Producing Antidotes

Most of the time an antidote has not been prepared in advance, and a character with herbalism proficiency will attempt to produce an antidote from scratch.

Doing this presupposes an assortment of herbs, mosses, and such necessary materials, already selected and close at hand (e.g., gathered, dried and stored in a pouch). If the herbalist needs to gather the materials as well (and there are materials around to be gathered—not the case in most dungeons), at least half an hour is required to do so. When materials are available, putting together and administering an antidote takes 1d6+4 (5-10) minutes.

If time for gathering materials and making the antidote turns out to be greater than the poison's onset time, the efforts are in vain. If not, a proficiency check must be made to determine the antidote's success or failure. The check suffers a -10 penalty if the poison has not been identified. If the check is successful, the antidote takes effect.

For example, the assassin Therius is adventuring with his companion, Orlene, when she is struck by a poisoned blade. The opponent is swiftly dispatched and Therius turns his attention to her wound. Orlene, meanwhile, has failed her saving throw. The DM knows that the poison is Type O, injected, with an onset time of 20 minutes; he notes this information secretly. One minute has already gone to finishing combat. If the poison is not successfully treated, Orlene will be left paralyzed for nine hours.

Therius is a 7th level thief (assassin kit) with herbalism proficiency and Intelligence 14; he does have a kit of useful herbs with him just for such emergencies as this.

He first sets out to identify the poison. His base chance is 35% (7th level) + 5% (Int 14) = 40%. This is his chance of learning from Orlene's symptoms. He rolls a 48 on percentile dice and fails. His next attempt is by sight, examining the slain opponent's blade, with a 20% chance of success. This also fails. Concerned about time (three minutes have already ticked by), Therius puts a dab on his tongue. He needs to roll 35 or lower . . . and gets a 26! He spits out the poison, recognizing it as type O. The DM doesn't bother to see if the poison affects Therius, since a paralytic poison at half strength would have no effect.

Therius works to produce an antidote with the materials in his pouch. This takes him six minutes. He then makes a proficiency check, needing a 12 or lower (because herbalism has a -2 modifier—see Player's Handbook, Chapter Five) for success. He rolls a 13—failure! Nine minutes have ticked by. He hurriedly attempts again to concoct the antidote. This time it takes a full 10 minutes . . . Therius rolls a 9 this time, however, so he succeeds just in the nick of time.

The antidote totally halts the paralytic poison, since that is what the result of a successful saving throw would have been.

Table of Contents