The Codex Venenorum is done. Whew! I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Poisoncraft, which was the first product I ever published, way back in 2004.
Retooling the book for 4e was incredibly challenging, but I’m happy to say it was also extremely rewarding. It opened my eyes to some of the subtler design elements of the new system. In short, I think the process of creating the new book made me a better designer. This caused something of a chain reaction. While I was creating all of the poisons that form the meat of the Codex, I kept coming up with new ideas and new ways of handling things. And, of course, I had 30 levels to play with now, instead of just 20. In the end, I came up with 81 poisons for the Codex, and I’ve only scratched the surface of what these new playthings can do.
I thought I would post a few peeks here for those on the fence. For starters, I’ll show you one of the new poisons, First Strike:
You can see, I tweaked the format a little. For starters, I wanted to add a little more fluff for each poison, using an “implied setting”, written in the voice of Nylson Veld himself. This went a long way in keeping a raft of poison entries from becoming eye-meltingly boring. You’ll also note the dual entry for the component cost. This is for the two versions WotC displayed in the DMG and AV, i.e., persistent and transient, i.e., one-encounter and one-shot. Finally, the poison shows some of the unique directions I took in exploring properties and effects. Here, we have an interesting property that offers strategic challenges and a non-standard remedy (the condition that ends an ongoing effect) that shows off some of what the new Codex is all about.
The product itself includes a handy index of all 81 poisons in separate, sortable Excel and CSV formats. This index includes all of the information necessary to actually use the poison in your game, including the attack bonus and effects. If you want a taste of what the book contains (poor choice of words I know), you can download the Excel spreadsheet and a pdf of the index sorted by level right now.
Finally, I thought I would give a teaser about material I am working on for upcoming Poisoncraft products, specifically the Player Options and DM Options books. They’ll see a return of all the fan favorites from the original Poisoncraft, including the sennith PC race, toxifying magic weapons, and the dreaded toxic deathlords. I’ll be recasting all of the prestige class abilities and spells to suit the new 4e power structure. So get ready for the wall of wasps and the toxomancer paragon path. And I’ll be presenting a slew of skill challenges, encounters, and side treks for DMs to throw at their players. Of course, I’m looking forward to diving in.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about the new Codex, what you are doing with it, and how it’s going down in your game.
Poisoncraft: Codex Venenorum is done and waiting for a trip through the Fred Hicks Prettification Machine. So I thought I would unwind with another 3e conversion. This is one of my favorites from the last edition:
 Feeblemind power I like this conversion for a few reasons. It gives the wizard another long-distance power, which is quickly becoming the last defining feature of the class. It has a pretty novel suite of damage effects. (I particularly like the penalty to Reflex defense, which seems odd at first blush but, in fact, makes perfect sense.) Finally, I like the conditional penalty to the saving throw, which is a fruitful area for further design exploration.
Just one problem….
Did you figure it out….
I didn’t notice until I started typing this post….
That’s right. Monsters don’t have the arcane keyword. So that last sentence is essentially useless. Sigh.
This points out an interesting design phenomenon for me. When I’m designing for 4e, I don’t have much trouble getting into the 4e mindset. For some reason, when I’m designing conversions from 3e to 4e, I seem to have these kind of niggling issues pop up. In fact, I had some similar issues crop up while I was working on the Poisoncraft conversion. I would find myself doing a straight conversion of something and catch myself in time to realize that it might be something that doesn’t belong in 4e at all. For Poisoncraft, I think this ended up making it a much better product because I found myself really focusing on the design issues, giving them greater scrutiny. Anyone else have similar experiences?
On the upside, there are a couple of easy fixes. You could just swap psychic for arcane. In some ways, this is a better fit than arcane anyway (though it lacks the traditional tie to its 3e progenitor). You could repurpose it to a monster power easily enough, perhaps for an evil mage NPC. What would you do?
The centerpiece of Poisoncraft: Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV is the free-form poison creation system. Scaling poison damage is a simple affair. However, most poisons have a condition component in addition to the damage component, e.g., ongoing 5 poison damage and weakened. Establishing a hierarchy for conditions and evaluating their interconnection is more complicated. Therein, lies one of the more interesting design challenges of the forthcoming Codex.
Conditions cover the full spectrum. Some conditions scale inherently, and some scale poorly or not at all. And sometimes this isn’t obvious. A character who is weakened deals half damage whether their performing a simple stab to the face or unleashing a fusillade of arrows to each enemy in range, whether their dealing 1d6 damage or 20d6. That would seem to scale rather obviously. However, at higher levels of play, characters are able to produce significantly greater effects than merely dealing damage. Thus, weakened becomes less problematic; it does not scale perfectly.
As part of my work, I did a thorough examination of all of the conditions in the PHB. Below is a portion of the work, including some of my thoughts on each. In addition to some insight on the Codex, you might find the analysis useful in your own creations, e.g., a new creature or magic item.
