Poison weapons

[Wrana]

As I remember, poison blowpipes just never got used in regions where medium armor was in common use... So if they'd become useless it wouldn't be far from truth. I agree they are useless enough currently but just can't see them on regular battlefield in any case. Probably should be replaced with something else?
And yes, if poison bows, etc. work regardless of armor & attack roll, it should be fixed.

[Forrest]

I like the way poison bows work. I don't think they need fixing. Just because you don't like that the fumes from the poison smeared on the shield is a enough to poison a person does not mean I don't. The fumes are not burning them to ashes just making them feel bad which is quite common in the real world.

The poison works so long as the arrow bounces off the armor and leaves a mark. Sounds a lot like the US army manual dealing with chemical warfare.

[Sombre]

But the description of poison bows and KOs reaction to this thread suggest they aren't working the way they're supposed to.

As I've said numerous times - you can explain away just about anything. If your explanation was at least reasonable I might say 'yeah ok fair point'. But it isn't. It's silly. There's a clear difference in dom3 between stuff like poison spit or ctisian poison slings which produce aoe poison gas,.. and arrows/blowpipes with poisoned tips. For one thing, if an arrow or dart works the way you describe, why don't poison melee weapons? They can be parried by shields just fine without poisoning anyone.

And what's common in the real world? Feeling bad from fumes or these gas producing poison smearing arrows you refer to? Because I've never heard of anything like that being used in warfare. The only poison arrows I've heard of would require at the very /least/ contact with the skin. Additionally if you actually check the kind of damage done by 'weak poison' you'll see it's considerably worse than 'feeling bad'. That's the reason sauromatian archers can tear apart heavy infantry.

Ultimately this discussion is pretty pointless because, again, you can explain away just about anything. The key points here are that poison arrows don't work the way they are apparently intended to, don't work in an intuitive way, don't work like their real world historical counterparts and are limiting modding to an extent because we haven't figured out how to make 'if hurt then apply poison secondary' missile weapons.

I'm sure you disagree on all these points and that's fine. You can't make a thread about a change to dom3 without someone arguing the other side because they like things the way they are :]

If I can figure out a mod to 'fix' poison missile weapons then I will. Changing them in basegame is up to KO and seems unlikely to happen.

[Sombre]

Unfortunately it seems damage type poison = AN automatically, so my mod idea won't work.

[Forrest]

"don't work like their real world historical counterparts"

Can you tell me what history book to look up intelligent magic using lizards trying to take over the world at the command their risen God in that I may compare their poisons to ours?

This is fantasy. While I want you to be able to mod what you want I don't want to be forced to play your "politically correct" poison weapons fantasy.

In my world the police/military are testing crowd control rubber bullets that are coated with a substance that smells so bad that you will vomit and run for something to wash it off with. People are not be able to stand next to you because of the smell of the mark it leaves on your clothes.

The only thing that is unusual about it is that you don't end up in the hospital from it. Things that can do that are rather common but something that can do that and not hurt you has cost millions to find.

[Forrest]

Just to expand on the idea.

The bullets had to be made in a way that the product is not released until impact so the cop does not need a gasmask to shoot the gun. The arresting officers have to wear gasmasks to take you in. They make pepper dust bullets to blind, choke and cause vomiting but they have to hit in the upper chest for the dust cloud to reach your head. Unless they go fullauto in which case you are in the center of a dust cloud that will take down a several elephants. God help anyone downwind of you.

In my world people are laid out from the fumes that the ink used to print the book they are reading puts out. People end up in the hospital from the fumes off of hairspray, perfume, candles and these are the "safe" things. Go to a military surplus store and page through the infantry manual on dealing with chemical attacks. Skin contact is not needed by the good stuff.

[Argitoth]

Forrest said:
"don't work like their real world historical counterparts"

Can you tell me what history book to look up intelligent magic using lizards trying to take over the world at the command their risen God in that I may compare their poisons to ours?

So why should your claim of "because it's fantasy" be more relevant than the claim of "because it's realistic"? Basically what you're saying is that we should keep everything as unrealistic and fantastical as possible just because Dominions has magic lizards.

[Saulot]

Far be it for me to interfere with a man arguing with himself... but I have to say, "because it's fantasy" is a perfectly fine argument to make, and so is "because it's realistic". This aside, the way poison works is unlikely to change, (as most things in Dom are unlikely to change)... and the ranged poison weaponry isn't really a glaring imbalance, just quite effective, and perhaps not intuitive (particularly how the arrows which bounce of shields cause poison damage).

While I'm no poison expert, (as I don't live in Australia /jab ), what's most strange to me is all the poison in dominions is extremely potent compared to the real world. We are talking death in seconds (unless it's not a human). Perhaps if we had other poisons in the game, (poisons which lower your att/def/ap), or poisons which kill you after the battle, or poisons that made you hallucinate (confusion effect)... then this wouldn't be such a big issue.