Why is poison use "evil"?

[BowStreetRunner]

None of these arguments make any sense. Sticking poison on your sword is giving yourself an unfair advantage, but putting a ton of magical enhancements on your sword, or just broadly doing any number of far more effective things, is not. Causing extreme and debilitating pain is evil, when it's poison, but when it's the spell poison with its identical combat effect it's just fine. Poison strips away control somehow, but charm/dominate person is totally non-evil.

In fact, in the historical societies that established the morality that poison use is evil, witchcraft and magic were also considered evil. The relevant morality was established under a warrior-caste nobility that considered strength to be a virtue and therefore accepted that dominating the weak with martial prowess was acceptable but undermining authority with cunning and subterfuge was dishonorable and wicked. Poison and witchcraft were equally invalid methods to victory.

[eggynack]

One of the major problems is that Sleep Poison, something that should arguably be a tool of Good-aligned nations due to its ability to incapacitate foes humanely, is a D&D sacred cow for Drow slavers. Slaughtering that cow would be a necessary step in realigning (pun intended) the poison rules.

That actually isn't a problem. Drow sleep poison is already explicitly mentioned as a non-evil poison in BoED, in spite of its associations.

Edit: Which, come to think of it, instantly negates any argument that isn't, "It deals ability damage." Oh, wait, I haven't yet negated the part about it being damage over time. The fact that dragon bile lacks secondary damage and is still evil is what negates that part. Blue whinnis also, given that the secondary effect is not ability damage. So, I guess all the other arguments, about this being unfair or control removing, are irrelevant. Not like falling unconscious is any less hazardous to your health in a battle than taking a couple points of constitution damage is. Thus, the only thing needed to negate the argument that poison being evil makes sense is that there's a ton of stuff that deals ability damage which is not evil.

[HighWater]

In fact, in the historical societies that established the morality that poison use is evil, witchcraft and magic were also considered evil. The relevant morality was established under a warrior-caste nobility that considered strength to be a virtue and therefore accepted that dominating the weak with martial prowess was acceptable but undermining authority with cunning and subterfuge was dishonorable and wicked. Poison and witchcraft were equally invalid methods to victory.

Quoted for truth, with the added exception for Divine Magic performed by the state-sanctioned religious organs. Of course, they were two peas in a pod (and generally from the same families)...

@OP: The question is really: Do you want to abide by the strict, internally inconsistent and regularly conflicting Rules of Objective Morality as written, or do you want to find your own path applying a more flexible, more consistent relative morality with little guidance from the books. Be warned, both paths make for rocky to travels.

In the first, poisons are Evil, because they are and you shouldn't be asking these kinds of questions lest you be judged a Heretic!
In the second, its not just the dose, but also the situation in which it is used, that makes the poison.

[BowStreetRunner]

...Do you want to abide by the strict, internally inconsistent and regularly conflicting Rules of Objective Morality as written, or do you want to find your own path applying a more flexible, more consistent relative morality with little guidance from the books. Be warned, both paths make for rocky to travels...

It's really going to depend upon the DM and Players. There are some groups with which I would just throw out 'that's what's in the rules, just go with it' to avoid headaches, and other groups with which I would definitely feel comfortable employing a more nuanced morality.

[Andor13]

In fact, in the historical societies that established the morality that poison use is evil, witchcraft and magic were also considered evil. The relevant morality was established under a warrior-caste nobility that considered strength to be a virtue and therefore accepted that dominating the weak with martial prowess was acceptable but undermining authority with cunning and subterfuge was dishonorable and wicked. Poison and witchcraft were equally invalid methods to victory.

This, although even then, it's a fairly modern notion. Hercules, the literal embodiment of martial strength in the ancient world, is also famed for using incredibly deadly poison. (Of course he also 'died' from that same poison being applied to him, so...)

[SimonMoon6]

I believe (without proof) that this is the reason why poison is Evil in D&D:

In first edition, all poison was save or die. Weak poisons (like giant centipede poison) gave you a bonus to your save, but it was still save or die.

That's incredibly powerful, right? Well, obviously that's too powerful to let PCs have. You don't want PCs flinging "save or die" attacks all the time (unless they're spellcasters of course). So, how can we prevent PCs from using poison? We can call it "evil". And no PC will ever use "evil" stuff. So, problem solved.

There's no real reason why it should be evil in 3rd edition except for this legacy.

