Poison and its affects

Gregal · Post by **Gregal** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:12 pm

I have a question on poison, When someone is poisoned it affects their mental and physical attributes? Does this also affect someone Hit roll and their ability to talk correctly as well as walk? I was thinking could the poison code give someone messed up speech according to the level of poison? I just believe a hard dose of poison would mess up the thoughts of a wizard or priest enough to make their mental state not able to cast a certain spell, I belive poison is sold a little short on here, and is very much under appreciated

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

Levine · Post by **Levine** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 12:01 pm

Gregal wrote:I have a question on poison, When someone is poisoned it affects their mental and physical attributes? Does this also affect someone Hit roll and their ability to talk correctly as well as walk?

In my opinion.. Poison does affect mental attributes (as can be seen in the score) and thus will affect hit roll and ability to talk correctly, etc.

Gregal wrote:I was thinking could the poison code give someone messed up speech according to the level of poison?

Honestly, I do not believe this is very difficult to code because it sounds like it works the same way as the "drunk" code, but I feel that this is rather unnecessary because smotes and emotes will do the trick.

Gregal wrote:I just believe a hard dose of poison would mess up the thoughts of a wizard or priest enough to make their mental state not able to cast a certain spell, I belive poison is sold a little short on here, and is very much under appreciated Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

This idea is pretty good, but I feel that it shouldn't be "a certain spell", but any spell in general. Poison seems pretty fine to me atm, though.. The "special effects" are pretty cool (the hallucinations), and quite enough for now. Should this idea be implemented, don't think it should be too high on the to-do list.

Interesting idea, though. Thanks.

-gissy

Tortus · Post by **Tortus** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 10:39 pm

Another idea would be to have some poisons affect the senses.
They might blind you, for instance, and others might make you numb, or perhaps paralysed.

Estrild · Post by **Estrild** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:23 am

I'd frankly just like to see poison be more realistic, because (let's face it) it isn't anything even remotely close to being realistic right now. Poison in real life is a very serious thing, even something really minor, like food poisoning. You don't injest some rat poison or rubbing alcohol or bleach and hallucinate for a little bit, shiver, suffer, and get over it. You injest the rat poison/rubbing alcohol/bleach/whatever, shiver, suffer, and then straight up die.

That being said, I realise that we're a bit different from real life. In the real world, generally speaking when someone's mace ANNHILATES your head, there's not really a whole lot of other options beyond you also being dead. Them MUD characters are a tough breed. But even so, I feel like "poison" is looked at currently like a joke. After all, why should you be afraid of something that's hardly going to make a ding in your overall HP percentage?

In summary, it wears off way too fast, and it's way, way too gentle. People who actually get poisoned, they're poisoned for a long time. Like all day. Like hospitalized. Even if they are rugged and tough, poison isn't something the body knows how to deal with. It disrupts the system. It should stick around for longer than it does.

It also doesn't act properly, and I'm not sure if this is even feasible to code, but I'd like to see it happen. When you get poisoned, whether or not you survive those initial first few moments shouldn't be the determiner for your overall survival. Poison tends to creep up on you, starting slow, making you sicker and sicker, until it reaches its peak and THEN fades off. Assuming you survived that peak, obviously. Perhaps one of its effects should be "stun", also. I dunno, but were I to injest rat poison, I'm fairly certain that "remaining conscious" would not be high on my list of things I was still capable of.

Shabanna · Post by **Shabanna** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:17 pm

I agree with Estrild! IMHO...being poisoned in FK now is more like drinking a whole bottle of vodka ( not that I would know... what that is really like ...*coughs* ) Honestly, I think Poison should pack more of a punch than a really bad drunk. It would be super if the effects could increase over time and reaaaaally make a person sick unless they could be cured by a priest...

along with this, would it be possible perhaps to have some more echos that "others" can see pertaining to your appearance and health? and make then less humourous?? (though the humourous ones are fun) IMHO people tend to not pay attention to the few echos they experience with poison or else they deal only with the humor (weeeee! dancing pixies! etc...) I can not even count the number of times I have seen, seemingly healthy fighters, chatting in the square as if nothing has happened...when in truth... they are experiencing echos from poison. If you are poisoned...and you see an echo... and someone says icly " Are you alright?" " Oh, sure I was just poisoned"*shrug* "I will be fine" is not the ideal answer.

We are getting complacent with our RP of poison... *raises hand* Im guilty as well (I just love pixies!)

