D&D 5E Pulling your punches

[robus]

[MENTION=6801558]robus[/MENTION]: "Massive Damage", pg 273. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but it's in the same vein and might at least give you some ideas.

Yeah - I'm not interested in applying massive damage. I just want players to have the ability to bonk a target on the head and knock them out for a short period of time. They don't have to go into a coma!

It's a pretty common occurrence in adventure stories but seems especially hard to do in the game. I think it's especially useful when encountering humanoids which is quite often.

 

[Orlax]

Yeah - I'm not interested in applying massive damage. I just want players to have the ability to bonk a target on the head and knock them out for a short period of time. They don't have to go into a coma!

It's a pretty common occurrence in adventure stories but seems especially hard to do in the game. I think it's especially useful when encountering humanoids which is quite often.

I'm pretty sure players are always allowed to make the last hit lethal or a knockout blow. Matching that with the massive damage rules should work.

 

[robus]

I'm pretty sure players are always allowed to make the last hit lethal or a knockout blow. Matching that with the massive damage rules should work.

Perhaps, but I want the PCs to be able to throw a knock out blow on their first hit - not after a few. Creep up behind.... whack on the head... drag away...

 

[Orlax]

Perhaps, but I want the PCs to be able to throw a knock out blow on their first hit - not after a few. Creep up behind.... whack on the head... drag away...

Hence the use of massive damage rules. Walk up, bonk on head do massive damage, and rather than kill via massive damage just knock out via massive damage.

D&D has specifically always been bad at modeling this kind of interaction because if you can do it you'd always do it to start every fight because it's a way to completely ignore how much health something has and just always drop them in one hit.

So you are going to need the rogue (because he can do the most damage with a singular hit) and the massive damage rules.

The only other way I could see it being viable is to homebrew a battle master maneuver for the knockout blow, spend a die, do some extra damage, initiate a save vs sleep/unconsciousness.

 

[mellored]

You could do old-school.

0 to -9hp is unconscious. -10 or lower is dead.

 

[TerraDave]

Oh how do I dislike the current rule (which was the 4E rule). I won't start that rant here.

Lots of good options above. This is what we use:

Subdual and NPC death: Dropping an NPC or monster to 0 hp doesn’t always kill them, but they may be hard to revive and will probably avoid the PCs after, assuming they survive at all. To internationally knock out instead of killing or severely incapacitate someone with a melee attack imposes a -2 to hit penalty (or -1 with certain bludgeoning weapons). Some NPCs follow the same death and dying rules as PCs.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Perhaps, but I want the PCs to be able to throw a knock out blow on their first hit - not after a few. Creep up behind.... whack on the head... drag away...

It sounds like you might want a game that doesn't feature hit points that rise with level such as GURPS or Runequest. Also the PC fighter with 80 HP might not like the idea of an NPC sneaking up and knocking him out in one hit- because these things happen to the heroes quite a bit too.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Perhaps, but I want the PCs to be able to throw a knock out blow on their first hit - not after a few. Creep up behind.... whack on the head... drag away...

That's pretty much the Rogue (and particularly the Assassin)'s remit. A critical sneak attack should do enough damage to drop most grunts.

 

[robus]

Thanks for the suggestions - it seems like there's not much support for my 1/4 total HP directed to the head (specifically) idea and that's fine . I'll experiment with some of these options the next time the opportunity arises.

 

[Gimul]

That's pretty much the Rogue (and particularly the Assassin)'s remit. A critical sneak attack should do enough damage to drop most grunts.

If something is truely a "grunt"; i.e. only a level specific challenge in mass numbers; this is most likely already the case. I'm not sure there really needs to be a rule for this. If the knockout is so trivial one hit will do, just handwave it; if it isn't, subtract the damage and progress naturally from there. Naturally, the subduer should be informed of the trivality, or lack their of, after the attack. #YMMV