Poisoning The Well - Literally

[bigdamnhero]

In my FH game, the PCs are trying to stop (or at least slow down) an invading army. Last night one of them came up with the idea of poisoning the enemy's water supply - not necessarily to kill them but to sicken them, maybe give them all the runs or something so they can't fight. Sounds like a reasonable plan, and I'm down with it narratively.

 

If this had happened in the middle of the session, I would've just handwaved something and gone with it; but since it came at the end I have 2 weeks to think it over. While I'm not normally the type of GM that needs to stat out every single blade of grass, I've been musing about how to quantify how effective the attempt is - how many are affected, how badly sick do they get, how long do they stay sick, etc. So I'm curious how others might handle it.

 

Setting: 6ed FH, low-fantasy game set in 11th Century Europe. PCs are 225-pt characters who pay money for equipment, not points.

 

Situation: Medieval army of ~15,000 troops plus civilians, currently on the march across what is now Iran. PCs have infiltrated the army and are moving with it; they have roughly a week to stop the army before it gets to the next city it's planning to attack. Assume there are wells/oasis/lakes/etc rather than rivers, so once the water is poisoned it will stay poisoned for awhile. But the army is moving, so they'll be using different water sources each night.

 

(Presumably the army will place some sort of guard on the wells, so the PCs will probably need to come up with some mix of Stealth & distractions to get past them. But I'm confident the PCs will think of something, and I know how to adjudicate that. Just assume that part succeeds.)

 

The main PC in this plan has an Alchemy VPP, limited to 40 AP Powers. She did not have a pre-built poison slot, but has Inventor Skill to create one. She doesn't have KS: Poisons or anything that specific, but her Alchemy Power Skill is deliberately meant to be fairly broad. The Alchemist is assisted by a second PC with PS: Herbalist; he made his Complimentary Roll by 6, and with that assistance the Alchemist made her Inventor Roll by 12! So again, I have no problem saying their attempt works - the question is how to quantify how well it works?

 

I'm not even necessarily saying the effect of the power has to be limited to the size of the Alchemist's VPP, since poison is to some extent equipment that people can purchase, and I'm generally fine with players exploiting their environment to increase their effectiveness. (Just like if a character in a Champions game Knockbacks a villain into some high voltage - the electrical damage is not necessarily dependent on what's on the character's sheet.)

 

So basically if this happened in your game, how would you quantify the results? Thanks in advance!

[Nolgroth]

Pushing a body into a well pretty much eliminates that well as viable water source. If you add plague or something, then that well becomes even more toxic. There are no rules to simulate that.  From that standard, I can see your point. This is how I would quantify it; have the player quantify what it does to a single character but with Damage Over Time as a required Advantage. Then treat the Army as a single entity, much like a mass combat unit. Or you can divide it into several entities that are fed from different wells. Each well successfully poisoned affects that portion of the army.

 

The Damage Over Time represents the spread of the poison as people drink the water.

 

I would suggest Drain over outright Damage. One possible example;

 

Poison the Well:  (Total: 37 Active Cost, 10 Real Cost) Drain REC 1d6, Attack Versus Alternate Defense (Immunity to Poison; All Or Nothing; +0), Expanded Effect (REC and END) (+1/2), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per Day; +2 1/4) (37 Active Points); Damage Over Time, Target's defenses only apply once, Lock out (cannot be applied multiple times) (4 damage increments, damage occurs every 6 Hours, -2 1/2), 12 Charges (-1/4) (Real Cost: 10)

 

 

Over the course of two days, the poison causes weakness and compromises the immune system, making it difficult to recover END or Stun lost by those affected. After the end of two whole days, the affected character may be completely drained of either Strength or REC and will literally burn all of their END/Stun before collapsing. Because the DOT must run its course, the lost REC and STR don't start to recover until after the damage has been sustained and may take upwards of 4-5 days to completely recover. 

[Lucius]

How well do you WANT it to work?

 

If the Alchemist or Inventor Skill is at 18, making it by 12 qualifies for the "Extraordinary Skill" rule, which could be stretched to stopping an army in its tracks for a week, or even turning it back ("Our impious campaign is cursed! Our leaders have sinned and this plague is Divine Judgment! We must turn back!")

