Coup de Grace and how it should change

[Corlon]

By the coup de grace rules, the person must be completely helpless in order for you to do it. I consider a coup de grace deadly things such as slitting one's throat, or jabbing a dagger between their shoulder blades. I know this will probably be extremely unbalanced, but it needs some changes. If a rouge (or other person, but probably a rouge) is sneaky enough to get right behind a person who is eating, writing, or otherwise occupied, and can get a weapon to the right place, they should be able to coup de grace because in essence the person is extremely vunerable to being attacked, and should be killed in that position. This should be used for two main reasons.

1. Killing: of course if the objective of someone is to kill, this would be a perfect assasination method.

2. Hostage Situations: If someone has a knife to a characters throat, they could be a hostage, and if they (or anyone else) did something stupid, then a slitt to the throat (a coup de grace) would easier than many attacks.

Any ideas on how to balance this??
I really need some ideas!!!!

 

[trepanier]

The only balance i see is that it's impossible to CDG in melee (even for the AoO).

maybe with concentration check 20...

???

 

[Crothian]

I don't think there is a way to balance it. A rogue who gets a hold of anything that will make him invisible with be killing people left and right.

 

[hong]

Don't forget that the rogue already gets to sneak attack in these situations. +Nd6 damage will kill most low-level types, and make the rest sit up and take notice. The problem is that only the rogue can do this, not anyone else, which is a bit odd, I admit. It's another one of those legacy things....

What you could do:

Any time a foe is
1) helpless; OR
2) pinned (not just grappling); OR
3) unaware of the attacker (not just unable to see them)

an attack that hits and causes damage can force a Fort save to survive, like a CdG. In the case of 3), you would generally only get one shot, since if the target survives they would know someone's around.

You may also want to limit it to melee attacks only.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I don't think that idea 3 can be balanced.

That would make invisibility, silence, etc too powerful.
That would either make uncanny dodge too powerful (to the extent that it's necessary in order to survive missing a single spot or listen check) or useless--depending upon whether or not it made you immune to the coup-de-grace attempt.
Pluss, it's a generally nasty idea that would vastly increase the randomness of the game at low and mid levels (meaning a much higher PC bodycount--and the PC bodycount is already quite high if you're in a game that has combat and you throw appropriate challenges at PCs and don't fudge).

2. Is probably alright though. . . .

There are better ways to deal with the situations listed:
1. The person eating, etc. There are quite a few examples of literature in which a person was surprised while eating, sleeping, lying down, etc but managed to survive by grabbing what weapons were available and fighting off their opponent. If the individual is surprised by his attacker, remember that the attacker gets a surprise round. This can be very very deadly.

2. Assassinations. Sneak attack is good for this at the moment. A good rogue (level 5+) will usually do 17 to 20 points of damage (depending upon whether he's using a heavy crossbow or a dagger) on a sneak attack. That's quite sufficient to drop most of the level one to four aristocrats who would usually be the targets of assassinations. If the assassin is the kind of assassin who gets sent after harder targets, then he probably has the assassin prestige class and can use the death attack.

3. Hostage situations. You should probably consider hostages to be pinned and therefore helpless. Of course, the whole "knife to your throat" thing is mostly for defeated warriors, pinned opponents, or helpless women. In the movies, the villain who holds a knife to the hero's throat never quite manages to slice it before the hero grabs his hand and wrestles himself out of that position. If the opponent is struggling effectively, the hostage taker should have to roll to hit and do normal damage (possibly with sneak attack if he's quicker than the hostage).

Don't forget that the rogue already gets to sneak attack in these situations. +Nd6 damage will kill most low-level types, and make the rest sit up and take notice. The problem is that only the rogue can do this, not anyone else, which is a bit odd, I admit. It's another one of those legacy things....

What you could do:

Any time a foe is
1) helpless; OR
2) pinned (not just grappling); OR
3) unaware of the attacker (not just unable to see them)

an attack that hits and causes damage can force a Fort save to survive, like a CdG. In the case of 3), you would generally only get one shot, since if the target survives they would know someone's around.

You may also want to limit it to melee attacks only.

 

[the Jester]

This thread inspired a thought: if you have a ready action to cdg an enemy via a knife at the throat or whatever, and you have the death attack feat (or whatever it is, the one that makes it a standard action), you can cdg before they have a chance to do anything (assuming you ready for the right action).

One thing to note about this whole discussion: cdg is a full-round action. Without death attack (or whatever it's called) most of these situations won't often come up. (The would-be rescuers can try to stop you while you're slitting the throat or whatever.)

 

[Corlon]

I think what hong was saying is pretty much what I was trying to say.
But it doesn't have to be a rouge... rangers, rouges, bards (very easy for them.. or at least to get into a building), and very sneaky fighters, because with no armor they're not that loud.

About the sneak attack: My rouges (which I almost always play) as soon as they get 19 dex, I get quicker than the eye which in my opinion is one of the best rouge feats. I get to sneak attack with this almost every round, and really, it doens't deal a great deal of damage.. well it does, but not really enough to kill people.

Or mabye instead of all of this, there should be a feat death attack, becaue the assasin has to be evil, and to be a person that kills from the shadows isn't neccessarily evil.

And rules for hostage taking, but it really should be a grapple, and if you have them pinned for 3 consecutive rounds or something, then you can get an automatic crit, or CDG, or some other bonus.

 

[Jeph]

Havewe all forgotten that marvelous statistic known as initiative? it allows one character to act before another. This somehow seems appropriate to this situation, but I'm not exactly sure how it would be included in the rules.....

 

[Corlon]

more please

cmon, we've just started discussing this

more comments please!

 

[hong]

I don't think that idea 3 can be balanced.

That would make invisibility, silence, etc too powerful.

Not necessarily. As I said, the target has to be unaware of the attacker, which is a stronger requirement than just being invisible.

Right now, D&D is in the silly situation where a rogue can kill people* with a single shot from cover, but fighters and other characters can't. The ideal situation would be to do away with sneak attacks altogether and redesign the rogue, but that's too much work. With that as a given, an alternative mechanic to allow massive damage on a single hit is probably desirable.

* who are higher than 1st level, that is.

Of course, the whole "knife to your throat" thing is mostly for defeated warriors, pinned opponents, or helpless women. In the movies, the villain who holds a knife to the hero's throat never quite manages to slice it before the hero grabs his hand and wrestles himself out of that position.

There are probably almost as many movies where the hero surrenders because he knows he's overmatched, though.