Help me find this feat... Please?

[Caliban]

Usually, a dropped opponent is dead anyway... for all intents and purposes at any rate. They only survive if the entire rest of their team survives and drives you off.

So maybe something nasty to give to a bad guy, but I can't see it as at all unbalancing for the PCs.

There are ways of making opponents temporarily helpless that would normally allow them the possiblity of recovering in time to rejoing the fight. Hold Person, for example, allows a will save each turn to break free.

 

[Doctor Shaft]

And doesn't your opponent have to be completely helpless before you deliver a Coup de Grace?

Ah yes, after looking in the PHB, Coup de Grace, and subsequently, Death Blow, only works on a helpless defender.

Helpless defenders are, "Someone who is bound, sleeping, paralyzed, unconscious, or otherwise at your mercy."

So just being stunned, or nauseated, panicked, etc., doesn't count.

To help further the "helpless" definition, you're only helpless when you would effectively take a -5 penalty to AC due to your Dexterity being 0, plus the +4 AC a person would get since you're not moving at all.

Coup de Grace automatically hits, but always provokes attacks of opportunity.

You may only make Two Standard Actions per-round. So, if Death Blow must be a standard action, no character could ever make more than two-attacks per round if they were using the Death Blow combo.

Anyway... i can see this combo working well for a monk character. Take "Freeze the Lifeblood" at higher level, paralyze your opponent in a standard action, and follow through with your auto-crit and see if you kill that sucker. And... since you do high damage... And... since you'd get 1d4 rounds of it... yeah, any humanoid that got caught in Freeze the Lifeblood is essentially dead.

I'll have to try that combo in the next Eberron campaign I might get a chance to play.

 

[Caliban]

You may only make Two Standard Actions per-round. So, if Death Blow must be a standard action, no character could ever make more than two-attacks per round if they were using the Death Blow combo.

You only get one standard action per round, not two. You may be confusing the D&D combat system with the Spycraft combat system.

 

[Doctor Shaft]

Ahha, you're right.

I got confused. You can make a Standard Action AND a Move Action, or two move actions, but not two standard actions...

So... okay, what's so great about this feat? I make a death blow... and then I can jump away!

 

[ThirdWizard]

You can walk up to someone and make a Coup de Grace where before you would have to spend a round moving to them, wait until your next action, and hope that they're still helpless beside you.

*rogue delays*
*caster holds enemy*
*rogue strolls over and kills them*

Very mean tactic for evil DMs. Personally, I would never do this.