Locking garrotes - damage every turn, or not?

[Quietus]

A player of mine and I just had an argument regarding how a locking garrote works. The book (song and silence) says

"after it's 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."

Now, I read this as "Use the strangling rules while they attempt to free themselves.", while my player says that he should get to do damage every round in addition to having the garrote locked on their neck.

Is there any official errata on this? I think it's kind of silly to have it do damage in addition to everything else it does - I mean, it's already got a great many benefits.

- More effective than a grapple, preventing casters from using somatic/verbal components
- Don't have to share a space with your opponent
- You can lock it as a free action from what I see, so it requires only a single standard (or attack) action to touch, grapple, and completely shut a person down
- Once you lock it, you are essentially grappling a person for free, as a non-action. You can continue to full attack them while they're locked into the garrote, if you wish.

I think adding damage on top of all of this would just be too much - is there errata clearing this up? And what's everyone's opinions on this?

[Emperor Tippy]

Every round the victim makes a grapple check. If he wins he is freed. If he loses he takes damage.

[Quietus]

Is that opinion, fact, or errata? If it's fact or errata, please refer me to where it's written. Opinion carries some weight with me, but I would far prefer to see actual evidence from WoTC.

[Emperor Tippy]

The victim continues to make grapple checks (each one opposed by the last attack roll the attacker made) until freed or unconscious.

Fact. Its what the passage you quoted means. Continues is the big word.

[Quietus]

Yes, but you don't go unconscious from lethal damage, which a locking garrote does. You die. If it said "Until freed or dead", I might agree, but "unconscious" to me suggests passing out.

[Emperor Tippy]

If your dead you are not conscious.

[Emperor Tippy]

These are some other relevant things from the description.

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.

This is from the part on garrote attacks

Strangle: Make a grapple check (see Grapple in Chapter 8 of the Player’s Handbook). If you succeed, you have started to strangle your opponent. You immediately deal 1d6 or 1d8 points of damage, depending
on the type of garotte. Your Strength modifier applies to this damage, and if that modifi er is a bonus, you get one and one-half times that bonus because you’re using both hands for the attack.

[daggaz]

Yes, but you don't go unconscious from lethal damage, which a locking garrote does. You die. If it said "Until freed or dead", I might agree, but "unconscious" to me suggests passing out.

Actually, if you are taking incremental lethal damage, you will go unconscious (thats negative hitpoints, my friend) before you finally die.

[Quietus]

I suppose that's one way to look at it, but doesn't that seem a bit too powerful? 1d8+strength and change, every turn, IN ADDITION to completely locking a character down so they can't really do anything? They're considered grappled, so they can only take actions related to removing the garrote, but the person who made the attack is free to do whatever they want.

Is there anything put out by Wizards themselves that specifically clears this up? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the wording is a little ambiguous and never once mentions damage being done specifically, if you aren't still holding the garrote.

[Karsh]

I'd say that the STR bonus stops applying once it's locked into position. Otherwise, yeah, it deals damage every turn.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, without doing extra lethal damage, how long will someone last in one of these li'll buggers? Let us go to the SRD, under Suffocation:

Suffocation

A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The save must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.
When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.

So your typical Wizard with a Con of 10 can hold his breath for 20 rounds, then must start making Con checks every round until he fails, in which case he becomes unconcious, then goes to dying, then dies. To me, this is what seems to be indicated as continuing, rather than the actual lethal damage.

Of course, you're using an item from 3.0, which was (probably on purpose) never updated to 3.5. It's bound to have cludgy wording...

[NotCC]

I would say that as it provokes a grapple check specifically then look at the grapple rules.

In grapple you can elect to Pin, Move, Deal Damage, or drop grapple.

The garrote can not pin, move, or drop grapple as it is locked on to you so the only option it has is to deal damage.

I would say that after the character lets go that it only does weapon damage though and not STR.

[Quietus]

It's a special-case grapple, NotCC, because it covers a number of things that a normal grapple can't do. In a normal grapple, for example, you have to pin an opponent in order to make them silent. With a garrote of any sort (it's really only the locking type that gets really cheesy), the moment you put it on them, they are denied verbal and somatic components. That's a pretty awesome ability right there.

And I can see the weapon damage continuing, that would make sense to me, at least somewhat. It wouldn't be super-overpowering, either, and as was pointed out, it'll take a LONG time for most things to suffocate. To me, the benefit of this is that they're left grappling something that cripples them, badly, while you're free to do other things.

[AtomicKitKat]

Actually, I would say it adds Strength(and a half?) to Damage each round after locking, to represent that the initial attack was to tighten the garrotte in such a way that it kills them a little quicker.

[Morgan_Scott82]

Actually, I would say it adds Strength(and a half?) to Damage each round after locking, to represent that the initial attack was to tighten the garrotte in such a way that it kills them a little quicker.

This is how I interpreted it as well. Of course my comments are purely theoretical as I've never had one of my players use this particular peice of equipment.

Also how many rounds does the typical encounter last, maybe 10 if its running long, there is practically no chance to strangle someone in that amount of time, meaning if the Garrote is to be a lethal weapon usefull in most combats it needs to deal damage on an ongoing basis.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

This is how I interpreted it as well. Of course my comments are purely theoretical as I've never had one of my players use this particular peice of equipment.

Also how many rounds does the typical encounter last, maybe 10 if its running long, there is practically no chance to strangle someone in that amount of time, meaning if the Garrote is to be a lethal weapon usefull in most combats it needs to deal damage on an ongoing basis.

As if having a Silence effect isn't nasty enough?