Even back in the day, this was silly. Killing someone with a sword? Fine. Killing someone with poison? Oooooh, what a terrible person you are.

I could see it as being "dishonorable" (and therefore against a paladin's code), but I can't understand it being evil when racial cleansing ("Kill all orcs") is perfectly acceptable.

[Nifft]

I believe (without proof) that this is the reason why poison is Evil in D&D:

In first edition, all poison was save or die. Weak poisons (like giant centipede poison) gave you a bonus to your save, but it was still save or die.

That's incredibly powerful, right? Well, obviously that's too powerful to let PCs have. You don't want PCs flinging "save or die" attacks all the time (unless they're spellcasters of course). So, how can we prevent PCs from using poison? We can call it "evil". And no PC will ever use "evil" stuff. So, problem solved.

There's no real reason why it should be evil in 3rd edition except for this legacy.

Even back in the day, this was silly. Killing someone with a sword? Fine. Killing someone with poison? Oooooh, what a terrible person you are.

I could see it as being "dishonorable" (and therefore against a paladin's code), but I can't understand it being evil when racial cleansing ("Kill all orcs") is perfectly acceptable.

Actually there was a table for who was allowed to use poison (and even who was allowed to use oil).

Killing someone with a sword was a class ability -- some classes didn't get access to swords.

Killing someone with poison was also a class ability -- some classes didn't get access to poison.

Killing someone with a spell was obviously a class ability -- some classes didn't get access to spells.


It might have been silly to silo those different styles of murder, but it wasn't particularly unfair in that context.

[RoboEmperor]

Man v.s. Man, sword and shield v.s. sword and shield, this is an honorable fight that pits the two man's strength and skills to their absolute limits to determine who is the better.

Poison = Cheap shot. It robs its opponent to pit their strength and skill against you since a slight scratch will kill them, or if you put it in their food. Therefore it is evil.

Not in d&d where poison is easily resisted, but this is the gist of good/evil mentality/morality in medieval times.

"Evil" people use things that let them kill things vastly stronger than them using cheap shots like poison against an army general or political manipulation to jail/exile/execute said general forever. "Good" people challenge them to a 1 on 1 duel.

[BowStreetRunner]

Man v.s. Man, sword and shield v.s. sword and shield, this is an honorable fight that pits the two man's strength and skills to their absolute limits to determine who is the better.

Poison = Cheap shot. It robs its opponent to pit their strength and skill against you since a slight scratch will kill them, or if you put it in their food. Therefore it is evil.

Not in d&d where poison is easily resisted, but this is the gist of good/evil mentality/morality in medieval times.

"Evil" people use things that let them kill things vastly stronger than them using cheap shots like poison against an army general or political manipulation to jail/exile/execute said general forever. "Good" people challenge them to a 1 on 1 duel.

Yep. Medieval morality always did favor strong, skilled bullies pitting their strength and martial skills against weak, untrained peasants and laborers. Anything that could level the playing field in favor of the weak (like poison) was obviously immoral. Peasants were also frequently barred from having weapons, too.

[Kish]

Something that has the explicit supernatural ability to discriminate between targets and brings holy power against evil creatures? Not quite the same as an indiscriminate poison.

Yes, this.

If I, personally, wanted to kill someone, I wouldn't put poison in their food because I'd consider the risk of an innocent person eating that food unacceptably high.

If I had a poison that was enchanted to only affect my target, or only my target and other people who needed killin', I'd go right ahead and put that in my target's food.

[AvatarVecna]

Poison is evil because it's extremely debilitating at best or lethal at worst. Murder isn't okay unless a handsome man in polished armor riding a muscular horse is doing it.

[eggynack]

Yes, this.

If I, personally, wanted to kill someone, I wouldn't put poison in their food because I'd consider the risk of an innocent person eating that food unacceptably high.

If I had a poison that was enchanted to only affect my target, or only my target and other people who needed killin', I'd go right ahead and put that in my target's food.

How does this criteria distinguish between using an arrow tipped with a poison and using an arrow tipped with a ravage? The evil thing isn't using a poison. It's taking some arbitrary action which shows a disregard for some consequence that could befall innocents. I could name a ton of non-evil spells which could plausibly hurt random bystanders. Doing evil things is evil. Various tools can be better or worse at doing evil things, but, broadly speaking, tools are not intrinsically evil.

