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So the thought behind this encounter, was just gonna be two spiders. Even when I made the map. I was going to have the spiders remain near the rear of the webs in the tree hollows and wait for everyone to come in, and then do a entangle using the webs, etc. But then you guys thought about the sheep and or the chickens. Which would be making the noises etc to lure the spiders out. When Yaotl tossed out her figureines, I was like, dang this encounter might go fast, not the the jaguars are awesome or anything but three attacks is nice. So when they came out I was like, well I have four dead trees on this map why not a spider for each one. As the encounter progressed I was seriously thinking about bringing one more more. But a Giant spider, i.e. The momma spider to these youngsters. But I decided against it. Don't wanna have to calculate all that treasure up. Plus I think four was reasonable for the encounter.

For me it's birds.  I can stand the little guys, finches, parakeets and the like ... but I start getting irrationally weirded out with anything larger.

Weird dinosaur feet, beady little eyes, a medieval torture device for a mouth.  Terrifying.

I think we had the right mix of scary.  Poison is no joke at low levels.  Even at type A, one failed save and we die a horrible death.

Actually, isn't a failed save just 15 hp of damage?

The encounter at points seemed easy but I think that was more a matter of luck on our part. One failed saving throw and it could have lasting repercussions. And The spiders missed more than they likely should have. A Giant Spider likely would have killed 1 or 2 of us if not everyone if things went bad.


Just 15 hp can be killer if you're already hurt. It takes me to 0. Might take a few others into the negative.

Yes, I have 4.  :)

Venom Handling: This non-weapon proficiency is detailed on page 23 of The Complete Book of Necromancers, TSR 1995

Herbalism: This non-weapon proficiency is detailed on page # of the Player’s Handbook. This non-weapon proficiency enables an herbalist to manufacture herbal poisons with a successful proficiency check.

Toxicology (Revised): (3 slots, Check: Int. -2 Rogue) A character with this skill is an expert on poisons, both natural and manufactured.  The toxicology proficiency includes elements of herbalism, animal lore, brewing and minor alchemy.
A skilled toxicologist can:
-Identify poisons from samples
-Identify poisons from a victim’s symptoms
-manufacture complex poisons & their antidotes (naturally occurring poisons cannot be manufactured.)
-knows the proper use of the various types of poison, ingestive, inhalant, insinuative, etc.
In addition, the toxicologist gains a +1 when combining this skill with any healing proficiency check dealing with poison, therefore granting the poison victim an additional +1 to save.

Preserving Poisons

When characters slay a foe who uses a poison which is created in its body, such as a giant scorpion or spider, the poison can be extracted by making a successful poison handling check. The number of doses depends largely upon the creature the poison came from, but usually around 2d4 doses can be extracted from a medium sized creature and 2d6 from a large creature.


These poisons however are only usable for 2 to 8 days before they became stagnant and lose their effect. A character with poison craft can create a serum to preserve these poisons at a cost of 150 per dose.

Poison Making
Poison making proficiency costs 3 non-weapon proficiency slots and the character must have poison handling (1 slot). This proficiency is available to Rogues.
• The preparation time is Cost x 0.01 hours (round fractions up).
• The proficiency check is made at Int-2, minus (Cost x 0.002 (round fractions down)).
• The cost of the ingredients is one third of the Total Cost.
The cost also shows how rare the ingredients are. For example a cost of less than 50 would show that the ingredients could be found growing naturally, (but never in abundance) less than an hours walk from most cities, and would grow easily in a back yard if cared for. Costs of more than 5000 show that these ingredients might only grow in a couple of remote areas which are many months trek from civilization, and even then only 2d4 portions could be found growing at any one time.

There seems to be a few different netbooks out there for 2E that have poison stuff in them. I'm sure if that is the direction someone wants to take we can work on it.

Here are a few of them https://www.adnddownloads.com/en/poisons-and-herbs

In reply to Dungeon Master (msg # 733):

I haven't been interested in poisons, mainly because we are supposed to be good which I find poisons tend to not be so good... Now Anti-venoms and such that makes sense.

Yeah, just posting the info in general. I mean, Type A poison really isn't gonna be a game changer lol

But yeah, Poisons against humanoids, borders on an evil act. Poison against animals, not an evil act, but a dick move, since your wasting the meat.

It becomes a slippery slope :)

Seems that the spiders are treasure rich lol

Well the treasure on them, is from there victims.

In reply to Dungeon Master (msg # 738):

Thanks for the poison info.  Ali is into antidote and sleep and relaxing poisons if you want to call it that or possibly the real weak 1 d6 poisons or less.

So Ali would pass on harvesting since he is not skilled in it.  now if it as a plant yea herbalism helps there.

I stear clear of spiders, snakes and my wife is afraid of birds  FOB disease.  Almost jumped into the harbor to avoid a bird.

Storm knows nothing of poison. He's a healer not a killer!

Yeah the victims are certainly magic rich!

Regarding the spell book encounter, what were the three items again?

The crown was one.  Was it the necklace and the armor as well?

^^ When we get back to town with this haul, Virius still has one ruby from before that needs to go to the jeweler.

The crown, that is now part of a side mission, and the two rubies but those were cut down in size to divide as is or to sell and take in coin.

This time we’ll need the jeweler to cut down the opals and the topaz most likely unless someone wants to buy up into them with their share and some of their previous coin.  You can always see what we found raw from the adventure under the XP tracker thread.

Cool, cool.  Thanks.  I saw the total haul, and I saw the 'you guys all have 515gp' post.

The crown being left off makes sense, wasn't sure if there was anything else.

Virius would be willing to do this.  A 100gp gem carries a lot easier than one hundred coins.

Have today's rains let up?

Skies are not clear, still wet, less clouds and darkness though, it looks like its moving away, but still no real sunshine.

Very true.

Not including the nonmagical armour or any of the magic items if we split things 8 ways (seven party members and one share for the party itself to cover incidentals and whatnot...like the cost of covering the jewelers work in carving up large stones into smaller ones would be an example) it’ll very roughly be just over 500gp at a very rough add up in my head glance and once we have an ‘official’ tally we’ll toss it up like the last one.

Woot!  Find Familiar here I come.  Nearly there.  :)