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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4922278" data-attributes="member: 4937">Are you saying that everyone is a high level rogue?&nbsp; The basis of the objection is, &quot;This isn't realistic.&quot;&nbsp; Of course it isn't realistic.&nbsp; Sneak attacks, coup de grace, and flanking are all unrealistic abstractions.&nbsp; If you are going to make the objection, &quot;This isn't realistic&quot;, you can't appeal to which of them is less realistic as if one of them somehow captured a realistic standard and one didn't.&nbsp; They are all abstractions used for ease of play.The real question not being answered by the people who don't think this is worthy of a coup de grace is, &quot;If you maintain that the penalty for ignoring a flanker is not really that much worse than being flanked to begin with, what's to stop this from becoming in effect, 'Everyone is immune to flanking'.&quot;You better believe every monster you face is now going to 'ignore' the fighter and face the rogue from here on out if you think the only penalty should be 'he's flatfooted with respect to the fighter but not flanked by anyone', because what the fighter can do with the tiny edge involved there is nothing compared to what the monster gains by not taking sneak attack damage.All the arguments about what is realistic - all these attempts at resolving which is more realistic based on the power of imagination - completely miss the point.&nbsp; Unless you want to rebuild the rules from the ground up, allowing someone to ignore the rules must carry a hefty penalty or else they'll do it all the time.&nbsp;Realisticly, yes he would.&nbsp; Being completely ignorant of a threat is realisticly in many if not most cases the same as being helpless.&nbsp; If Bruce Lee doesn't know that I'm there and can't hear me coming, all his reflexes won't help him because by the time his nerves know about the attack, he's already taken a mortal wound.&nbsp; That it is not that way in the game is purely to avoid frequently having 'die no save' situations, and not because it is actually realistic to assume that characters somehow defend themselves from attacks they are unaware of at the moment that they are made.Hense, all the appeals to realism here are pointless.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4922278, member: 4937"] Are you saying that everyone is a high level rogue? The basis of the objection is, "This isn't realistic." Of course it isn't realistic. Sneak attacks, coup de grace, and flanking are all unrealistic abstractions. If you are going to make the objection, "This isn't realistic", you can't appeal to which of them is less realistic as if one of them somehow captured a realistic standard and one didn't. They are all abstractions used for ease of play. The real question not being answered by the people who don't think this is worthy of a coup de grace is, "If you maintain that the penalty for ignoring a flanker is not really that much worse than being flanked to begin with, what's to stop this from becoming in effect, 'Everyone is immune to flanking'." You better believe every monster you face is now going to 'ignore' the fighter and face the rogue from here on out if you think the only penalty should be 'he's flatfooted with respect to the fighter but not flanked by anyone', because what the fighter can do with the tiny edge involved there is nothing compared to what the monster gains by not taking sneak attack damage. All the arguments about what is realistic - all these attempts at resolving which is more realistic based on the power of imagination - completely miss the point. Unless you want to rebuild the rules from the ground up, allowing someone to ignore the rules must carry a hefty penalty or else they'll do it all the time. Realisticly, yes he would. Being completely ignorant of a threat is realisticly in many if not most cases the same as being helpless. If Bruce Lee doesn't know that I'm there and can't hear me coming, all his reflexes won't help him because by the time his nerves know about the attack, he's already taken a mortal wound. That it is not that way in the game is purely to avoid frequently having 'die no save' situations, and not because it is actually realistic to assume that characters somehow defend themselves from attacks they are unaware of at the moment that they are made. Hense, all the appeals to realism here are pointless. [/QUOTE]

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