why not getting rid of coup de grace?

[Anthtriel]

Go one step further:

The victim of a CdG that stabilizes on its own acquires a permanent injury, like loss of an eye, or something.

Permanent injuries are really popular with players.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

The basic problem I have with this whole argument is that it comes from the direction of "Hold XXX and coup de grace in combat lead to unfun and easy death of characters, so lets abolish coup de grace in combat."

There are a few problems, starting with the problem of inconsistency. Coup de grace is a rule in 3E that comes into effect under certain circumstances: the victim is helpless (also a defined condition), the attacker takes a full-round action to deliver it, has to stand adjacent to the victim, and leaves himself open for Attacks of Opportunity. These circumstances are the same whether they happen in or out of combat. A rule that said "coup de grace cannoth be used while in combat" would simply break consistency. Attempts at explaining it will (in my experience) not lead to players who shrug and accept it, but simply try to find a way to still get that coup to work ("I'll take two full-round actions then, I'm not threatened right now" or "My character has a whole feat chain dedicated to precise strikes and you tell me he can't find the weakest spot on that paralyzed orc using a full round?").

The second problem is that, based on the premise that coup de grace breaks a handful of spells because it can be combined for essentially save-or-die effects, then so does chucking somebody overboard from a ship, from a cliff, into a lava stream, from an airship, etc, stuff that can be done with a simple trip attack to mobile characters, and without them to paralyzed/sleeping characters. And those are the kind of "action environments" that always come up in D&D adventures at some point. I don't think there are comparable numbers somewhere out there, but I'd not be surprised if scenes like that are about as rare as people setting up coup de grace moments in the middle of combat. And at least Mike Mearls really likes those scenarios, and wrote a whole rule set around them for his Iron Heroes game.

Replacing the rule with something else will face the problem that it either needs to have a similar effect, or it will change the way the game is played. Changing it to "coup de grace puts the victim at -1" for example will see players equip their characters with items that grant auto-stabilization if that happens to them more than once in their career, and skills like Self-stabilization will become quite valuable.That will turn coup de grace from what it is now, namely a pretty sure-fire way to kill a very helpless opponent, into just another way to seriously hamper somebody. At some point, a D&D character will only be killable by reducing either hit points to -10 in one go, or doing the same to Con (if ability damage will still work), and that really narrows EVERY tool in the DM's tool box down to things that are meant to only injure somebody, no matter what.

The reverse angle, changing the spells so they don't impose the Helpless condition on the victim anymore...well, lets say I'd be curious how they want to explain somebody being completely immobile but not helpless.

Sorry for being so contrary here, but I simply don't want to see a game where something like "I lop his head off with my axe" is answered by the DM with a "okay, 2 rounds later his buddies pour some healing potion down his throat and press the head down on the neck until it has reattached". Some things simply should KILL a character, not just inconvenience him. If the only way to kill somebody in D&D is to slice off his hit points one by one, the game turns either into something very boring, or something very silly with overinflated damage numbers.

 

[Henry]

Some things simply should KILL a character, not just inconvenience him. If the only way to kill somebody in D&D is to slice off his hit points one by one, the game turns either into something very boring, or something very silly with overinflated damage numbers.

That's my take, too. Realism may not be the most important thing in gaming, but IMO some grounding in reality is important for the players to be able to enjoy the game on a dramatic level.

 

[Jhaelen]

I rarely see coup de grace happen in combat, and they are usually a big source of drama and excitement. Unlike save or die, which is about as anticlimatic as you can get.

Same here. I could live with replacing dead with -1, though. Especially, if you could replace being dead with -1 only by expending action points.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Right...action points...THAT would be a great way to change coup de grace from being dead to being dying, and a good application of something like that. Escaping certain death to borrow 1 minute for somebody to come and help you...sounds good.

 

[Li Shenron]

There are a few problems, starting with the problem of inconsistency.

...

Attempts at explaining it will (in my experience) not lead to players who shrug and accept it, but simply try to find a way to still get that coup to work...

The game is full of inconsistencies that the gamers just shrug and accept it. It's not nice to increase them, but one more is not going to tilt disbelieve to an unacceptable level...

The second problem is that, based on the premise that coup de grace breaks a handful of spells because it can be combined for essentially save-or-die effects, then so does chucking somebody overboard from a ship, from a cliff, into a lava stream, from an airship, etc, stuff that can be done with a simple trip attack to mobile characters, and without them to paralyzed/sleeping characters.

With the very important difference that those cases are highly situational and not a default action, which means they require some creativity of the players to pull them off.

If the only way to kill somebody in D&D is to slice off his hit points one by one, the game turns either into something very boring, or something very silly with overinflated damage numbers.

Removing CdG doesn't turn the game into something like that.

