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Hail and well met fair adventurer!

In our fair land of Britannia, there are many a vermin and reptile that are poisonous. Slimes, snakes, scorpions, the dreaded Energy Vortex and many more. Most of these creatures are somewhat harmless, and their poisons are relatively weak, but nonetheless they are still dangerous. In this study, we will explore several subjects, from alchemy to swordsmanship, but the main purpose after all, is poison!

Now, alchemists can make four different strengths of poison. We will explore these first, so as to build some knowledge of the subject.

Lesser Poison is the weakest poison in the land. Slimes and small snakes carry this venom within their bodies, and with a successful strike can deliver it into the body of a hapless adventurer. Fortunately, this poison does very little damage, and --apart from keeping one from healing--is more of a nuisance than a hazard. A beginning alchemist can make this poison with little effort, but little effort provides little results. Lesser Poison is known to take approximately one part in forty of the victims remaining health every 15 seconds (doing minimum of 3 points of damage), thus delivering nothing more than a need for a cure, or some patience in waiting for the poison to wear off. The poisoned victim will get the "You feel a bit nauseous..." messages.

Regular-strength Poison is slightly more effective than Lesser Poison, but is still, nonetheless, rather ineffective. This blend inflicts about one part in thirty-two of the victum's current health as damage per 10 seconds, rendering it somewhat tame also (this level of poison inflicts a minimum of 5 points of damage). The poisoned victim will get the "You feel disoriented and nauseous!" messages. These 2 poisons, Lesser and Regular, should really only be used for two things:…gaining poison skill and keeping your victim from healing.

Greater Poison is likely to be the best bet for an aspiring assassin to use on weapons and food. This poison damages approx. one part in sixteen of the victims remaining health per 10 second span, causing a minimum of seven points of damage in all cases. Within the course of 1 minute can add up to some serious damage. The mage spell of Poison or Poison Field is exactly as potent as this particular variety of potion. The poisoned victim will get the "You begin to feel pain throughout your body!" messages.

Deadly Poison damages approximately one part in eight of remaining health every 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. Curiously enough, the minimum amount of damage this poison can cause is onle 6 points. The poisoned victim will get the "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

5th level "lethal" poison damages approximately one part in four of remaining health every 5 seconds (causing a minimum of seven points of damage). It is produced by Poison elementals and although it cannot be created by players, tinker traps made by grand master tinkers provide this level of protection. 5th level poison is almost guaranteed death. It is extremely hard to cure and death usually results within 15 seconds. If you get hit with this type of poison you get a "You are in extreme pain, and require immediate aid!" message. Other people will get a "[your name] begins to spasm uncontrollably" message.

Creating Poisons

With all of the information gathered so far, it appears that a Grandmaster Alchemist is destined to fail at about 80% of his tries at making Deadly Poison (a 20% success rate), while succeeding at about 80% of his Greater Poison attempts. This really is not a good ratio considering how much time it takes to reach even Master Alchemist status. For this reason, unless you have a huge stash of gold to waste and a hidden source of Nightshade to boot, I would suggest using Greater Poison to satisfy your everyday poisoning needs. You can save a deadly poisoned blade for "special occations."

Poisoning Items

Once you've gathered some potions, you can poison two seperate categories of objects; food and single handed bladed weapons. Bladed weapons are weapons that use the swords or fencing skill. Check the weapons section to find out which weapons fall into those categories.

When poisoning items or food you will get a 'You have lost some Karma' message, unless you are already very low on the Karma scale ofcourse. Furthermore there are a two different messages that you may receive while poisoning these items:

1. "You fail to apply the poison to the object."
2. "You apply the poison to the object."

Message 1 is the message the poisoner receives if he fails. The poison potion may be lost in the process. The higher the poisoning skill the more chance the poison potion will not be lost however. Also if the poisoner fails to apply the poison he may poison himself instead. The poison will be slightly less strong than the dosage the poisoner was attempting to use. It is advisable to always have some cure potions or scrolls at hand to cure yourself if needed.

Messages 2 is the success message. The success message indicates that you've applied a dose of poison to the object that will behave according to the poison type of the poison that you used.

When the poisoner attempts to poison a food item, a standard Poisoning skill check is made. If he passes the check then the poison is applied. The poisoned food will be poisoned at the level of the poison potion used. Note that currently it is impossible to poison a stack of food. To poison a food item you need to remove it from the stack. Also, poisoned food items do not stack well. If you drop a posioned bread on a stack of bread the poison will not 'stick' to the bread but will go away. The formula used to determine the %chance of successful poisoning a food item is:

When the poisoner attempts to poison a bladed weapon, a standard Poisoning skill check is made. If he succeeds then the bladed weapon is poisoned. The game sets the percentage chance to poison on any given hit. The formula is the poisoning skill of the person who applied it divided by 4, or:

The game then computes the total number of "uses" before the posion wears off. "Uses" is defined as each hit, whether it poisons or not. The exact formula is:

Number of Uses for Poisoned Blades
Poison Strength	# of Uses
0	20
1 (Lesser Poison)	18
2 (Regular Poison)	16
3 (Greater Poison)	14
4 (Deadly Poison)	12

So, the higher the strength of the poison, the lower the total number of uses (strength 3 poison has about 14 uses). For example, a blade poisoned with Greater Poison will provide more uses than a blade poisoned with Deadly Poison. When a poisoned blade is used in combat, the game checks upon every successful strike to see whether or not the target is poisoned. The weapon skill of the wielder does not affect anything except for whether or not the weapon hits.

