Does David Blaine have an 18 CON?

[RangerWickett]

My friends' dad works for the GBI - Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He does CSI type stuff.

Once he got called in on a particularly grueseome homicide. So gruesome, in fact, that I'm going to put it in spoilers for those who are squeamish and might not want to read about it.

[sblock]A man had been beaten to death with the hook end of a hammer. He had 31 sets of puncture marks on his face and skull, and my friend's dad was supposed to find out whatever he could to help them track down the killer. So he did his CSI thing, examined the body for a day or so, and then filed his report:

Suicide.

The police at first were disbelieving, but my friend's dad showed them irrefutable proof that, based on the angles of entry and the blood patterns on the man's hand and body and room, the man had apparently stabbed himself in the skull thirty-one times with the teeth of a hammer, in some sort of horribly self-loathing suicide.
[/sblock]

So yeah, it takes a lot to kill some people.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

What's the circumstance bonus for saturating your lungs with oxygen first?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So yeah, it takes a lot to kill some people.

I dunno, I bet that guy was just really bad at carpentry.

 

[Nyaricus]

I dunno, I bet that guy was just really bad at carpentry.

wow, Wizzy, that's a pretty brutal deduction dude.

Ranger Wickett, neat (if a bit disturbing) story

 

[Klaus]

18 Con? Probably. And also levels in Tough Hero.

 

[Cheiromancer]

...But, factor in Expert Swimmer, and Endurance, with an 18 Con, and you get to...

- Holds his breath for 54 rounds (5 minutes, 24 seconds) before needing to make Con checks.
- To make it to 7 minutes, that's 16 Con checks, starting at DC 10, ending at DC 25. With the Endurance feat adding +4 to those checks (for a +8 modifier), 7 minutes sounds about right.

Still hard to do unless you have a mechanism to turn a failed check into a success. Do action points let you do that?

I'm thinking that if he has an ability to take 10 (despite the penalty for failing) he could use that until the DC reaches 18. And then some kind action point madness; 8 checks in a row with less than 50% chance of success each time is not something you can count on.

Anybody know what kind of techniques Blaine might use to buff himself? I'm guessing yoga, at least, but I wonder if he practices ceremonial magic as well as stage magic.

 

[kenobi65]

I seem to remember reading he did some training with the Navy SEALs before he did this last stunt. I don't know how much of that was about just being underwater for extensive periods, versus the breath-holding thing.

 

[teitan]

Still hard to do unless you have a mechanism to turn a failed check into a success. Do action points let you do that?

I'm thinking that if he has an ability to take 10 (despite the penalty for failing) he could use that until the DC reaches 18. And then some kind action point madness; 8 checks in a row with less than 50% chance of success each time is not something you can count on.

Anybody know what kind of techniques Blaine might use to buff himself? I'm guessing yoga, at least, but I wonder if he practices ceremonial magic as well as stage magic.

As a ceremonial magician I am at a loss as to what you mean? Aside from the extreme focus of will that ceremonial magick instills, I don't see anything in our techniques that would help in holding the breath and endurance. Maybe some Asana Yoga and Pranayama at the most extreme cycles can be used to increase the lung capacity and the efficiency of oxygen use but they are hardly Ceremonial Magick in the strictest since though I can understand where many would get confused after Crowley brought Yoga to the west and integrated it so fully into his system. Any techniques Blaine might have used would have been of the Oriental bent as the Occidental mostly focused on communication with outer intelligences beyond our traditional senses such as angels, demons and spirits of various nature. Even "enlightenment" as a part of the western paradigm was brought in by Blavatsky and Levi as earlier texts on Ceremonial Magick only comment on the relationship of God and man and its import to the rituals.

Its easy to explain how Blaine does it, he has a magic item that he stole from David Copperfield, the SIGN OF THE DEVIL!!!!!!!

Jason

 

[Cheiromancer]

Its easy to explain how Blaine does it, he has a magic item that he stole from David Copperfield, the SIGN OF THE DEVIL!!!!!!!

That's more or less what I was getting at. I am thinking of folks like Joseph Lisiewski (author of Ceremonial Magic & The Power of Evocation: A System of Personal Power) who conjures demons so that they appear visibly (or see the kinds of experiences Lon Milo Duquette describes in My Life With the Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician). Those are effects which go beyond mere self delusion, and could include being able to perform superhuman feats of endurance.

I would love to talk with you more about your experience with Ceremonial Magic. PM me or email me (email in my profile) if you would like to talk more.