If a caster is affected by the spell Suffocation, are they unable to make verbal components? I know that holding your breath underwater works differently, which makes sense as you can still make noises and try to speak underwater, but verbal components specify "you must be able to speak in a strong voice." I searched other threads on the spell Suffocation but didn't see any definitive answers.
Games effects wise it does not. A spell gives the effects it says it does.
If you fail the initial save, but make the first save on your turn, preventing unconsciousness you are, as far as I can tell, free to act as normal.
Of course if you fall unconscious you can't cast anyway.
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The spell does exactly what it says, and nothing more, so, no, it don't affect spellcasting.
Consider that it, mysteriously, affect creatures that don't need to breathe or don't have lungs, as long as they are living creatures, so you shouldn't take the text part saying "This spell extracts the air from the target’s lungs" verbatim.
Example of living creatures that don't need to breathe:
elementals
Examples of living creatures that breathe in some way but don't have lungs:
fishes;
mollusk;
insects.
By the spell text, you can suffocate a giant mantis, unless you take "This spell extracts the air from the target’s lungs" as part of the spell rules and not as blurb text.
If you do that you need a degree in fantasy creatures anatomy to adjudicate each creature.
It is, in fact, part of the spell rules. Yet again, this isn't Magic: The Gathering. You can't kill something that has no lungs with suffocation.
Edit re: spellcasting: If you cannot speak, you cannot provide verbal components. If you cannot breathe, you cannot speak. Syllogistically, if you cannot breathe, you cannot provide verbal components.
Aside: It seems inconsistent to be a rules pedant yet constantly attempt to reinforce a distinction between "fluff" sentences and "crunch" sentences in rules descriptions when, in fact, no such distinction is defined in the rules. It's all the same.
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It is, in fact, part of the spell rules. Yet again, this isn't Magic: The Gathering. You can't kill something that has no lungs with suffocation.
Edit re: spellcasting: If you cannot speak, you cannot provide verbal components. If you cannot breathe, you cannot speak.
Aside: It seems inconsistent to be a rules pedant yet constantly attempt to reinforce a distinction between "fluff" sentences and "crunch" sentences in rules descriptions when, in fact, no such distinction is defined in the rules. It's all the same.
There is a problem with that interpretation:
Suffocation
...
Target one living creature
...
Description
This spell extracts the air from the target’s lungs, causing swift suffocation.
Choose one:
- the spell can target any living creature and apply its effect, so the first part of the description is blurb;or
- the spell can target only living creatures with lungs, and the target line is wrong.
You choose the second, but, usually, the Target line is what defines the target, while the Description part is more colloquial.
If the target was defined by the Description, the Target would say see text.
It is nice how you have chosen an ad hominem attack instead of writing a better confutation. Lack of arguments?
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Edit re: spellcasting: If you cannot speak, you cannot provide verbal components. If you cannot breathe, you cannot speak. Syllogistically, if you cannot breathe, you cannot provide verbal components.
So elementals, insect-like creatures, fishes, and so on can't cast spells?
Interesting, I am fairly sure I have seen "a few" of them with actual spells and not only spell-like abilities.
I should remember to all Wyrwood players that they can't cast spells and that Languages Common don't allow them to speak as they don't breathe.
Oh wow, just realized, lichs can't cast spells, they don't breathe.
So, it seems that there a lot of material that contradicts your interpretation.
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... usually, the Target line is what defines the target, while the Description part is more colloquial.
If the target was defined by the Description, the Target would say see text.
In this case, the description does in fact clarify the target, however.
This spell only affects living creatures that must breathe.So it does specify more about valid (or at least affected) targets. So elementals would not be affected. Plants or other creatures without lungs also would not be. These things are in the description and yet there is no 'see text' as you expected. The description is a valid place for additional targeting, effect, or other quality clarifications.
True, I missed that. It is a valid point, but there are problems.
Insects need to breathe but don't have lungs.
Vermin breathe, eat, and sleep.
And the plant type says:
Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
So we return to the same point: the spell affects only creatures with lungs or all creatures that breathe?
I will say all creatures that breathe, while "extracts the air from the target’s lungs," is descriptive text without a mechanical effect.You can choose what of the two rows of text is the rule part, but they can't both be true as they contradict each other.
Edit:
if the victim fails the initial saving throw, the air in his lungs is extracted.
Again lungs. Two times out of three it cites lungs, only one "breathe".
Based on that, it affects only creatures with lungs, but then we are discarding or modifing a different piece of the description.
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The spell does exactly what it says, and nothing more, so, no, it don't affect spellcasting.
The "Dead" condition does exactly what it says it does, and nothing more, so, no, it don't affect spellcasting.
Or attacking, or anything else.
Or, we can apply the common sense that the developers have repeatedly stated they assume we will apply while using the rules.
since the spell has an ongoing effect, i would have any targetted spell caster make concentration checks to get their spells out while continuously gasping for air.
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since the spell has an ongoing effect, i would have any targetted spell caster make concentration checks to get their spells out while continuously gasping for air.
That is the way to use it, as it follows the rules.
BTW, the spell calls an existing condition. "causing swift suffocation."
Suffocation
Source PRPG Core Rulebook pg. 445
A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The check must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.
Slow Suffocation: A Medium character can breathe easily for 6 hours in a sealed chamber measuring 10 feet on a side. After that time, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage every 15 minutes. Each additional Medium character or significant fire source (a torch, for example) proportionally reduces the time the air will last. Once rendered unconscious through the accumulation of nonlethal damage, the character begins to take lethal damage at the same rate. Small characters consume half as much air as Medium characters.
Nowhere it says you can't cast spells if you are conscious and suffocating.
It is interesting to see how some people want to add effects that aren't in the spell description.
On the same basis, if a fighter attacks while under the effect of Suffocation, you will have him make two saves? After all, he is doing a standard action, so by "logic", he should do two saves.
But that kind of "logic" doesn't apply, it is a spell and it does what it says it does, not more, no less.
@Pizza: Ok, it affects a living creature that breathes and has lungs.