Poison damage Death and Dismemberment Table

It's been sitting in my drafts for a couple of years, but I've finally finished the Poison damage death and dismemberment table. This part of the same effort as the Psychic damage table from 2018. The original set of tables is excellent, but for a 5e-hack like I typically play, there are a few damage types. Notably still missing is thunder damage, force damage, and radiant damage. Perhaps the subject of future posts, ideally in less than 5 years! 

Google Doc link is HERE 

This is designed to work well with my basic "Poison is OP" rules. I want to have rules for specific poisons where needed, but still have a general damage table for situations where magic or special abilities deal unspecified flavours of poison damage.

Poison & Disease

Poison Death Dice work the same as Bleed dice, but are harder to remove or work around. Normal healing does not remove these dice, and “staying down” does not protect against their effects unless the character makes a saving throw (DC 10 + number of poisoned dice).

1	You feel fine!
2	You get a barf in your mouth a little. Super gross.
3	A surprise vomit. You can’t take reactions until your next turn. Poison 1.
4	Sharp pain in the affected area. Pain 1.
5	Vomiting or diarrhea make a real mess. Clothing destroyed, if wearing armour it needs serious cleaning.
6	Feeling pretty sick, not gonna lie. Poisoned Condition.
7	Little bit of internal bleeding never hurt anyone... Bleed 1. Pain 1
8	Your arm is stiff and your fingers won’t clench. Arm useless until you gain HP. Drop held objects. Poison 2. Pain 1.
9	Your immune system is fighting back. Poison 1, +1 on saves against this poison or disease in the future, lose Poisoned condition if you have it (not damage, dice etc, just the condition.)
10	Your leg goes numb, and you  feel yourself sag towards the ground. Prone. Poisoned. Leg useless. Bleed 2. Pain 1.
11	One side of your torso is completely numb. Poisoned Condition. Arm useless. Poison 2. Pain 2.
12	The nerve damage has eaten away your leg, and the flesh is poxed and scabrous. Recovery Time 1d6+6 weeks. Leg useless. Poison 2. Trauma 1. Pain 1.
13	Spots dance before your eyes, and the room goes black. You weep inky fluid. Blinded until you gain HP. Bleed 2.
14	Your head feels light and floaty, and your limbs are like lead. Save vs Doom or fall unconscious until you regain HP. Difficulty Speaking, Cannot cast spells with verbal components or that require concentration, Poison 1, Pain 1.
15	Your chest heaves as you struggle to breathe. Half movement until you gain HP. Poison 1. Pain 1.
16	Your rash turns into a network of bleeding sores and pustules. Cruel Scarring, -2 Charisma, Pain 1, Poison 2.
17	Blood vessels all over your body are bursting, causing bruising. Nerve damage. Permanent -1 to all your statistics. Poison 2. Pain 2.
18	Your lungs and throat are searing in pain, and you cough up blood. Lose turn Coughing & Vomiting, Poisoned Condition. Bleed 1. Trauma 2. Pain 2.
19	Your pulse quickens and your skin grows cold as you go into shock. Lose a turn. Poison 1d4. Pain 1. Trauma 1.
20	The filth in your veins has eaten away at your eyes, leaving you Blinded until you gain HP, Permanent -4 to ranged attacks. Poison 1, Pain 1.
21	The toxins have fully saturated your tissues. Roll 1d6. You gain 1 Poison, and an additional Poison dice every: 1-2 day, 3-4 hour, 5-6 minute. This effect is permanent unless negated with Cure Poison or better.
22	The toxins burn their way out of you, neutralising some of their effects but leaving you permanently damaged. Roll all Death Dice you have currently and permanently subtract the total from your maximum hit points. All death dice are then removed.
23	You clutch at your chest as your heart feels like it’s bursting out of your chest.  Heart damage. Permanent -2 Con. Poison 4. Pain 2. Trauma 2.
24	No external signs, but your internal organs are ruined and you permanently gain Vulnerability to Poison Damage.
25	The creeping death has reached your nervous system. Unconscious until you are above 0 hit points. Poison 6.
26	The vile stuff eating you from the inside has left you a husk. Maximum hit points permanently set to 1, gaining levels can add to your max hit points as normal.
27	Your eyes roll back and black tar leaks from your lips as you are chemically lobotomized. You die and immediately become a zombie, which acts on your same initiative count.
28	Instant death, but the poison leaves you a strangely beautiful and well-preserved corpse (as Gentle Repose)
29	Your blood has become a toxic slurry. You will die at the beginning of your next turn unless you are healed to at least 1 hit point or the poison/disease is negated before then.
30	You collapse in shock from the tremendous pain. You will die in 1d4 minutes, and are incapacitated until then. Healing cannot prevent this, but more powerful magic might work.
31	You are so poisoned as to become a permanent biohazard. Trauma 4 and any living creature that touches you or your corpse with bare skin gains 1 Poison.
32	Massive heart attack. The pain is overwhelming and you thrash about making horrible gurgling noises as you die over 1d6 rounds.
33	You are filled with a strange sense of peace and clarity. On your next turn you get one round of normal actions, and lose any status effects (poisoned, incapacitated, etc). At the end of that round, instant death.
34	Anathema. Natural creatures will not approach your body, and if you somehow survive or are resurrected, this effect continues unless broken by a Remove Curse.
35	You are neatly split in half, from head to groin; the halves slide uncomfortably down to the floor.
36+	Melted. Your body is so ruined that only True Resurrection or better can bring you back.

