Not all weapons can be poisoned. Maces and bows/crossbows can't be poisoned at all. Of the swords and fencing weapons, only one-handed weapons can be poisoned. It is also possible to poison food, but generally that's not very useful. Note that you can be receive murder counts when "blue" player die from eating your poisoned food.

There are 5 levels of poison, the first 4 are craftable/usable by players, the most dangerous one is only used by monsters though.

When casting the poison spell, the level of the poison is determined by the combined poisoning and magery skill.

• Less than 130.2 total: Lesser poison
• Less than 170.2 total: Normal poison
• Less than 200.0 total: Greater poison
• 200.0 total (GM Magery and GM poisoning): Deadly poison, 5% of the time.

To be able to use the poisoning bonus, you've to be within 2 tiles of your target.

Poisoning weapons is skill-based: lesser poison is easier to apply than deadly poison, however after 80.0 displayed poisoning you will never fail to apply poison. You should still plan on GMing poisoning, the chance to actually poison someone when hitting them with a poisoned blade depends on your poisoning skill. Higher poisoning = more hits poison.

The percentage of hits that poison is belived to be Poisoning skill / 4. A GM poisoned blade should therefore poison at least 1/4 hits.

Poisoned weapons have a limited number of uses:

• Lesser poison: 18
• Poison: 16
• Greater poison: 14
• Deadly poison: 12

Every time you hit with a weapon, whether it poisons or not, one use is consumed. Poisoning weapons also reduces their durability and makes them break faster. It is therefore not recommended to posion valuable magic weapons.

Warriors with the poisoning skill can reduce the rate at which weapons break. The weapon corrosion also depends on the type of poison used. Lesser poison damages weapons less than deadly poison.

The effects of corrosion can be stopped by wiping the weapon with an oil cloth. This also removes any uses of poison that may be remaining on the weapon.

The update center has the following information about weapon corrosion:

"Having the poisoning skill will reduce the rate at which a poisoned weapon corrodes. For instance, a deadly poisoned weapon wielded by a character with over 50 poisoning would corrode as if it were greater poison. At over 99 skill, the deadly poison will corrode as if it were only regular poison. This will significantly reduce the rate at which poison corrodes a weapon when wielded by assassins (characters with the poison skill)."

Skill training

• 0-30: Train from npc (thief guildmaster)
• 30-45: Lesser poison
• 45-65: Poison
• 65-100: Greater poison
• 90-100: Deadly poison

It is possible to GM poisoning with greater poison, however it takes longer. Using deadly poison is faster, however you need a LOT more nightshade to make the potions.

Poisoning is affected by the anti macro code, this means you have to poison different items until you gain, then you can go poison them again and gain again.

The best way to train is by recording UOA macros poisoning weapons. If you don't already have a large weapon collection, make some daggers or butcher knifes with your smith/tinker. You can, of course, also buy weapons from npcs if you don't have a mule.

UOA macros can be up to 200 lines long, you need 5 lines per weapon. Organize your weapons into bags of 40 and record one macro per bag.

Use item type (Potion keg)
Use skill/Cast spell (Poisoning)
Target item type (Green potion)
Target (Weapon #1)
Pause 11500
 ..
Repeat 39 times

If you use greater poison to GM you need more targets than when you switch to deadly poison at 90, you don't gain as often when applying greater poison.

I'd recommend having at least 100 different weapons, but a true powergamer should have 200+ so you can get some gains out of powerhour as well, without running out of targets immediately. Macroing after powerhour is especialyl recommended when you're using greater poison to GM.

Tips & Tricks

• Poison your newbie/practice weapons, they can be quite strong and you can use them right after ressurecting.
• Wipe poisoned weapons with an oil cloth after the poison charges are used up to prevent corrosion.
• You can't repair poisoned weapons until you wipe them clean.

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Version 1.0: Initial draft
Version 1.1: typos, clarifications.
Version 1.2: Fixed poison damage.