so i've been looking for stats for a garrotte and am unable to find any. what stealth ninja runner would be without one? and i've been thinking about the implications of using the magic fingers spell for strangulation; can't even find shadowrun asphyxiation/choking rules. Is there a martial arts maneuver for it?

if only my character were a bloodthirsty murderer, then i could use magic fingers to garrotte... think of it, invisible floating hands wrapping a razor thin wire around the neck... heck, add a small power source and presto! vibro-garrotte.

Messy, but effective.

Any thoughts?

Page 47 of the SRC gives rules for holding your breath, I didnt read it that thoroughly, but those should be some helpful guidelines if nothing else.

*whsssssssssshhhhhh guuhhhhh.... Wsshhhhhhhhhhhh guhhhhhh...*

The garrot was indian, not japanese, introduced into western culture through the British empire, so a ninja might not want it. Also strangling someone iss less certain and slower than a blade in the throat.

Although, it does often require less clean-up.

It can take up to 10 seconds to choke someone to black out, if you take out the blood vessels on the sides of the neck, a single thrust through the throat will take seconds.

As for clean up, either way you've got a dead body to deal with.

The use of a true garrot, not just strangling with a cord, will cut the bloodvessels, bursting them, maybe under the skin leading to massive hemotoma

hematoma

"hem" is the root word meaning blood, and "hemo" is a common variant of that.

From Middle French hemo-
From Latin haem-, haemo-
From Greek haim-, haimo-, from haima

If you cut the jugular veins and the carotid artery they'll lose the major blood pathways to the head.

I think if you puncture the aorta or they bleed to death in 8 seconds. My A&P teacher told us of this. Might not be the aorta, but there's definitely something you can puncture in the upper portion of the thoracic cavity that will make them very very unhappy.

Kidneys and liver will result in surefire death because you'd have all the blood flowing to both of them spilling out into your abdomin.

You can also crush their brain stem and thus prevent them from doing much of anything as the brain stem controls such things as breathing, and the involuntary act of swallowing. I'm sure the spine would result in the same sort of death due to severing of all the nerve connections leading to involuntary reflex pathways (such as the patelar reflex the doctor checks when he hits your knee with the rubber mallet).

Oh, you can cause a LOT of pain if you hit the right areas on the lips. They are responsible for stimulating 10% of your body I believe due to all the tightly packed nerves, thus they are rather sensitive to everything.

Crush the trachea and they can't breathe anymore, damage the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum and they become vegetables because that controls just about everything from balance to personality to voluntary muscle coordination to your posture.

Have to hit the right areas of course, and they're going to be different for everyone. This is why the skull and the meninges are so naturally tough, your brainbox needs all the protection it can get.

If silence is what you want you can try severing their vocal cords, or forcing them to choke on an object, or even severing the end of their tongue.

Speech is created by the passage of air over and through the vocal cords (as well as their general tautness and vibrations) and by the way your tongue interacts with the tip of their teeth. They'll still be making noises but they ain't talking to anyone.

Knocking blood / oxygen out can take up to 15-20 seconds on certain individuals. CNS and lower brain is all that'll do it instantly. But yes, your stuff is quick, and pretty quiet too, compared to a gunshot.

With Magic Fingers it wouldn't be force choke, it'd be a Punjab Lasso.

~J

Personally I would use a crossbow/normal bow. Absolutely dead silent.

Say you get dikoted arrowheads, and have a ranger-xbow. That's Str+5S.

You can also get a heavy crossbow with dikoted bolts for 8D.

A slingshot would be a really nice option if your GM allows you the use of a capsule round. Str+2L stun isn't terribly useful, but call a shot and aim for a turn or two and that's Str+2M stun, plus you get the capsule round. Load that with neurostun-x and that's not too bad.

8S stun after a combat turn isn't bad. If you hit the guard from behind they're liable to get surprised and denied actions against you, then they suffer the stun and probably go down like a lightbulb.

Not nearly as good as melee but its non-lethal, highly concealable (8 base), and doesn't have any noise.

Taser to the head from behind.

Although there'd be problems---them twitching like mad and probably jabbering from the neuro-seizure, the *ZAP* of the taser itself, and maybe a few other things.

But it would most certainly work.

I go with gah-row or gah-wrote

Anyways the thoracic cavity is basically the lungs on up, so you need to get to the heart or aorta (or whatever it is I was talking about) for nearly instant death. Lungs won't do the trick. They can still gurgle and make noises. Still able to raise the alarm most likely.

Gah as in the exclamation, rot as in what dead biological material does.

~J

Hitting the heart or the aorta allows gurgling and making noise. Unless you get lucky and manage instant concussion (pressure waves through the main arteries or simply along the bones into the upper central nervous system), ripping a hole in someone's aorta will allow, what, 10 seconds of trashing and shouting? 5 seconds? Easily enough to alarm anyone close by.

It is my understanding that there is absolutely nothing in the upper torso, apart from the spine, putting a bullet through which will reliably cause instant incapacitation. Hitting the spine from the front is really difficult -- more so, I should imagine, than hitting someone in the head. A bullet through anywhere in the brain can pretty reliably be expected to cause instant incapacitation, but it's certainly not guaranteed.