Blinded: This includes a typical parcel of effects, i.e., granting combat advantage and being unable to flank. The Perception penalty should not be overlooked (see, deafened), but it’s less relevant since the condition itself grants combat advantage. Notably, all of your targets have total concealment. Normally, this does not affect close and area attacks. However, it is important to consider that some such powers specifically require that the character be able to see the target—look at virtually all of the close powers of the fighter, ranger, and rogue. This condition can be highly problematic. Definitively paragon tier (the rogue’s blinding barrage daily power being the exception that proves the rule).
Dazed: Another CA/no-flank condition. This one also strips an action from the victim. However, that effect is tempered by access to action points. Similarly, with at least one action available, the victim can still seek refuge or otherwise defend to prevent the multiplicative effect of some, more-onerous conditions. Notably, many heroic-tier powers cause the dazed condition, e.g., cleric’s wrathful thunder, wizard’s chill strike, etc. Heroic tier.
Deafened: Much less onerous than blinded, for obvious reasons. Indeed, the deafness can occasionally be a boon, e.g., vs. a harpy. Still, the penalty to Perception is comically large, to the point where it is supposed to make the character fail in all but the most extreme cases. Failing a Perception check in combat is principally relevant for one reason: using Stealth to gain combat advantage. In essence, the condition grants combat advantage. Still, deafened is relatively easier to deal with. Interestingly, none of the core PHB classes have abilities that cause the deafened condition, but still easy to slot as heroic tier.
Dominated: Not generally applicable to poison since it specifically assumes a third-party actor, i.e., the dominating creature. I could conceive of a poison that, say, made the victim impressionable, which allowed a person to make a Diplomacy or Intimidate check to dominate until the end of the turn or something like that. A little too kludgy for my tastes.
Dying: On the one hand, this seems inherently scalable. Essentially, it deals damage equal to your hit point level. However, it’s still an incredibly damaging, and thus potent, effect in any case. Additionally, more than many of the other conditions, it is far easier for epic-level characters to deal with dying. The Heal check to stabilize is a flat DC15, which is essentially automatic in the epic tier. Also see the life charm in AV.
Helpless: This is a one-trick pony, and its name is coup de grace. The CDG is even more potent than dying. Where the latter provides a clock in the form of death saves, the former opens the possibility to immediate death—difficult to pull of, but still possible. Epic tier.
Immobilized: One of the less impactful conditions, this one doesn’t scale very well. At higher levels, alternate methods of movement, specifically teleportation, are more common. Heroic tier.
Marked: Like dominated, not generally applicable to poison. Again, it’s possible to come up with a way of using it, but….
Petrified: This is an interesting one. In a general sense, it’s not nearly as bad as the other take-no-action conditions as a result of the damage resistance. In other words, the target is unlikely to suffer additional harm of serious consequence. The problem of course arises due to the fact that, in most instances, petrified is a permanent condition. A poison with “petrified (save ends)” is not as detrimental as dying, helpless, or unconscious. However, it’s still obviously more problematic than other conditions that merely limit the actions of the target. I peg this one as epic tier, if on the low end.
Prone: This is an odd one because it’s not a condition so much as a position, like kneeling or standing on tippy-toes. However, like an inverse example of petrified, we can play around with how the condition is used. Consider: “prone (save ends)”. And don’t forget the errata (which clarifies the movement restrictions when prone). In any case, it’s a minimally complicating condition. Heroic tier.
Restrained: Obviously, simply a more dramatic example of immobilized. Paragon tier.
Slowed: Easily one of the least complicating conditions—probably the single least complicating. Quintessentially heroic tier.
Stunned/Surprised: If you didn’t catch the errata, you don’t realize that these two conditions are now identical. Here we have the CA/no-flank combo with a take-no-action effect as well. This is essentially a middle ground between the limiting conditions of heroic tier and the more lethal conditions of epic tier. Thus, paragon tier.
Unconscious: Just another flavor of helpless. “Helpless-plus” if you will. The rogue’s 9th-level knockout power is, again, the exception that proves the rule. Indeed, compare it to the 15th-level garrote grip power. Easily epic tier.
Weakened: The ultimate auto-scaler, weakened is minimally problematic. Along with slowed, quintessentially heroic-tier.
My honorable work on the Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV. continues. Now in 3e, we had the always fun, but quintessentially fiddly confused condition. If you need a refresher, here’s what confused looked like in the last edition:
A confused character’s actions are determined by rolling d% at the beginning of his turn: 01-10, attack caster with melee or ranged weapons (or close with caster if atacking is not possible); 11-20, act normally; 21-50, do nothing but babble incoherently; 51-70, flee away from caster at top possible speed; 71-100, attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self). A confused character who can’t carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. A confused character does not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).
That is so not 4e. Yet, confused is a worthwhile condition to have in the game for both plot and strategy purposes. So how do we spoof confusion for 4e? We can start by looking out how the wizards at Wizards did it.
