D&D 5E Attacking defenseless NPCs

robus said:

So how would everyone else handle this?

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It's a normal combat situation.

There is an obvious reason why. Suppose that the orcs now adopt the same tactics. How do your players feel about orc archers achieving die no save hits on the PC when they are not fighting back?

I play a homebrew version of 3e and a sufficiently high level Hunter could pull of this sort of shot reliably, killing the orc with near certainty. It would be well within the rules for a high level hunter to make a single arrow shot that did 4d8+10 damage, with a 10% chance of a critical hit for about 10d8+30 damage - a total all but guaranteed to additionally provoke at least one and possibly two catastrophic damage checks with, because this is a Hunter, a very high DC to save even in the unlikely event this was a rather high hit point orc. A multi-classed Hunter/Rogue with suitable feat selection could also pull this off. And that's really not getting into all the possibilities available with magical weapons and buffing.

Despite the lack of realism in a hit point system, there is out of game justification for it being difficult to make this shot lethal. There is only a pretty small portion of the orcs body where you could place an arrow and have it kill the orc more or less instantly, and you are trying to hit that target from over 60 yards away. Further, it's likely that the orc is armored to at least some extent and in particular if he has armored any part of his body, it's the parts which are so vulnerable that a hit there means death. So the arrow must hit with force and hit the yet smaller portion of the body insufficiently defended. Realistically, for a kill shot with an arrow, you are talking about something like putting an arrow through the orcs eye at 60 yards.

Any bow hunter will tell you that dropping a deer with an arrow at 60 yards is a very difficult shot. You need to make a shot that pretty much splits the heart. Anything less, like puncturing one or both lungs or hitting a major blood vessel, only means that the deer will bolt and then bleed to death over the next few minutes. Anything less than that, and you are looking at a potentially lengthy period tracking your kill down to wherever it ran to die. At 60 yards, most serious hunters won't even risk a shot, because they've encountered far to many deer with old arrows sticking out of them because some other hunter made a bad shot and just stuck the deer in a non-lethal manner.

I’m with you.

I had a game a long while back where one of my players grabbed an enemy NPC with a knife to the throat and demanded the NPC order their goons to surrender. I ruled the NPC did not do that and the player cut the NPC’s throat - for 1d4 damage.

Ineffective. Dumb. The wrong call completely. And a complete wet blanket on the game.

That stuck with me and I’ve since adopted a checkmate house rule I use (with some variation from game to game). But it boils down to this: if you get your enemy into checkmate, they lose.

Now, a shot in the dark on a guard on duty probably doesn’t quite qualify for checkmate. But it could qualify with some further setup.

As for the actual rule I use, it’s like this: “any creature that takes damage greater than or equal to its constitution must save or die/mark a failed death save.”

And I have some other rules I hang on that one like “you can make a called shot at disadvantage in exchange for double damage.” And “any creature not wearing armor (or not possessed of natural armor) is vulnerable to damage.” But these sorts of rules depend on what style of game I’m looking for.

Essentially, though, when the rules generate stupid outcomes, the rules are wrong. You’re the DM, use your judgment first, and then apply rules as fitting.

robus said:

So it sounds like for most people so far (unsurprisingly ), HP is damage absorption regardless of whether any effort is being made to withstand attacks. So it would be perfectly reasonable for an NPC to not make any effort in a combat situation and they would get all their HP? They could just stand there and absorb the generally lethal blows and be fine?

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Two things:

1) From a consistency standpoint, there are too many problems with treating HP as anything other than pure toughness. The things which deal HP damage are primarily physical in nature, and none of that damage is adjusted for skill on the part of the defender; or rather, it is, but it uses the existing HP mechanics. Throwing a conscious person off of a cliff does not deal more damage than throwing an unconscious person, unless the former makes a successful skill check to roll with the impact. Likewise, the difference between an aware guard and an unaware guard is that the latter is not going to succeed in dodging - hence, Advantage on the attack roll.

2) From a gameplay standpoint, any system for bypassing HP is problematic, because it turns your game into two different games that don't interact well with each other. If you give players a way to bypass Hit Points, then they will pursue that option, and anyone who can't participate in that is sidelined. Hit Points are there for a reason. Sudden Death is unsustainable in the long term.

