When I had it, I had it simply for RP and the PvP aspect. If you time it right you can slip into hiding between the strangle cycles, which does make it a bit viable on the field... but being in the open with nothing but a wire in your hand and hard RT cycles isn't the best idea in areas that tend to swarm.

If I was going to make two suggestions. The first would be to make it so you can drag something off while you're garroting it.

Rogue pulls the garrote tighter into the troll's neck and drags it west with him!

The second suggestion would be to make prayer beads usable as garrotes.

Just because.

.jaired
W.W.O.P.D.

Dragging victims into hiding and not having the garrotes break (permanently, there could be a failure revolving around the garrote slipping or some other temporary thing).

Also, if it just went faster. I forget the exact amount of time it takes - but it's not fast by any means.

I untrained the skill after I went to show it to somebody and my garrote broke. On a rolton.

-Keleborrn.

>Dragging victims into hiding

Yeah, this would be key in my opinion. Give it synergy with shadow mastery and/or silent strike.

Seeing things just suddenly disappear (and slowly suffocate in the shadows) from a line of creatures is just so classic roguery.

Also, maybe allow it to be done without a wire at rank 5 (sleeper-hold-style). Speaking of sleeper-hold, sleep-effects worked into this for non-lethal attempts would be cool (though I suppose it could also be a totally separate cman).

And yeah, there's really no good reason to have garrotes break. At least given the fact that nothing else in the game has breakage.

- Greminty

Dragging the target into hiding/different rooms would have benefits mechanically and RP wise.

Faster speed with more ranks in the skill.

Being able to use the target as a shield against incoming attacks. Size difference and MOC would be big parts of this. Like-sized player and target would be able to block say 5. Smaller player with a larger target would be able to block +3 more targets. Larger player with smaller target would be able to block -3 targets. The number of targets can be increased by +1 for every say 10 MOC ranks.

>Sensing an incoming attack, you swing the strangling troll's body in-between you and the sword/arrow/cast! Success! Troll is hit for x damage!
(Insert normal combat calculations just as if the attacker targeted the troll)

>>Sensing an incoming attack, you swing the strangling troll's body in-between you and the sword/arrow/cast! Failure! Attack is too fast to position yourself properly.

Bonus for success each round for being taller than the target (giant player versus kobold target).

>Levering your greater height, you push the kobold to its knees as you continue choking the life out of it.

Fall damage (impact) possible (after initial round) for being shorter than the target (halfing player versus troll target) to compensate for lower success rate.

>Sharp wrench and push of the wire pulls the the troll off-balance causing it to land heavily on its side. (Success)

>Awkward tug of the wire causes the troll to land on its back, pinning you underneath it. (Minor failure, greater chance to kill it, but loss of DS.)

If you stop the garrote early (one creature in the room becomes two) you can kick the original target to the ground or some other such interesting disabler (for a second or two of rt) if you choose to.

-farmer

*

That's just what we want, criss-crossing furrows all over the town streets from someone wandering through with their animated plow super buddy.

-Strath

Whatever you do to make it better, perhaps you could add them to bearhug as well? Cannot even change stance during bearhug, unless something has changed since I was a warrior.

A blood choke can take up to ten seconds (maximum) to render a (humanoid) victim unconscious. A very secure blood choke with little struggling on the victim's part can take as few as five seconds.

An proper air choke takes about twenty seconds, even with struggling.

Unfortunately, the use of a garrote is a type of air choke, whereby the victim passes out or dies from lack of oxygen thanks to the constriction of the wind pipe.

Since this is a fantasy game, a little leeway can be taken with results. In my opinion, speed and success should be based on the roll result.

An exceptional roll could result in a 5 sec RT, one round death crit (wrap around and snap the neck)

A very high roll could result in a 5 sec RT blood choke, with a death crit on the second round (via snapped neck or whatever).

A high roll could result in a 10 sec RT blood choke, with a death crit on the third round.

A good roll could result in a 10 sec RT blood choke, with the victim falling unconscious on the third round (read; sleep status) and being let go.

A moderate roll could result in a 20 sec RT air choke, with the victim falling unconscious on the fifth round.

A low roll could result in 20 sec RT of choking with the victim breaking free (earning the victim 5 sec of RT for the effort).

A very low roll could result 30 sec of RT with the victim breaking free (earning the victim 5 sec of RT for the effort).

A negative roll could result in the victim throwing you over their shoulder, leaving you prone.

It would be nice to have some hiding synergy. But it also makes sense to be revealed after one round (unless you got an exceptional roll) if there is more than one monster or character in a room.

Using the target as a shield would be nice with some evasion synergy.

~Eugenides, The Last

---

You monotonously drone, "Bwaaaaaaaaaah."

Aydan monotonously drones, "Bwaaaaaaaah."

A barn owl says, "Bwaaaaaaaaah."

From nearby, you hear Bristenn yell, "Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

I found what I assumed to be garrotes while digging at EG last year. One has a description of a nail poking out of it (or something). Do those have any mechanical advantage? It would be nice to be able to add spikes (or something similar) to garrotes.

How do you feel about it being something designed to work specifically against spell casters? Kill them if you can hold on, hamper / prevent their ability to cast if they break free before hand.

-- Miss Nixxi

>While I understand that garrote in GS doesn't work like the movies, that's certainly by design. Swinging a sword also doesn't take 5 seconds either, but we need to have there be a significant time investment for each kill, otherwise, there isn't anything to combat. Switching garrote to be akin to a 5 second kill just from a CM roll is unlikely. I like the idea of dragging the target, etc.

