Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sinweave 05-06-07, 06:26 AM	Recently, in my last D&D game to be exact I had a bit of an altercation with my DM. We were sparring about as to how the Craft Poison skill mechanic works. We clearly both came from opposite sides of the fence on the issue. The situation unfolds as follows. We manage to kill two abberations of some unknown make and model (which should, consequently TPK'd us, but that's another issue entirely :embarrass ) where I, as a druid would like to work those 10 skill points I sank into craft poison. Initially it was said that by virtue that these creatures were abberations I had no idea where the poison sacks might be, and so couldn't harvest from them. I called shenanigans with furor and told him to shove it, as he basically had screwed me out of 10 skillpoints. So we open the door to a quasi negotiation session and he talks me down to 2 hours per abberation. My gripe is a twofold issue: 1) Firstly I feel as though by virtue of taking craft poison as a skill, with 10 points fully invested by 7th level I should be able to discern as to where the venom sacks on a particular creature are, no matter the origin of said creature (It was later ruled that the venom were in fact in the fangs of the creature, a rather dubious deduction by a player, which as I can vouche for myself has no ranks in craft poison) and thus be able to find and extract the goods. This stance is purely a fluff/realistic vantage point; I don't feel as though I should be forced to take Knowledge (Dungeoneering) which was suggested by my DM to properly locate the venom sacks inside the creature, whereupon finding the venom repositories with another subsquent knowledge dungeoneering check to actually take the venom out of the creature 2) My second gripe pertains to mechanics. Essentially by forcing me to take all the various knowledge skills to harvest materials from creatures the DM has rendered my 10 ranks in craft poison essentially useless. I simply don't have the skillpoints to invest into knowledges (which are not a class skill as a druid, aside from nature) that would retard my craft poision check past mediocrity anyhow. Any responses would be great, and I apologise ahead of time for coherency. Thanks.
daggeroflath 05-06-07, 06:56 AM	Where's craft poison from again? I know I have the book that it's in, but I can't find it...
Fatalis_902 05-06-07, 07:17 AM	Don't know where it's from, don't care where it's from, DM's right, OP's wrong. Let me elaborate. Craft (any flipping skill) grants no more nowledge of anatomy than would Profession (fisherman) grant knowledge of sailor craft. Knowledge cannot be considered collateral from other skills, if it was, there would be no need for knowledge skills. If you want to get poison from an abberation, you have 2 choices: either invest ranks in Knowledge (Dungeoneering), or start guessing where the poison sacks would be, and pray you don't ruin them. Simple as that. Why would you even want craft poison anyway? Druids don't gain a proficiency with poison, so unless someone else will be using it, it's not mmuch good to you, at least not without high risk of poisonning yourself. Besides that, you have ranks in Knowledge (nature), right? I would have to hope so, you being a druid and all... Anyway, there are innumerable plants and animals in nature that are rediculously toxic. Go harvest from them. And don't give me any, "I can't harm nature 'cause I'm a druid," junk, I play druids on a regular basis in campaigns, and let me tell you something, you can harvest venom without harming nature. Look at how scientists get venom for their anti-venoms. You can do the same. Also, the Black Lotus is a flower. Druids are alowed to harvest plants and pick flowers. By RAW, they can also kill animals, though most DMs have issues with druids wantonly slaughtering cute fuzzy critters.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 07:20 AM	Book of Vile Darkness has a section on it, but honestly I don't think there's anything that has a real in depth analysis edit: Doh double post, had the reply window open as a game of CoH started up and didn't see Fatalis' post.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 07:26 AM	Don't know where it's from, don't care where it's from, DM's right, OP's wrong. Let me elaborate. Craft (any flipping skill) grants no more nowledge of anatomy than would Profession (fisherman) grant knowledge of sailor craft. Knowledge cannot be considered collateral from other skills, if it was, there would be no need for knowledge skills. If you want to get poison from an abberation, you have 2 choices: either invest ranks in Knowledge (Dungeoneering), or start guessing where the poison sacks would be, and pray you don't ruin them. Simple as that. Why would you even want craft poison anyway? Druids don't gain a proficiency with poison, so unless someone else will be using it, it's not mmuch good to you, at least not without high risk of poisonning yourself. Besides that, you have ranks in Knowledge (nature), right? I would have to hope so, you being a druid and all... Anyway, there are innumerable plants and animals in nature that are rediculously toxic. Go harvest from them. And don't give me any, "I can't harm nature 'cause I'm a druid," junk, I play druids on a regular basis in campaigns, and let me tell you something, you can harvest venom without harming nature. Look at how scientists get venom for their anti-venoms. You can do the same. Also, the Black Lotus is a flower. Druids are alowed to harvest plants and pick flowers. By RAW, they can also kill animals, though most DMs have issues with druids wantonly slaughtering cute fuzzy critters. The aforementioned arguement holds no water with me. Pontificating that a person has all of a sudden no knowledge of a particular subject by virtue that he has no ranks in a particular skill is mind boggling. And as for why I would want to use craft poison. Well, druids are immune to poison come 9th level; pretty basic PHB knowledge, which makes me question the validity of the entire post I'm replying to.
Fatalis_902 05-06-07, 08:06 AM	The aforementioned arguement holds no water with me. Pontificating that a person has all of a sudden no knowledge of a particular subject by virtue that he has no ranks in a particular skill is mind boggling. And as for why I would want to use craft poison. Well, druids are immune to poison come 9th level; pretty basic PHB knowledge, which makes me question the validity of the entire post I'm replying to. I forgot about that ability, it rarely comes up in the campaigns I'm in. Thing is, the rest of my post still applies. I don't care how many ranks you have in the skill. You still have no knowledge of anatomy granted by the skill. If my Dragon Shaman starts making calls about a dragon the party is facing, but has no ranks in Knowledge (arcana), that's wrong. He has no knowledge of dragons, except possibly his totem, and that's a bit of a stretch. It's metagaming, unless we've faced the dragon before. It works the same way here. If you are faced with a new abberation, you've never seen it before, and you have no ranks in Knowledge (dungeoneering), you have no idea that it even has poison, let alone where the poison sacks are on the monstrosity. If you watch it poison someone, than fine, you know that it has poison, or at least you believe that it does. Now it's knowledge check time! Alternatively, you can try to deduce where the poison is by trying to figure out how it poisonned your comarade. It bit him and he became ill? Try looking near the fangs. He got scratched and lost his balance? Claws it is! It stabbed him with the stinger on its tail and he-- Wait. It has a tail stinger. Gee, I wonder if there might be poison there? Alternatively, you could just ask the friendly wizard who likely has ranks in these skills to tell you where the poison sacks are. That tends to work pretty well. Knowledge is still not granted, at least in any meaningful way, by other skills. Yes, some skills grant synergies to others, but synergy bonuses are +2. Your DM is in the right on this. You either need to make poison from supplies gathered from your own field of knowledge, supplies brought to you, or supplies gathered by guesswork. But I don't care how many ranks you have in Craft (poisonmaking). You still wouldn't know where the poison sacks are on a creature the first time you saw it without a knowledge check. You are still allowed to try to puzzle it out, and if you see these creatures again you can retain that knowledge, but you wouldn't know the first time.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 08:34 AM	Perhaps I should have more explicitly expounded upon something that I thought was a postulate. Yes, in fact I did see the thing bite someone, and reel by taking some inordinate amount of dex damage for our party level. Anywho. I think you might have mistaken what I wanted to do in that particular situation. I didn't want to be granted some obscene powers of omniscience and automatically discern where the venom sacks are with the exact volume of viable poison still left in the sacks judging from the rate of flow from the fangs while taken into account the amount of poison delivered in the bites during the combat, as well as those extrapolated over the course of the previous day which would....you get the point. I said to myself "Hey, I saw these things bite and poison a fellow party member, I think I might go rummaging around in there to find the venom sack" My DM initially said no, you don't have the knowledge dungeoneering skill; my retort was "Why the hell can't I attempt to discern where the venom sacks are in a creature I blatently saw just bite my party member and subsequently become afflicted with a poison, I mean i've got a freakin 27 Wisdom" Ever went to college? If you have, you might be privy to the concept of majors. Upon taking said major you specialize in something; so lets take for instance a Law Major. There are plenty of different sorts of lawyers out there, some specialize in a particular field like Corporate Law or Criminal Law. All however know that there is a plaintiff and a defendant in a particular case, all are more than familiar with the constitution. In this particular case my Major is Craft Poison. Now I've never seen this abberation before in my life, but I'm rocking a 27 Wisdom and I do however know in the Poisonmaker's Constitution Amendment #1 that if a poison is delivered in a bite it probably has some sort of aparatus that connects to a venom sack. After exhuming countless corpses of fallen foes and using their poisons against them I've been around the block a bit; this is the same personal injury case I had about two years ago, different name, same facts; different creature entry in the MM, same venom sack, same means of delivery. Also, your post failed to speak to the mechanics of this whole debacle; D&D is a game first and foremost. Games have rules, rules that hopefully make sense, and do what they are designed to do. If you're trying to screw me into taking an exorbitant amount of knowledge skills as well as craft poison to, sure I'll acquiesce. But if the intent of the craft poison skill is to allow players to craft poisons than your ruling ain't workin'. Intent my friend, intent.
