Coup de Grace broken?

[Pielorinho]

Lemme turn this back around on you, Tom: what do you think would be the result if, while you were sleeping, a rat crawled up on your chest and did its level best to open your jugular vein? My guess is, you'd die. Rats have sharp pointy teeth, and one with the intelligence of a druid could probably kill you in your sleep.

As an alternative, imagine a little fella about two feet tall wielding a twelve-inch spear. This guy is smaller compared to you than a human is compared to a fire giant. Imagine that you're asleep, and the little guy sneaks up and stabs you in the eye (or in the throat, or in the spinal cord) with his spear. Are you going to be getting up from that?

I think the rule is just fine. I think the PCs made some cunning plans in your game, and I think that you made a few questionable rules decisions (CdG as a surprise action, nobody noticing the sudden silence as the rogues pass by, the presence of a ring of silence in a group without a cleric, the ability of two silenced, invisible characters to synchronize their throatslitting, and the inability of the ogres & dire wolves to hear/smell the druid and wizard). But you didn't make any big gaffers of errors, really -- everything I described as questionable can be plausible explained away.

Every now and then, clever characters succeed in tasks far beyond what the rules suggest they should succeed at. Enjoy their creativity, and keep it in mind for future challenges.

Daniel

 

[Number47]

A druid-rat attacking the king?

Third-level party killing fire giants?

Why is it that every time somebody has some problem with a rule, they set up a straw man argument? If you cannot show me how there is a problem with the rule by using a situation that has actually cropped up in one of many games I've played in the last three years than the rule, be default, is fine the way it stands.

 

[Darklone]

Who had that nice sig about druids being the best assassins? Nothing like a rat that changes into a scimitar wielding halfelf in the kings bedchamber. So who cares for ratbites ?

As for the rule being broken: IMHO no. It's more a problem what kind of Listen checks you give sleepers to notice someone. Alarm spell: Can't this dude be disabled by a rogue?

 

[Aaron2]

If so then no one is safe

Your right. No one is safe if an 11th level druid wants them dead. Just like an 11th level cleric can go ethereal, pop up in the king's thrown room with Divine Power and Rightious Might up. That's a 22+ Str, large, 11th level fighter. He'll easily kill the king even without CDG. Likewise, a 11th level wizard can scry, teleport, and then disintegrate.

A third level halfling rogue trying to CDG is the -least- of the kings worries.

I'm still looking for the problem.

You still never explained how the party escaped the ogres and wolves, nor how they timed their CDG's while invisible and silenced, nor how halflings were wielding longspears.

Aaron

 

[mmu1]

No, CDG is not broken. You're just not running the game correctly, and trying to blame the rules for your own mistakes.

 

[Christian]

Re: Re: Re: Coup de Grace broken?

Rrrr-rat. With an R. Damage: 1d3-4.

2 damage on a critical.

DC12 Fort save.

And for today's hijack, we'll discuss the classic question, "Why do some monsters have damage rolls listed like '1d3-4'? Why don't they just say, 'damage: 1 point'?"

There is a difference. Take, for example, a rat. On a normal hit, it does 1d3-4 damage, or one point. With a Bull's Strength spell, it might do 1d3-2 damage-still one point. Or with a critical hit, it could do 2d3-8 damage-again, one point. But with both, it would do 2d3-4 damage, which could be as much as two points ...

Rat-1 damage on a critical. DC11 Fort save. Scary.

OK, now back to your regular program.

 

[Sejs]

CDG is not broken.

With some luck (ie, them blowing their fort save) you could kill a sleeping person by using a pair of cuticle clippers. Just a matter of applying it right (ie, the full round-aoo provoking action it'd take to do it). Frankly, if someone can get to you while you're asleep and they want you dead - you're going to die. Sorta like in real life; if I get into someone's bedroom while they're asleep and I've got a knife it would be no great shakes to Terminally Inconvienance them. Saying "Well, they've just had their throat opened up to daylight, but they're awake and fightin you" is BS. Someone in that kind of situation should be doing only 4 things: gurgling, flailing around, failing to be able to scream, and expiring in short order.

Frankly, I greatly welcomed CDG when I first read the 3e phb. Sick and tired of the "Someone's gonna be executed, save them before the axe falls" kind of scenarios not being backed by the rules. By the straight rules in previous editions you had to whack at the person until they died from Hp loss. That sucked.

 

[Shalewind]

Well, Tom, I have yet to see you reply here. It seems to me, you wanted a rally support for the broken-ness of CdG only to find the consenus was the opposite. I'm still curious as to your opinions on what these people have said and wheter or not you still consider the rule to be overpowered.

But since you wanted to talk about the rule itself...

Should a druid transformed into the shape of a rat be able to CDG the sleeping king, who has ordered the peasants to clear the forest, by biting his neck?

