Well, learn something new every day. I was browsing some older Daggerfall sites and even spelunking on the Internet Archive for sites that don't exist anymore (hunting for some ancient Donald Tripton utilities) when I discovered to my amazement that apparently poisoned weapons exist in Daggerfall! Not just for assassins attacking you, but apparently you can find them as loot! The catch? They weren't de-bugged properly (like so many other Daggerfall features) and the 'poison' attribute doesn't store in save game files, so you have to use it right away or it goes back to normal. Donald Tripton apparently designed a small patch to correct this, and also a utility to add poisons to weapons on demand-- the notes say there's several different poisons to choose from. Sadly, both these programs disappeared when he deleted his web content.
So what about it? Is it true? Something that other people have seen? Has anyone ever actually found a poisoned weapon in the game? If so, are there any copies of the Tripton patch to fix the problem out there? I've played Daggerfall for over a decade, off and on, and don't think I've ever seen a poisoned weapon as loot-- though in truth I rarely pick up weapons to sell unless they're Mithril or better. I've also got a habit of picking 'poison immunity' as an advantage, so I wouldn't even notice if I were attacked by one.
Even after all this time, Daggerfall continues to surprise.

Don't recall you need a patch o use magic items with an on strike effect. Maybe that was before the final official patch. Weapons with an on strike effect exist and can be brought from shops that cast not only poison but also fire and lightning.

Heres a list of shops:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Store/Item_Locations

No, no, no. These aren't magic weapons with a strike effect. These are various poisons-- by all accounts seven of them, with names like, 'moonseed'. Read this thread for the details. http://www.mombu.com/games/dagerfall/t-using-poisoned-weapons-1168196.html
And the internet archive of Tipton's old site: http://web.archive.org/web/20041206173653/http://www.rain.org/~cucumatz/daggerfall/quests.html#taint
Read how he describes them. Single use poison as an addition to a normal blade, like something you probably should have been able to add as a member of the Dark Brotherhood. Not a strike effect enchantment. From the description you probably should have been able to spike any weapon, enchanted or not, for a single poisonous attack.

Oh i see. It must be one of those features they dropped in the final game. Good find. It actually makes sense for an assassin to poison his weapons using a Dark Bro guild service if there was one.

I've spent a lot of time looking for Tipton's utilities (and some time looking for him) after losing my copies when someone decided to "borrow" and format the hard drive on my old computer. I think I posted a list of the ones I recovered on this board somewhere. I found most of them through the Internet archive though, so you probably have whatever I have.

I don't have the POISON util.

This is one of the things I would mod into DF if I could do it... maybe in DaggerXL?

I've found several. Orcs and humanoids seem to drop them, but usually you don't even stop to look at the info of some iron short sword, why would you? If you do, you can find all sorts of poisons on them. Don't remember the names though. I got a screenshot of one on the other computer though.

The names can be found in the spell list. I'm pretty sure these are all poisons you could find on a weapon:
Nox Vomica
Arsenic
Moonseed
Drothweed
Somnalius
Pyrrhic Acid
Magebane
Thyrwort
Indulcet
Sursum
Questro Vil

Some of them (the last 4) might only be present as useable drugs (find them in Thieves' Guild quests).

Ah, well spotted-- I didn't even think to look on the spell effect table. The last three at least are definitely drugs that appear in thief or noble smuggling quests, and I've seen them many times. Moonseed was mentioned in the posts I linked to, so, I'd say the others on the top of the list are probably exactly that. Guessing from names, I'd think 'Somnalius' would cause sleep or paralysis, and 'Magebane' reduce power or block spellcasting. That implies not all the poisons are just straight out damage effects, but might have been specific for certain uses? Just a guess, of course.



No, I usually don't stop to look at iron or steel weapons. But I think from now on I will, at least until I've seen a few of these and figured out if they're worth playing around with.

Yea, eg. magebane damages willpower IIRC.

Aha! After killing a large number of human 'monsters', I did find a mace with the tag 'poisoned with arsenic' on it! Can't test it, though-- it's steel and my character is forbidden from using steel weapons/armor. And of course, because of the glitch in the game, it won't save. But at least I know what the entry for a poison tag looks like in the game, now, and will be keeping my eyes open.