Is coup de grace a broken rule?

[Corinthi]

Fair enough. Just seems a touch odd to me, I suppose. Whenever I picture CdG I picture walking about a battlefield with your short sword, finishing off the wounded. Much different image to picture the pikemen doing it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Much different image to picture the pikemen doing it.

Actually, I'm liking this Kraken idea.

I can just picture a wizard Gating in a Fiendish Kraken at the centre of the battlefield after the fighting is over, and getting it to CDG anything that twitches...

-Hyp.

 

[green slime]

Legolas (whispering): There they are, Aragorn! I can see their camp from here!
Aragorn (whispering): At last! We may yet have a chance to save our small friends! Quickly, let us approach.
[The three companions approach the Uruk-hai camp. Most of the monsters are asleep, but a guard is sitting on a stump with his back to them, gnawing on a child's severed arm]
Aragorn (loudly): I say, old chap -- we're here to attack you. Go around and wake them all up, there's a good fellow -- we wouldn't want to be rude in our attack, wouldn't want to catch you in your pajamas, ho ho.

Daniel

They most certainly wouldn't have taken pleasure in the slaughter. Nor would they have killed more than was necessary to free their friends. I cannot picture them slinking around in the dark slitting the throat of every Orc there. YMMV

And there was no question of the allegiances of those orcs.

 

[Pax]

They most certainly wouldn't have taken pleasure in the slaughter. Nor would they have killed more than was necessary to free their friends. I cannot picture them slinking around in the dark slitting the throat of every Orc there. YMMV

And there was no question of the allegiances of those orcs.

Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn would -- if it were in their power, and did not endanger their quest -- have hunted down and slaughtered EVERY orc there, without the slightest trace of mercy, nor remorse.

First off, in the case of Legolas and Gimli, we're talking about tens of centuries of racial hatred for all orcs. Both of their peoples have suffered greatly at the hands of orcs, for Ages (read: for thousands of years).

Gimli especially has a more personal stack in hating dwarves; it was HIS cousin who led the expedition to Moria, after all. HIS cousin, and his cousin's people, who were slain by the orcs.

...

Not to mention, Balrog aside, who is it that moved in and took over in Moria? Orcs.

...

Now, since Orcs are (for folks familiar with the LOTR) a direct, twisted mockery of elves ... elves tend to get a bit one-dimensionally "ethically challenged" when it comes to orcs. As every lst LOTR elf would say: the only GOOD orcs, ar the ones twitching on the ends of our spears, or sprouting our arrows form their eyes".

...

And Aragorn, given his past history and heritage, has little love for orcs either.

...

If anything, the three of them might have regretted MISSING the carnage.

 

[mmu1]

They most certainly wouldn't have taken pleasure in the slaughter. Nor would they have killed more than was necessary to free their friends. I cannot picture them slinking around in the dark slitting the throat of every Orc there. YMMV

And there was no question of the allegiances of those orcs.

Are we talking about the same LotR here? These are the guys who got into a freakin' contest to see who could kill more orcs.

 

[drnuncheon]

Someone who is protected by Pass Without Trace leaves no scent. Heh, when they say Without Trace, they mean Without Trace.

A couple people said something along these lines, but it's misleading.

Yes, they leave no scent. That doesn't mean they have no scent, just that none of it lingers after they leave. So someone using PWT is perfectly smellable - as long as they are still there.

I mean, they don't leave footprints, either, but that doesn't mean that you won't notice if they step on you, or that a pressure plate won't be set off if they walk across it. It just means they can't be tracked.

J

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yes, they leave no scent. That doesn't mean they have no scent, just that none of it lingers after they leave. So someone using PWT is perfectly smellable - as long as they are still there.

Unless the enemy has a-cast Invisibility to Animals...

... which I hav'!

-Hyp.

 

[green slime]

'cept those orcs weren't lying around in their sleep, waiting to be slaughtered.

None of JRR Tolkiens heroes do much slaughtering of sleeping beings. Probably because he didn't see it as a heroic thing to do.

The orcs they were competing to slaughter were those actually doing some attacking, IIRC. They didn't run into random encounters of Orc mothers with children and laugh as they put another couple of notches in the axe haft.

And like I said: In LotR, there was no question about the allegiances of the orcs. The same cannot be said of every game.

The reason that orcs were slaughtered on THE BATTLEFIELD, is that it becomes very indisputable who your foe is.

 

[Piratecat]

Closed, as per originator's request (he has started another thread to discuss the Rules around CdG.)