Suffocation Maneuver [3.5]

[Loki Eremes]

And im not talking about ToB here.

Playgrounders...

...Is there a way of doing this to an opponent?
Something like "damage per turn" or alike.

Or something like a "sleep lock" that puts enemies to sleep? [instantly?]



[Metal Gear!]

[Eldan]

By RAW, your best bet is probably grappling someone, then holding them underwater.

There is also a spell which fills the targets lungs with water, but the name eludes me, currently.

[Sipex]

3.5? Initial grapple, then second grapple attempt while enemy is still grappled (ie: move to suffocate). Treat it like water drowning rules from there where the player has to make additional grapple checks to keep suffocating the enemy while the enemy can escape from the grapple.

[Loki Eremes]

yeah i though about grappling, but there's too much time wasted if not done in a round or two.

Drowining rules are not bad but remember you can hold your breath a nubmer of rounds equal to your CON mod. So if im going to do this with "that guard when nobody is looking at us" i dont wanna waste an entire minute with him.

But...until now is the fastest way of doing it.

[Darrin]

Choke Hold feat (Oriental Adventures p. 61). If you pin your opponent for 1 full round, target must make Fort save (DC 10 + 1/2 level + Wis modifier) or fall unconscious for 1d3 rounds. Requires IUS, Imp. Grapple, and Stunning Fist. Actually pretty nasty with the right grappling/constrict build.

[FMArthur]

Choke Hold feat (Oriental Adventures p. 61). If you pin your opponent for 1 full round, target must make Fort save (DC 10 + 1/2 level + Wis modifier) or fall unconscious for 1d3 rounds. Requires IUS, Imp. Grapple, and Stunning Fist. Actually pretty nasty with the right grappling/constrict build.

Why is that Wis-based? :smallannoyed:
Well, I guess if you're aiming for sneaking choking a Swordsage, Monk, or Ninja would be the way to go, but there must be something out there for pure brutes to choke people unconscious.

[Lapak]

Why is that Wis-based? :smallannoyed:
Well, I guess if you're aiming for sneaking choking a Swordsage, Monk, or Ninja would be the way to go, but there must be something out there for pure brutes to choke people unconscious.Thanks to the magic of 'Hit Points are abstract', there is: that's what you're doing when you inflict nonlethal damage during a grapple! A melee brute will put any normal opponent out in one round doing so; tougher opponents are harder to choke out and that's happily reflected by their higher hit points.

[Sipex]

yeah i though about grappling, but there's too much time wasted if not done in a round or two.

Drowining rules are not bad but remember you can hold your breath a nubmer of rounds equal to your CON mod. So if im going to do this with "that guard when nobody is looking at us" i dont wanna waste an entire minute with him.

But...until now is the fastest way of doing it.

To be fair, it does take quite a bit of time to choke someone to death so it makes sense.

The techniques recommended seem more along the lines of what you wanted though.

[Radar]

There is also a garrote that even comes in a self-locking variant - very nasty and efficient way of outing someone. It is lethal though and I can't remember the source.

[Darrin]

Why is that Wis-based?


Because Sucki-- I mean, Stunning Fist is Wis-based.



Well, I guess if you're aiming for sneaking choking a Swordsage, Monk, or Ninja would be the way to go, but there must be something out there for pure brutes to choke people unconscious.

There are rules for garrote attacks in Song & Silence and Dragon Compendium, but they do lethal damage and... ok, this is odd, but "strangled" is not a condition defined by the rules. By RAW, it does not cause suffocation. Even if it did... it takes most creatures 2-3 minutes to start suffocating, which is usually long enough to finish the combat, knit a sweater, finish your memoirs, etc.

The best way to incapacitate a creature quickly is probably forcing a drug overdose. Drugs are treated like poisons, but some of them also have side effects that take effect immediately without a save, and if you can deliver multiple doses in a short period of time, the overdose condition kicks in regardless of whether the target makes his poison saves.

Get a mister (150 GP, Drow of the Underdark p. 92) or a sprayer (15 GP, A&EG p. 25). The mister lets you make a ranged touch attack with any poison or potion. Contact or inhaled poisons/drugs take effect immediately, while ingested poisons allow the target a Ref save DC 15 to avoid ingesting the mist. Injury poisons take effect only if the target is wounded and hasn't been treated with a heal check.

The sprayer doesn't require an attack roll at all (useful for unseen servants). It creates a 5' x 10' cloud as an area effect, but there is no save for targets in the cloud. Poisons are not mentioned in the description, but I would assume contact, inhaled, and injury poisons work the same way as the mister.