Fatalis_902 05-06-07, 09:01 AM	Perhaps I should have more explicitly expounded upon something that I thought was a postulate. Yes, in fact I did see the thing bite someone, and reel by taking some inordinate amount of dex damage for our party level. Anywho. I think you might have mistaken what I wanted to do in that particular situation. I didn't want to be granted some obscene powers of omniscience and automatically discern where the venom sacks are with the exact volume of viable poison still left in the sacks judging from the rate of flow from the fangs while taken into account the amount of poison delivered in the bites during the combat, as well as those extrapolated over the course of the previous day which would....you get the point. I said to myself "Hey, I saw these things bite and poison a fellow party member, I think I might go rummaging around in there to find the venom sack" My DM initially said no, you don't have the knowledge dungeoneering skill; my retort was "Why the hell can't I attempt to discern where the venom sacks are in a creature I blatently saw just bite my party member and subsequently become afflicted with a poison, I mean i've got a freakin 27 Wisdom" Ever went to college? If you have, you might be privy to the concept of majors. Upon taking said major you specialize in something; so lets take for instance a Law Major. There are plenty of different sorts of lawyers out there, some specialize in a particular field like Corporate Law or Criminal Law. All however know that there is a plaintiff and a defendant in a particular case, all are more than familiar with the constitution. In this particular case my Major is Craft Poison. Now I've never seen this abberation before in my life, but I'm rocking a 27 Wisdom and I do however know in the Poisonmaker's Constitution Amendment #1 that if a poison is delivered in a bite it probably has some sort of aparatus that connects to a venom sack. After exhuming countless corpses of fallen foes and using their poisons against them I've been around the block a bit; this is the same personal injury case I had about two years ago, different name, same facts; different creature entry in the MM, same venom sack, same means of delivery. Also, your post failed to speak to the mechanics of this whole debacle; D&D is a game first and foremost. Games have rules, rules that hopefully make sense, and do what they are designed to do. If you're trying to screw me into taking an exorbitant amount of knowledge skills as well as craft poison to, sure I'll acquiesce. But if the intent of the craft poison skill is to allow players to craft poisons than your ruling ain't workin'. Intent my friend, intent. Don't talk intent after you use a law-based example. Bad idea when dealing with someone who's going to be a lawyer. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, so intent means nothing in the face of solid rules. Now, see, in your first post, you didn't mention that you had seen it bite your comarade, and then watch the poison take effect as he begins to wobble. All you said was that you felled two abberations of, quote, "unknown make and model," unquote. You said that you wanted to make some poison out of theirs, but your DM said no, because you wouldn't know where the venom sacks are. Fine. You called shenanigans, and postulated that you should know based on the fact that you had 10 ranks in Craft (poisonmaking). That was your intial argument, and based on that, your DM is right. Now, you claim that you saw one of these things bite an ally, and then he started to wobble as a result of the poison. Now you have ground to stand on. You saw the method of delivery, so you should be able to figure out the general location of the poison sacks based on that. Extraction probably falls under Craft (poisonmaking), subject to DM review. Of course, you would still need to find the exact location, which is guesswork. In order to determine the exact location of poison sacks, you would need to make an appropriate knowledge check, or figure it out yourself, through guesswork and reasoning. Once you know where to look, Craft (poisonmaking) takes over. Also, contrary to my own advice, and at known risk of sounding hypocritical, the intent of any Craft skill is to allow the character to make some kind of item out of materials he/she has available. The intent is not to tell you how to gather said materials.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 09:09 AM	We've basically summed up each others points, with some inbetween on the specifics; in fact we agree whether both parties realize it or not. Also, intent has a great amount to do with law. I myself am I Law student, I can vouche for it.
kelvinaw273 05-06-07, 10:45 AM	Some skills have an implied knowledge inherent in them. The OP's expanded example is a good one whereby someone who knows a lot about poisons can take an educated guess that somebody has been poisoned, and where said poison comes from. If I was DMing I would ask for an appropriate knowledge check (or an unmodified intelligence check) to successfully identify the poison sacs. I would require a successful Heal check to remove them intact (not a high DC, as you are not worried about keeping the thing alive) or a Wisdom check if there are no ranks in Heal. Now both of these checks I would allow unskilled because the character has some knowledge from his Craft skill about poisons. He may know nothing else about theoretical aberration anatomy, but he does know about poisons. He may know nothing of surgery, but he knows he has to get those big bulgy things at the end of the tubes from the teeth out intact. After that it's over to Craft (poisons) to make a nice venom out of them. However, the venom can probably be applied pretty much raw, unless he needs to make it in a concentrate form. Where Craft (poison) really comes in is when the druid makes a unique toxin from several rare plants.
The man they call Boxhead 05-06-07, 11:20 AM	I'll chime in here. Does Craft: Weaponsmithing allow you to track a vein of iron in a mine? Does Profession: Farmer let you perform surgery on a cow? Does Craft: Small Wicker Baskets let you understand the growth cycle of reeds? I would have ruled exactly the same as your DM. Craft: Poison allows you to refine raw materials into a finished product. It does not allow you to identify poisonous creatures or plants, nor would it allow you to harvest them. Once they are identified, you could refine them. This is especially true from an Aberration or Outsider. For all you know about it (no ranks in the appropriate Knowledge), the creature has a tiny interdimensional portal the Demi-Plane of poison, where it feeds through into the Material plane and the creatures fangs.
BlueFlames 05-06-07, 11:35 AM	It looks to me like you're using the wrong skill for the wrong task. Crafting is the act of taking some raw materials and creating some object or substance that is more useful than the sum of its parts. Knowledge represents an ability to call to mind previously-researched information. The heal skill dictates how well you can manipulate the physiology of some living (or recently dead) being. That said, extracting venom sacks from a slain monster should involve a knowledge check to locate the venom sacks and a heal check to extract them without rupturing them. Crafting the same poision would involve buying plants, chemicals, etc., from which the monster's biology naturally extracted the ingredients for its poison, followed by a brewing process meant to mimic the monster's natural poison-making process. There's an argument in here for synergy bonuses between skills, of course. Enough ranks in Craft(Poisonmaking) should, by all rights, grant a bonus to the knowledge check to find the venom sacks, and possibly the check to remove them. Likewise, succeeding a knowledge check about a monster that uses a particular poison should grant a bonus to the craft checks to recreate that monster's poison.
alecthemad 05-06-07, 12:17 PM	I think Survival is the appropriate skill for removing the poison sacs. After all if you plan to cook and eat it you need to know where the poison sacs are so you don't consume them. All kidding aside I have to side with the camp that says the Craft Poison making does not impart knowledge of where the poison glands are in a particular monster. A knowledge skill will give you the ability to know where the glands are and another skill (Survival?) would give you the ability to remove it easily. Your DM has not made your 10 points useless by his ruling. You can still purchase ingredients or aquire them by other methods and create poisons.
bobothechimp 05-06-07, 12:21 PM	Craft: Poision, or any craft skill for that matter, involves nothing more than taking raw materials and shaping them into new forms. You craft wood into a chair, you craft thread into cloth, you craft scrap metal into weapons, or you craft chemicals into poison. Just as being a master weaponsmith does not teach one how to mine for iron, just as being a master chef does not teach one how to farm, you do not know how to find poison in a creature just because you know how to create poisons. Without a successful knowledge check related to the creature you killed, the only way to find the poison would be a simple trial and error. Chop off parts and see what they have in them.
celloshane 05-06-07, 12:33 PM	I'll chime in here. Does Craft: Weaponsmithing allow you to track a vein of iron in a mine? Does Profession: Farmer let you perform surgery on a cow? Does Craft: Small Wicker Baskets let you understand the growth cycle of reeds? I would have ruled exactly the same as your DM. Craft: Poison allows you to refine raw materials into a finished product. It does not allow you to identify poisonous creatures or plants, nor would it allow you to harvest them. Once they are identified, you could refine them. This is especially true from an Aberration or Outsider. For all you know about it (no ranks in the appropriate Knowledge), the creature has a tiny interdimensional portal the Demi-Plane of poison, where it feeds through into the Material plane and the creatures fangs. Does a Craft skill allow a PC to gather the raw materials needed to create a finished product? That's a question on which the printed rules are silent, a gray section where one is required to apply common sense and logic. Logically, if there is not another skill designed to gather raw materials needed for the skill that processes the raw materials (in this case Craft: Poisonmaking), then the materials ought to be gathered by the only skill that references them. We have three examples above to work with: - Weaponsmithing needs metal to forge into finished product. In this case the metal is gathered by a Miner (which I believe would be classified as proffesion?). In this case, it would never be neccessary for a Smith to gather the ore himself. Simply knowing where to buy the neccessary ore would be the only additional knowledge the skill should include. - Farming is an out of place example. Since Farming is a Profession skill which works seperately from Crafting, we cannot make a direct comparison. However, while a farmer may not know how to perform open heart surgery on a cow, he does know how to stitch her up if she gets a cut and how to deliver a calf. Just because a particular farmer doesn't know how to hitch a ox to a plow, doesn't mean it can't be represented in the rules. - Basketweaving always gets brought up eventually, doesn't it? I'll simply say that if a basketweaver doesn't know what kind of reeds he needs to weave his basket, he's not much a basketweaver. Furthermore, should a basketweaver need to take ranks in Knowledge:Nature to know where to gather the right reeds? Lets look at what we just covered and apply the skill in question. - There is no skill designed to gather the raw materials for Craft: Poisonmaking. There is a rule mechanic that allows for it though. Add the value of the raw materials gathered into the treasure for the monster (which should be neccessary anyway, in order to determine the amount of poison that can be made). Therefore, Craft: Poisonmaking should be used in order to gather venom from the carcasses of monsters. Alternatively, the DM could call for a different check; Knowledge, Intelligence, and Heal would all be justifieable, but a DM has a responsibility to inform a player that Craft: Poisonmaking will work that way and allow him a chance to amend his character accordingly. In some cases it's also reasonable to say that venom cannot be harvested, and a DM needs to use proper judgement as to when the skill skill can and can't be applied.
