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 (http://www.shakespeareauthority.com/family/natural-plant-poisons-in-shakespeare-poison-as-weapon-and-symbol-in-the-tragedies) 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.
In the back of this price list (http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MajesticWilderlandsPrice%20List.pdf) I use in my Swords & Wizardry is a herb list including poisons.
The worst poison is Gaethipa which is processed into a sticky white paste you can coat your weapon with. If you get injured by a Gaethipa coated sword convulsion will take effect in 1d3 rounds. The saving throw doesn't prevent the convulsion but rather see if you survive them or die from them.
Of course it very obvious that your weapon is coated with Gaethipa as it appears to be smeared with a white paste.
Even then if somebody hits you with a cure poison before the next round (if you are unlucky and rolled a 1 for when it takes effect) you are good to go as if nothing happened.
While Gaethipa is made up it similar to the worst poisons you find naturally. In short instant death by poison is pretty much fiction.
Depending on the game - I go by the rules for usage. A high fantasy world with lots of monsters in them are going to have more lethal raw materials, plus there may be magical processes used to make them more lethal, or more likely to remain lethal after being applied to a weapon.
I remember from the old version of either the Three Muskateers or the Four Muskateers that had Michael York in it, Milady de Winter was armed with two glass daggers with poison or acid inside of them. I usually imagined special one-use weapons such as those for D&D.
Quote from: jeff37923;676829I remember from the old version of either the Three Muskateers or the Four Muskateers that had Michael York in it, Milady de Winter was armed with two glass daggers with poison or acid inside of them.
Acid.
Quote from: talysman;676709Incidentally, 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.
That's not a bad guidepost for general purposes. Of course, some very small creatures have deadlier poison than some very large creatures. Ultimately I think the best way to go is to have each poison work in the way that's most emulative to it.
RPGPundit
Deadliest Warrior had a few examples, if I recall. The Zulu were said to spit poison, and the Ninja Black Eggs were close (pepper and glass), but neither were fatal alone. Blowgun darts, though, were said to be coated with puffer fish toxin that could kill in 30 seconds. Arrow poisons existed, too.
No examples I could find of the typical depiction of a poisoned dagger.
Quote from: mcbobbo;677664No examples I could find of the typical depiction of a poisoned dagger.
I vaguely recall hearing that "poison daggers" actually did not inject poison into wounds; dagger blade was not used for stabbing, but for eating meat, and the pommel was hollow, allowing poison to be surreptitiously poured into a goblet at dinner. So, not actually a poison weapon, but a method of sneaking poison into food or drink.
Its very hard to convince players that no, if you're doing something quasi-historical there should not be a poison that can just be smeared on a 1d8 longsword and will immediately kill your 26hp opponent on the same round he's hit.
RPGPundit
Quote from: mcbobbo;677664Deadliest Warrior had a few examples, if I recall. The Zulu were said to spit poison, and the Ninja Black Eggs were close (pepper and glass), but neither were fatal alone. Blowgun darts, though, were said to be coated with puffer fish toxin that could kill in 30 seconds. Arrow poisons existed, too.
No examples I could find of the typical depiction of a poisoned dagger.
Anything said about Ninjas on a program like "Deadliest Warrior", is certain to be unsupported bullshit.
Zulus too. No evidence of poison use in battle, to my knowledge. The British would have found time to denounce the savage perfidity of poison use, constrasting it with civilized warfare merely involving the blasting of large holes in the enemy's body with small pieces of burning lead.
Swiped from elsewhere:
ACONITE (Aconitum napellus), or Monk's-Hood was known even in Anglo-Saxon times, when it was called "thung." "Thung" became the word used for any very poisonous plant. Cultures used it as a weapon by coating their spears and arrowheads with its strong poison. The plant was used for killing panthers, wolves, and other carnivores. The Greeks termed it "lycotonum," or Wolfs-Bane, and believed that aconite was the first poison created, made by Hecate from the foam of Cerberus. Aconite was used as an arrow poison in primitive Europe, Alaska, and Asia. On the Greek island of Chios, aconite was used for the euthanasia of the old and infirm men. It was often used for criminal purposes—Claudius I, Emperor of Rome, was slain by his own physician who slipped him monkshood. It was so often used for political assassinations that Trajon banned its cultivation altogether. Anyone caught gardening these flowers risked a penalty of death. Gerard, an herbalist of Queen Elizabeth's time, wrote, "There hath been little heretofore set down concerning the virtues of aconite, but much might be saide of the hurts that have come thereby." When Hamlet faced Laertes in a duel, Laertes covered his blade in juices from monkshood. In a series of recent trials infamous in Japan, three women and one man were proven to have collected millions of yen in their murder-for-insurance ring; the women prepared for their husbands sweet-bean buns laced with monkshood. The trials ended in 2002, and all received long prison terms.
