what is the AC of an downed player? We had a player charge get hit hard and drop his HP down to -1. the monster is a hungry and wants to continue to eat him.
he is wearing scale male so should his AC be 15 to hit? or is there some rule I am missing. I figure it should be easy to bite a guy who is lying unconscious in front of me.
A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (–5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target).
So not only does your PC have a -5 modifier to his AC, but the monster also gets a +4 bonus to hit him.
So if all he has is scale mail, then his effective AC would be:
10 + 5(armor) - 5(0 Dex) = 10.
Think of the AC bonus from the scale mail armor as being kind of like trying to open shellfish...
Essentially, a helpless creature (which is what happens when you are unconscious) has an effective Dexterity of 0. So that means a -5 penalty to AC and Reflex saves. The attacker also gets a +4 attack bonus. This doesn't stack with the target being prone.
Said character would have an effective AC of 10, so yes, even a commoner with a club could hit him more often than not.
That said, you should probably be careful with attacks like this. Probably just stick to a coup de grace and give other PC's a chance to retaliate via AoO. Just straight up killing PC's like that is usually not the first move of a monster who is currently still being threatened by other creatures.
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*silently climbs back up the drain pipe and disappears over the roof*
A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (–5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target).So not only does your PC have a -5 modifier to his AC, but the monster also gets a +4 bonus to hit him.
So if all he has is scale mail, then his effective AC would be:
10 + 5(armor) - 5(0 Dex) = 10.
Think of the AC bonus from the scale mail armor as being kind of like trying to open shellfish...
well I was much more generous. Thanks that is what I need.
what is the AC of an downed player? We had a player charge get hit hard and drop his HP down to -1. the monster is a hungry and wants to continue to eat him.he is wearing scale male so should his AC be 15 to hit? or is there some rule I am missing. I figure it should be easy to bite a guy who is lying unconscious in front of me.
Just for completeness sakes, a helpless character is also vulnerable to Coup De Grace.
The monster eating the downed PC would be handled as a coupe de grace
If an intelligent wanted to really kill a PC a coup-de-grace might be reasonable. Of course, if they were threatened they would know not to do it since it provokes and instead you take another attack to kill the guy and then stab his friend(s) too.
Animals...I don't know if animals really know to perform a coup-de-grace or would just keep attacking regularly.
Eh...sometimes PCs die. As long as the player has an option to swiftly get back their character (if they want it) then I don't pull punches.
Sometimes this means dropping scrolls of raise dead like candy with the fallen enemy. The good news is, this justifies when you want to resurrect a fallen enemy if they're having a lot of scrolls of raise dead.
Hungry monster's INT score comes into play here, barring a line in its tactics stating that it will go for a kill regardless of other threats. It could attempt to snatch up the character and drag 'em off to its lair for comfy eating...
The creature's INT will determine whether or not it understands that a coup de grace provokes an AOO or not. INT 2? Wouldn't matter at all, since it would largely expect the rest of the "herd" to run off since it's clear he's settling down with his meal.
The creature's INT will determine whether or not it understands that a coup de grace provokes an AOO or not. INT 2? Wouldn't matter at all, since it would largely expect the rest of the "herd" to run off since it's clear he's settling down with his meal.
Animals aren't necessarily that stupid. Plenty of predators still feel threatened by the presence of humans so it's hard to say exactly what they would do.
They might try to start eating, they might try to carry their catch back to their lair.
They might make sure it's dead and continue working on other threats.
The only thing I really believe is that an animal wouldn't peform a coup.
Whether the animal would start eating the character would depend on the situation. That isn't really the question. If the rest of the party had fled, if the character had been separated from the party, or any other scenario where the monster is not threatened and the PC is unconscious it could happen.
If an animal starts to eat a PC I think it should be handled as a coup de grace, not that the monster is deliberately trying to perform one but the effect of a monster spending a full round doing nothing but trying to rip off as much of your flesh as it can should have about the same effect.