When I did the section on Poisons for Dark Albion I pointed out that most poisons available in a credible medieval-europe setting would not really be well-suited for application on weapons, and that poison was generally much better used in an ingested fashion. It was a practical reason, besides morality or expense, as to why you didn't just see everyone going around with poisoned blades.

But I'd like to know, theorizing that in a given setting there could be some kind of poison that works really well to apply with a weapon-based attack, if anyone has any hard data or ideas about just how poison applied on blades should work, in the sense of how long after applying it would it still be of any use?

RPGPundit

This essay on poison in Shakespeare's plays is a reference I use for my campaign.

Historically, the most common poison used for coating weapons (or traps) was excrement; which is neither expensive or hard to obtain.

Another cheap alternative was dead animals and Humans. At times of war weapons would be rubbed in rotting or maggot infested flesh, or more common was infecting whole water supplies in this manner. Decaying bodies were even used as weapons themselves through catapults - though that is off the subject matter.

For that matter, do people ever try to put poison on bullets in modern day games? You probably could fill a hollow point with something.

I'm sure there are probably rules for it in some game (GURPs probably) but I've never seen it brought up.

Quote from: JeremyR;676130For that matter, do people ever try to put poison on bullets in modern day games? You probably could fill a hollow point with something.

I'm sure there are probably rules for it in some game (GURPs probably) but I've never seen it brought up.

These do exist in real life apparently, but the cost along with the fact it violates various treaties pretty much outweigh any possible gain you wold get in a fire fight. It is probably more use as an assassin's weapon, but even then its probably overkill when you can just shoot the guy in the head.


As for the op, apparently Kautilya's 'Arthashastra' contains hundreds of recipes for creating poison weapons - if for any reason your interested in what was going on in India in 400 BC.


Most of the time though poison seems to be a weapon of choice for causing massive casualties. No something you would use in a knife fight.

I think most of the poisons or similiar materials that are or were applied to weapons are more long term affect things. Not much is quick or instant, it is more meantto weaken the enemy through illness and infection than for killing.

Cutting someone is one of the less effective ways of introducing something like that for several reasons from my limited medical knowledge, such as bleeding pushes it putward not darw it in, puncturing introduces it into the body but doesn' mean it is absorbed quickly for the same reasons getting it into the blood system is the key.

So poisons that kill quickly, A staple of fantasy/Fiction, aren't realistic. Not that is what we would or should judge them by.

From little I know how long it last depends on the poison, most organic ones have a short life span measured in hours unless treated/processed, from what little I know but metallic poisons or Inorganic poisons like say mercury are much more stable.

As I said don't know that much but like to pretend I do

Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;676160I think most of the poisons or similiar materials that are or were applied to weapons are more long term affect things. Not much is quick or instant, it is more meantto weaken the enemy through illness and infection than for killing.

Cutting someone is one of the less effective ways of introducing something like that for several reasons from my limited medical knowledge, such as bleeding pushes it putward not darw it in, puncturing introduces it into the body but doesn' mean it is absorbed quickly for the same reasons getting it into the blood system is the key.

So poisons that kill quickly, A staple of fantasy/Fiction, aren't realistic. Not that is what we would or should judge them by.

From little I know how long it last depends on the poison, most organic ones have a short life span measured in hours unless treated/processed, from what little I know but metallic poisons or Inorganic poisons like say mercury are much more stable.

As I said don't know that much but like to pretend I do

Good points.

Also, consider a fighter getting hit for damage in plate armor. A sword might not even penetrate the armor yet inflict damage. How would the poison even affect someone in this case? Easy answer: it wouldn't.

Likewise poison blowdarts will only be effective if hitting bare skin. There is just so much working against wound type poisons that they are hardly worth the trouble.

In D&D 1e, there apparently exists gummy sticky poisons that coat blades and hang on for a couple minutes while swinging the sword around in battle.

