Death Blow questions

[RigaMortus]

Ok, let's put some things out on the table first...

Using Death Blow allows you to make a coup de grace as a Standard Action.

Coup de Grace: As a full round action (in this case, it would now be a Standard Action), you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe.

Is it fair to say that a Standard Action lasts from the moment you declare it until the end of your turn?

Standard Action = an action + Move (or MEA)

Expert Tactician: You can make one extra melee attack (OR DO ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE AS A MELEE ATTACK...) against one foe who is within melee reach and denied a Dexterity bonus against your melee attacks for any reason. You take your extra attack when it's YOUR TURN, either BEFORE or AFTER your "regular" action.

So here is how the order of events go:

1) Declare you are making a Standard Action.
2) Move up to opponent using the Move part of the Standard Action.
3) Use the "regular action" part of the Standard Action as a "Freeze the Life Blood".
4) Assuming opponent fails save, they are paralyzed and "helpless" for 1d4+1 rounds.
5) Since they are now helpless, they have no Dexterity bonus against your melee attacks.
6) You get an extra melee attack from Expert Tactician, but you have to take it on your turn (which it still is) and either BEFORE or AFTER your "regular action" (it is, as your "regular action" was to attack and use Freeze the Life Blood).
7) So Expert Tactician kicks in, and you choose to do a Death Blow... Why this works:

a) You declared a Standard Action for your turn - criteria for Death Blow
b) It is still your turn - criteria for Expert Tactician
c) You are attacking AFTER the "regular action" (which was to attack and use FTLB) - criteria for Expert Tactician
d) You are doing something that can be done as a melee attack (coup de grace states you can use a melee weapon to deliver the coup de grace). You have a melee weapon, you are in melee range, you have a melee attack to use on your turn which is not over and has been declared a Standard Action.

 

[Artoomis]

No, Riga Mortis. nice try, but it does not work that way. Your extra attack from Expert Tactician is NOT part of your Standard Action, just as the extra partial action from haste is not.

What you are doing this round is NOT a Stnadard Action that includes an extra attack, it's a Standard Action PLUS an extra attack.

Clear?

Sheesh... Riga Mortis, you really put a lot of effort into trying to squeeze advantages out of the rules, don't you?

 

[Roland Delacroix]

No, Riga Mortis. nice try, but it does not work that way. Your extra attack from Expert Tactician is NOT part of your Standard Action, just as the extra partial action from haste is not.

What you are doing this round is NOT a Stnadard Action that includes an extra attack, it's a Standard Action PLUS an extra attack.

First part: How does that apply to the scenario he layed out? It only does if he is using Spring Attack, which he can't do IF as you say (id preffer documentation) Expert Tactician is NOT part of the standard action. Like this:

Standard action: Move up and Freeze The Life Blood Opponent.
Expert Tactician action: CDG him.

When the extra attack, or "anything that can be done as a melee attack", happens is irrelevent unless you are using Spring Attack, Ride By Attack, etc.

Artoomis, clearing up an ambiguity and trying to put together a cool feat combo is not IMO "trying to squeeze advantages out of the rules". Aside from the fact that some campaigns are so challenging that they may require slightly more min/maxing than You are used to, please save the condensation for trolls and anti-gamers. Maybe we need our own min/max forum so we don't dirty your nice and balanced rules forum?

 

[Magus_Jerel]

Can you "Ready" a coup de grace (the normal full-round kind)? Such as, "I ready an action to coup de grace the first enemy I see helpless".

You CANNOT ready a full round action - only a partial action. The feat in question - death blow, renders it a partial action.

You could pull this off - if and only if you "readied a start full round action" - but this defeats the purpose of the ready action in most cases I can think of. From a strategic standpoint - you are better of delaying until such time as you see a foe fall helpless, and then acting.

