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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 328394" data-attributes="member: 3146">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).</blockquote>

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