Alchemical Poisons

[tman]

I really like alchemy so far.  I had a char with like 17 alchemy from creation long before the skill was implemented, so I was pretty excited when I finally got to start using it.  If I'm not mistaken though some of the NPCs during the quests talk about using poisons.  It would be cool if the alchemy skill could be used to craft poisons to help in fights.

Some other games let you apply poisons directly to a weapon, and the next X amount of times that weapon is used it does extra poison damage (perhaps with diminishing effect each hit).  I'm not saying PS should necessarily copy that, but that's how it has been done in the past.  Another thing I think would be cool is to have a special kind of dagger or dart that's hollowed out specifically for to put poison in.  The next time the dagger/dart is used it will dispense its poison all at once, doing significantly increased damage (perhaps time to implement "Assassin weapon" skill?  ).

Poisons could also have other effects than just damage.  Some ideas off the top of my head:
Freezing poison: freezes the flesh it affects, causing stiffness (decreased agility), crafted from ground frost arangma quartz.
Fire poison: burns flesh, causing intense pain and leaving the victim vulnerable to attack (increased damage taken), crafted using fire carkarass feathers and/or grendol fire blood
Infection poison: infects the victim with Raging Fever, crafted with concentrated diseased rat blood
Paralysis poison: prevents the victim from moving or attacking for a few seconds (allowing the attacker to flee)

Crafting poisons would improve the alchemy skill, but it would also affect the game in other ways.  Poisons could help sneaky rogue/thief-like characters have a chance against the warrior type characters (since a dagger could be poisoned more effectively than, say, a battle axe).  Also poisoned arrows/darts would help the ranged skill be more worthwhile.  Poison effects could ignore armor (assuming the initial attack is not dodged or blocked) which might help balance the problem of armor being overpowered.  Also the idea of the "assassin weapons" skill being implemented sounds awesome to me.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?

[LigH]

You may have missed that Alchemy is already available for several weeks or months, and the Settings, Rules, and whatever departments of the development team already created an elaborate system. I heard of players without life who already leveled Alchemy way beyond level 100, they can tell you what is already available. You may be surprised how many of your ideas there already were thought before.

[Chessire]

Poisons that cause status effects are already planned or being made, eonwind should have more details on this but they are not too far from being implemented for all I know!
The poisons and ingredients you describe, as well as crafting in general and more, are things the people on the rules department work on. As far as I know there aren't any special skills required to work on the rules, most work is done in excell spreadsheet, but you need to think up and fill lists with ingredients, combinations and transformations like these. If you are interested in doing such work you could apply for the team.

[Taya]

From what I've seen, no, there are not that many players who are over 100. And I have plenty 'life' but go figure. I usually do the time consuming part (combines which can be done in any old container) while RPing and waiting for people to type their replies. I need something to do in those gaps or I get bored and my attention ends up somewhere out of the game.

With that said, I'm not sure how well craftable poisons fit in with the current alchemy, though more things to make is always nice. Poison cures on the other hand...

Maybe you should level some more or poke some alchemists via RP.

[tman]

You may have missed that Alchemy is already available for several weeks or months, and the Settings, Rules, and whatever departments of the development team already created an elaborate system.

Yeah I remember it came out in September.  I worked on Herbal for a lot of the summer in preparation.  But I don't play PS when I'm away at school (intel laptop, PS runs but not well...) so Christmas break at home was my first chance to test it out.

But I'm a little confused by your responses.  Weapon poisons do exist? Or will exist?  Or are you saying the alchemy system is already established and not going to change?

[LigH]

Rather the latter. The developers already took some efforts in planning and pre-implementing a good part of it. Considering new suggestions now might be a little late. But I can't speak for them. They will have to optimize balance while more and more players advance enough to get a more comprehensive practical impression, that will reveal if any of your thoughts might be wort being added, or if that would change the already existing system too much to be considered.

Poisoned weapons are probably an interesting idea, but I believe that such a feature is not yet implemented in a similar way as "naming" modifiers or quality values; the developers will have to investigate first if that would require an own separate feature, or may simply extend the existing "naming" feature.

[Eonwind]

Rather the latter. The developers already took some efforts in planning and pre-implementing a good part of it. Considering new suggestions now might be a little late. But I can't speak for them. They will have to optimize balance while more and more players advance enough to get a more comprehensive practical impression, that will reveal if any of your thoughts might be wort being added, or if that would change the already existing system too much to be considered.

