What's stopping people from casting Hold Person and just slitting the victim's throat...

What's stopping people from casting Hold Person and just slitting the victim's throat? Why do you have to roll for the attack? It's not like the guy's going anywhere!

DnD is literally a videogame, your character is performing an attack animation whenever you declare you are taking the attack action.

if you crit and dont kill a humanoid either you or your dm is playing the game badly.

The guy is wearing full plate armour, there are other warriors attempting to attack you, you are harried and tired yourself and are focusing on an intricate arcane spell.

Succesfully slit his throat, you have six seconds.

If you attack a character under the influence of hold person that should trigger the coup de grace rule. If there are other opponents around this does trigger an attack of opportunity.

Basically yes, you should be able to insta-gib most people under the influence of such a spell.

the fuck are you on about? Hold Person makes the target Paralyzed, Paralysis, in addition to a bunch of other stuff, makes the target Helpless. You can Coup de Grace a helpless target, forcing a ton of damage and potentially killing in one hit.

So yes, you can walk up and slit the person' s throat, and that will kill most people. In dndvers, though, there are people who can survive a stab wound to the throat, either through magic, extraordinary luck, or just raw toughness; I guarantee I've seen this exact thing in a Schwarzenegger movie once where the villain gets stabbed in the neck, then still summons the fury to bring his gun up so the good guy has to blow him away with a grenade launcher or whatever.

So you agree if the guy is alone and unarmored you can just kill him off without rolling?

Here's the SRD rules as written.
SRD: Helpless Defenders

A helpless opponent is someone who is bound, sleeping, paralyzed, unconscious, or otherwise at your mercy.

Regular Attack
A helpless character takes a –4 penalty to AC against melee attacks, but no penalty to AC against ranged attacks.

A helpless defender can’t use any Dexterity bonus to AC. In fact, his Dexterity score is treated as if it were 0 and his Dexterity modifier to AC as if it were –5 (and a rogue can sneak attack him).

Coup de Grace
As a full-round action, you can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless opponent. You can also use a bow or crossbow, provided you are adjacent to the target.

You automatically hit and score a critical hit. If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die. A rogue also gets her extra sneak attack damage against a helpless opponent when delivering a coup de grace.

Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents.

You can’t deliver a coup de grace against a creature that is immune to critical hits. You can deliver a coup de grace against a creature with total concealment, but doing this requires two consecutive full-round actions (one to “find” the creature once you’ve determined what square it’s in, and one to deliver the coup de grace).

What is stopping you from learning the rules? What is stopping you from not posting bait? Nothing, and yet here you are.

So you can cut someone's throat and have them survive it? Bullshit. Dead is dead, you gotta use your judgement instead of looking at rules.

Dead is dead, it's just that in this specific system, it is entirely possible for people or monsters to be tough enough that it doesn't kill them. Like a dragon- how are you going to be able to slit its throat with just a dagger? Even if it's helpless, there's still so much meat in the way you'dd need someone with a proper executioners weapon to reliably kill it in that situation.

with a normal dagger and strength 12 that Coup de Grace does 7 damage and thus makes a dc 17 save or die. That is more hp then a run of the mill commoner has, thus they will bleed to death slow even if they past the save. Their change to past that save is only 20% aways. If that Coup de Grace is done by someone has power attack, sneak attack, a good strength score, and or a powefull magic weapon the save dc range enter a 'good luck' area for anyone who is not a monster or a very high level character.

I'm talking about humanoid creatures.
Doesn't matter if it's a peasant or lvl 20 barbarian king, I'm not gonna roll dice to see they survive since my reason tells me 'no way in hell'.

Well, I just got done watching a horror movie that involved the bad guy getting stabbed in the throat and still surviving another 10 minutes to try and kill the protagonist; I'm not saying it is realistic, but it's important to distinguish between genre fidelity and realism.

Also, I feel it's important to note that many characters will be dealing enough damage to prompt a save well over 20+, effectively meaning most NPCs or PCs would die, only the extraordinarily tough would live, and what do you really expect to happen when you try to assassinate a level 20 badass in their sleep? They're gonna throttle you before they go out.

Your reasoning is that a peasant and a barbarian king are both the same.

Hell, the barbarian king has literal damage reduction. He is literally as tough as wood.

One particularly good example I can think of is an episode of Black Sails where Jack Rackham fights Captain Harcourt. He throws a drink in Harcourt's face and initiates the fight by surprise, he manages to cut Harcourt's throat (although he doesn't know how well) and almost gets killed by Harcourt... when Harcourt's blood loss catches up to him and he falls over dead.

