In my quest to create stats for more mundane things I give you some common(but not very effective) toxins and drugs. I tried to keep it to things that Runners might actually come across or try to use. The last one might be a little controversial, but it’s the one I know Runners ask the most about.

Ammonium Chloride (AKA Poor Man’s Nerve gas)
Cost per dose: 8
Availability: 4
Volume per dose: 1 liter (when released creates a gas that fills 25 cubic meters per dose)
Vector: Inhalation
Speed: Immediate
Penetration: -1
Power: 4
Effect: Disorientation, Damage
Description: Long a tool of anarchists and low income terrorists Ammonium Chloride is created from common household ingredients. When two liquids are combined it creates a gas that causes burning of the lungs and skin. It also causes the eyes to water and reduces visablity.


Rat-Poison
Cost per dose: 5 per 20 doses
Availability: 6
Volume per dose: 5mg of powder
Vector: Ingestion
Speed: 6
Penetration: 0
Power: 2
Effect: Nausea, Damage
Description: A common powdered poison it is used for killing small vermin. In small amounts it causes nausea in humans, but is not usually fatal.


Devil Rat-Poison
Cost per dose: 15 per 20 doses
Availability: 4R (It is kept behind the counter and your purchase of it is recorded. Can not purchase more than 2 boxes at a time.)
Volume per dose: 5mg of powder
Vector: Ingestion
Speed: 10
Penetration: 0
Power: 5
Effect: Nausea, Paralysis, Damage
Description: A more concreted version of normal rat poison it causes paralysis in animals that consumes it as well as the nausea created by normal rat poison. It works by shutting down the involuntary responses from the brain to the lungs and heart.

Insecticide (AKA Raid, Bug Polish)
Cost per dose: 5 per 100 doses
Availability: 5
Volume per dose: 5mL of aerosol spray (when released creates a gas that fills 1 cubic meter per dose)
Vector: Contact
Speed: Immediate
Penetration: 0
Power: 2
Effect: Damage, Disorientation
Description: Common bug spray used in eradication of swarms of pests. The damage to humans is light, but some people “huff” if for the light headed disorientation and hallucination it causes.

CheapDate (AKA Roofies, Date Tamer, Homerun)
Cost per dose: 20
Availability: 6F
Volume per dose: 1 pill
Vector: Injection
Speed:5 min
Penetration: 0
Power: 9
Effect: Paralysis, Stun Damage
Description: A knockout drug that leaves the victim unconscious and/or unable to move. Commonly used by people in the club scene to get “dates”. Worse case scenarios are when the victim does not fall unconscious, but is unable to move. Use of this drug is severely looked down upon by Lone Star and KE and it will get you automatic time in jail. (If not a few “accidents” on the way to the station.)

Commercial Rat Poison is almost always based on a drug called "warfarin", which is essentially a toxic overdose of a blood thinner, designed to cause intestinal bleeding. Is the nausea simply from pain and the desire to vomit? Rats can't vomit; this toxin rarely kills humans because they CAN vomit.
However, this give rat poison an alternative use; its often added to IED's, with the intent that the wounds the explosions won't clot so fast. I suppose it could also be dissolved and coated on a blade, especially a piercing weapon like an arrow or throwing knife. In such a use, I'd just have it bump up the damage code of the weapon; the effect is essentially the opposite of a platelet factory or artificial skin.

The vomiting is caused by the body trying to "evacuate" the toxin. I'm thinking adding it to a blade would just add +2Dv to the weapon. Its simpler that way. I'll have to dig up more info on how the game mechanic would be handled. Still it adds some good gameplay; I can see people in the Barrens coating weapons with it if its true. No street docs means that someone could bleed to death if that is the case.

A fair amount of rat poison has been the so-called "white arsenic" or arsenic trioxide. While most countries no longer use it, it is still somewhat common in the developing world. In a dystopian future where human life is considered a cheap commodity, it could make a resurgence. Game rules for arsenic poising are already in the system.

I was looking at that, but at 120 per dose I figured there had to be something cheaper for modern markets. Not to fond of the arsenic rules either. Its a little to complicated.

Yeah... I think they artificially inflated the cost of some poisons to try to discourage players from going that route, honestly. Nothing that expensive would ever be used to kill rats. Not in developing countries.

I don't know why they want to keep poisons for being readily available. I mean this is a game where people shoot other people in the face for money.

All poisons like the ones I "created" would only be viable in low level games or stuff that street punks would use. I also find it to be HUGE waste for dwarves to have a special ability that never comes into play.

Because they want the players to shoot people in the face, not poison people, I would assume.

I agree, btw, on the dwarf bit. The way the game usually plays, all a dwarf really gets out of it is the ability to show off in bars by drinking a lot... IF the GM even bothers with that, which is kind of unlikely.

I wouldn't even go +2 DV; +1 should cut it, unless the user really knows a fair bit about how to make sure the maximum amount of anti-coagulant sticks to the blade / arrow / etc.

Orcs (and trolls) get the same number of dice to roll anyhow, posibally even more because max dwarven augmented body is 10 or so, meaning 12 dice after the boost, while even an orc can boost body right up to 13 (though granted, not often with stuff that aids toxin resistance).