Getting poisoned through armour

[Winterwolf]

Hi all
Last night my players were finishing a battle with spiders in Mirkwood. The characters who relied upon higher Wits (and thus higher Parry) to avoid being hit and poisoned were often successful - whereas those, such as the Dwarf, with lower Wits but wearing better armour were being poisoned repeatedly.
The player playing the Dwarf protested that surely his armour would be likely to prevent the spiders stings from poisoning him, even if the sting attack successfully hit him. I thought he had a good point.
It seems to make sense that for most poison to affect a creature, it needs to enter their bloodstream (unless it was deemed to be a contact poison). From my understanding, a normal (i.e. non-Piercing) hit in battle doesn't necessarily represent actual injury to the body of the defender, but also exhaustion from trying to avoid injury from attacks. Maybe some further test needs to be made when an attack includes the use of a poison barb/sting/weapon head in order for that poison to work on the defender.

What about a Protection Test (with or without some modification) to see if a successful attack bearing poison actually poisons the defender? To be honest, this is just a thought and I haven't thoroughly investigated the possible implications of this idea.

Also, an adaption I made during battle was that if a character was already Poisoned by a previous Spider attack, each extra successful Poisoning attack brought the onset of the effects of the initial Poisoning one round sooner - as I imagined that the resistance of the character to the poison was more quickly overwhelmed by subsequent additions of poison to his body.

I would be interested in comments on both of these ideas.
Thanks!

[Random221B]

Taking a look at the core rules, spider poison (and orc poison) appears to only affect characters on a called shot. If there are examples of poison attacks in other source books that don't rely on called shots, please remind me of them. But for cases where poison is a called shot, I don't think any kind of additional check or test is needed. It's already more difficult to hit with a called shot to begin with. I would say the fact that it is a called shot represents the spider stinger needing to hit an unarmored or less-armored part of the character's body in order to successfully poison them

[Dunkelbrink]

Yes, what Random said is correct. Further, according to raw an adversary only attempts a called shot in the attack after a hero has rolled an Eye. So, the risk of being poisoned is actually really small. And if you are poisoned you can’t get poisoned again, at least not according to raw, so further stings won’t worsen the condition.

[Otaku-sempai]

And if you are poisoned you can’t get poisoned again, at least not according to raw, so further stings won’t worsen the condition.

I'm not sure where you are getting this from. I am not finding any such statement in RAW.

[Dunkelbrink]

A matter of interpretation of course, but I read (and have always read) RAW that way. Poisoned is a status; you're either Poisoned or you're not. Being poisoned means that the character is "considered to be" Wounded. It is not the same thing as getting wounded. If a wounded character is wounded a second time he drops unconscious. The same happens to a poisoned character, who is considered Wounded.

But what happens to a poisoned character who is poisoned again? Since being poisoned does not mean "getting wounded" my reading is that nothing additional happens; the hero is already considered to be wounded (and needs to be actually Wounded to drop). That is the only reasonable reading of the RAW if you ask me. But it would be interesting to hear if others have read this differently.

A different reading, where getting Poisoned equals getting Wounded, would also make a special rule for being poisoned unnecessary, so why have it? It would also make Poison the far deadliest called shot in the game - Pierce would be laughable in comparison, with autowound regardless of armour through every called shot.

Pg 130

Poisoned
Adventurers can be Poisoned in several ways: they could
be bitten by a giant Spider, hit by an Orcish broad-bladed
sword, or end up eating venison hunted in the wrong part
of Mirkwood.

A Poisoned character is considered to be Wounded. Thus,
if an already Poisoned character is Wounded once, he falls
unconscious as if Wounded twice (likewise, a Wounded
character falls unconscious when Poisoned).

[Rich H]

Yep, that's the way I play it as well, Dunks.

[Otaku-sempai]

Fair enough; it's a matter of reading between the lines. Though I wonder if it would make a difference if a character is exposed to more than one kind of poison. And then there are secondary effects to be considered (if applicable). Some poisons are much more nasty than others.

[atgxtg]

I read it the other way. As in the character is considered to be Wounded, and if he were poisoned again it would be the same as if he were wounded again. I think it makes more sense that way. Realistically, multiple doses of poison will increase the severity of the effects, including the mortality rate. Besides, many types of poisons (most hemotoxins for instance) do cause tissue damage and will leave an actual wound.

The other interpretation seems awfully silly to me, and is open for all sorts of PC abuse. (" I'm already poisoned, so let me charge through the nest of Spiders! I don't have to worry about their poison!")

[Rich H]

The other interpretation seems awfully silly to me, and is open for all sorts of PC abuse. (" I'm already poisoned, so let me charge through the nest of Spiders! I don't have to worry about their poison!")

Which I can do either way as they only poison on a Called Shot so nobody roll any dice so we don't roll any Eyes.

Silly players can do silly things with this however you interpret it, including your way. Trick is to not play with people like this.

[Rich H]

I read it the other way. As in the character is considered to be Wounded, and if he were poisoned again it would be the same as if he were wounded again.

Poison attacks bypass a Protection test whereas to be Wounded twice takes two failed tests. Personally, I wouldn't go with letting two Poison attacks count as two wounds because of this.

I also wouldn't 'double up' on effects, on say an additional spider bite paralysing someone who was already paralysed as that's officially not fun for the player involved. Someone that's bitten, gets over the paralysing effects, and then gets paralysed again is possible though.

Though I wonder if it would make a difference if a character is exposed to more than one kind of poison. And then there are secondary effects to be considered (if applicable). Some poisons are much more nasty than others.

Different posions would still apply their own effects, I'm just really talking about the Poison status and the fact that I don't agree with letting two poison attacks effectively cause two Wounds. I think Poison attacks should only count as one Wound and no more due to the nature of them not requiring Protection tests.

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Ultimately though, the OP's query was answered by Random221B in the first response to him, all this other discussion is simply preferred interpretations of the Poison status where there isn't a correct answer just how LM's wish to apply the condition status from a Wounding and effect perspective.