CrAq Poisons and Size

A question came up in a recent discussion, and now I'm passing it on to you :slight_smile:

CrAq can be used to create a poison causing a specified type of wound.
Poisons have a base Individual of 1 dose.

But what if the target you want to poison is much larger than a man?
Perhaps an Elephant (size +4) or even larger?

Would this require a size modifier for such a spell?
What would happen if you'd neglected to include such a modifier - a lesser wound perhaps? Or simply a modification of the ease factor for poison resistance?

I'd say no for two reasons:
1- if that is needed, it renders poison less useful than any damage dealer kind of spell.
2- what is a dose? Some poisons with one dose can kill an entire population of a big city. So I'd say that one dose is enough to (kill/harm to the base level) one target, whatever it is.

It's certainly true for PeCo effects though.

Yes, but those do not need an ease factor :wink:.

Bigger creatures usually have a higher stamina so a dose size is usually factored out there.

A

In my opinion, this is not a compelling argument. I like that different forms are not exactly the same and balanced to be the same as each other. Each should have different utility, IMO.

You can't hide a Pilum of Fire in a mug of ale like you can a CrAq poison.... etc.

Vrylakos

Since there are arguments, they can't be compelling.

The former "requirement" implies an "all or nothing" situation - unless you put enough in, absolutely no effect. Unless the poison has a "threshold level"*, and under X amount/body weight it has absolutely no effect, this would not be approp.

(* Some substances do work this way, but not most. Otoh, we are talking about a "doubling" of mass.)

Most poisons work on a ratio of poison:body mass - the more body, the more poison needed. So a "lesser effect" would be appropriate. Alcohol is certainly like this - give the same amount to two people, where one weighs twice the mass, and you have very different effects, and rarely do you have the larger being affected while the smaller is not (from diff "EF rolls").

With some poisons, the end effect would simply be less. With others, if they are indeed "all or nothing", then the resistance roll would be different.

Adding a magnitude specifically for amount of poison should remove any such penalty. (Altho' it's a bit paradoxical - adding that same magnitude would only make the poison +1 wound worse, but would produce x10 the amount of liquid. Meh. Allowing +1 magnitude to negate EF roll bonuses for up to Size +3 or so would certainly make some sense.)