Poison Is OP

Poisons are OP, aka 'Re-Fanging New-School Poison'

Designed to work with Ten Foot Polemic’s death and dying rules. Poison, however, is mentioned only briefly in those rules, and there is no generic poison ‘death and dying’ table to roll on… which sort of makes sense, given the specificity of most poison. I’ve tried to make each poison feel a little unique, while still keeping them simple to run.

As a place to start, I’ve adapted the classic D&D poisons as they appear in 5e. The damages are calculated for 5e-like games, with their inflated hit points, so you may need to adjust for more OSR-type games.

But 5e poisons, in a 5e context, aren't super dangerous. And worst of all, they don't feel poison-y. This should fix that, where even weak poison is a potential pain in the ass.

Notes on terminology: - The 'poisoned' condition is from 5e. It just means you have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks (this includes skill checks, initiative rolls- basically any d20 roll that isn't an attack roll or a saving throw)

- I refer to 'poison tokens' but Ten Foot Polemic uses the term 'death dice' 'bleed points' and so on interchangeably. They're all the same thing.

- Death Tables: Some poisons have specialized tables. Use these instead of the generic tables. At some point I plan to write a generic poison table, but for now I mostly just use the 'bleeding,' or 'necrotizing' if I'm feeling fancy.


POISON 

Basic Poison

Injury

1d4 poison damage, plus DC 11 save or gain that many poisoned bleed tokens. When you have more than 4 poisoned bleed tokens, you are poisoned.

by Matthew Stewart

Assassin’s Blood

Ingested, no initial save, OR Injury, DC 10 Save

Gain 1d4 generic poison tokens. At the end of each of your turns, as long as you have any poison tokens, make a DC 10 save. Gain 1d4 poison bleed tokens on a failure, or remove one poison token on a success. As long as you have any of these poison tokens, you cannot benefit from magical healing.

Death Table

1-10, vomiting, ‘poisoned’ condition, 1 poisoned pain token

11-15, bleeding sores, coughing blood, 1d4 poisoned trauma dice

16-20, organ failure begins, bleeding from all orifices, incapacitated, all ability scored halved until recovery (min 1d6 days)

21+ organs shut down, death in 1d4 rounds

Burnt Uther Fumes
Inhaled, DC 13 Save
Take 2d6 damage, and also gain that many poisoned bleed tokens and one poisoned pain token. At the start of that creature’s turn, they make another save, reducing those bleed tokens by 1d6 on a success or adding one pain token on a failure.

Crawler Mucus

Contact, DC 13 Save

1d10 poisoned pain tokens, or 1 token on a successful save. Targets may have a maximum of 10 of these tokens. The target is paralyzed if they fail their test against pain, which they must test for whether or not they ‘tempt fate.’ If they fail this test, they are paralyzed for as long as any poisoned pain tokens remain. At the end of each of their turns, they make another save, removing one token on a success.

Drow Poison
Injury
1d4 poison sleep tokens, the target is poisoned for as long as they have these tokens. At the end of each of their turns, roll all their sleep tokens- if the total exceeds their current hit points, they fall unconscious until they have no more poison sleep tokens, or are damaged or shook awake. Remove one sleep token every minute if there are more than 4, or one every 10 minutes if there are less than 4. Note: this poison is specifically designed to work on elves, so it bypasses their normal sleep resistance. It's not actually true sleep at all, being a kind of psychic paralysis, locking the mind of the creature away in horrifying dreams. Creatures that are immune to sleep AND cannot dream may be immune to this poison.

