Drugs are bad, mmkay?

[Egon the Monkey]

I really like the new drugs system, and how it can add a variety of bonuses and penalties to a PC, as well as addiction. However, the addiction's far too easy to get, since it's possible and likely to get hooked on your first use. The save vs addiction always fires, and it's generally a quite high straight-up Will save. So, it doesn't lead to your PC getting addicted after coming to rely on the drug psychologically (as a questbuff say) first, but often on the first try.

I suggest that changing to a random chance of between 10 and 30% of having to make the addiction save would be a good idea. Because then a character who's just tried the drug and thought "meh" is unlikely to become an addict, but one that's using it all the time will keep triggering the addiction save. It'd make players more willing to take the risk of using them, whereas now you may as well accept that if you're not a savebuild or Cleric you're likely to get addicted to most drugs on the first use or two.

[SilentSouth]

I like this idea, it would make the whole drug use thing more realistic.

[EfUA_undercover]

I would actually like to see that some of them get even worse saves. If there are drugs (and some compareable to some serious RL drugs) I want to see people crawling in the streets, shiting their pants and dying. Yeah, drugs aren't a happy business and I doubt it's positive to portray it as anything else than destructive, atleast for the bigger part of substances.

Though I also agree with the op that some 'soft' drugs should be more difficult to get addicted to while others should be even more problematic.

[Porkolt]

Drug addicts don't die nearly as quickly as alcoholics.
 
I've once had someone who worked with addicts tell me that the alcoholics he worked with were usually gone within the year, but drug addicts held out a -lot- longer.

[Craig210]

I'd suggest people experiment more with the current system, before making suggestions. Playing a dealer addict i think the system is fine as it is, considering the different drugs on offer( Bare in min guys, alot of drugs are still undiscovered/ new ones can be made by a dm at any time )

[Egon the Monkey]

You could up the save and lower the chance of encountering it. The point of reducing the chance of addiction in a non save-dependent manner is it means that on average, PCs won't get unrealistically addicted on the first use. Imagine say a drug with a DC 25 Will vs Addiction but only a 5% chance of getting addicted. Mostly, safe to use once. But anyone who keeps using it will get hooked even if they have good Will saves. Who smokes their first cigarette and then thinks "OH GOD I MUST HAVE 20 MORE NOW"? If we're going for realism, Pipeweed should have a huge save, nicotine's one of the most addictive of recreational drugs. You can't get dependent on it on one use though. Please, please don't make me start mining Pubmed for pharmacology papers or Bad Science for bad drugs reporting or abuse of statistics ;).

The point is, you don't get addicted to anything by doing it once. You have to build up a tolerance or become psychologically dependent. Tracking how many times a given PC has used a given drug (like how the increased alcohol DCs as you drink more works) would create more data for the server to check and might lead to lag. I can't really comment on the feasibility there. Making addiction a low chance, but difficult to avoid if you regularly use drug items would have a similar effect though.

You'd have your impoverished druggie PCs mugging Drunken Tradesmen, you'd have your PCs with combat drugs as a last resort (I loved the trade off in Fallout between being able to fill yourself with Psycho and Buffout and trash a base but then be knackered from side effects and wonder how many times you could do that before your PC was addicted), you'd have ones who smoke/drink/snort Mist occasionally and are still otherwise fine. Instead, drugs==addiction, meaning unless you want to be playing Crackhead the Mercenary, they're too high-risk a buff/RP tool. On the other hand booze is a temporary effect, no longterm risk, and has a perk to make it healing. People use it without the character inevitably being a drunk. The system's good, but it'd be even better if it allowed a variety of uses beyond "this PC is dependent on this item".

[EfUA_undercover]

Well, what I see is people telling me oocly they got addicted to a drug, but I dont see the consequences potrayed as much as I would wish. Guess that made me post the above.

Don't take me wrong, I am not some hardcore antidrug guy, quite the opposite in fact. But honestly, people who are addicted have a real serious problem and not just an ooc-mechanic bothering them to aquire more of said thing. Or do you want to tell me that say a speed-addict is going to have a normal conversation in the middle of the street? Or is going to become all revolutionary? Or that a crack addict cares of anything else than his next hit? Or why is it that most big dealers sell the stuff but dont take the stuff? They know what they are selling, yes? Of course this is a RP game and I may have too big expectations of drugs and the way they influence people, because I have seen too much in my life, but I think we are walking a small path here and if we want drugs in game than atleast let them have serious consequences and a high chance of addiction for the serious stuff (ofc not for first tries as the op suggested).

TLDR: Keep the risks high, maybe even make the consequences a bit more severe, but consider to have a lower chance of addiction for first time users.

And of course I agree with Porkolt on the alcoholics, but I think with the changes to the system the problem of alcohol is represented better ig as before and if I noticed correctly the effects last longer aswell, which really bothered me in the past.

[The Old Hack]

I support Egon in this. While not perfectly realistic, the system he proposes strikes me as sensible and hopefully not too difficult to implement. (Creating a system close to reality would be nightmarish in complexity and involve stuff like who is predisposed towards addiction or addictive behavior -- which can run in family lines -- long-term damage of addiction, and so forth. >.< )

[Drakill Tannan]

IMO i'd just lower the DC. A low DC that always fires is bound to get you adicted eventually if you rely too much on it.

[Egon the Monkey]

Considered that, but a PC with good Will saves would *never* get addicted that way as on EfU you can't critically fail by rolling a 1 on a save.

[Drakill Tannan]

It is however possible to increse the DC with each use. It is done with alcohol items: the first time it has a DC of 13, if you fail it, the next DC is 15, 18, 20? i don't know the actual values, but they increse. Make a low will save, and make it go up for each use in a single reset, a high will PC won't be affected by taking 1 or 2, but if he/she relies on it too much, he will.

[Egon the Monkey]

I realise that, question is would it be too complex from having to handle a new variable for each drug for each PC? One using it once a reset would be the sort that'd be using them continually, so the uses for each drug recent;y would have ot be on the player tool or something.

[Disco]

I have suguested this twice already. +1 from me.

[Garem]

I've noticed that nobody has mentioned how incredibly useful drugs are. These things are really, really useful! Especially at low levels, these things make a big difference and cost very little for the most part.

[The Old Hack]

Well duh. If the bait wasn't good, nobody would bite the hook. :p