In a playtest last night, the halfling rogue came upon a sleeping Ogre in his cave. Rolling a 17 (total 23) on his sneak meant it was impossible for the Ogre to detect him, even if it'd been awake. And Ambursher meant he could get all the way up to the Ogre and act without breaking that sneak.
Since the Ogre was asleep, all the rogue had to do was hit once (with advantage) to kill the Ogre, which he did.
While I have no problem rewarding the party for planning carefully and executing well, it means a creature of any strength and HP total could have been killed this way, provided the player can overcome the creature's perception and AC with advantage.
Is Coupe de Grace balanced as is? Would an automatic crit or reduction to 1/2 HP make more sense in terms of balance? Or is a successful sneak and hit enough to justify an instakill?
That's the reason to "make guard" while others sleep. If you're helpless and a guy try to cut your aorta (or stabs your heart)... you're dead. It's sure that in the Caves of Chaos there's a lot of perils and the ogres never sleept alone.
I love the rule now. We always house ruled it anyway. There have been numerous times where a player had an npc with blade at throat, then decide to kill them. Rules by the book said nope, even though you have a dagger at their throat you only do x damage. Made no sense.
So yes if you find a sleeping creature or person a line in the dark sleeping you should be able to kill them. Set up watch or noise traps.
Yeah, chalk this one up as a win on the rogue's part. Fight smarter not harder when you can. VERY old school. There are lots of ways to defeat a monster and this is one of them. The rogue exploited the ogre's weakness and made a bloody mess.
Similarly, I would award the monster's XP value to the rogue if he had simply stealthed in and walked out with the treasure without waking the ogre. The encounter, in that case, is defeated even if the ogre is still alive and happily snoring it up when it's over.
Yeah, chalk this one up as a win on the rogue's part. Fight smarter not harder when you can. VERY old school. There are lots of ways to defeat a monster and this is one of them. The rogue exploited the ogre's weakness and made a bloody mess.
Similarly, I would award the monster's XP value to the rogue if he had simply stealthed in and walked out with the treasure without waking the ogre. The encounter, in that case, is defeated even if the ogre is still alive and happily snoring it up when it's over.
I like this, although i would award the XP to the party, not just the Rogue- and it gives the opportunity for the Ogre to wake later and find them with his treasure, or not =)
Yeah, chalk this one up as a win on the rogue's part. Fight smarter not harder when you can. VERY old school. There are lots of ways to defeat a monster and this is one of them. The rogue exploited the ogre's weakness and made a bloody mess.
Similarly, I would award the monster's XP value to the rogue if he had simply stealthed in and walked out with the treasure without waking the ogre. The encounter, in that case, is defeated even if the ogre is still alive and happily snoring it up when it's over.
I like this, although i would award the XP to the party, not just the Rogue- and it gives the opportunity for the Ogre to wake later and find them with his treasure, or not =)
Well, yes. Assign XP as normal (split up, one player, those who participated in the scheme, whichever works for ya). And the ogre waking up later becomes a returning villain and man is he pissed! But I digress.
I would not award XP to the rogue alone unless the party was so far away that the rogue was truly, entirely on his own (as in, if the ogre woke up and attacked him, the party would not possibly be close enough to help). Otherwise, the party is entitled to the XP - they're backup in case the ogre wakes up.
And yeah, it's a moment to shine for the rogue, why would you want to take that away from him? As a DM, I'd play it up - describe the sneaking, the ogre snorting and rolling over, the gurgling - might have the ogre actually stand up and stagger around aimlessly, scare the pants off the rogue before it falls over dead.
I'm adamantly against the whole concept, the very idea, that the only 'fair' way to defeat monsters is by fighting them toe to toe. My players have been deeply ingrained with the notion that if the monsters are hitting back, the party is doing it wrong.
Kaldric, that's almost verbatim how it did go, gurgling and staggering (and him almost getting crushed), and yes the entire party got XP for the reasons you mention. I actually love this old school style of play; I was just feeling a bit guilty about letting them do it since I've been brow-beaten by 4E power balancing for the last several years. I'm glad to see so many people think this is the "right" way for the game.
I don't know that I think it's 'right' as such. It's just how I prefer to play, and I'd like others to know that yes - you can have fun this way, and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. If the DM is strongly attached to encounters being overcome in specific ways (through several rounds of combat, for instance, but this applies to other methods as well), then the party's choices have less effect on the outcome, which is a style I'm not as fond of.