 

At the very least that good a roll should lead to a large portion of the army being temporarily incapacitated. If the remaining force is not sufficient to invest the city they are attacking, the leaders may either wait in place and hope the physicians can nurse the sick to recovery - meaning the situation will get worse for them as they all keep drinking the same water! - or even turn back.

 

If the alchemist is known as such - and lugging around a portable lab I would guess they might be - they are likely to either fall under immediate suspicion, or be called before the commander and instructed to brew up a cure for the sick soldiers immediately! If the player characters do NOT fall sick (and how are they planning to avoid drinking the water they poisoned themselves, or do they intend to take the risk?) both possibilities are especially likely - "YOU have not fallen ill, what do you know that everyone else does not??"

 

If you are looking for a formal write up that may be connected to how much they made the roll by, I note that there's a standard -1 per 10 Active Points penalty given for Requires a Skill Roll - so making the roll by 12 justifies at least 120 Active Points of effect, maybe more given that this poison is "equipment" so to speak. I'd look into either a Long Lasting Change Environment effect forcing a CON roll each phase in order to act (which would cripple an army pretty badly) or perhaps a long Damage over Time Mental Illusions based on CON. In fact a well-done Damage over Time effect (not necessarily Mental Illusions, that's just one fun option) can lead to a nice tense situation where the army marches on apparently unaffected, starts having problems over the next couple of days, and pretty much self-destructs right as it reaches the threatened city.

 

But the player characters will not just have to worry about the infiltrated army suspecting them - poisoning the water source is generally regarded as evil and dishonorable and even their own side might condemn and punish them if it becomes known what they did. Even if they escape official punishment by means of a pardon or indulgence, such an act could make them infamous if they don't keep it strictly secret.

 

edit: to be clear, punishment is likely to be something like death by stoning, burning at the stake, or the like. Well-poisoners right up there with necromancers and diabolists.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

There's always the old trick of throwing a dead palindromedary in the well

[assault]

Poisoning a well doesn't actually require poison!

 

Just contaminate it with something "nice" - dead humans or just animals, lots of feces, whatever. Basically, this will tend to spread disease throughout the army.

 

A lot depends on the weather. Poisoning a well when the next one is a day's march away, and you are in a desert in summer, is quite a good way of quickly taking the edge off an army.

 

Of course you really need to be ahead of the army rather than with it, particularly if you want to contaminate a few wells rather than just one.

 

Incidentally, this is an example of HERO's "build everything" approach breaking down, and why I don't usually use HERO for fantasy.

[Cantriped]

Dropping a corpse into the water supply won't realistically poison it fast enough to affect the army the same day the corpse was dropped in. Though I do like the idea, perhaps the Alchemist could "pre-rot" a few rat corpses in mason jars on their way, and drop them in after they are good and ripe.

 

In terms of effect, a 40 APs VPP isn't quite big enough to poison an entire army in any truely debilitating way. But if you want give the players some latitude in terms of APs due to their exceptional skill rolls, you could have drinking from the well subject the victims to some kind of Drain. I especially like Drain STR because being at 0 STR cuts DCV and Movement in half, eliminates the victims ability to use weapons, and causes END and LTE loss as a result of Encumbrance.

 

For Example:

Slow Acting Deathly Poison: Drain STR & BODY 1d6 (10 BPs), NND (Immunity To Disease/Poison; +1/2), Constant (+1/2), IPE (Fully Invisible; +1), Delayed Return Rate (1 Week; +2 1/4), Area of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), 1 Continuing Charge (1 Week; +1/4) (57 APs); Damage Over Time (One Use At A Time, Once Every 6 Hours For 8 Days (32 Increments); -2), No Range (-1/2), Conditional (Victim Must Drink From The Affected Volume Of Water; -1/2). Cost: 14 points.

[TheDarkness]

Cantriped, why have both the character must drink from it AND an area of effect?

 

Oh, wait, I see. The area of effect is the water.

 

Frankly, this is one of the problems of Hero. This SHOULD literally be an exact fit for change environment. The water is being changed to poison. In most other cases, trying to get around a power designed exactly for what we are trying to do is a no-no, but with change environment, it's always a mess.

