A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

That is a ridiculous argument. This is like arguing that a gun isn't lethal because it can't kill a bear in one shot. Or like arguing a knife's lethality can't be known until after the stabbing (and again making an argument that it wasn't really lethal because it took two or three stabs to kill the person). I don't even know what you guys are disputing but this is up there with hairsplitting word play arguments. Aldarc makes a valid point about definitions. But there are still broadly accepted meanings of words. When people say lethal it is pretty obvious they mean "this has potential to kill someone", not "this 100% absolutely will kill every person in every single circumstance." The only time your use of the word makes sense is in an after the fact statement like "The fireball proved lethal for Harry". Clearly if he wasn't killed by it, then the word is not applicable in that case.

lThe discussion is about whether or not it is unrelasitic for someone to survive a fireball, albeit unconscious. In that context, the use of the word "lethal" is question-begging, because to describe the fireball as lethal is to imply that it will kill those caught within it (if I read a news report about "a lethal blaze" or "a lethal explosion", I know that there were deaths).

Whereas everyone knows that, in D&D, fireballs and red dragon breath frequently are not lethal for those characters caught inside them. That's been the case since OD&D. Gygax uses survival of a dragon's breath as his case study for the saving throw rules in his DMG.

 

[Bedrockgames]

lThe discussion is about whether or not it is unrelasitic for someone to survive a fireball, albeit unconscious. In that context, the use of the word "lethal" is question-begging, because to describe the fireball as lethal is to imply that it will kill those caught within it (if I read a news report about "a lethal blaze" or "a lethal explosion", I know that there were deaths).

Whereas everyone knows that, in D&D, fireballs and red dragon breath frequently are not lethal for those characters caught inside them. That's been the case since OD&D. Gygax uses survival of a dragon's breath as his case study for the saving throw rules in his DMG.

You mixing different kinds of examples though. A lethal blaze is a specific event. Same as the specific instance of fireball I mentioned. But you wouldn't ever argue "house fires are not lethal". Atomic bombs are lethal, even though specific detonations may have zero fatalities. Guns are lethal, even though people survive shootings all the time. Again, I am just talking about this bit of argumentation. It just doesnt make sense.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Poke someone a billion times with a feather and they will probably be dead. That's not the point, though. The divide in the real world and in the game world in prior editions is a reasonable likelihood to cause death. Poking someone with a feather isn't going to reasonably result in death, so it will be considered non-lethal damage. The same with a punch. That shifts when you look at master martial artists who know where and how to strike to kill with a punch. A normal person doesn't have a reasonable expectation of causing death if he punches someone.

Feathers run into the 'granularity problem' of hit point abstraction, but of course you can expect to be damaged/killed by enough feathers. Again, no such distinction as 'non-lethal' damage exists. As for punching, I beg to differ! A punch to the head is quite dangerous and MANY people have died from them. Usually the puncher claims lack of homicidal intent, but that is either ignorance or self-serving. I knew a kid in grade school that died from a punch. Ain't even that hard to accomplish. Beyond that, the 10th punch to the head? Yeah, tell me that isn't lethal damage.

It's like the difference between a penny and a $100 bill. Sure they are both money, but you can only reasonably expect to be able to buy things with the $100 bill. That penny isn't likely to be able to purchase things on its own.

It is still money. Anyway, what is this analogy accomplishing? The penny is an analogy for what? A sword? And the $100 bill is an analogy for a fireball? Both of them are serious weapons in a D&D game both can absolutely kill. Generally it is probably more likely in 'classic' D&D that the later would accomplish killing someone, all other things being equal, but that doesn't mean fighters don't expect their sword blows to kill.

If they didn't have that division, you couldn't knock anyone out. There must be both lethal and non-lethal damage types in order for you to both strike to kill and strike to knock out.

No, there need only be a provision for damage to knock people out instead of killing them. Your statement here is literally counterfactual. It bears no resemblance to the actual game it purports to describe.

This is from the 1e DMG.