There are also elves. With level limits even though they live x10 longer than humans. So I'm not overly concerned with D&D blade's dripping poison weirdness.

Quote from: elfandghost;676129Historically, the most common poison used for coating weapons (or traps) was excrement; which is neither expensive or hard to obtain.

Another cheap alternative was dead animals and Humans. At times of war weapons would be rubbed in rotting or maggot infested flesh, or more common was infecting whole water supplies in this manner. Decaying bodies were even used as weapons themselves through catapults - though that is off the subject matter.

Quite true, but none of these were of the "save vs. poison or be dead in one round" variety.  

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;676066When I did the section on Poisons for Dark Albion I pointed out that most poisons available in a credible medieval-europe setting would not really be well-suited for application on weapons, and that poison was generally much better used in an ingested fashion. It was a practical reason, besides morality or expense, as to why you didn't just see everyone going around with poisoned blades.

But I'd like to know, theorizing that in a given setting there could be some kind of poison that works really well to apply with a weapon-based attack, if anyone has any hard data or ideas about just how poison applied on blades should work, in the sense of how long after applying it would it still be of any use?

RPGPundit

I remember seeing video of the personal effects of a missionary who collected curare-coated arrows on a trip to South America. They were encased in plastic containers for safety and the curator of the collection assured the viewer that the arrows would still be actively lethal, more than 50 years after the fact. Thus, I think a poison coating with an appropriate emulsion would remain on a properly wrapped blade for years. Now lots of fencing and hitting the blade against things might eventually wear the coating off.

Curare is probably the fastest acting poison that ancient people would have had available to them-- taking effect in about 20 minutes -- whereas  the European and African equivalents of Belladonna and Diamphidia, respectively, taking hours or (in the case of antelope, days) to kill.

All these poisons were historically used as arrow poisons. Poison is generally used to enhance the effects of a weapon that, in itself, isn't sufficiently lethal. European bows are lethal enough in themselves that the added trouble and expense of tipping arrows with poison is not worth much, especially in war. One simple form of "poison" is the bacteria that accumulates on arrowheads -- which can be encouraged by dipping it in excrement or even just soil. In war a wounded casualty is more trouble to the enemy than a killed one, anyway, and if you are fixated on killing your enemy, subsequent infection will often kill as effectively as poison anyway.

If it works for arrows, I am sure that poison blades would be effective enough, but no more immediately incapacitative than stabbing your opponent several times or smashing his skull or pelvis or hacking pieces of his body off. In this respect D&D's original "save or die" mechanic is egregrious, being unrealistic and incentivizing ahistorical behaviour. (In old school D&D poisons are often gamebreakingly lethal to low-level characters and gamebreakingly harmless to high-level characters.

Given there are no real world examples you'd have to say that D&D poison would work however you want it. I'd rule it that the deadlier the poison the shorter lasting it is.

I agree about OD&D poisons, so in my games I used the guidelines to poison from Dark Albion; but there is one notable exception, which is that I certainly do think some magical/supernatural monsters could have poison that is fast acting and extremely lethal.

It is fantasy so .... but we assume tha thte human body works in much the same way that it does now.

Ingested poisons or inhaled poisons are more effective not because they are stronger poisons but because of their infection vector.

But you can look at nature and scale up.

So take a cobra, its poison works by blocking off the receptors on the muscles of he diaphram thus preventing you breathing. It takes a bout 30 minutes for this work not becuase of the strength of the poison, or even its volume but mianly to do with the way the human body processes work.

Whereas Hydrogen Cyanide gas will enter the lungs and prevent Enzyme reaction thus making aborbsion of oxygen impossible. In this case the concentration of the gas is critical and in high enough quantities it will kill in under a minute.

A Komodo Dragon's bite is deadly but not really venom its just full of bacteria and the dragon will follow you about for days til you die of it.

Now in nature there are some creatures that can kill much faster. So the larget Box Jellyfish has a venom that can kill you in 5 minutes by fucking with the chemistry of your cells. In this case the quantity of venom is important.

