Poison Food Puzzle

[Beelzebub1111]

Trying to think of ways to poison every bit of food at a banquet and ensure that the target is the only one who gets affected...
Poisoning the food and putting antidote in the drinks might work...

[Fayd]

You could research where he'll be sitting and just poison his spoon. Less messy that way, and it probably can't miss as well. Though this does mean you're not poisoning everything, which is a bit of a problem... Your solution might work...

[Makiru]

Go the Princess Bride approach and poison everything, making sure everybody else is immune to it? Might be a bit too obvious, but it could work.

[Dr Bwaa]

Took me a minute to think of this, but I'm liking it more and more. Hide your poison in plain sight:

1) Poison everything.
2) As the banquet begins, let "security catch" a "shady character" (paid-off & clueless peasant) with a bag containing traces of deadly poison.
3) In the interest of security, everyone now requires an antitoxin before they bust into their meal.
4) Go around the table, distributing antitoxins to everyone and a placebo to the target.
5) [OPTIONAL] Give a food-tester the antitoxin and have him eat a bit of everything; thus everything is fine and the meal goes on.

The issue with this is that it runs the risk of someone at the table knowing Detect Poison, since the topic is in the open. However, when your target (and no one else) dies, you've got a ready-made scapegoat for the proof of the poisoning, and it looks like the target's own fault for not taking his antitoxin for some reason (or whatever).

[valadil]

1) Poison everything.
2) As the banquet begins, let "security catch" a "shady character" (paid-off & clueless peasant) with a bag containing traces of deadly poison.
3) In the interest of security, everyone now requires an antitoxin before they bust into their meal.
4) Go around the table, distributing antitoxins to everyone and a placebo to the target.
5) [OPTIONAL] Give a food-tester the antitoxin and have him eat a bit of everything; thus everything is fine and the meal goes on.


If this is your plan, why bother with poison at all? It's just as easy to fabricate the shady character and distribute antitoxin. When you reach the target, give out poison instead of a placebo. This saves on poison costs (1 dose total instead of 1 per guest) and eliminates the chance of being caught poisoning ahead of time.

Question to the OP. Is poisoning everyone really necessary? Is it already a given? Or is it just a suggestion?



Poisoning the food and putting antidote in the drinks might work...

Hmmm. So poison all the food, antidote all the drinks. Then accidentally spill the target's drink before he can have a sip, forcing him to get a new beverage? Sounds good to me.

What system are you using. Does an antidote automatically neutralize? If it's D&D, I think the antidote just gives a bonus to fort saves vs poison. If you've got a whole banquet, some of the people besides the target will still fall to the poison.

[Aroka]

Trying to think of ways to poison every bit of food at a banquet and ensure that the target is the only one who gets affected...
Poisoning the food and putting antidote in the drinks might work...

Why the food? Use assigned seating, and poison the victim's plate/drinking cup/utensils with contact poison. (Or use simple sleight-of-hand to replace a fork or spoon with a poisoned one.)

[Lapak]

The first thing that comes to mind is to use a Mass Suggestion spell on everyone but your victim. "You're not hungry at all."

Less practical, and not really in the spirit of the puzzle, would be to replace all food except that of your victim with illusions, backed up with Mass Suggestion or similar as needed to sustain the illusion in the face of the food being eaten. If there's only the one serving of real food, making sure all the food is poisoned is not so hard.

[Dr Bwaa]

If this is your plan, why bother with poison at all? It's just as easy to fabricate the shady character and distribute antitoxin. When you reach the target, give out poison instead of a placebo. This saves on poison costs (1 dose total instead of 1 per guest) and eliminates the chance of being caught poisoning ahead of time.

First, because that's what the OP said he wanted, and second, because it's provably not your fault. You told everyone there was a danger the food was poisoned, and in the potential investigation, voila! The food is all poisoned! You did everything you could, but the poor fool failed to drink his antidote (or else--new scapegoat: the clerical/druidic order who prepared the antidote! angry mob!).

I am assuming you have the antidote to the poison you're using, in that it renders you temporarily immune or whatever (just assume it works, so there :smalltongue:).

The drink-spilling one is good though; whatever you go with you really basically need to be a participant in the dinner so you can be right in the action and slight-of-hand something/redirect blame when needed.

Of course, you can always just Shrink Item your poison so it's completely invisible as it falls off your cuff into the food of the target (as you serve him, naturally).

[Hyudra]

Simple route:

Poison one of the side dishes (say, grilled sweet potatoes). When the victim's plate is served, give him two or three times the amount of sweet potatoes. It's liable to escape notice, and in this manner, the victim could be assured a lethal dose, while everyone else just gets very ill.

The benefit being that since everyone was poisoned (a little), it becomes unclear who the target was, and likely deters an investigation into the only death.

[CubeB]

This was an Agatha Christie story. A murder occurred where everyone was poisoned, but only a single person died.

I can't remember how they did it, or even if they got the right person!

Giving someone extra helpings would probably be difficult to spot, however.

[TimeWizard]

This was an Agatha Christie story. A murder occurred where everyone was poisoned, but only a single person died.

I can't remember how they did it, or even if they got the right person!

Giving someone extra helpings would probably be difficult to spot, however.

The standard and now oft repeated tactic: poison one item, antidote another that the target won't consume. Once in Detective Conan with poison coffee and antidote cake (target hated sweets).

Poisoning the utensils works too. Why, though, are you insistent on poisoning all the food but only affecting one person? Is it to hide the target? You could try finding a substance the target is allergic to and add a lethal amount to a course. No one else will get sick (bar coincidence), save the target, and the blame is spared. If the goal is 100% likelihood of poisoning but no collateral damage, employ straighter methods. What's the reasoning? It will help you get better answer.

[Aroka]

Giving someone extra helpings would probably be difficult to spot, however.

But completely unreliable and uncontrollable. How do you stop a random guest randomly taking even more of the same dish?

[Rixx]

Yeah! I mean, I love sweet potatoes.

[The New Bruceski]

Simple route:

Poison one of the side dishes (say, grilled sweet potatoes). When the victim's plate is served, give him two or three times the amount of sweet potatoes. It's liable to escape notice, and in this manner, the victim could be assured a lethal dose, while everyone else just gets very ill.

The benefit being that since everyone was poisoned (a little), it becomes unclear who the target was, and likely deters an investigation into the only death.


Been reading Miss Marple? This was one murder method, putting foxglove in the soup and then slipping the victim a massive dose in her drink. Everyone gets ill and it's assumed that it was a mistake (as foxglove grew wild there) the victim died because of her old age making her weaker.

EDIT: that will teach me to reply before finishing the thread.

[icefractal]

While there aren't any rules for "two factor" poisons in D&D, that would be a possibility. Just administer one of the two to the target in advance, and then put the other one in all the food. Of course, since you're poisoning the target in advance, this is only useful if you want to control the apparent time of poisoning.

Hypothetically, if the target was attending two such events, and nobody else was attending both, you could distribute one factor at each event. That's pretty situational though.