Well I was surprised and disappointed to say the least, to see that Stoneskins seems to prevent me from injecting the poison. Don't see how it can be an efficient anti-mage ability if it can't even pierce those. I can tolerate that it wont affect the target if the hits don't connect - which I witnessed when trying to take out the Glabrezu in Irenicus dungeon with a Poison coated Staff +1 (yes I know he's immune to poison, didn't learn that until after I killed Ilyich though) - but I thought it was a given that it, like any other weapon which deals extra non-physical damage, would be useful for countering those annoying layers of stone. I think the poison is in fact quite useless, with the improved mages who cast stoneskin as soon as you enter the area. Sure it might've been useful against enemies other than mages, had it not been for the fact that an Assassin insta-kills with Backstab (mine usually does anyway). Oh well, gonna dual this one to a fighter later on, maybe the poison will prove somewhat useful in combination with GWW. ;)

Anyway, would be nice if someone could confirm that poison is indeed not supposed to pierce stoneskins, or that my game is just bugged.

Also,I'd appreciate it if someone could explain how the Poison really works, since it in my game had a far shorter duration and dealt out far less damage than what it's description indicated.

[ 01-31-2003, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

Not providing answers, but being sympathetical to you your cause [img]smile.gif[/img]
I had a solo assasin once, but gave up once I noticed that poison indeed does far less damage than the description and its poison doesnt penetrate stoneskin.
Big dissapointment really :(

Yeah, the poison was pretty much the only reason I chose an Assassin. His other advantage comes into play at what? Lvl 16? By then, nothing that could be backstabbed in the first place, would survive a 5x backstab, so it's sort of pointless to get 6x or 7x really.

[ 02-01-2003, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

Seriously, how could someone get poisoned if he don't even get hit, or if he is covered by stone? You need to cut the skin for the poison to get into the person's blood...

That seem obvious to me.

I concur with Luvian. When you step back to think about it... how is the poison going to penetrate a Stoneskin? Elemental damage I can understand, fire is hot, cold is cold, electricity conducts, acid melts, but poison? Not going to happen. That said and done, get Use Any Item, use the Staff of Magi to dispel the Stoneskin, then backstab. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

ADD] Backstab with a different weapon by the way.

[ 02-01-2003, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

Ok, but if we want to look at this realistically, acid shouldn't damage a stoneskinned target either, not until it had eaten away the stoneskins at least.

But still, the game description says that the next hit will poison the target. Connecting, but hitting a stoneskin, is in all other cases regarded as a "hit" by the game, thus, the target should be poisoned if the description was correct [img]smile.gif[/img]
Besides, I had heard that it was an excellent mage-killer, how it can be a mage-killer if it doesn't pierce stoneskin and lasts for maybe 5 seconds, is beyond me though...

Also, doesn't anyone know what the real duration/dmg of the Poison skill is?

[ 02-01-2003, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

Yeah, but the game also says that if you pass your THACO roll, your Mighty Sword of Doom +1 will hit the target for so and so damage. Unless you want the game designers to be as meticulous as lawyers with item descriptions that scroll for 5 pages just to describe why it looks that way, you got to take some things with a pinch of salt. ;)

As for the poison, it seems to work the way that it is supposed to work, accordingly to my now-retired solo Assassin at least.

I think carsomyr would work better. you dont even have to HIT the target really, since the sword allows you to cast a dispel magic 3x a day. and if you DO want/need to hit the target, carsomyr provides a +5 to thaco, while staff of the magi provides only a +1(though strikes as a +5 weapon, thus being capable of hitting anyone). staff of the magi on the other hand would provide the nice spell of "spelltrap", which will eat the enemy spells. both would be nice, first spelltrap, then dispel the stoneskin, gulp a potion of invisibilty, poison weapon and backstab. mage=mincedmeat

Little known fact. Without a mod, Carsomyr's dispel can be resisted. The SotM's version though... cannot be resisted. ;)

If you need to take out a mage with stoneskin, there is still a fairly easy way. The key is that the poison weapon skill applies to ranged attacks as well. I gave my assasin the Tuigan bow (for the ApR), and kept some arrows of dispelling handy. The first hit with the arrows will dispel the stoneskin, and subsequent hits will poison the target.

I just tested it by having one of my mages cast stoneskin, and then attacking with my level 22 assasin. I fired one arrow, and it took out the stoneskin but did not poison. I fired a second arrow and it poisoned the mage. I let the poison run its course and it did 30 points of poison damage. Furthur testing against fighter types and the mage again showed that if the victim makes a save vs. spell, then they are only poisoned for a total of 6 damage in about 2 rounds.

The thing to remember is that poisoned effects stack (both the assasin's skill--you can use multiple poison weapon skills at the same time--and each hit injects another dose of venom into the target). If you can hit a mage 3 or 4 times with poison, they will take that many times the damage.

If you are going to use the arrows of dispelling strategy, here are a few useful tips that I've learned:
1) Once you have dispelled a mage's protections, switch to other arrows--arrows of dispelling are fairly rare, and they don't do much damage
2) The mage spells protection from magical weapons, mantle, improved mantle and absolute immunity will make the arrows of dispelling useless (arrows are +2 enchantment, do not "hit" under these spells, so the dispel effect is not applied--same principle applies vs. enemies that are naturally immune to +2 and lower)
3) Find ways to maximize your damage. I like the Tuigan bow for it's extra attack, which is more opportunity to hit them with poison. I also like to shoot poisoned arrows of piercing, or acid, or better yet biting to get the most damage possible.
4) If you're after a tough mage using the dispelling arrows, don't have the rest of your party attack them right away. Since a lot of mages have contingencies set up to refresh stoneskin or cast prot from magical weapons, you want to make sure that if you're only going to get one unprotected hit against them, it's a poisoned one.

If you have installed the improved mages mod but don't want your assasin to be relegated to a ranged attacker, consider starting combat with a backstab against an enemy cleric, and then shooting at the mage. This way you will poison two of the enemies casters right off the bat. Since enemy clerics tend to cast for a round or three before going to melee, it should be safe to fire at the mage while standing next to the cleric...just run for it before the melee fighters can get to you.