Does a poisoned weapon have to pierce the flesh to deal poison damage? For example, you can't pierce the flesh of lycanthropes with non-magical weapons, so I'm not quite sure the poison would be able to get into its system if attacked with a poisoned but non-magical weapon.
[RPG] Does a poisoned weapon have to pierce the flesh to deal poison damage
dnd-5eimmunitiespoison
Related Solutions
This archived forum from rpg.net discusses the same question, it might be worth taking a look at.
The general points seem to be the following:
- Poisoned arrows have been used by certain tribes, mainly to hunt smaller animals, though people used them to battle other people as well (Native American tribes, Chinese armies are brought up as examples.)
- The primary aim of poisoning in melee seems to be to make sure an otherwise not lethally wounded (and retreating) enemy doesn't return to the field soon, if at all: more a strategic move than a tactical one (used both in open battles and in guerilla warfare)
- A secondary use of poisoned weapons is psychological warfare: it scares the enemy
- Smaller blades with poison were used for assassinations as well, again probably to maximize the chance of taking down a well protected, hard to reach enemy leader (so, if the stabbing fails, the poison will finish the work.)
I think that's the gist of both that rather thorough-appearing discussion and what little I remember from the history books on the topic.
Scores a hit
RAW
Attack Roll
An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.) If your result equals or beats the target's Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.
It doesn't matter if your damage surpass DR or THP. Hit from your weapon take place if your attack roll greater or equal than target's AC.
Temporary Hit Points
RAW
Temporary Hit Points
Certain effects give a character temporary hit points. These hit points are in addition to the character's current hit point total and any damage taken by the character is subtracted from these hit points first. Any damage in excess of a character's temporary hit points is applied to his current hit points as normal. If the effect that grants the temporary hit points ends or is dispelled, any remaining temporary hit points go away. The damage they sustained is not transferred to the character's current hit points.
When temporary hit points are lost, they cannot be restored as real hit points can be, even by magic.
Even if you didn't surpass THP amount it's still counts as a solid hit. Supernatural ability or magic, that grants character/monster THP, just pull all damage from regular HP to THP. Any poison effects take place as intended, since there was damage to target. Because of THP target became tougher, not immune to certain amount of damage.
EDIT: Clarifying about THP and immunity
Q: But they are in fact immune to a certain amount of damage. If I gain 10 THP then take 5 damage, then have THP expire, I'm still at full health. Did I suddenly go from "injured" to "healed" by virtue of losing HP? Does the PC go from looking "beat up" to looking 100%?
A: @Gates VP - to clarify I need to quote this thing:
Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
Immunity means there was no damage at all. In case of DR, if damage is too small to surpass certain amount - it's ignored. De-facto there was no damage at all. In case of THP you've recieved this damage. It was not ignored, it damaged you a little. But because of magic, or abilities it was not enough to hurt you seriously. To make an example:
False Life
You harness the power of unlife to grant yourself a limited ability to avoid death
You recieve damage, but because of magic you can live a bit longer, survive a bit longer.
In case of feats
Drunken Brawler (Combat)
When you drink a tankard of ale or strong alcohol, you take a –2 penalty on Reflex saving throws, but gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your level...
Have you ever heard expression that drunken people are tougher(not talking about stronger - it's a nonsense)? But in case of toughness they feel pain a bit less than sober. That helps them to endure some blows better.
Damage Reduction
RAW
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk's stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage Reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
Attacks that deal no damage because of the target's damage reduction do not disrupt spells.
In that case you still score a hit, but because of some supernatural ability(or magic) your hit didn't do any damage to target. At all. Since there was no damage - there can't be any poison effects.
Why did I mention 'scores a hit' rules at the beginning
In both cases you should remember that poison works on 1 hit only. Even if you didn't surpass target DR or THP it doesn't really matter.
RAW
A poisoned weapon or object retains its poison until the weapon scores a hit or the object is touched (unless the poison is wiped off before a target comes in contact with it).
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Best Answer
Depends on the type of poison. If it's an injury poison, unless the wielder has a magical weapon that CAN pierce the skin, then, no. But if it's a CONTACT poison, well, looking at their immunities, they are NOT immune to contact poisons. So if I had a non-magical blade loaded up with a contact poison, just touching them would be enough to get the effect of the poison.
Types of poison in D&D 5 include, with my notes in italics:
EDIT: However, in the comments, it's been pointed out that the lycanthrope immunity has less to do with not being able to pierce the skin at all and more to do with the fact that any non-magic/non-silver wound damage from those particular sources may close pretty much instantly. A DM could rule this way, but mechanics-wise, according to the rules, an injury poison would not work because it specifically states "a creature that takes piercing or slashing damage" and lycanthropes DO NOT take piercing or slashing damage from non-magic, non-silver weapons.