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A question on how healing effects this spell...
Suffocation
--- 5th level wiz/Sorc
DESCRIPTION
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Targets one living creature
Duration 3 rounds
Saving Throw Fortitude partial; Spell Resistance yes
- This spell extracts the air from the target's lungs, causing swift suffocation. The target can attempt to resist this spell's effects with a Fortitude save-if he succeeds, he is merely staggered for 1 round as he gasps for breath.
- If the target fails, he immediately begins to suffocate. On the target's next turn, he falls unconscious and is reduced to 0 hit points. One round later, the target drops to -1 hit points and is dying. One round after that, the target dies. Each round, the target can delay that round's effects from occurring by making a successful Fortitude save, but the spell continues for 3 rounds, and each time a target fails his Fortitude save, he moves one step further along the track to suffocation.
- This spell only affects living creatures that must breathe. It is impossible to defeat the effects of this spell by simply holding one's breath-if the victim fails the initial Saving Throw, the air in his lungs is extracted.
Here the gist of it...
Combat Sequence
1st. Dav, Calerian and Thar enter the cave and get hit by this spell.
--- Dav and Calerian fail there save, Thar makes its.
2nd. Calerian makes his save and is staggered. Dav does not and is reduced to 0 hit points and is unconscious. Thar protect them from on rushing NPC's.
3rd. Calerian makes his save and is staggered. Dav fails his save again and is at -1 hit points. Thar uses a wand of cure moderate to heal Dav and hopefully stop him from dieing. Dav's hit points go to positive (+)17.
4th. Calerian fails his save and is at 0 hit points and is unconscious. Dav fails his save and dies. Thar cries out to the unfairness of it all...
So the obvious question is this... does the wand healing in the 3rd round of combat save Dav from death even though he was at positive hit points? Or does a magical healing not cure damage from suffication? Could you still suffocate with and die with positive hit point?
Hitpointloss through Suffocation, Hunger, Dehydration and the like usually cannot be healed with normal Cure spells.
You gotta still the need for air, food, water first and then you can heal the person normally.
In your case the cure spell would simply not heal the person and it would stay at -1.
Hitpointloss through Suffocation, Hunger, Dehydration and the like usually cannot be healed with normal Cure spells.
This is true for starvation and thirst (p. 445). There is no similar limitation with damage from suffocation.
Which would sort of lead to the conclusion that the target would have positive hit points, but is still dying.
This spell seems to cause death pretty quickly. The average person can technically survive a couple of minutes without air, though they would remain unconscious and will likely suffer brain damage (with the chances of brain damage increasing rapidly as seconds pass, of course). This spell causes it to happen in roughly 30 seconds, so about a fourth of the time.
I would say that cure spells can slow the death of the target, stabilizing them at whatever stage of the spell effects they are at for that round. If you can manage to keep them stable until suffocate wears off, then they're good.
Alternatively, if a player wanted to take a full round action to drop and do a heal check for CPR or something, that'd be fine too, as long as it was made before the afflicted character died. They'd be flat-footed and kneeling, and using a full-round, so that seems fair enough.
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You might be right... we were not sure how the spell exactly worked and then throw in the healing on top of it and that really got us to talking.
The way you described rounds of combat makes sense... I always (when it comes to life or death) side with the PC's on an unclear call. Thanks for the input.
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Hitpointloss through Suffocation, Hunger, Dehydration and the like usually cannot be healed with normal Cure spells.This is true for starvation and thirst (p. 445). There is no similar limitation with damage from suffocation.
Which would sort of lead to the conclusion that the target would have positive hit points, but is still dying.
I will take a look at that page. Thanks.
I don't think you need to make additional saves if you make your first.
Normally, you are unconscious when you have negative hit points (not 0 hit points). I hate it when spells are inconsistent with the rules of the game (unconscious is a specific condition defined within the game).
Alternatively, if a player wanted to take a full round action to drop and do a heal check for CPR or something, that'd be fine too, as long as it was made before the afflicted character died. They'd be flat-footed and kneeling, and using a full-round, so that seems fair enough.
Well I would let the Healer give a chance to help the person suffocating with a heal check, which would basically be blowing air in the lungs (no need for heart massage as that is beating anyway).
If time is dire and the character suffocation is tough you could also use Gust of Wind to blow up the lungs ;3