House Rule Coup de Grace - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

House Rule Coup de Grace

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
lynadianya
Jul 10, 2009 6:19:40 Looking for some insight and descriptions of how this is handled in other peoples campaigns.

My players are not min/maxers optimizers by any stretch of the imagination and I tend to keep myself as far from that board as possible so I can't even help them to achieve mystical optimized standards. So far, at level 7, I think the biggest damage done by any one particular player on any one hit was 38 points (that was the starlock) and that was due to a crit doubling damage. I haven't quite figured out why at this point they are not doing more damage per round, but they aren't. (I have to really sit down and look at their builds soon and make some suggestions).

The crux of my dilemma is this... there is no way that any of them, going up against level appropriate monsters, would ever hit a bloodied value in one hit at this point in their careers. Coup de Grace says that if you deal damage equal to their bloodied value you outright kill whatever you are targeting. Does this mean that my players will never be able to Coup de Grace a monster? I am looking at RAW here. At first, I thought that it meant, if you strike with a Coup de Grace standard action, and after the end of the action, the monster has reached his bloodied value, he dies. Now I am reading it to be that only if you do the equivalent of 1/2 their hit point value in that single standard action would you deliver a Coup de Grace.

So is Coup de Grace intentionally made to be exceedingly difficult? Is it meant to be a something that should almost never be achieved? Or are my players so pathetically set up that they are doing far less damage than they should be at this point.

How are others working this rule? Basically, I don't really follow the what's good for the goose is good for the gander way of dealing with Players and Monsters. Monsters for my campaign can't insta-kill. Players can. That might be a bit one sided, but that's because my guys aren't power gamers...they are just there to have some fun, laugh, and eat some homemade chips and salsa, lots and lots of chips and salsa. (Once, in 2nd or 3.x, not sure where we were in that campaign, I, as a player, had a character turned into a cloud of greasy pink smoke by a beholder because of a bad save and I decided that just wasn't fun (for me or my DM - he felt horrible about it. That was a year's work, wasted.).

Of course, the only time this has come up is with the wizard in the party throwing sleep out there and the monster blowing his saving throw. It isn't like it happens every game day.

Since my experience with 4e is the same as my players (we are going through it together from level 1 to 7 now planning on taking these characters all the way to 30) I am not sure if in the future I should expect to see much greater percentages of monster's hit points going down in a single round or many more chances for helpless effect to be placed on the monster. If so, I can see the restriction coming in to play.

So...at long last...my house rule. I would like to know if this would be too far unbalanced going into the future. Right now, getting a monster into the helpless state would happen very infrequently so it's not likely to come up often. If a monster is put into a helpless state, and my players pound on it until it it is bloodied (regardless of how many rounds that takes, as long as the monster is still helpless when it is bloodied) I take the monster out of play. If the monster was bloodied prior to the helpless effect, the players only have to hit it one more time and it takes the monster out of play.

Sorry if this is rambling. I've been writing it over the course of a couple of hours while at work and work seems to be constantly interrupting me. Stupid work ;)
#2
slobo777a
Jul 10, 2009 6:37:56 Yes for some reason the Coup De Grace is more limited. I think this is mainly protection on the players. A monster *could* technically try to Coup De Grace a helpless player. The main impact of a monster making a first Coup De Grace against a helpless PC should be a warning shot - "deal with this monster or your colleague dies".

If a monster is only helpless for one round, I'd use the RAW. The players get the fun of auto-criticals and all that means (especially with magic weapons and powers that can take advantage of it). So the monster will lose a pretty good percentage of its remaining hits, even if not killed outright.

If a monster is helpless for a longer time, then yes it might make more sense to speed up the process. Otherwise it's a pretty boring and non-heroic whittling down of hit points.

Perhaps a kill should result when the total of damage across all Coup De Grace attempts combined, added up since the helpless condition started, was at least the Bloodied value?
#3
bronski113
Jul 10, 2009 9:39:24 If i read your post correctly you're playing 4e. The nat 20 rule is different from the past: From the rules:

Maximum Damage: Rather than roll damage, determine the maximum damage you can roll with your attack. This is your critical damage. (Attacks that don’t deal damage still don’t deal damage on a critical hit.)

Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as well as high crit weapons, can increase the damage you deal when you score a critical hit. If this extra damage is a die roll, it’s not automatically maximum damage; you add the result of the roll.

So that may help you get closer to the bloodied stat of creatures than you do by rolling the damage and doubling it.

In my games I don't even care if the monster is helpless. If the player hits and does enough damage to equal the creatures bloodied value I let them slay the creature outright.

Had one guy nat 20 on a daily power. Did something like 65 points of damage in a single attack. No way I wasn't going to kill that creature.

Had another room where our twf ranger nat 20 on his first turn, had him outright slay the first creature. Rolled high damage on the next one and did them same.

Actually everyone else rolled high too. It was tons of fun.

Now if you have a helpless creature that isn't some big boss i'd just let the player coup de grace them if their max damage for the attack they are using is anywhere near the bloodied stat.

But your rule sounds pretty good. If they are helpless just get them to bloodied and kill them or if they go helpless when bloodied just let one hit kill them.

I really enjoy having the battles where some one hit kills are happening. Thats why I love doing minions and low hit point creatures and letting them coup de grace stuff like i mentioned above. Players have fun and feel heroic.
#4
bone_naga
Jul 10, 2009 11:07:05 Generally speaking, there's no need for a player to CDC a monster. Once a monster is down, it usually stays down unless it was dealt nonlethal damage, in which case the players probably don't want to CDC it. The weakening of CDC is to protect the players and keep a downed character from being killed too quickly before another character can help him.

