Anyone else find Slow Poison to be rather useless?
ashingda
Member Posts: 29
This does the intended job however most of the time it is the caster who is using it on themselves thus lies the problem, it's not reliable!
A lot of the poison dished out by encounters are fast acting ones so interruptions are very high and some even deals out great amount of damage so the sooner it's cured the better. This spell becomes useless because you can just drink an antidote and rid yourself of all the hassle, heck you don't even have to wait for the cleric to waltz on over, just pass that potion bottle over and cure it instantly and without any chance of failure.
The only advantage Slow Poison has is that you can use it on incapacitated targets but even then it's better to cure their status ailment then have them down an antidote instead. I have a party with multiple characters that has slow poison readily available and I opt out to use antidotes every single time, this is a ridiculous waste of an ability/spell.
Because of the nature of how damage works in this game, the rate of poison tics, and the sheer amount it's encountered throughout the game the casting speed of this spell should be reduced to 0. It's really no different compared to a speed of 1 and it becomes greatly more reliable.
Antidotes has it's own advantages, allowing anyone without the ability/spell to cure themselves and also can be used while silenced. However as it is right now, even if you have the ability/spell it's still clearly the better option.
If anyone played solo, you'll see how useless Slow Poison is. Even if you gain this ability from the chapters or if classed as a cleric and has this memorized, you will never really want to use this to combat against poison as one failed attempt can end your game.
A lot of the poison dished out by encounters are fast acting ones so interruptions are very high and some even deals out great amount of damage so the sooner it's cured the better. This spell becomes useless because you can just drink an antidote and rid yourself of all the hassle, heck you don't even have to wait for the cleric to waltz on over, just pass that potion bottle over and cure it instantly and without any chance of failure.
The only advantage Slow Poison has is that you can use it on incapacitated targets but even then it's better to cure their status ailment then have them down an antidote instead. I have a party with multiple characters that has slow poison readily available and I opt out to use antidotes every single time, this is a ridiculous waste of an ability/spell.
Because of the nature of how damage works in this game, the rate of poison tics, and the sheer amount it's encountered throughout the game the casting speed of this spell should be reduced to 0. It's really no different compared to a speed of 1 and it becomes greatly more reliable.
Antidotes has it's own advantages, allowing anyone without the ability/spell to cure themselves and also can be used while silenced. However as it is right now, even if you have the ability/spell it's still clearly the better option.
If anyone played solo, you'll see how useless Slow Poison is. Even if you gain this ability from the chapters or if classed as a cleric and has this memorized, you will never really want to use this to combat against poison as one failed attempt can end your game.
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If you're using your sole priest as your sole tank then of course they'll be the first to get poisoned.
Worth noting though that if your reputation is above 10, and you have a well rounded group, you should have a couple slow poisons on your player character in addition to your priest. So they can slow eachother's poison in a pinch.
Unless of course your player character is your sole priest, sole tank. In that case you're back to square one I guess.
My charname is always in the front line and even with 2 innate Slow Poisons I will not use it in fear that it'll fail and I'll have to wait a whole turn to attempt to cure it again. I have the option to walk my cleric over and cast the spell but that would break the formation and they'll have to wait another turn to act again whereas I can just down an antidote and they can proceed with an attack spell or cast a wand.
What's the point of having the ability but never want to use it? It's just there taking up space, you can remove the ability/spell from the game and it'll make little to no difference. Also because it's a 2nd level spell and the innate version is acquired so late in the chapter by the time you have access to it you should have already bought yourself some antidotes and render it useless.
I suppose you are right @Chronicler , it may largely be because of my playstyle and I also mostly play in the harder modes where these smaller steps has greater impact. I don't hate the spell by any means, I want to use it very much but there's no window of opportunity to use it effectively.
Of course potions are more efficient though. Consumables are always more efficient. There's no real reason to cast fireball instead of using an oil of fiery burning beyond the fact that oils are finite and spell slots are renewable.
