Poison is a detriment that players and monsters suffer when they are attacked by a poisoned weapon. Also, the Smoke-type spells from the Ancient Magicks may poison targets.
A player taking damage from poison.
Many non-player characters are also able to poison. The damage can range from 10 (Poison almost worn off) to 168 (K'ril Tsutsaroth's starting poison)
When a player or monster is poisoned, a number appears with a green splat (File:Poison Hit(new1).png) instead of a red one, indicating the amount of damage the poison has dealt to their life points (for example, a player who suffers 68 poison damage will lose 68 life points). Poison wears off over time, decreasing by a value of two life points every time it strikes. After poison damage is reduced to 10, it disappears and the poison has abated.
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For instance, if a player is hit by another player wielding a poisoned dagger, they would be hit for 48 damage after 18 seconds (or 30 game ticks), then 46 damage after 18 seconds, then 44, 42, etc., until the damage is reduced to 10 and then the poison would be gone.
It is worth noting that an attack with a poisoned weapon does not actually need to inflict direct damage to inflict poison. Whether this is a programming oversight or intentional is not known. This could possibly be that poison does not need a cut (i.e. dealing 1 damage) but just a graze which deals no damage to the player, but enough to get the poison into their bloodstream. Technically, this may be because an attack hits, but the strength of the hit is only 0. (Missing and hitting for 0 are different but appear the same.) Some monsters, such as tribesmen, Kalphites, or K'ril Tsutsaroth must inflict damage in order to poison a player (Prayers such as the Protect from Melee cannot negate this, and even if they hit zeros due to the prayer's effect, you are still poisoned). Others, such as Cave Slimes and Saradomin wizards, as well as other players, may inflict poison even if they hit a zero (unless the player is protected by an antipoison potion). As an additional note, being hit by a poisoned weapon does not guarantee becoming poisoned.
It is also interesting to note that being afflicted by poison does not disrupt Woodcutting, and players cannot rest if they are poisoned. This is probably because it makes it harder to get away from places like the lava maze.
You do NOT gain any experience when doing damage with poison, so if you're training and every experience point counts, don't use weapon poison.
Tripwires in Tirannwn cause 28 poison damage, and the trap on the Sinister chest causes 68 poison damage.
Weapon poisoning
Clean, unpoisoned weapons can be poisoned by weapon poisons made through the Herblore skill. There are several types of weapon poisons which deal progressively more damage. Only spears, arrows, bolts, darts, throwing knives, javelins, daggers, and hastae can be poisoned.
- Weapon Poison - poisoning deals 48 damage initially with melee weapons, 28 damage with ranged. Weapons with this poisoning have the suffix (p) on the end of their names (for example, Dragon dagger(p)).
- Extra Strong Weapon Poison - hits for 58 damage with melee, 38 with ranged. Suffix (p+).
- Super Strong Weapon Poison - hits for 68 damage with melee, 48 with ranged. This is the most popular type of weapon poison since it is tradeable and does the most damage, along with Karambwan paste. Suffix (p++)
- Karambwan Paste - hits for 68 damage. This poison can only be applied to spears and hastae, and cannot be traded. Suffix (kp).
- Emerald bolts (e) - hits for 58 damage. Mithril bolts can be made with level 53 Smithing and level 54 Fletching. Emerald bolt tips can be added at level 58 Fletching, then enchanted with level 27 Magic, and fired from a mithril crossbow at level 36 Ranged.
Remember, if a monster you are fighting gets poisoned by you, you will not receive experience from the poison damage. Some monsters, such as Wall beasts, Turoths, Waterfiends, and the God Wars Dungeon bosses are immune to poison.
Poison can be removed from weapons with a cleaning cloth, obtained by using Karamja rum with Silk. A new poison can then be applied to the weapon. If you attempt to apply poison to an already poisoned weapon nothing interesting happens. This is the case of all poisoned weapons except when you use a poisoned karambwan paste on a spear or hasta. For example, you have a dragon spear p++ and you also have poisoned karambwan paste, you can use the paste on the dragon spear p++ without needing to wipe off the p++ with a cleaning cloth. Notable is that for example the effect of Karambwan Paste and Super Strong Weapon Poison is impossible to survive without food, antipoison or life points boosts (it does a total of 1170 damage, while unboosted the maximum life points counts 990).
