I'd take the "they cannot die as long as their regeneration is still functioning" literal and say "no, Deadly Finish can't do that".
Which is a bit of a pity since there are only few, quite situational applications for that feat anyway, unless I miss something major.
I disagree with SheepishEidolon, It's not hitpoint damage so it isn't regenerated.
A creature with this ability is difficult to kill. Creatures with regeneration heal damage to themselves at a fixed rate, as with fast healing, but they can’t die as long as their regeneration is still functioning (although creatures with regeneration still fall unconscious when their hit points are below 0). Certain damage types, typically acid and fire, cause a creature’s regeneration to stop functioning on the round following the attack. During this round, the creature does not heal any damage and can die normally. The creature’s descriptive text describes the types of damage that cause the regeneration to cease functioning.
Attacks that don’t deal hit point damage are not healed by regeneration. Regeneration also does not restore hit points lost from starvation, suffocation, or thirst. Regenerating creatures can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts if they are brought together within 1 hour of severing. Severed parts that are not reattached wither and die normally.
A creature must have a Constitution score to have the regeneration ability.
Format: regeneration 5 (acid, fire)
Location: hp.
Deadly Finish is not a separate attack. It is an additional effect on an attack. The attack actually does HP damage and the saving throw is based on that amount.
Benefit: When you hit with a melee attack and reduce your opponent to –1 or fewer hit points, you can force that opponent to succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 15 + the damage your attack dealt) or die.
Since the attack that triggered Deadly Finish did in fact do HP damage it can be regenerated.
But the fort-save vs death isn't hp damage.
It's more-or-less the same wording as a COUP DE GRACE, would that allow regeneration? I always understood that it didn't, but if I'm wrong about that one I guess I'd be wrong about this one.
If regeneration was that easy to overcome it would make things like trolls a lot weaker. Now instead of worrying about having fire or acid all you need to do is to slit a trolls throat while they are unconscious.
Pretty much, I thought that's how it works?
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Pretty much, I thought that's how it works?
When you die you go to -con. Perfectly healable by regeneration.
Regeneration (Ex)
Source Bestiary 6 pg. 297, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary pg. 303, Bestiary 2 pg. 300, Bestiary 3 pg. 298, Bestiary 4 pg. 298, Bestiary 5 pg. 298A creature with this ability is difficult to kill. Creatures with regeneration heal damage to themselves at a fixed rate, as with fast healing, but they can’t die as long as their regeneration is still functioning (although creatures with regeneration still fall unconscious when their hit points are below 0). Certain damage types, typically acid and fire, cause a creature’s regeneration to stop functioning on the round following the attack. During this round, the creature does not heal any damage and can die normally. The creature’s descriptive text describes the types of damage that cause the regeneration to cease functioning.
Attacks that don’t deal hit point damage are not healed by regeneration. Regeneration also does not restore hit points lost from starvation, suffocation, or thirst. Regenerating creatures can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts if they are brought together within 1 hour of severing. Severed parts that are not reattached wither and die normally.
A creature must have a Constitution score to have the regeneration ability.
Format: regeneration 5 (acid, fire)
Location: hp.
As written, if the regeneration is working, the creature doesn't even need to roll the save at all when hit by deadly finish, as it can't die and so it can't fail the save.
Like SheepishEidolon and the others, I understand that both Deadly Finish and Coup de Grâce are add-ons to attacks that deal damage and said add-ons are without effect if the carrier attack does no damage - due to DR for example.
Except that the fort-save-vs-death isn't dealing HP damage, it's a save-or-die effect.
Take the spell SUFFOCATION as an example. This isn't dealing HP damage, and will kill a creature with Regeneration if they fail the save. The save takes them to -1HP (and then -CON HP), but this isn't HP damage, it's the suffocation status effect (or something).
What makes Deadly Finish different to this?
(I'm not trying to press a point here, I'm genuinely confused)
Poorly written rules.
Deadly Finish has no meaning without an attack that deals damage and as such does not override Regeneration.
Suffocation stands alone, without any damage needed for it to take place.
Deadly Finish on an attack that deals 0 damage doesn't happen, making it dependent on damage. The attack has to deal damage for Deadly Finish to happen. Deadly Finish isn't independent from the attack, it is part of it, Regeneration applies to the attack, as it dealt damage, so it applies to Deadly Finish.
