[Michael Thayne]

The original spell is primarily modeled as a Heart Attack but steals a "risk of brain damage" effect from the suffocation rules. I wasn't sure how to model that, so I left it alone. If you wanted to add it, you could argue that it should actually just be an automatic feature of having a heart attack, since realistically heart attacks can cause brain damage. I wouldn't charge more than +50% for it—i.e. half the price of Choking.

Steal Breath
Keywords: Resisted (HT).
Full Cost: 83 points.
Casting Roll: Will.
Range: Unlimited.
Duration: Instantaneous.

Snatches away a living victim’s "vital essence" by removing the body’s ability to get oxygen to essential systems: collapsing lungs, deoxygenating blood, and so on. Treat as heart attack (p. B429) for most purposes: the subject drops to -FP, falls unconscious, and dies in HT/3 minutes unless resuscitated. However, the arrest is respiratory, not cardiac, which may affect treatment (GM’s option).

Resuscitated victims have the lower of their current HP or 0 HP. This spell affects only breathing, oxygen-dependent life forms. Doesn’t Breathe – or any variety of Injury Tolerance that includes No Blood or No Vitals – gives immunity. Exceptions: Machines that require oxygen must resist or shut down until restarted. Air elementals and subjects with the Body of Air meta-trait (p. B262) treat Steal Breath as "save or die"; failed resistance means they’re instantly destroyed.

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Can't affect most creatures with Doesn't Breathe or No Blood, but can affect certain machines, +0%; Cosmic, Reduced Time can turn Heart Attack into instant destruction, Air elementals only, +165%; Heart Attack, +300%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, +20%; Reduced Time 10 on Heart Attack, +110%; Sorcery, -15%) [83]. Notes: This spell originally appeared in GURPS Magic: Death Spells, p. 9.