Curing poison
Poison can be cured through antidotes. Anti-poison potions are the most popular antidote and they come in various levels which provide progressively longer immunity to poisoning. All regular poisons can be cured by regular antipoison, even that inflicted upon players by K'ril Tsutsaroth, which hits 168 to start. Some antidotes provide immunity for a temporary period of time, in which you cannot be poisoned.
- Antipoison
- Super antipoison
- Antipoison+
- Antipoison++
- Prayer book (no immunity)
- Strange fruit (no immunity)
- Guthix rest (reduces poison damage per hit by 10)
- Sanfew Serum
- Oo'glog thermal spa
- Cure Me (no immunity)
- Cure Other (no immunity)
- Cure Group (no immunity)
- Right-clicking "Cure" on the Unicorn Stallion familiar will cure poison and disease. However, it does cost the player some summoning points, and will not grant the player immunity.
- Wearing an Anti-poison totem in the shield slot provides full immunity to poison. This requires 60 Defence, 60 Dungeoneering, and 70 Herblore. The totem cannot cure poison; it only prevents players from becoming poisoned.
Another free alternative if you are really low on health is to teleport to your respawn location. This way when you die you can instantly obtain your items again. This is not advised in the Wilderness, as you cannot get a gravestone there, and your items will be immediately visible to others. If you were attacked and damaged by a player killer, they will get your items instead, even if they only caused one life point of damage. In addition, untradeable items will be replaced either by tradeable versions of them or coins.
Another safe alternative is to teleport to your Player Owned House, so when you die, you will not lose items and instead, be teleported outside of your house. A faster method involving the Player Owned House to cure poison is to simply leave the house by using the teleportation methods available in the house (e.g. Mounted Amulet of Glory, the Portal Chamber room or simply leaving your house through the Exit Portal). This will cure your poison completely.
Trivia
- Logging out to lobby every 5 seconds will be able to stop poison from hitting u. Unknown if this is a bug/glitch or not.
- When the player is poisoned, the life points meter to the top-right the minimap turns green with a use cure (p) option.
- You cannot rest while you are poisoned. The reason for this is unknown.
- Players do not experience the effects of poison whilst wearing the Ring of stone, an Easter ring, or a Bone brooch. This may be a glitch.
- Players do not experience the effects of poison whilst solving a Puzzle box from a Clue scroll.
- Using the special attack of a poisoned Dragon dagger seems to increase the chance of poisoning a target, but this is unconfirmed. However, since the special hits twice, it is possible that there is a higher chance of poisoning the victim.
- Although extremely rare, it is possible to kill a target with poison without damaging it. This is done by using the special attack of a poisoned Dragon dagger. The poison splat can hit before the red splats, resulting in a killing blow on monsters who have 68 or less life points (when using poison++).
- With the Constitution update, the total damage for poison was increased disproportionately to other forms of damage. Normal weapons' poison went from a total of 4 hitpoint damage (40 life point damage) to 57 total life point damage.
- The effects of poison wear off after around two minutes, depending on the potency of the poison.
- If you are poisoned and are somewhere remote, it is possible to pause the poison's progress by opening the price check screen. This allows you time to regain life points. It is unknown whether Jagex did this on purpose or if it is a bug/glitch in the game.
- A low level player can easily incapacitate a larger foe with a strong poison. For example, using a Dragon dagger (p++) at level 65 on a Giant Frog (Level 99) and hiding behind something can prevent you from being hit, but the poison will still kill the target.
- It is possible for the poison splat to read 0, but can only happen when you are dead. This can be done if you are already poisoned, and after a specific time, you die with regular damage but the poison that was suppose to inflict damage upon will read zero because you would have no life points left.
- With a poison++ weapon, the total damage done from the poison is 940 over 9 minutes.
- If a player is poisoned by a p++ weapon, the total HP lost until the player is unpoisoned is 1170 LP
- When using the home teleport spell, poison damage is paused, but when you reach the teleport place, you are hit with all the damage you would have taken. This is useful when you are about to die by poison and you home teleport to a spot that (should) be closer to your grave. It is unknown whether this is on purpose or a bug/glitch.