The Coup de Grace rules make total sense. One full round of combat is six second, and some people survive some pretty nasty wounds (including having their throat slit) for a few minutes before they really die. Not to mention people have survived having their throat slit all the time. I see no reason why a barbarian king has to immediately die if you try and slit his throat if combat is still ongoing.

Otherwise outside of combat I'm pretty sure 5e rules that "given infinite time, assume mundane tasks are successful." As in, if you're not running away or fighting etc., you can climb the ladder without a dex check, or break down the wooden door without testing strength. I'd argue the same thing applies with your executions.

As DM though I'd make my barbarian king something cool to do, maybe trying to curse you but gurgling blood instead as the magic wears off - as compared to a peasant, who just dies.

Yeah, given infinite time. This is why you don't have a rickety ladder unless there's also a time constraint so the party can't take 3 fucking days to work their way down to the next level

LUKE

user you can slit someone's throat in real life and odds are they'll be able to walk themselves to the hospital. It's one of the most common botched suicide methods. Turns out all the important shit is actually pretty deep in the neck, and it's most likely that one slice is just going to make you a mute. You need to cut a throat like you're sawing wood to actually kill someone.

Besides, slitting their throat isn't the most effective coup de grace. Why not try and stab through their eyesocket into their brain, or through their heart? Even with that stuff the coup de grace rules make plenty of sense, though.

>Hell, the barbarian king has literal damage reduction. He is literally as tough as wood.

His dr is /-, his is as tough as meteoric iron.

>Doesn't matter if it's a peasant or lvl 20 barbarian king, I'm not gonna roll dice to see they survive since my reason tells me 'no way in hell'.

The lvl 20 barbarian king has magic items to get his save math that high. His flesh is toughed via magic bonus's to con. The human limit of con is effectively 20 ( via level and put two points into it, even then it is one in a few million) and his is higher then 20. Because of that do not put a human frame of reference on the limits of what he can endure.

Even then if you are playing a character made to really do damage it is unlikely he will past that save. At best his fort save is a plus 24. Thus if you get the save DC to 44 or higher he can only past the saving throw on a 20. That is if the DM even uses the auto success on saving throws on a 20 rule for npcs. Thus 34 damage on a auto critical, which is not hard to do. A level 5 fighter can do that easy. To add to this you should almost never end up in combat against something with more then 8 PC level over you.

The Coup de Grace rules as they are there for two reasons. One to limit just how screwed the party is in the even of successful night time attack. Two to limit how good casters are. Even on the second reason it benefits the players more then it hurts them because NPC casters are a thing.

So yes the cleric may have issues doing a one round kill via Coup de Grace on a hold person victim. Hold person last more then one round just do it again.

> since my reason tells me 'no way in hell'.
Actual evidence proves your reason wrong. People can and do survive things like getting their throat slit. This guy, for example.

Empiricism beats rationalism.

His DR still maxes at 5/-, or effectively 5 hardness, ie. that of wood.

Still, fucker's tough.

Go up to a tree and try to slit its trunk with a knife and see how far it goes. Basically, if you're playing above 3rd level, you can stop wishing for soft skinned barbarians.

If you want low HP, easy kills, that's what the low levels are for. There's even entire variant called E4 built around that idea.

> I'm not gonna roll dice to see they survive since my reason tells me 'no way in hell'.
So you're claiming that it is literally impossible to fuck up? Because that's why you roll. To see if you do it right or you fuck up and the guy manages to survive. Your reason seem to ignore the fact that people are imperfect some of the time.

Depends on the edition.

I'm not just being sarcastic here, mind you - Hold Person is one of those spells that REALLY changed throughout the editions. For instance, did you know that in OD&D Hold Person is basically just a mass short-duration Charm Person (with Charm being more like the modern Dominate)?
So if you wanted to, I suppose you could just have them slit their own throats.

Some other examples:
>1E does not specifically mention anything AFAICT, but just immobilizes the targets and 'freezes them in place'.
>2E is similar.
>3.5 makes them Paralyzed and thus Helpless, meaning you can Coup de Grace them - if they have enough hit points and a good enough save they may very well survive, though. Also leaves the target flat-footed, so sneak attacks galore.
>4E just has Hold Monster, which just "restrains" the target - they can't move or be moved and grant combat advantage, so you'll have an easier time slitting their throat but it's not quite as guaranteed (+2 to hit, may trigger backstab abilities et. al.)
>5E moves back to it paralyzing, which means attacks against it have advantage and insta-crit (i.e. +[W] damage) (may trigger backstab abilities etc. etc.)

>His DR still maxes at 5/-, or effectively 5 hardness, ie. that of wood.
Not quite - hardness has all kinds of other special qualities that makes it halve all damage before reducing it, for instance.

