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So you're a hero and you've been captured by an enemy who is going to torture you for information to be used against your friends. Or your friend has been implanted with a Xenomorph. Or someone is infected with a fatal and painful supernatural disease. Death is looking pretty good right now.
What are your options?
- Coup de Grace is the obvious choice, but it might be messy and/or painful and by RAW you can technically only CdG a helpless target, not a willing one (or yourself).
- Most of the truly lethal poisons (likely to deal 10+ Con damage) are very expensive, probably for balance reasons.
- Similarly, lethal magic requires high-level spells.
- Deathgag Elixir is similar to a cyanide pill but its purpose appears to be preventing Speak With Dead, rather than killing someone who is healthy in terms of HP but otherwise dying painfully, or else anticipates a fate worse than death. Also it has the [evil] descriptor.
Is there something I've missed? Is spending 2,500gp on a dose of Hemlock and throwing your saves the best insurance against this situation? Or should one hand-wave CdG and say it can be used for this purpose?
Do you think it would be possible to balance a low-level spell or relatively cheap magic item to serve as a "cyanide pill" by restricting its use to truly willing targets (no magical compulsion or "unconscious targets are willing" allowed)? If so what level/cost would you suggest?
I'd say a CdG. They need to be helpless, and the first line of Helpless says:
A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy.
I think being willing to be killed would be enough to count as helpless for the purpose of a CdG.