That's because my charname gets poisoned the most. Every little bow users we encounter has a potential to poison on hit and they come in large numbers so them striking a natural 20 is likely and thus poison. Upon poison I would like to use Slow Poison but it's unreliable so I use the antidote every time.
If a cleric eats a stray arrow and gets poisoned I'd rather they take an antidote instead, often times they are spread apart, holding formation, on a cool down, or have their own set of problems.
The item variant is widely accessible, cheap, stackable, and free of interruptions. When both the spell and item are readily available, the item is always the better choice and in nearly all the scenarios. The reason is that Slow Poison can be interrupted by the very same thing it's design to cure and also when you need to use it on an ally, it's better if they just drink the antidote instead.
I just cant find a reason to use the spell version, there's no real benefit to do so.
Very true, I collect and heavily use mentioned items
You can avoid the disrupt if you time your casting right.
I'm really surprised that someone badmouths Slow Poison, to be honest.
LOL that's because if you time it wrong, it's potentially a game over. On the other hand antidote is 100%, the real life-saver. It's also much harder to time it at 60 fps.
PnP poisons don't deal damage over time. After a certain amount of time (most are 30min or less), they deal a single large amount of damage, or they outright kill you, leave you paralyzed for several hours, or debilitated for a couple of days.
PnP slow poison delays those effects by 1 hour per level, during which they can be cured.
PnP antidotes are only effective against a single type of poison, not every type of poison as is the case in-game.
The contrary is wondering what purpose neutralize poison serves at two spell levels higher, when slow poison effects a cure. But I still think it is too late to change a mechanic that is key to easy chapters of the first game.
For the original poster: I find slow poison to be incredibly useful and frequently a life saver, especially when curing others. It may not be as reliable as potions, but it is a renewable resource, so still a vital tool in my armory. Also, the (N)PC ability appears to trigger much more quickly than casting a spell, which also partially addresses your concern.
I very occasionally use the spell very, very early in the game, before I have the money for the potions. But I won't even go against the spiders of Beregost without at least two antidotes and a Sleep spell ready to go.
The trouble with the spell, as has been stated, is that way too much can go wrong trying to get it cast in time. Not only is the poison likely to tick before the spell if you're trying to cast it on yourself, but also if a caster is trying to get to you, they can get blocked by positioning and pathfinding, and unable to get to you in time. They also open themselves up to attack if they had been trying to stay in the back line. And if they already cast a spell on the round you were poisoned, it will be the next round before they can cast again. And then they can be interrupted by an attack when they try to cast it on the next round.
By that time, especially with a poison as strong as wyvern poison, the victim is highly likely to be dead. If it's Charname in a no-reload, it's a game over.
I use the pause button a lot in combat, so poisons are never too fast for lightning reflexes like mine
Having said that, Antidotes and Health Elixirs are also nice.
And yes the spell appears to cure poisons, rather than slow their effects down??
Regarding disabled victims of poisoning: It's not always possible to 'simply cure their ailments'. Ailment curing spells are often higher level than Slow Poison, and you need specific spells to cure specific ailments. Have you memorized them all, all the time?
Khalid is doing the tanking with the ankheg armor, RoP +1 and a shield - cant get his ac much lower at the moment. I have used the spell 6 times so far - and it has a casting time of 1.
I suspect that it will be even more usefull in Cloakwood. In all I would say its very usefull.
Edit: 7 times - some mustard jelly pulled a number on me..
plus with my scripts my main character and clerics cast slow poison quite effectively, although maybe once out of 20 or 30 times, i need to throw the odd antidote in there ( if i have one ) but other than that, slow poison gets the job done
its one of my MVS spells of the level 2 divine class, with hold person being number 1
its the only way i can play BG, if i dont do this, then i just cant play the game, don't know why, perhaps OCD? i think my best so far is around 670 000 GP, i would need to hit a very lucky run with lots of laerel's tear necklaces to hit 700 000 i think