I'm looking for a good Coup de Grace weapon for my sneaky dude for when he needs to get up close and personal with someone, any suggestions?

Question

Of particular interest are weapons that can be used one-handed, hidden relatively well, and are light, but I'll take a look at everything that's suggested. Weapon proficiency is not a problem for me in this since I don't intend to use it for much else besides Coup de Grace.

Right now I'm looking for things with an x4 or higher crit on their own, or anything I can make Mercurial for an x4 or higher crit. Heck, if anyone finds a long, straight blade with d6 or higher dmg and an x4 crit that I can make mercurial for an x6 I'd love you forever.

While my GM has for the most part banned Dragon Magazine material, mention it as well if you know something good from it because I might be able to convince him for a single weapon.

3.0 and 3.5 material is allowed by the way.

PS/Bonus Points: A buddy of mine mentioned seeing a one-handed scythe somewhere, what are the stats on that? Is it an x4 crit? I can't seem to find it anywhere and he forgot where he saw it.

Answer 1

Enjoy the absurdly-named exotic weapon, the

Dragonsplit

Appearing the Monster Manual IV in the Greenspawn Sneak entry, the dragonsplit

can be used as a piercing weapon like a short sword. Alternative grips use its long edge for slashing attacks or its short edge for chopping and hacking. It counts as a light weapon for the purpose of Two-Weapon Fighting and Weapon Finesse. (151).

A Medium wielder employing this 2-lb. otherwise-one-handed¹ exotic weapon can choose, before making an attack, to inflict either 1d6 points of piercing damage with an 18-20 threat range or 1d6 points of slashing damage with a ×4 critical multiplier. It's for D&D 3.5 but, strangely, no price is given for purchasing one.

I always imagine the dragonsplit looking like an oversized balisong, although the official depiction is far different. (The greenspwan sneak on MM4 149 is wielding one; it's just a weird-shaped blade.) Picturing it as a big butterfly knife is the only way I can make the dumb name acceptable in my head.

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1. Yeah, I know. So, if one is so inclined, with it one can use the feat Power Attack (PH 98).

Answer 2

Try the Gnome Battlepick, an exotic weapon from the Arms and Equipment Guide. 1d6 damage, 4x crit.

The Arms and Equipment Guide being a 3.0 book, it is listed as a "small" weapon.

Answer 3

Core: Light Pick

The light pick is a 1d4 damage, 20 crit, ×4 multiplier light martial weapon. Weighs 3 lbs, costs 4 gp. 4d4 averages only 10 damage, but if you have, say, 14 Strength that’s 4d4+8 for 18, plus your Sneak Attack damage whatever it is, for a pretty nasty Fort save. Not much is surviving that regularly. And that’s ignoring Craven, which you really should have; that would give you 4× your character level on top of that.

The dragonsplit is much better for a general-purpose weapon, though rogues rarely have the feat to spare. I like the light pick as just something to have available just for coup de grace. I would probably not even bother putting magic on it until pretty high level (a +1 collision light pick would be choice there, +24 coup de grace damage for a +3-equivalent), and wouldn’t use it as my primary weapon on most rogues since they don’t have proficiency with it and it’s not worth getting proficiency with it.