Anti-Poison

[Steve]

It’s probably not legal and seems pretty cheesy, but I just had a thought about setting up an NND attack so that it only works if you have the Life Support defense that would normally work against poisons.

 

So, if you don’t have Life Support versus poison, it won’t affect you. The special effect explanation is it’s turning your own immune system against you, or something like that.

 

 

[unclevlad]

What level of LS:  poison?  It's an extremely vague, horribly scaled power, and the examples in HD make no sense if you know anything about poisons.  Ophidotoxins...?  No such thing.  I presume it means snake bites, but those are all over the board.  Rattlesnake venom disrupts muscle tissue, IIRC;  cobra venom's a neurotoxin. 

 

Generally, I'd discourage something like this.  On the one hand, it won't come into play very often, unless it's any level of LS that's poison-related, and that becomes pretty weird to explain.  In general, tho, I don't like attacks like this, where it feels like "oh I'm gonna hose you *because* you spent points on something to do you some good."  NNDs should only be "when you don't have..." and never, IMO, "when you do have...."

[IndianaJoe3]

Yeah, any negatively-defined defense (not having a power) is a hard NO here. 

[LoneWolf]

It would have to be defined a bit more.  Some immunities are simply developing a tolerance to the poison.  You don’t actually have an immune system to that it is the fact that your body is used to the poison.  I could see the defense being not having the full 5-point immunity to all terrestrial poisons. Someone with that level of immunity would have an immune system vs poison. But I don’t see it working on a person who doses themselves with arsenic to develop a resistance to arsenic. 

[Ockham's Spoon]

I seem to recall the official rules disallow NNDs that only work against those who have a specific ability or defense.  That would mean someone paid points for a power that makes them vulnerable to something that normal people are immune to. 

 

I think the rules-legal way to build it would be to make it an NND, but with some other defense (not sure what would make sense in this case; Power Defense?), but then with a Limitation that it only affects people with LS: Immune to Poison.  That is actually a cheaper power to purchase (and it should be because it affects very few people), but it is still possible to have a defense against it, even if you do have Immune to Poison.

[unclevlad]

45 minutes ago, Ockham's Spoon said:

I seem to recall the official rules disallow NNDs that only work against those who have a specific ability or defense.  That would mean someone paid points for a power that makes them vulnerable to something that normal people are immune to. 

 

I think the rules-legal way to build it would be to make it an NND, but with some other defense (not sure what would make sense in this case; Power Defense?), but then with a Limitation that it only affects people with LS: Immune to Poison.  That is actually a cheaper power to purchase (and it should be because it affects very few people), but it is still possible to have a defense against it, even if you do have Immune to Poison.

 

If you bar the direct route, then you should absolutely bar the indirect route...especially if it makes it cheaper.  And this is just getting way too convoluted for my taste.

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

It would have to be defined a bit more.  Some immunities are simply developing a tolerance to the poison.  You don’t actually have an immune system to that it is the fact that your body is used to the poison.  I could see the defense being not having the full 5-point immunity to all terrestrial poisons. Someone with that level of immunity would have an immune system vs poison. But I don’t see it working on a person who doses themselves with arsenic to develop a resistance to arsenic. 

 

Actually, I can see how this would work in that case...as long as one kept it highly specific.  This is from a wiki article on a related practice:

 

Quote

It is important to note that mithridatism is not effective against all types of poison. Immunity is generally only possible with biologically complex types which the immune system can respond to. Depending on the toxin, the practice can lead to the lethal accumulation of a poison in the body. Results depend on how each poison is processed by the body, i.e. on how the toxic compound is metabolized or passed out of the body.

However, in some cases, it is possible to build up a metabolic tolerance against specific non-biological poisons. This involves conditioning the liver to produce more of the particular enzymes that metabolize these poisons. For example, heavy drinkers develop a tolerance to the effects of alcohol.[8] However, metabolic tolerance can also lead to accumulation of the less toxic metabolized compound which can slowly damage the liver. With alcohol this generally leads to conditions such as alcoholic fatty liver disease.[9]

 

So it's a binary agent...the triggering agent, arsenic, is there to produce the reaction...THEN the second component reacts with the immune response, in whatever form, and *boom.*  There's precedent for this.  Parathion and malathion are both pesticides.  In humans, malathion is generally the more lethal, because parathion is neutralized by the liver, IIRC.  However, a tiny dose of malathion knocks this response out...and at that point, parathion is the more lethal.  Believe that's correct, anyway...I'm going back, cuz I'm pretty sure this was in Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's seminal early work on environmental damage.  I think some snake or spider venoms work that way too...some are exceptionally complex, and have components that disrupt the response to other components, so the whole is nastier than the parts.

