Playing Dead

[Wormwood]

My take:

Bluff: "I gurgle and crumple to the floor, hoping to fool my enemy into thinking I am dead"

Disguise: "I lie among the dead bodies on the battlefield, hoping to escape notice until the enemy departs" (note that Hide would work as well)

 

[Mahali]

It never works in our games. We've taken to swatting at "dead" things just to be sure. They're really easy to hit lieing there without dex and a +4 prone penalty.

 

[Pielorinho]

If you drop to the floor and pretend to be helpless, you are explicitly letting your guard down. It seems to me that this would draw an AoO from an opponent who is not fooled by your bluff. That's a DM call, though, so I won't argue if you do it differently IYC. (Please don't restart the debate about whether a really helpless person draws AoO; there's whole other threads about that one.)

I disagree. If falling unconscious doesn't open you up to an AoO, pretending to be unconscious shouldn't open you up to an AoO either.

You can debate whether falling unconscious should open you to an AoO, but I think that your answer to that should be the same as your answer to whether pretending to fall unconscious should open you up.

If anything, you'll be less likely to suffer an AoO when pretending to fall unconscious -- in that case, you might be able to perceive that the person didn't fall for your bluff, and might be able to raise your defenses again at the last moment.

But basically, I'd rule bluffing that you're doing a particular thing (drinking a potion, falling unconscious, shooting an arrow, etc.) draws an AoO if and only if actually performing that act would draw one. This seems simple and easy.

Daniel

 

[Grazzt]

I'd make it Bluff vs. Sense Motive, with a +2 circumstance bonus to Bluff for 5 ranks of Perform (acting), and a +2 circumstance bonus to Sense Motive for 5 ranks of Healing. (He sure looks dead-except for that strong, rapid pulse I can see at his throat.)

Can't say the situation has ever come up in my 3e game, but this is how I would run it most likely should it ever happen.

 

[RedShirtNo5]

This situation actually came up in our last session. Rogue got hit by a giant and wanted to play dead. Everyone was in agreement that bluff v. sense motive seemed appropriate. The problem was that the giant had Cleave. Much discussion ensued.

-RedShirt

 

[Steven]

Cleave and Playing dead

The cleave feat says that if you deal enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below zero hit points, killing it, etc.), you get to make an extra attack. If the Rogue felt like he needed to play dead then the giant dealt him enough damage to drop him and should have gotten his cleave. Here is another situation that occurred in a recent game of mine: A Druid/Ranger was trailing an NPC who had been harrassing the party for quite some time. The NPC was down on his luck and had no cohorts/henchmen at his immediate disposal and was not near civilization, so he had to make camp by himself. The Druid/Ranger fired from a good distance at the NPC, the noise startled the NPC who wasn't actually sleeping (The player knew this to be so before he fired, and he had a very good chance of hitting a completely defenseless opponent, so he took the chance). The NPC grabbed his shield as it was close to him, but he didn't have time to don his armor, the Ranger/Druid (an elf with low light vision) fired 2 more times hitting both times, but being the smart player he was he didn't fire from the same spot either time. The third shot (also fired from a different area) was a critical and it dealt a lot of damage to the NPC, who then fell down on his side of the fire and pretended to play dead. I did not call for any skill checks in this situation because of the distance and the fire being between the Ranger/Druid and the NPC. The Ranger/Druid assumed that the NPC was dead, put his bow away and walked up to the area of the camp, where I rolled a spot check to see if he noticed anything unusual, but his main focus was not on the "dead" NPC but his belongings, particularly anything that may have been a map of the area. The NPC rose up, didn't surprise the Ranger/Druid, but managed to grab a log from the fire and use it as a club, the battle that ensued forced the Ranger/Druid to flee (bad rolls mostly). None of the player's were upset about the result, and some of them have even taken great lengths to prepare for any time that they might need to play dead. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened in a game I have run, but it is the first time it has happened in a 3ed game I have run. Thanks to everyone for their point of view, it has been a great help.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Yea, Bluff vs. Sense Motive, with the mentioned synergy bonuses, and circumstance modifiers depending on the severity of the blow prior to the check.

If he's hit, he has to make a concentration check (DC 10 + damage dealt) to keep up the ruse. Also, he'd lose his dex bonus to AC cause he would close his eyes and thus would be practically blind (though he could keep the eyes open for a slit - with a penalty to his bluff roll). I wouldn't allow a CdG, unless the character wanted to keep his disguise up (not a wise choice...)

 

[Christian]

My 1% disagreement? I'd call them synergy bonuses (or possibly competence bonuses), not circumstance bonuses. But that's a totally nitpicky point: overall, this is a great use of different skills.

Uh, yeah, synergy bonuses. That's what I meant.

 

[Mandeville]

Of course, the bluff skill will only work with an intelligent opponent. If you try to act dead with an alligator that just means dinner is served.

I have always allowed this rule in my games. It only made sense. 3e merely gave me mechanics to adjudicate the situation.

Now a question. Would you allow a rouge who successfully feigned death to jump up after a round or more and sneak attack? If the villain was still within 5ft of course.

Btw, this is my first post. First time/long time and all that…

 

[Pielorinho]

Uh, yeah, synergy bonuses. That's what I meant.

Figured you meant that .

As for cleave, keep in mind that you can cleave with a blunt weapon, and a cloven opponent can still survive the battle. You're not chopping someone in half -- rather, you're seeing that they've gone down, and without pausing whirling and twisting and attacking someone else.

I'd say that, If and Only If someone believes that they succeeded in dropping their foe, their cleave reflexes can kick in and they can hit someone else.

However, that's a bit of a houserule. A rules-nazi will look at the cleave feat description and rule that cleave only kicks in when an opponent is ACTUALLY dropped, not simply when the cleaver BELIEVES an opponent is dropped.

One more rules-nazi problem with this strategy: bluffing is something you've got to do, and normally you've got to do it on your own turn. This means that your enemy would hit you, you'd remain standing, and then when your turn came up, you'd fall to the ground still. If your DM is strict about the rules, this is a highly unbelievable bluff to make.

However, the DMG points out that there are some circumstances under which you've got to fudge turns in order to reflect the simultaneity of folks' actions in combat. I'd argue that this is one of those times. If somebody wants to pretend that their enemy's blow just dropped them, I'd allow them to immediately move their initiative to just after the enemy's initiative, with the caveat that they MUST spend their next action doing nothing besides pretending to be dead. (essentially, their initiative order moves up, but they lose a turn).

Daniel