Coup de Grace vs. Players -- Mean DM or Fair Play?

[Carpe DM]

The new coup de grace rules are, indeed, brutal. 4E has a much higher kill ratio than 3.5, for that reason.

As for the "nice DMs don't coup de grace..." well, most of us are out of grade school. Let the bodies hit the floor.

 

[billd91]

The big question you should ask is "Why would this creature perform a coup de grace when other options are available?"

The answer I usually supply is that, barring a particular animosity, the NPC monsters are usually going to shift targets to the currently active threat PC and leave the PC to bleed out. Maybe they'll advance over him to help keep PC healers at bay, but the usual decision is to fight off the living ones rather than take time to kick the one that's down.
Kicking the man that's down may be effective in killing a PC, but is it really effective in winning the fight faster, which should probably be the NPC monster's goal?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The DMG all but specifically tells you not to do this, and does specify that you shouldn't attack characters who are down, but attack ones who are up. So, yes, I think it's clearly "mean DM" by general 4E standards. It's definately metagaming, too, if it occurs regularly, because in real combat, unless the players who are down are showing signs of life (and there's no reason they should be), this sort of behaviour would be extremely rare.

Also note that it's further borderline metagaming because how the hell do the monsters know the PCs aren't dead? Do the monsters know how many HP the PC has? In a highly tactical game, maybe that's okay, but for the average game? Hardly.

 

[Wormwood]

As for the "nice DMs don't coup de grace..." well, most of us are out of grade school. Let the bodies hit the floor.

Ummm... that's how I played in grade school.

 

[Obryn]

In all seriousness, if I'm running a very experienced and intelligent opponent, I make no bones about striking to kill when the opportunity arises. I mean, if the party's healers just keep on bringing unconscious guys back into the fight, not-killing them is a horrible strategy. Heck, if the party clearly has access to powerful healing, it's silly not to CdG when you can. A smart party would do the same, after all.

Ditto if they're mindless and/or hungry. I mean, a character who runs into a pack of ghouls is begging to get eaten - not begging to get knocked unconscious and left alone.

For the other 90% of the time, I ignore the unconscious guys and run it basically like the 4e DMG suggests.

-O

 

[Boarstorm]

It's definately metagaming, too, if it occurs regularly, because in real combat, unless the players who are down are showing signs of life (and there's no reason they should be), this sort of behaviour would be extremely rare. Also note that it's further borderline metagaming because how the hell do the monsters know the PCs aren't dead? Do the monsters know how many HP the PC has?

See "up and down like a ping pong ball" comment, above. It's rather common, in my experience. At some point, the bad guys are going to catch on.

Metagaming? Not really.

 

[EATherrian]

You coup de grace your players?

HARD. CORE.

I just stick to attacking characters, usually.

-O

When I say bring Doritos you'd dang well better bring Doritos. Now my menu choices are no longer ignored. Iron fist / Iron glove.

 

[EATherrian]

I suppose it's fair, but it would definitely run contrary to the social contract I've got with my players (i.e. no charcater death without player's consent).

Luckily, 4e make it simple to knock 'em out and take 'em prisoner to my heart's content.

My social contract has always been unless you do something really, really, really stupid I probably won't kill your character. Usually I'm on the player side of TPKs, not the DM side.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The DMG all but specifically tells you not to do this, and does specify that you shouldn't attack characters who are down, but attack ones who are up. So, yes, I think it's clearly "mean DM" by general 4E standards. It's definately metagaming, too, if it occurs regularly, because in real combat, unless the players who are down are showing signs of life (and there's no reason they should be), this sort of behaviour would be extremely rare.

Also note that it's further borderline metagaming because how the hell do the monsters know the PCs aren't dead? Do the monsters know how many HP the PC has? In a highly tactical game, maybe that's okay, but for the average game? Hardly.

What's good for the goose, etc. If it's metagaming for the DM to do it, it's metagaming for the PCs to do it, too.

Fortunately, my players have generally always been of the philosophy that down=out (at least for the duration of the fight) so in-combat CDGs on either side were pretty rare. And out of combat, well, that didn't often come up against the PCs unless they'd already wiped out. IME, in-combat actions were almost universally better spent either taking out a live combatant or doing something to help your own side prevail. Healing a down combatant up to a handful of hitpoints so he could get ganked again generally wasn't a good strategy.

In some regards, the designers have forced this situation. Since you can no longer count on control spells, etc., to take someone out for a predictable amount of time, you're almost forced to CDG rather than moving on to the next guy.

 

[stonegod]

As with others, I CdD if it makes sense: It is generally a better idea to take out active threats than those on the ground. Assassination missions, creatures that gain power from death/wounding (vampires) or those that are stupidly hungry (some zombies/ghouls) might do so (or just attack outright), but that is the not the norm. Even the animals I run just tend to fight to defend (unless they have been starved and can take their kill away---not really a CdD, but a capture and kill later).

I've had high level clerics use the hold/CdG combo, but that was rare (and they were servants of the BBEG that had been personally thwarted by the PCs and was getting irate...)