D&D 4E 4e Coup de Grace

[UngeheuerLich]

its a full round action in 3.X to coup de grace (if you don´t invest a feat) and you can´t ready a full round action.

A standard action which instantly kills sounds just wrong. So max damage is more reasonable. If you have time however, you could just say you can prepare the death stroke for as many rounds as you wish, doing max damage times the number of rounds you spent preparing and apliciate it all together in one stroke. No save, no insta kills. Maybe you may have a saving throw to be only unconscious and not dead, bleeding for X per round.

 

[2eBladeSinger]

Fighter: Sir, we’ve dispatched all the hobgoblins. Only one remains, the chieftain but luckily, Tim put him to sleep.
Warlord: Excellent, what should we do with the Chieftain?
Fighter: Probably just kill him, he’s too dangerous to let loose and we can’t take him prisoner out here.
Warlord: So be it – run him through.
Fighter: *stabs, stab, stab* Oh crap!
Warlord: WHAT IN THE NAME OF BAHAMUT’S…
Fighter: He’s awake! Run!!!
Warlord: I said ‘run him through’, not nick his toe!
DM: Roll initiative!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Fighter: Sir, we’ve dispatched all the hobgoblins. Only one remains, the chieftain but luckily, Tim put him to sleep.
Warlord: Excellent, what should we do with the Chieftain?
Fighter: Probably just kill him, he’s too dangerous to let loose and we can’t take him prisoner out here.
Warlord: So be it – run him through.
Fighter: *stabs, stab, stab* Oh crap!
Warlord: WHAT IN THE NAME OF BAHAMUT’S…
Fighter: He’s awake! Run!!!
Warlord: I said ‘run him through’, not nick his toe!
DM: Roll initiative!

Yes, I'm more than a little concerned about this scenario, frankly. Especially with some of the fancy-shmancy powers the mobs have. One of the things I genuinely liked about 3E was the elegant and effective CdG rule, which simultaneous offered enough realism to keep things fun and not retarded, and yet also didn't make it so being unconscious was quite always auto-death.

Hopefully 4E CdGs have the death-save attached when we see the final rules. If not, then sigh, Igor, add it to the veritable tome of house-rules that one will be adding. RAW which encourages scenarios as the above can go to hell.

 

[Rechan]

Well yes, I would argue out-of-combat that a CdG is an instant kill. In combat, it's a different matter.

 

[FadedC]

Yes, I'm more than a little concerned about this scenario, frankly. Especially with some of the fancy-shmancy powers the mobs have. One of the things I genuinely liked about 3E was the elegant and effective CdG rule, which simultaneous offered enough realism to keep things fun and not retarded, and yet also didn't make it so being unconscious was quite always auto-death.

Well maybe at low level it was possible (but very unlikely)not to die from a CDG in 3e. But unless you can make a DC 60 fort save, your unlikely to survive any past then. Granted that's probably realistic if your trying to finish off a human, though perhaps less so for a 60 foot dragon.

4e non killing CDGs will be a bit harder to swallow in some cases, and easier in others. As always we will have to see how it works in practice.

 

[MindWanderer]

In the Core Coliseum, wizards frequently carry around Large dwarven waraxes. They're at -6 to hit with them, but 6d8-3 damage makes for a healthy CdG. Too often we've had someone try to CdG with a light crossbow, wake the victim up, and die.