DarthMidget 05-06-07, 01:07 PM	Ever went to college? If you have, you might be privy to the concept of majors. I would argue there is no equivalency between a College Major (a relatively broad area) and a D&D Skill (may or may not be a relatively broad area). Some D&D Skills such as Profession: Law could be similar to a Major. Some D&D Skills such as Swimming are, obviously, not similar. Upon taking said major you specialize in something; so lets take for instance a Law Major. There are plenty of different sorts of lawyers out there, some specialize in a particular field like Corporate Law or Criminal Law. All however know that there is a plaintiff and a defendant in a particular case, all are more than familiar with the constitution. In this particular case my Major is Craft Poison. I would argue the D&D Skill Craft: Poison is not indicative of knowledge in the way that a Major study of crafting poisons would be. I would rule that if you wanted to consider yourself to have be a 'Craft: Poison Major' then you would require more than a single skill to reflect this. As some have stated you might need to take ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering, Knowledge: Nature (which I assume you have already), and Healing. Now I've never seen this abberation before in my life, but I'm rocking a 27 Wisdom and I do however know in the Poisonmaker's Constitution Amendment #1 that if a poison is delivered in a bite it probably has some sort of aparatus that connects to a venom sack. Why do you believe your character would necessarily know that? As a Druid your PC would be intimately familiar with a variety of magical and supernatural effects delivered through contact (via bite or touch) not necessarily related to poison. The effect could be poisonous, but simple observation of a previously unencountered species does not mean that they are. Also with a 27 Wisdom your character should realize the difference between knowledge and practical experience. Simply because you might have an academic knowledge of poison sacs does not mean you have experience with finding them (or even knowing what they look like), and then removing said organs. Since this is an never-before-seen aberration its particular variety of poison sacs might bear no resemblance to some reptilian poison sacs. The thing might not even maintian poison in sacs. The creature could utilize a physiologiy completely alien to your PC, and therefore your PC would have no clue as to how to meaningfully extract said poison. After exhuming countless corpses of fallen foes and using their poisons against them I've been around the block a bit; this is the same personal injury case I had about two years ago, different name, same facts; different creature entry in the MM, same venom sack, same means of delivery. While the above quoted experience could be reflected in various D&D Skills I do not believe it is reflected in Craft: Poison. My personal ruling in the situation would be that the Craft: Poison skill is, as many have mentioned, the equivalent of a smith crafting a hammer. The smith might have an academic knowledge of mining, but might never have done it. Thus if the smith decides to mine some ore there will be a great deal of trial and error, and a substantial learning curve before he makes any substantial progress. So, feeling thusly I would side with your DM. That your PC believes he has seen this unusual creature poison a comrade is irrelevant. The PC's perception could be wrong. It could be magic or a psionic effect or something else entirely. Even if the PC has a very detailed knowledge of the anatomy of natural creatures, and the extraction of poison thereof does not automatically mean the PC would be able to extract the poison from a previously unencountered aberration which could work on a physiological level entirely different from 'natural' creatures. Now, what I think a DM should do would be to decide whether or not the Knowledge: Nature Skill (which I assume you would have as a Druid) would be sufficient to locate the source of this creature's poison. If he decided a Knowledge: Dungeoneering Skill was required then that would mean the creature is sufficiently different from things encountered in the Natural Realm as to be wholly unfamiliar. Thus I believe requiring a Knowledge:Dungeoneering check is quite fair. There are of course two sides to this. If he is requiring this of you simply to prevent you from getting your hands on a poison that is wrong. If he is requiring this of you because the creatures are so very different from previously encountered specimens that your PC would, legitimately, have no idea how to extract the poison then he is right. Whichever skill (Dungeoneering or Nature) is used to determine the source of the poison I also agree with previous posters that a Heal Skill check or some other applicable anatomically related skill (nothing immediatly comes to mind, but all campaigns are different) would be required to extract and/or locate the source of the poison. I would allow a Craft: Poison Skill with more than 5 ranks to add a +2 synergy bonus to the Heal Skill extraction attempt. Once the source of the poison was extracted that is when the Craft: Poison Skill can be used to remove the poison directly from the source (whether or not it was still in the body), and then transport it safely until required. So, in short, I agree with your DM....unless of course he was doing it just to be a dick. Then he is wrong. ;)
wrecan 05-06-07, 01:18 PM	It looks to me like you're using the wrong skill for the wrong task. Crafting is the act of taking some raw materials and creating some object or substance that is more useful than the sum of its parts. Knowledge represents an ability to call to mind previously-researched information. The heal skill dictates how well you can manipulate the physiology of some living (or recently dead) being. That said, extracting venom sacks from a slain monster should involve a knowledge check to locate the venom sacks and a heal check to extract them without rupturing them. Crafting the same poision would involve buying plants, chemicals, etc., from which the monster's biology naturally extracted the ingredients for its poison, followed by a brewing process meant to mimic the monster's natural poison-making process. There's an argument in here for synergy bonuses between skills, of course. Enough ranks in Craft(Poisonmaking) should, by all rights, grant a bonus to the knowledge check to find the venom sacks, and possibly the check to remove them. Likewise, succeeding a knowledge check about a monster that uses a particular poison should grant a bonus to the craft checks to recreate that monster's poison. QFT. Craft (poisonmaking) lets you turn raw materials into finished poison. It doesn't not encompass getting the raw materials in the first place, just like Craft (weaponsmith) doesn't let you act as a miner. Now, extracting poison sacs from an aberration should require Knowledge (dungeoneering) to figure out where the sac is. Maybe a Survival or Craft (poisonmaking) to extract it successfully.
Fatalis_902 05-06-07, 03:01 PM	We've basically summed up each others points, with some inbetween on the specifics; in fact we agree whether both parties realize it or not. Also, intent has a great amount to do with law. I myself am I Law student, I can vouche for it. They say intent is 9/10 of the law, but I don't believe it. Intent may decide what charge is brought against me for running an old woman down at 2 a.m. (what was she doing out at 2 in the freaking morning, anyway?), but I would still be in trouble. That's a hypothetical situation, before anyone goes nuts. Now then, I don't honestly believe we've summed up each other's points at all. This is what I'm getting from you: you feel that you should be able to locate and extract the poison sacks on a potentially poisonous creature because you saw it bite a comarade and believe him poisoned, and you have 10 ranks in Craft (poisonmaking). My point: You cannot use the craft skill to locate materials for said skill. You can use your own reasoning to figure out where said materials might be found, and can try to extract them untrained, but Craft (whatever) has nothing to do with it. Knowledge and other checks would be required to do this stuff for sure, but it can probably be attempted untrained. Since I brought up synergy bonuses earlier, that makes sense, what others have said. Perhaps Craft (poisonmaking) could grant a synergy bonus to your checks to locate and extract poison sacks, but I come back to my original post for this: Craft does not serve as a knowledge skill. You cannot say, "Oh, I have some ranks in Craft (poisonmaking), I should know where to find all kinds of poisonous things." Maybe you can extract the poison from some things, maybe even pull the entire venom sack out of a creature with it, if your DM is lenient, but you cannot locate poisonous things, or locate venom sacks/glands in poisonous things, based on that skill alone. Maybe you could even identify poisons with Craft (poisonmaking), but you still can't locate venom sacks or poisonous creatures/plants by virtue of that skill. In summation: Extract and process venom? Sure, go ahead. Identify poisons? If they are man-made. Craft poisons, toxins, etc.? That's what the skill is about. Get a synergy bonus on Knowledge checks to locate and identify poisonous creatures, and on checks to extract their glands/sacks? Sounds fair. Locate venom sacks in a creature, especially an unknown abberation? Not a chance, Sparky. That's what Knowledge is for.
Count_Chumleigh 05-06-07, 03:30 PM	Craft (Poison)--a skill I simply don't agree with, since Craft (Alchemy), perhaps with a syngergy bonus from Heal and a Knowledge skill or two, would do the job just as well, and with fewer new skills introduced, but that's neither here nor there--lets you make poison. That's it. It doesn't tell you anything about venomous creatures or plants; that's what Knowledge skills are for. Maybe Survival, too, although that would only give a vague knowledge of "red and yellow kill a fellow" in my opinion. Your druid was dealing with "two abberations of some unknown make and model," emphasis on aberrations and unknown. The relevant Knowledge skill dealing with abberations is Knowledge (Dungeoneering), which ought to tell you where the venom sacs are. However, these were "uknown" abberations, which means the DM could have made them out of whole cloth (horrible, writhing, tentacled cloth that should not be, but cloth nonetheless). That's a bit of a stretch, but in all likelihood the fact that these creatures were "unknown" means that neither you nor your Druid had encountered them before. In that case, finding the "venom sacs" would be well-nigh impossible, assuming they even had venom sacs that a human(oid) mind could comprehend as such. Pontificating that a person has all of a sudden no knowledge of a particular subject by virtue that he has no ranks in a particular skill is mind boggling. I honestly don't know what to say here. By this logic, an unschooled dirt farmer ought to be able to advise the party Wizard on which spells to select next level, since it is "mind boggling" that he should have no knowledge of arcane magic by virtue of having no ranks in Spellcraft of Knowledge (Arcana). Having no ranks in a skill that can only be used trained necessarily means that a given character has no knowledge of that particular subject matter, since he can't even make a skill check, let alone fail it. Cheers, --Count Chumleigh
Cold Napalm 05-06-07, 04:07 PM	I'll chime in here. Does Craft: Weaponsmithing allow you to track a vein of iron in a mine? Does Profession: Farmer let you perform surgery on a cow? Does Craft: Small Wicker Baskets let you understand the growth cycle of reeds? Weaponsmith...umm why not pray tell? As a weaponsmith you have to trak veins in ores your gonna smelt (did you think you got ingots of refined steel as a smith in the old days...hell your the one who MAKES ignots of refined steel) and why could you not then extrapolate and trace a vein in a mine? Farmer...you'd better be able to do surgery on your cow or your your gonna starve. If as a farmer you can't birth your own cows, you have no buisness (i.e. no ranks) as a farmer. If your cow gets sick and you can't fix it, your gonna starve. You think subsistence farmers back then had enough money to hire physicians?!? BWAHAHAHAHA Basket weavers better damn well know about the growth cycle of reeds since they are the ones who have to go out and collect it to weave baskets. You seem to fail to realize that a craft or profession back then involved a LOT more then it does now. They don't have super markets or a home depot or even disposible income. They generally did EVERYTHING involved with the craft themselves. That means a poison crafter did in fact usually go out and harvest ingredients on his own. That said, by the rules, you need either a survival check and/or a knoweldge check to extract the poison sacs. Although I'd let you use the craft poison check instead as well personally.