[Venger]

well, he called his poison a "ravage" first, so he's covered

[hamishspence]

Anything that could level the playing field in favor of the weak (like poison) was obviously immoral.

It still is heavily frowned on - being barred by conventions like the Geneva Convention.

This, although even then, it's a fairly modern notion. Hercules, the literal embodiment of martial strength in the ancient world, is also famed for using incredibly deadly poison. (Of course he also 'died' from that same poison being applied to him, so...)

Hercules is usually portrayed as having died from centaur blood smeared on his shirt, not hydra venom. That said, I've read versions of the mythos in which one of his friends got injured in the process of retrieving the arrows from the bodies of the slain, and died.

[Venger]

Hercules is usually portrayed as having died from centaur blood smeared on his shirt, not hydra venom. That said, I've read versions of the mythos in which one of his friends got injured in the process of retrieving the arrows from the bodies of the slain, and died.

Nessus told Megara to do Hercules's laundry in his blood to make him stay faithful. She did, and the hydra poison in Nesuss's blood years later, even diluted in the washwater, burned Hercules's skin like acid and he flew into a rage and in the process of taking off his cape, killed his family and had to do the labors. He didn't die, but he was definitely harmed directly and indirectly by the poison. Narratively, he wasn't punished for using poison to kill monsters, he was punished by Hera, who engineered all this, for his crime of being one of Zeus's bastard children.

[hamishspence]

Nessus told Megara to do Hercules's laundry in his blood to make him stay faithful. She did, and the hydra poison in Nesuss's blood years later, even diluted in the washwater, burned Hercules's skin like acid and he flew into a rage and in the process of taking off his cape, killed his family and had to do the labors.

Not in the version I read.

In that, it's Hercules's last wife, Deianira, who does so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deianira

Some versions say Nessus's blood was made poisonous by hydra venom, but some, I think, have suggested that centaur blood is naturally poisonous.

[Mordaedil]

None of these arguments make any sense. Sticking poison on your sword is giving yourself an unfair advantage, but putting a ton of magical enhancements on your sword, or just broadly doing any number of far more effective things, is not. Causing extreme and debilitating pain is evil, when it's poison, but when it's the spell poison with its identical combat effect it's just fine. Poison strips away control somehow, but charm/dominate person is totally non-evil.

Hell, we don't even have to go that far. There's roughly a bajillion spells out there that render the target essentially powerless. Let's be maximally ironical and go with constricting chains, a frigging sanctified spell, one that can target good creatures just fine, which renders the target totally immobile and deals them non-lethal damage every turn. In a single sanctified spell, we have an effect more powerful and unfair than nearly any poison could hope to be, given that it's entirely lacking in a save and very difficult to escape, painful and debilitating (and the fact that this spell doesn't kill by itself is not pertinent given that a lot of poisons do not kill either), and it removes control from the target way more than some ability damage does. How is poison more evil than one of the most good spells in the entire game?

I mean, killing things is kinda evil at the base of things. Most morality for adventuring is rooted as a last resort of violence perspective. We just very easily skip past most steps to get to the violence for convenience of it also being a game.

Unless you think killing and murder is just, in which case, uh, welcome to neutral evil territory. Please pick up our gifts basket and tribute card. The hypocracy is free of charge.

[tterreb]

I mean, killing things is kinda evil at the base of things. Most morality for adventuring is rooted as a last resort of violence perspective. We just very easily skip past most steps to get to the violence for convenience of it also being a game.

Unless you think killing and murder is just, in which case, uh, welcome to neutral evil territory. Please pick up our gifts basket and tribute card. The hypocracy is free of charge.

Thank goodness. Most places charge for the hypocrisy.

[Venger]

I mean, killing things is kinda evil at the base of things. Most morality for adventuring is rooted as a last resort of violence perspective. We just very easily skip past most steps to get to the violence for convenience of it also being a game.

Unless you think killing and murder is just, in which case, uh, welcome to neutral evil territory. Please pick up our gifts basket and tribute card. The hypocracy is free of charge.

