Poison Strike

Draven

Draven

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Alright, I've done some research, and this ritual absolutely confounds me. I'm not able to find a single situation in which this ritual is ultimately good for the game.

1) The only "benefit" this ritual seems to convey is the ability to have your damage be dealt as a Poison, instead of as Weapon. Sure, this means that I could toss an alchemy to burn your Poison Shield...but I could also burn a thrown weapon to blow your Weapon Shield (I forget what we're calling it).

2) Since races are more likely to possess Resist Poison instead of Resist Normal (because it doesn't exist), by using this ritual, you're actually making it -more- likely that your target will be able to negate your attack with a Resist.

Which leads me to my confusion:

3) Does making it the Poison -qualifier- mean that it cannot be Parried/Riposted (akin to a spell delivered via Weapon)? If I understand it correctly, the effect would just convert "3 Normal" into "3 Poison" and otherwise be a normal weapon strike.

Please clarify. :)
 
Probably about 15 - 20% of the monster database is "No Effect to Normal damage."

That said, most of those creatures are also immune to poison.

I do think that you are right that the effect can no longer be parried or riposted, since the delivery is now poison. That suggests to me that the intended use is to deliver hard to avoid one-shot abilities. A Poison Eviscerate should be much harder for the average fighter to negate than a weapon delivered Eviscerate.

-MS
 
You are potentially confusing delivery and qualifier.

Poison strike turns any weapon attack into a poison attack, which changes the available defenses.

For example-
"10 normal" is technically "10 weapon normal" but Weapon is the implied default.

If Poison Strike is used, it becomes "10 poison normal" - meaning any defenses against a weapon (parry, riposte, immune to normal weapons, threshold, etc) no longer apply.

This may seem a bit niche for a regular swing, but consider -
"Flame Terminate"

This becomes "Flame Poison Terminate"- no parry, magic armor, "only effected by magic/earth weapons" etc.
 
EC-JP said:
You are potentially confusing delivery and qualifier.

Poison strike turns any weapon attack into a poison attack, which changes the available defenses.

For example-
"10 normal" is technically "10 weapon normal" but Weapon is the implied default.

If Poison Strike is used, it becomes "10 poison normal" - meaning any defenses against a weapon (parry, riposte, immune to normal weapons, threshold, etc) no longer apply.

This may seem a bit niche for a regular swing, but consider -
"Flame Terminate"

This becomes "Flame Poison Terminate"- no parry, magic armor, "only effected by magic/earth weapons" etc.
Click to expand...

So a player with a Silver weapon using a Poison Eviscerate would call, "Silver Poison Eviscerate," since they must call Silver, even if the delivery isn't Weapon, yes?
 
In this example, if a monster is immune to silver, would it then still be immune to the augmented attack? The traditional judgment seems to be that if you are immune to one portion of an attack, that you are immune to the entire attack. Would this also hold true for Poison Strike?

I bring this up because of the "10 poison normal" example, and it being referenced as a way to get around an immunity to normal weapons.
 
Tevas said:
In this example, if a monster is immune to silver, would it then still be immune to the augmented attack? The traditional judgment seems to be that if you are immune to one portion of an attack, that you are immune to the entire attack. Would this also hold true for Poison Strike?
Click to expand...

This. Allowing carriers into the attack, like "Flame," implies that it's still a Weapon attack. You don't call "Flame Spell Death," you'd call "Spell Death." Likewise, I'd expect someone with a Flame carrier to not use that carrier during a "Poison" attack, because the carrier is on a Weapon attack, and this isn't a Weapon attack.
 
Further, this would mean the following attack would be strangely legal:

Poison Terminate Sleep Poison.
 
We are discussing exactly these things in the owners forums right now. Standby for further clarification on the Poison Strike ritual.
 
Durnic said:
We are discussing exactly these things in the owners forums right now. Standby for further clarification on the Poison Strike ritual.
Click to expand...

Will this determination be made in advance of the public release of the 0.8 packet?
 
well, prod your Chapter Owners into posting on the topics and maybe! ;)
 
This is currently being discussed by the owners, but to clarify one thing -

Many of the comments indicate that people are equating "attacks" and "weapon attacks" in an incorrect way. "Immune to Silver weapon attacks" would currently only matter versus silver weapon attacks. If a plot team were to send out a custom monster throwing packets for "50 Elemental Silver" the weapon immunity would be irrelevant.

2.0 clarifies that by making "weapon" it's own distinct thing, even if the decision was made to not have it expressly called and be the "unsaid default."
 
Tevas said:
Will this determination be made in advance of the public release of the 0.8 packet?
Click to expand...
We would like to have it be a part of the 0.8 packet, but since some owners are more active than others... we'll see.
 
So, EC-JP, how would you define the monster immunity in that example?

The swing would be:

5 [value] silver [carrier / effect] poison [qualifier].

How would the immunity you list, "immune to silver weapon attacks", be structured?

A) If [carrier / effect] = silver, then immune

B) If [carrier / effect] = silver, AND [qualifier] = weapon, then immune

C) Other?


Thank you in advance for your clarification, I appreciate it!
 
If a monster is immune to silver weapons, then they are immune when the qualifier is "weapon" AND the effect/damage type is "silver".
 
Thank you Dan, I appreciate your feedback. That is what I suspected, but wanted to make sure. AND immunities seem to be particularly unusual in style, as most I have seen are simply single factor immunities. Is it the intention of the v2 changes to streamline this, or does it appear that these multi-factor immunities will remain?
 
Well, there is another example of a two-stage immunity which everyone is familiar with: Threshold. Threshold is an immunity that applies only to [x <= T][qualifier = weapon], but everyone understands that pretty well, and it's not going away.
 
Sounds good. Thank you for the insight. It was noted that a number of exceptions, fragments or one-offs were potentially being reviewed for streamlining. I was curious if this was one of them. I appreciate you sharing the development perspective with us.
 
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Well, there is another example of a two-stage immunity which everyone is familiar with: Threshold. Threshold is an immunity that applies only to [x <= T][qualifier = weapon], but everyone understands that pretty well, and it's not going away.
Click to expand...

Threshold doesn't actually specify Weapon attacks. It just says damaging attacks. The example only uses weapon attacks. Just so people are aware.
 
I found the rather interesting, if corner case, use for this.

With Healing Strike, you can swing Healing as an effect. With Poison Strike, you can now swing a X Poison Healing attack that will heal a target that you hit, because the rule explicitly prohibits a Weapon qualifier attacks from healing, not attacks delivered by a weapon (this is confirmed by the way spell strikes of healing spells work, which is by swinging X Spell Healing with a weapon).

Making it a little more interesting, if you were to activate a Slay for that strike, you could potentially swing something like 100 Poison Healing.

Now, this combination requires 2 rituals (Poison Strike and Healing Strike), one critical attack / back attack, and one slay / assassinate, so it clearly is resource intensive. Also, short of a 40th level Orc fighter (possibly with multiple Hearty purchases), it will be hard to find a PC that can actually benefit from that much healing. But, if you have the right fighter or rogue build and the right beneficial NPC, it is potentially possible to provide a 200+ heal in a single strike.

-MS
 
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