Poison and PoisonEffect (damage types)

Poison and PoisonEffect are damage types in Deus Ex. "Poison" damage is caused by the mini-crossbow's tranquilizer darts and also by Greasel spits. "PoisonEffect" is a special damage type that is used only for the damage-over-time effect caused by poison damage. "Poison" and "PoisonEffect" are internal names that only appear in game files.

When "Poison" or "PoisonEffect" damage is taken by the player, the HUD will display a green damage indicator icon. This icon is the same as the icon used for the "PoisonGas" damage type. "PoisonGas" is a separate damage type, used for different purposes.

Poison effect
When a target incurs "Poison" damage, the target will undergo a damage-over-time effect during which the target takes "PoisonEffect" damage.


 * Non-player targets will take damage every 2 seconds over 16 seconds (for a total of 8 ticks). The damage of each tick is the initial poison damage.
 * The player character (JC Denton) takes damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds (for a total of 4 ticks). The damage of each tick is the initial poison damage. Additionally, the player will have blurred vision for 4 seconds (the same as the "drunk" effect).

For all humanoid (including the player character), damage from the poison effect is applied to the torso. Although the poison effect damages the torso, the optimal target when combating humanoid NPCs is still the head (for greater damage on the initial hit), because any combination of head and torso damage that sums to 100% damage will reduce overall health to zero.

The damage-over-time effect cannot be stacked. Repeated hits from tranquilizer darts or Greasel spits will only refresh the effect.

Non-lethality
Humanoid targets whose last bit of health is removed by "Poison" or "PoisonEffect" damage will be rendered unconscious.

Resistance
Although "Poison" and "PoisonEffect" are separate damage types internally, they are universally subject to the same resistances.


 * Robots are fully immune.
 * MJ12 Commandos have 50% resistance.
 * For the player, resistance is provided by hazmat suits and the Energy Shield augmentation.
 * Since damage is truncated to the nearest integer and both tranquilizer darts and Greasel spits have low base damage, the player can reduce the actual damage from these damage types to zero if resistance is high enough to reduce damage to less than 1.
 * Even if actual damage is reduced to zero, the blurred vision effect will still be triggered.

Damage sources

 * Mini-crossbow (tranquilizer darts)
 * Greasel spit