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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pale Jackal" data-source="post: 4154037" data-attributes="member: 58878">I agree, in theory.  Your statement is reasonable and sound.However, a rule for death-dealing sneak attacks (and I do mean one-shot kills) doesn't strike me as a huge rules gap.  I mean, do we want a decent chance for PCs to suddenly be dropped without a fight?  Not... really, at least, death effects were removed and that's something I approve of.  How many rules do we need for a scenario that only occurs when the PC has complete surprise, and part of the reason we want the one-shot kill is "because it's freakin' cinematically awesome."As another poster said, there could've been the surprise plus initiative rules, effectively granting the rogue two sneak attacks.Or you could extrapolate from the coup de grace rules (I don't know them off hand) but say: "This guy's helpless, you may spend 6 seconds lining up your shot and finish him."We could totally revise D&D's wound system, and I do currently enjoy Burning Wheel's methods of handling wounds, but BW is a different game.I don't think the gap in the rules, as shown in the original scenario, is a particularly glaring one, especially since there is some rules that one could've used to mediate such a scenario.Edit: Ultimately, if you want PCs to be able to cause and suffer such instant death wounds, you need to revise the way D&D deals or handles damage.  Since I don't want to subject my players to suffering those types of wounds... well, ever, really, but particularly not in D&D... and I only want them to be able to CAUSE such death wounds (and only when I feel it appropriate, even!  Of course, I could always fudge some statistic under your rules, I suppose), house-ruling is the best way to go.If you want a grittier game, then feel free to use a different system as opposed to house ruling it.  I don't begrudge you for not using D&D.  However, I don't think that having to house-rule in that scenario is a significant flaw of D&D.  YMMV.</blockquote>

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