Timeline for My players think they found a loophole that gives them infinite poison and XP. How can I add the proper challenges to slow them down?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 11 at 5:15 | comment | added | Hand-E-Food | Or better yet, if they're poisoned too slowly, they adapt and become immune to poison, making them an even bigger threat to the community. | |
| Jun 10 at 22:17 | comment | added | PLL | Also, even if the spell did successfully poison the water supply indefinitely, what is more likely to happen next: (a) everyone in town keeps drinking the water until they all die; or (b) a few unfortunate kobolds die or sicken; the rest realise something’s up, start treating their water (boiling, filtering etc) or falling back on alternative water sources, and then go hunting together with very little mercy in store for whatever sociopaths did this? | |
| Jun 10 at 21:26 | comment | added | Darth Pseudonym | @stackoverblown The spell deals one instance of poison-type damage immediately and has no lingering effects. Call it whatever you like -- the spell is what it is. It's written out very clearly. It's not a free "spray poison on all the doorknobs" spell, and it's not a "poison all my host's drinks" spell. It's an instantaneous direct damage spell just like a magic missile, but with a con save. "I don't like how this spell is implemented" is not a relevant statement in this discussion. | |
| Jun 10 at 15:29 | comment | added | stackoverblown | The problem with this is that if the poison does not linger in the target, then it is not poison. You just turned the poison into a harm spell. | |
| Jun 9 at 19:52 | comment | added | Novak | @marcelm yes, but how many magic poisons have you studied chemically? | |
| Jun 9 at 19:09 | comment | added | marcelm | "But if you were, there is no real reason to expect a magic toxic gas to be water soluble." - Most gases are water-soluble to a degree. And I'd certainly expect a toxic gas to be significantly water-soluble, otherwise it wouldn't diffuse into the victims blood in the lungs and thus have no effect ;) | |
| Jun 9 at 17:49 | comment | added | TimothyAWiseman | I agree with all of this, but its possible to take the 4th bullet point too far. It is as you say harder than your average person things to poison a city water supply, especially in the modern world with monitoring and testing. But it has been done during sieges and similar events in the real world and is a viable (though arguably evil and against modern laws of warfare) tactic. It rarely killed the entire city, but the attackers rarely wanted it too. Just weaken the city for conquest or defeat. Perhaps the most famous usage was by Vlad III the Impaler in the mid-1400s. | |
| Jun 9 at 17:38 | comment | added | J Eti | I'll use the "instantaneous" argument for the narration. The poison appears magically, does damage, but the magic doesn't sustain for more than 1 turn (6s). I also like the dilution requirement if they ever buy gallons of poison. | |
| Jun 9 at 17:34 | vote | accept | J Eti | ||
| Jun 9 at 0:13 | comment | added | Nobody the Hobgoblin | @Novak. Yet, spot on. I also agree with "Nothing in the description of the spell even hints that the poison lingers after the instantaneous duration. So it doesn't." I just think this has nothing to do with the spell duration of instantaneous, and everything with the description portion of the spell. Funnily enough if the game wants a permanent effect, the duration often is instantaneous. | |
| Jun 9 at 0:08 | comment | added | Novak | @NobodytheHobgoblin the permanent effect is the damage to the one (1) kobold so targeted. | |
| Jun 8 at 17:51 | comment | added | KorvinStarmast | @NobodytheHobgoblin But animate dead's spell description covers the rest of that. | |
| Jun 8 at 17:50 | comment | added | Nobody the Hobgoblin | I of course wholeheartedly agree, just a caveat for the first bullet: instantaneous durations can have permanent effects they leave behind, e.g. animate dead. | |
| Jun 8 at 17:44 | history | edited | KorvinStarmast | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
a few slight tweaks
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| Jun 8 at 16:59 | history | answered | Novak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |