Our group is in the process of playing the revised version of the” Rise of the Runelords” A.P. and while fighting in the second level of the Thisletop dungeon the party was divided up due to the Yeth Hounds special howling attack. Well it ends up with the Barbarian meeting up with Lyrie Akenja at which point Lyrie casts a sleep spell on the Barbarian and he goes out. Well Lyrie tries a Coup de Grace on the Barbarian and I role two 1d4’s which both come up as 1’s (Lyrie’s damage is 1d4-1) minus the -1 per die leaves me with 1 hp of damage to the sleeping barbarian that has DR of 1.
My question is, in the spell it states slapping or doing damage to a sleeping creature wakes the creature up. With no damage being done do I deem the coup de grace attack as an equivalent of slapping, not to mention is slapping considered nonlethal damage and that is why a creature can be woken from this action?
PS. It states you can only do a coup de grace with a melee weapon and if so would that include a Druid's flame blade or are all spells incapable of doing this type of an attack.
If I understand it correctly, she in fact did 1 point of non-lethal damage (since if you do zero damage with an attack, it translates to 1 point non-lethal) which he reduced to zero through DR. Even then, the barbarian still has to pass a DC 10 fort save or die... for some reason (per the rules).
The idea is that the target is woken up by a physical event that should be able to wake up a person. I'd say stabbing them with a knife, even if it doesn't strictly do damage, is a physical act that should wake a sleeping person.
Flame blade is a spell that delivers melee touch attacks. By the strict interpretation of the rules, you must use a weapon to do a coup de grace; so no flame blades, scorching rays, burning hands, etc.
At least according to the rules as written.
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Strictly Raw, While the attack did no damage it is still a Coup de Grace and the barbarian need to roll a fort save. The barbarian would not wake up because he was dealt no damage and was not slapped awake (it's own standard action).
However for pure entertainments sake I would run this as the comedy of errors it is. No fort save required *as she raises her blade to plunge into your heart she closes her eyes. The blade slips off your exceptionally thick and sweaty skin and out of her hands. Lyrie Screams and runs from the room to get help*
Edit: It has also been ruled that weapon like spells (including flameblade) are treated as weapons. So, while you could not cast and Coup De Grace, because it is longer than instantaneous, you could cast and then next round use it to coup de grace
If I understand it correctly, she in fact did 1 point of non-lethal damage (since if you do zero damage with an attack, it translates to 1 point non-lethal) which he reduced to zero through DR. Even then, the barbarian still has to pass a DC 10 fort save or die... for some reason (per the rules).
The idea is that the target is woken up by a physical event that should be able to wake up a person. I'd say stabbing them with a knife, even if it doesn't strictly do damage, is a physical act that should wake a sleeping person.
Flame blade is a spell that delivers melee touch attacks. By the strict interpretation of the rules, you must use a weapon to do a coup de grace; so no flame blades, scorching rays, burning hands, etc.
At least according to the rules as written.
To make things even more interesting (comedy of errors) the barbarian in question is an Invulnerable Rager, which gives the DR double the nonlethal damage removed per actual DR.