(No worry, I for one assume good faith on your behalf and I am willing to have my mind changed about my understanding of the rules. For this to happen, push back against my views is a necessary step^^)
I feel that Deadly Finish is closer to Coup de Grace than to suffocation. While there are a lot of detail differences to Coup de Grace (action type, provoking of AOO, DC formula, reach, crit etc.), at its core it's the same: You finish off a target that is already dying, and it is entitled to a (often hopeless) Fortitude save. I am aware that this is no hard rules argument.
You could also address it from a game balance point of view: Deadly Finish (level 11+ feat) can finish off a pit fiend (CR 20). Sounds amazing, but is quite situational (there are not that many high level creatures with regeneration) and it could be done with some spells also (if any caster has them at hand). So the feat seems to be fine with that power.
There is also the flavor perspective: The feat promises to turn you into more of a killer. If it can deal with regenerating creatures, it much more lives up to this expectation. Stage it right, and the player feels quite empowered, despite little mechanical difference. I'd count that as another non-rules argument to allow it.
Yeah the only uses I can think of for this feat are fighting Trolls or fighting Orcs . Unless your campaign is completely focused on them it seems like a pretty situational feat. Taking Trolls out of the equation makes it even more situational.
I think I get what you're saying about it not working - because the save-or-die effect is a part of an attack that does hitpoint damage it can be healed as per the part I bolded above. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it might be a RAW argument . I guess the RAI of Regeneration probably seems like even an especially amazing sword-thrust shouldn't stop them regenerating , although I'd have thought the RAI of Deadly Finish might supercede that.
You're probably right, but I don't like it =P
If so I can't imagine ever taking this feat , but hey I guess it's an option.
EDIT: I used too many brackets, so I edited it to make it a little more legible.
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Except that the fort-save-vs-death isn't dealing HP damage, it's a save-or-die effect.
Take the spell SUFFOCATION as an example. This isn't dealing HP damage, and will kill a creature with Regeneration if they fail the save. The save takes them to -1HP (and then -CON HP), but this isn't HP damage, it's the suffocation status effect (or something).
What makes Deadly Finish different to this?
(I'm not trying to press a point here, I'm genuinely confused)
Natural regeneration is not meant to replace the need for nourishment, rest, air, and so on, so it doesn't heal the damage they deal.
Similarly, it doesn't heal negative damage, stat damage and drain, death effects, and similar effects.But at the same time the creatures with it "can’t die as long as their regeneration is still functioning" (verbatim).
Strictly RAW a creature with regeneration, if the regeneration isn't stopped, will stay a desiccated husk in a state of almost death forever after it has reached -con hp or a value of 0 in constitution if all the damage was dealt by effects that it can't regenerate.
A more common-sense interpretation is that if the creature is brought to the point of death by effects that it can't regenerate, it dies.
But Deadly finish hasn't an effect that can't be regenerated. It simply gets the target to -con. Nothing in the feat description says that it stops regeneration, so regeneration is working and prevent the creature from dying.
Regeneration and Deadly finish are both rule sources for themselves and have no text on how they interact, so you need to decide what effect trumps the other.
A feat generally is a more generic rule than a monster's ability, so unless the feat text explains how it trumps a monster's ability, the monster's ability will work normally.
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Yeah the only uses I can think of for this feat are fighting Trolls or fighting Orcs . Unless your campaign is completely focused on them it seems like a pretty situational feat. Taking Trolls out of the equation makes it even more situational.
If you fight people with healers that can revive the guy you downed.
As a form of signature finish in performance combat.To be sure that the guys with fast healing stay dead (BTW, probably the most useful function of the feat).
To kill the guy with the contingency "as soon as I go to 0 or less hp I will be teleported to a safe place".
It is a very situational feat, but there are plenty of situational feats.
I know that some people don't care about that, but think if it will be useful for an enemy fighting a PC.
If you go to 0 or negative hp but not too low a friendly healer can easily bring you to positive hp after the battle. If you die he needs to use immediately Breath of life or Raise dead/Resurrection later.
While deadly finish is very situational it is not completely useless. Its main use is not to take out you opponent, but rather to make sure that anything you take out stays taken out. If your goal is to kill your targets rather than just disable them this feat can be a big help. Most player characters are more concerned with taking down the target than actually killing them.
This is a very good feat for an assassin type character. With it I have a good chance of outright killing any target I manage to take down to -1 HP.