I started this thread because I certainly thought that CdG was unpopular to other groups as much as it is unpopular in mine, but I stand corrected! I just never thought that others had so much fun with it... We certainly didn't have, and in fact we've been playing without using CdG for years now. Perhaps we overreacted to some bad early experiences, but we simply decided long ago to ignore CdG entirely: the DM just doesn't use it against the PCs, and the players don't use it either. Surely our game has been fun just as any others' game... That is why I posted here my opinion that the CdG mechanic was annoying in combat, and not really needed out of combat, because that's what our experience told us; and while the first part (CdG annoying in combat) could be an overlook (because last time we used it was indeed long ago), the second part (not really needed in the game) is not so much an overlook if at least for our group we never missed it.

But I certainly recognize that, given the thread responses, there's lots of love for the CdG rule.

 

[Felon]

Why is CdG needed so much in the game? If it's for realism, the game has lots of unrealistic simplifications, why insisting on this one?

They're unrealistic simplications with a point. There is no point in saying you can't slit a helpless creature's throat. Once the creature is helpless, his number is up. That's the point of inducing a helpless condition, as opposed to a stunned or nausated one.

And I don't think the assertion that sleep and hold and other "save-or-be-screwed" effects were fine until CdG's caught on. Nobody's fine with characters sitting around doing nothing. Players hate it for their characters, DM's think it's a waste of their monsters' potential.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The second problem is that, based on the premise that coup de grace breaks a handful of spells because it can be combined for essentially save-or-die effects, then so does chucking somebody overboard from a ship, from a cliff, into a lava stream, from an airship, etc, stuff that can be done with a simple trip attack to mobile characters, and without them to paralyzed/sleeping characters. And those are the kind of "action environments" that always come up in D&D adventures at some point. I don't think there are comparable numbers somewhere out there, but I'd not be surprised if scenes like that are about as rare as people setting up coup de grace moments in the middle of combat. And at least Mike Mearls really likes those scenarios, and wrote a whole rule set around them for his Iron Heroes game.

There is an important difference. A cliff, a lava stream, or the roiling sea around a ship are risks that only exist in certain enviroments. They are obvious, in-your-face risks, and you will see players and NPCs trying to minimize this risk while at the same time capitalizing it to defeat their enemies.
Sleep/Hold Person are only dependent on the PC/NPC that prepared the spell. They can occur in any encounter, and you usually can't predict it, and you can't outmaneuver them either. I guess it's really the same as with plain "save or die" effects, except that at least with sleep/hold person + Coup De Grace, there is a higher chance for some wiggle room for the PCs (not so much if two enemies act before the players)

 

[Geron Raveneye]

The game is full of inconsistencies that the gamers just shrug and accept it. It's not nice to increase them, but one more is not going to tilt disbelieve to an unacceptable level...

That heavily depends on the players, their background in fantasy RPGs and different genre expectations, etc. My current group has one player who has had nearly no contact with stuff like that, and who constantly tries to apply real-world expectations to the game, which in turn makes me try to find rule applications that cover those expectations. I know she'd flip me the bird if I told her that a helpless creature can't be killed with one good stroke. The thing is that even new players will often try to go for very lethal attacks, hoping to get them through and kill the opponent in a spectacular fashion, so something like coup de grace is definitely useful. In contrast to that, save or die effects are mainly DM tools to equip monsters and special opponents with, and are a lot less intuitive to new players. In my experience, of course.

With the very important difference that those cases are highly situational and not a default action, which means they require some creativity of the players to pull them off.

Since Mustrum Ridcully brings that up as well in his post...a coup de grace following some sort of helplessness-inducing magic is not really default either, since it takes some good timing and maneuvering on the sides of the characters. Maybe I'm the only one who loves to integrate special environments in his adventures (I'm still dreaming of getting a group on a mystaran airship and have them adventure around with it ), but then experience is all I can speak from either.

Removing CdG doesn't turn the game into something like that.
...
But I certainly recognize that, given the thread responses, there's lots of love for the CdG rule.

I admit that I took the "hit points" angle a bit out of this thread's context. I simply read that "solution" so often recently, in connection with the save or die threads for example, that I simply reacted to it. For that, I apologize.
I definitely like the coup de grace rule in so far as it is the first really clearly outlined rule for that kind of situation, where older editions often lead to heated discussions as to how arbitary the DM was allowed to kill off characters in "helpless" conditions, which lead to a few very wonky rulings in my first few years with D&D.

 

[Klaus]

Permanent injuries are really popular with players.

In my games there was always someone who wanted to play a character without an eye, or a hand, or a pegleg. One player actually wanted all the above.

I think a mechanic that lets you trade in certain death for a big injury (like Star Wars did) would add a lot of flavor (maybe chalk it up as optional). Of course, you'd then have to include ways that a character can overcome the limitation (grafts, magic, etc).