Seriously, slip this on a wizard. He just got turned into a commoner unless he happened to memorise a Silent Shatter spell that day.

[AtomicKitKat]

As if having a Silence effect isn't nasty enough?

Seriously, slip this on a wizard. He just got turned into a commoner unless he happened to memorise a Silent Shatter spell that day.

Realistically of course, that would just leave him with several pieces of sharp metal lodged around his neck.

[Quietus]

As if having a Silence effect isn't nasty enough?

Seriously, slip this on a wizard. He just got turned into a commoner unless he happened to memorise a Silent Shatter spell that day.

Silent, AND stilled. Can't make Somatic components while grappled, either. With a Disable Device DC of 25 (and if memory serves you get a -4 penalty to the check, unless your friend is unconscious/dead), and an AC of around 21. Oh, and if you try to attack it yourself, you're attacking blind, so you take a -4 penalty on the attack roll.

If you break the locking mechanism, the garrote gets frozen in the locked position, too. So most people's first action? Just makes the world worse.

It's a horribly powerful little weapon, which I knew beforehand - but I've never intended it to do additional damage every additional turn. I suppose it's fair to have it continue to do the base 1d8 damage, but I'm not going to give the player the strength bonus, as well. Specially since, considering the garrote'd target is still considered grappling, they don't get their dex bonus to AC either.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Silent, AND stilled. Can't make Somatic components while grappled, either. With a Disable Device DC of 25 (and if memory serves you get a -4 penalty to the check, unless your friend is unconscious/dead), and an AC of around 21. Oh, and if you try to attack it yourself, you're attacking blind, so you take a -4 penalty on the attack roll.

If you break the locking mechanism, the garrote gets frozen in the locked position, too. So most people's first action? Just makes the world worse.

It's a horribly powerful little weapon, which I knew beforehand - but I've never intended it to do additional damage every additional turn. I suppose it's fair to have it continue to do the base 1d8 damage, but I'm not going to give the player the strength bonus, as well. Specially since, considering the garrote'd target is still considered grappling, they don't get their dex bonus to AC either.

Ahem... I mean Shatter the Garrote. use as an area attack. Garrote is going to be less than 1lb/level of caster, so the whole thing is gone. Also, how in the world can you say that a garrote keeps you from waving your hands around? Even so, I've never seen a wizard memorise a Silent Shatter just in case he gets hit with a locking garrote. Maybe a Sorcerer who took Shatter as a spell known and had the feat Silent Spell would be a bit more believable, but even so... in most cases, locking garrote = poor man's silence.

[Quietus]

By RAW, you're considered grappled while garrote'd. Are you really going to let go when you have a wire digging into your neck? It specifically states in Song and Silence that garrote attacks halt both somatic AND verbal components.

[SpiderBrigade]

The problem with the Garotte is that, while it is (as mentioned) reasonably deadly against frail wizardy types, your average rogue won't be able to use it against a melee-based fighter. You know, like most guards would be.

[Iron_Mouse]

Garottes are nasty, but I guess they're supposed to be. However, they are exotic weapons, so you first need a feat to use them properly. To be really good with them, you probably also need extra feats like improved grapple.
And they're mostly useless against larger opponents.

Well, without doing extra lethal damage, how long will someone last in one of these li'll buggers? Let us go to the SRD, under Suffocation:

So your typical Wizard with a Con of 10 can hold his breath for 20 rounds, then must start making Con checks every round until he fails, in which case he becomes unconcious, then goes to dying, then dies. To me, this is what seems to be indicated as continuing, rather than the actual lethal damage.

Of course, you're using an item from 3.0, which was (probably on purpose) never updated to 3.5. It's bound to have cludgy wording...

Don't get fooled. The S&S garottes don't use the suffocation rules, they just deal damage in a successful grapple.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Conveniently enough, I have just recieved Dragon #355 in the mail today. In the Class Acts section, they update the Garrote and Strangulation rules.

Garrotes now actually use the suffocation rules. There is a sidebar indicating that dealing damage is now an optional part of strangulation that can occur either instead of or in addition to suffocation.

[SpiderBrigade]

Conveniently enough, I have just recieved Dragon #355 in the mail today. In the Class Acts section, they update the Garrote and Strangulation rules.

Garrotes now actually use the suffocation rules. There is a sidebar indicating that dealing damage is now an optional part of strangulation that can occur either instead of or in addition to suffocation.

...at whose option? The garrotter's? Or is this something that your DM decides when incorporating the rules into his game?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

DM's option. It is an optional rule sidebar rather than an option as the property of the weapon.

[Kel_Arath]

lethal damage does make you unconcious, from 0 to -9

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Hm...

According to the article, a Gorget provides a +10 bonus to AC against the special touch attack to establish a stranglehold, but inflicts a -4 penalty "physical actions over a period of time (running, swimming, breath-holding, and so on)" (emphasis mine). So while it helps prevent your opponent from getting a stranglehold, if they do establish one, the gorget actually makes it harder to resist the actual strangulation. Eeeeenteresting.

Also, the rules do indicate what happens when you stop strangling an unconcious but not yet dead opponent. Though it otherwise retains the glitchy "drops to -1" wording.

[Aximili]

As if having a Silence effect isn't nasty enough?

Seriously, slip this on a wizard. He just got turned into a commoner unless he happened to memorise a Silent Shatter spell that day.

A commoner with good will saves

But seriously. Wizards are frail. They are suppose to be. A wizard who lets the opponent gets too close to him self will and should be in trouble.

And come on, if the situation were the other way around (wizard catching the rogue by surprise) the rogue would be as sleep and just about to receive a coup-de-grace (to say the least).