On one hand, it would be good to see the code reflect more virulent effects.Though I also fear the more powerful it becomes...the better the chance for it to be abused in pkill situations.

We have looots of poisons easily acquired in our IRL current society... but you do not see people poisoning folks everyday. People are wary! If, for instance, there were a serial killer out there whose M.O. was poison... you can bet your boots that folks would start being cautious! An example of this would be when some whacko put cyanide in Tylenol bottles *Poof* we invented tamper proof seals. People in general are not continuously gullable. fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!

People talk when they have been poisoned. So, expect IC consequences to your ic actions if you go around poisoning folks. eventually... they will "Do something"... period.

hmmm I digressed...I apologize for my stream-of-consciousness post... I have the martian death flu...mayhaps i need to lay off the nyquil? "ohhh loook pixies!" *giggles*

The Banna

Kregor · Post by **Kregor** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:33 pm

As far as the ill effects, poison, affects the mental state of your char. Code wise, there's a mentalstate that ranges both below and above 0. Above zero affects your mind, from hyperactiveness to hallucnations to delusional. negative affects your fatigue. Anyone who's ever gotten the echo "you could use a rest." has experienced a negative mental state, and at it's worst value, you actualy become narcoleptic, passing out alseep randomly.

I would tend to think that poison should affect a char in the negative (ie, weaked, unable to stay awake) rather than the hyperactive. Perhaps the other direction is not the funniest (which pixies and cool things in your hands) but would make more sense to something that could cause you to die.

I agree that poisons aren't dangerous for the largest populace of FK, I also think the echoes associated with mental state are not severe enough. Someone who is at a full state of delusionally insane should act out a whole lot more than they do. and the echoes shouldn't be just local to the victim, they should be loud and clear for others to see, those that are externally aware at least. When a person babbles incoherently, stun them for a few rounds in the process, then it won't be so easy to just ignore the mentalstate and keep fighting. If we can insert random sleeps into the exhaustion mental state, we should be able to insert stunning into the sanity one.

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:39 pm

I agree that poison should be rp'd properly, with serious illness in general, but that does not mean the spell has to be revamp, it means that those who are infected need to rp the infection, maybe with the addition of more violent behaviors like smoting, collapsing and forced rest or lack of skills, strength or movability to accompany the effects.

Also, the art of poisoning I reson should be revamped. One of the wonders of poison is not in simply calling down a spell of it on an enemy or pc but subtly poisoning through touch and manipulation, maybe make the spell not work if still spell effect is active or allow the introduction of penalties that infect the caster in case the spell fails, poison should spread regardless if it fails or not. I would think poison required the caster to consider the risk of infection when casting based on their current level of skill, so that a early level or novice, will experience a chance of the poison infecting them while a gm will experience nothing. I would also love to see the effects of poison given an airborn quality or the creation of poison induced clouds that travel as mobs when invoked or some such thing, basically poison is a serious matter and can go in any direction towards a more rewarding rp and a deadlier reality in practice.

Just some ideas.

edit: I wrote this while Kregor was writing his, so alot of my ideas mirror his own, which is nice stuff

Glim · Post by **Glim** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:16 pm

Hmm, I would like to see poison more the way D&D does it. Has an initial affect, then a gestation period, con checks, ect. Different poison affects different stats. Usually poison lasts anywhere from many days, to a few hours, depending on your constitution rolls. I agree, right now, poison is laughable. You are poisoned, and you ignore it because it might take you to 95% health and then expire. Will post a list of D&D poisons next I can.

The spell poison in D&D can be quite deadly, but it is one of the shorter poisons.

Poison
Necromancy
Level: Clr 4, Drd3
Components: V,S,DF
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous (see text)
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates (see text)
Spell Resistence: Yes

Calling upon the venemous powers of natural predators, you inflict the subject with a horrible poison by making a successful melee touch attack. The poison deals 1d10 points of temporary Constitution damage immediately and another 1d10 poison of temporary Constitution damage 1 minute later. Each instance of damage can be negated by a Fortitude save (DC 10 + one-half caster level + caster's Wisdom modifier).

Correct me if I am wrong, but if the rolls are right, and you are dropped to a 0 constitution, you die. So the spell poison can be very deadly if not dealt with quickly.

Feedback always welcome,

Kregor · Post by **Kregor** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:24 pm

Yeah, that's another thing, in the book it saps your CON, in FK, it saps STR. I think a CON drain would be much better overall than a STR drain... what ends up happening with FK poison is people drop things, game resets or goes boom, and you suddenly lose your stuff. A very OOC penalty for an IC poisoning.

