D&D 5E My group is questioning everyone.

[SilverBulletKY]

With the rule that you can knock people out instead of killing them, my group is doing this to an unusual amount of people. If the creature refuses to talk, they just threaten to kill them. After while, I run out of new conversations for my monsters to have!? Any ideas?

 

[MrMyth]

If the goal is to discourage the party from doing such things, here are some ideas that might help:

1) In combat, have some enemies spend actions rousing/healing fallen companions to get them back on their feet. Having a consequence to leaving enemies alive may make the party less inclined to do so automatically.

2) What is the party doing with enemies after questioning them? If the enemy cooperates and the party let's them go... perhaps make a point of having that come back to haunt them. Perhaps the enemy goes on to threaten them again - or, worse, causes harm elsewhere and the party is blamed for letting them go. Or, if you want to avoid making the party feel quite so bad, you can instead go with the 'nuisance' approach: After being defeated by the party, many enemies become obsessed with them and swear 'loyalty', and then spend all their time following the party around and constantly being annoying and in the way.

3) Or, if the party routinely kills the enemies during questioning... what are the laws of the kingdom, if they are traveling within one? Defeating an enemy in battle might be one thing, but torturing and killing them afterwards might be different. Even if this is allowed - perhaps because the enemies being killed are monstrous creatures, for example - it might still get the party a darker reputation than they want. Maybe some of the fallen have families or clans that take offense to how they died, and come after the party for justice or revenge?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

As a DM I do this to my characters, too.

No, you're not dead, just unconscious. Scares the heck out of them!

Prisoners are a good thing to get - great sources of intelligence. Play them as appropriate as the DM. If the PCs start to just torture or maim their prisoners, word might get out. Prisoners act differently when they know the PCs kill you no matter what. Likewise if the PCs are known to be merciful to those that comply, tongues may loosen.

 

[Morrus]

I think it's OK to not roleplay every conversation. You can just tell them that the monster talks a lot but has no useful information. Spring in s conversation when you feel up to it or when it seems like fun.

 

[Dausuul]

I suggest eliminating the "knockout" rule and instituting the following house rules:

• Some powerful monsters and NPCs have the Heroic trait (which PCs also possess). Heroic creatures cling to life, fighting death to the bitter end. Such creatures follow the PC death and dying rules. They die of massive damage, make death saves, etc.
• Those who lack the Heroic trait (most monsters and NPCs) don't get death saves. Instead, the first time such a creature would make a death save, it simply dies.

So, the PCs can save monsters for questioning, but it isn't easy.

Or, for a simpler solution, you can just impose disadvantage on knockout attacks.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I will likely houserule something to do with knocking a enemy out. It's too easy in the standard rules, imo. Maybe on the "final" attack, you need to hit with disad to put them to sleep. Something like that.

 

[Voort]

My group tries to interrogate folks a lot. I say 'tries' because the wizard thinks Shocking Grasp makes a good interrogation tool.

 

[Agamon]

Someone under threat of torture/death will do or say whatever it takes to get it to stop it. Sometimes, if it's not a big deal to the individual to give them whatever info they want, they'll spill the beans. But often times, they don't want to help those that just beat the crap out of them, so the next best thing to do is lie, if, a) they think they can get away with it, and b) it will cause harm to those trying to interrogate them.

Once they've had to deal with problems caused by misinformation from scared baddies, they'll think twice about who and how often they use the tactic.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You could always add a dose of "realism" to it:

When you try to knock out a creature, there is, say, a 50% chance that you accidentally kill them.

Or introduce a "bleeding out" rule that only gives a few moments of time before they actually die.

IRL, it's not exactly an easy thing to put someone SO CLOSE to death that they're unconscious, but able to come back around in a few minutes.

It might also be that your group is looking for information in all the wrong places. If the questions they ask of their trapped enemies were answered elsewhere, maybe it would remove the need for tedious questioning after every fight?

 

[GSHamster]

It feels a little weird to see so many people insisting on making killing NPCs easier, even by accident. The usual complaint is that PCs are too ruthless, and kill too casually.

I think the bigger issue is roleplaying the interrogations, and the time that is taking. That's what the OP is finding hard. The solution here is to skip the roleplay after one or two interrogations and simply tell the PCs the results. You don't have to roleplay everything. A lot of time it's better to just give the results and move on.