Must a Coup-de-Grace deal damage?

[youspoonybard]

Hi! I had an ... interesting situation come up in our game session today.

A 2nd level Warforged fighter (with the Adamantine Body feat) fell victim to a Color Spray by a Sorceror. Said Sorceror's Raven familiar proceeded to start, and next round complete, a Coup-de-Grace. Since the Raven deals 1d2 - 4 damage or so, even the critical did but one damage - which was absorbed by the Adamantine Body's DR 2 / adamantine.

Does the fighter have to make a Fortitude save to avoid dying? Reading over the rules, I said yes - the attack hits, it automatically crits, and if the fighter survived the damage (0, so he did that quite easily) he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt = 10) or perish.

He thought this seemed odd, and so I agreed, after the fact, to see what input the community had in this situation.

Thanks!

 

[Ballard_Alvar]

Reading over the rules, I said yes - the attack hits, it automatically crits, and if the fighter survived the damage (0, so he did that quite easily) he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt = 10) or perish.

You were right. You did have to make a save DC 10, I was thinking since you are a p/b a fighter type the chance that you will fial is p/b only on a nat 1 so there is only a 5% chance, but the only way he could CdG you is if you were paralized (lst or 2nd level). so it is a decent chance of kicking the bucket. you p/b have at worst a 10 con, maybe a15-17 if using default stats, so it's closer to 25-35% chance of failure.

Is it dumb(no damage but coupe de grace)? - ya, kinda but the rules do differentiate between taking damage and dealing damage.

 

[S'mon]

Hm... I can see a raven pecking your (fleshy) eye out... but as GM I'd disallow the CDG here. OTOH I allow Pinned characters to be CDGed with daggers... >

 

[Staffan]

From the SRD: [bq]Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease.[/bq]

I'd claim that a CdG that deals no damage would fall under this section.

 

[Ballard_Alvar]

Where does it says this?:

From the SRD: [bq]Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease.[/bq]

I'd claim that a CdG that deals no damage would fall under this section.

 

[Staffan]

The rules on Damage Reduction, in the secton about "Special abilities and conditions".

 

[kjenks]

Where does it says this?:

Try this: highlight the sentence with your mouse, press CTRL-C to copy it, open a Web browser with your favorite search engine, the press CTRL-P to paste it.

The search results should help you find the location within the SRD.

 

[dcollins]

I'd want to rule the same as Staffan.

 

[the Jester]

If an attempted coup de grace did 0 damage, I'd rule there's no chance of instant death. I mean, how can you kill someone if you don't hurt them??

 

[youspoonybard]

Sounds good, thanks for the reference!

I guess next time the Sorceror will have to knock him out herself : )

Thanks!