All's Ill the Ends Ill
As Afflictions Week rolls on, we examine new feats meant to interact with the new material in our brand new book, Scourge: The Deluxe Guide to Disease and Poison. Scourge features an entirely new system of poisons and diseases which revolutionizes the way you look at afflictions in your game. So if you see anything in these feats that piques your curiosity, you may want to take a look at the latest and greatest thing in the world of afflictions. While you’re working out the details, though, you can still use these feats with the more boring and outdated afflictions.
Dilute Venom
You know how to create a poison with lower toxicity in order to make an extra dose of a given poison.
Prerequisite: Enhanced Venom.
Benefit: You can dilute a dose of poison with water or a similar non-toxic substance in order to create a larger dose. By expending alchemical components worth 25% of the poison’s base price and reducing all saving throws associated with the poison by 2, as well as reducing its initial toxicity by 2 (if appropriate), you can create a second dose of the poison, which is identical to the poison used to create the copy.
Enhanced Antidotes
You have made a complete study of the art of poisoncraft, and have learned to create antidotes to the most dangerous poisons more cheaply and more effectively.
Prerequisite: Skill Focus (Heal).
Benefit: You can create an antidote to any poison you are familiar with. You are considered familiar with a poison if you either meet the poison’s identification DC (if applicable) or have created the poison in question. Creating an antidote to a poison you are familiar with costs only 50% of what it normally would, and can be accomplished in half the time. If the poison in question is not an enhanced poison, you can instead spend 1 hour to create an antidote to the poison by expending raw components worth 50% of the poison’s base cost. When consumed, these antidotes are equivalent to the imbiber making a successful saving throw.
Enhanced Venom
You are an expert in the art of crafting poisons and can make poisons which are far more potent than normal.
Prerequisite: Skill Focus (Craft [alchemy]).
Benefit: You can increase the potency of any poison you create using Craft (alchemy). By increasing the cost to create the poison by 50% and succeeding on a Craft (alchemy) check (DC equal to 5 + the DC to create the poison), the poison you create becomes more potent and deadly. All saving throw DCs associated with that dose of the poison are increased by +1, and if it is an enhanced poison, the initial toxicity of that poison is increased by +3.
Favorite Plague
You are exceptionally familiar with a single disease, and, having unlocked its secrets, can use this affliction more effectively.
Benefit: Choose a single disease. Whenever you expose another character to that disease, whether as a result of a contagion spell or through natural means, the saving throws made to resist contracting that disease are increased by +1. Further, if it is an enhanced disease, it requires one additional consecutive successful save in order to reduce each of the disease’s stages.
Hearty Health
You are exceptionally gifted at resisting ailments of the body.
Benefit: Your extreme health allows you to suffer less as a result of being affected by a poison or disease. When you are affected by an enhanced disease or enhanced poison, you are treated as being at 1 stage lower than normal for the purposes of determining what symptoms you suffer from. If this would result in the poison or disease being at stage 0, then you suffer no ill effects due to the afflictions symptoms. This feat has no impact on the effect of the enhanced disease or enhanced poison, only the symptom.