Re: (TFT) Arsenic and Old Lace

[Daniel Tulloh <daniel@jaws.greatwhite.com>]

On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, grabowski wrote:

> Poison
> 
> The poisoning rules in TFT have a lot to be desired as far as a realistic
> poisoning goes. To give you an example, after a giant spider bites you (gets
> through hits stopped) it does 2D damage or BAM! on the average seven hits.
> There are some poisons that work that way today but none or very few that
> would attack a victim that fast in a medieval sense.  Below I will give you
> a way that it could be possibly done without slowing down the game that
> much.  The best way to explain this is through an example.
> 
> Poison I:  A giant spider does 2D poison damage, the maximum possible damage
> is 12 points and the minimum 2 points.  Once a character is bitten roll 4d6
> v. ST.  If the character does not make this roll, the character takes two
> points of damage (the minimum amount on the 2D poison) from the poison.  If
> the character does make the roll, he/she takes only one point of damage.
> The end of the next turn the character rolls  3d6 v. ST.  If the roll is
> made, the character will take NO more damage from the poison.  If the roll
> is not made the character will take another point of damage from the poison.
> The character will continue to roll each turn until they make the ST roll or
> until they accrue the maximum amount of hit points the poison can do.  The
> giant spider's poison would attack the characters system for possibly 11
> combat turns.  If on any turn the character makes a critical miss on their
> ST roll, double or triple the amount of poison damage the character takes
> that turn.
> 
> Each poisoning of a character is considered separate.  So a character who
> was poisoned twice would have to make two ST roll each turn.
> 
> Optional rules could be related to the time the poison takes to enter the
> system.  An example would be rather than rolling each combat turn  maybe
> every hour/two hours/etc... or maybe twice a combat turn.
> 
> I tried to keep the system as simple and uncomplicated as possible while
> trying for some realism.  The hardest part is keeping an account of the
> character being poisoned turn-wise.
> 

What about something like:

Giant Spiders do 2D poison damage.  The reason for the variability is
that each leaves a different amount of poison in the wound.  So ...
when a Giant Spider bites, roll for the poison damage and make a note
of the amount. (you may want to give the character a chance to avoid
poison damage altogether via a 4D saving throw vs ST.  This should 
probably be against AdjST rather than Basic ST.).

At the end of each round of combat, have the player make a saving roll
against adjST for each bite inflicted.  Failing the saving throw means
the character suffers a point of poison damage.  This continues until
all of the poison damage has been taken or the character is attended
to by a Physicker.  If a character is not in combat, you may want to
reduce the frequency of the rolls - ie, less physical activity means
the poison takes longer to work.

Lets say a PC, Sir Ronald, is being accosted by a Giant Spider.  On
Turn 2, Sir Ronald suffers a bite (1 point damage) but fails his
saving throw - the poison does 6 points of damage (he writes a '6' on
a piece of scrap paper).  At the end of his turn, he fails his saving
throw and so suffers another point of damage (change the '6' to a '5'
and chalk up another point of damage).  On the third turn, Sir Ronald
is struck again (1 point of damage) and fails his saving throw - the
poison does 8 points of damage this time.  At the end of his turn,
Sir Ronald now has to make two saving throws - one against the first
bite and one against the second.  As Sir Ronald gets weaker, the 
poison is more and more effective.  Hope a physicker gets there fast!

This opens the door for a wider variety of poisons - more lethal ones
may adversely affect the PC's saving throws.

Dan Tulloh
daniel@jaws.greatwhite.com


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