Hi all.
OK, a second party I am running through the Savage Tide, and I've come into a sleight predicament. Here is what has happened so far.
It is late afternoon, and the party saw the pirates loading the animals, ready for the smuggling trip. The paladin and rogue managed to intimidate their way to Vark, and together tried to spook him into handing the ship over. This failed, and the paladin attacked before anyone else could react. The battle raged, the party split at opposite ends of the 200-foot pier. Eventually, the rogue and paladin killed off Vark, but a pirate forced the rogue back to the very edge of the pier. There, the rogue was knocked into unconciousness (-1 hp).
Now, my dilemma occurs. The pirate has a perfect opportunity to coup de grace the rogue, but would he? His captain is no longer around to boss him about, but the characters threatened his life. Would these thugs be willing to kill if not under orders?
Any insight would be great
Chris
I'd say no. Have him grab anything of value in the rogue's pockets, then take off. After all, you don't wanna be wanted for murder and there's no boss telling you that you've gotta take this guy down. Beyond that, he likely just saw Vark get offed, so his best plan would be to get away from someone who could do that fast.
~ Bryon ~
I me Coup de Grace is a pretty cold blooded thing to do, something even relatively evil character wouldn't normally do. So I'd say no.
I wouldn't go out of my way to kill one of the PCs either. It's tough enough that he got dropped and could die anyway, but de grace would just be you wanting his character dead.
If you need to rationalize it, realize that the PC doesn't have HP # floating over his head, so once he goes down, all the smuggler knows is that he stabbed him and he went down in a pull of blood. Without any game mechanic knowledge, there's no reason he would stab him again.
Imagine his surprise if the PC encounters him again later! For flavor, I rule that any character who goes negative gets a scar from the attack. Let him see the scoundrel that disfigured him in a tavern somewhere and see the sparks fly.
Hi all.
Cheers. Maybe even suggesting coup de grace was a bad move ;) but it's a threat to the PCs...
Anyway, a quick qestion on stabilisation, while I'm here. He just stabilised, so does he no longer need to stabilise, or what? Any help would be great, and fast help would be greater ;)
Cheers
Chris
Hi all.
Cheers. Maybe even suggesting coup de grace was a bad move ;) but it's a threat to the PCs...
Anyway, a quick qestion on stabilisation, while I'm here. He just stabilised, so does he no longer need to stabilise, or what? Any help would be great, and fast help would be greater ;)
Cheers
Chris
A quick quote from the SRD on Stabilization:
"A character who was dying but who has stopped losing hit points and still has negative hit points is stable. The character is no longer dying, but is still unconscious. If the character has become stable because of aid from another character (such as a Heal check or magical healing), then the character no longer loses hit points. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious and disabled (even though his hit points are still negative).
If the character became stable on his own and hasn’t had help, he is still at risk of losing hit points. Each hour, he has a 10% chance of becoming conscious and disabled. Otherwise he loses 1 hit point."
So it depends on whether he stabilized on his own, or if somebody else stabilized him. Either way, he should be fine until the end of the encounter as long as he takes no more damage from anything.
Hope that helps!
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
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Back to original Q...I don't think they would do a coup de grace either. Remember that Vark is the assistant harbormaster, and as such is somewhat of a recognized city official. His men, therefore, while obviously not the fine upstanding citizens you'd hope for, would still not be the worst of the worst, I would think. Animal smuggling for a quick buck, sure. Killing a helpless person with little to gain and much to lose? I just don't see it.
As for stabilization, I don't remember anything like what the Dalesman has said. I thought that once you stabilized, you stopped losing hit points, and just stayed where you were (at -3 or whatever) until you were healed. And I thought you stayed unconscious until you got to 0 or higher. All of this, I thought, was regardless of how the stabilization took place. What source were you quoting?
In practice, what it usually means in game is that you stop losing HP and stay at -3 or whatever until the Cleric can come over to you can cast a healing spell, or give you a healing potion or something.