[Surrealone]

I'm with Lucius on this -- let the degree of success of the roll be your guide to effectiveness.  That's part of why things are rolled...

[whitekeys]

Some good suggestions. I definitely agree that the roll should determine success. Good answer from Lucius. And, now that other options apart from poison have been suggested, the special effects of the poison could also be a determinant. with a success of +12, it wouldn't surprise me that some people might die off, unless they concocted a poison that was specifically designed to just make people sick for a long time.

 

However, my personal style is do not-doing. I would either let the PC's decide, or make it up as I go along. And when I say "let the PC's decide", I mean only if they are reasonable people. A lot of people are frightened when I tell them I leave many of these decisions up to the PCs because they're used to certain gamer types taking advantage, but good gamers know that ruins all the fun! The second option would be to take it day by day, and decide based on dramatic sense whether people are healing up or not.

[Cantriped]

Frankly, this is one of the problems of Hero. This SHOULD literally be an exact fit for change environment. The water is being changed to poison. In most other cases, trying to get around a power designed exactly for what we are trying to do is a no-no, but with change environment, it's always a mess.

If you think of a Poisoned Well as being basically similar to a potion (only with negative effects), then you could remove the Area of Effect, Constant, 1 Continuing Charge, and Conditional modifiers, and replace them with Zero END, and an Immobile IIF and recalculate. Most of the trouble comes from the fact that we are representing the ability of a character to create a field of ingested poison; as opposed to an existing field of ingested poison that somebody might put in their Base.

If the GM is willing to use the Alternate Enchanted Item Creation Rules from Fantasy HERO​ (which I love for all manner of reasons), then the active point limit becomes a non-issue, and the main build can be more "realistic", but it swells the complexity of the construct as a whole by having two fairly complicated power constructs instead of just really complicated power construct one.

 

It is really important to remember the following points when looking at the builds for this kind of thing:

​HERO leaves out a lot of "realistic" rules you frequently see hardcoded into other RPGs (like poisons and diseases). Meanwhile other game systems (such as Pathfinder) often have a full page (or more) of tight, hardcoded rules text governing how something like this has to work. This fact allows those other systems to have comparatively more concise rules entries for any given poison or disease: Because the "long-form power construct", in all its complicated glory, it already printed elsewhere; they are just manipulating variables (such as number of dice of Drain, the characteristic drained, number of increments, and total duration).

You can also see the benefits of this writing strategy in HERO's weapon tables. Thanks to a single (albeit long and convoluted) paragraph describing what modifiers to use, the writer can fit dozens of weapons onto a page that might only fit six to eight weapons if they gave the full power construct for each and every one of them.

[Balabanto]

Cantriped, why have both the character must drink from it AND an area of effect?

 

Oh, wait, I see. The area of effect is the water.

 

Frankly, this is one of the problems of Hero. This SHOULD literally be an exact fit for change environment. The water is being changed to poison. In most other cases, trying to get around a power designed exactly for what we are trying to do is a no-no, but with change environment, it's always a mess.

 

It doesn't need an area effect. It just needs to be triggered and sticky.

[Cantriped]

It doesn't need an area effect. It just needs to be triggered and sticky.

Sticky is inappropriate because one soldier doesn't become poisoned by touching an already poisoned soldier. I considered it though. Also if you treat it like a potion (as in my post above), you don't need triggered either because they are actually activating the power themselves (without knowing any better thanks to it having Invisible Power Effects).

[Balabanto]

Sticky is inappropriate because one soldier doesn't become poisoned by touching an already poisoned soldier. I considered it though. Also if you treat it like a potion (as in my post above), you don't need triggered either because they are actually activating the power themselves (without knowing any better thanks to it having Invisible Power Effects).

 

A) Depends on the Poison, and Putting a power limitation on Sticky or the whole power that it doesn't do precisely that is a lot simpler and clearer than tearing up the advantage list.

