Serpent Shaft

Serpent Shaft is a Magical Quarterstaff +2. On each hit from this staff, there's a 50% chance to inflict a Poison effect unless the target saves vs Death. This weapon is required to upgrade the Ravager to +6 by Cespenar.
This item appears in Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition.
Normally, this weapon's poison does a total of 24 damage over the course of 2 rounds, but if the enemy is hasted they'll receive 46 damage over those same 2 rounds instead, due to how damage-over-time poison interacts with haste. Considering that the poison can also be stacked, this fact makes this one of the most damaging weapons in the game in the hands of a character or party that can haste enemies via Improved Haste or Wish (against enemies that are vulnerable to poison, of course) or against enemies that already make use of haste themselves. Moreover the fast-acting poison (even without haste) is especially devastating against spellcasters who won't be able to cast during the effect.
The main drawback of the weapon is the 50% chance, as it can't be improved upon with Greater Malison and similar spells. The +2 enchantment rarely matters as the few enemies that require +3 or +4 weapons to be hit tend to already be immune to poison (like balors, pit fiends, ancient vampires and greater mummies), so one should use another weapon against those even if Enchanted Weapon (EE) is available to allow the Serpent Shaft to hit them.
==Location==
It is dropped by the lich on the fifth floor of Watcher's Keep.
==Description==
Category:Inflicts poison status