Poisons vs. Cures - code discussion

[Bestatte]

With cures, there are non-lethal methods of determining what might be useful.

With poisons, that method produces no information.

If a physician is good enough at his craft to know what can be used to cure a patient..and which raw material is most likely to produce which cure...

Couldn't that same method be used to determine which raw material might be some sort of poison - or made into one? I wouldn't suggest that a good poisoner be able to know WHICH poison something is..but only that he can tell that yes, it is in fact some kind of poison.

Discuss? Agree? Disagree and why?

[chang]

With cures, there are non-lethal methods of determining what might be useful....If a physician is good enough at his craft to know what can be used to cure a patient..and which raw material is most likely to produce which cure....

Really?  :shock:

If that's the case, then I suppose I agree with your point.

[Bestatte]

Well it's not as easy as that..it's a process. But part of the process is being able to recognize that something *might* make -some kind of cure-

That method doesn't tell you what kind of cure..and doesn't exactly say that it is definitely a cure - but it gives you a nudge in the right direction.

My suggestion/idea/request is for that same method do the same thing for poisons, because to my knowledge there isn't any method at the present time to provide even that nudge.

Edited to add: Yes I know you could just ask your local uber mad poisoner - but finding out who that is, is one wall. Getting him to reveal the info to you - is another wall. Having a character who interacts with the types of people who WOULD know - is yet another wall. It's not like all the mad poisoners hang out together, unclanned, with a sign on their shop wall advertising "Poison lessons here!" Some of this stuff is highly secret info, and guarded vehemently against others learning it.

You could also do a trial and error experimentation - but if you fail, you might end up dead, and that breakthrough in your experiment won't do you much good then.

You could also take the question to your local herbalist NPC and ask them, but that requires IMM intervention, which may or may not produce any answers.

[Angela Christine]

I think that learning to use uncommon poisons is supposed to be difficult and dangerous.

AC

[Skeptical]

Let me see if I understand what you're proposing.  You want to be able to look at an item, and know if it's a cure for poison?  OR you want to look at a poison, and know what the components are?

I have problems with both.  In real life, you can't just take a walk in a meadow and upon seeing various "raw" materials in the wildlife, go, "Oh, that'll mix with that, and cure flu!"  Or, "Oh, that is poisonous as heck!  I'll go pick some."  

And in a different scenario, at a luncheon at the White House you see President Bush open up his hollow ring and dump a foreign liquid into PM Blair's drink.  Are you going to know what the components are, just by looking at it?  Or the cure, for that matter?  No and no.

It should take trial and error attempts to find a cure/poison, just like it did for the Indians, the physicians of the yore, etc.  With typical craftable items, it's easier to tell that this particular arrow is made from wood and flint.  But chemicals, not so much.  If you die as result of experimenting, oh well.  That's Zalanthas for ya.

[trachsis]

The poison skill evolves as your skill increases - just like other skills do.  I think what you're asking for is already part of the code.

[Xygax]

This is just a hint to keep your comments on this thread -very- restricted, please.  I will moderate ruthlessly if we start spinning into discussion of things that are and should remain ICly mysterious.

-- X

[Bestatte]

Let me see if I understand what you're proposing.  You want to be able to look at an item, and know if it's a cure for poison?  OR you want to look at a poison, and know what the components are?

None of the above. I'm trying to express my suggestion/request/idea without getting into specifics, which are IC - and as Xygax has already pointed out, the whole discussion is iffy.

I want to be able to do with poison-making raw materials the same thing I can already do with cure-making raw materials.

That is all.

[Agent_137]

sounds reasonable.

[Bogre]

You said there was three walls.

All I see is three walls that can be passed ICly.

*shrug* Common people don't know much about herbs and stuff. Knowing that penicillin cures pneumonia doesn't mean you know what causes pneumonia. Same with poisons.

[Bestatte]

You said there was three walls.

All I see is three walls that can be passed ICly.

*shrug* Common people don't know much about herbs and stuff. Knowing that penicillin cures pneumonia doesn't mean you know what causes pneumonia. Same with poisons.

Common people with the BREW SKILL can tell when something can be made into a cure.

Common people with the POISON SKILL can NOT tell when something can be made into a poison.

Since someone with the brew skill can do this with cures, I just think it's reasonable to think someone with the poison skill can do the same thing with poisons.

I dunno - I think I've explained the same thing enough times, in enough ways, that it should be easy enough to understand what I'm saying. Maybe not.

[wizturbo]

Personally, I'd rather all poison stuff is as difficult as possible to figure out.  Sorry, but its a very dangerous skill, and there are IC methods of finding out this sort of thing, yes its very difficult, but it should be in my opinion for the more rare and mysterious poisons out there.

What I WOULD like is a different command for taste then taste/sip that significantly lowers the damage a poison does.  If you taste a very very very tiny sip of a liquid, it should give you a flavor and if there are some kind of effects assosiated with the liquid the effects be extremely downsized.  Right now, a sip, is like half a bottle of some kinds of liquid.

[SRB]

As I do believe Bestatte is stating, one would have to have a very high poison skill over time in order to know the correct components to particular poisons.

Spin-off:

As I see it now, the brew code is flawed. You -cannot- fail in this skill, which is somewhat difficult for me to understand. How can one have such a skill and have 100% proficiency in it at the start? As I see it, not only do we -not- need the ability to discern what herbs can make what particular poisons, I do not think we should be given perfect listings for brewing cures either.

However, if the staff were to break down the brew code, add a die roll to it for chances of success/failure as one could have for poison, I would be satisfied. Over -time-, after years of skill and practice, perhaps one could discern what particular herbs could be made into poisons.

As for now though, I have to cast my vote as a 'no thanks'. Giving someone new to such a skill (wether it be branched or with a new character) the ability to know how to make any poison in the game is flat-out ludicrous. These are skills, and -difficult- skills (the simplest forms of alchemy) at that. We don't need to give out "freebies" guys.

[Agent_137]

This thread is screaming for my drunken post of the night:


nAR!