Endurance Feat - Suffocation clarification, use vs Spells


Rules Questions

Shadow Lodge

Endurance wrote:
You gain a +4 bonus on the following checks and saves: ... Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst; Fortitude saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments; and Fortitude saves made to resist damage from suffocation.

Source

Should this bonus apply to spell effects that cause these conditions? For example, you fail your initial Fort save vs a Feast of Ashes spell. Do you then get +4 on every check against starvation you are forced to make while under the effects of the spell?

Would Endurance grant any benefit against the Suffocation spell, which instantly places a target at the point in suffocation rules where they have failed to hold their breath?

Also, Endurance refers to Fort saves to resist suffocation damage, but no such saves are ever made. A character makes Con checks to hold their breath, and then immediately falls unconscious and begins dying of suffocation with no saves and no proper damage being dealt. Slow suffocation deals damage but does not allow any save or check to resist this damage. Should Endurance grant its bonus on checks to hold one's breath instead of on these non-existent Fort saves?


I'd say yes for Feast of Ashes; it wouldn't help on the initial save, but after that you qualify as starving.

I agree with your evaluation of the drowning/suffocation rules. There are no fortitude saves and, in fact, no damage... just unconscious, dying, dead. I'd give the bonus to Constitution checks associated to holding breath instead.

As for the actual spell suffocation, there is a Fort save to fight off the spell effect each round, so you could provide the Endurance bonus to that save. I think perhaps the original suffocation rules were something like this; perhaps a save to prevent progression through the stages, but who knows.

Shadow Lodge

Sounds reasonable.

For Suffocation, might have been that they skipped the hold breath stage to make the spell feasible in a combat timeframe, but then added the extra Fort saves to the spell effect to prevent it from being a single save or die.

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