Is Coup de Gras too weak?

[Branduil]

It seems like a lot of enemies would survive a Coup de Gras attempt. Furthermore, you can actually miss with them now! I have absolutely no problem with the abstraction of 4e combat, but on the other hand, trying to stab a completely immobile enemy and somehow missing, or somehow not seriously injuring him, seems wrong.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Just houserule coup de gras as a "death blow", meaning it outright kills a foe. I never understood why WotC wrote the rule as they did.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

So players wouldn't be instant killed while they slept? That doesn't sound very fun to me.

 

[Kitirat]

Just houserule coup de gras as a "death blow", meaning it outright kills a foe. I never understood why WotC wrote the rule as they did.

For a pretty specific reason. Sleeping characters die very quickly with auto-death coup's. Having had it happen before it sucks totally.

That said I think it should be much more intese then listed. Like double all damage from the strike or some such.

See ya,
Ken

 

[Atomo]

My French is not so good, but I think "coup de gras" means something as goose's strike (A awesome new name for a power ... Or maybe not).

The spelling is coup de grace (gracious strike).

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

So players wouldn't be instant killed while they slept? That doesn't sound very fun to me.

Apply differently against foes than you do characters, along the lines of how Minions are treated.

Players are always exception to the rules. And for that matter, if all of the PCs are sleeping in the wilderness without keeping watch, they probably deserve to be slain in their sleep out of sheer stupidity. Yet then again, you can point your finger towards "killer DMing". Obviously, there are a multitude of ways to prevent PCs from dying in their sleep, by making suggestions to newers players on the DM's part or using dialogue to imply the danger of resting without keeping watch.

Simply put, limit coup de grace to a melee strike against humanoid creatures that must be made adjacent to the foe to out right kill. Otherwise, you might as well dump the name coup de grace and just allow combat advantage to helpless or resting foes.

 

[DM_Blake]

So players wouldn't be instant killed while they slept? That doesn't sound very fun to me.

That's up to the DM, but I would be inclined to accuse a DM who does this of being a poor DM. Of course, certain mitigating circumstances may apply...

In other words, I don't think most good DMs would arbitrarily kill off their players in their sleep.

I also don't think that most anyone in a society where being rich, powerful, or famous means you are likely to be assassinated in your sleep would actually sleep unprotected.

Sure, catching a farmer or a tailor in their sleep could be easy. But merchants, nobility, priests, leaders of the city watch, politicians, and adventurers would probably always sleep with some protection, such as having buddies or trusted guards to watch over them, or having guard dogs, or having magical protection such as an Alarm spell (haven't fully memorized all of the new PHB, but surely there is something equivalent to the Alarm spell from previous editions?)

In any case, it seems really weird to be able to whack away at a sleeping person's neck with a big old sword or axe, and end up only scratching their skin.

I say, if you catch them sleeping, or otherwise similarly helpless, you can kill them. And you can do that to player characters too, though as a DM, you should consider a different approach, unless you really have a good reason.

 

[Brian999]

It seems like a lot of enemies would survive a Coup de Gras attempt. Furthermore, you can actually miss with them now! I have absolutely no problem with the abstraction of 4e combat, but on the other hand, trying to stab a completely immobile enemy and somehow missing, or somehow not seriously injuring him, seems wrong.

I suspect it's to keep Sleep from being completely over-powered.

 

[lukelightning]

I don't feel the need to have a super deadly CDG rule.

You want to kill Bob the Barber in his sleep? Fine, he's probably a minion anyways.

Want to kill Brunhilda the Battler while she's napping? Not so easy.

 

[Henrix]

My French is not so good, but I think "coup de gras" means something as goose's strike (A awesome new name for a power ... Or maybe not).

The spelling is coup de grace (gracious strike).

Gras is grease (or lard) in french, so it'd be a greasy blow.

My favourite misspelling is "coupe de gras", which translates nicely as a cup of lard - a rather slow way of killing someone.

(And the blow isn't necessarily gracious, but merciful.)

Given how hard it seems to be for americans to spell coup de grâce I cannot understand why they don't call it crowning mercy, or merciful strike, or somesuch.