"Striking To Subdue: This is effective against some monsters (and other creatures of humanoid size and type) OS indicated in the MONSTER MANUAL (under DRAGONS) or herein. Such attacks use the flat, butt, haft, pommel, or otherwise non-lethal parts of the weapons concerned but are otherwise the same as other attacks. Note that unless expressly stated otherwise, all subduing damage is 75% temporary, but 25% of such damage is actually damaging to the creature being subdued. This means that if 40 hit points of subduing damage has been inflicted upon an opponent, the creature has actually suffered 10 hit points of real damage. The above, of course, does not apply to player characters."

Then there was the two page combat section in the 1e DMG entitled, Non-lethal and Weaponless Combat Procedures.

It is a very wooly and almost never used thing, that doesn't even hold water when you start trying to use it. First of all it claims to describe some subset of monsters (why a subset?) which can be subdued. That tells me immediately there isn't a 'special kind of damage' but that there is a special kind of MONSTER! Note how PCs are explicitly excluded from this rule! So, while Gygax uses a phrase 'subduing damage' that IMHO doesn't (and we never played as if it did) suggest that the damage itself was of a different type, only that the intent was different.

So yes, lethal and non-lethal damage was in classic D&D against creatures other than dragons, and not as an optional rule(though all rules are technically optional).

And calling it a 'rule' is pretty dubious. I mean, technically maybe, but that whole system, which is mainly drawn from The Dragon #11 IIRC, is completely bonkers and should NEVER be used in play (it clearly wasn't playtested for even 5 minutes). It is basically throwaway filler, one of the few such things in 1e core books. Attacking to subdue clearly is a function of some sort of 'morale' (though oddly disjointed from the normal morale rules, great thing about Gary and rules...) because it works differently on different targets, etc. I just don't buy that there is anything besides 'real damage', even in AD&D. The very fact that it describes pulling blows and such, and the actual damage is 25% says it all to me. You can still kill with these attacks! Some monsters are just bound to surrender when they are used long before that happens.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps by lethal I mean what I've told you I mean a half dozen times.

Your pedantry and sophistry are tiring and have forced this.

le·thal
/ˈlēTHəl/

adjective
sufficient to cause death.
"a lethal cocktail of alcohol and pills"

harmful or destructive.
"the Krakatoa eruption was the most lethal on record"

Let me know if you actually want to engage in discussion, rather than misstate my position time and time again.

Nobody is arguing with your definition Max. We are just pointing out that all damage is potentially lethal. Its reasonable, in a working sense, to label minor amounts of damage as being 'non-lethal' in the sense that they rarely kill, but D&D doesn't really do that.

I'd also argue, and I think anyone with medical knowledge will agree, that any blow or force strong enough to render a human being unconscious or insensible is bordering on deadly, and thus certainly treads into the land of "sufficient to cause death" in a generalized sense. Again, AD&D's unarmed combat rule acknowledges this, as some of the hit points assessed are described as being 'normal damage'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is a ridiculous argument. This is like arguing that a gun isn't lethal because it can't kill a bear in one shot. Or like arguing a knife's lethality can't be known until after the stabbing (and again making an argument that it wasn't really lethal because it took two or three stabs to kill the person). I don't even know what you guys are disputing but this is up there with hairsplitting word play arguments. Aldarc makes a valid point about definitions. But there are still broadly accepted meanings of words. When people say lethal it is pretty obvious they mean "this has potential to kill someone", not "this 100% absolutely will kill every person in every single circumstance." The only time your use of the word makes sense is in an after the fact statement like "The fireball proved lethal for Harry". Clearly if he wasn't killed by it, then the word is not applicable in that case.

But this doesn't work either, as now ANY attack whatsoever, surely any sort of kick, punch, etc. must be labeled as lethal, as all of them do have potential to kill and have actually done so. Nor is the term 'lethal' normally used in a formal legal context. Instead the term 'deadly' is used, and most often, as in 'deadly force' to mean something which actually killed someone. I don't disagree that we are being precise where and we can find lots of imprecise uses of English, but the point [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was making is not some sort of hair-splitting, it is the key point! In 4e and 5e (and maybe others) you can't say an attack was 'lethal' or 'deadly' until the situation has been fully resolved, and it is allowed for players to decide if a killing blow has ACTUALLY been struck. This doesn't require any sort of 'time travel' or cause the game to become any more unrealistic than it would otherwise be, AFAICT.