 

[alaric]

The problem is you are confusing Attack Actions with things i do that happen to be attacks. Attack Actions are those actions that you could do as part of a full round attack (Unarmed attack, Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Grapple, Disarm, Sunder). CDP is a Standard Action, it is not an Attack Action. Since ET gives you an attack action and not a Standard/Partial action then you can't use a Death Blow CDG using expert tactician. If you allowed this then you would also allow CDG's up to your total number of attacks, and whirl wind CDG's, since those give you multiple Attack Actions.

You could Ready a CDG if you had Death Blow and you didn't have to move to use it, since that does allow for Miscellaneous Partial Actions, which Death Blow CDG's fit under.

 

[Magus_Jerel]

ok alaric - simplification of what you are stating:

a CDG is not in the category of the action "attack"?

How logical does this sound when one checks the world?

This book most definitely came from one of those 90 day wonder products... aka splatbooks - SaF?

 

[Victim]

Look at PHB 122 and 128. Notice the difference between miscellaneous actions and attack actions. Coup de is full round misc action. Death blow just reduces the time so it's still a misc action, and thus not an allowed action for expert tactician.

 

[Valicor]

can you say attack trip the person with your full round action, then with your hasted action perfom the coupe da grace, when you have the death blow feat, since they are denied there dex?

 

[Caliban]

Ok, let's put some things out on the table first...

Using Death Blow allows you to make a coup de grace as a Standard Action.

Coup de Grace: As a full round action (in this case, it would now be a Standard Action), you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe.

All good so far.

Is it fair to say that a Standard Action lasts from the moment you declare it until the end of your turn?

No. It lasts until you are done with that action. Certain abilities or spells may allow you to do things before or after your action. (haste and expert tactician being primary examples.)

Standard Action = an action + Move (or MEA)

Expert Tactician: You can make one extra melee attack (OR DO ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE AS A MELEE ATTACK...) against one foe who is within melee reach and denied a Dexterity bonus against your melee attacks for any reason. You take your extra attack when it's YOUR TURN, either BEFORE or AFTER your "regular" action.

So here is how the order of events go:

1) Declare you are making a Standard Action.
2) Move up to opponent using the Move part of the Standard Action.
3) Use the "regular action" part of the Standard Action as a "Freeze the Life Blood".
4) Assuming opponent fails save, they are paralyzed and "helpless" for 1d4+1 rounds.
5) Since they are now helpless, they have no Dexterity bonus against your melee attacks.
6) You get an extra melee attack from Expert Tactician, but you have to take it on your turn (which it still is) and either BEFORE or AFTER your "regular action" (it is, as your "regular action" was to attack and use Freeze the Life Blood).
7) So Expert Tactician kicks in, and you choose to do a Death Blow...

Expert tactician gives you an attack. It does not give you a standard action.

Why this works:

a) You declared a Standard Action for your turn - criteria for Death Blow

No. The Death Blow is a standard action by itself.

b) It is still your turn - criteria for Expert Tactician
c) You are attacking AFTER the "regular action" (which was to attack and use FTLB) - criteria for Expert Tactician
d) You are doing something that can be done as a melee attack (coup de grace states you can use a melee weapon to deliver the coup de grace).

The Death Blow is a Standard Action, not a single melee attack.

You have a melee weapon, you are in melee range, you have a melee attack to use on your turn which is not over and has been declared a Standard Action.

Your standard action was "Freeze the Life Blood", Expert Tactician does not grant an additional standard or partial action (see the Sword & Fist errata), it grants only a single melee attack. A CDG is not a single melee attack, even with the Death Blow ability. It's either a Full Round Action or a Standard Action.

Now if you were hasted, you could do it. You just can't do it with Expert Tactician.

 

[Caliber]

How about this example?

If you get two attacks a round because of iteritive attacks (for example, +10/+5) you can trip with your first attack, then trip again correct?

Now same character, two helpless foes around him. He CANNOT perform two CDGs, only one. Why? Because CDG (even with DB) is not an attack action, its a standard action.

Attack actions are actions that you could substitute one of your attacks for. A CDG with DB takes the place of ALL of your attacks, hence it isn't an attack action.