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So, here's the question... how many hit points does a character have after failing the Fort save caused by a Coup de Grace (CdG)?
So, if a character dies from a death effect or attack, then he is at negative con.
However, coup de grace is not a death effect or attack (only those things specifically called out are),
So, there are three possibilities
1) The character is still at the hp she was at after the damage (and the breath of life adds to that total)
2) The character is at negative CON hp.
3) The character is at -HP dealt the attack
As I see it, #2 is probably the most likely, or the one that makes the most sense to me. This does assume that the character is not killed outright by the CdG, in which case he is at the HP total that he CdG put him.
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Thank you.
I vaguely remember a reference somewhere that said whenever you had to figure a corpse's HP level, assume it was at fully negative Constitution. This makes sense, since that's the point where the creature becomes a corpse. (Unless it's one of those 'destroyed at 0HP' things, of course.) Any damage past that is literal overkill.
This is probably the most consistent way of doing things. Things don't die at -3HP unless they were pretty weak to start with, right?
If the player survived the damage from the coupe de graz then I place them at negative con if they fail the fort save.
I think Archaeik is correct. That rule is under death attacks but the "no matter how he died" parts makes it clear it works for everything that caused death, no matter how he died. So, yeah, if the hit point damage didn't kill the character but the fortitude save did, put him at negative con and you're all set. If the hit point damage did the killing, leave them at negative whatever from the hit point damage.
Is this for Breath of Life?
There is this:
Death Attacks
In most cases, a death attack allows the victim a Fortitude save to avoid the effect, but if the save fails, the character dies instantly.
Raise dead doesn't work on someone killed by a death attack or effect.
Death attacks slay instantly. A victim cannot be made stable and thereby kept alive.
In case it matters, a dead character, , has hit points equal to or less than his negative Constitution score.
The spell death ward protects against these attacks.
I am not entirely sure that applies since it seems to be describing special monster abilities rather than a simple coup de grace, but that bit I emphasized seems to be generically applicable to ALL dead characters.
And then there's this:
The character's hit points are reduced to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score, his Constitution drops to 0, or he is killed outright by a spell or effect. The character's soul leaves his body. Dead characters cannot benefit from normal or magical healing, but they can be restored to life via magic. A dead body decays normally unless magically preserved, but magic that restores a dead character to life also restores the body either to full health or to its condition at the time of death (depending on the spell or device). Either way, resurrected characters need not worry about rigor mortis, decomposition, and other conditions that affect dead bodies.
In order to call a character dead, one of those three things in the first sentence must happen: HP = -CON or CON = 0, or killed outright by a spell or effect.
The scenario given rules out the first two, so we have the third one which is consistent with what coup de grace says. And that ties it right back to my first quoted bit.
I think this is open and shut: a dead character must have a 0 CON or, no matter how he died must have negative HP = to his CON score. Period. By these parts of the RAW.
Since coup de grace doesn't damage or drain CON, the only remaining alternative is having -HP = -CON score.
I assume the actual question is: Can you Breath of Life a CdG victim?
In case it matters, a dead character, no matter how he died, has hit points equal to his negative Constitution score.
I think this is open and shut: a dead character must have a 0 CON or, no matter how he died must have negative HP = to his CON score. Period. By these parts of the RAW.
Are you saying the 'or less than' clause never applies due to the text in the 'dead' section, and that no matter how much damage you do to someone's body Breath of Life will always work?
I understand it this way:
A) Character fails his fortitude roll vs coup de grace - he is dead. That means character is at minus his con score. But if the actual damage from autocrit is more than hitpoints before coup de grace and con score then the poor guy just takes that damage. Aka minus con or more if damage is large enough.
B) Character succeeds his fortitude roll vs coup de grace - character takes auto-crit damage.
EDIT:
I reread the rules. The actual sequence (as I understand)is:
1)Coup de grace action
2)Autocrit damage
2.1. Character dies from autocrit damage - THE END (Treat as normal death from damage)
2.2. Character does not die from autocrit damage. => 3)
3) Character makes fortitude check (DC=10+damage).
3.1 Character fails fortitude check = character dies = his/her hitpoints are equal to negative CON score.
3.2 Character succeeds his/her fortitude check = character is alive with damage from autocrit subtracted from characters hitpoints.
In case it matters, a dead character, no matter how he died, has hit points equal to his negative Constitution score.I think this is open and shut: a dead character must have a 0 CON or, no matter how he died must have negative HP = to his CON score. Period. By these parts of the RAW.Are you saying the 'or less than' clause never applies due to the text in the 'dead' section, and that no matter how much damage you do to someone's body Breath of Life will always work?
He can only hit the "less than" clause if he actually takes damage represented by a number of HP large enough to reduce his HP to a negative value less than his -CON.
If he doesn't take numerical damage (coup de grace or other death attacks), there is no practical way to assign a -X value if X can be anything from -CON to -Infinity. With infinite possibilities, X becomes meaningless. A meaningless rule is no rule. Therefore, the only possible thing the rules give us is that that would not be meaningless is that we don't set the HP of a creature killed by coup de grace to -X; we must use -CON.
So either the rule is meaningless or the correct answer is -CON. I see no other way to interpret it.
We keep track of hitpoints in our games, even after death...
For... reasons.
I think at one point we calculated what it would take to totally pulverize a corpse to the point where it couldn't offer cover anymore... maybe.
It wasn't just negative CON.
Of course, my group treats hitpoints as 'meatpoints', not as the ability to dodge blows and such...
Some GMs would rule that a successful Disintegrate spell, or maybe even hacking off the head of a helpless character with a big axe, does reduce you to negative infinity hit points and Breath of Life cannot help you...
Some GMs would rule that a successful Disintegrate spell, or maybe even hacking off the head of a helpless character with a big axe, does reduce you to negative infinity hit points and Breath of Life cannot help you...
I would not contest a ruling like that, simply because those two things you described are death effects (actually, disintegrate isn't, but should probably be in that situation).