Bluffing Dead, Cleave Allowed?

[jgsugden]

hehehehe....

And to play along... what if the rogue had one of the 'instant stand' type feats. Once the BBEG turned to face someone else, he could jump up, and get a whole bunch of sneak attacks.

SA because he would then be flanking.

Though, in any case, I would probably give him one SA attack since he was 'concealed' as a corpse.

Or, alternatively, wait for the combat to otherwise end ... and then spring up and catch your foes flat footed.

 

[Trainz]

I would not require a PC to ready an action for such a move.

How hard is it to drop once you get a blow ? It's instantaneous. If a PC gets hit and decides to go possum, I let him roll the bluff (at a -4 if he doesn't let go of whatever he's holding).

Of course, if the bluff fails, he's now prone and the critter hacks at him with a bonus. I would let other critters (that didn't deliver the blow) roll a sense motive at -4 to spot the bluffer ("Gornock ! He no dead ! He tricksy !").

If the bluff succeeds, and the character starts acting at later rounds, further bluff feign-death attempts would automatically fail.

As for the cleave, yeah, you did right.

 

[S'mon]

As others have said, per the rules you cleave off anyone you "drop", so yes you can definitely cleave off someone who 'plays dead'.

BTW in the 3.0 DMG in the War & Invasion section, Monte says that Commoners who are hit normally drop and play dead, even if they have hp left. I'd be inclined to let anyone who was hit drop immediately as a free action outside their turn; possibly requiring a Bluff check depending on the circumstances - a 300hp fighter dropping from a 1 hp injury might not be plausible, but an 80hp fighter dropping from a 70hp injury certainly would be IMO.