I mean, if D&D had started out as a self-contained setting instead of just being lotr, I really don't think people in-universe would have the same attitude towards being killed. When it's easily undone with a dozen or so spell effects, and adventurers are hardly in short supply, I don't think it'd be nearly as serious of a crime as it is in real life, when you can't raise the dead. There would still be laws against it, and people wouldn't love it if it got done to them, but I envision it as being somewhat like robbery in the eyes of the law and in public opinion:

Judge: "You killed this guy who didn't deserve it?"
Murderer: "Yeah"
Judge: "Ok, pay the money to get him rezd, go to prison for a while as a slap on the wrist, seeya later"

[Obscuraphile]

Judge: "You killed this guy who didn't deserve it?"
Murderer: "Yeah"
Judge: "Ok, pay the money to get him rezd, go to prison for a while as a slap on the wrist, seeya later"

That assumes a certain prevalence of 10th level clerics which is not really supported by the city generation rules in the DMG. Plus somebody could have too low a Con to be raised, simply not wish to come back, and/or there could be no chance to reach a population center large enough in time. I think in most parts of a standard fantasy world people still see death and murder as significant events

[Venger]

That assumes a certain prevalence of 10th level clerics which is not really supported by the city generation rules in the DMG. Plus somebody could have too low a Con to be raised, simply not wish to come back, and/or there could be no chance to reach a population center large enough in time. I think in most parts of a standard fantasy world people still see death and murder as significant events

You only need to be a 9th lvl cleric to cast raise dead (or 7th lvl druid for reincarnate, assuming you don't live in a racist community) Well, if one doesn't live in your city, get one from somewhere else. Fast travel is all over the place in this system, as is mass communication. He can't charge any more for casting the spell than anyone else, so unlike in real life, it's not like it'll cost you more. Even assuming some kind of dystopia where no one takes pc levels, since normal commoners have cons of 10 or 11, even at the oldest age categories, it's gonna take a couple of rezs to get to con 2.

If people are passively suicidal and don't want to be rezd, I feel like they'd communicate it to their loved ones, like with DNR bracelets used in our world for similar purposes. You probably wouldn't want your family to waste a bunch of money on diamonds if you weren't gonna use them.

Unless you're living in a cave by yourself, your town's gonna have a cleric who can do gentle repose and you can walk your loved one into town on a wagon, like we did in History, assuming your town doesn't have a communal bag of holding to gunnysack your loved one in a vacuum, so they can't rot.

But yeah, people are still probably eaten alone in the woods by bears because they couldn't make their nature checks and stuff all the time.

[Mordaedil]

I assumed the average meant that people as an average had a score of 10, not that every commoner had a score of 10. So people in the outskirts would possibly have 12-14 con, while somebody in inner cities would maybe have 6-8 con, due to pollutants and others. Or to put a different way, commoners are generated using 3d6 model instead of 4d6 discard lowest.

[Venger]

I assumed the average meant that people as an average had a score of 10, not that every commoner had a score of 10. So people in the outskirts would possibly have 12-14 con, while somebody in inner cities would maybe have 6-8 con, due to pollutants and others. Or to put a different way, commoners are generated using 3d6 model instead of 4d6 discard lowest.

Nah. When you read the bits on statting towns and such, you assume commoners have 10s or 11s in their stats. I guess if you generate npcs by rolling, then you could get a bunch of people with terrible con from birth, but that's not the default method of generation for large populations.

[skunk3]

My character is going to be true neutral or possibly chaotic neutral. My levels for the near future will be Rogue 2 / Fighter 2 / Avenger 9, and then possibly Arcane Trickster (but not set in stone) to bump my assassinate save DC higher along with items and feats to enhance death attack. I also want to use poison (since it is a class skill and I've never messed with it before) but I will of course only be using poisons on evil enemies... so my DM and I can argue about it if she wants to push the matter. :)

[RoboEmperor]

My character is going to be true neutral or possibly chaotic neutral. My levels for the near future will be Rogue 2 / Fighter 2 / Avenger 9, and then possibly Arcane Trickster (but not set in stone) to bump my assassinate save DC higher along with items and feats to enhance death attack. I also want to use poison (since it is a class skill and I've never messed with it before) but I will of course only be using poisons on evil enemies... so my DM and I can argue about it if she wants to push the matter. :)

Doing evil just means you can't be good alignment. You are Neutral at best. If she is forcing you to play an evil alignment or banning "evil" altogether then she is wrong.