To the OP, it's a surprise attack, and I don't think the rules books are unambiguous about how to handle the situation. So the question I'm hearing is, "Is this a good house rule?"

IMO, it is. It works as you described, but I think [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] made the best suggestion at the top of the thread:

As well, however, this strikes me as an obstacle in an overarching exploration challenge that only looks somewhat like a combat challenge. The task is neither impossible nor trivially easy. You could say there's an uncertain outcome and the meaningful consequence for failure is there - so some kind of roll is appropriate. I think it's fine to resolve it without relying upon the combat rules. Call it a Dexterity check with proficiency at disadvantage against a hard DC to account for range and the difficulty of ensuring a kill shot. Someone throws guidance or enhance ability on the ranger. Maybe he or she spends Inspiration. Go, teamwork.

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I understand and respect the positions stated by others pertaining to equanimity with NPCs, e.g. if you can one shot NPCs in this scenario, they should be able to one shot you, etc. As a GM, I've never given NPCs and PCs exactly equal footing, and frankly find it unfun when such policy is followed dogmatically by other DMs (really, only one situation in the past, and that was a long time ago, but still)

Why does it have to be a "yes, it should be possible for everyone" VS "no, it should not be possible for anyone"?

Sounds like the perfect scenario to reward a character who has chosen the Sharpshooter feat.

Saelorn said:

Two things:

1) From a consistency standpoint, there are too many problems with treating HP as anything other than pure toughness. The things which deal HP damage are primarily physical in nature, and none of that damage is adjusted for skill on the part of the defender; or rather, it is, but it uses the existing HP mechanics. Throwing a conscious person off of a cliff does not deal more damage than throwing an unconscious person, unless the former makes a successful skill check to roll with the impact. Likewise, the difference between an aware guard and an unaware guard is that the latter is not going to succeed in dodging - hence, Advantage on the attack roll.

2) From a gameplay standpoint, any system for bypassing HP is problematic, because it turns your game into two different games that don't interact well with each other. If you give players a way to bypass Hit Points, then they will pursue that option, and anyone who can't participate in that is sidelined. Hit Points are there for a reason. Sudden Death is unsustainable in the long term.

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It's only as problematic as the DM allows it to become, as goes for the introduction of any house rule. In terms of sidelining other PCs, it's not functionally different than when any other specialist stumbles on a moment to shine. Sometimes the mage gets an arcane puzzle to solve, sometimes the thief gets a lock to pick, and sometimes the sniper gets a clean head shot.

Celebrim said:

It's a normal combat situation.

There is an obvious reason why. Suppose that the orcs now adopt the same tactics. How do your players feel about orc archers achieving die no save hits on the PC when they are not fighting back?

I play a homebrew version of 3e and a sufficiently high level Hunter could pull of this sort of shot reliably, killing the orc with near certainty. It would be well within the rules for a high level hunter to make a single arrow shot that did 4d8+10 damage, with a 10% chance of a critical hit for about 10d8+30 damage - a total all but guaranteed to additionally provoke at least one and possibly two catastrophic damage checks with, because this is a Hunter, a very high DC to save even in the unlikely event this was a rather high hit point orc. A multi-classed Hunter/Rogue with suitable feat selection could also pull this off. And that's really not getting into all the possibilities available with magical weapons and buffing.

Despite the lack of realism in a hit point system, there is out of game justification for it being difficult to make this shot lethal. There is only a pretty small portion of the orcs body where you could place an arrow and have it kill the orc more or less instantly, and you are trying to hit that target from over 60 yards away. Further, it's likely that the orc is armored to at least some extent and in particular if he has armored any part of his body, it's the parts which are so vulnerable that a hit there means death. So the arrow must hit with force and hit the yet smaller portion of the body insufficiently defended. Realistically, for a kill shot with an arrow, you are talking about something like putting an arrow through the orcs eye at 60 yards.

