Random Pathfinder question:

[Angie]

Okay, I need someone to explain to me something about poisons. Specifically: What the FUCK does the book mean by 'onset' time? They never explain this!

[Thorne]

I always read it as 'how long it takes for the poison to take effect'. Poison has an onset time of three minutes? It takes that long for it to take effect. One round? Six seconds later, it'll hit you.

If I've been reading that wrong, I'd be curious to know what the correct reading is. ^^;

[Angie]

You're probably right and that's what I was thinking. Diseases I think are the same way, and it makes sense cause those are measured in days.

And I suppose if a frequency isn't listed (there's a couple monsters like that) it's just a one shot thing that takes days to get through.

[Hemingway]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/poison

It has a pretty comprehensive guide to how poisons work. It does start by saying:

The rules are not very clear on the exact details of how poisons work. This is an attempt to clear up the order of events involving poison. Please keep in mind that this is our best attempt at an comprehensive set of rules based on the published rules, official errata and blog posts, and posts from designers.

You're apparently not the only one who's struggled with poisons.

I could only find one that didn't have a frequency, and that one just renders you unconscious, so multiple failures wouldn't really do anything.

[Thorne]

For effects, we tend to look at what real-world poisons do to the people who get hit with them.
And anything outta nature's tool box is just... *shudder*

I did see someone's character once take about six hits of Adder venom; he nailed in the surprise round three times, one a crit that pretty much emptied the poison reservoir, then nailed a couple times again before the character could do anything. His legs essentially rotted off. There was nothing the healer could do for him but make him comfortable. There was simply no way for him to make the required saves, even with help - and you don't get poison-curing spells until spell level three or so.
It was a really fine lesson in 'don't get hit with that' - and I'd been watching a lot of 'idiots who keep venomous snakes' (paraphrased - can't remember the actual name of the show) before that. You can imagine the mental images /I/ had from that...