[bluesguy]

In my Valdorian Age campaign the players were rescuing a large group of prisoners from a tribe of orcs.  As some of you know orcs in VA is a very rare occurrence.  The players numbered about six, they would have to move about 20 prisoners all women and children except for one very incapacitated knight.  The orcs had a few hundred individuals.  Probably a hundred warriors/hunter types.

 

The players figured out their escape route and laid some traps along the way to kill/slow down pursuers.  At least one character had herbalist skills and healing.  They had previously acquired a bunch of herbs and medicinal ingredients which the herbalist knew all about.  At that point it was a hand wave.  I asked the player, what do you want to happen to the orcs when the ingest this stuff and she said "I want them to either be throwing up or having diarrhea for at least few hours - especially if we can get it to the ones who will be chasing us."  She also combined it with a sleeping 'potion' she sometimes used.  She then made some great rolls.  One of the players was able to place the 'poison' in drinking supplies and food that would be eaten.  In the night they rescued the prisoners and ran...  The village was asleep (see potion) and woke up vomiting or having diarrhea or both for most of the morning.  Basically I did a hand wave.  I want to encourage being creative and fun role-playing so that means there are times when you hand wave the 'points/details/exact impact'.

[bigdamnhero]

Good ideas folks - thanks!

 

How well do you WANT it to work?

From my perspective as GM, I can make the story work equally well either way. Given how well the players rolled, it should definitely have some effect, but not necessarily enough to take out the entire army.

 

But the player characters will not just have to worry about the infiltrated army suspecting them - poisoning the water source is generally regarded as evil and dishonorable and even their own side might condemn and punish them if it becomes known what they did. Even if they escape official punishment by means of a pardon or indulgence, such an act could make them infamous if they don't keep it strictly secret.

edit: to be clear, punishment is likely to be something like death by stoning, burning at the stake, or the like. Well-poisoners right up there with necromancers and diabolists.

That's a good point. This isn't a Murder Hobo game, so there are actually consequences for stuff. Do you have any cites handy for how well poisoning was regarded in medieval times? I did some Googling, but mostly came up with either logical fallacy stuff or reports about Flint Michigan.

 

Basically I did a hand wave.  I want to encourage being creative and fun role-playing so that means there are times when you hand wave the 'points/details/exact impact'.

Right, and that's exactly what I would've done if it had happened mid-session. But since I've got a couple weeks to think of an answer, I thought it might be fun to play with the idea a bit.

[Cantriped]

That's a good point. This isn't a Murder Hobo game, so there are actually consequences for stuff. Do you have any cites handy for how well poisoning was regarded in medieval times? I did some Googling, but mostly came up with either logical fallacy stuff or reports about Flint Michigan.

I can't cite any sources, but I think mass murder, and well poisoning in particular was especially poorly regarded in ancient times. I mean sure, you poisoned the army that drank from that water source... as well as traveler and nomad that came afterwards, for weeks, months, or even years afterwards. Its not like you can just leave a sign on your way out "Hey We Poisoned This Well, Tee Hee!" and expect it to be all good. Sources of fresh water were a vital resource in that period, and there is little to nothing to be done about it if somebody comes along and fouls it.

[eepjr24]

For Romans the punishment was deportation and forfeiture of all property for high borns and being fed to wild animals for low born. 

 

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/CP/27/2/Poisoning*.html

 

Historically when Jews were accused of poisoning wells (leading to spread of disease ala Black Death) there were open massacres of Jewish people.

 

So generally, it is seen as a very serious offense. The players would probably know that though. And with those rolls they might be able to come up with something that will expire in a few days?

 

- E

[Christopher]

The first problem is that usually "Disease and Toxin" do not exist as natural, Environmental effects. With Toxins writing them up as powers (of the using critter) comes naturally. But Disease by definition should be a campaign rule.

APG II 110 offers some ideas for Diseases as "Environemtal Effects" (similar to heat, cold thrist). The same section also introduces a few rules for Sleep Deprivation.

 

There will be two factors to consider:
The suppy places along the roads (Oases, Lakes, crossed Rivers).

And the (limited) reserve in the supply train. Usually enough to get to the next place, maybe a weeks worth.
A human needs about 2 Liters per day. So 15k soldiers need about 30.0000 Liters per day. More like 45 when marching through a desert. That is a LOT of water to spoil. Plus the water supplies themself are large, so you need one heck of a posion to get 30k Liters of one lake dangerous enough for the consumer.

