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Sep 7, 2009 -- 10:38PM, PrimeSonic wrote:

Having a dominated creature coup-de-grace itself seems like an extremely effective use of the condition.

Being able to have a dominated creature attack itself seems like it could turn the condition into an insta-kill.

Is there any rule that keeps this from being exploited?

1. Dominated does not make the creature helpless, and as such, it cannot be the target of a coup de grace. You can have it attack itself, but it won't be a coup de grace.

2. Even assuming it crits itself (or coup de graces something else), it can only use Basic Attacks while Dominated, so it's not likely to do much damage anyways.

Sep 8, 2009 -- 1:20AM, PrimeSonic wrote:

Since I haven't seen anything in depth that says otherwise, I can't help but wonder if I could.

You have it backwards. It's the other way around:
"Unless you find something indicating otherwise, it cannot be done."

Again, coup de grace only works on helpless enemies that are adjacent to you. Since you are never your own enemy, nor ever adjacent to yourself (not to mention the fact that being dominated does not render you helpless), it truly cannot be done without some serious stretching and modification of the rules.

Sep 8, 2009 -- 12:35PM, PrimeSonic wrote:

Sep 8, 2009 -- 10:45AM, GalaGalaxia wrote:

You have it backwards. It's the other way around:

"Unless you find something indicating otherwise, it cannot be done."

See, that's kinda where I disagree.

"If the rules don't say you can't do something, you can."

All I'm saying is -- you cannot quote rule support in your desire to do something not covered by the rules. In this case, the rules do say how a coup de grace works. In fact, based on the rules, that is the only way to perform a coup de grace in the first place.

Now, you can argue that you should be able to do something not explicitly forbidden by the rules. Well, that's not how D&D works. In fact, that is not how any game works.

Player: I kill the BBEG with this straw of grass!
DM: But ... you can't! A straw of grass does not deal damage ... and the BBEG has like 1250 hit points ... and you would have to roll to attack ... and ...
Player: Do the rules say that I have to do that when attacking with a straw of grass? No. If the rules don't say you can't do something, you can.

Certainly, if the rules are silent on an issue, the DM is encouraged to make up rules and to allow creativity on the players' part. But this is not one of those cases. The rules are not silent on how a coup de grace works. The rules are quite explicit in describing how such an action is performed:
- target must be helpless
- target must be an enemy
- target must be adjacent to you

Of course you are free to do whatever you want in your group. But you cannot claim support by the rules simply because they do not come out and say: "You can't do that!"

For what it's worth -- how other games handle things is completely irrelevant to this discussion. In fact, it is even irrelevant how past editions handled things. D&D 4e is written thus:
- give rules for how things work, ignoring how things do not work (implying that if something is not stated as working, it does not work by the rules as written)
- give exceptions to those rules, when a specific situation calls for an exception to how the rules normally work (again, ignoring how things do not work)

Just because the rules say that a specific weapon deals 1d4 damage does not mean that you can roll 13d20s for damage, simply because "it did not say I can't".

Do you see the problem here?

If you want to rule otherwise in your game, feel free to do so. But please realize that anything without direct support by the rules is a house rule.