Count_Chumleigh 05-06-07, 04:12 PM	A lot of subsistence farmers also starved, you know.
Cold Napalm 05-06-07, 04:16 PM	A lot of subsistence farmers also starved, you know. Well that mainly because nobles and knights take all the food they make.
Fatalis_902 05-06-07, 04:43 PM	Weaponsmith...umm why not pray tell? As a weaponsmith you have to trak veins in ores your gonna smelt (did you think you got ingots of refined steel as a smith in the old days...hell your the one who MAKES ignots of refined steel) and why could you not then extrapolate and trace a vein in a mine? Farmer...you'd better be able to do surgery on your cow or your your gonna starve. If as a farmer you can't birth your own cows, you have no buisness (i.e. no ranks) as a farmer. If your cow gets sick and you can't fix it, your gonna starve. You think subsistence farmers back then had enough money to hire physicians?!? BWAHAHAHAHA Basket weavers better damn well know about the growth cycle of reeds since they are the ones who have to go out and collect it to weave baskets. You seem to fail to realize that a craft or profession back then involved a LOT more then it does now. They don't have super markets or a home depot or even disposible income. They generally did EVERYTHING involved with the craft themselves. That means a poison crafter did in fact usually go out and harvest ingredients on his own. That said, by the rules, you need either a survival check and/or a knoweldge check to extract the poison sacs. Although I'd let you use the craft poison check instead as well personally. Funny thing about that. Knowing how to take iron and tin and make steel, and then make that steel into a sword or a suit of armor is a completely different game than knowing how to get that iron and tin. Just because someone knows weaponsmithing doesn't mean they know mining; those are two totally different animals. Speaking of animals, farmers know how to birth cows and other farm animals, that's general required knowledge, and is part of farming. If your cow swallows a knife, however, there is no reason that you as a farmer should know how to get it out of your cow. That is not a general part of farming, that is serious surgery. Basket weavers know where to go for reeds, and when to go there. They don't necessarily know how a reed seed germinates into another reed plant, they just know where the reeds are.
wrecan 05-06-07, 04:54 PM	Weaponsmith...umm why not pray tell? Same reason professional chefs don't farm their own food. Same reason woodworkers aren't also lumberjacks. Same reason sculptors don't work in quarries. They are different skill sets. The Craft skill states that you start with the raw materials. Ergo, the Crafts skill has nothing to do with you being able to get those raw materials. Another skill must be utilized. For me, the best fit for the OP would be Knowledge (Dungeoneering), which governs knowledge of aberration phyiology. Survival, which handles general hunting and gathering might work. Alternately, the DM might create Craft (venom-milker), which allows a character to convert a dead poisonous creature into the raw components that a Craft (poisonmaker) then turns into poison.
Count_Chumleigh 05-06-07, 04:56 PM	Well that mainly because nobles and knights take all the food they make. Really? I wasn't aware that there were vassal lords and knights errant in parts of the world that weren't, you know, medieval Europe. You know, where most of the world has traditionally lived and practiced subsistence farming. Also, kudos to Fatalis and wrecan for expressing what I was trying to a lot better than I did. Have a :cookie: each, you crazy kids. Cheers, --Count Chumleigh
wrecan 05-06-07, 05:01 PM	We've basically summed up each others points, with some inbetween on the specifics; in fact we agree whether both parties realize it or not. Also, intent has a great amount to do with law. I myself am I Law student, I can vouche for it. And as a practicing lawyer, I would say it has a lot less to do with it than you think. As I'm sure you've been taught, judges try to interpret contracts and statutes by looking only at the "four corners" of the document. They interpret the words alone to discern its meaning. Only if the words are vague or unclear will they then look at extraneous evidence ("parol evidence" for contracts and "legislative history" for statutes) to discern a document's meaning. Reference to what you believe the intent of the rule is as inapplicable here as it would be when trying to convince a judge to agree with you on the reading of a statute or contract. If you have some record of the developers talking about what they intended, that might be relevant. In context of your OP, though, I think you were totally out of line to call shenanigans with furor and to tell your DM to shove it. His interpretation is, at a minimum, an arguably appropriate interpretation. I happen to think he made the right call, but even if he hadn't, there's no reason to tell someone to shove it when their rules interpretation has some basis. By the way, if you want an appropriate skill for gathering compoentns, take Survival. Most poisons are gathered from plants and herbs, and Survival is the appropriate skill for that.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 06:56 PM	In regards to wrecan's post, the DM runs a very us vs. him game, and gets very angry should we play any sort of situation intelligently; that's why I was angry. I see the purvasive points on the issue: but my main gripe still stands, D&D is a game, don't you feel as though by needing to take an inordinate amount of skillpoints to effectively do something that should be granted by one skill make it nigh unuseable?
Mock26 05-06-07, 07:06 PM	You should have invested those skill points in some sort of biology skill. Then, you would have had an argument on locating the poison sacs. If you have 10 skill points in Craft Ale are you suddenly an expert farmer or barrel maker or bartender? No. The same applies with Craft Poison.
wrecan 05-06-07, 07:10 PM	In regards to wrecan's post, the DM runs a very us vs. him game, and gets very angry should we play any sort of situation intelligently; that's why I was angry. Then you shouldn't have said you told him to shove it because of a totally reasonable rules interpretation. You need to talk to him about his antagonistic attitude. It sounds like your respective playing styles don't jibe. I see the purvasive points on the issue: but my main gripe still stands, D&D is a game, don't you feel as though by needing to take an inordinate amount of skillpoints to effectively do something that should be granted by one skill make it nigh unuseable? I don't think your DM's interpretation makes Craft (Poisonmaker) nigh unsable. The ability to make poisons at one-third the market price is a powerful skill. You need to be able to secure materials for that and presumably, you can do that at the apothecary shop of any population center in which you travel. Having Survival (or the appropriate Knowledge skills) lets you get the raw materials for free. In other words, you'd be getting free poison. So, no, I actually think the interpretation you advocate is completely unbalanced. Nobody should get poison for free based on one skill. You either need to buy the raw materials (just like every other Craftsman in the game) or you need a second skill to get the raw materials yourself.
Sinweave 05-06-07, 07:17 PM	You should have invested those skill points in some sort of biology skill. Then, you would have had an argument on locating the poison sacs. If you have 10 skill points in Craft Ale are you suddenly an expert farmer or barrel maker or bartender? No. The same applies with Craft Poison. Oh, what with my 8+Int skillpoints as a druid, I'll get right on that. That's my entire thesis, I don't have the skillpoints to invest into 8 different knowledges; craft pocketknife (to extract the poison, of course) with the added knowledge biology as well as the Leadership feat, because I'll need a lab assistant, right? I think I'll circumvent the entire issue and invoke the almighty powers of CoDzilla; cast detect poison, grab my scalpel and call it a day. Not much a DM could do about that; should it be worded and used correctly. I just don't want to rely on magic for just about everything; it seems with the mechanics of skills and player's overzealous anti-metagaming mentality PC characters have been incubated in a tube; whereupon the only things they know are specifically tailored by which skillpoints their respective players have chosen to infuse them with. It's just another case where one, less expensive and easier way to do something trumps what would be considered to be real knowledge.
