Optimize this weapon 3: Locking Garrote from Song and Silence p.52

[daremetoidareyo]

Garrote, Locking:
This nasty variant of the wire garrote comes with a pair of metal grips, each of which contains one portion of a locking mechanism. Once the garrote has begun to deal damage after a garrote attack, the attacker can link the two ends and twist the grips into their locked position. This maintains strangling pressure on the victim even after the attacker lets go. The victim continues to make grapple checks (each one opposed by the last attack roll the attacker made) until freed or unconscious. The DC for the Disable Device check to free a victim from a locked garrote is 10 if the character attempting the task has Exotic Weapon Proficiency (locking garrote), or 25 otherwise. If someone other than the victim makes the attempt, a -5 circumstance penalty applies to the check unless the victim is held, unconscious, or otherwise kept from moving. A character attempting to remove a locking garrote from his or her own neck suffers the same penalty on the Disable Device check, this time for working blind. Naturally, it’s impossible for any character to take 10 or take 20 on this check unless the victim trapped in the device is already dead. Smashing the locking garrote leaves it frozen in the locked position.
Cost: 100 gp
Damage (s): 1d6
Damage (m): 1d8
Critical: 19-20/x2
Weight: 3 lb
Type: S

I suggest that you head over to the making a garrote attack section on page 86 of the same book.

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Lasso (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507609-Optimize-this-weapon-1-Lasso-from-BOED-p34&p=21442311#post21442311)
Caber (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?512389-Optimize-this-weapon-2-Caber-from-Masters-of-the-Wild)

[you randomly]

interns of pure weapon enchants i would go for my old friends wounding and marrow crushing basically dealing there hit dice in damage to anything not immune to con damage
with regards to the build i think totemist would use this quite well as they would be able to crank there grapple sky high add on some use magic devise shenanigans and you could cast arcane lock on them so they can't be taken off as well as casting silence on the garrote before making the attack so they can't cry out for help

i only really see this weapon being use when played like a stealth assassin taking targets out one by one or sneaking past everyone and strapping round they key target (as you will most likely ony have one) then making your escape/hiding before you get caught by the maid walking in to drop off supper

additional thing which could be useful:
throwing sizing on the weapon so you can deal with a wider range of targets
casting bloodstar to help speed the con damage up a bit can't hurt either
for a really scary moment 5% of the time you could add vorpal for the surprise of just pulling the cord straight through there neck
make it hard to break or not matter so much when it does i.e make it from ADAMANTINE or AURORUM
you could use flesh grinding to effectively double the damage(maybe also 2x con damage as well) and even if they do unlock it they have to make a str check to get it from round there neck

and now i want to plan an assassin totemist XD

[ShurikVch]

Dragon #355 have "Strangulation" article, which updates and expands rules for garroting - for example, it include actual suffocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) effect now
Garrote isn't a single item anymore
Instead Locking Garrote, we now have Locking Mechanism, which can be attached to rope, sling, cord, wire, steel cable, chain, whip, bola, dire flail, or spiked chain
Surprisingly, Whip is very good by those rules: +3 strangulation bonus, and 1d6/1d8 damage (S/M); Steel Cable is equally good (but 60 times more expensive)

[daremetoidareyo]

Dragon #355 have "Strangulation" article, which updates and expands rules for garroting - for example, it include actual suffocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) effect now
Garrote isn't a single item anymore
Instead Locking Garrote, we now have Locking Mechanism, which can be attached to rope, sling, cord, wire, steel cable, chain, whip, bola, dire flail, or spiked chain
Surprisingly, Whip is very good by those rules: +3 strangulation bonus, and 1d6/1d8 damage (S/M); Steel Cable is equally good (but 60 times more expensive)

Whenever you post, you pull some impressive yet abstruse dragon article, seemingly from memory.

[Uncle Pine]

This maintains strangling pressure on the victim even after the attacker lets go. The victim continues to make grapple checks (each one opposed by the last attack roll the attacker made) until freed or unconscious.
Throw in that [Luck] feat that allows you to treat 1s as natural 20s for 10% chance of irresistible grapple checks unless the opponent also rolls a nat 20 *and* his or her grapple modifier is higher than yours.

EDIT: Add Unluck (Spell Compendium) so they have to do it twice in a row.

[daremetoidareyo]

Can multiple garrotes target the same victim?

What enchantments, do you think complement this? Wounding...obviously, but what else is good?

aptitude shenanigans?

[animewatcha]

If there were called shot rules, think you could do some kind of phase-through-clothing so can do the locking mechanism thing on mob's crotch? Maybe find some way of maintaining it while healing the guy just to prolong the suffering a bit.

[Uncle Pine]

aptitude shenanigans?
Boomerang Daze, obviously.

[you randomly]

Dragon #355 have "Strangulation" article, which updates and expands rules for garroting - for example, it include actual suffocation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) effect now
Garrote isn't a single item anymore
Instead Locking Garrote, we now have Locking Mechanism, which can be attached to rope, sling, cord, wire, steel cable, chain, whip, bola, dire flail, or spiked chain
Surprisingly, Whip is very good by those rules: +3 strangulation bonus, and 1d6/1d8 damage (S/M); Steel Cable is equally good (but 60 times more expensive)
If the locking part is a seperate item then does that mean that you could increase the disable devise check for it?

Just throught that everbright (the one that only hits living flesh) works quite well as it allows you to ignore the amour bonus they would get for stuff like full plate and you cant really stangle undead do what does it matter

[daremetoidareyo]

Does the sizing enchantment allow you to change the size (and therefor the AC) of the garrote?