Poisoned weapons are probably an interesting idea, but I believe that such a feature is not yet implemented in a similar way as "naming" modifiers or quality values; the developers will have to investigate first if that would require an own separate feature, or may simply extend the existing "naming" feature.

Like LigH said we still need to implement a way to attach a modifier or a progression script (the poison) to a weapons and have it removed after a certain amount of time, otherwise I would already have implemented an alchemical way to produce poisons. On the other hand the mobs will soon be able to poison the players trough their natural attacks, the system is completed and working in testing, as usual since some months: available at the next release 

[tman]

Hmm... what about combining a poison and a weapon into a poisoned weapon, with the quality depending on the quality of the poison.  Right now it takes like 100 hits to lower the quality of a weapon by 1, right?  What if poisoned weapons have the quality deteriorate much faster (10-20 quality points per hit) and when they "break" they automatically revert to the original weapon?  Not sure if this is possible now but it might be easier to implement than a whole new poison system.  To make it more simple you could make it so only certain weapons can be poisoned (like a hollow dagger, or special types of swords or axes specifically designed for such a purpose).

It seems to me like poisoned arrows and darts would be easier to do (since you only have to worry about the effect happening once and then the projectile is gone).

[Cirerey]

Hmm... what about combining a poison and a weapon into a poisoned weapon, with the quality depending on the quality of the poison.  Right now it takes like 100 hits to lower the quality of a weapon by 1, right?  What if poisoned weapons have the quality deteriorate much faster (10-20 quality points per hit) and when they "break" they automatically revert to the original weapon?  Not sure if this is possible now but it might be easier to implement than a whole new poison system.  To make it more simple you could make it so only certain weapons can be poisoned (like a hollow dagger, or special types of swords or axes specifically designed for such a purpose).

It seems to me like poisoned arrows and darts would be easier to do (since you only have to worry about the effect happening once and then the projectile is gone).

This seems sensible to me. How about single use poisoned weapons? They break on first use and are unusable after. The poison could work using the existing disease mechanism. "Cursed" weapons could work the same way, but on the wielder.

[Eonwind]

Hmm... what about combining a poison and a weapon into a poisoned weapon, with the quality depending on the quality of the poison.  Right now it takes like 100 hits to lower the quality of a weapon by 1, right?  What if poisoned weapons have the quality deteriorate much faster (10-20 quality points per hit) and when they "break" they automatically revert to the original weapon?  Not sure if this is possible now but it might be easier to implement than a whole new poison system.  To make it more simple you could make it so only certain weapons can be poisoned (like a hollow dagger, or special types of swords or axes specifically designed for such a purpose).

It seems to me like poisoned arrows and darts would be easier to do (since you only have to worry about the effect happening once and then the projectile is gone).

This seems sensible to me. How about single use poisoned weapons? They break on first use and are unusable after. The poison could work using the existing disease mechanism. "Cursed" weapons could work the same way, but on the wielder.

implementing poison using quality and specific items this way is certainly not the best way to go, because it would require one new item for each weapon (normal and poisoned type) while using an attachable/detachable script can allow any weapon to be poisoned, other than that this kind of system may allows for other implementations like enchanting a weapons with a limited number of charges and things like that.
"Cursed" weapons are already possible using the modifier system, I'm not sure 100% but I think 'cursed' weapons (weapons giving negative buffs) are already lootable in game.

[tman]

Ah yes I see what you mean.  So do you think this kind of support for poisons, enchantments, etc. is something that will be worked on soon^TM?  I'm a patient guy, I can wait a while

As a side note, I think what Cirerey meant by "cursed" weapons is something that you pick up, and, not knowing what it is or does, you equip it, and then you get a curse which lasts a long time even after you unequip the item (sort of like a self-poisoning).  It would be an interesting feature and if a poison system does get implemented it seems like it could be done in a similar way.

[Venalan]

Poisoning, sure its exactly like the debuffs certain NPCs give you but those arn't IC 'poisons' (yet). Which is more or less exactly how a 'cursed' blade would curse you. So yes this is all possible. It's all just a matter of deciding exactly what will do what, and how it will all work.