DarthMidget 05-06-07, 07:17 PM	In regards to wrecan's post, the DM runs a very us vs. him game, and gets very angry should we play any sort of situation intelligently; that's why I was angry. Well that's certainly a problem, but in this particular instance I don't necessarily disagree with your DM. I know, since you are personally involved, it is difficult to remove yourself from the scenario, but from our, relatively, unbiased perspective it seems he ruled relatively fairly. Now his motivation for this ruling could be out of place (maybe he only ruled this way to do what he thought might be a disservice to you), but I believe the actual text of his ruling was roughly what I would do. I see the purvasive points on the issue: but my main gripe still stands, D&D is a game, don't you feel as though by needing to take an inordinate amount of skillpoints to effectively do something that should be granted by one skill make it nigh unuseable? Well who is to determine what one skill should and should not grant? This is largely a personal preference issue. What is and is not an inordinate amount of skill points vary from class to class and campaign to campaign. What a Fighter considers alot of skill points is very different from what a High Intelligence Rogue considers alot skill points. Also Skill points are impossible to translate into real life so its all a judgement call. I think part of the problem is the nature of the way D&D lays out its rule set. D&D is more of an ability based system rather than an effects based system. What I mean is that some RPGs (usually super-hero ones) provide you with a variety or rule effects, but don't tell you how those effects necessarily relate to abilities. Example: In D&D your Craft: Poison is something someone else trained you to do. Presumably you could use this Craft to maintain some sort of living standard. In our real world we now that such a job would encompass a large field of activity outside of the actual processing of raw material into useable poison. Thus many make the mistake of assuming that a Craft: Poison skill would reflect the gamut of such a position. It really doesn't however. Craft: Poison, or most Craft skills, are rather narrow in that they deal specifically with the processing of raw material into finished product. Take the oft-mentioned blacksmith in this topic. In RL a blacksmith might know a good deal about mining, and maybe even have some experience from mining. In D&D, however, this experience and skill set is not represented only by Craft: Metalworking (or whatever). If you wanted to really fully represent what a blacksmith might know you should probably take a Craft: Metalworking (Etc.) and perhaps Profession: Mining or Knowledge: Metallurgy etc etc. Now whether or not this is 'fair' is largely a matter of personal perference. My own games tend to utilize skill sets more than average D&D games, and, as such, I give my players more Skill points. That, however, is my personal preference. Oh, what with my 8+Int skillpoints as a druid, I'll get right on that. That's my entire thesis, I don't have the skillpoints to invest into 8 different knowledges; craft pocketknife (to extract the poison, of course) with the added knowledge biology as well as the Leadership feat, because I'll need a lab assistant, right? Well I would say you need Knowledge: Nature or Survival to extract poison from Natural sources (i.e. Natural plants and animals). I would rule you need Knowledge: Dungeoneering or Knowledge: Aberration to extract poison from Aberrations or weird sources. Furthermore I would probably require you have a Survival or Heal Skill to actually perform the necessary gutting. Then Craft: Poison would be required to make the resources viable. That is a total of four skills. With those I would probably let you extract poison from the vast majority of creatures and things you might run into over the course of your adventure. If you wanted you could drop the Nature side or the Aberration/Weird side and just extract poison from one aspect or the other (i.e. either get poisons from Natural sources or Supernatural sources). That still leaves alot of sources of poison. So you could do very well with only three skills. Since I would allow you to use Survival in place of Knowledge: Nature and use Survival to extract poison sacs you could make do with Survival and Craft: Poison. You couldn't get poison from Aberrations or other weird sources, but considering they likely form a very small percentage of the poison carrying organisms in any near-Earth reality that is a minor point. I understand you thought you would be able to do all this with Craft: Poison, but I don't believe the RAW bear that out. In the end its a DMs call, but I can't say your DM is wrong on this one. He shouldn't just do things to screw you over, but are you sure he is?
Sinweave 05-06-07, 07:35 PM	He shouldn't just do things to screw you over, but are you sure he is? Positive =0\. My question is what are we trying to emulate here with the rules? Are we trying to simulate Heroes, people whom possess fantastic powers and knowledges or are we trying to more accurately portray narrow-minded dolts of characters whom have little or no breathe and depth of knowledge? That's what all this harkens back to, if you ask me. The rules are a means to emulate something we percieve as quintessential fantasy. By the current randition of the rules I just feel as though the skill system to this end does D&D a disservice in that it doesn't allow skilled characters with depth of knowledge an average professional would have in the here and now. The more that I think about it the more Uber I feel; I'm probably more knowledgable than the party wizard ^^
Mock26 05-06-07, 07:50 PM	Oh, what with my 8+Int skillpoints as a druid, I'll get right on that. That's my entire thesis, I don't have the skillpoints to invest into 8 different knowledges; craft pocketknife (to extract the poison, of course) with the added knowledge biology as well as the Leadership feat, because I'll need a lab assistant, right? So, becuase you may have poorly allocated your skill points you're going to try and blame the DM rather than act like an adult and admit that you may have messed up in assigning your skill points? And, your examples are way over the top. You don't need craft pocket knife to extract the poison, unless you wanted to make the pocket knife, but crafting your own knife is not part of the Craft Poison skill description. You don't need craft "anything" to buy a pocket knife or a scalpel. Nor do you need the Leadership feat to hire someone like a lab assistant, for two reasons. The first is that you simply do not need the Leadership feat to hire someone. The Leadership feat is generally for attracing followers, not hiring hirelings. Granted, Leadership would come in handy when trying to force your hireling to do something against their will, but that's a completely different story. The second reason is that there is no logical assumption that you would even need a lab assistant to craft poison. I think I'll circumvent the entire issue and invoke the almighty powers of CoDzilla; cast detect poison, grab my scalpel and call it a day. Not much a DM could do about that; should it be worded and used correctly Casting the spell is one way to go about it. But, do you see the point that knowing how to brew poison is not the same as knowing the biology of certain creatures in general, and about "abberations of some unknown make and model" specifically? Knowing how to craft poison is knowing how to combine different ingrediants together to make a toxic substance. Granted, this would give you a general working knowledge of the various ingediants involved, but trying to find the poison glands of "abberations of some unknown make and model" has nothing to do with making poison. Can you see the logic of this?
WolfHati 05-06-07, 08:24 PM	Craft Poison lets you make poison from raw materials. A dead aberration with poison sacks sure seems like raw materials to me. Natural poisons by the rules don't last long once out of the venomous creature, so the poison crafter must mix things together to make it last. Finding the poison sacks probably isn't that hard if you have a dead body to dissect. Knowing where the poison sacks were without actually looking would certainly take a knowledge: dungeoneering check. But worst case if you have 2 similar aberrations is that you screw up when dissecting one and ruin the poison sack, but can then be more careful on the next one. Anyway, the reason that I play D&D rather than some computer RPG is because you can actually think outside of the box, and do those things. If the person running the game won't let you do anything that doesn't fall easily within the rules, it's not really D&D.
green_yawgmoth 05-06-07, 09:22 PM	I'll chime in here. Does Craft: Weaponsmithing allow you to track a vein of iron in a mine? Does Profession: Farmer let you perform surgery on a cow? Does Craft: Small Wicker Baskets let you understand the growth cycle of reeds? Weaponsmithing would let you know how hot certain metals and alloys need to get before they are workable. Farming would let you know when a cow is ready to be slaughtered. Basket weaving would let you know about when reeds become to dry to weave. And poison crafting should let you know, at least in a basic form, how to ID and remove a venom sac. DMs who let players invest skill points and feat slots into things they know they will never allow them to use should be given an extra-strength dose of hammergun. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
DarthMidget 05-06-07, 09:35 PM	And poison crafting should let you know, at least in a basic form, how to ID and remove a venom sac. Well that's one interpretation of the rules, but I don't think its the most accurate. Myself, and many other DMs who posted here, make a discernment between processing and accumulation in relations to skill. A DM could house rule the Craft Skill allows resources extraction, but I don't think RAW supports this explicitly. So while I empathize with the OP's plight I don't think the rules support his desires.
celloshane 05-06-07, 10:11 PM	I'm going to repost my main points because I feel my earlier statements got missed entirely. 1) The Craft: Poisonmaking skill should allow for the extraction of raw materials from dead creatures, because no other skill is specifically designed to gather the raw materials. If the DM intends for a different skill to be used (Survival, Heal, Knowledge, ect.) it's perfectly justifiable, but he needs to inform the player before the player takes ranks in Craft: Poisonmaking. 2) The Weaponsmith example that's been repeated so much is a lame duck for reasons I've already stated.
Mock26 05-06-07, 10:35 PM	Weaponsmithing would let you know how hot certain metals and alloys need to get before they are workable. Farming would let you know when a cow is ready to be slaughtered. Basket weaving would let you know about when reeds become to dry to weave. And poison crafting should let you know, at least in a basic form, how to ID and remove a venom sac. DMs who let players invest skill points and feat slots into things they know they will never allow them to use should be given an extra-strength dose of hammergun. That would make sense in regards to normal and/or common venomous creatures, such as snakes and spiders and scorpions. But, in this situation the original poster was dealing with something that they had never seen before! Granted, the DM was probably wrong to flat out refuse to allow the player to do anything. But, crafting poison is still a LOT different from removing poison sacs intact. If he wanted to harvest the poison by milking the fangs, then that would be more reasonable, but if you were to allow him try to cut out the poison sac without damaging it then he either shouldn't be allowed to use all his skill points from craft poison or the DC should be higher than normal. And, this one instance, in my opinion, does NOT constitute the DM refusing to allow the player to use his skills. Maybe the original poster should actually try to use the skill as it was intended, which is to gather various ingrediants and actually craft some poison!
wrecan 05-06-07, 10:58 PM	If the person running the game won't let you do anything that doesn't fall easily within the rules, it's not really D&D. Wow. I've never before seen anybody argue that following the rules of D&D isn't "really D&D". I think the rules are clear. There is a catchall skill -- Profession. If you allow Craft to encompass obtaining the raw materials, you're combining Craft and Profession. Why ever take skill points in Profession (farmer) when you could simply take Craft (baker), and it would necessarily include growing wheat for flour?
