How does poison work?

Seems like every RPG handles poison differently. So let's do that.

Poison in Trep is a damage type - so, dmg:poison-n.

Figure most non-standard damage types will require some rules - dmg:fire should have a chance to set things on fire, dmg:cold to slow things down / freeze water, etc. So: poison would cause n points of stat damage (str/dex/end) once per minute until... something. Figure that out later. Once per minute, with the initial damage inflicted on hit.

Would it stack? IE, get hit w/ dmg:poison-3, take your three points, next second get hit again - do you take another 3? This feels wrong. What about  n-qty of doses? So, being hit by poison-3 would allow stacking as 3+2+1, with applications after the 3rd being ineffective? I think I like this. How to balance? Make poison expensive.

Alternate take: poison doesn't stack. Get hit once, take your points, get hit again - if you managed to get rid of the poison effect, you'd get it again, but otherwise, no additional effect.

Take 3: each additional hit, you'd take the additional poison hit, but it would reset the timer.

So, the options are:

• Take initial damage, and again on the minute; extra hits do nothing
• Take initial damage, extra hits are reduced in effect, and the total of first + additional on the minute
• Take initial damage, and again on extra hits, resetting the timer

I like the middle one for scaling's sake. dmg:poison-1 would max out at 1 point per minute; -2 would max out at 3 per minute; -3 at 6, -4 at 10, -5 at 15. That seems reasonable.

(IE: dmg:poison-5 would cause 5 points of poison damage on initial hit; 5 points again after a minute passes. If you got hit again with it before the minute, it'd do 4 points of damage, and a minute later, 5+4 points of damage. If you got hit -again- before that minute, it'd hit for 3 points, but at the end of the minute, 5+4+3. Building up a lethal dose.)

Unsaid till now, but I'm thinking that the initial hit + the additional at the one minute mark is it; IE, the poison wears off after that minute.

... A minute is a -really- long time in combat; maybe 15 seconds? I prefer 15 seconds.

So, final result:

Getting hit w/ dmg:poison-n does n damage on initial hit. Fifteen seconds after the hit, take an additional n damage. If hit again w/ dmg:poison-n prior to the fifteen seconds elapsing, take n-1 damage, and at the end of fifteen seconds, n+(n-1) damage. (A third hit prior to fifteen seconds elapsing would do n-2 damage initially and cause n+(n-1)+(n-2) damage at the fifteen second mark, and so forth. (Floor 0 on damage, it wouldn't go negative). Subsequent hits which would not add damage (IE, n-x = 0 or less) do not reset the fifteen second timer.


Language revision courtesy of  Archon's Court, Machine Sage in #workshop on the OSR discord (it's -much- clearer this way, thanks!):

Poisons are all given a single number: poison-3, poison-8, etc. Poisons do damage equal to this number on the first hit. After 15 seconds, they do that much damage again.


If more poison is applied before 15 seconds, the target takes damage equal to that poison minus 1. After 15 seconds, the target takes damage equal to both poisons. (For example, affecting someone with poison-3 would immediately deal 3 damage. If you then apply poison-8, that would do 7 damage. After 15 seconds, they would take 10 damage). This continues as many times as you apply poison, with 1 damage stripped off the most recent poison with each application (so the 3rd poison would do 2 less, the 4th would do 3 less, etc.). This cannot cause the poison to do less than 0 damage. If the poison does 0 damage, it does not count as an application of poison.