Oblivion talk:Weakness to Poison

Scope of Effect

Does it just affect damage, or other effects like Damage Attribute too? What about effect like Paralyze with duration but no magnitude? --66.23.133.52 20:50, 13 June 2007 (EDT)

It affects anything that is applied as a poison to a weapon. Confusingly, effects such as fire damage applied as a poison are affected by poison weakness/resistance, not fire weakness/resistance. --Gaebrial 03:48, 4 September 2007 (EDT)

Actually fire damage applied as a poison is affected by both poison weakness/resistance and fire weakness/resistance. So a custom fire damage poison that normally does 8 points damage for 32 seconds ends up doing 16 points damage for 32 seconds if the target has 100% weakness to poison (without any active weaknesses to fire).

I also just tested a range of other poison effects to figure out in more detail what weakness to poison will do. In general, weakness to poison will increase the magnitude of any poison used against the target. I tested damage health (including versions both with and without durations), fire damage, damage magicka, drain magicka, damage speed, and burden effects. For effects that only have a duration, however, weakness to poison will increase the effect's duration. The two effects that fall into this category are paralysis and silence, and I tested both of them. --Nephele^Talk 19:43, 4 September 2007 (EDT)

Ooh. That might explain a few things :) I assume that resistances work in the same manner? Also, I assume that weakness to poison works the same way as other weakness effects - if you have a weapon enchanted with weakness to poison, and you poison it, the weakness doesn't apply, but if you hit a creature with the weapon, then poison the second strike, the weakness does apply (assuming it is still in effect).

And another thought. If you have an enemy that is immune to poison, but weak to an elemental attack (e.g. a zombie, which is weak to fire), and you hit that enemy with a fire damage poison (no weakenss to poison this time), does it get applied? --Gaebrial 02:44, 5 September 2007 (EDT)

Yes, it will only alter poisons applied after the initial weakness to poison effect. So in your example, poison on the first strike would be at normal strength; only poison on the second strike would be amplified by the weakness to poison (from the first strike).

As for how the effects interact, there's a more complete description at Oblivion:Magical Effects#Resistances and Weaknesses. Basically the resistance to poison and the weakness to fire multiply. So if an enemy is immune to poison, the weakness to fire effect won't help at all (0 x 100 = 0, 0 x 200 = 0, etc). You have to add a weakness to poison in order for any poisons to start to make a difference. --Nephele^Talk 03:18, 5 September 2007 (EDT)

Ok, cool. That means weakness to poison works in exactly the same way as weakness to magic, which I what I suspected. I just wasn't sure that what I was seeing reflected this, but it looks like there were other factors in play that I hadn't accounted for. --Gaebrial 03:25, 5 September 2007 (EDT)

Just a thought - Do Weakness to <Elemental School> and Weakness to Poison stack the same way Weakness to Magic and Weakness to <Elemental School> stack? As in, can I triple the weaknesses? So, 1 spell with 3 weaknesses? Magic, Poison and <Elemental School>? --Kharay 07:20, 8 June 2009 (EDT)

No, you can't stack the three effects together like that, because Weakness to Magic only applies to magic, and poison does not count as magic (at least in the base game; several mods will add poison effect spells).75.163.142.34 02:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How to use poison?

I don't understand how one should use poison -- saying "here, please drink this Strong Poison of Illness" to the bad guys attacking me doesn't seem to work.  :) There is passing mention of using them with a weapon, but no explanation I can find of how you would do this.

I expected to find this explained on a Oblivion:Poisons page, but no such page seems to exist (though there is this page, and a list of poisons on the potions page, but neither explains how you would use them). 67.174.121.228 11:03, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

You simply click on them to use them, like you click on potions to drink them. You will then get a message box asking if you want to poison your current weapon. Click yes, and the poison is applied to the weapon. The next time you hit an opponent with that weapon, the poison will be applied to them. --Gaebrial 04:12, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

This is great info and not at all obvious -- if I did the same action with a poison that, with any other potion causes me to drink it, then I'd expect to drink the poison too. Obviously that's not something I was inclined to try. I think you should put this on a real page somewhere, so other clueless newbies don't have to go poking around on discussion pages to find it. 67.174.121.228 14:02, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

It is on a real page somewhere. p.37 of the game manual, in the "Potions and Poisons" subsection under the Alchemy heading. (It's the last sentence on the page.) It doesn't get much more real than that. 72.28.170.64 03:33, 19 April 2008 (EDT)