True, it is not the movies, but it doesn't need to be significant as rogues do a LOT of 1 shot ambush kills in 5 or so seconds.

So...

Run the CML roll with various outcomes on how bad you "ward" the target.

The worst is an instant neck break for a 5 second kill.

Various other strangles for 5 + random X to Y for a choke kill.

Drag elsewhere is great for swarms to get them out.

Toss in a cooldown at the end that is based on the RT total the garrote took, a 5 sec instant kill gets the worst, a 30 second choke kill a simple 5 second cool down or none at all.

I think that assuages all sides bro.

:)

~Paul

I play a sorcerer so all special attacks like garrote suck. :) Of course, if I didn’t have something to share I wouldn’t be here.

Since we are going to have a new form of brawling combat some day, I would reinvent the wheel for garrotes.

In the case of a rogue in the open simply holding a garrote in their hands, I would allow a whip like attack. Not all garrotes are wire and some would have some heft. The rogue flicks the handle end of garrote at the defenders face or hands to slow them down. Unless the rogue hides or leaves and comes back, there is a cool down on the use of a garrote vs. that victim. The rogue may have a passive defense using the garrote in this fashion. They did something surprising to defend themselves. It would be a once per creature defense. This passive defense should not be overwhelming, more flash than substance such as addition dodge messaging. Attacks from the open can inflict injuries, while a defensive moves causes a tiny bit of round time but no damage.

For an attempt to garrote someone from hiding or from behind, the garrote can cause two types of damage and has three modes of “failure”.

Failures first. The victim spots the rogue on the way in and turns around to defend themselves. Cool down goes into effect on this failure and no damage is done. Woe to the rogue who has this happen.

The second failure is when the victim gets a hand or object between the garrote and their neck. In this case the rogue may inflict minor hand, arm and head damage to the victim, but not neck damage. The rogue may break off the attack at this point or continue by kicking, kneeing or lifting victim. This inflicts leg and back damage but cannot cause other types of damage. The victim may inflict hand, arm and head damage on the rogue. If the rogue is injured as a result of this combat, the garrote attack may be foiled (the rogue let go one grip or something) and cool down goes into effect. This “failure” continues until the victim is knocked down so the rogue can drag them off or the victim breaks free. Dragging a prone person causes damage. The victim may also “drag” the rogue around in this state, but they don’t knock them off or inflict damage.

The third type of failure is the victim throws or smashes the rogue off. Creatures with Voln fu, brawling training or who are very mobile have a bonus to this is defense. Basically don’t try to garrote other rogues, Voln Fu’ers, rangers with their spells up, etc.

A successful results in the garrote going around the victims neck and the rogue either lifts the person from the ground or knocks them prone. The rogue merely has to stay there to finish the job or they can batter/drag the person to death as above with more control.

In all of the above I would add in more passive defenses to the victim, garrote should trigger Cloak of Shadows, neck armor should stop or slow the attack, armor flares could go off, animal companions and certain demons should attempt to bite, etc. Spirits and familiars may become excited, while some demons look on dispassionately. Spell casters shouldn’t be able to prep a spell while under attack, but a previously prepped spell MIGHT work if the right hand is free. Something like a modified armor hinderance roll should apply. Spells should not be easy, but not completely ruled out.

One other aspect of the garrote is what happens when second person attempts to hit the garroting rogue with a weapon. The rogues ability to dodge is much less, but the ability to use the victim as a shield is a possibility. Indiana Jones style comedy should result.

I would also add RP garrote commands based on demeanor. Certain demeanors allow for a mock attack, while others would “Make you think better…” No damage would result from an rp garrote. Of course, with certain people this might be as popular and fatal as picking pockets, but you guys are used to this right?

I am pretty sure this could all be implemted with only a few trillion lines of code. ;)

Magarven the Mad

>I also think it would be nice if this maneuver could be performed in defensive stance with no CML reduction <Fremie>

Perhaps reduce/negate the CML penalties for defensive stances when performed from hiding (at higher ranks)?

Very much in favor of the "drag into hiding/another room" idea.

~ Lumi

>>While I understand that garrote in GS doesn't work like the movies, that's certainly by design. Swinging a sword also doesn't take 5 seconds either, but we need to have there be a significant time investment for each kill, otherwise, there isn't anything to combat. Switching garrote to be akin to a 5 second kill just from a CM roll is unlikely. I like the idea of dragging the target, etc.

hey Oscuro,

little late getting back to the boards on this topic, I've been busy with Frontier Days and stuff.

I understand the neccesity to keep the "instant-kill" out of the picture in certain cases. However, I think that garrote should be able to swiftly remove lower level critters without a long dragged-out roundtime so you can focus on the critters that pose a greater threat.

With a high enough endroll I would still like to see it outright kill something by snapping their neck. Several spells are capable of this, such as Smite/Bane, and I don't see it being too far out of bounds to have a CMAN capable of this as well. Granted, these spells I am comparing require some training to have maximum effectiveness but I am thinking that Garrote could have similar requirements, but more rogue oriented.

Rogues being able to survive in combat is mostly a result of being able to swiftly engage, kill, and promptly disengage from combat (hide). Garrote lacks this currently, and that is really the only problem I see with it.

-Fremie-
Moonshine Manor Officer
Events Team Leader
Slapper of Crying Babies
Swiftkicker of Diapers