 

[Maxperson]

Feathers run into the 'granularity problem' of hit point abstraction, but of course you can expect to be damaged/killed by enough feathers. Again, no such distinction as 'non-lethal' damage exists. As for punching, I beg to differ! A punch to the head is quite dangerous and MANY people have died from them. Usually the puncher claims lack of homicidal intent, but that is either ignorance or self-serving. I knew a kid in grade school that died from a punch. Ain't even that hard to accomplish. Beyond that, the 10th punch to the head? Yeah, tell me that isn't lethal damage.

A punch almost never kills. When you read about someone dying from a punch, the vast majority of the time it wasn't the punch that killed the person. It was the falling over backwards and hitting the head on something hard. Also, for every punch that kills, there are a bazillion that don't. Kids around the country are probably involved with hundreds, if not thousands of fights every day. Bar fights. Boxing matches. And more. You hear about these things, but they are exceedingly rare in comparison to the number of punches that don't kill. There can be no reasonable expectation that a punch will kill you. You probably have a better chance of winning a good sized lottery win.

It is still money. Anyway, what is this analogy accomplishing? The penny is an analogy for what? A sword? And the $100 bill is an analogy for a fireball? Both of them are serious weapons in a D&D game both can absolutely kill. Generally it is probably more likely in 'classic' D&D that the later would accomplish killing someone, all other things being equal, but that doesn't mean fighters don't expect their sword blows to kill.

The penny is non-lethal damage and the $100 is lethal damage.

It is a very wooly and almost never used thing, that doesn't even hold water when you start trying to use it. First of all it claims to describe some subset of monsters (why a subset?) which can be subdued. That tells me immediately there isn't a 'special kind of damage' but that there is a special kind of MONSTER! Note how PCs are explicitly excluded from this rule! So, while Gygax uses a phrase 'subduing damage' that IMHO doesn't (and we never played as if it did) suggest that the damage itself was of a different type, only that the intent was different.

We used it on humanoids all the time. There were lots of NPCs we didn't want to kill, either to capture, question or for some other reason.

And calling it a 'rule' is pretty dubious. I mean, technically maybe, but that whole system, which is mainly drawn from The Dragon #11 IIRC, is completely bonkers and should NEVER be used in play (it clearly wasn't playtested for even 5 minutes). It is basically throwaway filler, one of the few such things in 1e core books. Attacking to subdue clearly is a function of some sort of 'morale' (though oddly disjointed from the normal morale rules, great thing about Gary and rules...) because it works differently on different targets, etc. I just don't buy that there is anything besides 'real damage', even in AD&D. The very fact that it describes pulling blows and such, and the actual damage is 25% says it all to me. You can still kill with these attacks! Some monsters are just bound to surrender when they are used long before that happens.

A lot of 1e was bonkers! That's part of what made it fun.

 

[Maxperson]

Nobody is arguing with your definition Max. We are just pointing out that all damage is potentially lethal.

It takes more than some extremely remote potential to elevate damage to being considered lethal. There has to be a reasonable expectation that death can happen as an immediate or fairly immediate result.

Its reasonable, in a working sense, to label minor amounts of damage as being 'non-lethal' in the sense that they rarely kill, but D&D doesn't really do that.

It has been doing that since 1e.

I'd also argue, and I think anyone with medical knowledge will agree, that any blow or force strong enough to render a human being unconscious or insensible is bordering on deadly, and thus certainly treads into the land of "sufficient to cause death" in a generalized sense. Again, AD&D's unarmed combat rule acknowledges this, as some of the hit points assessed are described as being 'normal damage'.

But as a result of what was it, 75% of the damage not being lethal? No knockout can kill in AD&D. You have to keep doing more damage after unconsciousness.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A punch almost never kills. When you read about someone dying from a punch, the vast majority of the time it wasn't the punch that killed the person. It was the falling over backwards and hitting the head on something hard. Also, for every punch that kills, there are a bazillion that don't. Kids around the country are probably involved with hundreds, if not thousands of fights every day. Bar fights. Boxing matches. And more. You hear about these things, but they are exceedingly rare in comparison to the number of punches that don't kill. There can be no reasonable expectation that a punch will kill you. You probably have a better chance of winning a good sized lottery win.

