D&D General As GM, do you have bad guys kill downed PCs?

[Reynard]

I generally play that creatures do not split their multiattacks. So, if a PC goes down on the first or second of a three attack multi-attack, then, sure, I'll finish the PC off. But, I've been very open with my players about this. They KNOW that monsters don't split attacks, so, they've largely adjusted their tactics to suit. Healing before someone goes down becomes a LOT more important when you play this way. Whack-a-mole is not really an issue when you pound the mole into paste.

"The best way to survive is to not die."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Never.

 

[tetrasodium]

I went back & forth a bit. Yes I have monsters attack downed PCs every chance I get, but that's not a common occurrence and it almost never actually matters even if they do

Edit:the only time it actually matters is pretty much when I run the battle so that it blatantly executes a pc.

 

[James Gasik]

For me it's a tactical thing. Enemies tend to look at other combatants who are still up and kicking*. So only if they find themselves next to an downed PC with no ability to go attack someone else, will they go "well hell, might as well off this guy then". Or if they down someone and have an extra attack that has no other target.

This (in theory) encourages my players to not scatter across the battlemap. In practice, it mostly does, but they still seem to do it more often than not, lol.

*I know, in a world with magical healing, it might make more sense to double tap every downed foe, but the cost in action economy, plus the fact that said healing is useless if the healer never gets a chance to use it, encourages me to not fight as dirty as I could.

 

[jgsugden]

In my Homebrew there are two death rules.

In the first you get the ones the PHB describes if you're 'God Touched' (and all PCs are God Touched).

If you're not God Touched, you're down at 0 and die if either you hit negative hp equal to your hit dice + con modifier, or if you fail one death save before you make three (or ~85% of the time you go down you die). I only track this if it is relevant - otherwise I assume they die without bothering to check.

In prior editions the rules were harsher - if God Touched you died at - hp equal to your level + con modifier and you lost 1 hp when below 0 at the start of each round. If you were not God Touched you died if you hp dropped below 0.

The world understands that there are God Touched, generally. Not everyone does, but it is common knowledge. Thus, NPCs know that a God Touched needs to be put down hard to keep it down - and they do it. Animals do not, but many of them have instincts that tell them to tear apart a corpse.

As a result, it is common for foes to take the time to make sure a God Touched enemy does not get back up.

 

[jasper]

It varies with the adventure, monster, and theme. But occasionally I just roll a d20. Not greater than INT score, monster does double tap.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I chose "No simple answers" because its exceedingly situational. In almost all battles, any entity that could finish off a downed PC has other things to worry about; they're priority is not the unconscious guy on the ground but the conscious guy launching arrows/spells/swordstrikes at them.

Now I know the common response to that is "But they don't want the downed person getting up again!" Besides a bunch of assumptions there (the creature is smart enough to know that's a thing, they've encountered enough adventuring groups or equivalent to think in those terms...) the obvious answer there isn't to bother with the downed opponent but the healer that's still up.

There are occasions its the thing that make sense, but they're just that--occasions: dumb monsters that don't perceive anything they aren't immediately fighting with a threat, or opponents who's priority is killing one or more of the PCs at all costs. They're rare enough that I can count the situations where the opportunity with opponents of that sort occurred over the years on one hand.

 

[p_johnston]

So I won't generally attack downed PC's with most creatures because mid battle I don't think most creatures would. Even something that wants to eat them like a hungry wolf/ghoul are more likely to try and drag them away then start to chow down right there with a bunch of other angry adventurers trying to kill them.
That being said I have had some more intelligent foes do so before, mostly if the PC's keep getting back up. Way I see it is that if you go down most enemies will consider you out of the fight. If you get healed and get back up again then next time you go down the enemies will take a couple extra seconds to make sure you stay down this time.

 

[Charlaquin]

The last option is just a factually true statement, but I voted for “yes, but rarely.” If there was an option between “rarely” and “fairly often” (perhaps “occasionally” or something like that), I would have voted for that, but given the options I decided to err on the side of less frequently. It depends a lot on the enemies and their motivations. Violence is rarely engaged in solely for its own sake; it’s usually a means to an end. Would continuing to attack an unconscious opponent serve the monsters’ ends better than moving on to another conscious one? And equally importantly, would the monsters recognize that fact? If the answer to both questions is yes, they will do so. Otherwise, they won’t.

 

[Charlaquin]

When it comes to hungry beasts, only the most suicidal creature would stop for a snack in the middle of combat. But I have had predators attempt to carry away a downed PC to eat at their leisure.

Frankly, I feel the same way about ghouls. In my mind, that’s what the paralysis is for - paralyzed prey is easier to drag off.