 

Alternately, the binary agent's secondary component reacts with the secondary metabolic byproducts of the body's response to the main toxin.  But again, these are quite specific.  

[Hey I Can Chan]

8 hours ago, Ockham's Spoon said:

I seem to recall the official rules disallow NNDs that only work against those who have a specific ability or defense.  That would mean someone paid points for a power that makes them vulnerable to something that normal people are immune to. 

 

No Normal Defense Attacks says, "Examples of defenses usually considered inappropriate include a lack of anything (for example, 'lack of Resistant Defenses,' 'lack of Mental Defense,' or 'not being a Dwarf') (6E1 326). By extension, this should include 'lack of LS: Immunity to Poisons." Such "defenses" aren't outright disallowed, but they're pretty close.

[Armitage]

Way back in the old "Gadgets" book from 1986 there was a Neutrino Beamer that only affected targets who had force fields, since the beam doesn't interact with physical matter.  In that case, it was built as ALD (what it was called at the time) against Force Fields with the -1 Limitation that it only did damage against targets with Force Fields.  Anyone without a Force Field was immune and someone with a Force Field could only apply that against the damage.

Obviously that was multiple editions ago and the rules are different now, and I'm not sure how the concept could be applied to Life Support.

[Ockham's Spoon]

To unclevlad's point, I admit that it seems odd to disallow the power directly, but then allow a limited version that is cheaper.  The distinction is that someone with Immune to Poison isn't damned for buying that power because they could also by the defense.  Generally in Hero there should always be a defense against any given attack, and generally speaking you should pay points to have the defense.  That is distinctly different from having to avoid buying a power that would make your vulnerable.

[LoneWolf]

Usually, the reason the lack of something is inappropriate is because it leaves the character vulnerable.  Having the lack of resistant DEF, or mental DEF means the target has no DEF against those attacks.  If I have a character that has NND (Defense is lack of Resistant DEF) and a killing attack, he always has at least one attack that any character cannot defend against.  In older versions there used to be a rule that a character could only have one NND, this was to prevent this type of abuse. 

 

The book actually gives an example of an NND where one defense is the lack of something.  In the chart it lists being deaf as a defense against a sonic attack.  Being deaf by definition means you lack the ability to hear. You can also reword a defense to avoid specifying the lacks of something as a defense.  In this case I could simply state the defense is being vulnerable to poison.  That would exclude things like robots and other nonliving creatures.  Most of those will either not have to worry about NND because they don’t have stun or have life support anyways.   

 

Hero System is a more complex system and requires more thinking that other games. The RAW excuses for disallowing this type of thing, is something I would expect on the Pathfinder forums.  Hero Gamers should be better than that type of nonsense.
 

[1corpus christopher]

14 hours ago, Steve said:

It’s probably not legal and seems pretty cheesy, but I just had a thought about setting up an NND attack so that it only works if you have the Life Support defense that would normally work against poisons.

 

So, if you don’t have Life Support versus poison, it won’t affect you. The special effect explanation is it’s turning your own immune system against you, or something like that.

 

 

If i can put it out there, you can do that if you wish. The Giant Snake from the Hero Beastiary 4th edition is a "way-back" example that usually characters get defense from such coverage. The giant snake has a 2d6 HKA bite that will give an additional 4d6 RKA NND (appropriate immunity, alien metabolism, or anti-venom is the defense, only if body damage inflicted,+2)

 

I get the impression, or suspect, that you are a player or GM who has players in your campaign who just about ALWAYS get life support: immunity vs. poisons for their characters. That negates so many attacks of creatures and poisons that it takes a lot of bite out of the hazards of adventures for PC's getting NND's that have L.S. immunity to poison (type) as a defense all the time.

 

Immune system. L.S. immunity to poisons is the only way you GET the damage in your case, cool. Or perhaps immune to aging and immunity to particular poisons- you could make it a specific group of poisons- as example being your only way to the NND attack you are describing is inflicted. Or you could just amend the damage from poisons in the campaign:

 

The poison goes back to a normal RKA or other attack that is continuous, with a limited time period-say 5 mins- that has an advantage like armor piercing or penetrating or a stun multiplier based on location of the wound or area effected (think hit locations) that kicks in only when you have L.S. immunity vs. poisons. Be creative but fair. I am usually😁