So ... if you were to have a weapon coated in the fantasy equivalent of Box Jellyfish venom it might be able to cause death. However, its unlikely to cause death in a single round. I think it would be good to make the poison take 2d6 rounds to take effect you can roll that in secret and track it maybe applying a malus each round. Another advantage of this is it makes Slow Poison more useful as a spell.

In Short Save or Die... fine but nix the immediate death and drag out the time.

Also makes poison saves improving as you level look a bit daft as the only point of a check would be to see if you were lucky enough to avoid the venom. Once it effects you well chemistry is chemistry ....

Iocaine. I'd bet my life on it!

(That, or, well, Poison potions are presumably magic, so there.)

Quote from: valency;676366I remember seeing video of the personal effects of a missionary who collected curare-coated arrows on a trip to South America. They were encased in plastic containers for safety and the curator of the collection assured the viewer that the arrows would still be actively lethal, more than 50 years after the fact. Thus, I think a poison coating with an appropriate emulsion would remain on a properly wrapped blade for years. Now lots of fencing and hitting the blade against things might eventually wear the coating off.

A lot of the people posting that weapon poisons aren't historical are forgetting about curare and similar poisons that were used and are used by bow hunters in more tribal societies. The reason why you don't see many poisoned daggers or swords is because there are only two reasons to use poison: (a) to cover up the cause of death (kind of pointless, if you're going to stab someone;) or (b) to reduce the effort of killing.

The documentaries I've seen about arrow poisoned, such as "Beyond Survival with Les Stroud", show poison preparation as a pretty long, involved process, with lots of safeguards against accidentally getting poisoned yourself. Tribal hunters typically have smaller bows, as you mention, and hunting and killing game with just small bows and unpoisoned arrows would be extremely labor-intensive and time-intensive. That's why these hunters are willing to put so much effort into making poison; instead of requiring one or more heavy blows, they just have to prick the target's skin and track the game until it dies. Improve the bow so that you can kill game with one or two well-aimed shots and poison becomes more trouble than it's worth. And in an actual melee? It's a hell of a lot easier and quicker to slit someone's throat when he's down than it is to cut someone with a poisoned blade and then back off and defend yourself while you wait 20 minutes for the poison to take effect.

Quote from: valency;676366If it works for arrows, I am sure that poison blades would be effective enough, but no more immediately incapacitative than stabbing your opponent several times or smashing his skull or pelvis or hacking pieces of his body off. In this respect D&D's original "save or die" mechanic is egregrious, being unrealistic and incentivizing ahistorical behaviour. (In old school D&D poisons are often gamebreakingly lethal to low-level characters and gamebreakingly harmless to high-level characters.

Quote from: RPGPundit;676646I agree about OD&D poisons, so in my games I used the guidelines to poison from Dark Albion; but there is one notable exception, which is that I certainly do think some magical/supernatural monsters could have poison that is fast acting and extremely lethal.

I don't know about the "Save or Die" mechanic for instant poisons being gamebreaking or unrealistic, but I do note that the very earliest saving throw categories are exclusively about magical/supernatural threats: Spells, Wands, Petrification, Dragon Breath, Death Ray. Poison, grouped with "Death Ray", was originally the only exception, but maybe it shouldn't be... maybe a Poison save should be reserved for fantastic, rapid death poisons and the adversity/system shock roll should be used for more natural poisons. That way, ordinary poison is always a threat.

Incidentally, The Judges Guild Ready Reference Sheets have an interesting poison system where, basically, the hit die of the monster is subtracted from 10 to get the rounds of delay for the poison and also affects the deadliness of the poison, so you get different poison effects and a little more time to deal with poisoning, which also solves the problem of "what is Neutralize Poison good for?" I think turning rounds to turns would be advisable, though, so that only the nastiest monsters can kill in less than ten minutes.