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

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

No, really, it is (obviously imho, but everything in this thread is). Until the enemies have seen the healer get a PC up, then it's metagame-tastic to be CdG'ing the players, particularly if the enemies are stupid humanoids or something more dumb. Hungry creatures I can understand, but if you're going to play it that way, you better damn well KEEP them next to the PC chewing on him and giving Combat Advantage (Distracted) to the rest of the PCs until they're attacked (and even then, they're likely to go back to their kill). Smart enemies who know how the D&D world works in detail (Drow, for example) might CdG more, though even that is questionable.

I do agree that if the Cleric/Warlord insists on popping the dying PCs back up in the midst of enemies repeatedly, they're going to catch on, though. Still, why would they believe hitting his corpse would make him "stay dead"? I don't see any reason why they'd think that unless they carefully examined him.

Rather they would be extremely angry with the Cleric/Warlord and attempt to come over and kill them.

Rodrigo - The PCs never do it, because the monsters don't have negative HP. What's good for the goose is literally impossible for the gander in this case. So your point is moot. It is metagaming unless the enemies are smart and experienced with this particular kind of foe.

 

[Pyrex]

*tends to agree with the others*

CdG against PC's is both fair and mean, and should be uses sparingly.

 

[frankthedm]

Predators kill their food and eat it last I checked. If they face resistance they leave with their food.

Armed combatants generally wait until AFTER combat to dole out death blows, though if they see healing magic or hear their foes talking about it, making sure someone is dead becomes a much higher priority.

 

[Plissken]

Don't ever Coup De Grace your players. It's just mean. Even when it seems fit for an NPC to do so. JUST DON'T DO IT. Speaking from both player's and DM perspective.

 

[GSHamster]

I wouldn't do it routinely. It's a superb technique to get the PCs to really, truely, hate a Big Bad. Imagine if the last action a Big Bad takes before making an escape is to deliberately finish off a PC. (Or even better, an NPC the group has grown attached to.)

However, you have to use it sparingly, or it loses its effect.

 

[Nifft]

One other thing I remembered: whenever using CdG, I always make it a "split action" (Standard, wait a round, Standard). The bad guy will always move up to the PC in question and begin a CdG; if he's already adjacent, he'll spend his Move action in some other way ("The half-fiend pulls an ornate sacrificial dagger from its sheath, which glows with black energy! He begins a CdG on Bob!")

That gives the other PCs a chance to get over there and save Bob's butt.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Trickstergod]

Predators kill their food and eat it last I checked. If they face resistance they leave with their food.

Predators attempt to draw off the weak and don't stop to eat when someone is attacking them. No predatory animal should ever stop to eat in the middle of combat.

By that same token, most predators leave their game behind if they face resistance. If it can be easily carried, a predator will do so. Otherwise, they run off. This is part of the reason why cheetahs are endangered - they catch a kill, only to have a lion show up and steal it from them.

Your average predator isn't going to be able to pick a body up and run with it at full tilt. Even in D&D, a number of predators can't easily just shoot off with a body, particularly one in heavy armor.

Only predatory monsters that really have no concern for their well-being - and this is pretty much entirely restricted to undead like zombies or ghouls - are going to Coup de Grace during a fight. Anything with vaguely animal like behavior isn't going to stop during a fight to chow down.

Typically, intelligent opponents are the ones to run someone through. And it's entirely fair and not metagaming in the slightest.

Are the opponents aware that clerics and healers exist? Yes? That alone is justification for them to take a moment to split someone open.

By that same token, are the opponents risking their lives by stopping to kill a downed opponent? Unless the opposition has already seen downed opponents get up again, they should likely be more worried about the people still on two feet rather than those on their back.

And if downed opponents keep getting up? Then the opposition should be focusing it's fire on the healer, in most circumstances.

But if that's not an option? Well, kill those on the ground. Just play the opposition more or less appropriately - some will go for the killing blow, others not so much.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

A DM using coup-de-grace on the players is both mean and fair. My own opinion is that a DM using that against his players is wielding a very dangerous weapon. Coup-de-grace is a legitimate tactical option that has a big chance of backfiring on a DM.

The points against doing so are obvious. It is pretty hard to maintain a consistent narrative feel in a game when the cast of the main characters tends to die very often. If everyone dies, its difficult to move the story forward. On top of that, it can very quickly build player resentment if Horace the Heroic, the champion of Pelor who held the line at the Battle of Badon Hill, and advanced from 1st level to 12th ends up meeting his end at the hands of a lowly bit of Orc cannon fodder who pulls the coup-de-grace after a Hill Giant dropped him to negative HP.

But there are reasons that make it an option worth using.

For one, it sends a message to the players that you will extract a bloody price for their misjudgements within the game. Assuming that not every opponent will do this all the time, it can get the players attention that you were serious when you said that this particular band of villains was particularly blood thirsty.

Tactically, it will force players to protect fallen allies and try to bring them back to their feet rather than letting them wait until you mop up the opposition. A villain can hold the fallen player hostage as well. A readied action to coup-de-grace a PC if they do not surrender might make the players stand down. It might give the primary villain time to escape if they have to stop the leutenant from finishing their friend. Finally, at high levels, death is just a speed bump. Unless your about to finish the cleric, all your doing is forcing the players to raise the fallen ally.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wouldn't do it routinely. It's a superb technique to get the PCs to really, truely, hate a Big Bad. Imagine if the last action a Big Bad takes before making an escape is to deliberately finish off a PC. (Or even better, an NPC the group has grown attached to.).

Just as a point of order, if the "Big Bad" was escaping by the typical means of the DM's Fiat (quite a picture), and the DM didn't plan on giving the players a fair chance to stop him getting away, I'd consider this absolutely crappy behaviour (unless the players could raise Mr Deadguy, which in 4E they probably good by the time they met a serious villain), and hate the DM, not the character.

Trickstergod - I agree with most of what you're saying, but you seem to slip up in the same spot as the others, which is the claim of "no metagaming at all!". How much metagaming is questionable, but unless you can reliably address

1) How do the enemies know the guy who is lying on the floor and blood is coming out of isn't dead? This at least should require some kind of action-based perception check, perhaps as much as a standard action perception check unless you're ruling that people always roll around and moan/bleed in a very obviously living way.

And

2) How do they know that just hitting him more will "keep him dead"? It's not entirely logical. Do they know when enough is enough? There are plenty of PCs who a non-brute mob could CdG and NOT bring to the point of death. Do they know to hit him again? How do they know that?

It's not like these are fancy questions that aren't going to occur to anyone. I can see "KILL THE LEADER!" regarding Clerics/Warlords (as the latter will be at least shouting at the guy), but "Just stab him more!" seems a bit of a leap unless you've seen him get up at least once.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't see it as a me vs. them mindset. If it makes sense for the monster to finish off a downed PC, then they do it. I've never had an issue with it (as a DM or as a player). Just how the world works.

That's my thinking too. There are plenty of villains who have a need for a live but incapacitated player character, and the ones that don't are worth playing as such.

That said, if the characters are losing badly enough that the enemy has time to spend on giving a coup de grace to downed characters, they're losing anyway.