Combat: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Line 261: | Line 261: | ||
When you have a foe completely at your mercy, you can choose to show it the cruelest mercy of all, namely, by killing it. A coup-de-grace can only be performed against creatures that are [[Helpless]] against you. Note that several other status conditions include the [[Helpless]] condition. | When you have a foe completely at your mercy, you can choose to show it the cruelest mercy of all, namely, by killing it. A coup-de-grace can only be performed against creatures that are [[Helpless]] against you. Note that several other status conditions include the [[Helpless]] condition. | ||
To perform a coup de grace, you must spend a full round action, and declare your intent to perform a coup-de-grace upon a | To perform a coup de grace, you must spend a full round action, and declare your intent to perform a coup-de-grace upon a Helpless victim within your reach. If these conditions are met, the attack automatically hits and is resolved as a confirmed critical hit. Resolve your damage for the critical normally, and then the victim must make a Fortitude save with the DC equal to the damage you just rolled. If they fail, they are slain. | ||
It is possible that the simple damage alone will kill them. But even in such a case, the victim must still make a Fortitude save. Why? Because the murderous intent of the coup-de-grace makes it more difficult to raise a coup-de-grace'd foe back to life. The simple way to implement this is to record the amount of damage done by the coup-de-grace and if that creature is ever subject to a raise dead or similar effect, the re-animator must make a [[Caster Check]] against that target, or the attempt fails. Of course, that means those killed by very high level foes are effectively perma-dead, and those killed by an NPC executioner may have an arbitrarily decided difficulty. The exact details of such things are left to the GM, but it certainly makes for great plot hooks, and explains why, in a magical world, public executions of terrible people are meaningful. | It is possible that the simple damage alone will kill them. But even in such a case, the victim must still make a Fortitude save. Why? Because the murderous intent of the coup-de-grace makes it more difficult to raise a coup-de-grace'd foe back to life. The simple way to implement this is to record the amount of damage done by the coup-de-grace and if that creature is ever subject to a raise dead or similar effect, the re-animator must make a [[Caster Check]] against that target, or the attempt fails. Of course, that means those killed by very high level foes are effectively perma-dead, and those killed by an NPC executioner may have an arbitrarily decided difficulty. The exact details of such things are left to the GM, but it certainly makes for great plot hooks, and explains why, in a magical world, public executions of terrible people are meaningful. | ||