 

There would also not be a whole lot of raw materials (herbs) to use in a desert.

Realistically it could just not work out on a mater of scale. A Team of 5 can not stop an army of 15k. The amount of posion needed would be too much. The amounts of supplies to affect are simply to large. And soldiers take guarding thier food and water damn seriously in such a terrain.
With a diseases that has a long onset time? Perhaps.* The idea is to have everyone infected before the first symptoms become apparent.

Damaging the reserve barrels might have more effect both on Morale and movement speed (they might have to double back/make haste to next source and then rest).

 

If it works out, it could also backfire rather horribly:

A barren Landscape with a few Oasis dotted would qualify as "desperate terrain" per "The Art of War". Basically the soldiers are too endangered by the Environment to consider desertion or lax guarding of thier supplies.

Putting a army without a way of escape into a more desperate situation tends to lead to more desperate attack/last stand. There are numerous cases through History were generals intentionally put thier army into a "do or die" Situation, to trigger that effect (burning the ships or supply train; fighting with no escape route. actively blocking the escape route the enemy left with oxen or similar).

 

*Note that Europeans of that time still believed in the Miasma Theory. In turn the Arabic Medicine was a whole lot more advanced. Depending on who that enemy is, there might actually be a considerable knowledge gap.

[bigdamnhero]

For Romans the punishment was deportation and forfeiture of all property for high borns and being fed to wild animals for low born.

Thanks. Tho that looks like the punishment for poisoning in general, not wells specifically.

 

And with those rolls they might be able to come up with something that will expire in a few days?

Yeah, that's the intent. And they're not really looking to kill everyone after all; just sicken them.

 

There would also not be a whole lot of raw materials (herbs) to use in a desert.

Good point. They're not actually in a desert tho. The first half is traveling along a coastal plan (the south coast of the Caspian Sea) and temperate forests, before passing through the Alborz mountains. Only the last day or so is going to be in desert-like terrain right around Rey (modern-day Tehran). I know, my mental picture of Iran is all desert too...

 

So plenty of opportunity to pick up some plants. (Tho the herbalist isn't a local, so there should be an unfamiliarity penalty there.) But you're right that's an awful lot of water to poison. "The solution to pollution is dilution" and all that. So they may have to choose between wide-spread mild effects, or more serious effects concentrated on one or two key units.

 

*Note that Europeans of that time still believed in the Miasma Theory. In turn the Arabic Medicine was a whole lot more advanced. Depending on who that enemy is, there might actually be a considerable knowledge gap.

Yeah, the alchemist PC is actually a Muslim from Cordova who Won't Shut Up about how backwards her European companions are. The enemy army started out as primarily Turks/Khazars, but has swelled to include Bulgars, Russians, some Afghans & Persians, and even a few Byzantine ex-pats. So very mixed bag there. Plus their leader may or may not be the Antichrist, so...there's that.

[womble]

The "collateral damage" of well poisoning might not be a consideration, morally, or legally, for the characters. The fact that an army came through, got "the trots" and moved on (or just plain died because it was a desert and every water source they came to was fouled) would provide a cover for the fouling of the supplies. Large armies were prime sufferers of disease before sanitation and germ theory got gripped; it would be no surprise to nomads or habitual travellers that oases were unusable after an army departed.

 

If the pathogen afflicting the army is biological, unless the commanders excise the afflicted, it's highly likely that any siege they set at "the next city" will fail because of disease amongst the besiegers. Such relief was pretty common. Possibly more so than an actual army of fighting sophonts marching to the relief.

[Vanguard]

I'm with Lucius on this -- let the degree of success of the roll be your guide to effectiveness.  That's part of why things are rolled...

 

I have to agree with Surrealone and Lucius.

 

We also had this exact same scenario happen in our Gatecrashers game.  I mean almost the exact same thing.

 

Only difference was the character's where 21st century medics and commandos. Anyway, our GM just pretty much hand waved the effect. He did what you did and asked the player what effect they wanted (which was, eerily  the exact same effect your players are going for).  And then just based the effect on the results of the roll.  The effect also didn't happen immediately but over time.  