I think I will suggest a change in the ability drained while we're looking the spell slot system. Thanks for pointing that out, Glim.

Dalvyn · Post by **Dalvyn** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:39 pm

Actually, these are two different things.

I do not like it either that you drop things when you STr or Dex gets decreased. You should just be prevented from moving, and have penalties to hit and AC. Making you drop things is just "mean" and adds nothing to the game in terms of challenges to overcome.

And there's a second things, which is the affect of poison. That will most likely be changed (I have actually already talked with Mask shortly about it yesterday).

But changing poison will not solve the first problem that Glim pointed out (and vice versa).

Hviti · Post by **Hviti** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:47 am

Perhaps Magical and Nonmagical poisons could do different things?

Magical ones could start out weak and grow stronger (the spell builds with time) and would require a priest with some sort of detection/dispelling combo to remove. They would be "overall effects", messing with your mind, decreasing your HP with increasing -s over time, and draining CON. This would basically be a general hurt-all-areas poison.

Nonmagical ones would start out very strong, doing a large amount of damage (as they would hit specific organs) and decrease as your body passed out the poison. They would have certain antidotes (which could come in with the Herbalism trade, since I assume changes to poison would take about as long). This would be the poison of choice for those looking to deal a fair amount of damage (poisoned weapons and so on) and they might hurt con, too, because of the attacks the poison would make on bodily functions.

The first poison would be a spell effect and therefore castable once on a person (but would make up for that by having more and greater effects than the current spell). The second poison would have to be limited in number of uses somehow to keep poison from becoming "that instant/repeatable 10% hit" (since I assume it'd do a great deal of damage) or something along those lines.

Great ideas, I think resist poison and herbalism (if/when it gets in and if it has to do with antidotes) will become more important now.

Pheobe · Post by **Pheobe** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:16 pm

Alright, having recently just spent a very long time rping being poisoned...I never got one echo about the poison. I really didn't even know I was poisoned until I looked at my score one day and realized that my strength was down. I have no idea how it happened...or when. I think a few echoes for me and for others to see would be nice.

I finally let her starve so that way people would have other ways to notice she wasn't well if they just walked into the room in the middle of the rp and did not know what was going on.

Also, I think it would be good if poison's effects got worse and worse..like if you were starving. Because in reality, Pheobe would have been dead after a few days at the most. I think if you are not healed within a certain period of time you should die. Maybe some echoes starting out like You feel nauseous..You feel extremely weak...You feel feverish...progessing through some sickly echoes until something like The poison causes your heart to stop.. you die.. This should take a long time..and maybe you do not have to die..but I agree that being poisoned is not serious enough as it is.

If I had not noticed she was poisoned, she could have still gone around as normal. If nothing happens, besides your strength just barely going down...what is there to be worried about. I rped it like it was a big deal, but I really could have just gone on forever being poisened and no one would have been able to tell the difference.

I don't know if any of this made sense... I'm sitting waiting for pheobe to have visitors...but to sum it up I think that poisoning should have some real consequences and some echoes would be nice even if you are going to rp it out. I think poisoning is something that should be taken seriously.

Mariela · Post by **Mariela** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:06 pm

I am relunctant to even point this out, but I am going to anyways, knowing people will argue and bemoan this suggestion.

I am not above letting things like poison have permanate consequences to one's stats.

When people are really violently ill, or even hospitalized, it takes a long time to work one's strength and energies back up. Sometimes you NEVER get back things that you used to be able to do. And sometimes you are constantly dealing with the effects.

Pheobe's poisoning is a GREAT example. She had been poisoned for days before someone even whispered that is what it might be. By the time Mariela had heard about it, the role play had reached the point that Pheobe was hallucinating and could barely speak to explain what was going on and was elapsing in and out of a coma.

Even with a cure, Pheobe was not just going to bounce right out of bed and go adventuring. One would think that she would need to spend time doing small things to regain, let's say a point of strength or even a point of dexterity. Maybe even some mental stats.

It would suck to have to recover that stat point. HOWEVER, we are all "professional adventuers" and in the example's case, Pheobe is never lacking the ability to gain more experiance to earn back enough XP to gain that stat point back. It would take time and energies, but I would think it would both make the poision more risky, and more dangerous without having people dropping stuff and just getting echo's which...

Come on, let's be honest, we IGNORE constantly.

