The critical role of chemistry in D&D poisons

Every couple of weeks, I gather with friends to explore ancient ruins, collect artifacts, and occasionally fight off a mind-controlling tentacle monster terrorising a group of children. In other words, to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

Aside from all being the sort of nerds who like rolling dice and pretending to fight monsters with magic, we’re also all chemistry nerds—which means it’s not unusual for an in-game situation to spark a science discussion. Recent encounters with a swarm of small, venomous flying reptiles and a statue-like monster with immunity to poison damage got me wondering how poison works in D&D, chemically speaking.

Poison basics

In both the game and real life, a poison is any substance that causes illness or death by entering the body and disrupting its biochemical processes. (Since statues usually don’t have biochemical processes to disrupt, that would explain the monster’s immunity).

Although it’s true that ‘the dose makes the poison’ since any substance can cause harm if there’s enough in your system to overwhelm your body’s normal operations, there’s nothing in the D&D rulebooks reflecting dose effects. That’s probably for the best; the rules are complicated enough already.