Cold Napalm 05-07-07, 02:36 AM	Same reason professional chefs don't farm their own food. Same reason woodworkers aren't also lumberjacks. Same reason sculptors don't work in quarries. They are different skill sets. The Craft skill states that you start with the raw materials. Ergo, the Crafts skill has nothing to do with you being able to get those raw materials. Another skill must be utilized. Umm there is a HUGE difference between a chef being a farmer then a chef KNOWING about various farming techniques that produce the best meats and produce. Or a wood worker being a lumber jack and a wood worker knowing that tree is white oak and another is burlwood. Or a sculpter being manual labor or knowing how a piece of marble has to quarried for him to work with to make what he wants. A weaponsmith in those days got ORES. Not iron and tin, You got a lump of rock and had to EXTRACT the iron and tin yourself. Guess what, you can see and do the same thing in a mine if you HAD to. A farmer who has a cow swallow a knife is, well he's out of a cow. But for something less stupid, why yes the farmer does indeed know lots of surgery techniques to keep livestock alive. A basketweaver does indeed need to know when to collect reeds. For me, the best fit for the OP would be Knowledge (Dungeoneering), which governs knowledge of aberration phyiology. Survival, which handles general hunting and gathering might work. Alternately, the DM might create Craft (venom-milker), which allows a character to convert a dead poisonous creature into the raw components that a Craft (poisonmaker) then turns into poison. Oh yeah, great, lets make even more craft skills. Next thing you know you have to have craft fire making before a chef can start a fire to cook with or profession shopper before he can buy igredients to cook with. yesh. There is no extra craft skills needed thank you very much.
kelvinaw273 05-07-07, 03:57 AM	Weaponsmith...umm why not pray tell? As a weaponsmith you have to trak veins in ores your gonna smelt (did you think you got ingots of refined steel as a smith in the old days...hell your the one who MAKES ignots of refined steel) and why could you not then extrapolate and trace a vein in a mine? No, a weaponsmith buys his metal from the miner/smelter. A weaponsmith often works in an area where there are no veins of ore (in the same way, a blacksmith has to shoe horses where they need shoeing, not where the mine is for the iron). Farmer...you'd better be able to do surgery on your cow or your your gonna starve. If as a farmer you can't birth your own cows, you have no buisness (i.e. no ranks) as a farmer. If your cow gets sick and you can't fix it, your gonna starve. You think subsistence farmers back then had enough money to hire physicians?!? BWAHAHAHAHA No, they trade food to the local cunning man, wise woman or village priest for those services. In D&D terms the farmer is a commoner, the person they hire is the local adept, expert or divine caster with the Heal skill. An older farmer might have picked up the skill himself from observation and experience, but he won't be that good at it. Subsistence communities trade on such things because it is what they have, it falls below the level operated at by economists and is sometimes referred to as 'peasentology'. Basket weavers better damn well know about the growth cycle of reeds since they are the ones who have to go out and collect it to weave baskets. They know what season to collect them and where they grow. That's it. It certainly does not make them experts on marsh ecology. You seem to fail to realize that a craft or profession back then involved a LOT more then it does now. They don't have super markets or a home depot or even disposible income. They generally did EVERYTHING involved with the craft themselves. That means a poison crafter did in fact usually go out and harvest ingredients on his own. I do not disagree. But a professional poison-maker would be an expert in D&D terms. Thats 8+Int skill ranks per level, four times that at level 1. He can have Craft (poisons), Craft (alchemy), Knowledge (nature), Survival, Heal, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) ... in other words, yes a professional poisonmaker would have all of these skills. The PC in this case is a professional adventurer, and a Druid. He's out there because he didn't want the nine-to-five job, he daydreamed in class and wanted to be where it was happening. That said, by the rules, you need either a survival check and/or a knoweldge check to extract the poison sacs. Although I'd let you use the craft poison check instead as well personally. Which is what I stated in my earlier post, and I would allow them to make this check untrained because of their Craft (poisons) skill giving them some familiarity with the subject. Oh, what with my 8+Int skillpoints as a druid, I'll get right on that. That's my entire thesis, I don't have the skillpoints to invest into 8 different knowledges; craft pocketknife (to extract the poison, of course) with the added knowledge biology as well as the Leadership feat, because I'll need a lab assistant, right? Wrong. You have ten skill ranks in Craft (poisons) that makes you a genius in the lab but a klutz everywhere else. If you wanted to be good in the field (or at least decent) having a few 1 point knowledge skills and a few points in Heal with the rest in Craft (Poisons) would have served you better. Remember, four ranks in a skill is the level of a good starting professional, and your character is an adventurer by profession. I think I'll circumvent the entire issue and invoke the almighty powers of CoDzilla; cast detect poison, grab my scalpel and call it a day. Not much a DM could do about that; should it be worded and used correctly. Exactly! Your character traded in those skills for the power to wield the divine forces of nature - mundane skills? Who needs 'em! I just don't want to rely on magic for just about everything; it seems with the mechanics of skills and player's overzealous anti-metagaming mentality PC characters have been incubated in a tube; whereupon the only things they know are specifically tailored by which skillpoints their respective players have chosen to infuse them with. That is actually the general idea of the skills system: for players to decide what their character does and does not know. I don't think this is a case of your DM stitching you up, I think you just didn't read the section on skills properly. A professional poison-maker is an expert in his field yes. He is a professional, yes. He knows everything he needs to about his subject, yes. He is also an expert with huge numbers of skill-points per level. Your character is to all intents and purposes his day-dreaming lab assistant who heard the call of nature and the felt the thrill of adventure, and left before his apprenticeship was up. He may think he knows it all, as you just found out, he doesn't. It's just another case where one, less expensive and easier way to do something trumps what would be considered to be real knowledge. If you wanted real knowledge you should have take a level in Expert, or Rogue, or another skill-monkey class. That's what they are there for. There is an old saying you should become familiar with: "You cannot have your cake and eat it." You can still do things quicker and cheaper with your knowledge, and as you level you can fill it out with all the other skills you need to make all the poisons you want, wherever you are. Your problem is the perennial one: You wanted it all, you wanted it now, and you wanted it at as little cost as you could get it. World don't work that way, lad.
Cold Napalm 05-07-07, 04:08 AM	No, a weaponsmith buys his metal from the miner/smelter. A weaponsmith often works in an area where there are no veins of ore (in the same way, a blacksmith has to shoe horses where they need shoeing, not where the mine is for the iron). They know what season to collect them and where they grow. That's it. It certainly does not make them experts on marsh ecology. Umm actually for a history project for a late roman history class I took in college, we build a "dark" ages smithy. They did not get metal at all. They got ores. from the mine. Their equipment was design to deal with ores more then metal. And the orginal point was growth cycle...i.e. when and where they grow. Going into masrch ecology is moving the goal post don't you think?
bobothechimp 05-07-07, 07:46 AM	Umm there is a HUGE difference between a chef being a farmer then a chef KNOWING about various farming techniques that produce the best meats and produce. Or a wood worker being a lumber jack and a wood worker knowing that tree is white oak and another is burlwood. Or a sculpter being manual labor or knowing how a piece of marble has to quarried for him to work with to make what he wants. A weaponsmith in those days got ORES. Not iron and tin, You got a lump of rock and had to EXTRACT the iron and tin yourself. Guess what, you can see and do the same thing in a mine if you HAD to. A farmer who has a cow swallow a knife is, well he's out of a cow. But for something less stupid, why yes the farmer does indeed know lots of surgery techniques to keep livestock alive. A basketweaver does indeed need to know when to collect reeds. Oh yeah, great, lets make even more craft skills. Next thing you know you have to have craft fire making before a chef can start a fire to cook with or profession shopper before he can buy igredients to cook with. yesh. There is no extra craft skills needed thank you very much. Yes, the know these things. Do you know how? Through years of work, they have deposited skill points in the relevant knowledge skills.
wrecan 05-07-07, 08:54 AM	Umm there is a HUGE difference between a chef being a farmer then a chef KNOWING about various farming techniques that produce the best meats and produce. Knowing about it doesn't let the chef raise corn-fed cattle. There's a big difference between common knowledge and useful knowledge and that's exactly what the Knowledge Skill is about. Or a wood worker being a lumber jack and a wood worker knowing that tree is white oak and another is burlwood. Who cares if he can identify trees. It doesn't let give the skill to turn the tree into lumber. Or a sculpter being manual labor or knowing how a piece of marble has to quarried for him to work with to make what he wants. If you want a sculptor who can do that, give him ranks in Profession (quarryman). A weaponsmith in those days got ORES. But he didn't know how to mine it. He wasn't a miner. I know the difference between parchment, paper and vellum. That doesn't mean I know how to make it. If a character had Craft (origami) he still couldn't do squat in a papermill. Not iron and tin, You got a lump of rock and had to EXTRACT the iron and tin yourself. No, you didn't. Most mines smelted their own ore to be shipped. Smelted ore is a lot lighter than the gross rocks that come out of the mine, so it was always cheaper to smelt ore at the mine to be sold to smiths because you could transport more. Most smiths would never have known how to do that themselves. But for something less stupid, why yes the farmer does indeed know lots of surgery techniques to keep livestock alive. Which is handled by Profession (farmer). A basketweaver does indeed need to know when to collect reeds. Because, unlike say, the glands of poisonous aberrations, reeds require no special preparation before manufacture. Oh yeah, great, lets make even more craft skills. Who is "making" more craft skills. There isn't a finite set of craft skills. Besides, my primary suggestion was using Survival, pre-existing skill set. I only suggested a separate Craft skill if that initial suggestion was rejected. Next thing you know you have to have craft fire making before a chef can start a fire to cook with or profession shopper before he can buy igredients to cook with. Ahh! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Someone doesn't like my idea so the sky is falling! There is no extra craft skills needed thank you very much. Agreed. Which is why I offered it as an alternative.