[MeimuHakurei]

Poison and disease are generally the tools of evil monsters and characters, implements of corruption and destruction. If snakes and vermin are associated with evil, as they are in many cultures, it is usually because of their venom that they are viewed in such a negative light despite their neutral alignment. Using poison that deals ability damage is an evil act because it causes undue suffering in the process of incapacitating or killing an opponent. Of the poisons described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, only one is acceptable for good characters to use: oil of taggit, which deals no damage but causes unconsciousness. Ironically, the poison favored by the evil drow, which causes unconsciousness as its initial damage, is also not inherently evil to use.

I can personally see that poison use specifically is comparable to allying with evil creatures - you can do this as a good character, but you must take utmost care not to permit any evil actions or to cause unnecessary harm to happen. And yeah, I think they could've implemented a paragraph better explaining why ravages/afllictions are more acceptable than poison.

Still, I wholeheartedly agree with the book's stance on "evil deeds for good ends":

Some good characters might view a situation where an evil act is required to avert a catastrophic evil as a form of martyrdom: “I can save a thousand innocent lives by sacrificing my purity.” For some, that is a sacrifice worth making, just as they would not hesitate to sacrifice their lives for the same cause. After all, it would simply be selfish to let innocents die so a character can hang on to her exalted feats.
Unfortunately, this view is ultimately misguided. This line of thinking treats the purity of the good character’s soul as a commodity (like her exalted feats) that she can just give up or sacrifice like any other possession. In fact, when an otherwise good character decides to commit an evil act, the effects are larger than the individual character. What the character sees as a personal sacrifice is actually a shift in the universal balance of power between good and evil, in evil’s favor. The consequences of that single evil act, no matter how small, extend far beyond the single act and involve a loss to more than just the character doing the deed. Thus, it is not a personal sacrifice, but a concession to evil, and thus unconscionable.

[tterreb]

By this logic would that mean feats such as disemboweling strike (reduce sneak attack by 4d6 in order to deal 1d4 con damage) are evil as well?

[Venger]

By this logic would that mean feats such as disemboweling strike (reduce sneak attack by 4d6 in order to deal 1d4 con damage) are evil as well?

no. not even boed is dopey enough to say all forms of ability damage are Evil.

[tterreb]

no. not even boed is dopey enough to say all forms of ability damage are Evil.

It's not the ability damage so much as the "causing undue suffering in the process of incapacitating or killing an opponent." I've never been disemboweled before, but I don't imagine it would be much better than being poisoned. Some poisons could be downright pleasant as they killed you.

[Acanous]

Yeah the best way to approach this is that the D&D cosmology is independent of our own. They have a deist universe where the gods are physically present and human-like for the most part. Those gods hold a monopoly on the afterlife and basically split into “teams” who decide what sort of people they want in their afterlife bubble.

In recent years, and by that I mean the last two decades, Wizards has avoided current political trends and real-world parallels as much as possible. They’re experimenting with adding some left-friendly stuff to published adventures and MTG now, and that’s getting heavy push back.
(Not weighing in on one side or the other here, merely stating what has occurred, plz no banhammer)
On that same note, they have grandfathered in alignment systems first coined by the old Cheeto-stained grognards with antisocial tendencies that first brought D&D to life from the bones of Chainmail.

Much is left to the DM, including tweaking alignment, but as written, well, it’s a reflection on the outlook of social hermits from fourty years ago. With how much our society has shifted in morality since then, is it really any wonder we find the alignment system flawed and not representative of our current values?

Part of the fun of immersive role play in a world where gods walk around and witches actually do curse farmers is seeing the differences in outlook that those people would have.

Imagine how a lawful good god of fertility and the harvest would feel about homosexuality, birth control or abortion, or how a chaotic good god of luck would feel about socialized health care, government safety nets, or tiered taxation. Lawful Evil gods would be all for drone strikes, while L/G war gods would find such things dishonourable. The values these gods hold may conflict drastically with our own, match, or be somewhere in between, but they actually have the power to declare stuff objectively good or evil, (or lawful or chaotic, though that’s usually less cared about) and magic that interacts with objective good and evil then agrees with the decision.

Mortals can’t really argue, though they get some leeway to disagree (like the one-step off rule for clerics) without being punished for it in most cases. The closer to embodying your gods values you are, the more power can be made available to you, but the more rigidly you are held to that god’s personal dogma.

In the case of poisons vs ravages, for example, the entire thing is completely arbitrary and hypocritical, but that’s ok because the gods are flawed and probably got mad that team evil had all the poisons but couldn’t walk back that decision.