AKOCANTHERA: Usually used as arrow poison; see below. It has been reported that Puncture Vine seeds have been used in homicidal weapons in southern Africa; murderers smear sharp objects with the poisonous juice of Acokanthera venenata and put them where victims are likely to step.
ROSARY PEAS: Abrus precatorius. Rosary peas are so poisonous that the sharpened seeds are used as murder weapons in India.
POISON ARROWS
Poison arrows have been used since antiquity in nearly every continent, with the possible exception of Australia and New Zealand. The oldest evidence comes from ancient Egypt, circa 2181 BCE.
Common genuses used include Calotropsis, Dioscorea, Diospyros, Drepanocarpus, Euphorbia, Hippomane, Hura, Lonchocarpus, Mucuna, Paullinia, Pedilanthus, Pentaclethra, Perebea, Petiveria, Piscidia, Strychnos.
Africa: cardiac poisons African arrow poisons generally contain more than one component. Nearly 256 different species have been used in poison arrows in Africa. Generally the poison was never smeared on the tip but placed behind the tip so the penetration through skin and fur wouldn't wipe off the poison. Sometimes the poison was inserted in a hollow shaft. The cacti Euphorbium was consistently used as a glue to hold the poison on the shaft. Only the bushmen of the Kalahari desert used animal extracts exclusively.Other bushmen mix with plants or use plant material alone. Plants include Acokanthera, Parquetina, Adenium speciosum, Strophanthus, Tabernanthe, Adenium, Mansonia, Calotropis, Cassia sp., Crotalaria retusa, Securidaea lonqependuculata, Tephrosia vogelii, Pergularia, Corchorus, and Erythrophleum, Euphorbia, Gnidia, Strychnos, and Jatropha. In the early 20th century, arsenic was often used, but during the mid-century, cyanide became quite popular
Acokanthera schimperi: Prepared by building an underground fire pit—the pot is kept below ground level to reduce the danger. The fire is kept going for 3 to 4 days after which time the lid is removed to let the vapor escape. After a day the precipitate deposited at the bottom of the pot is moved to a wooden or leather container with a tight lid. It is then carried around for use in the preparation of poison arrows. The bark is also soaked in water to extract the poison. Death results in 30 minutes after entry of poison into the blood-stream" Snake venom is sometimes used in addition. The poison causes hair and nails to drop off. The only treatment against the poison is immediate excision of the flesh surrounding the wound. The container used to prepare or hold the poison must never be used in the house again, not even to burn as firewood because the smoke, if inhaled, is poisonous as well.
Strophanthus hispidus makes up Gombi arrow poison of Africa. The brew is evaporated by boiling to a syrupy consistency, and when smeared on the arrow or spear this dries to a varnish. The poison is called in Hausa yaßi, literally 'to smear poison', or zabgai, or simply dafi, poison, and in Fula toke.
South America: muscle-paralyzing Each tribe has their own curare recipe, but most implement the bark of Moonseed family members, which is often mixed with unspecified plants. Tube curare from western Amazonia was stored in bamboo tubes and made of Chondrodendron tomentosum. From eastern Amazonia is Calabash curare, stored in small gourds, and pot curare in small clay pots; both made from Strychnos guianensis. Often the mixtures included other substances, sometimes up to thirty. When it comes to the respiratory-paralyzing effects of the Chondrodendron, it can take as many as 15 darts to take down a human. The strength of the poison is also variable. The strength of a batch of curare can be tested in a number of ways, like counting the number of times a frog can jump after being pricked, or how many trees a monkey can leap to after being hit. One-tree curare is very potent; three-tree curare can be used to take down live animals to be kept in captivity. Machineel, used in Central America and the Caribbean is used by the Caribs as an arrow poison, watering hole poison, and the tied criminals to the tree to torture them.
Asia: Cardiac followed by tetanic symptoms ACONITE 'Monkshood/Wolfbane' Used by ancient Chinese and in India as an arrow tip poison & in medieval times to poison wolves.
North America: No generalizations Letharia spp. Achomawi: The principal ingredient for the poison used for the stone arrow tips was the yellow lichen (Evernia) which grows on pine and fir trees in the mountains. The arrow points were embedded in masses of the wet lichen and allowed to remain an entire year. Rattlesnake venom was sometimes added.
Pallid Hoptree: Leaves made into arrow poison by Havasupai tribe.
Oddly missing from these is the historical use of Chinese fire newt secretions, a complex neurotoxin that is lethal in small quantities if introduced to the bloodstream or ingested. It was reputed to have been used by Chinese soldiers in warfare, I used to own several of them.
Quote from: valency;678220Anything said about Ninjas on a program like "Deadliest Warrior", is certain to be unsupported bullshit.
Zulus too. No evidence of poison use in battle, to my knowledge. The British would have found time to denounce the savage perfidity of poison use, constrasting it with civilized warfare merely involving the blasting of large holes in the enemy's body with small pieces of burning lead.
