As a GM, I would absolutely never let a player cast wall of water on a sleeping enemy and have that instakill them with no save, because I would get physically assaulted if I did that as a GM to players.
"If this obviously cheesy tactic works for you, then it also works for your enemies" is always the best way to get players to rethink if they REALLY want to set this precedent or not.
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I don't understand. When a spell had the time to apply? Not on monk's turn. Then there's no spell and no danger of drowning at all.
If the spell was active before and the target is already there, maybe. But you said 'followed' by a spell.
Scooterscoots noted you can use a feat like tactical reflexes to reactive strike and then activate the reaction to keep them asleep for a longer period of time, which on it's own I don't think is worth it but does open them up to be hit with a suffocation spell of your choice.
Presumably you could also use the ready action if there's a way to drown someone with a single action but I can't find anything that would qualify.
All of that aside I am in agreement this does seem like a pretty aggressive reading of the way the mask works and I'm not calling for an an errata because any GM will instantly say no. I'm generally of the opinion that errata to fix these kinds of technicalities isn't really needed, and I'm not going to lose sleep over it. We're bordering on the oberoni fallacy here but eh, that's how I see it.
If I were dealing with it, I'd rule that the mask gives the breath back when the monk's turn ends, bypassing the unconscious rules, because that is the clear intent.
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Yes, you would wake up from the item's effect, but you have a second source of unconsciousness being applied to you by the drowning/suffocation rules. It's those rules that keep you asleep, same way as if you were under two sources of any condition and one went away while the other did not. You wouldn't suddenly recover from both.I mean the ability specifies that you regain consciousness at the end of the users turn, if not woken earlier. I am not sure how many GMs will not allow for getting dunked in water or any environment that your body functions radically differently and not have that wake you up.
This whole thing sounds like a rules lawyer player trying to auto kill enemies by bludgeoning their GM with rules that defy common sense, and then suggesting it’s a massively broken ability that needs errata.
There is no rule for suffocating when you are not holding your breath. Unless being Unconscious means you start out of air ?
If I cast sleep on someone swimming in a shallow fountain, are they just dead? The issue being pointed to here has nothing to do with the mask as an item. Anything that specifies that you can wake up earlier than the duration at the GMs discretion is fine as long as the GM is not out on a murderous rampage. Immersing one’s face in water or suddenly removing the oxygen from the area would instantly wake someone up.
What the mask does is knock the wind out of you immediately, but you are breathing again right afterwards. The only situation where it is even debatable you wouldn’t wake up is if you were already underwater and drowning before getting hit by the triggering attack, and if even one ally is around to pull you out of the water you will be fine. I don’t think this is such a broken thing that anyone should be that worried about it. As a GM, watching my players try to set this up to work against any enemy worth the trouble is going to be enough of an exercise in frustration that I’d let them have it the one time in a campaign it might happen.
There is no rule for suffocating when you are not holding your breath. Unless being Unconscious means you start out of air ?Yes, you would wake up from the item's effect, but you have a second source of unconsciousness being applied to you by the drowning/suffocation rules. It's those rules that keep you asleep, same way as if you were under two sources of any condition and one went away while the other did not. You wouldn't suddenly recover from both.I mean the ability specifies that you regain consciousness at the end of the users turn, if not woken earlier. I am not sure how many GMs will not allow for getting dunked in water or any environment that your body functions radically differently and not have that wake you up.
This whole thing sounds like a rules lawyer player trying to auto kill enemies by bludgeoning their GM with rules that defy common sense, and then suggesting it’s a massively broken ability that needs errata.
There is a rule that if you speak you lose all the air in your lungs and instantly start drowning. The mask also takes all your air. And of course holding your breath isn’t a passive thing, how are you supposed to do that while unconscious?
Going monk archetype hence losing a feat and archetype locking yourself to make one enemy a day miss one turn doesn't seem very worth it unless you're in a campaign where you're reliably fighting one person per day.
You don’t have to be a monk to use the mask. It works for anyone. Additionally, you can have it for multiple - buy a few copies and swap them out.
I don't understand. When a spell had the time to apply? Not on monk's turn. Then there's no spell and no danger of drowning at all.
Yeah, that's on me. I was still in the headspace of weird reactive strike stuff. This works in the proper order as well, ripping the air out of someone in an already airless environment.
There's also the option of letting yourself get quickened round 1 (ally, potion, etc) and using your own wand to drop a wall or vacuum together with a quickened strike and reaction. That's a bit more involved though.
Huh, are all the items that have focus point stuff that only work for one class like that or is it just the mask?
All of them. Makes the magus free action teleport ring pretty useful for literally everyone.
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There is a rule that if you speak you lose all the air in your lungs and instantly start drowning. The mask also takes all your air. And of course holding your breath isn’t a passive thing, how are you supposed to do that while unconscious?There is no rule for suffocating when you are not holding your breath. Unless being Unconscious means you start out of air ?Yes, you would wake up from the item's effect, but you have a second source of unconsciousness being applied to you by the drowning/suffocation rules. It's those rules that keep you asleep, same way as if you were under two sources of any condition and one went away while the other did not. You wouldn't suddenly recover from both.I mean the ability specifies that you regain consciousness at the end of the users turn, if not woken earlier. I am not sure how many GMs will not allow for getting dunked in water or any environment that your body functions radically differently and not have that wake you up.
This whole thing sounds like a rules lawyer player trying to auto kill enemies by bludgeoning their GM with rules that defy common sense, and then suggesting it’s a massively broken ability that needs errata.
Have you ever noticed that people very rarely fall out of their bed while sleeping, even when they are moving a lot in their sleep ?
It's because the brain itself never sleeps and keeps on checking what happens to the body even when we are sleeping. Same with being Unconscious.
EDIT : We even have a reflex for it.
"Reflex breath-holding: When water enters the airway, the body instinctively holds its breath to prevent water intake. This initial phase may last seconds to minutes"
Source : American Academy of CPR and First Aid
Huh, learn something new everyday. Either way the mask still rips the air out of your lungs, so it wouldn’t matter much for this item.
Huh, learn something new everyday. Either way the mask still rips the air out of your lungs, so it wouldn’t matter much for this item.
But only the instant it happens. It doesn’t keep your breath for the duration of your unconsciousness, it’s just that the stealing your breath is what makes you fall unconscious in the first place.
Huh, learn something new everyday. Either way the mask still rips the air out of your lungs, so it wouldn’t matter much for this item.But only the instant it happens. It doesn’t keep your breath for the duration of your unconsciousness, it’s just that the stealing your breath is what makes you fall unconscious in the first place.
I could see that argument stopping remove air -> place water. Which doesn’t mean much since you just place the water first.