To keep gaining skill poisoners will have to work their way up from the lower level poisons to the highest level potions. A master assassin (poisoner) will not gain skill from applying lesser poisons.

Using Poisoned Items

Players, NPCs, animals and monsters can be poisoned by hitting them with a poisoned weapon. The following animals/monsters have been poisoned and reported: Grizzly Bear, Lizardman, Giant Scorpion, Headless, Mongbat, Sewer Rat, Giant Rat, Rat Man, Water Elemental, Earth Elemental, Air Elemental, Troll, Ettin, Orc, Orc Mage, Gazer, Dire Wolve, Reaper, and Corpser. The variety of creatures on this list seems to indicate that in fact all animals and monsters are poisonable. This is not quite true. Monsters that use poison themselves (like snakes and spiders) are more resistant to poison and cannot easily be poisoned. Undead monsters (except liches) cannot be poisoned either. As well, many magic-using monsters will simply cure the poison immediately, making the poison-based attack rather ineffective. When your weapon poisons a person you get the message "You have poisoned <target's name>", however when you poison a creature you must examine the creature's health bar to determine if you succeeded in your poisoning attempt.

Food-poisoning doesn't work in quite the same way. By all accounts, if one eats a poisoned item of food, a check is made by the game in order to see if the poison affects the victim. If the poisoning is successful, then the victim gets a "That [food name] was poisoned!" message. If the poisoning is not successful, then the poison goes away and the food can be eaten as if it were never poisoned. This has lead a lot of players to believe that poisoning food does not work. This process does work--just not very well and rarely with consistent results.

Trapping with Poison

Now we all know that Tinkers can make poison traps and, although I've not much info on this subject, I will tell you the little that I do know.

Making a tinker poison trap requires an iron ingot, a box of some sort, and a poison potion. Apparently there is no huge skill-gain for making tinker traps with even Deadly Poison potions; the skill gained seems to be the same no matter what type of poison is used in the process of trapping a box. Keep in mind, however, that the purpose here is not to gain skill, but to damage potential thieves (or victims)--and damage well these traps will. The damage inflicted by a box trapped with Greater Poison is quite astounding. One report tells of a 50 hit point character dying in less than 10 seconds after opening a box trapped with Greater Poison, which was made by a tinker with a mere 50% skill (carpentry can also play a major role during the process of creating trapped boxes and chests). This should give you an idea of how deadly the combination of the alchemy, carpentry, and tinkering skills can be.

Detecting Poisoned Items

To see if a weapon (still) has a dose of poison applied to it you should use the Arms Lore skill.

To see if a piece of food is poisoned use the Taste ID skill on it.

To check a chest or box for the presence of a poison (or other type) trap you should use the Detect Hidden skill on it.

Curing Poisons

Finally, one must also know how to cure poison. Generally, the Cure spell is sufficient to cure Greater Poison and below, although I myself am almost a Grandmaster Mage, so that tends to help a bit. ;) The most powerful potion is difficult to Cure even with this high of a Magery skill; in my personal experience, I've had to cast Cure three to four times before eliminating a Deadly Poison in someone's system. This spell seems to be somewhere between Deadly and Greater Poison in terms of effectiveness.

Cure potions seem to be the better alternative, since there is no chance of disruption, such as there is when casting spells. Also, a Greater Cure will cure even Deadly Poison with only one quaff. A regular orange potion that was found as loot on an Earth Elemental was able to cure the 5th level Poison inflicted by a Poison Elemental, but that result can not be guaranteed.

To Cure Poison Chart
Potion	Lesser Cure	Cure	Greater Cure
Lesser Poison	Usually*	Always	Always
Poison	Sometimes*	Usually*	Always
Greater Poison	Sometimes*	Usually*	Always
Deadly Poison	Never*	Sometimes*	Always
5th level Poison	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
* Several attempts may be needed to succeed

A Healer with a Healing and Anatomy skill of both greater than 60 can cure all levels of poisons with a simple bandage. Of course the higher level poisons require a high level of Healing and Anatomy to be successful.

To sum it all up, some good advice for the budding assassin would be to not bother trying to kill people with poisoned food--leave that type of poisoning for skill-gain. On the other hand, poisoning blades will give you a tremendous advantage in both monster and PvP combat (but, again, only if you can manage to get a successful poisoning hit off). Overall, an experienced assassin or poisonous creature is a very deadly foe indeed; adventurers are advised to keep a a few Greater Cures on their person at all times.