As for stabilization, I don't remember anything like what the Dalesman has said. I thought that once you stabilized, you stopped losing hit points, and just stayed where you were (at -3 or whatever) until you were healed. And I thought you stayed unconscious until you got to 0 or higher. All of this, I thought, was regardless of how the stabilization took place. What source were you quoting?
Hi FDW!
I wasn't near my PHB, so I went to the Hypertext d20 SRD for that quote:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#stable
They're usually spot on with the rules from my experience, but it never hurts to check the books to make sure. I'll try to do that when I get home.
In all truth, I just play it as "when you're stabilized, you're stabilized" just as you wrote. I just wanted to give OrcMonk the 'official' documentation (assuming that it was correct, of course).
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
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Well, it is certainly worth looking into. I was posting from work, so I didn't have any source material in front of me either.
I will have a look tomorrow evening when I'm doing my adventure planning time, to see if I can find the exact wording...if you come across it sooner, then by all means enlighten me. :)
Okay - I just did some checking, and the information from the SRD does appear to be accurate. To quote the relevant bits from Page 146 of the PHB:
"A stable character who has been tended by a healer or who has been magically healed eventually regains consciousness and recovers hit points naturally. If the character has no one to tend to him, however, his life is still in danger, and he may yet slip away.
Recovering with Help:
One hour after a tended,dying character becomes stable roll d%. He has a 10% chance of becoming conscoius, at which point he is disabled (as if he had 0 hit points). If he remains unconscious, he has the same chance to revive and become disabled every hour. Even if unconscious, he recovers hit points naturally. He is back to normal when his hit points rise to 1 or higher.
Recovering without Help:
...A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing..."
Whew...well it's good to know I'm not spreading disinformation. That just wouldn't be proper :P
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
If the NPC is near the end of the dock where he just dropped the rogue and is desperately trying to get away from the paladin I'd have him shove the rogue into the water. I am not sure if the PC would start losing HPs again (I don't think so but don't have books handy) but it would cause the paladin to make a decision about who to go after. My money is on the rogue which allows the NPC to make a hasty escape.
Just a thought.
My players sometimes wonder about that too, if they get below 0 hp, why don't the bad guys just coup de grace them? It's very simple, as long as there are other oponents about, that's who you focus on. If someone is below 0, he'll die by himself anyhow, or you can kill him when you've won the fight. The PCs always play by these rules, so why shoudn't the NPCs do the same? First take out the threat, then finish off any leftovers.
A CDG is a very methodical, delibrate attempt to end another person's life. It's not swinging a bat at someone's head, even if they're unconcious on the floor while you do it; it's putting your foot down on their chest, and hauling back for the strongest swing you've got, so that even if the cranial damage doesn't do them in, the impact should break their neck regardless. Sorry if that's overly graphic, but I figure anything that takes 6 seconds (full round action) and involves as much concentration and precision as loading and winding a heavy crossbow (provokes attacks of opp) isn't just "I stand over him and stab him".
Consider that against a human commoner, even a dagger in the hands of another human commoner does 2-8 (average 5) points of damage, and threatens a fort save the other commoner will fail on most rolls (12-18, average 15). Depending on where he fell into the negatives, the damage alone could kill him, much less the fortitude save. Anything with a decent strength mod or a bigger weapon has a very solid chance of simply slaying outright a creature with a CDG. Battleaxe 3d8, Greatsword 4d6, Scythe 8d4, all before other damage mods.
This is part of the reason I add a character's fortitude save to their "death threshold". It keeps the mages fragile still, but means that at higher levels characters don't suddenly go from "roughed up but okay" to "true dead" in one hit. In the end, the mage has to go to negative 15 or so, and the fighter holds out till negative 25. If anything, my players have gotten more thrill from being at knocked clear to -24 and stabilizing than from simply being dead after the hit. Your mileage may vary; feel free to yoink.