Is coup de grace a broken rule?

[Pax]

If their quest was, "Find the Fire Giants that destroyed our village and kill them" then I might be inclined on giving them XP for completing the quest, not for the actual deaths of the Fire Giants.

If, on the other hand, the party decided one day to go out looking for trouble, track it down, wait for it to sleep, then CDG it, I would give no exp and possibly change some alignments around (assuming they were not already evil to begin with).

Why not?

If the PC's show initiative, and track down their OWN adventure -- rather than being spoon-fed -- and you pick something that (as this encounter was) is SO FAR BEYOND what they should be faced with, and they succeed despite the overwhelming odds ... if you don't give them XP, then you're just being cheap.

As for changing alignments -- so, what, every "hunt evil down in it's lair and destroy it" paladin has to WAIT for the evil critters to say "Hey, yu ... over here!" before they can hunt it down ... wihtout facing an alignment change that costs them their paladinhood ... ?!?

Dude. That is SO wrong.

 

[Storm Raven]

If "forced" to go after these giants, they could have brought reinforcements (local town guards, who have the authority to deal out death and punishment by order of the LAWFUL authority in charge).

Unless the PCs had been bestowed that power as well. Besides, there is a decent liklihood that there are no town guards available to tag along with PCs, that is why people hire mercenaries like adventurers to take care of problems they don't have the bodies to deal with.

I'm sorry, you must be mixing up "often evil" with "always evil". Don't worry, it's a common mistake. I must have skipped over the part where the party Detected Evil on the giants. After all, Drow are "often" evil, but I know at least 1 exception.

And I believe you would still have no trouble with a party hunting down and ambushing a sleeping party of drow raiders who had invaded one of the Dales and plundered a village on the way. Evil can be divined from the actions of others, if they plundered the peaceful farming village, then you are on solid ground hunting them down.

Guessing is the same thing as assuming. And you know what happens when you assume, don't you? It's a good thing Drizt never ran into you early in his carreer.

I am guessing. The PCs know one way or the other. The point is, your snotty, snide, and juvenile comment about this being the mark of an "evil" campaign and certainly an "evil" act doesn't stack up at all, since you assumed a whole pile of things which are likely not true.

I don't know. When someone is sleeping all comfy and cozy, and not harming, killing, raping, maiming, etc. that sounds like an innocent enough act to me.

If they had returned from raping and pillaging their way across the countryside, they are still not innocent. You seem to assume that as soon as they stop doing evil things, you have to wait until they reach the next village to plunder in order to try to stop them.

Also remember, there is supposed to be a DIFFERENCE between Good and Evil. If the party was sleeping, and the Evil Fire Giants came upon them while they were all sleeping, do you think they would have killed them in their sleep? I would wager that they would. It is an evil act.

No, what makes it evil is the context, something you don't know. Instead, you make snotty comments without any information.

So again, why is killing a sleeping foe a Good thing?

Killing a sleeping foe to prevent (or avenge) harm to innocents remains a good act.

 

[Storm Raven]

You may not mean it this way, but this comes off as rather petty. Kind of like the DM saying, "Well, you ruined my setup, so I'm not giving you any XP just to spite you.

I wouldn't give them no XP, but I would give them less than full XP, since the encounter was far easier than it normally would have been. The DMG discusses this sort of adjustment for these sorts of circumstances.

 

[Pielorinho]

For what it's worth, here is a nice list of qualities that HEROES should possess (IMO). This is all assuming you are playing a "Heroic" campaign. Some people enjoy playing the shadier characters (The CN Rogue, the LE Necromancer, etc.) and that is alright. But if you want to encourage your players to play the Heroic characters in your games, I encourage you to read the following. This is pretty much take from the LotR RPG.

This is utterly irrelevant copyright infringement (hardly an heroic act, btw). Sure, this is one way to play one game -- but your implication that people either play according to this strict culture-specific code, or else admit that they're playing "shadier" characters, is absurd and kind of insulting.

There's plenty of gritty fantasy out there in which people do the best they can in a world of no clear-cut decisions. Your assumptions about the campaign and self-righteous attitude is hijacking an interesting rules-thread.

Your best bet would be to apologize for the admittedly uninformed hijack and either bow out or address the rules questions at hand.

Daniel

 

[Sejs]

copyright infringement

Not commenting on the discussion you two're having, just a side point: it's not copyright infringement. He noted the source and isn't using the material without authorization for financial benefit.

 

[Pielorinho]

Not commenting on the discussion you two're having, just a side point: it's not copyright infringement.

Debatable, at best -- but this isn't the place to debate it. In any case, this was a cheap shot on my part, so I apologize and withdraw it.

Daniel

 

[Storm Raven]

Not commenting on the discussion you two're having, just a side point: it's not copyright infringement. He noted the source and isn't using the material without authorization for financial benefit.

Neither of those points removes the fact that it is copyright infringement.

(1) Noting the source is irrelevant when determining if something is copyright infringement.
(2) Whether you gain financial benefit or not is irrelevant when determining if something is copyright infringement.

 

[Storm Raven]

For what it's worth, here is a nice list of qualities that HEROES should possess (IMO). This is all assuming you are playing a "Heroic" campaign. Some people enjoy playing the shadier characters (The CN Rogue, the LE Necromancer, etc.) and that is alright. But if you want to encourage your players to play the Heroic characters in your games, I encourage you to read the following. This is pretty much take from the LotR RPG.

[Snip stolen list]

All nice, but they are (a) not necessarily true for all games, and certainly do not match exactly with the precepts given for "good" in 3e D&D, and (b) weren't necessarily violated by the PCs in the example given, if proper context was present.

 

[maddman75]

There are MANY other ways of dealing with (sleeping) Fire Giants other than killing them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a third level party? Name three.

Easy

1 - Grovel and offer yourself as a servant
2 - Run away and find some kobolds somewhere. You're third frikken level after all, you got no business messing with Fire Giants.
3 - Ready an action to crap your pants

Don't pretend there's no other way of dealing with them!

Madd "Hong does this better than me" man

 

[Sejs]

Neither of those points removes the fact that it is copyright infringement.

Nolo.com - plain english legal definitions. Listed alphabetically, scroll down to C, then to copyright. Scroll down until you see the link for Infringement, which will take you to the definition of Infringement (of copyright)

"Any unauthorized use of a copyrighted work other than fair use. Uses can range from outright plagiarism to using a portion of a photograph in a CD-ROM."

Fair use is a link, clicking that takes you to it's definition.

"Fair use rule: A law that authorizes the use of copyrighted materials for certain purposes without the copyright owner's permission. Generally, uses intended to further scholarship, education or an informed public are considered fair use, but recent years have seen severe limits placed on the amount of a work that can be reproduced under the fair use rule."

(Emphasis on ammount, mine.)

And seeing as what RigaMortis posted could quite easily be construed as education or informed public, I fail to see how it's a problem.