Antivenom and critters that poison

[Glupii]

Can anyone point me to the place in whatever 5e books that talks about how to handle cirtter venom and antivenom...how to write it up and how to use it? Trying to work up some critters for my Fallout game but need to understand how to write up antivenom before I introduce critters with nasty poisons.

 

Many Thanks!

[Glupii]

OK I found a spot in the FH book that talks about counteracting poison would require a transform from Poisoned person into non-poisoned person. Would this be a major trasform and how would you roll that, it had to overdome the body of the person being transformed? (Sorry to sound so dense, still learning here)

[Nolgroth]

I would actually call it a Minor transformation. With Transform, you roll the dice and add up the total. If that total is 2x the starting Body of the character, then the transform is successful. If not, then the effect is gradual and another roll is required until the amount of transform body is 2x the target's base Body stat.  Page 237, Hero System 5th Edition Revised.

[Christopher]

How you counter poison depens on how the Poison is built.

Very often it is a Damaging Power (EB, KA, Drain), with No Normal Defense (NND; Life Support: Immunity to specific Poison or all Poisons) or "Attack vs Limited Defense: Power Defense"

They are also often seasoned with:

Activation Time (the onset time of the Poison)

Does Body (to allow a AVLD or NND to be potentially deadly)

Gradual Effect (damage is taken over a long time period isntead of all at once)

 

The Immunity would then be either Life Support or Power Defense, Useable on Others or in a Focus (the Antidote Flask) to allow it to be given to others. The antidote would then prevent further damage, but could not undo damage already taken (those would fade or heal normally like any other damage).

 

Power Defense or Life Support?

A question of campaign design. Life Support is cheaper to build and buy. But in turn it is not very granular - you are either total immune or totally vulnerable.

Power Defense route allows to build partial Immunities and "Resistance to Poison".

Generally the LS route is more fitting for Superheroic games, at least as far as "normal" Poisons are concerned. There are still superhuman Poisons that would propably be unaffected.

 

We recently had a discussion about "building a slow Poison Spell". While it was targetting 6E*, it might still be helpfull:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/88409-delaying-others-effects/

 

 

*The only major difference between 6E and 5E in the whole Poison thing is that AVLD: Power Defense and NND: LS Immunity now have the same values regardless of power, so they are easily interchangeable.

[Glupii]

Well since I am trying to mimic the venom in the Fallout New Vegas it needs to do the following:

• No defense against it
• Damage over time (once a Turn I am thinking)
• It damages body

So I am thinking (and correct me if I am wrong here) is a continuous RKA NND does Body. My question is how do I determine within the rules how long it continues to do damage?

 

Then I am thinking the Major Transform is the way to do the Antidote, like Nolgroth suggested.

[Nolgroth]

Actually I was summarizing the transform rules from 5ER based on what you were talking about in Post #2. The only change was my suggestion that it be a Minor Transformation. I would actually ditch the Transformation rules altogether. An antidote would really be a Dispel (or maybe even Suppress) vs the Active Points of the Poison. I mean, Transform works against the victim's Body which makes it harder to cure healthier people. (Yes I know that Con is technically the relative health stat, but Body determines how tough the character is.) Dispel or Suppress work against the poison.

 

Just for the record, I hate the default way Hero handles poison. I really don't have a suggestion as to how to do poison/venom in an economic way. In order for Poison/Venom to be effective and to have a counter a lot of points will need to be thrown down.

[Glupii]

I see your point. I like the transform if only because it can be cumulative and if it is not enough to rid the body of all the toxins, you can hit the victim with another Antivenom to do the job. However I also like the Dispel thought because that seems to make the success depend on the strength of the poison rather than the strength (or toughness) of the victim. In fact, if anything, the tougher the victim (higher CON) the harder is should be for the poison to effect them it would seem. The reason I was thinking the Transform (and since it is going to be an item, I really do not care much about minor vs. major, it is only points) is that it is sufficient "Handwavium" that I can just say it works and be done with it. Its about the game, not the game mechanics. I try to stay with the mechanics where I can but at some point its got to be about the fun and the story. Thanks for the good ideas. I will run them past my players to see what they think.

[Badger]

I always figured poison would be some sort of drain.   But, I havent really done much building of such.