No, this is a fallacy promulgated by Hollywood. While I agree that punches don't OFTEN kill people, they can and do cause severe damage in a LOT of cases. Why else is punching so severely frowned upon? If it was barely worse than a tickle then nobody would care much, but it isn't. You can VERY EASILY suffer brain damage from being punched. Heck, all football players largely do is bang their helmeted heads together. Guess what? Turns out even just that is turning their brains to custard. There is NO clear dividing line between some damage you might take and whether it is possible it could kill you. A basic sewing needle can kill too, though it is quite a poor weapon in general (probably less deadly than a fist).

The penny is non-lethal damage and the $100 is lethal damage.

I think we already disposed of this argument...

We used it on humanoids all the time. There were lots of NPCs we didn't want to kill, either to capture, question or for some other reason.

A lot of 1e was bonkers! That's part of what made it fun.

Well, you should HOPE that no DM is mean enough to have the monsters start using subdual damage on the PCs, or the punch/kick/grapple table. It is FAR more deadly than weapon combat! It is also VASTLY more likely to result in the weaker opponent winning than the normal D&D combat system. To the degree that a dozen orcs using that system would have a VERY high probability of taking down several name-level AD&D fighters. It just doesn't work! Period! I mean, like a bunch of such mechanics, if its employed in a certain controlled circumstance once or twice in a campaign, then it won't wreck the game, obviously. But simply allow it as a general rule and it will upend the entire basic premise.

 

[Maxperson]

No, this is a fallacy promulgated by Hollywood. While I agree that punches don't OFTEN kill people, they can and do cause severe damage in a LOT of cases. Why else is punching so severely frowned upon? If it was barely worse than a tickle then nobody would care much, but it isn't.

It's frowned upon because violence is anathema these days. Even spitting on someone will get your in tons of trouble, and you can't really say spitting is lethal.

You can VERY EASILY suffer brain damage from being punched. Heck, all football players largely do is bang their helmeted heads together. Guess what? Turns out even just that is turning their brains to custard. There is NO clear dividing line between some damage you might take and whether it is possible it could kill you. A basic sewing needle can kill too, though it is quite a poor weapon in general (probably less deadly than a fist).

No you can't. If you could, a huge portion of human race would be brain damaged. Fights happen a lot. It can happen, but it's not easy. More common than death, certainly, but not easy. Even the Football brain damage(blanking on the name) is from repeated blows day after day, year after year.

Well, you should HOPE that no DM is mean enough to have the monsters start using subdual damage on the PCs, or the punch/kick/grapple table. It is FAR more deadly than weapon combat! It is also VASTLY more likely to result in the weaker opponent winning than the normal D&D combat system. To the degree that a dozen orcs using that system would have a VERY high probability of taking down several name-level AD&D fighters. It just doesn't work! Period! I mean, like a bunch of such mechanics, if its employed in a certain controlled circumstance once or twice in a campaign, then it won't wreck the game, obviously. But simply allow it as a general rule and it will upend the entire basic premise.

I never encountered a DM who tried to subdue Pcs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But this doesn't work either, as now ANY attack whatsoever, surely any sort of kick, punch, etc. must be labeled as lethal, as all of them do have potential to kill and have actually done so. Nor is the term 'lethal' normally used in a formal legal context. Instead the term 'deadly' is used, and most often, as in 'deadly force' to mean something which actually killed someone. I don't disagree that we are being precise where and we can find lots of imprecise uses of English, but the point [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was making is not some sort of hair-splitting, it is the key point! In 4e and 5e (and maybe others) you can't say an attack was 'lethal' or 'deadly' until the situation has been fully resolved, and it is allowed for players to decide if a killing blow has ACTUALLY been struck. This doesn't require any sort of 'time travel' or cause the game to become any more unrealistic than it would otherwise be, AFAICT.

It absolutely works. And we are not speaking legalize. Look a punch or kick CAN kill you. But it is not an easy thing to kill a person with a punch or kick. Which isn't to minimize the danger of doing so. It can certainly kill a person. I myself was almost killed by a kick to the neck. But I still wouldn't characterize kicks in general as lethal because the chances of killing someone with a kick is a bit low. Whereas I would absolutely call an atom bomb, a gun or a knife, lethal. The distinction between these things is pretty obvious.