the cost of poison

[forged]

Hi --

 

I have a player who wants his character to be able to use poison darts. Interestingly, the Fantasy Hero book does include a suggestion of the monetary cost for 3 different strengths of poisons. However, it doesn't make any suggestions at what the point cost or number of doses those monetary costs would actually relate with.

 

(Obviously, there are other issues with poison ... like tracking down how to buy it and not get into a huge amount of trouble, and such. )

 

I noticed on Killer Shrike's wonderful website, http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeMagicItems.shtml, a suggestion for potions being the real cost * the active cost, but I was wondering if that would be a good enough standard to apply to poisons as well.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks,

forged

[forged]

Re: the cost of poison

 

I may have found at least part of the answer that I was looking for. The Fantasy Hero book had more than I remembered in it. On page 144, they have some poison examples for a single dose.

 

It looks like there they have a 2d6 drain costing 30 sp. They also have Killing Attacks (1d6 through 6d6) but the prices range from 60 sp to 300 sp.

 

Unfortunately, if there is a formula they used to derive those prices, it eludes me at the moment.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: the cost of poison

 

The problem with poison is that there really isn't a correlation between how much it would cost and how effective it would at be at causing injury, illness, or death. There are some remarkably effective poisons that are pennies per dose. There are some equally marvelous poisons which are prohibitively expensive.

 

The problem is that, for the most part, no one who manufactures a poison does so with the intention of it being used as one. Most poisons are substances which are not intended to be ingested at all. The majority of the rest are intended to be ingested, but only in very small amounts for medical purposes. The remainder are generally naturally-occuring substances found in plants and animals.

 

The cost of a poison is dependent on two things, neither of which are directly related to the poison's efficacy:

 

• How rare the substance is at a given place and time.
  
• How difficult the substance is for an ordinary person to obtain.
  

 

A mineral which is vanishingly scarce in nature, or a venom which can only be milked from a living animal, would be examples of the former.

 

A drug which is (although relatively common and easy to manufacture) restricted to those who have a license to practice medicine, or a magical poison which is easy to manufacture but may only be made by wizards, would be an example of the latter.

 

A heavy metal, which is both extremely rare and tightly regulated, would be an example of both.

 

One side-effect of this is that although price will not necessarily indicate the efficacy of the poison, it should be an indicator for how difficult it will be for the authorities to recognize when the poison has been used.

[Curufea]

Re: the cost of poison

 

I base it on a per dose cost.

One dose equivalent to enough to have a full effect if administered correctly to a healthy human male of average mass and health.

 

This means more powerful poisons - you require less of for the effect.

 

For injected poisons, to cover a surface area with minuscule amounts of poison, some kind of neutral cream is added to the mix (rather than attempting to spread a miniscule amount with a microscope and tweezers).

 

The poisons I use are here-

http://www.curufea.com/games/western/5e/poisons.php

 

The costs to buy a dose of these poisons is here-

http://www.curufea.com/games/western/5e/herbs.php