So you're back to the lower brain/upper spine, around the area where all voluntary and involuntary muscle action (including internal organ control) originates from and travels through. Which is where I'd put a bullet if I could shoot someone unaware of my presence at close quarters -- the kind of situation we're currently discussing, I think.

A bow or a crossbow aren't absolutely silent, either. The *TWANG* is very much audible, although less so than a suppressed gunshot. More power = more noise, so the STR 17 Troll's Ranger-X bow should be considered at least a "Single Silenced Gunshot" for perception purposes.

A Str 17 bow is going to sound like a ballista. Hell, that's basically what it has to be.

As for the suggestions so far:
No tasers. Good lord, are they noisy. You hear the electric current and you sure as hell hear the person twitching, thrashing, and screaming his or her lungs out.

No aorta shots. Even a shot straight through the heart allows a reliable 10 seconds of full capability, during which the trained professional falls down and screams or radios for help and the untrained profession falls down and screams but probably doesn't radio for help. And that 10 seconds is by no means an absolute.

No to cutting vocal cords: you may not be able to compose sound, but expect a massive rush of expelled air and a violently noisy victim, not to mention one hell of a mess. Likewise, slitting throats is both messy and noisy.

If you need them down noiselessly from a distance, it won't happen. Very quietly, however, is doable with suppressed weapon or fast acting incapacitating poisons.

If he or she absolutely, positively has to go down without a sound, however, an arm across the nose and mouth and a knife across the liver is really the only way to go. Just hold until he or she stops resisting and gently lower him or her to the ground.

Garrotes have their uses in concealability, but they're not reliable, not quick, not easy, not terribly quiet, and not at all clean.

Silent takedown from a distance? Arguably, Powerbolt.

~J

Powerbolts are somewhat less effective on Trolls and the like than I would prefer. Make sure you also know Manabolt and Stunbolt, to provide enough options. However, this thread seemed to focus mostly on non magical means to accomplish these aims, and I am inclined to agree with Arethusa for the most part.

Other magical means available? If you have a low to moderate power air elemental, have it take all the 'air' from a gas grenade and convey it over to the guard and wrap his head in it. If you have gone with a good clear, odorless neurotoxin, he won't notice anything until rapid tunnel vision sets in 1-3 seconds before absolute unconciousness/death, depending on gas used.

Of course, YMMV.

Oh hell just set him on fire. At least its entertaining.

Kidney and liver are good candidates for stabbing, especially the kidney because any fool can stab them in the back repeatedly and land a good blow or three on the kidneys, which spills all that blood into their abdomin which ain't terribly good, ya know?

What about good old fashioned chloroform on a handkerchief? Or for this game's purposes, a thoroughly soaked handkerchief doused with two doses of neuro stun X?

Wear gloves and probably a protective mask, walk up, hold it over nose+mouth and watch them fall over unconscious having just taken an 8D stun attack.

What would a fire extinguisher do if you sprayed that in their face? Think it'd disorient them long enough to pummel them mercilessly?

Funny! One of the characters in my current group CARRIES a fire extinguisher. And he is a homegrown Fire Shaman, who fancies himself a Fireman.

Yeah but see, I was going for non-lethal with the chloroform.

What if you hold your breath or something? I'm obviously not a chemist or a licensed hit man.

Most hit men aren't licensed.

~J

I was about to say something about that myself...

It is possible, but the paperword to get the licence will kill ya.

If you're going to get close enough to strangle someone, are premeditated in doing so, are prepared to hold on long enough for someone to be knocked out, and don't want to leave a mess, why not just use chloroform or some other KO drug over the mouth?

The best part is that you'd have to wait a maximum of 3 seconds (1 Combat Turn) for it to kick in if you get a good drug with an Instantaneous effect. Strangling can take over 3 Turns. And if you win Surprise when you do it, it'll probably knock them out before they even get a chance to respond with anything more than a Free Action (depending on whether you see Surprise as the initial part of a Combat Turn or a completely seperate Turn altogether).

Edit: Well cripes, that's what I get for not reading the whole thread first.

WHAT?! You mean the license written in purple crayon on the back of a napkin ISNT VALID!?!

If you really want to be effective without worrying about personal injury, you can always take Natural Immunity (Man-Made Substance) and then use a DMSO/Gammo-Scopolamine combo in the handkerchief you use. You're in no significant danger from being affected by the drug and at 10D Stun (which gets staged by +1 Power with successes on the attack test), it's going to be very effective against most targets.

The nice thing about Gammo-Scopolamine is that (even though no game effects are listed) it acts as a truth-serum after it wears off. So if you use it to kidnap someone, you get a little bonus afterwards, too.

Kinda pricey though. What about Sodium Pentothal?

It's really only pricey if you use it like crazy. When used on special occasions, it's pretty reasonable considering the effect.

Planning to choke someone in a brawl and only pass out is pretty much like aiming to wound- it's a stupid move that will almost certainly get you hurt.