Hitting unconscious enemies

I have noticed that when I am in a combat situation and I knock some monsters to unconsciousness I still have trouble hitting them. Honestly, I have aimed a character at an unconscious monster and the PC/NPC misses ! Now tell me, how could anyone miss hitting an unconscious opponent, an opponent who is just lying there, doing nothing but breathing and probably bleeding to death ? Yes, I know, when other characters are next door fighting conscious opponents it could be said that a miss is possible due to all the adjacent actions, but I have seen a party member miss an unconscious opponent even when no-one else is nearby. How can this be ? And no the party member that missed did not have lots of negatives to hit an opponent (I checked the stats).

This complaint also applies to hitting sleeping opponents. Also if an opponent is unconscious shouldn't a party member be able to kill it outright, give it the old coup de grace ? You can do this with regenerating unconscious opponents so why not other unconscious opponents ? Something's not right here I think ?

 

This is a recurring theme with the d20 system.

Rolling the die in Dungeons and Dragons tells you _what_ happened, but not necessarily _how_ it happened. That part is to be up to your imagination.

The best analogy I can think of is this...

Have you ever split wood? And I mean REALLY split wood; none of this "wimpy"* sharpened-axe-on-nice-half-split-rounds business; I mean with a wedge on uneven wood with a big heavy maul.

To do that right requires patience, strength, and AIM. You use the maul in a deliberate manner to set your split into a likely split point, set yourself, and then swing as hard as you can.

Even when you're good at it, you get tired. You choose bad split points, you end up in a knot, or in wood that just doesn't "want" to give. You have good tools, strength, the ability to do this, but every hit doesn't always land, and the longer you go at it, the more likely you are to miss (mauls are HEAVY ) So even the experts miss. (It even gets hard to set your splitter right, as you get more and more tired -- by that time you have to give up)

Well, it's like this with attacking an unconscious foe. It's not like you snuck up on him in a cardigan while he was sleeping and then bashed his skull in. You had to fight him, and subdue him, in heavy armor. You're tired (exhausted, even). It was a hard fight. You're still in heavy armor with bad mobility and bad visibility half the time. You're breathing heavy, filled with adrenaline and fight-or-flight instinct, so your aim isn't exactly measured. You're gonna miss on occasion. That's what the die rolls represent. While you have every advantage in the world (he's out, you're smashing and crashing with heavy implements of destruction), sometimes your body just fails you.

There are myriad reasons you might miss, and those are "built-in" to the die rolls, but normally it's up to you (and/or the DM) to come up with juicy-details about why the miss.

The problem with CRPG's is, everything is so real and drawn out for you. It's hard to imagine he could miss, because it looks so POSSIBLE from the view you have (contrast with metal miniatures on a table, where you don't bend the limbs and animate them in hits -- it's easier here to imagine hits and misses because you have no other choice). But... it's still based on the die rolls, so it's part of the experience.

HTH,

-- dulcaoin

* I'm being facetious. Splitting wood, even rounds with an axe, is hard work, period.

 

Good points. To them, add that the enemy typically has armor of some kind (perhaps just natural armor like a thick hide, but that still needs to be overcome), and combat assumes you're in a defensive stance the whole time, ducking and weaving, etc. This is why the coup de grace (which will automatically hit an unconscious character) causes an attack of opportunity, because to get that auto-crit, you have to let down your guard. Thus, mechanically, if you're not doing a coup de grace, you're considered to be on the defensive, even if there's nobody anywhere near you.

 

In addition to getting a +4 to hit (melee), doesn't the enemy get treated as having a 0 dex (that is, a -5 to AC) when they're unconscious? I thought it was supposed to work like that in pnp D&D, but I don't know if it works like that here.

 

I just checked, and an NPC's dexterity goes to 0 when s/he's unconscious (within TOEE, I mean).

-- dulcaoin

 

All the above comments all make sense except that if what you guys are saying is true then a party member shouldn't be able to give a coup de grace to a troll in one hit. After all a regenerating monster that is unconscious is still an unconscious opponent like any other unconscious opponent. If one cannot give the coup de grace to a non-regenerating opponent who is unconscious, why then should one be able to give the coup de grace to an unconscious opponent who also happens to regenerate. Regenerating opponents shouldn't be easier to kill, which is the current rule.

An unconscious non regenerating opponent shouldn't be harder to kill than a regenerating one.

 

Actually, coup de grace can fail on a critical failure (or should). You should roll for a to-hit, and if it is successful the coup de grace is done. Same applies to throwing acid or fire on the troll.

 

You can do a coup-de-grace on anyone, whether they regenerate or not, as long as they are unconcious or otherwise helpless. You just have to choose the action and accept any AOOs it might generate. (In the lower levels of the game, my rogue spends a lot of time in combat CdGing opponents that get hit with my wizard's sleep spell.)

By the rules, there is no auto-failure on a Coup-de-Grace. It's a full round action that provokes an AOO that automatically scores a critical hit on a helpless target. You're basically taking the time to slip your sword blade into a chink of their armor or whatever and shove, rather than just hacking at them.

 

i cant recall ever missing on an unconcious target. i just do coup de grace and they are dead. that even works on prone individuals you trip in combat, works very well unless your dwarf trys to trip a giant that is he just gets squished lol. but thats how i beat hedrack the last time i fought him, my fighter used tip attack and dropped him prone and my barbarian did coup de grace and he was dead in 2 rounds total.

 

Well, that's not according to the rules at all. You're only supposed to be able to coup de grace a HELPLESS character. Prone does not equal helpless in 3.5 terminology, so just tripping somebody shouldn't let you do this. Another bug for the modders to tackle!!!

 

well that would be nice if they did fix it. ive been tripped up before and when im prone they beat the crap out of me and it takes time to get back up and get an attack in if they dont trip me again in the mean time, but ive never seen an npc use CDG on anyone fortunatly

 

Yeah, tripping can be brutal with improved trip. I played a pnp game with two barbarians going at it in single combat, doing non-lethal (yes, at -4). The one with imp. trip and a halberd just tore the greataxe guy a new one. No contest. Of course, that much isn't a bug; it's just the rules o' the game. Getting AoO's when they get up is just nasty, especially when you turn around and dump 'em again the next round. Even with the -4 from going non-lethal, the +4 from prone-ness of target balances that and you get an extra attack every round, while the other guy just gets -4. You do have to make the touch attack and then beat his strength, but with a +4 on the check and a hefty barbarian, that'll work most times. It's just a damn good skill... if you're stronger.

 

well Lord Plothos i was wrong. i tried again last night and when i tried CDG on a prone monster it gave me an invalid action. so Hedrack must of either been unconsious, which i dont think he was, or i hit full attack or something instead. sorry my mistake. i do think the trip attack is goofy though cause alot of times when i try it my guy ends up being the one tripped but when it works its great