Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Mechanism to directly knock unconscious an opponent or unsuspecting NPC?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8011535" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>Regarding the Vulcan nerve pinch, in game mechanics that would probably be some powerful nonlethal damage that requires you to grapple an opponent, but it's only available to psychically sensitive characters, who due to their PSI rating would be able to know if the target is low enough on HP for it to work. If they're not low on HP, the character can't use the power.</p><p></p><p>It was a different game system, but in the final adventure of ZEITGEIST, I wanted a scene involving a sniper NPC who had been cropping up throughout the campaign, but who had never assassinated anyone. The mission was to assassinate a target who was too well defended for a frontal assault. But, well, 20th level characters have too many HP for a single hit to work.</p><p></p><p>So I set it up like a skill challenge.</p><p></p><p>If you <em>were</em> fighting the target one on one, you'd need to succeed X die rolls of DC Y in order to hit enough times and deal enough damage to kill them. Meanwhile you'd be exposing yourself to risk too as they fight back. So a skill challenge with the same chance of success and equivalent stakes would be a fair way to kill an opponent, even if the narrative surrounding those dice rolls was different.</p><p></p><p>Instead of fighting for five rounds and taking some damage, to pull off the sniper assassination you needed to succeed a skill check to learn the target's route, another to pick the right vantage, another to arrive stealthily, and a final one to assess the ideal time to shoot. For each of these, you can get a bonus to your roll for good ideas. Then you make an attack roll, and if you hit, it's a crit and the target makes a Fort save based on the damage dealt to avoid dying. If you roll a natural crit, you kill the target. </p><p></p><p>However along the way, if you fail a check, you are risking bringing down an overwhelming force against you, far worse than if you just faced the target one-on-one. And even if you pull off the assassination, you have to get away from the response. So while there was only one attack roll, there was a lot of chances of failure. I basically used the Lee Harvey Oswald assassination of JFK as a guideline, and heck, it took Oswald three shots to kill Kennedy.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>For a one-hit knock-out, I might call for a short skill challenge appropriate to the threat the subject poses. First you have to catch them unaware (Stealth check? or Deception?), then figure out how to hit them just right for a knock-out (some sort of Medicine or Int check?), and then your attack roll. Then they get a save based on how much damage you do. This would be for D&D 5e, because my brain is in that mode, and I don't recall the nuances of WOIN, but it could be something similar.</p><p></p><p><strong>TL;DR - you might make only one attack, but you could require multiple rolls and checks in advance to set up the right conditions for that one-hit-kill, which creates a comparable risk to actually fighting the normal way.</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 8011535, member: 63"] Regarding the Vulcan nerve pinch, in game mechanics that would probably be some powerful nonlethal damage that requires you to grapple an opponent, but it's only available to psychically sensitive characters, who due to their PSI rating would be able to know if the target is low enough on HP for it to work. If they're not low on HP, the character can't use the power. It was a different game system, but in the final adventure of ZEITGEIST, I wanted a scene involving a sniper NPC who had been cropping up throughout the campaign, but who had never assassinated anyone. The mission was to assassinate a target who was too well defended for a frontal assault. But, well, 20th level characters have too many HP for a single hit to work. So I set it up like a skill challenge. If you [I]were[/I] fighting the target one on one, you'd need to succeed X die rolls of DC Y in order to hit enough times and deal enough damage to kill them. Meanwhile you'd be exposing yourself to risk too as they fight back. So a skill challenge with the same chance of success and equivalent stakes would be a fair way to kill an opponent, even if the narrative surrounding those dice rolls was different. Instead of fighting for five rounds and taking some damage, to pull off the sniper assassination you needed to succeed a skill check to learn the target's route, another to pick the right vantage, another to arrive stealthily, and a final one to assess the ideal time to shoot. For each of these, you can get a bonus to your roll for good ideas. Then you make an attack roll, and if you hit, it's a crit and the target makes a Fort save based on the damage dealt to avoid dying. If you roll a natural crit, you kill the target. However along the way, if you fail a check, you are risking bringing down an overwhelming force against you, far worse than if you just faced the target one-on-one. And even if you pull off the assassination, you have to get away from the response. So while there was only one attack roll, there was a lot of chances of failure. I basically used the Lee Harvey Oswald assassination of JFK as a guideline, and heck, it took Oswald three shots to kill Kennedy. --- For a one-hit knock-out, I might call for a short skill challenge appropriate to the threat the subject poses. First you have to catch them unaware (Stealth check? or Deception?), then figure out how to hit them just right for a knock-out (some sort of Medicine or Int check?), and then your attack roll. Then they get a save based on how much damage you do. This would be for D&D 5e, because my brain is in that mode, and I don't recall the nuances of WOIN, but it could be something similar. [B]TL;DR - you might make only one attack, but you could require multiple rolls and checks in advance to set up the right conditions for that one-hit-kill, which creates a comparable risk to actually fighting the normal way.[/B] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Mechanism to directly knock unconscious an opponent or unsuspecting NPC?
Top