One of the biggest aspects of my stealth kind of role play focuses on poisons. What I’d like to see is a bigger variety of how poisons work and how we can poison our targets.

Different types of poisons
The effect “damage health” alone could be separated into at least four different sub-categories that I can think of. First we’d have the normal poison, hurting the target constantly over a fixed amount of time and then wearing off, like all poisons in Oblivion. Then we’d have the fast working poison that quickly hurts the target but then stops damaging the target after its main function was accomplished, to give as much pain and damage as possible within a second of exposure. Then we’d have a slow poison that would be less effective than the normal sort of poison, but could have some special effects in it, such as causing the opponent to stumble as the poison effects the target in “waves”, slowing him down as he tries to advance to either you or a source of healing. The last type I can think of is the most stealth one yet, a poison that could be applied to the enemy without he understands he has been poisoned; see below for methods of how to poison a target without attacking them. For several seconds, maybe even a minute, the target wouldn’t lose any health, only to suddenly fall down in a knocked out state, heavily damaged.

Methods of exposing the target to poison
Now I come to how we could expose and inflict the poison to the targets in different ways, other than Oblivions add-to-weapon-and-attack style. When I think of methods of how a person/creature can be poisoned, I don’t think of dipping a sword in poison and hitting them with it. Instead, I think of food and drink added poisons, smoke and gas types of air borne poisons and throw able liquid bottles that we smash in the opponents face, all that before I think of adding it to a weapon. Stealth types of poisoning could include hand shakes with poisoned gloves or cutting / sticking a small needle into the victims skin, unnoticeable and if done from the shadows, impossible to relate to you in any near future. Weapons that could be coated with poison should be specially made for it, such as swords and axes with small “empty hole”-types of things at the blade part of them that could contain the poison. Specially made arrows could also be poisoned, but adding it to normal arrows would make the poison many times less effective, as only a small portion of it hits the target.


New effects
I already talked about “stumbling” and being “knocked out” by a sort of black out effect and both were nice examples of what I mean with new effects. Other examples that I come to think of are hallucinations or making the target behave in a different way, in a more in-depth-way than mere demoralize, calm and frenzy. By that I mean poisons that could make the enemy hungry or tired, possibly making guards leave their posts as they feel so hungry, without killing them. Perhaps deseases could be a type of poison, effecting them in different ways and maybe lead them to the brink of suicide?

Now my fellow forum members and Skyrim fans, discuss and share what you think about all this and bring up new ideas, angles and possibilities of poisons and means of how we can use them! I’m sure many of you have come to think about this in some way, tell me what you think about this!

Not bad. Not bad at all!

I would really love for pure damage poisons to be applied directly and not over time. It could fit if you poison your enemy and then run for it, the poison killing the enemy after a 30 seconds chase, but that wouldn't exactly fit the sneaky stealth guy.
Why?
Because what a pure stealth-character wants, is to be able to deal the maximal possible damage in one hit. They are fragile, but deadly. Kill an enemy instantly, or you'll have to turn around and flee.
The damage-over-time poisons contradicts this, and now that they have moved Alchemy to Stealth I hoped they have changed the view on Alchemy as well, with instant-effect poisons instead of over-time, at least when it comes to pure damage.

I'd like a few weapons that are specifically for the purpose of poisoning people. Poison darts and arrows with cavities in them, making the projectile weak, but multiplying the effects of any poison applied to it.

I remember a quest in Morrowind where you had to sneak into a guys house and poison his cauldron, good times. I'd like to se more of it. Yay for poisons!

As I said there earlier, I think there really should be specially made weapons for poison use. If you'd apply the poison to a normal arrow or normal weapon, its effect would be greatly diminished becuase the very small amount of posion that the weapon is able to deliver.


Yes exactly, but not only the fast working posions, but the different ways of poisoning the enemies. I though of having an assassination quest where you are supposed to kill the target in silence. Turns out he's always followed by a body guard and that never leaves. So after a bit of following I would notice where he spends his night and the next morning I could poison all the food in there. Most surely would he then eat it and die, without anything pointing that it was me.

