If so, what?
Suffocation?
Suffocation
School necromancy; Level sorcerer/wizard 5, witch 5
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a vial containing a bit of the caster's breath)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target 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 effect 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.
Also steal breath and possibly call the void. Was Anakin secretly a catboi?
Potentially ABOLETH'S LUNG.
Come to think of it telekinesis/telekinetic maneuvers might do it via a grapple maneuver too.
If you are interested or allowed by the GM to play something from another publisher, there's Crisis of Breath, a psionic power from Dreamscarred Press' "Ultimate Psionics".
Suffocation
I love this spell.
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For Witches: Cast Unnatural Lust on your target, go open-mouth on the kiss, then cast Vomit Swarm directly down their windpipe. Optionally, follow up with Lipstitch to make sure they can't cough the bugs out.
Have fun!
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Undine's Curse is a nasty possibility if you are not in a hurry to see your target die. The victim of this spell loses the ability to breathe automatically, but can keep breathing as long as he remains conscious. If you have a high enough caster level, the victim will eventually fall asleep, stop breathing, and die.
People IRL wake up from natural sleep when they can't breathe (see: sleep apnea), and the spell says nothing to indicate this is no longer the case. What would kill them isn't a lack of air, but a lack of sleep, which takes weeks or months to murder someone. I hope you have a CL in the hundreds.
(One could argue that the rules don't say you wake up if you start suffocating. However, the rules also don't say you ever need to sleep, so this doesn't work by either real-world logic or hard RAW.)
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For Witches: Cast Unnatural Lust on your target, go open-mouth on the kiss, then cast Vomit Swarm directly down their windpipe. Optionally, follow up with Lipstitch to make sure they can't cough the bugs out.
Have fun!
That is both disgusting and amazing. I find myself torn between the two feelings of horror and amusement
I'm going with both equally.
People IRL wake up from natural sleep when they can't breathe (see: sleep apnea), and the spell says nothing to indicate this is no longer the case. What would kill them isn't a lack of air, but a lack of sleep, which takes weeks or months to murder someone. I hope you have a CL in the hundreds.
(One could argue that the rules don't say you wake up if you start suffocating. However, the rules also don't say you ever need to sleep, so this doesn't work by either real-world logic or hard RAW.)
Except for 2 things.
1. The reason we wake up is because our body is trying to breathe but can't, which provokes an autonomic response. It's not about lack of oxygen, it's about our body trying to do an action and failing. If our body weren't trying to breathe we'd just sleep into oblivion. This is one reason why house-fires are so dangerous, people breathe in smoke - which doesn't have enough oxygen - then fall asleep. They continue to breathe air that doesn't oxygenate their lungs/blood, which leads to them suffocating.
2. UNDINE'S CURSE specifically calls out that sleeping is a potential threat to life.
Haha, I'm flattered! Witch lends itself very well to these sorts of things.
Except for 2 things.
1. You're correct that the brain doesn't wake up from too little oxygen; it wakes you up when you have too much carbon dioxide, called hypercapnia. Your body gets rid of carbon dioxide by exhaling. Hypercapnia, not a lack of oxygen, is what creates a feeling of suffocation. That's why breathing oxygen-less air, such as smoke from a fire, doesn't wake you up (and why carbon monoxide poisoning is painless)- you're still getting rid of carbon dioxide, so the alarm bells never go off. This is not true of "not breathing at all", which would allow carbon dioxide to build up, set off alarm bells in your brain, and wake you up rather quickly.
2. This does not conflict with how the spell calls out sleeping. It says you stop breathing while sleeping, but does not imply that you don't wake up. You must be prevented from waking up in order to die, such as via magical sleep or poisons.
Sounds like a lot of real world justification for an in game effect which doesn't apply because...
Yeah I feel like that's the answer.
The target loses its body’s natural ability to breathe automatically. ... If it is ever unconscious (including sleeping) or unable to take physical actions, it stops breathing andstops breathing,must hold its breath, and might begin to suffocate.
There's nothing in the rules that say you'd wake up from this, so you don't.
If you need a real life justification I'd say that the "waking up with not enough oxygen/too much carbon dioxide" would be part of what's covered by "loses its body’s natural ability to breathe automatically".
I like the idea of using such a spell on some villain who never shuts up. BTW can you ready casting a spell as an action if it only takes a standard action to cast? I like the idea of choking them just as they start to utter some spell words.
Yes, you can ready an action to cast a spell. Readying magic missile against another spellcaster to force a concentration check is an old trick.