Hi everybody!

I have been reading the PDFs and have a question about Coup de Grâce to the people that have already played the game: How do you handle combat if a player character becomes unconscious?

Is he out of the game for you and thus not a valid target for a Coup de Grâce or do you require surviving heroes to defend him using defensive stance and maybe spend a round to pull him to the safety of the rearward stance?

On the one hand I don't want to exclude the possibility for character death (and neither would my players) but I also don't want to make it too easy for the enemy to finish off heroes.

So from your experiences, what works best?

Its really up to the individual loremaster. I think about it that the characters that are still fighting are the immediate threat and would get most of the attention. However if a group has hatred of a specific race and that character goes down then the hacking to bits would commence.

I think this is something to discuss OOC as a group rather than dictated by the rules. At my table, we think stabbing unconscious PCs is a douchey thing to do. But I know groups that differ.

I would highlight the fallen PCs danger and give the other characters time to react. If they failed to do so though, I'd follow through and the PC would get skewered or hacked to bits.

Thanks for the opinions so far. I know this is not an issue for hard and fast rules but I wanted to know different opinions. What most of you suggested is probably what I will do as well: Not finish the hero off at the first opportunity but require the rest of the party to think of something to protect him.

For example, if the enemies are outnumbered they will still continue fighting heros that are an actual threat, but if they outnumber the heros I could see a Warg trying to take a bite out of the fallen hero.

I don't think TOR is meant to be a game where the Heroes should die randoms deaths at the hand of unimportant opponents. (unless they are very unlucky and suffered a 2nd wound while dropping to 0 endurance)

It should, imo, only be a main vilain who might perform a coup de grace, in which case the other players should get ample warning, so they can at least try to intervene.

Of course every group can play the way they want, but TOR deoesn't seem to me to be a game where characters are at danger of getting finished off by a simple little goblin with a sharp stick.

The rules also have an example of coup de grace as a special ability for 1 specific creature (which happens to be a chieftan of its kin).

No Quarter
If the creature has just knocked out a character, reduce
its Hate point score by one point to immediately roll a
second attack on the same target using the creature’s
secondary weapon (against the usual TN): if the roll
succeeds with a great or extraordinary success, the
target is considered to have been administered a coup
de grace and is killed (regardless of damage inflicted).

This tells alot imo about how frequent coup de grace attempts on the player characters should be.

I think of TOR as more an emulation of Tolkien's stories, rather than a realistic game set in Middle-Earth. So I imagine what Tolkien would do. In some cases (Boromir) that means being killed by an Orc. In others (Frodo), not so much.

In my game, any characters who go down in an Orc fight and are abandoned by the party will be taken prisoner if that's remotely plausible, *unless* like Boromir their character arc is pulling the other way. If in some sense they can be said to have earned their death, go for it.

But if they go down in a Warg fight and everyone runs away, then they're probably dead unless some other party intervenes. Wargs don't take prisoners, AFAIK. Only Gandalf can save them now!

So a coup-de-grace mechanic vs PCs beyond that described for chieftains? Doesn't work for me, especially if it doesn't reference the character's Shadow. YMMV.

I try to think about this from the Antagonist point of view:

"Why, oh why, would I want to spend time and attention to cutting the throat of an Enemy that is already down and out, when there are still Enemies standing up that could hurt me?"

I effect... I don't try to hit Characters that are already down because I think any monster would be stupid to use such a tactic.

/wolf