Coup de grace vs. full attack

[reanjr]

While I know you're being funny, as a rules question the answer is obvious - if you wait out the surprise round and do nothing, it is just as if you didn't take the surprise round. The surprise round is the time between whenever you start acting and the target's first possible response.

In other words, you can only get a standard action off before the guy is no longer surprised. If you try either a full attack or a CDG, he will be awake and no longer helpless before you are done with either.

Use a standard action the first round to start a full-round action. This shouldn't wake the target up. The second round, use a standard action to complete the full-round action. They are now awake (but probably dead).

Start/Complete Full-Round Action

The "start full-round action" standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can’t use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.

Can't use it for full-attack, but there is nothing stopping you from using it to coup de grace as a standard action.

The RAW allow a coup de grace in this manner.

 

[Gez]

A CDG isn't a combat action, since it's performed on a helpless character. Therefore, you do not have initiative rolls and combat rounds if all that happens is a CDG.

On the other hand, a full attack is, by definition, a combat action, with initiative rolls and several rounds.

 

[diaglo]

A CDG isn't a combat action, since it's performed on a helpless character. Therefore, you do not have initiative rolls and combat rounds if all that happens is a CDG.

On the other hand, a full attack is, by definition, a combat action, with initiative rolls and several rounds.

this is the way i interpret it too.

and thus my question.

do i CDG him... which is obviously allowed on a helpless/sleeping character.. otherwise.. why have sleeping listed under helpless...

or do i just attack him... and set up the init system.

 

[Gez]

Statistically, you're better off CDG him. See my calculations on the first page.

 

[BSF]

I would say go for the CDG. If he survives, then you move into a combat round anyway. with luck you will get initiative in that and can then appreciate a full-attack segment with sneak attack.

 

[Umbran]

Use a standard action the first round to start a full-round action. This shouldn't wake the target up. The second round, use a standard action to complete the full-round action. They are now awake (but probably dead).

If we are using it as combat, the guy gets a chance at initiative after you start that full round action. Not a bad image - you set up for the thrust, and the guy wakes up. Maybe he gets to roll away, and maybe he doesn't...

I have to wonder about calling CDG "not a combat action". It provokes attacks of opportunity - that implies use in combat.

The problem is that, though sleeping people are helpless, it is very easy for them to cease being helpless, which throws a monkey wrench into the works...

Rather than decide the issue here, you probably need to ask your DM exactly how he's going to run it. If he says it isn't combat, the CDG clearly becomes the way to go. If he says it is combat, such taht you have an issue between the surprise round and the first full round, you might have issues.

And, if the target is another PC, you do not want to argue this over the table during the session. Get a ruling before you start.

 

[Gez]

Lots of things provoke attacks of opportunities and aren't combat actions.

In fact, most non-combat actions do provoke attacks of opportunities. For example, sitting at a table and eating a stew provokes an attack of opportunity. Is that a combat action? You can even say you inflict damage on that poor helpless stew...

I stand by my case. A CDG is not a combat action -- it's something that is done once the battle is over, to end the pain of agonizing enemies or other people who can't be healed. It's what is done to execute criminals sentenced to death (CDG with the executioneer's axe). It's not something you make while being fenced by three other warriors (hence the AoO-provoking bit).

Actual combat actions do not provoke AoO -- save for certain situations (like attacking a weapon to sunder or disarm it), but most of them do not actually expose you to one. Firing with a ranged weapon, for example, is not usually made in melee combat -- thus not while you're in a threatened area. Spellcasting is an exception, and you get the possibility to cast defensively.

 

[hong]

I stand by my case. A CDG is not a combat action -- it's something that is done once the battle is over, to end the pain of agonizing enemies or other people who can't be healed. It's what is done to execute criminals sentenced to death (CDG with the executioneer's axe). It's not something you make while being fenced by three other warriors (hence the AoO-provoking bit).

What on earth?

1) You sure as heck can perform a CdG in combat. What are you supposed to do with people paralyzed via hold person, paint moustaches on them?

2) This "combat action" thing you have created is a chimera. You have "actions", which are divided into free actions, standard actions, and full-round actions. Perhaps what you meant to say, but didn't, is that the act of slitting someone's throat may or may not be taken to be something that takes place within the framework of the counting-of-rounds procedure that formally constitutes an encounter in D&D.

3) All that said, a DM who won't let you CdG a sleeping guy is stupid.

 

[Gez]

1. Yes you can, when the situations are appropriate. But mind you, when you have someone who's held or otherwise helpless, it's no longer actual combat, at least with said helpless person, since he cannot fight back or defend itself.

2. Yup, I used a logical terminology rather than a straight mechanic terminology. Of that meaning "combat action" has three heads and is CR 7, I'm not sure. And you see, it worked, you understood what I meant without saying it! Behold the power of language. And thought. And happy puppies.

3. I agree without reservations on that point.

 

[Hypersmurf]

You can't CDG with a standard action - true.

In the surprise round, you can't use a full-round action - true.

So, in my surprise round, I take the standard action, Ready: If he wakes up, I stab him. You know, just in case.

Assuming he doesn't wake up (most likely, if I'm not being clumsy and noisy), then in the next round, I can take a full round action. He's asleep, so I can CDG; alternatively, I can make a full attack. Against the first attack, he's helpless; against the second attack, he's awake, but he's prone, and since he has not yet acted in combat, he's also flat-footed. His AC is better than it was while he was asleep (since his Dex is no longer 0), but I can still sneak attack, unless he has Uncanny Dodge.

-Hyp.