Stoneskin and poison exploit
koalabob
Member Posts: 22
So I was at the chess board in Durlag's tower about to kill the king, whose defenses are down and all alone. He summons a giant spider which goes after Neera. "No worries," I think, "thanks to her wild surge she has a level 12 stoneskin up. That 8 legged fiend can wait til the king is down." I go back to killing the king but then Neera grunts in pain and I notice she's dying fast. Stoneskin is still up so I pause and scroll through the feedback notes to see what happened. Turns out that spider can't hurt Neera but it can still poison her...and she's dying a slow painful death while Viconia can only watch from the other side of the board...admittedly she'd probably just watch even if she was by Neera.
I reload (because I'm like that) and test to see if this works in my favor. I send Dorn up to the King who has stoneskin up himself, use Dorn's poison ability and let him whack away. Sure enough, Dorn connects, does no damage but poisons the king who quickly succumbs to his wounds like a...well, like a spindly wizard that just got poisoned by a 2-handed sword.
My question: is this an exploit/bug? And if so is there a way to fix it (mod or otherwise)? I feel like if Stoneskin prevents a weapon/spider bite from actually wounding the flesh then the poison should be a no go as well.
I reload (because I'm like that) and test to see if this works in my favor. I send Dorn up to the King who has stoneskin up himself, use Dorn's poison ability and let him whack away. Sure enough, Dorn connects, does no damage but poisons the king who quickly succumbs to his wounds like a...well, like a spindly wizard that just got poisoned by a 2-handed sword.
My question: is this an exploit/bug? And if so is there a way to fix it (mod or otherwise)? I feel like if Stoneskin prevents a weapon/spider bite from actually wounding the flesh then the poison should be a no go as well.
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Comments
PS : Vampire Level Drain ability also bypass Stoneskin and that hurts !
For the fact that poison is bypassing Stoneskin i agree that RP wise it's strange but it's like that, like @Shin said, use PFMW to protect your mage from Poison / Level Drain / Devour Brain abilities
@MadHax That's a good point about the Flail of Ages, I have used that tactic myself. And that also makes me realize why the poison goes through Stoneskin. The spell clearly states that elemental damage is not stopped so it has to allow those on-hit and I'd imagine it'd be crazy difficult to code elemental damage to affect it but not poison. It seems like it's an all or nothing thing (like with the mentioned Protection from Magical Weapons).
The more I actually think about what's involved in bringing the already convulted AD&D ruleset into a set of computer code the more respect I have for Beamdog and all those modders out there. Mad props.
So, no, it shouldn't be crazy difficult
EDIT: Huh, I didn't know that it prevented ailments in the vanilla version. Learn something new every day.
Also I noticed when having one of your mirror images hit you still get poisoned....how...wh....what!?
Also relevant, many toxic compounds tend to be harmful to skin as well, ie corrossive. Lots of toxins can create their own injury, basicly.
3rd edition did a good job with poison overall, but imho contact poisons delivered via injury should have a DC bonus...+2 at least. Thieves' World had slow acting poisons too, very brutal. They work like diseases, pretty lethal.
But if that doesn't help as DreadKhan pointed out there is such a thing as contact poison (even in 2nd edition dnd). The game however won't distinguish between say the poison found on your assassins blade, vs the poison damage from a wyvern. They do different amounts of damage but they would be both treated the same way in terms of their bypassing of mirror image/stoneskin.
Unless we are talking about the 'poison is corrosive/acidic' trope. You know, on tv an evil poisoner concocts a vile poison brew and the metalic spoon dissolves inside the container. (but how does the container remain unaffected, is a mystery) Poison that potent will have a nasty effect on human skin. It can burn off the layers of skin (thus, can even bypass stoneskin) and seep into pores and into blood. Most chemical poisons are dangerous and deadly like this. However, although I am not an expert, I don't think most natural poisons (spider, snake etc) are that potent. I have heard about poison frogs that kill man on contact with bare skin, though. And some snakes just spit the poison in your face.
In DnD, poison is handled in seperate ways, there is 'contact poison' which does not require a cut/wound to be effective, just touching the skin is enough to do its work. I guess bg poisons just became 'contact' poison in the enhanced edition, other than the regular 'wound' poison.
As its implemented, its also ludicrously overpowered, requiring usually only 2 or 3 hits within the space of 5 rounds from any mindflayer, not 4 grapples from the same mindflayer. Given that they have 4 attacks per round, a 5 round window and they come in packs of 4 or 5 in most cases, its far easier for them to instant kill than in pnp. Even if they can only hit on natural 20s, its still very possible for them to kill you with int drain, given that between them, they will be making 16-20 attacks per round. In pnp, extract brain is mostly only done on incapacitated targets, and is very difficult to pull off against a high level warrior who isnt incapacitated.
Assassins and blackguards arent using 'natural' poison, as most venoms are chemically very unstable. They store very poorly, since they typically are not stored by the animal, bug, etc. Poisons made by humans tend to be pretty good with storing, though many liquid forms will seperate eventually. Suspensions will settle too. Anyways, if you are making an injury type poison, anything that makes it easier to take effect is beneficial. If you can mix in anything corrossive, you probably would try it. Test it on rats, calculate your lethal dose per kg and you're good to go! Note, injested poisons can be vomited, so dont overdose too ridiculously.
For the Mind Flayer, disturbingly enough they dont use brute force to remove your brain, they dissolve skin and bone chemically via tentacle secretions, then voila! Readily available brain. Stoneskin doesnt protect against corrossives, so Mind Flayers should bypass it. Some inconsistencies in source material though.
I'm still going on the assumption that the mirror image thing is a glitch cuz my mind would never be able to comprehend the logic in that that decision if it wasn't xD.
But I mean if elemental damage and other status effects can bypass mirror images then I don't see why poison wouldn't.
Stoneskin is described in the game as an outer skin that completely covers the caster. It is of course magical, and made for the purpose of protecting against physical attacks. It would make sense then, that something like poison, something that is not a physical attack, would still affect someone who has this spell on them.
Though, again, the people who make the rules don't pay attention to the difference between poisonous and venomous, as the OP pointed out, it was a spider did this to Neera at first. Spiders are prime examples of being venomous in the real world, not poisonous. So in that since, it should not have been able to work, as spiders need to inject, and their mandibles should not be able to pierce through stoneskin.
Sooo .... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