The Problem with Poison

I have intended to change to poison mechanics for a long time. The current system has a few problems associated with it, both when used against the player and against a monster.

On the Player

When the player is poisoned it means you have to rest, use a consumable or slowly die. The level of poisoning determines how often the poison acts. While poison resistance should help reducing poison, it doesn’t work in a very intuitive way right now.

Without resistance, poison is a critical condition even at level 1, forcing you do act fairly quickly. the actual level of poisoning is usually not that important.

On Monsters

If you poison a monster (even at level 1), you can just walk away and wait for it to die. This is not very fun or challenging, and sometimes really tedious (especially if a monster has high hp or regenerates).

The New Poison Mechanic

The new system is more akin to how it works in other roguelikes/RPGs: as delayed damage that eventually wears out.

For a poisoned character there is a (high) chance that the poison acts every turn-segment. When the poison acts two things will happen:

• The character takes one damage (unless a roll on poison resistance applies).
• The poisoning is reduced by one level (unless a roll on poison weakness applies).

This means that poisoning will eventually wear out. This prevents the problems outlined above both for monsters and the player.

The resistance/weakness mechanic is also much clearer now: If you have resistance, you can sometimes skip taking damage, and if you have weakness you sometimes take damage without reducing the poison level.

Having 100% resistance (or more) means that, while you can be poisoned, you won’t take any damage during its course.

Having 100% weakness (or more) means that you have to rest or use a confumable to expunge the poison (like in the old system), since it won’t reduce by itself.

Furthermore:

• Poison acts much faster than before (50% to act every turn-segment)
• Poison acts with the same speed regardless of level.
• Many sources of poison damage are higher from most sources (both from player and monsters). This is to compensate for the fact that poison now is much less deadly.
• Silver leaves now cures 5 levels of poison instead of 2.
• If your poison level is more than current hp, the status window show “fatally poisoned” (because you will die if the poison takes its full course).
  

  If your poison level is higher than your current Hp, you are warned

Consequences

The new poison system may not be very innovative, but it solves many of the problems of the current poison mechanics. In particular:

• When poisoned, it is now a choice whether to let it act or if it is better to rest.
• You can no longer kill a monster with a one-hit of low poison
• Poison resistance and weakness is easier to understand and more meaningful.

Edit: Acid also changed

I just wanted to also mention that acid attacks no longer destroy equipment. Instead it lowers the armour attribute temporarily. This both makes acid attacks more useful against monsters and make them less devastating to the player.