Important Note

I just did some testing, and it's important to note that if you're using a 'Weakness to Poison' effect on a melee weapon, the Poison has to come from a different weapon. I found Tooth-in-the-Sea and hit him with a blade enchanted with a 4-second 100 point Weakness to Poison effect. I then poisoned the weapon with a Paralysis poison and hit him with it while the effect was still active. The result was a message, 'The Paralysis effect was Resisted'. Now, if I used the Weakness to Poison effect, then switched to a different weapon that I then poisoned, the poison worked as it was supposed to. So if you plan to use Weakness to Poison regularly, you'll need a separate weapon to do so.Swk3000 10:16, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

It's already mentioned in the article, to a degree:

The Weakness to Poison effect must be active before the poison for it to have an effect. In other words, you must first fire an arrow with a Weakness to Poison effect, then fire a second arrow with the poison; combining the two in one arrow shot will not work as intended.

This is quite likely along similar lines to Weakness to Magicka in Spellmaking; a previously existing "Weakness" effect will work for any effects up until a new "Weakness" effect is added, then it won't work (presumably to prevent people exploiting something obvious like "Weakness to Fire 100pts" followed directly by "Fire Damage 100pts"). I'd imagine poison is delivered after weapon enchantments are taken into account and it's following the same rules whereby a "Weakness to..." effect will not work for any effects dealt by the weapon in the same blow. --Dalimyr^{(T ≈ C)} 10:47, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

No, you are saying that if you poison it, then attack, the poison will not work, we mean we attack with a melee weapon with weakness to poison, THEN we attack with the same weapon poisoned, it does not work and should be noted on the page.

I can confirm this, with extensive testing using sdt 8. If you use a poison on a weapon enchanted with Weakness to Poison, the poison is applied BEFORE the Weakness to Poison effect, even if that enchantment was already active from previous strikes. Thus, an 8-point Damage Health poison will always have a magnitude of 8 unless you have another WTD effect active. The order of enchantment effects doesn't seem to matter the way it does with Weakness to Magic; the poison seems to take effect between the old enchantment effect getting removed and the new one getting applied. Using an 8-point Damage Health poison with a WTD 50m 15d weapon, for instance:

• Poison on regular weapon: 8pts
• Poison on 50% WTD enchantment, first strike: 8pts
• Poison on 50% WTD enchantment, subsequent strikes: 8pts
• Poison on regular weapon, after 50% WTD strike: 12pts
• Poison on regular weapon, 100% WTD spell: 16pts
• Poison on 50% WTD enchantment, 100% WTD spell, first strike: 16pts
• Poison on 50% WTD enchantment, 100% WTD spell, subsequent strikes: 16pts
• Poison on regular weapon, after 50% WTD strike and 100% WTD spell: 20pts

I think this is a very important note to add to the article. 71.254.81.220 16:20, 11 May 2013 (GMT)

I don't know if someone tried to clarify this in the article. If they did it was not clear at all, so I added a note to the article indicating that the effect does not work on the same melee weapon but it does work on the same bow. Chicken Slayer (talk) 14:39, 12 May 2015 (GMT)

Is poison subject to Reflect spell / Spell Absorption?

Can poison be reflected/absorbed? WRFan 02:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

In all my time of playing I've never seen poison be reflected or absorbed, so I'd assume no. --Timenn-<talk> 11:44, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, you are correct. I just encountered an enemy who attacked me with a poisoned dagger. Damaged my magicka but good, broke right through 100% reflect spell. However, immunity to magic seems to grant immunity to poisoned weapons as well. My character has the apprentice birth sign, so I cast 200% resist magic on myself and this time the poisoned dagger had no effect. I believe Resist Poison is cheaper in terms of spell points, but this effect is somewhat difficult to acquire. It's only available in random loot spell tomes, unless you are an Argonian/vampire— Unsigned comment by WRFan (talk • contribs) on September 25, 2009

Weakness raises damage, are you sure?

I just did extensive testing with both weakness to poison and weakness to normal weapons and neither of these weakness effects seem to go beyond 0% (baseline damage). Using this on a target with a natural resistance will see the damage increase up to the maximum damage possible with that poison (ie. using 50% weakness to poison on an elytra) counteracting their inherent resistance.

But taking it beyond that (ie. applying 100% weakness to a healthy imperial) does NOT result in the poison dealling double damage. Can anyone else confirm this observation? --94.76.168.216 20:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)