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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 1241065" data-attributes="member: 2011">Actually, I'll change my assertion here.All attacks are done in combat. However, there are some special considerations.Let's take the situation of a Fighter sneaking up on a sleeping guard. The guard does not make a Listen Roll and the Fighter gets right next to him. The Fighter wants to do one of three choices: a normal attack, a full attack, or a coup de grace attack.1) The Fighter decides on a normal melee attack. The DM could house rule that you are not in combat yet, however, DMG page 23 specifically handles this case: "When only one side of a combat is aware of the other, the DM runs the first round of combat as a surprise round." PHB page 133 handles it in the exact same way.DMG page 6 "A good DM knows to not change or overturn a published rule without a good, logical justification"There is no reason for a house rule or adjudication that the Fighter is not in combat since he is attempting a normal melee attack. His foe is unaware of him. He is attacking his foe. He gets one standard action in the surprise round to do that and then we are into initiatives. The rules tell us exactly how to handle this situation.No special DM adjudication needed. In fact, if you adjudicate that this can be done out of combat, you are setting a bad precedent for other situations (e.g. "why can I not do a full round attack before the surprise round???").2) The Fighter decides on a full attack. He cannot do a full attack because he only gets a single standard action during a surprise round. Again, there is no reason to adjudicate a different rule because the normal rule handles this.However, the Fighter gets around this by Readying an Action to attack if the guard wakes up in round one. In the first round, he then does a full attack. Even if the guard wins initiative, only a dick of a DM would give him a second Listen roll to wake up (IMO).3) The Fighter decides on a coup de grace.He does what he did in case #2. He readies for an instant and then does the CDG on round one.However, this does not change my assertion that a CDG is not a "melee attack". It is more like the Open Locks skill (which also requires a concentration roll and will result in an AoO and takes a full round) then it is a "melee attack" since it does not follow any of the normal melee attack rules except damage and is not listed as a melee or special attack (although we agree that it is an attack). It can even be done with a bow, but it is not a "ranged attack" either. It is a miscellaneous action that just happens to result in damage.There is actually more difference in the rules between CDG and a normal melee attack than there is between a melee attack and a ranged attack.And, the table on page 141 calls it out as a totally separate type of action:Standard ActionAttack (melee)Attack (ranged)Attack (unarmed)Full-Round ActionFull attackDeliver coup de graceThe real difference here is that "Attack (melee)" (directly) and "Full Attack" (indirectly by stating that you can do either an attack or a full attack) indicate that they are melee attacks within their descriptions. Coup De Grace does not. It is a miscellaneous action which requires concentration. The game mechanics for it are different.Power Attack states (in the descriptive text) that it works with melee attacks. CDG is not a melee attack since you are not in close combat (i.e. a one sided combat is not a combat as per the definition of melee in the glossary). You are not "meleeing".Cleave states that you get the same attack bonus. CDG does not have an attack bonus, hence, Cleave cannot be done (it cannot be assigned an attack bonus not even one of zero, hence, it cannot be done). Additionally, a helpless creature is already dropped.From a literal word and rules perspective (including the descriptive text and the glossary definitions), this is how it works.If you want to ignore the descriptive text and the glossary, and equate dropping only with killing (or going below zero) for Cleave and not with actually dropping the opponent, and if you want to add to any damage roll with a melee weapon for Power Attack, even though you cannot subtract from the attack bonus for a CDG, you can.That, however, is not a 100% literal perspective. It is one where some of the text in the book (Power Attack works with melee attacks, cleave occurs when an opponent is downed, CDG requires concentration, melee combat consists of blows exchanged by opponents close enough to threaten one another's space, etc.) is ignored.To me, the descriptive text and the glossary are still part of the rules because they explains what we are doing as opposed to how. Your position is ignoring the what and focusing totally on the how.You are also coming up with new concepts like a CDG is a melee attack (when melee is defined as opponents exchanging blows), just because it uses a melee weapon.You cannot exchange a CDG with an opponent who can exchange blows back. You can do that with melee attacks.</blockquote>

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