Coup de grace vs Death attack

[Clayton749]

Here is the situation.

The party sneaks in on an sleeping dragon, using stealth and silence. On on the characters who is large delivers a coup de grace on the dragon.

DM says that it doesn't kill it because the dragon is immune to death effects.

Question: Is a coup de grace a death effect as stated in the immunity?

2 sides:

#1 Yes, the dragon lives.

#2 No, it dies.

The rule book states...

Death Attacks

In most cases, a death attack allows the victim a Fortitude save to avoid the affect, but if the save fails, the character dies instantly.

* Raise dead doesn’t work on someone killed by a death attack.
* Death attacks slay instantly. A victim cannot be made stable and thereby kept alive.
* In case it matters, a dead character, no matter how she died, has -10 hit points.
* The spell death ward protects a character against these attacks.

I'm pretty certain that you could raise someone who died from a coup de grace... And on the other hand a spell like Death Ward wouldn't protect you against one...

Does anyone have a reference that would clear the situation? Otherwise, it's almost a TPK (total party killer).

Thanks for any input.

[remoh]

What kind of Dragon? I do not see any in the PRD with immunity to death effects.

Also, a dragon has scent and blindsight. The should be able to detect a fighter trying to sneak up to it.

[Clayton749]

Oups! Sorry... The dragon in question is an Umbral Dragon.

[Tarlane]

I think your DM was off on this one. Coup de'grace seems to work more off the critical hit rules than the death effect ones and never refers to itself as a death effect. There is a similarity in it having a fort save for death, but it is caused by a precision of attack. This ruling would also imply that things like massive damage are death effects as well, which I think would have a much bigger impact on gameplay than the loss of a single enemy would be because the PCs employed careful tactics.

Looking under coup de'grace, it does explicitly say that creatures immune to critical hits are immune to them, so I would just treat this as a precision damage mechanic.

[Clayton749]

I don't want to toot my own horn but that was my argument... If the dragon had an immunity to critical hits there would be no argument.

His argument is in saying that the dragon's huge and the Coup de grace comes form a striker of another size (not huge), and that undead are immune to death attacks and critical hits...

[Ice Titan]

Clayton749 wrote:

I don't want to toot my own horn but that was my argument... If the dragon had an immunity to critical hits there would be no argument.

His argument is in saying that the dragon's huge and the Coup de grace comes form a striker of another size (not huge), and that undead are immune to death attacks and critical hits...

Undead are immune to death attacks because they are already dead.

If you took a sword and stuck it into a zombie's brain case and rattled it around it wouldn't disrupt any of the magic used to keep the zombie reanimated and it definitely wouldn't inconvenience the zombie's attempts to eat you. You'd have to chop it up into bits or break its body to pieces to get it to stop attacking.

Undead also aren't immune to critical hits. Too bad the Umbral Dragon isn't... undead.

If you think something that's 1/3rd your size can't kill you, think again. If your cat had an inch long dagger he could sneak up and cut your throat with it. Your size doesn't make the creature less powerful-- that's what it's DR x/magic is there to simulate.

Anyways, this entire argument is moot. Dragons have blindsight and so even though he was asleep and your pal was under silence, the dragon automatically notices the moment he gets in range of the blindsight.

Blindsight makes concealment (eyes closed, asleep) irrelevant to the creature. You need concealment to stealth. Therefore, the moment he got within-- let me check my copy of Skeletons of Scarwall-- 60ft., unless he spent the entire time completely out of line of sight before five-foot stepping into a coup de grace, the dragon immediately could notice and choose to wake up.

You win some you lose some.

EDIT: He's also immune to sleep. Why would he be asleep? ><

[Drejk]

Quote:

If you think something that's 1/3rd your size can't kill you, think again. If your cat had an inch long dagger he could sneak up and cut your throat with it. Your size doesn't make the creature less powerful-- that's what it's DR x/magic is there to simulate.

And cat-sized dog can kill you if it manage to bite and get hold on your throat.

Quote:

Anyways, this entire argument is moot. Dragons have blindsight and so even though he was asleep and your pal was under silence, the dragon automatically notices the moment he gets in range of the blindsight.

These times dragons mostly have blindsense instead of blindsight (I don't know if Umbral Dragon has blindsense or blindsight or lack of revision from 3.5 to PF).

Still it should be capable of awakening before sneaked upon and spoil the coup d'grace in "critical" moment.

Quote:

EDIT: He's also immune to sleep. Why would he be asleep? ><

This is dragon. How could it not sleep on its treasure?

Immunity to sleep means dragon cannot be forced to fall asleep by outside means, and does not have to prevent from sleeping. In case of elves it was long standing tradition that D&D elves do not sleep and instead mditate.