And works against energy damage as well, which damage reduction does fuck-all about.

hahahaha best post in the thread

If your opponent was vulnerable to a throat-knife, you wasted Hold Person, m8.

If he's powerful enough to justify spells, he's probably largely knife-resistant or even knife-immune.

ITT: OP demonstrates that he knows neither D&D rules nor real life rules, and should probably just stop posting. And then he does stop posting.
Great job everyone, tomorrow's call sheets are in your inbox.

The reason is that HP are not meat points and your character doesn't grow denser as they gain levels. HP abstracts many things, like stamina and morale and luck, and that's why it only matters in a fair combat situation where the character is able to act and react. Outside of combat anyone, regardless of their class or level, will die of a knife in the throat. It's like dying in a cutscene you know? Rolling dice is only for combat, out of combat you die because common sense and reason says so.

>The reason is that HP are not meat points
No one is falling for your bait 4rry

>Rolling dice is only for combat, out of combat you die because common sense and reason says so.
Spotted the grognard.

>Rolling dice is only for combat, out of combat you die because common sense and reason says so.
Says the d6 hit die 6 CON caster fag.

That's how we did halt undead, despite the fact that's not how it works I didn't say anything cause it was a really tough dungeon.

4e did it best IMO. Also what the fuck did 5e remove Coup De Grace?

>d6 hit die
>caster
Although I guess OD&D uses d6s for everyone, so this greentext is a bit of a moot point

Ayup. As far as I've been able to tell, "advantage to hit, auto-crit" is the CdG-equivalent. "Unconscious" also gives the same effect, for instance.

Compare and contrast to OD&D's "two free rounds of attacks against a sleeping dragon", 3E's "auto-hit + auto-crit + DC10+damage Fort save-or-die", 4E's "auto-crit on hit, insta-kill if more damage than bloodied value", and fuck if I'm going to go figure out what AD&D did.

5E's looks to be basically just 4e's except without the instakill clause? Just change combat advantage (+2 to-hit, can trigger certain powers) to advantage (2d20k1, can trigger certain class features).

"Bloodied", for those who don't know due to not giving a fuck about 4E or whatever, is generally just half your hit points. If you have 40hp, being below 20 means you're "bloodied". Certain effects care about others being bloodied (or yourself - boss-type enemies have a certain tendency to recharge powers when first bloodied), and in this case if someone knocked you unconscious they could instantly kill you by dealing 20+ damage on a crit. (Perhaps boosted by backstab-like abilities.)
As opposed to having to take you down to, what, -40hp? What was the instant death barrier in 4E, again?


For other editions, for reference:
>OD&D: instant death at 0hp
>1E: fuck if I remember, I think there was an optional rule to change it to -4hp?
>3E: instant death at -10hp
>Pathfinder: instant death at -CON hp
>5E: instant death at -hp hp

I know pathfinder uses D6's for some casters.

AD&D had the instant kill rule if the target was sleeping under magical compulsion.

>Uses up a spell slot
>The target gets a fairly easy save.
>The spell is usually limited to certain creature types (humanoid and monster versions)
>If it succeeds they usually get to roll another save every time they get hit by something.
>Most times you'll have more than 1 enemy attacking the party.

That's totally a thing you can do though. Hold Person explicitly makes someone helpless, so you can do whatever.

Also, could you make me a Will save real quick? No reason.

You forgot
>you aren't a cold blooded murdering piece of shit
and
>you have little to no expertise with a blade and/or knowledge of your enemy's anatomy

People have survived having their throat slit before; in a setting of high adventure it's not going to be *terribly* out of place even if it's not common.

Now, if it's a nameless goon, yeah, that should just be a one-and-done thing outside of extenuating circumstances. Like, if all you're doing is cutting a guy's throat in a round while they're helpless, there they go.

Can multiple player characters synchronize a coup-de-grace so it happens at the same time?

Depending on the weapons used and where they are, I believe up to four PCs can perform a coup-de-grace simultaneously.

When I'm running combat and the last guy is paralyzed, and the party basically has no other threat or time-limits or any other distractions, yeah I just let them auto-kill.

I impose the rules whenever it wouldn't be done cleanly; like if you try to assassinate King Conan when he's sleeping he probably wakes up last second and I just apply the rules as they are. Stuff like HP isn't just toughness but also like divine favor/luck/whatever

Because arcane spellcasters are so inept with blades they risk slitting their own wrist in the process.

So it's fine to be able to fist fight a dragon, but as soon as you stop paying attention you turn into an ordinary guy?

Y'all ever watched a beheading video? 6 seconds is more than enough to saw halfway through a grown man's neck.