Various Spider Quest-related suggestions.

[Egon the Monkey]

I was doing the spider cave quest (no, not any one with Flayers in, a different one in the Mist areas) and noticed it drops a lot of Antitoxin. However, trying to use it is remarkably hard. The trouble is that Poison deals ability damage right on the first hit, then a minute after. When you're talking about a DC30 Heal check in combat to only prevent the second damage, there's little window of opportunity to apply it. On the other hand, Salutary Tonics are really useful because there's enough time between infection and ability damage to apply one.

My suggestion is to lower the combat DC of Antivenom, have it apply a temporary poison save bonus when you make a successful heal check or have it cast Remove Poison, with a more difficult heal check than it currently uses.

The other thing is that Spider cave seems rather light on loot and XP for what's a rarely done and quite difficult quest for a 3-6 because of all the Poisoning. I was getting 1 XP per spider, and they're a lot tougher than Goblins. Still a fun quest and nicely set up, but tends to be ignored. Certainy I've never seen a group going for it.

[River Walker]

Or they could just drop potions of Antidote.

[MirrorMask]

Nature commonly runs the quest, but we are ninja's about it.

[granny]

I've tried it twice, with two different characters. None of them passed the entrance. Fugue was rule to both.

[Adhesive]

Spiders have laughable AB and equally laughable AC. If you can hit reliably, or not get hit reliably, you shouldn't have too much of a problem. Don't forget to take those barkskins!

[EfUA_undercover]

Or they could just drop potions of Antidote.

Or you could just see the webs infront of it and take antidotes/restores or a healer with you. Apart from several other things you can do which might even lower the need for such.

So, come on, the signs what you will encounter are obvious...

[Spiffy Has]

Changes to Anti-venom would be a positive step in the irght direction in my opinion.

[Jagged]

Anti-toxin should heal poison completely I think, even the ability damages one has already suffered due to the venom(if possible).

[Egon the Monkey]

Efua:Undercover
I'm not implying that the hints to what to expect aren't there, but that even if you prepare for it, this quest is expensive. Not because the mobs will necessarily roll you, but because they'll drain your supplies and they have a tendency to attack in clever ways. I was going through that quest on a buffed L6 Monk and still finding it to be a bitch.

Adhesive: I don't think you've done this quest then, but I can't explain why without it being spoilers. The non-spoiler reason is the law of averages means that unless you have immunity-level saves, you will get drained.

The major thing though is that getting poisoned a lot around a ton of antivenom drops made me realise how pointless an item it is. Even with good Heal skill and a ton of Antivenom, I couldn't do anything constructive.

[The Old Hack]

The main point of the antivenom is that it cancels the poison so you don't need to make a save against the secondary effect. Unfortunately, the first effect stays.

[Adhesive]

Egon, I have done the quest. Several times. And each time I'm able to storm through it with minimal buffs and losses for the exact reasons I posted above. If you're having trouble with staying unpoisoned, a change in your strategy is necessary.

[Disco]

Its fine the way it is. And the fact that team nature aparently does it all the time, means that the loot and xp is fine fine.

[Pup]

While I believe the quest is fine, I certainly agree that a change to Antitoxin is in order.  As Egon said, the speed with which the second save is made often means you are still in battle resulting in sky-high DC.  Add that they don't even remove the ability losses and they are basically useless.

I can't remember the last time I even picked one up except to throw it away.