Close Wounds and Coup-de-Grace

[irdeggman]

I agree with those who state the wording of the spell negates the damage done.

I also agree that the saving throw and the damage are part of the same thing - that is there is no time between where someone can do something.

Basically the spell allows one to negate (as in a mulligan) the damage and thus the saving throw never happens.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I actually think that the weird language about the "damage doesn't actually happen" or whatever is intended to make it clear that the spell can save someone who would otherwise go to -10 and die. For instance, if close wounds negated all of the damage from a poisoned dagger, I would rule that the poison still happened. IMO, there is a wound, it just heals so swiftly under close wounds that it can't kill in and of itself.

While I would rule the poison does not happen if the damage was reduced to nothing by close wounds. As per the spell name, the wound is closed before it can even affect the creature. Sort of like the "fast healing" description for how DR can work.

EDIT: What I mean:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction
"Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective)."

 

[Jhaelen]

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm still unsure which way I should rule it in the future. I'm going to reread the spell description and think about the implications of ruling it either way some more.

Coup-de-grace happens very rarely in our games. This was probably about the third time in over five years. I'd also like to note that in this particular situation the save wouldn't have been successful even if I had ruled that Close Wounds could be used to reduce the DC.

1d4+9 with Augment Healing, FTW. (In our game on Saturday, the PC actually made the save because of the bonus 4 points from Augment Healing.)

Yup, the party's cleric also has Augment Healing. There's been more than one occasion when this has saved another character's life!