How often have you been hungry in tehmiddle of a good RP and just let your character waste away until you were done?

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:43 pm

In all things, the only limit one really faces is the limit of rp, concerning a mud. If you feel that poison does not carry harsh enough consequences for characters, then consider the characters that do rp the full effects of poison, you can smote effects such as hallucination, but currently it relies on how well you rp and accept what has happened to you. In response to the lack of poisoning effects, I think (though I might be off) that it varies based on the level of spell or affectiveness of the skill or poisons used. I would think poison works two ways. First, in Pheobe's case she wanted a poison that slowly got worse the longer it was circulating through her system, a poison like that slowly spreads through the body, if you wanted, you could generally rp that the poison has devasted you or apply over applications@forgottenkingdoms.com to rp adverse effects like insanity or mood swings. Really in this case it is not about poison code not working for you or being to subtle to detect, it is up to your rp of the situation. 2nd, some poisons will enter a system and slowly disapate, generally, with poison in game if it is moderate enough it will eventually wear off, however powerful poison will continue to wound and you can succumb potentially before the healing has even begun.
In reguards to hunger, well, just because the code says you are startingh to be peeky or begining to starve, does not make it a good idea to begin eating in an inapropriate situation. Though that is up to you the character to judge and weigh the consequences of actions, either if you are willing to do something and accept responsibility or not.

I honestly don't think the code has to be changed on poison, I think if you facilitate good rp and smotes when the affect of poisoning is apon you then you are doing a wonderful job. If a priest divinely heals you and you cease to feel sick, then that makes sense as well, since certain powers are quite powerful.

In closing I welcome any poison code changes if they are neccesary, but if not I am content with the current system, until a truly unsolveable problem arises. Or someone introduces a great idea like the negative feats which were discussed that create permanent disabilities currently being worked on. I am very happy there was a great big rp around overcoming sickness and I hope more will come in the future

Glim · Post by **Glim** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:47 pm

It seems to me, from what you said, that you are mostly speaking more about temporary stat damage instead of permanent. I agree with temporary damage, something you would have to work out for a long time or find some powerful magics to get back. That would be the consequences for ignoring the poison.

Still, I would just like to kill someone just by offering them an apple.

Feedback is always welcome (except concerning the last comment),
Thanks,

Alaudrien · Post by **Alaudrien** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:54 pm

I personally like how poison is with 3.5 it does x amount of health damage. Then you take I think 1d6 con damage twice in a row if your con falls below 0 then you die. You also are weakened in strength and dex. Im not looking at my book but i think I got it close to how it is. You are weakened bad and can so die if your rolls are just bad. Its sweet ^^

Raona · Post by **Raona** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 11:18 am

I'll say that the first time I was poisoned IC I was very scared, though also very thankful that the initial effects vere volatile. (I was bitten by a dire spider, and lost control of my motions, then got them back, lost the strength to move, then had a burst of strength; the last allowed me to escape.) But I also expected far more severe code consequences than I encountered. The echoes were great (all kinds of insanity stuff), but it took me a while to figure out that I was poisoned...I just knew that something was wrong. I think that's a great aspect of the current poison code.

As a chemist, let me point out that some poisons are hydrophillic, others hydrophobic, so some spread through the system very quickly (e.g. cyanide) while others slowly spread from the point of contact (think mosquito bite). Some can be handled by the liver, and go away over time, others can not and instead attack organs. So poison code should not be one-size-fits-all. What we may be missing is code for a truly deadly poison, but the current code is certainly appropriate for *some* poisons.

Mariela wrote:Come on, let's be honest, we IGNORE constantly.

How often have you been hungry in tehmiddle of a good RP and just let your character waste away until you were done?

I just wanted to reply to this specifically, though it may be a bit off-topic. Time in the game moves at the same speed, whether you are galavanting across the plains or talking with someone. Personally, I do not go from sated to starving while debating politics with someone, nor can I carry on any conversation for days at a time. Adapting the code to slow the action of time on those engaged in conversation would be hard, but while things stay as they are I find it both perfectly IC and conducive to RP to ignore hunger echoes when engaged in a long conversation. Long though a conversation may be, it only takes hours of game time because it takes time to type and the game clock ticks along at a good clip. I don't want to see that change (I wait for boats, stores, etc. long enough to be very appreciative of the rate of time!), but I do, and even urge others, to RP as if time were moving much more slowly when engaged in conversation and the like.

Poison and its affects

Poison and its affects

Re: Poison and its affects