brendan candries
First Post
can you split a banana after eating a coupe de glace?
(I know, shoot me
)
(I know, shoot me
)
Can you Cleave after a Cup De' Grassey?
- Thread starter two
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Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
Saeviomagy said:
It's always seemed plain to me that CdG's are automatically carried out with full PA in place, since you automatically hit and you aren't going to be making any attacks of opportunity that round.
Li Shenron
Legend
Gez said:So, again, you may also consider using "merciful blow", which would have the benefit of letting you butcher your own language.
In fact I have wonderer before if there isn't an english expression for the same thing... in italian it's "Colpo di Grazia" which exactly means blow of mercy. Is the french word used in common english?
Saeviomagy said:
Well, basically from a "what do these abilities represent" designer perspective, it might be because a coup de grace is a careful, controlled, precise, concentrated methodical strike whereas power attack is a use all of your skill to attempt a wild, uncontrolled, massively powerful blow, giving up skill and precision for power.
From a "game balance" designer perspective, it might be because using a power attack during a coup de grace at 20th level (for a combatant type of character) is equivalent to increasing his Strength by 40 points from a single feat. Additionally, it makes an extremely difficult saving throw impossible to make. Personally, I think that people who think this is ok are power gamers and wouldn't know balance if it bit them in the butt. JMO.
two
First Post
KarinsDad said:
I'm sure you are not arguing that a coup de grace performed by a 20th level fighter, barbarian, ranger, etc. (any class that might have Power Attack) is something that ANY creature should survive on anything less than a natural "20".
If a 20th level fighter can't take out a helpless opponent 19 out of 20 times -- well heck, I'd agree there is a problem with "game balance." Things are too tough for a 20th level fighter to kill!
A 20th level fighter can wade through an army of mooks; yet should not apply power attack to a coup de grace? Listen, you give CONAN the BARBARIAN a full round to split you from stem to stern, and your game system better say "CONAN + COUP DE GRACE = DEAD SQUIRTING MASS OF BLOODY GOO ON THE GROUND". Period.
two said:
First off, coup de grace already is fairly devastating. For a 20th level Fighter, it will typically be 5 damage for the weapon, 5 damage for the magic of the weapon, 7 damage for Strength, 2 damage for weapon specialization times 2 or times 3 for the critical of coup de grace which is either 38 or 57 points of damage which results in a save of either DC 48 or DC 67.
Adding 20 points of damage to that and adding 20 to the DC is unbalancing even more an already unbalanced ability, especially when talking about certain types of opponents (e.g. extremely powerful dragons or demons).
I have no problem with 20th level Fred Fighter slitting the throat of the 20th level Joe Wizard (I do have a bit of a problem that most of the wizards protections do not protect him against coup de grace at all while he is asleep).
I do have a problem with Fred Fighter using magic to sneak in and assassinate an 80 foot long 300 year old dragon because he sticks his sword in the dragons eye (which should blind the dragon in one eye, but come nowhere near killing it 95% of the time).
two
First Post
Any wuss of a high-level dragon that lets somebody cruise in and coup de grace him deserves what he gets.
This isn't really a game balance issue, of course; high level dragons have plenty of possible protections vs. such obvious, incredibly obvious schemes.
If Fred the Fighter manages to do this to a dragon, the dragon is question: 1) isn't that high a level at all, so it's not a big deal, or 2) is being run by a feebleminded GM, in which case find another GM.
Seriously, this is pretty ridiculous. Nobody sneaks up on an ancient red dragon, not in 3.5 at least...
This isn't really a game balance issue, of course; high level dragons have plenty of possible protections vs. such obvious, incredibly obvious schemes.
If Fred the Fighter manages to do this to a dragon, the dragon is question: 1) isn't that high a level at all, so it's not a big deal, or 2) is being run by a feebleminded GM, in which case find another GM.
Seriously, this is pretty ridiculous. Nobody sneaks up on an ancient red dragon, not in 3.5 at least...
two said:
As a player, you can bet serious money that I can have my high level Wizard find a way around the defenses of a dragon so that his high level Fighter friend can go kill him. Dragons tend to sleep a lot and it only takes one round to snuff him. Now granted, a DM could throw a monkey wrench into any carefully laid out plan to wipe out a dragon by reacting to what the players are doing (i.e. by changing the scenario once he understands the plans of the players), but without "cheating" of this magnitude, it is possible to go in and win in a single round. Not easy, but possible.
Getting back on topic, coup de grace should have a size limitation where you cannot CDG any creature two sizes larger than yourself or minimally a limitation that for the purposes of CDG, natural armor subtracts from the damage of the attack (or some such set of rules).
