Protection from Poison: Good for What Ails You
Usable By: Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger
Spell Level: 2
School: Abjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour
Components: V, S
You touch a creature. If it is poisoned, you neutralize the poison. If more than one poison afflicts the target, you neutralize one poison that you know is present, or you neutralize one at random.
For the duration, the target has advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and it has resistance to poison damage.
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Sometimes all you need is a name to know exactly what a spell does. What does Protection from Poison do? It protects you from poison. Duh.
How useful is that actually, though? How often is this something you should prepare? If you aren’t getting it as a domain spell or for free some other way, I’d go as far to say unless you’re in the upper tier about to face down a young or older green dragon, you definitely don’t need to prepare this.
Poisons are woefully underdeveloped and explored in 5e. The system has a handful of items and less than that monsters that come with unique poison effects that last more than a round. Iconic poisonous creatures, like scorpions, don’t even poison you all that often. Usually, they just do some amount of poison damage. Is a 2nd level spell worth mitigating part of a mid level monster’s attacks that you fight on the way to the boss? That’s the question you need to answer before taking this, and you have to answer it knowing you’re going to face off against something of this sort.
I’d guess a big part of the reason poisons aren’t that explored, even at homebrew tables, is this spell exists. Druids and clerics from levels three onward will be able to entirely mitigate a poison effect if its duration is more than a long rest. Shorter duration poisons then feel like this weird binary, where the player’s have to face dire consequences if they don’t waste a prepared spell on this. If they do prepare it, there isn’t an encounter with the poison anyway. A creature gets poisoned, the druid touches and heals them, agnostic of what the poison actually does. It’s a solution to all interesting long-term poison effects while simultaneously being a weak answer to a rare problem, that being persistent poison condition effects and poison damage.
Most tables won’t need this. If you do, it’ll probably end up feeling like a tax. If you are the group going up against the adult green dragon, though, and want to mitigate a huge chunk of breath weapon damage, this at least doesn’t take concentration and only costs a 2nd level slot. Huzzah.
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