The Vast

This is a game mechanics question...

As most of us know many of the pisons we cross have a main effect and then a secondary after some time if left untreated.

I am curious, can those poisons that afect stasts such as STR, CON or DEX kill?.. I mean can they reduce a stat to 0 or is there a minimum stat a player will retain (as in being reduced to a 3) irrelevant to how much poison has affected them?

3 is the lowest stat you can have in NWN. I am not even sure it is possible to have monsters with 0s for stats as well. (Which I think some monsters are surpost to have, undead and golems and such)

But in a sense, having 3 str is virtually the same thing as having 0 str... YOU CAN't MOVE! (All that heavy armor and junk we lug around).

A Dex of 0 surposesly means you can't move either, but instead you just become the board side of a barn.

A Con of 0 should mean death... but let me tell you. A con of 3 is unbelievely scary. I can still recall that time Vincent had a con of 3... He had EIGHT hp! (thats right, 1 hp per a level + toughness) It is a literal death sentence for anyone with a d6 or less hp die.

So even though the stats can't be reduced to 0... they never the less produce a similar threat and should still be avoided at all costs.

From a PnP standpoint, you can lose all the points in a particular attribute. The effects vary, but some can be fatal.

Quote from the Players Handbook:

Strength 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He lies helpless on the ground.

Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.

Constitution 0 means that the character is dead.

Intelligence 0 means that the character cannot think and is unconscious in a coma like stupor, helpless.

Wisdom 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless.

Charisma 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a catatonic, coma like stupor, helpless.

That said, I have had a character die to to strength loss from a Shadow (it was a standard bioware shadow). I am not sure if it was due to the difficulty setting or not. I assume there are other similar monsters that could have an effect on other stats as well. But as far as poisons go, i think it caps off at 3 as vincent said. Untreated disease may also be fatal if I am not mistaken (if it is affecting Constitution I believe).

My mage on another server died to Con drain in a battle vs a demon. DM said it was a cheap death.... But when fighting a demon, what do you expect? (I was a DR maniac with spells on that server, so it didn't touch my HP that I can remember)

Once - and only once -, when I was playing the Original Campaign (with hardcore rules, if that matters), my character was, right after a fight, in the "near death" hp zone, and was suffering the effects of disease and/or poison, so he was very weak. It was a long time ago, so I don't recall the details. Then I found a safe place to rest and... he died as he sat at the ground! I didn't understand what happened then, and it still isn't clear for me now. But I aquired the habit of drinking some potion before resting, to get out of the "near death" zone, specially when the character is diseased or poisoned. So I"ll add this question to Atra's, if it's not too off topic: can the effect of a disease or a poison cause death if the character rests with very few hps? Or was it some kind of coincidence, or, well, a bug?

Ali Akabba

This is on the technical side of NWN, but here is the 2da file that defines all of the poisons in game. It shows primary and secondary effects including ability damage type, saves, damage amount and dice rolled, and any additional script that fires. Dice_1 = 2 & Damage_1 = 1 would be -1d2 on that ability score on poisoning.

It doesn't answer the death question, but it's interesting.

If the character was a barbarian with rage activated, you could die after combat when the rage ends. The Constitution boost during the rage would leave upon rest, and your HP would drop. so if you are down to single digits and still in rage, you might be in trouble.

This would also happen with disease, if it was draining your Constitution I think. Even rest may not clear up disease if the DC is high enough. It will keep chipping away at your stats until you finally make the Fortitude save, get cured, or die.

With poison I think if you survive the primary and secondary damage to your stats, it is done, leaving only the attribute loss.

Supposedly Iron Golem Fumes, and Pit Fiend Ichor poisons can kill you.

I believe at least a couple of diseases can kill you too.

Interesting, AG. Is there one for disease as well, I assume? If you could post that as well it would be great. I always wondered about those. Some have some horrible names, as I recall.

I just checked the script:
And you certainly can die from those two poisons (they use the same script).

If I remember right, you can die if your ability scores do somehow go down to zero. You also die if level drained below 1 HD.

Perhaps the resting activated the secondary ability damage?

Yes, resting will activate the secondary damage.

If you don't rest the secondary damage will 'fire' after an 'x' duration, if its poison it will be another fortitude save, if you fail, your stat is lowered again, if you 'save' you get no other ability drain and the poison goes away. If you failed your fortitude save and didn't have the proper HP, you die. Disease works the same way, it will continue to do damage until treated, only problem with disease is, it does not go away with resting(unless you make the Fort. save and if affecting the CON stat, chances are lowered).

Ah, it makes sense now. My character was a fighter, not a barbarian, but must have had his constitution boosted by a potion, and the resting canceled this effect, letting him with negative hps, killing him. I haven't thought of that. Thanks.

Ali Akabba

*frowns, pondering the issue* odd. i recall one event when ragus went into rage against a group of goblins. she ended the fight with only 2hp left....then, when the rage ended, i recall seeing some notices, (too long ago, i don't recall what they said) but she struggled back to dale on 1hp, grinning wide.

because of that event i always assumed the rage would leave you 1 hp when coming out of it...but, then again, i may be wrong. (would have to try it out someday, but somehow, i'd rather not to so on-line....silly me:) )

on the other hand, i also once witnessed (on a very PG server, mind you) a dwarfen defender character die when coming out of his defender-mode (or whatever it's called). i think that *upped* the con also, but he went below the bonus hp he received.(probably)

personally i'm inclined to think it's something that's server-related somehow.
disease and poison death...that i can relate to, since it's a matter of saves and rolls. but stuff like Rage and that PrC defender stance stuff...you get it and you expect it to work..kinda bummer if your survival isn't a survival at all.

Actually, I like that coming out of Rage or Defender status could leave you in jeapordy. I think it is very in keeping with the spirit of rules. It makes sense and is in keeping with some of the epic stories that these powers are based on.

In PnP, I always used to start tracking my players hit points for them, behind the screen, if they entered an altered state. It kept their RP honest and provided a valuable trade-off to balance the power of the ability.