hostage and risk

[Amal Shukup]

I've also become a huge fan of Sneak Attacking with a Sap: 1d6 + STR +xd6 Sneak Attack Damage will knock out a fragile character QUITE easily.

A knocked out character IS Helpless and therefore subject to Coup de Grace.

So in the above situations, just have a Minion or two Sneak Attack with Sap, while the BBEG puts the point of his rapier to the downed NPC's throat and Readies the 'Start Full Round Action' action, complete with de rigeur monologue...

A'Mal

 

[Amal Shukup]

Also, also (this is fun!)...

An Assassin BBEG could use their Death Attack ability to Paralyze a victim (doesn't even need to be a realtively fragile one - could be the party's beloved Cleric).

THEN do the whole Readied Attack/Coup thing....

A'Mal

 

[RangerWickett]

My party would just shoot. The hostage be durned. What, the villain gets +4 to AC? Big whoop.

One optional rule I do allow, though, is to have a killing blow be swapped out for a dramatically appropriate "don't move or you die" attack. Basically, if an attack would deal enough damage to render the victim unconscious, the attacker can choose instead to hold their weapon at the victim's throat (or something similar). At any moment the attacker may choose to deliver the damage the attack would have dealt, as long as the attacker doesn't use the weapon for something else or take a different standard action.

 

[Amal Shukup]

My party would just shoot. The hostage be durned. What, the villain gets +4 to AC? Big whoop.

Hey, it's a judgement call.

It's not that the bad guy is hard to hit, just that a Readied Attack hits the Hostage first - and Weapon Damage+STR+xd6 Sneak is enough to FUBAR a fragile NPC. Sure, you kill the BBEG, but now you have a dead NPC. Just like what often happens in a Hostage situation.

And a Readied Coup (starts this round, finishes the next) kills a Helpless defender - even a tough PC - if the party fails to incapacitate the BBEG in the single round of attacks they get...

A'Mal

 

[sfedi]

If the hostage is an unarmed noncombatant, I suggest ruling that she is too frightened to resist. She is automatically failing her grapple check, meaning the villain need not roll to hold on. By DM fiat you can rule that her voluntary immobility makes her effectively helpless, and therefore subject to CDG.

This will even allow for the stereotypical ending for the scene, where the hostage elbows her captor in the stomach and leaps out of danger. In rules terms, she realized his attention was not on her, so she got over her fear and attempted a grapple check. Even if she fails to escape, she is no longer a helpless unresisting target, so she's not subject to CDG on the villain's turn.

I second that.
It seems the more reasonable interpretation of the rules.

The rules cover adventurer types, but fail to model non adventurer types.
So this seems appropiate.

 

[sfedi]

On another note.

In D&D, death isn't the same thing as in a movie or our real world.

Thus, many things change.

 

[Amal Shukup]

I second that.
It seems the more reasonable interpretation of the rules.

The rules cover adventurer types, but fail to model non adventurer types.
So this seems appropiate.

See, I think the rules give us a number of ways to model this situation quite nicely. Non Adventurers are (generally speaking) easily grabbed and just as easily threatened/killed by a Readied Action.

Even if you can't easily Coup de Grace a Grappled or Pinned commoner without rendering them helpless first, you can quite readily kill them outright with an attack or, at most, two (representing those situations where the supposedly doomed hostage miraculously staves off certain death for a few more seconds. Dramatically, I might add.)

No need to give new and special powers to 'Adventurer types' so they can force low level NPCs to cower helplessly and automatically fail Grapple Checks.

How would you adjudicate this? Because I don't think the 5th level Halfling Rogue should 'magically' make the Human Blacksmith (Exp1, STR 16) auto fail anything. Or would it only be Commoner women and children so affected? Best way to figure out whether PC A can grab Commoner B? Resolve it using the perfectly adequate Grapple Rules. Does Adventurer A kill grappled Commoner B with the Readied Dagger to the throat? Resolve the grapple check, roll to hit, roll damage. Done. Dead Hostage (or possibly not - if Adventurer A blew it).

A'Mal

 

[apesamongus]

Here is a question for all your rules gurus. In many movies and novels, there comes a time, when in desperation, the BBEG grabs a helpless victim/innocent bystander/hero and holds them with a knife at the throat/gun to the head. The heros must thread carfully or risk having the said helpless victim/innocent bystander/hero be killed in one swift flick of the wrist. It always make for strong dramatic situations.

My question is: is it possible to translate this in D&D terms ? I had considered using a mechanic where the BBEG grapples the victim then uses a coup de grace on the next round for the kill. Problem is that under a grapple, the victim is not helpless, therefore, a coup de grace is not applicable. So any suggestions ? Anything I'm missing ?

The main protagonist is seldom the one being held hostage, and in a RPG, all the PCs are main protagonists. And if they are, then those are the situations where no one tiptoes around, and instead they do the risky (that never fails) maneuver to get them free. On the other hand pretty much any moderate melee character should be able to kill a 1d4 HD princess in one attack.

 

[UltimaGabe]

That's one area I hate delving into because every PC I've known will metagame it into nothingness. In D&D, there's no way to put a gun/crossbow to a player's head and have him cooperate, because he knows he's got more than 1d8 hit points. In fact, I remember one instance when one of the PCs in my group entered a bar and started asking about some particular crime lord- and wound up with a guy putting a concealed hand crossbow to his back. The PC simply said, "Go ahead and shoot me. You won't do enough damage to kill me."