Callos_DeTerran
2007-12-04, 12:56 PM
Alright, this idea has been sticking in my head recently but I can't quite work out how to make it actually work.
The idea is this. A strangler. Descriptive eh? More to the point, using the strangling rules in one of the Dragon magazines, wherein you essentially get another option in a grapple and that is to strangle your opponent with your bare hands or an object. The stranglee can hold their breath for 2xCon rounds and after that makes a Fort save for 10 (+1 for every previous round). Once that fails they fall to -1 and the round after their dead. Same as drowning mostly except your forcing the issue yourself instead of actually drowning somebody. The stranglee can make a bluff check though to 'fake death', which means semi-decent ranks in Sense Motive would be very helpful.
The build I'm looking at coming up with is high Strength and high Con (Y'know...for hit points and if they try and strangle back), using a steel cable (60 gp. gives a +3 bonus when used to strange, does 1d8 damage is a variant rule is used ((That you do damage while strangling instead of/in addition to cutting off the air supply)), with a locking mechanism (Helps out a lot) ) for his choice of strangling weapon. I'm thinking a half-giant or goliath would probably be the best race because of the strength and constitution bonus and powerful build ability. Heres where I start losing ideas here. Hide and Move Silently could help immeasurably in sneaking up on an unsuspecting target but I don't know of many (if any) class that has those as class skills AND full BAB. Improved Grapple is also a must.
But what else besides that? Consider it for a 20th level build, but I need suggestions on classes, PrCs, and feats that could help out on this. Something to keep in mind though is that strangling is this characters main thing. Obviously it won't help against in every encounters (Things over Huge size for example make this a lot harder ((Barring the enlarge person spell of course which makes creatures larger then Huge possible.)) ) So an alternate 'combat style' for when strangling is not efficient, though I'm not entirely sure how many free feats might be open for use.
The idea is this. A strangler. Descriptive eh? More to the point, using the strangling rules in one of the Dragon magazines, wherein you essentially get another option in a grapple and that is to strangle your opponent with your bare hands or an object. The stranglee can hold their breath for 2xCon rounds and after that makes a Fort save for 10 (+1 for every previous round). Once that fails they fall to -1 and the round after their dead. Same as drowning mostly except your forcing the issue yourself instead of actually drowning somebody. The stranglee can make a bluff check though to 'fake death', which means semi-decent ranks in Sense Motive would be very helpful.
The build I'm looking at coming up with is high Strength and high Con (Y'know...for hit points and if they try and strangle back), using a steel cable (60 gp. gives a +3 bonus when used to strange, does 1d8 damage is a variant rule is used ((That you do damage while strangling instead of/in addition to cutting off the air supply)), with a locking mechanism (Helps out a lot) ) for his choice of strangling weapon. I'm thinking a half-giant or goliath would probably be the best race because of the strength and constitution bonus and powerful build ability. Heres where I start losing ideas here. Hide and Move Silently could help immeasurably in sneaking up on an unsuspecting target but I don't know of many (if any) class that has those as class skills AND full BAB. Improved Grapple is also a must.
But what else besides that? Consider it for a 20th level build, but I need suggestions on classes, PrCs, and feats that could help out on this. Something to keep in mind though is that strangling is this characters main thing. Obviously it won't help against in every encounters (Things over Huge size for example make this a lot harder ((Barring the enlarge person spell of course which makes creatures larger then Huge possible.)) ) So an alternate 'combat style' for when strangling is not efficient, though I'm not entirely sure how many free feats might be open for use.