Essence of Ether – works as written

By Konstantin Vavilov

Malice – works as written

Midnight Tears – works as written
Death Table

1-5, uncontrollable weeping, 1 pain token

10-15, 4 poisoned bleed tokens, permanent blindness unless cured by magic

16-20 unconscious, 1d4 trauma tokens

20+ Death

Oil of Taggit – works as written

Pale Tincture – works as written

Purple Worm Venom

Injury, DC 19

9d6 poison damage, and for each 6 rolled gain a poisoned bleed token, for each double rolled gain a poisoned pain token.

Death Table:

1-15, Gain 1 poisoned trauma token

16-20, Gain 1d4 poisoned trauma tokens

21+ Gain 2d4 poisoned trauma tokens

Serpent Venom

Injury, DC 11

2d6 poison damage. Gain that many poisoned bleed tokens on a failed save, or on a successful save gain one for any 6’s rolled for that poison damage.

Death Table:

1-15, Gain 1 poisoned trauma token

16-20 severe cardiac arrest, death in 1d4 rounds

20+ brain shuts down, death

by Carne Griffiths

Torpor

Ingested, no initial save

Gain 2d4 poison tokens, and 1d4 poisoned pain tokens. As long as you have poison, make a DC 15 save every round, removing a token on a success and gaining a pain token on a failure. You must also make a pain test at the end of every round, becoming incapacitated on a failure.

Truth Serum

Ingested, no initial save

Gain 2d4 poison tokens. As long as you have these tokens you are poisoned, and you must make a DC 15 saving throw to knowingly speak a lie. In addition, you have disadvantage on deception checks. Remove on poison token every 10 minutes.

Wyvern Poison
7d6 poison damage, plus DC 15 save or also gain that many poisoned bleed tokens. For each turn you take bleed damage from this poison, gain 1 poisoned pain point.

Brain Death: Death and Dismemberment table for Psychic damage.

This is a table that supplements Tenfootpolemics' Death and Dismemberment rules, which are themselves based off of these rules from Hack & Slash. The 'Madness Point' system is taken from Goblin Punch, and interacts with this table slightly, but if you want to ignore the madness points you probably can without 'unbalancing' the rolls. I personally like the madness rules a lot, but maybe you don't want to make things TOO complicated. I also use the 5E insanity tables to supplement the Goblin Punch 'Breakdowns' and 'Permanent Madness' results.

A additional thing for the 'balance' issue raised above: Remember, without this table, the character would basically already be dead or at least unconscious. It's ok to put them through the wringer at this point. It SHOULD feel somewhat arbitrary and capricious, while still having some predictable markers (my players know when they start pushing 12-15+, they're gonna get screwed)

Some of the entries, especially the later ones, are a bit weird & out there. There's one where you transcend to pseudo-godhood (but in an useless way that amounts to character death). Flavour to taste. If you wanted to change any of the entries, I'd recommend adding more nosebleeds.

Also, like the original table, some of the entries are kinda gross and horror-y. I like to pass the sheet to players and get them to read aloud what happens so we can find out together!

