Attack of Opportunity:

You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to arrote. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the garrote attack fails. Note that only targets who are aware they are about to be garrotted can respond with an attack of opportunity.

Getting the Garrote into Place:

To attack with a garrote, you first need to loop the wapon over your opponent's headand work it into place around his or her neck. To accomplish this, you must be able to reach the target's head. This means that you cannot arrote an opponent two or more size categories larger than yourself unless that opponent is sitting or lying down or you are attacking from overhead.

Garrote attacks are only effective against targets that can take a critical hit.

If you can reach the target's head, you must make a successful finesse attack to slide the garrote past the target's armor. The AR value may need to be modified depending on the armor type at the GM's discretion. If you fail to hit with the finess attack, your garrote attack fails. If you are entitled to multiple attacks in a round, you can attempt to place the garrote multiple times at successively lower base attack bonuses.

Strangle:

Make a grapple check vs. your target. If you succeed, you have started to strangle your opponent. You immediately deal 1d8 points of damage plus 1.5 times your strength bonus (you are using two hands). A wire garrotte deals 1d10 points of damage plus 1.5 times your strength bonus as the wire cuts into the victim's throat rather than just crushing it.

If you fail the grapple check, you don't start strangling or deal damage. Your opponent slips free of the garrote and is no longer considered grappled. You do not automatically lose the grapple check if your opponent is two or more size categories larger than you are, as you woul with a normal grapple heck. Your oponent is considered grappled if you succeed.

Move In:

You must move into the opponent's space to maintain the strangle. Moving, as normal provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening cenemies, but not from your target.

Maintaining a Garrote Attack:

Once you have the garrote in place, have won the grapple check and moved into the target's space, you can continue to deal garrote damage with successful grapple cheks as ofte as you are entitled to attempt them. If you have multiple attacks, you can attempt multiple grapple checks each round to deal damage. Each time you succeed with a grapple check, you deal garrote amage, modified as above by your strength modfier. The garrote remains in place until you release your opponent or until he or she ecapes by breaking your hold. Both you and your opponent are considered grappled while you maintain a garrote attack. You cannot attempt to do anything else but damage your opponent while grappling with a garrote.

While You're Being Garroted:

Being garroted is just like being grappled, except that you suffer lethal damage. You can attempt to escape the garrote by making a successful grapple check on your turn. If your allowed multiple attacks, you can attempt to escape multiple times. You can attack with a light weapon. You cannot speak or cast spells.

Cutting a garrote from your own throat is possible but it's difficult. A garrote is a small weapon so it has an DC of 11, but since it is buried in your neck it gets a +10 cover bonus for an DC of +21. In addition, you incur a -4 circumstance penalty on your attack because you have to avoid damaging your own neck in the process. You cannot use the disarm action agains an attacker who has a garrote wrapped around your neck.