 

Not sure if this helps or not but there ya go.

[mallet]

I remember reading about how in World War Two in the Northern African battles US Troops placed a bunch of dead animals around some oasis and wells and put up fake warning "Poisoned" signs around them when they were retreating (or leaving an area). 

 

After the war the German government complained that the US had poisoned all of the water supply causing the death's of lots of German soldier from dehydration which was against the Geneva Convention. And the US response was, yes it is illegal to poison the water supply, but it wasn't illegal to post signs and leave dead animals lying around. If the German troops believed that the water was poisoned then that was their fault. 

 

So I guess the point is, your characters don't have to actually poison the wells, they just have to convince the soldiers that the wells are poisoned so no one will risk drinking from them. A dehydrated army is just as ineffective as a poisoned one. Maybe very high Long Term END loss? 

 

A lot easier to poison a few of the soldier's canteens/water sacks and place a few dead animals around, etc... to start a panic, throw in some acting. Maybe arrange to have the Alchemist and Herbalist "test the water" and proclaim it to be poisoned/contaminated for everyone to hear? After that rumours and panic will spread through troops.   

[Amorkca]

Not really part of the original discussion but...

 

To add to the general bedlam, perhaps a PC can be a cooks helper and help out by contributing eating disorders to the army...  

[bluesguy]

Not really part of the original discussion but...

 

To add to the general bedlam, perhaps a PC can be a cooks helper and help out by contributing eating disorders to the army...  

 

Perhaps some very finely cut up Ghost Peppers in the stew!

[Surrealone]

Perhaps some very finely cut up Ghost Peppers in the stew!

 

Wouldn't do much.  Take it from a guy who cooks with something called Ghost Blood -- a sauce similar to Texas Pete/Tobasco but made with Ghost Peppers, instead.  You'd need each consumer of the stew to eat approx. 1 pepper each ... and be unaccustomed to that kind of heat ... for it to be terribly relevant.  Part of this is the fact that some of the 'heat' is lost when you dilute and cook down the peppers...

 

Something tells me our heroes would get busted bringing the required number of Ghost Peppers to bear...

[Sean Waters]

There's only one well?

 

I mean, a decent sized army will probably need either one BIG water source, like a river or lake, which is going to be really difficult to poison, or lots of little ones which will be difficult to poison for different reasons i.e. there are lots of them.

 

Generally a well organised army will have some sort of precaution against this sort of thing.  You know, smelling the water, watching the first person to taste it, that sort of thing.

 

I would probably be wary of letting a party use biowarfare too easily.  You need some drama and some risk and reward.

 

So: opposed skill checks.

 

Is the army in situ already?  If so some sort of stealth (or bluff) v perception check.  Require them to get a reasonable total, rolling for each participant, say the party has to accumulate X levels of success (each participant rolls their stealth or bluff type skill.  You roll Perception 11- for each attempt.  Their level of success is the difference between their roll and yours.

 

If they accumulate 10 levels of failure, the venture fails completely.  If they roll an 18 on their stealth/bluff or you roll a 3 on your Perception then one of them is captured.  Perception rolls then get a +2 bonus as word spreads.

 

Each attempt takes a specified period of time (say 2 hours), but multiple participants can work together during each 2 hour period.

 

So, what is X?  X is the percentage of the opposing army they can poison: they can keep going as long as they like but eventually they are going to get caught.

 

Also things should get harder over time as the General will probably start getting reports of sickness and have the water sources checked.

 

If you are poisoning the wells ahead of the army, you get some automatic success but then the army will pause and send out scouts to check water sources and to hunt down saboteurs, and their funny wooden shoes.    Same principle - less immediate risk but also less potential reward: you are likely to delay the oncoming army but much less likely to incapacitate it if you are poisoning ahead of their advance.

 

Also you might want to demonstrate the consequences of indiscriminate poisoning by having some local hunters of farmers inadvertently poisoned, or the peace envoy come down with a sickness and die.  Let them have some success, but also have something bad happen - poison is not a precise weapon, at least not used like this.