Is poison use evil?

[Shadowknight12]

Oh dear.

Poisoning a weapon is cheating. It's taking away the skill of the person using said weapon and replacing it with chemistry. It's not noble, it's not skillful and it's not any kind of fight when you can incapacitate or kill the other guy with the lightest of scratches.

The question isn't "Should I use it?" The question is, "Would I object it if it were used on me?" And if I need to go into this any further, I have a feeling it wouldn't make any difference.

Too technical. Too ludicrous. Get your classroom out of my RPG.

Poison makes things easier for you and harder for the enemy. But does it in a way that isn't clever, it's sneaky. It's not a tactical advantage or an ace in the hole, it's something that would have players screaming out about how unfair the GM was being if it were done to them.

In a place where morality can take concrete form and literally rip your lungs out, there is no argument that poison is evil.

Oh that was funny. Thanks for that chuckle.

I actually had a thought-out argument to counter every single point you're making here, but then I realised that it wouldn't make a difference, since you're applying your morality to the game and no amount of logic or sound reasoning is going to change that; you're too emotionally invested into this argument. It would be like trying to tell someone who is convinced that paladins must be Lawful Good that it's okay to have a Chaotic Good paladin. No amount of reasoning is going to change their deep-seated convictions. So why try?

If you think poison use is evil, that's okay. You can run your game however you like!

For the record: I wouldn't object to a DM using poison on my character. Why would I? It'd be just as silly as objecting to having been targeted by a Ray of Enfeeblement, Touch of Stupidity, Shivering Touch or a stat-draining attack from an undead creature (all together now: Shadows for Strength, Allips for Wisdom, Banshees for Charisma, Wraiths for Constitution, Forgewraiths for Dexterity, Dream Vestiges for Intelligence and Spectres for tasty, tasty levels!).