green_yawgmoth 05-08-07, 03:22 AM	That would make sense in regards to normal and/or common venomous creatures, such as snakes and spiders and scorpions. But, in this situation the original poster was dealing with something that they had never seen before! Granted, the DM was probably wrong to flat out refuse to allow the player to do anything. But, crafting poison is still a LOT different from removing poison sacs intact. If he wanted to harvest the poison by milking the fangs, then that would be more reasonable, but if you were to allow him try to cut out the poison sac without damaging it then he either shouldn't be allowed to use all his skill points from craft poison or the DC should be higher than normal. And, this one instance, in my opinion, does NOT constitute the DM refusing to allow the player to use his skills. Maybe the original poster should actually try to use the skill as it was intended, which is to gather various ingrediants and actually craft some poison! The base argument here is "should craft allow materials acquisition?" and in a system like WoW, where skill points accrue at a rate independent of level, sure; you can have gathering separate from creation. But in D&D, there are a very limited amount of skill points; you can't just up and say "well, first you need to have knowledge (advanced biology) to know what a poison sac looks like, then weapon proficiency (scalpel) to properly hold the blade, then make a profession (herbalist) check to know what to mix with it to preserve this particular poison, and then you can use your craft (poison) ranks." That's a douche move, and it only serves to alienate. If your points in a craft don't let you actually be able to craft something, why even take them? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Fatalis_902 05-08-07, 06:07 AM	The base argument here is "should craft allow materials acquisition?" and in a system like WoW, where skill points accrue at a rate independent of level, sure; you can have gathering separate from creation. But in D&D, there are a very limited amount of skill points; you can't just up and say "well, first you need to have knowledge (advanced biology) to know what a poison sac looks like, then weapon proficiency (scalpel) to properly hold the blade, then make a profession (herbalist) check to know what to mix with it to preserve this particular poison, and then you can use your craft (poison) ranks." That's a douche move, and it only serves to alienate. If your points in a craft don't let you actually be able to craft something, why even take them? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif No-one has implied that he can't use the ranks. We've just stated that we read the Craft skill as allowing one to take raw materials of some kind and turn them into a finished product. That is what Craft does. Nowhere does it say anything about aquisition of said materials. Just because you have Craft (metalworking) so you can make metal goods like keys, and pots and pans, doesn't mean you know how to go down to the mine and dig out the ore yourself. It may imply knowledge of how to smelt the ore to get the metal, but it implies no knowledge of how to get the ore beyond "Go to X place and buy it". It's the same with all the Craft skills. You know how to take the raw materials necessary for your craft and make them into finished goods, and you may know how to refine them to be workable, but that part is subject to DM review. However, no matter how many ranks I sink into Craft (poisonmaking), I still do not know how to identify abberations, I do not know how to identify any other kind of creature, and I probably don't know how to extract the poison sacs of a creature, especially one unknown to me. Those actions just plain fall under different skills.
Kouk 05-08-07, 08:06 AM	Whether you are right or wrong about what should be isn't relevant really. The game is not especially designed with crafting of things in mind (things that are not magical) it is more of an afterthought because normal adventuring is so much more lucrative. If Crafting and Profession was more supported there would be many more crafts and professions that could be listed (pages and pages) and all sort of in-depth rules about each one. That they didn't even bother to explain how most of the skills work beyond that you roll and spend time is indicative that it is not something this game focuses on at all. Craft skills let you produce the items from raw materials in the game, that's it. If a person wanted to make a living out of it he would have to study various things which are divided up in D&D into general skills and other Craft and Professions. For a medieval "blacksmith" to be simulated, sure he might have to do everything himself but that would mean he has more than just Craft: Weaponry he would also have Profession: Miner. I think it is fair to allow someone a synergy bonus with Craft and Profession skills, allow them to handle the poison more safely and simple laboratory things but gathering poison would most likely fall under some other kind of skill set based on the rules of the game, and subject to DM rulings. Could the crafting and profession system be more robust? Sure, but the majority of players never use these skills in the first place so it isn't a tremendous priority. As for Druids not having a million skill points like Rogues (who traditionally deal with poisoning) this is not really related to the Craft system. The DM should have made the limitations clear to you when you were taking the skill though, since there are so many gray areas involved. As for Aberrations, most of them have similar anatomies and abilities to animals. Some of them have really screwy anatomies and weird skills that are very counterintuitive, so that's why they are a separate class of monster. If you look at the book Lords of Madness, it is about various aberrations and it goes in to their anatomies (has internal views of their organs and such), they can have multiple stomachs/brains different organs that do strange things like let them float (beholders), organs that control their spell-like abilities, screwy things like that. There are enough similarities that Knowledge Nature should probably grant some kind of synergy when relating to their internal anatomy though, however even if you had 50 ranks in Knowledge:Nature there would be many times when dissecting an aberration that you said "Ok, there's the heart, the liver, oh another one of these things, that makes like 5 of them, let's just put that over there with the rest of them."
wrecan 05-08-07, 09:17 AM	For a medieval "blacksmith" to be simulated, sure he might have to do everything himself but that would mean he has more than just Craft: Weaponry he would also have Profession: Miner. I don't where you get your knowledge of medieval blacksmiths, but they did not smelt ore. Ore was smelted at the mines and then sold to merchants who sold the metal to smiths. Smelted ore weighs a lot less than raw ore. It makes no sense to ship metal mixed with dirt. It weighs more and is less valuable. Blacksmiths could conceivably have smelted ore, but so could anybody whose ever seen it done. That's an untrained Skill check, and probably a very low DC. But most medieval blacksmiths would never smelt their own ore unless they were actually working at a mine. (And in that case you would in fact expect them to have a few ranks of Profession (miner).)
Cartigan 05-08-07, 10:01 AM	A poison crafter wouldn't necessarily know where to look, but starting at the head around the mouth area is a "take 10" check for any dunce who has ever encountered poison. I would say it would take a separate Knowledge (whatever) check for the creature or possibly Survival check to know exactly where the venom sacks are, but like I said, unless it isn't in the mouth or head, finding it is a "take 10 on the Search check" thing.
DarthMidget 05-08-07, 10:51 AM	A poison crafter wouldn't necessarily know where to look, but starting at the head around the mouth area is a "take 10" check for any dunce who has ever encountered poison. I would say it would take a separate Knowledge (whatever) check for the creature or possibly Survival check to know exactly where the venom sacks are, but like I said, unless it isn't in the mouth or head, finding it is a "take 10 on the Search check" thing. Well I would agree with regards to a Natural creature, but an Aberration? The thing might not even have a physiology that we would recognize. Magic changes alot of things. For all we know the aberration could draw its venom from, as somone else in this thread called it, the Demiplane of Poison.
Kouk 05-08-07, 12:05 PM	I don't where you get your knowledge of medieval blacksmiths, but they did not smelt ore. Ore was smelted at the mines and then sold to merchants who sold the metal to smiths. Smelted ore weighs a lot less than raw ore. It makes no sense to ship metal mixed with dirt. It weighs more and is less valuable. Blacksmiths could conceivably have smelted ore, but so could anybody whose ever seen it done. That's an untrained Skill check, and probably a very low DC. But most medieval blacksmiths would never smelt their own ore unless they were actually working at a mine. (And in that case you would in fact expect them to have a few ranks of Profession (miner).) I was just using the example a previous poster gave about a blacksmith. I admit I know little about the typical business practices of medieval smithing, only that manufactured nails were pretty weak.
DarthMidget 05-08-07, 12:25 PM	I think the point that Kouk was trying to make was that a skill like Craft: Weaponsmithing was not meant to represent all of the experiences and knowledge that a Medieval Weaponsmith might possess. If you really wanted to create a D&D character with the broad level of knowledge a true professional would have then I would argue it would require more than one skill. You'd need the relevant craft skill, some knowledge skills, and maybe other additional skills dependaing upon what the field of expertise was.
Cartigan 05-08-07, 02:34 PM	Well I would agree with regards to a Natural creature, but an Aberration? The thing might not even have a physiology that we would recognize. Magic changes alot of things. For all we know the aberration could draw its venom from, as somone else in this thread called it, the Demiplane of Poison. Well it had teeth.. seems like a logical place to start to me.
wrecan 05-08-07, 02:54 PM	You'd need the relevant craft skill, some knowledge skills, and maybe other additional skills dependaing upon what the field of expertise was. There's a reason Experts get ten class skills. If you want to be an expert poisonmaker, be a human Expert with class skills in Craft (poisonmaker), Survival, Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (the planes), Knowledge (local), and Knowledge (arcana) (and four other skills). You can keep them maxed out with merely average Intelligence (or as a human with an 8 Intelligence). If you want to be someone whose main profession is being a druid, but who also makes poisons, you might find your attention stretched a bit thin. You probably won't be as facile as a guy who does nothing but make poisons.
celloshane 05-08-07, 10:07 PM	But should a PC really be expected to effectively nerf his character by investing the majority or all of his skill points just to be able to play out a relatively minor aspect of the game? As far as I can tell, the rules for Poisoncrafting are meant to be more or less plug and play; after all, the rules in CA state what pricing to use if you have the neccessary venom or plant on hand. What I'm getting at is what's the motivation behind making the skill so difficult to use that a player has to focus his character to that purpose to the point of being useless in other party critical areas? If the reason is to make the skill impossible to use, then the DM isn't looking objectively at the rules for it and needs to make a decision as to whether or not Poisoncrafting is desirable in his game. If the purpose is to harrass the player using the optional rules, then the player and DM need to have a chat and resolve the issue. If the reasoning is that it doesn't mesh with the DM's perfect and narrow view of how skills should work, then it's an issue that should have been discussed before play even began. If it's a fear of rule balance, then there are simpler ways of adjusting for it, like the ones I mentioned in my first post. And if there's another reason that I don't know about, bring it up and lets discuss it.