The strange thing about the feat is that it is actually more useful against powerful characters that it is against low powered characters. It is actually more useful in a mythic campaign than a standard campaign. Mythic characters are not killed until they reach double their CON in negative HP. This mean most mythic characters are not killed until they are in the high 20’s or higher of negative damage.
But Deadly finish hasn't an effect that can't be regenerated. It simply gets the target to -con.
You're making a leap here that doesn't scan.
DEADLY FINISH doesn't take you to -CON, it takes you to DEAD. Being Dead takes you to -CON (among other things), but that's a seperate step. This is the disconnect between how you and I see the feat I think.
I would liken Deadly Finish to coup de grace, and say just as I wouldn't allow a coup de grace to kill a troll (need to suppress regen) deadly finish wont work either.
The problem with the feat is that 9/10 times you have time to do a coup-de-grace after the fight if you really want to make sure they're dead. If you don't have the time to do that then perhaps you should have taken another feat that would have helped you deal more damage (which helps you win the fight AND keep them dead) or survive more hits yourself (which helps you win the fight AND potentially gives you more tome to keep them dead).
I'm not saying it's totally useless, just ... not very good. In a campaign against Orcs it looks pretty great.
I would liken Deadly Finish to coup de grace, and say just as I wouldn't allow a coup de grace to kill a troll (need to suppress regen) deadly finish wont work either.
I agree, it's worded almost exactly like Coup-De-Grace. If I'm wrong about that then I'm wrong about this.
Rules wise I'm not sure on coup de grace vs regeneration, but narratively the idea of cutting someone's throat or stabbing them through the heart/brain would be a coup de grace, but those wouldn't (in my mind) stop regeneration from doing it's thing.
It'd be weird if I could somehow pulverize a troll by dropping a big heavy block such that there's just a meat paste left, and a troll can regenerate from that but not from someone stabbing it in the heart/brain.
I can see uses to the feat but they are narrow, making it a not interesting feat at all.
I can imagine feat-starved cleric channelling positive energy to heal the group during the last round of combat to prevent a team-mate from falling while focussing fire on the last opponent without the previously eliminated ones getting up.
I would not use this as a G.M. on my players unless I have conveyed the idea of the N.P.C. having it beforehand.
Honestly, I haven't had much experience where a cleric's channel (even one without selective channel) caused an enemy to get back up.
Typically, once you've gotten past the first 5 levels, everyone is dealing so much damage that typically enemies are going from conscious to outright dead (hp < -con). Especially since in many cases there is a chance that a hit, besides the last hit, is the one that drops an enemy. If no other enemy is adjacent it's trivial to say that you take another swing against the unconscious prone enemy which will almost certainly deal enough damage to render them actually dead.
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But Deadly finish hasn't an effect that can't be regenerated. It simply gets the target to -con.You're making a leap here that doesn't scan.
DEADLY FINISH doesn't take you to -CON, it takes you to DEAD. Being Dead takes you to -CON (among other things), but that's a seperate step. This is the disconnect between how you and I see the feat I think.
The status of "dead" is -con hp, unless something put lower than that. And regeneration, if working, protect you from the status of dead.
You are equating the death effects with the status dead.
Look at your citation:
"When your character’s current hit points drop to a negative amount equal to his Constitution score or lower,"
hit point damage, curable by regeneration
"or if he succumbs to massive damage, he’s dead."
stopped by "can’t die as long as their regeneration is still functioning"
"A character can also die from taking ability damage or suffering an ability drain that reduces his Constitution score to 0 (see Appendix 1)."
not an effect of Deadly finish.
You simply refuse to accept the specific text of regeneration "can’t die as long as their regeneration is still functioning". You don't like it, fine. But "I don't like it" isn't a rule argument.
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Honestly, I haven't had much experience where a cleric's channel (even one without selective channel) caused an enemy to get back up.
I keep track of the enemies' hp and roll to see if they stabilize and survive. It isn't so rare.
A buffer of 12 hp of more between disabled and down and dead is large enough that it can matter.Doing more damage doesn't really change that, going 120/70/20/-30 kill you, while you can survive 120/59/-2.
Generally, my players check if the enemies are alive after a fight and decide what to do, depending on the kind of enemy. One of the cantrips I keep memorized is Stabilize and I have used it to keep downed enemies alive.