Absolutely. This is the world of Dnd where you can cast such spells such as disintigrate and ressurection. You are making in argument with this statement that the rat killing the king is either unrealistic or illogical. In either case, that isn't basis for the CdG to be broken. DnD is NOT realistic and while it tries to follow logic, magic itself breaks logic. I've seen horror movies where a small cat kills a grown man because it goes for his mouth. I didn't believe it was possible IRL, but for the horror movie...

If so then no one is safe without the alarm spell, and even then they would never get to sleep in a wilderness environment. The rule as it is sucks.

Again, you are dealing with a mystical world. There are several ways in which to prevent a CdG on sleeping creatures. First of all, listen checks and watchers. I have NEVER played with a party, (and I mean EVER) in which when we were in a foriegn place DIDN'T set watches. If I lived in a world with magical and undead beasts roaming the forests I would never sleep alone or without a watch schedual. Alarm isn't the only way to beat enemies sneaking up on characters. And this has nothing to do with CdG being broken. For instance, if I were to say dropping lava on a character does an large ammount of damage and might be over powered, I don't question that the damage the lava did was over-powered, I'd question the ability to drop the lava in the first place. In this case, CdG is the lava. CdG means you need total surprise and a helpless enemy. Pretty strict rules, and since I think killing a person via CdG would make noise in and of itself, it usually only works once.

Yes it can be played both ways, but how would you feel if your favorite PC was offed by a gnat in the middle of the night.

A Gant? Seriously? Okay, well this is better for house rules, but I'd say a gnat was incapable of doing damage to a PC. Second, yes you have a valid point in that a +0 Fort save character against a 1 damage creature max faces a DC 11 or die on a CdG when helpless (55% chance). Is that a little silly? Sure. That is the EXTREME end of the spectrum and extremes never work well to prove a point. Personally, if you have a problem with all this small low damage creature non-sense I'd say you need a "melee" (not-natural) weapon to use CdG. (Props to Drawmack)

Everyone would take to playing elves or non magic users, because the don't have to sleep.

Non-magic users don't have to sleep? Well, that's besides the point. Again you claim CdG is broken because people sleep? I could just as easily argue that good ambush tactics and such are broken because people sleep. Even without CdG. If I sneak up on a sleeping party with a bunch of kolbolds whom can't be seen or heard or smelled (yeah right! ) and I get a surprise round and the party doesn't have their armor on? Dead party. This doesn't mean kolbolds are broken (well maybe ones that don't make noise, can't be seen, and can't be smelled... Hmmm....) Perhaps the issue is with the sneaking ability of the party, no?

Any ideas on how to change it to avoid the stupid amount of damage delt, the automatic critical or the impossible save?

Sure, don't use rules for CdG. As for stupid ammount of damage... Okay, just let CdG count as a normal hit. (This really belongs in House Rules) Personally, I use a modified system for CdG in most of my games. If a peasant slits the throat of a 20th level character (a feat that would be very difficult, but not impossible with a little help from some awesome mages... ) they are pretty much dead regardless of their fort save.

 

[Aaron2]

Frankly, I greatly welcomed CDG when I first read the 3e phb. Sick and tired of the "Someone's gonna be executed, save them before the axe falls" kind of scenarios not being backed by the rules. By the straight rules in previous editions you had to whack at the person until they died from Hp loss. That sucked.

I remember the old gold box D&D computer games. You could kill an incapacitated monster with "one cruel blow". Stinking Cloud was the best spell since (at least in that game) it incapacitated monsters and the rest of your party could cut them down at their leisure.

Now that was broken.


Aaron

 

[RigaMortus2]

Sorry about that alignment debate on the other thread, it got kind of out of hand there. I didn't intend to start such a thing, but people took my comment personally or something and decided to chime in. ANYWAY...

I think the point here is that, CdG isn't broken BECAUSE of the extreme situations one must be in. It does a hellofa lotta damage, assuming your opponent is helpless and there is no one else around to stop you. Much the same way as a Rogue does a lot of damage with Sneak Attack IF the are put in specific situations.

One way to test if something is broken is not just how much damage it can do, or how hard it is to make the saving throw, but also how easy it is to pull that action off. Each situation will be different.

So people are giving you some reasons why you might think it is "broken". What I've been reading is, given the set up you presented the players, it was too easy to pull off. THAT is what is making it seem broken. Other posters here were given you some examples of how to avoid such a thing, or why such a thing should not have happened at all. This was, essentially, what I was trying to do as well with my comment about them being "evil". Unfortuantely I didn't present it in a very good matter, and unfortuantely others blew it out of proportion.

If casting an alarm spell is a good deterent for CdG, if posting watch is a good deterent for CdG, then maybe alignment could also be a good deterent for CdG. That was the point I tried to make before, but seemed to have failed miserably. Do you (the Original Poster, the DM of this group, and no one else please) think a Good or Neutral person should CdG someone (whether they are the friendly town cobbler or the Lawful Evil Fire Giant of Raping and Pillaging) in their sleep? If not, then you've just found ANOTHER way to deter the group from using CdG. If you think it is perfectly fine for Good people to CdG Fire Giants in their sleep, then there are plenty of other ways to prevent it (as others have mentioned).