Black, glistening thorns emerge from your skin, causing you no damage but endangering those who attack you in melee.
Your skin sprouts thorns when this spell is cast, increasing the damage you deal with an unarmed strike and making you difficult to grab. As well as dealing lethal damage with your unarmed strikes (if you don’t already do so), you deal an extra 1d6 points of piercing damage (so that a human under the effect of poison thorns would deal 1d3 points of bludgeoning damage + 1d6 points of piercing damage with an unarmed strike). In addition, any creature that hits you with a natural weapon or unarmed strike (including all successful grapple checks) takes 5 points of piercing damage.
A scratch from the thorns is sufficient to deliver a dose of poison to your attacker. Any creature grappling you is exposed to the poison each round at the start of your turn. The poison from the thorns deals 1d4 points of Strength damage immediately and another 1d4 points of Strength damage 1 minute later. Each instance of damage can be negated by a successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ your caster level + your Wis modifier).
A creature’s damage reduction, if any, applies to the damage from this spell. The damage from poison thorns is treated as piercing for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Material Component: A dried black rose.
Source: Spell Compendium, page 159. Previously published in Complete Divine, page 175.