The gas posion I was thinking about could have an area of effect that could poison you as well if you don't throw it far enough or the wind catches it and brings it to you. Not a very accurate way of poisoning one person, but if thrown in the middle of a bandit group, everyone would be effected. Add in a sublte stumble to the gas effect and you could hide in the shadows, reading the liquid bottle type posion that you can throw at anyone comming near you. This would make alchemy into a weapon and not only a boost to combat. You wouldn't even have to specialize in a weapon type if poisons where made really in depth. Of course there are immune creatures and the Argonians, so it wouldn't be out of balance compared to other weapon types.


Add that to situations outside quests and poisons would instantly become better ad more fun to use!

the grandmother's old recipe to kill evil wizzards: Harrada + Rot ScaleSI + Spiddal Stick + Steel-Blue Entoloma Cap

= the six effect poison: Burden + Damage Health + Damage Magicka + Fire Damage + Paralyze + Silence

i hope still can do this

What about the different ways of adding poisons to wizards, you see that is not my main pointof this thread. All poisons in Oblivion only had one function, add to weapon and attack, thus revealing that you are there. We could mix up a poison that causes no visible damage at first, nor any visible effect on the targets magicka pool or fatigue. Then suddenly they all impact the target at once, draining all of his status pools into a near 0 state, depending on the power of the poison. If you use the special needle or the hand shacking glove, you could poison him without him ever knowing he has been effected.

The main point of this thread was for you to give your thoughts and views on different special effects and ways that we can expose others to the poison with. Perhaps we could have a water borne poison, that would effect everyone who swim in the water, given that the water mass is small enough for the poison to be able to effet the once who swim there. That could be another way of adding up poison to our targets

I would love having like a blow-dart gun to shoot darts at people. And if it hits thicker clothing or armor, it does not effect them, aside from them possibly noticing the dart and being on alert. But if it makes contact with skin or thin clothes, it poisons them.

How come I didn't come up with that, it's a method that has been used in real life for a very long time! I'll quote you into the origial post. This could be a way of adding a poison to the target from afar without them knowing they have been poisoned, given that the dart is small enough. :thumbsup:

I'd rather the alchemy system was used with justr new ways of applying the potions. That way as long as there is a spell effect you could use it as a poison. Maybe each material you use could have three categories of properties.

Spell effects: parylise, etc.

duration effects: instant, over time etc

strenght of effect

For applications each npc in a stable position should have some poisonable food near him or her. be it a tankard in a tavern, a houses pantry, or a gaurds flask. You could distract a guard by punching someone and when they call for help you quickly run and poison their flask. Or you could poison the Tankards of a taavenr and when drinks are poured in the potion would come into effect. a simple sleeping draught and you could steal wahetever you want.

I like the glove idea.

I was always a fan of making a Damage Health poison,simple and clean. Stay away from the target,fire away the arrow - by the time they get to you they just collapse. It's fun seeing them try to swing at you and then loose their life force and just plummet to the ground. I enjoy it almost as equaly when get a head/neck shot from a distance (no zoom ofcourse).

EDIT: And ofcourse this is a pretty good recipe,will try it out. :goodjob:

The effects I was thinking about would be unique to poisons, it is after all a stealth type of skill in Skyrim so it would make sence if we'd have unique effects. So I'd change the three categories into:


Effect: Paralyzis, silence, knock out, make hungry, feel sleepy, stumble around, damage health, drain magicka etc.
Duration: Instant, over time constantly until effect ends, in "waves", unnoticeable for a full minute and then give in an instant effect etc.
Strength of effect: Which measures how much of the effect would be added. So a poison could have a knock out effect of the magnitude of X, where a grow man could resist a bit higher than X, thus making it better for the hunt of creatures.

hasnt alchemy been moved to stealth. I would definately prefer it if potions could be applied in that way. And potions are a lot more versatile than basic poisons

Yes alchemy has been moved to stealth, that's exactly my point. It seems rather odd if they won't add up with a bit more ways of dealing out poison to enemies. Potions and poisons overall, the only difference in Oblivion was the effect. A poison could be turned into a potion by merely adding in a restore fatigue effect. So what I suggest, and want, and have been thinking about, is a way of using poisons in a more fun way, not only as a negative potion type of thing. I'd actually go as far as making alchemy totally independent from weapons, so that instead of starting using one haded, two handed or marksman weapons, we could start using poisons. If time and effort is made to make them more versatile and effective, it could easily be done. Howevr, the big question is, does bethesda want to make alchemy into a weapon, or keep is as a fortyfier of weapons? Perhaps there should be poisons that cause deseases to the target, made out of creatures that are sick and dying and using it to spread horror and pain into the enemy, possibly rendering them suicidal because of what they have caught.