The two drugs that are easiest to administer this way:

Kammarth (80 GP, Lords of Darkness p. 183). Magical substance, comes in both powder (contact, DC 10) and jelly (ingested, DC 13) form. Initial: expeditious retreat effect for 1d4 minutes, Secondary: +2 alchemical bonus to Dex for same duration. Side effects: fluff. Overdose: If more than one dose is taken within 8 hours, target takes 1d4 damage and is paralyzed for 2d4 minutes (no save).

Mushroom Powder (100 GP, Book of Vile Darkness p. 43). Inhaled powder (DC 15). Initial: +2 alchemical bonus to Int and Cha, Secondary: 1 point of Str damage. Side effects: -2 alchemical penalty to Wis for 1d4 hours and -2 alchemical penalty to Str and Con for 2d4 hours. Overdose: If 2-3 doses taken within 12 hours, 2d6 damage. If 4 or more doses are taken within 12 hours, target takes 4d6 damage and is paralyzed for 2d4 hours (no save).

[AtomicKitKat]

Purely for completion's sake, Reaping Mauler has Sleeper Hold, but it takes 3 rounds to knock someone out.

[Combat Reflexes]

Grappling is obsolete in D&D. All you need to be immune is (arcane) caster level 1 or a cheap ring.

If you don't mind playing a sub-optimal class, play an Assassin and make 'Grapple Death Attacks' i.e. crush the windpipe. Ask your DM to up the save DC a little.

[Person_Man]

Why is that Wis-based? :smallannoyed:
Well, I guess if you're aiming for sneaking choking a Swordsage, Monk, or Ninja would be the way to go, but there must be something out there for pure brutes to choke people unconscious.

That's actually a positive thing, since the best Grapple builds tend to be Psychic Warriors. (Though the Totemist definitely gives him a run for their money).

Transmute Rock to Water or Sand or something out there. You could theoretically bury or drown people that way.

[Hyudra]

yeah i though about grappling, but there's too much time wasted if not done in a round or two.

Drowining rules are not bad but remember you can hold your breath a nubmer of rounds equal to your CON mod. So if im going to do this with "that guard when nobody is looking at us" i dont wanna waste an entire minute with him.

But...until now is the fastest way of doing it.

Actually, according to the SRD, you can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to twice your Con score. So if you have 18 con, then you can hold your breath for 36 rounds. Even then, when you run out, you can still go for a while, making a DC 10 con check, which increases in DC by +1 per attempt.

Meaning that it can take 5+ minutes for many characters to finally suffocate.

I really hate these rules. They take virtually all of the tension out of a drowning situation.

[Angry Bob]

Actually, according to the SRD, you can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to twice your Con score. So if you have 18 con, then you can hold your breath for 36 rounds. Even then, when you run out, you can still go for a while, making a DC 10 con check, which increases in DC by +1 per attempt.

Meaning that it can take 5+ minutes for many characters to finally suffocate.

I really hate these rules. They take virtually all of the tension out of a drowning situation.

Indeed. A guy I play with had a character that the DM tried to drown by dropping him in a lake. They guy sank like a stone, as guys in adamantine full plate are wont to do, but he had such a high constitution score that he just walked along the bottom and out of the lake long before he started to notice.

[Hyudra]

I had two game experiences which were nearly ruined by the, er, generous 'holding your breath' rules.

One was a dungeon, where the concept was that rival adventurers broke a dam and flooded the mine the PCs were in. What was a fairly standard (if creepy) dungeon became a round-by-round escape as simple features of the mine became hazardous impediments for PCs attempting to swim their way out before they ran out of air. All the while, the aboleth trapped in the lake at the depths of the mine was surging up and out... And then I reread the drowning rules, and realized that the PCs just weren't threatened by the potential drowning, even backtracking through a dungeon with no major investments in Swim.

In another instance, I had a villain kidnapping the mentally and physically disabled heir to the crown, on the edge of a bridge with the sword to the prince's throat. PCs disarm the BBEG, so he shoves the prince off the bridge. Prince sinks like a stone. Even with a piddly six Con, I could see the prince wasn't in any meaningful danger of drowning before the villain was taken down and the PCs could take off their gear and swim in to rescue him. So I alluded to the group in question (politically driven PBP game, 3 active groups at the time) that there was a good possibility that the Prince had the wind knocked out of him by the impact - meaning he might not have a full lungful of air. They were not pleased, and I hated that I had to improvise rules to just add a little tension.

[BRC]

Personally, I think the game should differentiate between Holding Breath and Suffocating. The difference between taking a deep breath then diving into the water verses somebody putting you in a chokehold in the heat of combat or coming up from behind with a Garrote.

