Design Diary: Poisonous Plants

Poisonous Plants is coming along nicely. 19,000 words now….. It currently contains rules for 55 toxic plants. There are about 5 more I still need to add. We’ve been play-testing them lately and reworking some. Plant-based weapon poisons are far more common and easily obtained than I expected. Also, the protection from poison spell only neutralizes ONE poison. That’s an interesting loophole, since many plants contain multiple toxic substances. Such plants pose significant challenges for 2nd and even 3rd tier characters since the protection from poison spell cannot neutralize them and only grants advantage on the saving throw and resistance to the damage. Characters of 1st to 4th level can easily be killed by some of these poisons, so one of our objectives right now is to determine rough APLs for these poisons and draft some guidelines for their use in games.

I really like all the other uses of the poisons that are included. Weapon poisons is a big one. There are also a lot of medicines and even a few spell enhancements that can be derived from toxic plants if the PCs have the right skills (usually alchemy kits or herbalism kits).

So far play-testing has revealed a few interesting nuances about 5e that I didn’t expect. Basically, these poisons can even hamper high level parties if the characters don’t have the right skills, spells, or saving throws.

It will be a few weeks until it’s done. When it is ready, it will be available on DriveThru. 

Anyone who has purchased a copy of Nature’s Wrath will receive a discount on their purchase of Poisonous Plants when it is released. So make sure you have your settings on DriveThru set to receive mailings from us, so you can receive your discount link!

Now, time to get to work!

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