Suffocation

[GCMorris]

Hey all. Super sticky mucous loogie on the mouth that suffocates the victims. How can I do this?

[eepjr24]

Several ways. There is a suffocation rule for change environment on pg 83 of the APG. You could buy that with physical manifestation. You could use some variation of AVAD or NND with life support as a defense, possibly with physical manifestation or damage over time.

 

If you need it to be 'super sticky' in the sense that it will entangle others who try to help, you probably need a linked entangle with the sticky advantage.

 

Depending on how fast you want it to work it is going to cost between 20 and 80 AP. Flavor to taste with limitations.

 

- E

[massey]

Somebody has been watching the first X-Men movie.

 

I'd say at least two ways. First, a Continuous NND (life support breathing or removal of the super-snot). Second, a limb-only Entangle where you make a called shot (with OCV penalties) to the face.

 

With the second one, you'd be getting the suffocation damage for "free", but you're also limited to the standard suffocation rules. Versus a target who has a good amount of End, they aren't going to be taking damage for quite a while. The standard superhero game turn isn't all that long. For more cinematic suffocation, you probably need to buy it as an NND.

[GCMorris]

That's not entirely where I got the idea. A character on the Tme Killers game spat loogies too. I was thinking about making it acidic too.

[Christopher]

If it is mostly about blocking Voice:
Voice can be flashed and otherwise disabeled just like hearing (APG I or II). "Throath Punch" could be a Flash vs Voice just as well as any other Sense.

Entangle has a adder so it blocks senses. And thus it could block Voice (rather then hearing).

 

The suffocation part, that is the harder part. One of the core rules is that any attack should have a (reasonably common and obvious) defense. And that no attack should just "stick" to the character without a obvious way to turn off.

There are a few ways you could let a power keep dealing damage until removed:

Persistent

Uncontrolled (invest Endurance once, it is self sustained from then on)

Damage over Time

Change Environment to induce the "Suffocation" natural effect, but could be a bit hard to balance.

Damage Shield on a entangle perhaps?

From a certain point of view a Entangle is a "remote grab". Could it also choke someone?

 

So how important is the suffocation part? How important the "can not scream" part? How hard to remove should it be? How fast should it kill a Character? Should it even be deadly in the first place?

Remember that a lot of stuff that works in movies does not translate so well to the RPG table.

[GCMorris]

I'm thinking a couple of phases to remove it. It's not his primary attack but it's something that a character must take the time to remove or it will eventually kill them. Someone with wind breath or a sonic scream could probably blow it off in a single action.

[eepjr24]

I'd probably go with the APG suffocation linked to entangle. With the escape condition being to break the entangle. If you want to add acid, take a look at the Spider Demon from the Bestiary (pg 86), it has something very similar less the suffocation aspect.

[Christopher]

Time for a few references to what I wrote:
Suffocation as CE effect - APG I 83. Yield Sign warning.

"At the GM’s option, a character can use Change
Environment to attack a target with a “suffocation” effect. Tis deprives the target of the ability
to breathe and subjects him to the Drowning rules
(6E2 130). (Of course, it’s possible to build “he
can’t breathe” attacks many other ways, such as
with AVAD, but those forms usually work very
quickly; CE Suffocation works slowly according to
the Drowning rules.)
Suffocation via Change Environment is a
20 Character Point combat effect that subjects
the target to the effects of drowning: he cannot
breathe; he cannot take Recoveries (not even
the Post-Segment 12 Recovery); and spends a
minimum of 1 END every Phase (and eventually STUN, and then BODY, when he runs out
of END). (Obviously, this doesn’t work at all on
targets that have Life Support: Self-Contained
Breathing.) Additionally, a character being
suffocated cannot speak or use powers with the
Incantations Limitation (but he can still use voicebased powers such as a “sonic scream,” unless
the GM rules otherwise). When a character buys
Suffocation he must defne a reasonably common
and obvious way to remove, negate, or avoid the
effect (other than Life Support). If the Change
Environment is bought with Area Of Effect, the
reasonable way is “get out of the Area”; for singletarget Change Environments characters will have
to defne more specifc methods."

Physical Manifestation should work nicely here, as the Speaking part is alrady taken care off. However at it is propably the "Mandatory way to turn it off", you should maybe make it a -0 Limitation in the CE case.

[dmjalund]

I personally would separate out the inability to speak from the suffocation allowing to simulate the power of replacing the oxygen in the air with a non-breathable gas.

 

It would still allow the person to talk, but they cannot get any sustenance from the air they are breathing

[Armitage]

The UNTIL Superpowers Database II had a section of Glue Powers that didn't make it into Champions Powers.

 

One of them was Suffocating Glue Mask.

 

3d6 Entangle, Blocks Sight and Smell/Taste, Entangle and Character Both Take Damage, Set Effect (Head only), Doesn't Prevent Use of Foci

2d6 Blast, NND (Self-Contained Breathing), 0 END, Continuous (end when Entangle is destroyed), Linked to Entangle

[Hugh Neilson]

The problem with NND constructs (and the reason Suffocation made it into APG - we discussed it in the course of SETAC for 6e) is that the take STUN away much more rapidly than suffocation, while not removing REC, so they are a poor simulation of the environmental effect. "Environmental", so "Change Environment", which, without this adder, can flood a room, but no one will drown (or, alternatively, the character gets to drown people for no point cost).