[Melcar]

Quick question:

Is there a way to eliminate the enemies attack of opportunity when first starting this attack? Here I'm thinking when the enemy is not flat-footed!

[Falontani]

If custom magic items are allowed, Command Word Levitation on it, apply fleshgrinding and lock it.

You sneak up, snag em with it, lock it, fleshgrind and levitate them so that they can't even move as they are killed slowly

[Zaq]

Hmm. The fact that the opponent keeps making grapple checks against the last roll the attacker made means that it's worthwhile to make that one single roll as beefy as possible. So effects that can give a big bonus on a single check (like, I dunno, Confidence of the Fated, just as an example) are more valuable here than they would be on the average character.

(The RAW on this is actually pretty stupid. First, we're apparently using the attack roll rather than the grapple roll as the basis for the opposed check, which is easier to boost in some ways and harder to boost in others. Second, if we end up locking the garotte in place and then attack an unrelated target, the last attack roll we made against that unrelated target is the last attack roll the attacker made, so it becomes the DC for our garrotted target. But that's stupid and we shouldn't go too deep down that rabbit hole unless we want to dive straight into TO, and I don't see enough interesting material here to build a true TO build out of it. But there's no way in hell I can see that being practical at a real table.)

Standard grapple boosters seem no less valuable here than on other grapple-focused builds.

Since it's a weapon, it can be enchanted. Tacking on Dispelling or Greater Dispelling (MIC pg. 33) can help deal with things that have FoM through a spell effect. (Won't work on things that have it as a non-spell effect, but it's still better than the average bare-handed grappler can do.)

I don't think we need to invest much in debuffing the Disable Device check (as long as you're not strangling Rogues, relatively few targets will have a very high DD bonus), but still, many standard debuffs like shaken and sickened debuff skill checks, so that might be valuable.

Can we use a telekinesis effect of some kind to apply a locking garrote at range?

"Smashing the locking garrotte leaves it frozen in the locked position." Can we optimize smashing it ourselves? I imagine that would be a sunder check of some kind?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Technically, getting Constrict would let you deal bonus damage, wouldn't it? Would you still get Constrict damage if your opponent failed to break out of your garrote, once every round? You're sort-of winning a grapple. (Fluff sensibility need not apply, of course.)

Edit: This is assuming we take the grapple check to be against the last grapple roll (which I assumed it was all along), not the attack roll (which, as Zaq points out, is the actual--somewhat confusing--rule).

[SirNibbles]

Quick question:

Is there a way to eliminate the enemies attack of opportunity when first starting this attack? Here I'm thinking when the enemy is not flat-footed!

Improved Grapple will do it.

Also, the Strangulation article mentioned earlier is from Dragon Magazine #355, page 84.

Changes from Sound and Silence:
-For a Locking Garrote, your last grapple check - not your last attack roll - is used to oppose the enemy's escape
-Garroting is an action you can take against an opponent you have already grappled by making a special melee touch attack
-Standard holding breath/suffocation rules apply once you start strangling someone

You can garrote someone with a Spiked Chain, which would probably be the best option (if you can apply the Locking Mechanism to it).

[Long_shanks]

Hmm. The fact that the opponent keeps making grapple checks against the last roll the attacker made means that it's worthwhile to make that one single roll as beefy as possible. So effects that can give a big bonus on a single check (like, I dunno, Confidence of the Fated, just as an example) are more valuable here than they would be on the average character.


Wouldn't True strike be even better? The standard action preparation would be worthwhile, considering +20 would mean that a whole lot of creatures would be basically helpless against the attack afterwards.

[Zaq]

Wouldn't True strike be even better? The standard action preparation would be worthwhile, considering +20 would mean that a whole lot of creatures would be basically helpless against the attack afterwards.

The tricky part is that True Strike works on your NEXT attack roll, so you have to cast it after you make the touch attack to start the grapple but before you make the opposed grapple check. Which basically means you need to Quicken it or otherwise get it as a swift/free action. (When does Duskblade get their ability to Quicken a spell for free 1/day? That might be the way to get a swift action TS with minimal cheese and minimal level investment. Also channeling through a garrote, if possible, is hilarious, though not markedly more or less effective than channeling through anything else.)

Does True Strike even work on grapple rolls? I didn’t think that a grapple roll counts as an “attack roll.” It says that “A grapple check is like a melee attack roll” (emphasis mine), but it’s not ironclad that a bonus to a melee attack roll would apply to a grapple check in the absence of other rules text explicitly stating so.

[Long_shanks]

The tricky part is that True Strike works on your NEXT attack roll, so you have to cast it after you make the touch attack to start the grapple but before you make the opposed grapple check. Which basically means you need to Quicken it or otherwise get it as a swift/free action. (When does Duskblade get their ability to Quicken a spell for free 1/day? That might be the way to get a swift action TS with minimal cheese and minimal level investment. Also channeling through a garrote, if possible, is hilarious, though not markedly more or less effective than channeling through anything else.)

Does True Strike even work on grapple rolls? I didn’t think that a grapple roll counts as an “attack roll.” It says that “A grapple check is like a melee attack roll” (emphasis mine), but it’s not ironclad that a bonus to a melee attack roll would apply to a grapple check in the absence of other rules text explicitly stating so.

Duskblade gets quick cast 1/day at level 5. I'm not really knowledgeable about SLAs, but if we can get true strike in that manner, then Quicken SLA would work at level 10, 3/day. Factotum maybe, or a race with TS built in?

Anyways, this doesn't amount to a whole lot if the grapple check is not considered an attack roll. There has already been a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-215914.html) that considered that question, but no consensus was reached.