Confusion: The 27th-level wizard spell is an obvious place to begin. Essentially, it lets you dominate the target, moving him and making a basic attack against one of his allies.
Umber Hulk: The master of confusion himself is another obvious example. The target slides and is dazed.
I’m not a fan of these iterations. They don’t actually model confusion all that well since the enemy dictates the actions. In the case of the wizard’s spell, the player always gets a strategic advantage from the effect. Likewise, for the umber hulk, the DM gets to position the PC as best he can. These effects lack the randomness that should be inherent to confusion.
So, a couple more:
Beholder: The confusion ray forces the victim to charge his nearest ally and make a basic attack.
Black Lotus: This DMG poison is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. Basic attack against the nearest creature (whether friend or foe).
These are good. They have that randomness. But I think we can do better. Here are some confused effects I’ve come up with:
- The target drops all items he is carrying and pulls off any clothes or armor he is wearing (perhaps simulating hallucinations of crawling bugs).
- The target uses an encounter attack power to attack a phantom enemy in an empty square.
- The target attacks himself with a basic attack.
- The target moves double his speed, changing direction each square and never entering the same square twice, provoking attacks of opportunity as normal.
So what can you come up with?
 The syrallax rivals the dark elf and aboleth for domination of the subterranean realm. While syrallaces lack the sheer numbers of other races, they make up for it with the impressive stable of minions and thralls they keep and their ability to maximize those forces through superior strategy. Through intimidation and their poisonous gaze, they force others to serve them out of fear.
In this first set of poison pages from One Bad Egg’s Poisoncraft Fourth Edition line, you’ll find a set of monsters bound to make your upper paragon-tier players quake as they reach for the anti-venom. You’ll also find a fully detailed combat encounter, with a full overhead map of the Poisonworks from SkeletonKey Games. Also packed in is a new poison, a rakshasa predator, and a refinery that’s ready to blow!
Poisoncraft 4E: The Syrallax is priced at $1.99 and goes on sale January 19th.
I’m knee-deep in development of Poisoncraft. I recently had a design breakthrough that had been giving me some fits. One of the core features of the Poisoncraft line is the poison creation system. And one of the core goals of the poison creation system is both a unified design and the ability to account for poisons already released by Wizards. That’s not always an easy thing. I remember when I was working on the original Poisoncraft, I had a terrible time trying to account for the absurdly low cost of drow poison indicated in the DMG. In the end, I had to fudge a little.
With Fourth Edition, the designers have done a great job of applying a unified design theory to just about everything. This makes the reverse engineering job that much easier, natch. Still, there’s always some fly in the ointment. This time around, it was the discrepancy between the costing of poisons in the DMG and the Adventurer’s Vault. We have poisons of similar level and effect with pretty drastic price differences. For the longest time, I couldn’t crack the code. Until yesterday….
I identified an extremely subtle yet crucial and ultimately satisfying discrepancy between the poisons themselves. The poisons in AV are one-shot consumables; they are effective for a single target and a single attack. The poisons in the DMG are effective for an entire encounter (more on this in a bit). Though it is not expressly identified in either text, this distinction gives us two classes of poisons. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that they are both simply referred to as “poison”. To avoid this confusion I’ve tentatively titled them transient poisons and persistent poisons. Once we make this distinction, it is a relatively simple matter to develop creation systems for both.
As a bonus, these two classes of poison bring with them a larger design space as well. Now I can have poison families with rules for one class of poison, utility powers that only affect one class of poison, etc. How about a metapoison feat that allows a transient poison to last for two attacks? In play, these two classes of poison are susceptible to different strategies. A transient poison would do the trick for an assassination attempt; a persistent poison would be the better choice against the big battle with the BBEG.
Now, as promised, a note about the persistent quality of DMG poisons. The text is a little obtuse, and I’ve seen more than a few people misread it. However, I’m certain that the rule is as I read it. The text indicates:
The poison takes effect the next time the weapon hits and deals damage. The poison’s effect is a secondary attack against the same target. If a poisoned weapon hits multiple targets, the poison attacks only the first target hit. Apply a Poison: Apply poison to a weapon. This is a standard action. Poison applied to a weapon loses its potency at the end of the encounter or after 5 minutes have passed.
Some people have read the phrase “the poison attacks only the first target hit” to mean that the poison affects that first target and then stops being effective altogether. However, that interpretation improperly discounts the introductory clause “If a poisoned weapon hits multiple targets”. The term “target” has a specific meaning, i.e., the subject of a specific single attack. It should not be confused with its general use as a synonym of enemy or opponent. It is evident that the limitation is there to avoid giving a disparate advantage for using poison to classes with a greater number of multiple-target weapon attacks. Compare the impact a persistent poison that affected all targets would have on a dual-wielding ranger as opposed to a warlock.
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