I would have it work like this. If you're being choked (Assuming you did not have time to take a deep breath) you make a fortitude save each round. 5+opponent's strength+ 5 for each round the strangle has been going on to remain conscious. While being Strangled, and for one round afterwards you are Fatigued.
To break a Strangle you must succeed
Strangling an opponent can be done in two ways, either by pinning an opponent in a grapple, or by catching them unaware.
if you pin them in a Grapple, the chokehold is handled like a normal pin. If they escape your pin, the hold ends.

If you catch them unaware they are still treated as Pinned, but if they escape they are not considered Grappled. You may use a Garrote to catch somebody unaware, doing so provides a bonus to your strength score, both for the purpose of increasing the fortitude save DC's, and for maintaining the grapple.

[Loki Eremes]

All right, I read the rules....and x2 CON score its just crazy. My main PC with 21 CON could hold breath for 42 rounds? thats +4 mins and then plus 1 round for rolling a 5 on the first round. And that's.......crazy.
And this is not something a high-lvl PC can achieve, a 18 as a starting score is perfectly possible.




Personally, I think the game should differentiate between Holding Breath and Suffocating. The difference between taking a deep breath then diving into the water verses somebody putting you in a chokehold in the heat of combat or coming up from behind with a Garrote.

I would have it work like this. If you're being choked (Assuming you did not have time to take a deep breath) you make a fortitude save each round. 5+opponent's strength+ 5 for each round the strangle has been going on to remain conscious. While being Strangled, and for one round afterwards you are Fatigued.
To break a Strangle you must succeed
Strangling an opponent can be done in two ways, either by pinning an opponent in a grapple, or by catching them unaware.
if you pin them in a Grapple, the chokehold is handled like a normal pin. If they escape your pin, the hold ends.

If you catch them unaware they are still treated as Pinned, but if they escape they are not considered Grappled. You may use a Garrote to catch somebody unaware, doing so provides a bonus to your strength score, both for the purpose of increasing the fortitude save DC's, and for maintaining the grapple.

Thats a pretty good idea.
and its more the kind of stuff im searching, "a sleep lock" that knock outs enemies fast (not kill but at least dont giving them the chance to act for a lapse of time)


[post number 300 :3]

[Eldan]

Well, the world record for holding your breath is somewhere around 10minutes IIRC. Pearl divers do stuff like that.

But, as has been said: not the same as being strangled.

[LOTRfan]

There are garrote rules in Song and Silence, and Complete Scoundrel (?).

Can't ind 'em in Complete Scoundrel. They are definitely in Song and Silence, though.

[Black_Zawisza]

By RAW, your best bet is probably grappling someone, then holding them underwater.

There is also a spell which fills the targets lungs with water, but the name eludes me, currently.
Drown, from BoVD.

[Necroticplague]

Actually, the drowning rules state that taking any action other than moving uses up two turns for holding your breath, so in combat, you essentially hold your breath for con rounds.

[Aemoh87]

Why not Reaping Mauler from Complete War?

[Loki Eremes]

Why not Reaping Mauler from Complete War?


I've read posts and handbooks and some people say its not that good of a prestige.

Also, what i want is something rather universal, usable by no especialized grapplers.



Sometimes its troublesome to take down NPCs by killing them or dealing non-lethal damage if you want them alive, plus it takes more than 1 round for it. Thats the main reason i wondered about this kind of maneuver.
Theres always the "DM: ok, you knock him out" but thats no fun.:smalltongue:

[Darrin]

Why not Reaping Mauler from Complete War?

It blows goatfolk from seven leagues away:

1) Most of the features it gives you help you get *out* of a grapple, rather than staying or keeping someone else in a grapple.

2) The prereq feat Clever Wrestling requires you to be medium-sized. If you increase your size (and almost all grapple-based builds use size increases), you lose the feat, which means you no longer qualify for Reaping Mauler and all of its class features go away.

However, you can get around this by taking three levels of Leviathan Hunter (Stormwrack), which grants Clever Wrestling as a bonus feat regardless of your size.

Hmm... I may have figured out what to do with my Spellwarped Dungeonbred Corrupted Sentry Ooze Gelatinous Cube... Leviathan Hunter + Reaping Mauler! If I engulf an opponent, does that mean I've auto-grappled them? Throw on some Constrict damage plus Ability Focus (Paralyze) and that other Paralyze feat, and... and... I think I shall call him "Cuddles".

[AtomicKitKat]

I think the thread got eaten when wizards went back from gleemax. I posted in a garrotte assassin thread on the gleemax optimisation boards a few years back. Fleshgrinding locking garrottes, returning garrottes, and also, Justicar for Hogtie!:smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

Was Crisis of Breath (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/crisisofBreath.htm) mentioned? Psywars can easily get this one too if they really want it.

[Necroticplague]

The Smother feat from Chainmail Bikini and Other Adventuring Gear for Beutiful People (reprinted in Bride of Portable Hole: Book of Neurotic Fantasy) does this.