Psychic

1	The fear passes over and through you, leaving you unscathed
2	Stigmata. Develop a small mark, like a skull shaped scar or a white shock of hair, of the player’s choosing.
3	Your mind goes numb for a moment, and your limbs follow suit. Drop held objects.
4	The force of the attack sends you reeling. Prone
5	You develop one of those creepy nosebleeds. Bleed 1.
6	Your mind is enveloped in darkness and creeping things seem to writhe against your mind. Pain 1, Madness 1
7	A low hum rises through a whine and into a devastating shriek only you can hear. Pain 1, deafened this turn, and subsequent turns until you make a save.
8	Everything seems grey and far away. Is it even real? Slowed, Pain 1d4
9	The flesh-goblin, it’s skin sloughing off in ribbons, lashes at you with it’s knife-sharp fingerbones. Attack a random ally. Madness 1.
10	Your brain is an unlocked chest, and you cannot stop your psyche ransacking itself Your attacker learns one of your important secrets. You gain a permanent nervous twitch. Pain 2.
11	Your mind is barren. Nightmares alight like crows. One by one they take wing again, each carrying a piece of yourself. Bleed 1d4. Confused until you gain HP (1, Stand there quietly. 2, Scream at the top of your lungs. 3, Attack nearest target. 4, Hurt/attack self.)
12	Your eyes begin to bleed (tar, blood, milk, or another substance) Blinded. Bleed 2, Pain 1.
13	Nothing happens. Everything is still for a moment. You know with a moment of utmost certainty that you are going to die. Trauma 2, Madness 1.
14	Your jaw snaps wildly and you bite off your tongue. Can’t speak (affects spellcasting), Bleed 2, Pain 1, Trauma 1.
15	You are caught in the centre of the cold, and all the heat and energy drain from your body. You suffer serious burns on all exposed skin. Second Degree Burns. Bleed 1. Pain 1d4.
16	Your mind disconnects slightly from your body, before re-aligning somewhat imperfectly. Stunned 1 round. Arms or legs (50% of either) are useless until you gain HP. Pain 1.
17	Your brain begins to fold in on itself like wet tissue paper, and all kinds of black and scaly insects come pouring out. Prone. Short-Term madness. Shock - Save or Die. If you succeed, double Pain Tokens. Madness 1d3.
18	The shadows around you seem to stir- your companions notice it too. Your madness has given them life! Summon 1d4 hostile Shadows for every two allies, and 1d4 for yourself. Madness 1d4.
19	There is a searing pain in your mind and then nothing. You fall, the world spinning around you, mere shapes and noise. Prone. Permanently loose 1d6 Intelligence. Immobile until you gain HP. Bleed 1d4. Pain 1d4.
20	The nightmares dig into your mind, teasing apart it’s threads like a fraying tapestry. Short term and long term madness. Shock - Save or Die. On success, double Pain Tokens. Pain 1d4.
21	The nightmares grip into your brain, tearing, unraveling, separating each colour into a different spool of thread. Short term and long term madness. Shock - Save or Die. On success, double Pain tokens. Pain 1d4. Trauma 1.
22	The force upon your mind causes your skull to crack, blood trickling out the seams. Third and Fourth Degree Burns. Shock - Save or Die. On success, double Pain tokens. Pain 2. Bleed 1d4. Trauma 1d4.
23	Nightmare insanity seeps into your very soul. Your life begins to be blotted out by the pressure, a memory and soon not even that. Permanently halve all stats. Shock - Save or Die. On success, double all Pain tokens. Pain 1d4. Trauma 4. Bleed 2.
24	The red fear causes your heart to stop, and you die 1 round later, leaving a terrified looking corpse.
25	The vacuum left within your body by your ravaged soul invites a host of other things to take up residence within you. You are permanently possessed by a demon, or perhaps several demons. Permanently become a CE NPC, unless exorcised with a potentially deadly ritual. Trauma 1.
26	You are shunted from your body, which dies instantly and crumples to the ground. You remain in the world for 1d6 rounds as a ghost, exploding to minutes on a 6 (roll again), then hours, then days, then permanent. You have no powers, but you can whisper to people who are sensitive to spirits, or are asleep.
27	You reach inside your skull and scoop out your brain. All living creatures who see are stunned for 1 round. You are dead, but your body keeps standing there for 1d6 rounds, smiling and gibbering.
28	You go stiff as a board, and a moment later, you fall over backwards as your soul separates from your body.
29	The attack doesn’t appear to hurt very much, but all your veins are ruptured A moment later your nose begins to bleed, and then your ears and mouth, and then your eyes, as you die over the next 1d6 rounds.
30	You become irreparably suicidal, throwing yourself off a cliff, on your sword (auto crits) etc, for 1d6 minutes unless forcibly restrained (even then you try to bite out your tongue and bleed to death).
31	Your head forcibly explodes, dealing 1d4 in skull-shrapnel damage within 10 ft killing you instantly.
32	In the moment your soul and mind are forcibly ejected from your body, you find enlightenment. Transcending the mortal plane to an astral realm of pure thought, you wonder what could ever have mattered to you about the petty struggles of mortals down there among the stars. You leave the material plane, never to return.
33	You die, but your soul refuses to leave your body. You are fully aware (but unable to communicate) as you are buried, burned, your body decomposes, etc.
34	You fade away, but continue to exist as a memory-ghost within the mind of an old friend (likely one who saw you die.) You retain your personality and knowledge, but find it hard to learn new things or retain information.
35	You disappear, and even the memory of you fades from the world. 1D4 of your closest friends might remember you.
36+	Your memory is scoured from creation. You are gone, and none but the most faithful of gods could ever remember you.

I'm going to add a note here, even though I'm sure most folks stopped reading after the table: I've been using these death and dismemberment rules in my 5E-based game, and they work quite well. I think this hodgepodge ruleset is one of the most flexible I've seen, in that it can be plonked down with basically zero additional considerations inside of basically any D&D-like game mechanics.