My houserule is that each CDC to a target acts as an additional failed save vs death. It still doesn't kill the target outright (unless he's already failed 2 saving throws) but it does add a little more tension and danger to it.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 lynadianya Jul 10, 2009 6:19:40	Looking for some insight and descriptions of how this is handled in other peoples campaigns. My players are not min/maxers optimizers by any stretch of the imagination and I tend to keep myself as far from that board as possible so I can't even help them to achieve mystical optimized standards. So far, at level 7, I think the biggest damage done by any one particular player on any one hit was 38 points (that was the starlock) and that was due to a crit doubling damage. I haven't quite figured out why at this point they are not doing more damage per round, but they aren't. (I have to really sit down and look at their builds soon and make some suggestions). The crux of my dilemma is this... there is no way that any of them, going up against level appropriate monsters, would ever hit a bloodied value in one hit at this point in their careers. Coup de Grace says that if you deal damage equal to their bloodied value you outright kill whatever you are targeting. Does this mean that my players will never be able to Coup de Grace a monster? I am looking at RAW here. At first, I thought that it meant, if you strike with a Coup de Grace standard action, and after the end of the action, the monster has reached his bloodied value, he dies. Now I am reading it to be that only if you do the equivalent of 1/2 their hit point value in that single standard action would you deliver a Coup de Grace. So is Coup de Grace intentionally made to be exceedingly difficult? Is it meant to be a something that should almost never be achieved? Or are my players so pathetically set up that they are doing far less damage than they should be at this point. How are others working this rule? Basically, I don't really follow the what's good for the goose is good for the gander way of dealing with Players and Monsters. Monsters for my campaign can't insta-kill. Players can. That might be a bit one sided, but that's because my guys aren't power gamers...they are just there to have some fun, laugh, and eat some homemade chips and salsa, lots and lots of chips and salsa. (Once, in 2nd or 3.x, not sure where we were in that campaign, I, as a player, had a character turned into a cloud of greasy pink smoke by a beholder because of a bad save and I decided that just wasn't fun (for me or my DM - he felt horrible about it. That was a year's work, wasted.). Of course, the only time this has come up is with the wizard in the party throwing sleep out there and the monster blowing his saving throw. It isn't like it happens every game day. Since my experience with 4e is the same as my players (we are going through it together from level 1 to 7 now planning on taking these characters all the way to 30) I am not sure if in the future I should expect to see much greater percentages of monster's hit points going down in a single round or many more chances for helpless effect to be placed on the monster. If so, I can see the restriction coming in to play. So...at long last...my house rule. I would like to know if this would be too far unbalanced going into the future. Right now, getting a monster into the helpless state would happen very infrequently so it's not likely to come up often. If a monster is put into a helpless state, and my players pound on it until it it is bloodied (regardless of how many rounds that takes, as long as the monster is still helpless when it is bloodied) I take the monster out of play. If the monster was bloodied prior to the helpless effect, the players only have to hit it one more time and it takes the monster out of play. Sorry if this is rambling. I've been writing it over the course of a couple of hours while at work and work seems to be constantly interrupting me. Stupid work ;)
#2 slobo777a Jul 10, 2009 6:37:56	Yes for some reason the Coup De Grace is more limited. I think this is mainly protection on the players. A monster could technically try to Coup De Grace a helpless player. The main impact of a monster making a first Coup De Grace against a helpless PC should be a warning shot - "deal with this monster or your colleague dies". If a monster is only helpless for one round, I'd use the RAW. The players get the fun of auto-criticals and all that means (especially with magic weapons and powers that can take advantage of it). So the monster will lose a pretty good percentage of its remaining hits, even if not killed outright. If a monster is helpless for a longer time, then yes it might make more sense to speed up the process. Otherwise it's a pretty boring and non-heroic whittling down of hit points. Perhaps a kill should result when the total of damage across all Coup De Grace attempts combined, added up since the helpless condition started, was at least the Bloodied value?
#3 bronski113 Jul 10, 2009 9:39:24	If i read your post correctly you're playing 4e. The nat 20 rule is different from the past: From the rules: Maximum Damage: Rather than roll damage, determine the maximum damage you can roll with your attack. This is your critical damage. (Attacks that don’t deal damage still don’t deal damage on a critical hit.) Extra Damage: Magic weapons and implements, as well as high crit weapons, can increase the damage you deal when you score a critical hit. If this extra damage is a die roll, it’s not automatically maximum damage; you add the result of the roll. So that may help you get closer to the bloodied stat of creatures than you do by rolling the damage and doubling it. In my games I don't even care if the monster is helpless. If the player hits and does enough damage to equal the creatures bloodied value I let them slay the creature outright. Had one guy nat 20 on a daily power. Did something like 65 points of damage in a single attack. No way I wasn't going to kill that creature. Had another room where our twf ranger nat 20 on his first turn, had him outright slay the first creature. Rolled high damage on the next one and did them same. Actually everyone else rolled high too. It was tons of fun. Now if you have a helpless creature that isn't some big boss i'd just let the player coup de grace them if their max damage for the attack they are using is anywhere near the bloodied stat. But your rule sounds pretty good. If they are helpless just get them to bloodied and kill them or if they go helpless when bloodied just let one hit kill them. I really enjoy having the battles where some one hit kills are happening. Thats why I love doing minions and low hit point creatures and letting them coup de grace stuff like i mentioned above. Players have fun and feel heroic.
#4 bone_naga Jul 10, 2009 11:07:05	Generally speaking, there's no need for a player to CDC a monster. Once a monster is down, it usually stays down unless it was dealt nonlethal damage, in which case the players probably don't want to CDC it. The weakening of CDC is to protect the players and keep a downed character from being killed too quickly before another character can help him. My houserule is that each CDC to a target acts as an additional failed save vs death. It still doesn't kill the target outright (unless he's already failed 2 saving throws) but it does add a little more tension and danger to it.