Mock26 05-08-07, 11:13 PM	But should a PC really be expected to effectively nerf his character by investing the majority or all of his skill points just to be able to play out a relatively minor aspect of the game? As far as I can tell, the rules for Poisoncrafting are meant to be more or less plug and play; after all, the rules in CA state what pricing to use if you have the neccessary venom or plant on hand. What I'm getting at is what's the motivation behind making the skill so difficult to use that a player has to focus his character to that purpose to the point of being useless in other party critical areas? If the reason is to make the skill impossible to use, then the DM isn't looking objectively at the rules for it and needs to make a decision as to whether or not Poisoncrafting is desirable in his game. If the purpose is to harrass the player using the optional rules, then the player and DM need to have a chat and resolve the issue. If the reasoning is that it doesn't mesh with the DM's perfect and narrow view of how skills should work, then it's an issue that should have been discussed before play even began. If it's a fear of rule balance, then there are simpler ways of adjusting for it, like the ones I mentioned in my first post. And if there's another reason that I don't know about, bring it up and lets discuss it. Maybe the DM is just trying to ensure that skills are used in a logical and realistic manner. Just look at all the examples that other people have brought up. For example, if some takes Craft: Brewing, does that mean that this person knows how to plow, seed, weed, and harvest a field of Barley? No. Sure, he more than likely would be able to walk into a field of Barley and tell you whether or not it's a good crop, or even possibly look at some soil and determine that it is probably good soil for growing barley. But, knowing how to brew beer really doesn't grant any knowledge on how to raise the necessary crops needed to brew that beer. Now, if you look at Craft: Poison as a similar skill (in that it allows you combine various ingredients and brew/mix/mash/stew/bake/whatever and come up with a potent potable) then you run into the same situation. Yes, he would probably know how to identify various plants in the wild if he saw them (but maybe not be able to seek them out with any level of skill matching his crafting ability), but the skill is about crafting poison. It isn't really about harvesting (milking) poison from poisonous creatures. Nor is it about harvesting poison sacs. Granted, there is probably a rudimentary knowledge about this from his training, but he would not be equally skilled at harvesting poison/poison sacs as he would be in crafting poisons from various ingredients. Now, if I were the DM I would have allowed him to harvest the sac, but the DC would be on the high side. But, this is because someone who knows how to brew poison would more than likely know how to at least milk poison from a snake or a spider just because those are two very common sources of poison. In this sense (the DM initially flatly refusing to allow the character to attempt to harvest poison sacs) the player does have a gripe. But, his claim that he wasted 10 skill points on Craft: Poison and that the DM was not letting him use his skill is just someone being childish. I don't how to put it any simpler, but Craft: Poison is a skill that allows you to CRAFT poison. It is not Harvest: Poison. The DM, in my opinion, was not trying to inhibit the original poster's use of his skills. The DM, in my opinion, was trying to see that the skills were used in a manner that he saw as being logical and realistic. Again, look at the various examples that have been used in this thread. Knowledge of blacksmithing would not automatically grant knowledge of mining ore. Knowledge of carpentry would not automatically grant knowledge on cutting and milling timbers. Knowledge of cooking would not automatically grant knowledge on planting and growing various vegetables and fruits nor grant knowledge on raising livestock. Knowledge of writing would not automatically grant knowledge on making paper. As I said already, I think that maybe the DM was initially too strict in his blanket refusal to deny the player any chance of harvesting the poison sacs (but I am also a firm believer in always letting a player at least roll a die if he wants to try something, even if there is absolutely, positively, no chance in all of hades to succeed, such as if a player wanted to throw a rock around the world I wouldn't say, "No," I'd say, "Roll a d20."). But as I already said, I think that this comes down to the DM, in my opinion, correctly interpreting what the Craft: Poison skill would and would not allow and that the player in question is overreacting and throwing a tantrum because he didn't get his way.
wrecan 05-08-07, 11:25 PM	What I'm getting at is what's the motivation behind making the skill so difficult to use that a player has to focus his character to that purpose to the point of being useless in other party critical areas? But it's not difficult to use. With just Craft, Knowledge (nature) and Survival (the latter two of which a druid should be taking anyway), the druid can glean poisons from any plant, animal, humanoid fey, giant, and vermin. The only reason why anybody would need the other Knowledges would be for obscure poisons from aberrations, magic beasts and dragons. I really don't think it impinges his character concept if he can't glean poison from every creature under the sun, especially since druids are not supposed to be knowledgable about aberrations, wyverns and other exotic creatures (as evidenced in their class skill list). So to answer your question -- he's playing a druid. Druids are not supposed to be knowledgable about non-natural animals, so it stands to reason his poisonmaking abilities are limited to natural plants and animals, as reflected in the knowledges that are available as class skills.
Mock26 05-08-07, 11:32 PM	So to answer your question -- he's playing a druid. Druids are not supposed to be knowledgable about non-natural animals, so it stands to reason his poisonmaking abilities are limited to natural plants and animals, as reflected in the knowledges that are available as class skills. Quoted for truth.
pmurray@bigpond.com 05-09-07, 01:29 AM	If you're trying to screw me into taking an exorbitant amount of knowledge skills as well as craft poison to, I'd say craft poison certainly covers how to get the venom sacs of something bitey, not just how to distil that into something useful. After all, you don't tell someone with Profession (carpentry) that they have to roll knowlege (kinds of wood). A profession or a craft pertty much assumes knowlege specific to that profession or craft. Milking things for venom is totally part of crafting poisons. Id' even go so far as to say that Craft (poison) synergises with K(nature) when it comes to the animal husbandry of vipers, the care and feeding of funnelwebs, or the growing of black lotus. A skilled poisoner can breed these animals, milk them, and turn the resulting goop into something you can smear on a weapon or slip into someone's drink. I'd apply a penalty when attempting to do it to an abberation, cause their anatomy is so bizzare. I'd also allow someone with K(dungeon) to assist as per the assisting with a skill rules (oh creapazoids? Yeah, for these little beaudies, their venom sacs are in their feet!). And the DC will be high in the first place both because the abberation venom is rare and weird stuff, and because making a poisin from a corpse is a longer and more difficult process than making it from supplies. The DC covers transporting the body parts without ruining the proprties of the contents. But that's my opinion.
Manic Man 05-09-07, 02:27 AM	Now if you give me some wood, I can make a decent table or chair or simple stuff from wood. So in game terms i know craft (carpentry) though at poor ranks. Now take me to the forest and tell me to get some rosewood to make a table? Sorry i don't know how the tree looks like. Heck, i can't even identify what wood is which type. Tell me to cut the tree? I could try but i could possibly kill myself if the tree fell on me since i don't know the safest way to cut a tree. The wood probably needs to be cured. But how to do it? I don't know. I'm thinking its the same with pottery, painting (heck i did a bit of art class and i don't even know how paints are made), sculpting (i really doubt sculpters mine their own blocks of material...) and such.
Dherki 05-09-07, 07:49 AM	Now if you give me some wood, I can make a decent table or chair or simple stuff from wood. So in game terms i know craft (carpentry) though at poor ranks. Are you sure you're not actually attempting a untrained skillcheck here? :) On topic, this is what BoVD says on the matter: Refining raw materials, such as creature venom, into an effective poison requires time, determination, and an application of craft. Craft (poisonmaking), a subcategory of the Craft skill, provides the necessary expertise.
Mock26 05-09-07, 03:53 PM	After all, you don't tell someone with Profession (carpentry) that they have to roll knowlege (kinds of wood). No, but having the carpentry skill wouldn't necessarily give him the same level of knowledge in milling lumber or making nails.
Fatalis_902 05-09-07, 04:45 PM	Are you sure you're not actually attempting a untrained skillcheck here? :) On topic, this is what BoVD says on the matter: Refining raw materials, such as creature venom, into an effective poison requires time, determination, and an application of craft. Craft (poisonmaking), a subcategory of the Craft skill, provides the necessary expertise. Which, to me, says that the Craft skill allows you to take materials and refine them, provided you have them. It doesn't mention anything about gathering the items, it just says that Craft (poisonmaking) provides the necessary expertise for refining raw materials into poison. I did not see anything about gathering them, so case-in-point.
Dherki 05-10-07, 03:09 AM	Which, to me, says that the Craft skill allows you to take materials and refine them, provided you have them. It doesn't mention anything about gathering the items, it just says that Craft (poisonmaking) provides the necessary expertise for refining raw materials into poison. I did not see anything about gathering them, so case-in-point. Of course, it is up to individual interpretation what exactly is considered 'raw material'. Personally, I am inclined to think that the venomous creature/plant itself is 'raw material'. However, this is purely my interpretation of things. One more relevant passage from BoVD (again, does not contradict either of us i'm afraid, unless of course, the donor is a plant :)): Harvesting Venom: Because of the refinement process, raw venom from creatures doesn’t command anywhere near the price of a dose of real poison. There is no open market for poison raw materials, because the use of poison is often illegal, or at least rarely admitted to. Characters who hunt creatures for their venom will have a difficult time finding buyers for corpses of poisonous creatures. If they can find a buyer, characters will typically get 1/6 of the cost of one dose of the refined version of the poison.
TheDarkWolf 05-29-07, 07:04 PM	I too have been doing some lokign into (Craft Poisonmaking) I think as someone has said previously Book of Vile Darkness says spacifically its made for Making and mixing the chemicals it talks directly about having to get them from animals and creatures. as the poison in the creatures are the raw materials once dead are usually no good you have to take the raw materials from teh dead creatures and basically make the poison from scratch. Wich has noting to do with fiding it. They state that people with "craft: poisonmaking" buy the raw materials from people that have killed and taken out the correct raw materials themselves. ((thus they ahve the correct knowledge skill)) And for the person talking about using Alchemy instead.. yes you can do that but again look in book of vile darkness. Alchemy for making poison is at a -4 skill check and also sure having craft poinson may give you a bonus.. it does.. to appraisal checkst they are called synergy bonuses.. and well the final thing is.. DM always has the final say and can change the rules as what is printed is just a guidline to follow. :-/