Good ideas :thumbsup: . Here's some books from Morrowind you should read:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_Cake_and_the_Diamond Trust me when I say it has a funny ending...
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:A_Game_at_Dinner One of my favorite Morrowind books...
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Last_Scabbard_of_Akrash Ends with a powerfull poison...
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:A_Hypothetical_Treachery It may not be about alchemy but it reflexts on some of your ideas... ...and got a usefull way of poisoning someone...
Also a cool way of poisoning someone would be to poison some food and have the poison be a permanent hidden effect and even if mixed into a potion the effect would aply... that would also make for a grand quest! Stopping an assassin by adding a cure poison effect to his poison!

Great pieves of literacy, although it was easy to know what would happen in them it was fun to read them. My computer doesn't want to open the last one though, maybe post the text here as a spoiler so I can read it?

But I had a great heureca moment in the sauna some half an hour ago, adding poison powder to a fire or a warm surface could work as a slow working, yet large gas bomb, inflicting poison to many persons nearby as they confume the toxic fumes.

I've always thought poisons that drive the enemy mad would be nice... you could use the frenzy magic for the poison, and it could be used to shoot one enemy in a group and watch him attack his allies while you lurk in the shadows :ninja:

Indeed, but I thought of going further than simple Frenzy effect. It could trigger so much more than mere aggression, but I admit that a poison with a powerful frenzy effect would be great fun and useful. Meybe a spell that adds an illusion on the targets body, twisting the light that reflects over his body so that anyone who looks at him would see a huge troll. The others would attack him without him defending himself first as he would be so confused. That could work as a way of killing of the strongest enemy in a group, because mere frenzy on the same target could have lead to the strong guy killing everyone else becuase he gets the first blow landed.

I just hope we can apply poisons to just about anything. Go into a pub grab the last loaf of bread and poison it with a frenzy type effect so when someone eats it they pull a assassins creed poison type moment and start swinging their weapon around haha.

other then the fact that I find that very fun I really do want to just be able to apply a poison to any food source at least as well as have more effort spent on making all things stealth more viable and useful. It really does feel like the least cared about of the 3 main archetypes in TES games by the devs. If they are going to make fighting and magic more in depth stealth better be as well.

The last link didn't work for me either so I remade it... does it work? if not I'll post the text...

I usually stuck to simpler potions myself to, the hard to make ones I tend to conserve for hard battles who was rare. Damage health, perhaps damage health and an elemental damage. silence+ damage health against magic users, damage health+ paralyze on swords and daggers.
My pure mage used poisons against liches and other bosses with reflect spell effect, yes I used weakness to poison to make it work often together with weakness to magic. here I preferred more advanced poisons as I used few.

Well, playing as a ranger type of character in Skyrim, I would love allot of poisons to make my arrows more deadly. Poison and paralysis would be great effects when hunting huge animals like mammoths. It will also make it more fun to travel the wilderness gathering ingridients. Strong poison should cripple the enemies over time making them slow and weak and after a while die. The time before death should depent on the size of your enemy, the bigger ones takes longer time.

Very true. I think the illusion effect would work best as an enchantment though, enchanted the arrow with the illusion, and poison it with frenzy, that way he turns into an angry troll in the eyes of his allies, so everyone is guaranteed to attack. That also makes it more difficult so I couldn't just make a ton of potions, I'd have to get the enchantment made also

Plus, that way it only takes one shot, so you don't give up your location

But how is your overall view on the fact that any weapon could be poisoned in Oblivion? I just thought it would be the wrong way of adding poisons to Skyrim. That's why there should be all these new ways of poisoning enemies on and perhaps take away the poisoning of a weapon completely, unless it is specially made blades and arrows for it.

Come to think of it, could a blade coated with damage apply poison to more than the first time it hits? I think it could, but taking most of the effect away for each added strike, until it doesn't do any real harm.

I don't know why you guys keep suggesting things. The game is done at this point