I don't see how you can dole out certainty. They do list, analyze, and then test the weapons. The lever action on horseback is more effective than a than a Tommy from a car.
Along those lines I would assume that poison spit was a melee weapon, and probably not used against firearms for that reason.
But sources are sources, and some are better than others.
The dramatization at the end, for example, probably shouldn't even be there, IMO.
A very interesting contribution, Traveller!
Quote from: RPGPundit;678745A very interesting contribution, Traveller!
I'm sure there's much more information out there for the persistent, blood-borne poisons aren't exactly widely propagated knowledge, and less so as time goes by. Articles on the toxicity of the Chinese fire newt secretions are markedly less available online than they were five years ago, for whatever reason, and less informative when they can be found. Remarkable creatures, my fingers used to grow slightly numb after handling them for a short period.
I'm quite happy with how the Poison rules in ACKS turned out. I did quite a bit of research while writing them. Per the other commenters here, I discovered that (a) poison was expensive and time-consuming to prepare; (b) poisoners had to be very cautious of the risks of self-poisoning; (c) many mythological accounts of use of poison end with the poisoner dying by his own poison; (d) few poisons work very quickly; and (e) as used on weapons, poison was primarily a weapon of terror, as victims feared sickness and death from a scratch that was otherwise unremarkable.
Since the rules are OGL, I'll share them here for anyone's use. I won't claim they are "realistic" per se; the risks of self-poisoning are higher than they ought be, and with no rules for infectious wounds, some effects couldn't be modeled. But they are well-balanced and playable within the context of a D&D-style game.
Plant Toxins
Characters with Naturalism proficiency can search for a fresh specimen of poisonous plants each week. A successful proficiency throw against the target value for the plant (listed on the Plant Toxins table below) gathers enough fresh plant to extract one dose of toxin. Dried belladonna and wolfsbane can be easily found in most markets, but are more difficult to extract useful toxin from.
Extracting the toxin from the raw plant takes 1 week per plant and requires a successful Alchemy proficiency throw of 14+ for fresh plants and 17+ for dried plants. If either the proficiency throw to gather the plant, or to extract the plant toxin, is an unmodified 1, the character has accidentally exposed himself to the toxin. The character must immediately save versus Poison or suffer its effects.
Each plant yields one dose of its toxin. Some plant toxins can be used to treat weapons. For these toxins, a dose is enough to treat twenty missiles (arrows, bolts, or darts) or one melee weapon. Other toxins can be used to poison food or drink. In this case, one dose is enough to poison one meal or drink. Extracted plant toxins generally cannot be detected by smell or taste. The Plant Toxins table shows the market cost, onset time, save modifier of the various plant toxins.
Plant Toxins
(presented in the following format: Poison, Naturalism Throw, Cost/Dose, Onset Time, Save Mod., Effect on Failed Save)
Belladonna, 11+, 350gp, 1 turn (injury) or 1d3 turns (ingestion) +2, 2d8 damage and confusion 1d4 turns
Curare, 20+, 1,500gp, Instant (injury), 2d12 damage and paralysis 2d4 turns
Foxglove, 14+, 275gp, 1d6 turns (ingestion), -3, 2d8 damage and confusion 1d4 turns
Hellebore, 8+, 225gp, 1 turn (injury) or 1d3 turns (ingestion), +2, 1d6 damage and sickness 1d10 days*
Hemlock, 8+, 225gp, 2d4 turns (ingestion), +4, 2d12 damage and sickness 1d10 days*
Henbane, 8+, 350gp, 1 turn (injury) or 1d6 turns (ingestion), +2, 1d6 damage and feeblemind 1d4 hours
Wolfsbane, 11+, 350gp, 1 turn (injury) or 2d4 turns (ingestion), +2, 2d8 damage and paralysis 2d4 turns
Yew, 4+, 200gp, 1 hour (injury) or 1d6 hours (ingestion), +4, 1d10 damage
Sickened characters move at ½ speed and cannot fight or perform other actions.
Use of Poison
Once applied, poison evaporates quickly, diminishing its effectiveness. On the first day, it will do full damage, on the second day half damage, and by the third it will be gone. Partially evaporated deadly poisons allow the victim a +2 bonus on his saving throw after the first day, and +4 after the second. Each hit with a melee weapon is equivalent to a day's evaporation, e.g. the poison will do half damage on its second hit and then be gone.
Using poisoned weapons is not without risk. Whenever a character's attack throw with a poisoned weapon is an unmodified 1, he has accidentally pricked himself. He must immediately save versus Poison or suffer its effects.
Good stuff; if you look over on the Albion thread in my subforum, you'll see my own poison listing, and you'll note that I chose for none of them to do straightforward HP damage. Also, none of them are just instant save vs. death either.
RPGPundit