I think that not increasing their crit damage was an intentional decision, rather than an oversight on the designers' part. I personally would be really quite annoyed if a solo did a big attack, got a crit, and killed me through no fault of the party - critical hits are still nasty whenever they happen, since they still do a nasty amount of damage that you weren't expecting. It doesn't really affect their overall damage output, since critical hits only happen 5% of the time, but it does make it more likely for PCs to get unexpectedly splatted. I don't see this as a good thing, really.
Coup de grace useless beyond Heroric Tier?
- Thread starter Markn
- Start date
WalterKovacs
First Post
There is no penalty if you don't kill the PC. If there is only one monster doing a single coup de grace before the PC is healed ... it's a wasted action.
If enough monsters perform coup de grace on the target, they can kill him before he gets healed. They don't have to kill him in a single blow, so long as the combined damage adds up to finish the PC off.
If the monster(s) know there is a healer in the group they should coup de grace as they see fit. Either they have a good feeling they can finish the PC off and do so before the healer does their job OR, they ignore the downed PC, and go after different targets. Or they try to take down and CDG one of the healer's in the first place.
CDG'ing an unconcious PC may sometimes be he right call for a monster, but as with many other changes, 4e wanted to eliminate save or die from the equation. If the monster(s) can't through additional attacks finish the PC off (action points, minor action attacks, multiple monsters attacking, etc ...) it might be smarter to move the PC away from the rest of the party. If the PC is moved out of range (or breaking line of effect/sight) they can disrupt the healing and either leave the PC to roll a 20 or eventually die ... or CDG in peace.
ExploderWizard
Hero
I wouldn't worry about damage scaling. Just make any helpless target (PC or monster) a minion for CDG purposes. Being helpless in the midst of a life or death struggle should be a death sentence when a foe is that focused on finishing an opponent off. If HP are really abstract and are meant to measure staying power in a fight then being completely helpless kind of negates HP entirely.
It's a fair enough statement, however I tend to agree with FranktheDM. If it takes multiple rounds/actions/monsters to saw through a guys neck, might as well remove the CDG option and just say all hits targetting a helpless person is a critical.
Maybe I'm missing the obvious here, but is thae argument really that, since CDG doesn't let monsters kill PCs in a single blow the mechanic is useless? Talk about a one sided approach.
What about considering it from the PCs' point of view, whereby a CDG remains a valid tactic at any level - even if it doesn't kill, the damage you can inflict together with the automatic hit makes it useful.
What about considering it from the PCs' point of view, whereby a CDG remains a valid tactic at any level - even if it doesn't kill, the damage you can inflict together with the automatic hit makes it useful.
CDG in 4e is a joke.If a ruleset does not want characters to be killed in one blow, then abilities to make a target helpless should be rare to nonexistent. The rules shouldn't require multiple rounds to saw through someone's neck with a blade just so the Sleep spell is balanced for first level use.
Agreed.
We recently had a situation where a player wanted to run a new PC in the middle of a dungeon.
So, I introduced the PC as tied up in a barracks with a bunch of Hobgoblins.
The new PC was shouting encouragement to the other PCs until near the end of the encounter when one of the Hobgoblins decided to go over and kill the new PC (evil monsters do that sometimes).
The new PC then started shouting to the other PCs to save him, but the other PCs were too busy to help (except for one range PC). At 6th level, the Hobgoblin CDGed the PC 3 times before a PC could come over and engage the Hobgoblin. The tied up PC could not just be killed outright.
Not that the goal is to kill the new PC. That was not the goal. The goal was to threaten to kill the PC so that the other PCs would have to drop what they were doing in order to save the day. This did not happen because the game mechanic is so lame.
It pretty much only needs to be considered from the monsters point of view. Monsters die at 0HP so very few abilities that PCs have will let them CDG.
Now if you are talking about monster auto crit damage being useful against the PC - well my stance is that its NOT useful.
Karinsdad summed up what I have been trying to say quite nicely. Don't look at this as a DM saying he wants to kill the PC, rather look at it as a motivator for the PCs to do something.
Flipguarder
First Post
I completely agree with this statement and add. All they really need to do is remove the second bullet point under Coup De Grace.
And remove all mention of the phrase CDG from the books and then place that text underneath the helpless condition.
Obviously, that wasn't their intent but it might as well be.
Flipguarder
First Post
Name one reason to do that.
I'd just call the rule Coup de grace that a helpless target takes crit damage on a hit. I much the fan of "If it doesn't need changing, why change it?"