Any bow hunter will tell you that dropping a deer with an arrow at 60 yards is a very difficult shot. You need to make a shot that pretty much splits the heart. Anything less, like puncturing one or both lungs or hitting a major blood vessel, only means that the deer will bolt and then bleed to death over the next few minutes. Anything less than that, and you are looking at a potentially lengthy period tracking your kill down to wherever it ran to die. At 60 yards, most serious hunters won't even risk a shot, because they've encountered far to many deer with old arrows sticking out of them because some other hunter made a bad shot and just stuck the deer in a non-lethal manner.

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And deer do not normally have armor over key vital spots - at least round here.

robus said:

So how would everyone else handle this?

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The moment the PC voices his intent to attack, I immediately start combat, roll stealth and initiative. Already before the attack if the stealth roll failed, the orc can alert the camp even before any attack rolls take place. If the stealth roll succeeds, then all PCs who rolled stealth (aka the ones who want to attack) can act in round 1 while the orcs can't. The orc will raise alarm at the start of round 2.

So the only way to kill someone without him being able to react at all to it is to surprise him and kill him in one round.

People have brought up a lot of good points for both sides of the argument. Ultimately, a lot depends on the situation, the character taking the shot, and so on.

Given the range this shot will be with disadvantage unless you are using feats and the ranger has sharpshooter.
The target is unaware of the shot, so the shot would be with advantage.

So, there is a net zero effect there unless the ranger has sharpshooter or some other factor.

Yes, the orc has 15 hp, but as the OP stated hit points aren't just meat, they are fighting ability, luck, yada yada yada. The orc's AC is only 13, so if the sharpshooter feat is an option, hitting shouldn't be too difficult depending on the character's level and the +10 damage should help kill the orc with avg hp of 15 outright.

Really, you could do it many ways but a lot depends on the character taking the shot.

D&D has always had a hard transition into combat from other play. And, D&D has always had a hard line in detail between combat and other play. Because of this, it makes it difficult to do things that are very near or even astride that line, like the situation in the OP. There will always be many that say that since you've touched on the combat pillar, the hard transition must be accomplished, else you're devaluing portions of the game, or violating parity between the PCs and the hordes of DM controlled NPCs operating in the DM controlled environment (an argument I find silly, as you might could tell, although I once was a vocal proponent of it).

In this case, I think relying on the 5e core play loop offers insight, much as [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and others have mentioned. The DM narrates a scene, players declare actions, DM determines success (often via mechanics), DM narrate results, repeat. This loop functions both in and out of combat -- it's universal to the entire game. In combat, it's more structured and the DM has more tools, but no one could say that the DM couldn't make a ruling for an outcome in combat, so let's go with that angle. Here, the goal and approach are clear, and you, as DM, are free to determine if the action is successful or not via whichever resolution mechanic you choose to use. The combat mechanics are there, very details, and could be used, but they are not required to be used to resolve a character action. You could modify them to suit your needs, and that's within the rules of the game.

Now, practically, I'd be leery of letting this situation be an easy one. You might have elided the details prior, but I wouldn't let such a situation occur without having it embedded in a larger series of challenges, either to set up this situation, or using this situation as an obstacle in a larger challenge. At lower levels, I'd make this the result of an extended set of challenges, or the penultimate part, because it's a large challenge to a lower level character. At higher level, I'd have this as a feeder into the primary challenge -- something that could make later obstacles harder or easier depending on the result. In this, I like frameworks that loosely resemble skill challenges, but not necessarily that rigorously defined. More a moving of the fiction in directions that require new choices, with failure occurring in obvious places rather than at a certain number of die rolls.

Regardless of the exact structure, I might pick either an ability check or an attack roll to decide the guard's fate, depending on the time of day, weather, remaining pizza, amount of beer in my mug... doesn't really matter to me. Attack rolls are really just special ability checks anyway. I have a mechanic in my game that pits attacks rolls against a DC (not AC) for one of my expanded downtime activities and it works really well (it's for pit fighting for cash, the attack roll is one of three checks made to determine earning level and also how taxing it is -- you could start your next adventure down a few or more hit dice).

So, tl;dr -- go for it. I'd make it part of a bigger set of challenges, either as the end goal (low level) or along the way (higher levels), but the core play loop of 5e fully supports this kind of play. I also have little regard for arguments of parity for the DM's NPCs operating in the DM's setting at the DM's desire, so no worries if the orcs can't do this to PCs.