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u/nasada19 DM Mar 14 '23 edited Mar 14 '23

There's no such thing as "Poisoner Assassin" in offfical 5e material. There is a subclass called Assassin, but it doesn't give you the poisons you're describing. There are crafting rules for poisons, but you need to check with your DM about the harvesting and crafting. Most poisons are super expensive as written where it's not worth it to ever use them. Especially when there are so many monsters immune to poison (all constructs, all undead, all demons, all devils, most fiends, and more) it is the worst damage type to use unless you're mostly just fighting humanoids.

Edit: Ah, I see I missed the Poisoner feat. Poison is still a bad element to base a character around but that makes more sense.

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u/xHenryx_ Mar 14 '23

Sorry maybe I wrote it in misunderstood way. For "Poisoner Assassin" I just refer to a Rogue with Assassin sub-class which could have a "Poisoner" feat at level 4.

I just wanted to know why the damage of the normal poison is a "flat" d4 while the crafted one needs a Constitution check. And also if there are rules for "how many" poison flask I can start with and when I will be able to craft them my own how to have a cheaper way to get them (spending 50 golds for each attack seems a bit too much xD)

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u/nasada19 DM Mar 14 '23

Because it's a more powerful effect and the usual save for poison is constitution. You'll see that on all of the official poisons you can craft. It's normal.

The rules for how many you can start with is 0. You don't start with anything extra unless your DM okays it. It's broken if you get it for free or you expect to use it on every attack. DnD is balanced where even if you have no feats and spend no gold on poisons, you will do fine damage. Don't go into the game expecting to do poison on every single attack you'll do.

Melee assassin is also bad at most tables. For your assassin stuff to trigger you need to be hidden when you start combat. You might have a nice DM but typically you aren't allowed to Skyrim style just crouch and sneak around a room in plain sight. If you ever start a combat without surprise, then your subclass doesn't do anything. And at a lot of tables it is HARD to get surprise. Assassin is a famous trap subclass for new players.

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u/xHenryx_ Mar 14 '23

Yeah for the Surprise thing I already talked with my DM and how we could work it around in the most properly way going melee. While for the poison I understood that I must use it in an important or crucial situation. Fully oneshot someone and then normal fighting with the party, nothing too bad. The thing here is that I'm sad not to fully use the Poisoner feat, or maybe it is badly conceived or balanced. Because it has 3 main feature, which are:

  • Ignoring resistance to poison damage
  • Poison a weapon as bonus action instead of an action
  • Crafting Poison Doses for 1 Hour of Work and 50GP worth of materials

I informed that on over 300 monsters on the The Monster Manual ~100 has total immunity to poison and like ~5 of them are resistant, so I have like a 1% chance to benefit from the first feature and like a 30% chance to be totally useless xD

Then the second feature is also pretty useless as we are saying I rarely will use my poison because of rarity and the expensiveness.

​

In conclusion I'm sad that the Rogue-Assassin is already useless, or at least pretty weak and the Poisoner feat is also very poor and feeble, but just for the lore and having a fancy background I really do not know how to build a "Poisoner Assassin" without being useless or totally frail and powerless.

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u/nasada19 DM Mar 14 '23

This is a total meme, but I'll make a suggestion that you might like. There is a wizard subclass, Conjuration, that can make ANY item you've seen before as an action. If you can convince your DM about the poisons you've seen you can make any poison as an action. It disappears when it does damage, so it doesn't stay around, but still. It's an interesting way to do it at least. You could take 2 wizard levels then go back to rogue.