Hostage situations...

[Gyoza sausage bun]

You jave a non-assasin bad guy with a dagger at the throat of a tied up hostage. The PCs have tried negotiating. How do you resolve this under the normal combat rules.

A PC attacks. Is there a surprise round? Everyone has been expecting it to happen. If there is a surprise round the PCs know that during that partial action the foe can't do enough damage with a dagger to kill a hostage so should always attack.

If no surprise round it just comes down to who wins the initiative and the foe makes a coup-de-grace attack. This just seems to negate most of the posiutional advantage the hostage-taker should have.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[James McMurray]

The one holding the dagger has a readied action to kill the one being held when he is attacked (or whatever). Due to the circumstances, I as DM have ruled that the attack can be considered a coup de grace, even though the attacker could only ready a partial action.

My party has seen a hostage killed because of this.

 

[Crothian]

That is by definition a CDG.

 

[Gyoza sausage bun]

But...

I agree that thats a logical way to do it but it isn't within the rules. You can't ready a full-round action which is what a Coup-de-grace is. I was really hoping for a way to do it within the rules otherwise its just death by DM fiat really.

 

[Crothian]

Sometime you just have to rule zero it.

 

[James McMurray]

It is impossible to do within the written rules. In fact, its impossible to kill a 5th level warrior with average HPs by shooting him once in the head, unless he is helpless so you can coup de grace him.

There is a reason rule 0 was put in the books.

 

[James McMurray]

Also, a coup de grace from a dagger isn't necessarily automatic death. It depends on the damage rolled and who the hostage is.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

basically what others said, but this is where the skills or mad magic ability comes into play. Rogues can use bluff to distract and get the drop on the would be killer, a spellcaster can slip into the backgorund a bit and cast a silent/stilled spell and hope he isn't noticed. Heck diplomacy or roleplaying can be used to lower the guys gaurd so you can jump him, or to get him to give up/surrender.

If the guys got a knife to the hostages neck and the players strategy is summed up by the 2 words GET EM, then the hostage is going to die, and the players will look like fools if there are any witnesses.

 

[Darkness]

The Death Blow feat helps here...

 

[Victim]

Split the full action into 2 parts. IIRC, there's an option to "finish full round action" as a partial. So the hostage taker grabs a helpless guy, and starts the action. Then he readies an action to finish the coup de grace.