Ye Olde Inn

In Kellar's Keep, Quest 4.... There's a chest which has a poison dart in it.

This chest is trapped with a poison dart. If a Hero searches for treasure before the trap has been disarmed, he will lose 2 Body Points.

So, if someone has the Venom Antidote, they can heal it. But what about if they don't? How do you rule on this? I'm inclined to say it's not healable until the potion is used, but there's no rule that I've found for the difference between healing damage and healing poison damage.

I think it was stupid to introduce poison as a damage type and not a condition (roll for damage each turn until cured - or something like that).
I raises the question whether poison damage can be healed by normal healing potions and spells.

I'd say the only thing that would make at least a little sense would be that only antidotes can cure BP lost to poison.

I've always seen it this way - poison (and disease) normal causes damage each turn, or every two or three turns...something
like that. HQ, though, would be a hard system to implement a progressive damage like that.
So I work it this way - poison and disease causes damage, and that damage is different from normal BP
damage, and can only be healed through healing potions, spells, or maybe healing herbs, if you wish.

Here's how my group uses poison:

A monster attacks with a certain "class" of poison. I.e. a small spider might be "Poisonous class: 1", whereas a diseased zombie might be "Poisonous class: 4". When a poisonous monster successfully wounds a player, that player must (at the beginning of his/her turn) roll their defense against a # of automatic hits = to the poison class they're afflicted with.

So, the elf is poisoned, class 2. At the beginning of his turn he rolls his 3 defense die (or however many he has) against what is basically 2 automatic skulls against him.

Poison may be healed via any potion or cure spell.

Thats quite complicated.

My rule is that once you're poisoned you lose 1BP per turn until you drink healing potion or get spell healed (or die).

I dont bother with antidotes, but if I did I would say that you can restore the lost BPs with a normal healing potion, but you will continue to lose 1BP per turn until you take the antidote. That would be simple.

I figure that the only way to avoid the poison damage is if you have an anti dote on you which of course must be ussed on the spot.

Other than that I don't worry about the poisons. I figure they can't be to strong if they are only doing 2 points.

Joec-
It was probably left assumed, but I'll mention that the 2 Body Points of poison damage should be restored between Quests if not healed.

Apart from that, there are a couple issues with requiring poison to be healed only by Venom Antidote. The first you already cited- unfortunately, the rules don't differentiate between damage types. Spells and Potions of Healing simply heal any Body Point damage. For better or worse, simplicity is a hallmark of Heroquest.

A second, more trivial problem is availability, as most evil wizards probably won't use the Alchemist's Shop until Kellar's Keep. Before that, the Heroes would have already encountered a poison needle trap in Quest 2 of the game system, The Rescue of Sir Ragnar. It's possible for a minor consistency problem to arise if that damage had been allowed to be healed without Venom Antidote, before the Alchemist's Shop rules were available. I imagine it could be rationalized that particular poison was susceptible to standard healing effects.

Still, it would have gone a long way in justifying the need for Venom Antidote and it's 300 GC cost if the issues above had been adjusted for in the Quest 4 notes section of KK by declaring that the Body Point damage from the poison needle could only be healed by Venom Antidote. Extending such an exception to all cases of poison needle and poison dart damage as a house rule would also work well, as you already suggested. The extra detail is merited, I think.

I imagine such a house rule would fit best on p. 20 of the (NA) Instruction Booklet, under Chest/Furniture Traps as a new second paragraph:

During a Quest, the Body-Point damage from
a poisoned needle or poisoned dart may only
be healed by Venom Antidote or an Anti-
poison Quill. [-edit] Otherwise, Body Point damage
from poison is restored between Quests.

I like it.

Daedalus wrote:A second, more trivial problem is availability, as most evil wizards probably won't use the Alchemist's Shop until Kellar's Keep. Before that, the Heroes would have already encountered a poison needle trap in Quest 2 of the game system, The Rescue of Sir Ragnar. It's possible for a minor consistency problem to arise if that damage had been allowed to be healed without Venom Antidote, before the Alchemist's Shop rules were available. I imagine it could be rationalized that particular poison was susceptible to standard healing effects.

I'm 99% certain that this poison dart is not to be considered "poison". I think it's obvious that they only wrote it for adding flavor. It might as well had been a fireball, explosion or skeletonhand with an axe... doesn't matter. Poison rules first apply from KK.

Hey beautiful- -sigh...

Goblin King-
Fair enough, I had previously considered putting the poison rule in the Alchemist's Shop. That's a better place for it:

Venom Antidote

Cost: 300 Gold Coins
This bubbling brew tastes foul,
but is the only healing that can
restore up to 2 Body Points of
damage exclusively caused by
poison needles or poison darts.