kershek]

However, unless you have poison use (like the assassin) you need to make the proper Fortitude Save or infect yourself

Wouldn't that just be a 5% chance in poisoning yourself? If you're doing a fortitude save, does that mean you automatically get hit by the poison?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Yes. Only 5% (maybe a natural 1 on the Knowledge check).

But Knowledge Nature shouldn't allow you to extract it IMO. You might know where it is but to remove it, you need agility, not knowledge.

 

[LokiDR]

Profession:Herbalism would be my choice. You prepare a natural sample into some usable production, in the same vein as profession: tanner gets you leather. Herbalism would cover any natural product.

Alternative skills would be craft: alchemy or a new craft: poison. Repeated different checks: knowlege arcana/nature for finding the poison sack on the creature then some other skill for getting it out and still another for making it usable is excessive and takes the fun out of the game.

Once you have the "raw material" it should be a craft checks as building an item, DC 15 (same as acid). The poison sack should have enough does in it that the wyvern would be able to take down a couple of creatures, so I would say 2d4 doses could be squeezed out.

 

[Gregor]

Ya, my bad on the poison use thing. Thanks for the correction.

So lets assume Knowledge Nature allows you to locate the poison, how should one remove it? I guess if you go with agility, as KaeYoss has suggested (makes sense due to the precision cutting etc required), then perhaps a Dex check to remove it? Maybe a survival check?

Any ideas on other forms of poison?

KaeYoss
Maybe there's a d20 Book of Poison or something out there?

Lets dish out some ideas here and make our own.

Cheers,