First rule I don't like

[LowSpine]

No, the real question is how do you subdue someone with a fireball. Or with Witchfire. I'm sure you can gently burn out his mind...

You just don't. Ranged and area have enough benefits over melee. Melee is IMO the only way to subdue unless there are some spells that fit it.

As for ranged arrows/bolts/stones well you could say they were leg shots or a bonk on the head.

 

[D'karr]

I'm sure you can gently burn out his mind...

Burning their mind slowly is always more humane...

 

[SableWyvern]

The preferred solution is to make it clear, out of game, that pointless capturing and interrogating won't achieve anything

"The preferred solution"?

That's one perfectly acceptable solution, but it's not mine, nor my players.

Whether something is optimal or suboptimal is entirely up to you. If capturing all the time is suboptimal, then no disruptive metagaming is involved.

I feel that making it suboptimal requires making too many NPCs either artifically ignorant, or artifically resilient. I'd prefer my NPCs to be more likely to give up information, but less likely to be subdued in the first place. That's my preferred solution.

As I've said repeatedly, I've got no problems with people who think the new subdual rules are fine. I do have a problem with assertions that disliking them indicates a lack of common sense, an inability to roleplay because I'm really a rollplayer, or other such nonense.

 

[LowSpine]

No, the real question is how do you subdue someone with a fireball. Or with Witchfire. I'm sure you can gently burn out his mind...

You just don't. Ranged and area have enough benefits over melee. Melee is IMO the only way to subdue unless there are some spells that fit it.

As for ranged arrows/bolts/stones well you could say they were leg shots or a bonk on the head.

 

[hong]

"The preferred solution"?

That's one perfectly acceptable solution, but it's not mine, nor my players.



I feel that making it suboptimal requires making too many NPCs either artifically ignorant, or artifically resilient. I'd prefer my NPCs to be more likely to give up information, but less likely to be subdued in the first place. That's my preferred solution.

As I've said repeatedly, I've got no problems with people who think the new subdual rules are fine. I do have a problem with assertions that disliking them indicates a lack of common sense, an inability to roleplay because I'm really a rollplayer, or other such nonense.

Unfortunately, this means we must now fight with knives.

 

[Pbartender]

No, the real question is how do you subdue someone with a fireball. Or with Witchfire. I'm sure you can gently burn out his mind...

You just don't. Ranged and area have enough benefits over melee. Melee is IMO the only way to subdue unless there are some spells that fit it.

As for ranged arrows/bolts/stones well you could say they were leg shots or a bonk on the head.

"Overstimulation of the vagus nerve due to extreme pain, fear or stress."

 

[SableWyvern]

Unfortunately, this means we must now fight with knives.

You only picked knives 'cos you somehow guessed that my sword is magical.

 

[hong]

"Overstimulation of the vagus nerve due to extreme pain, fear or stress."

Unfortunately, this means we must now fight with knives.

 

[Mallus]

While I enjoyed D&D's longstanding tradition of lethal tavern fights and general incentivization of wanton homicide as much as the next guy, I think this rule is swell.

Also, giving the players what essentially amounts to control over the campaigns tone should be orthogonal to campaign difficulty (ie, so what if they want to play the quasi-Medieval A-Team?).

If it's not, the DM is probably doing something wrong.

 

[Pbartender]

Unfortunately, this means we must now fight with knives.

PWNED.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

If it's not, the DM is probably doing something wrong.

Unfortunately, this means that we must now fight with BANANAS.

 

[Pbartender]

Unfortunately, this means that we must now fight with BANANAS.

PWNED.

 

[malraux]

If you want a more gritty version of this rule, just declare that 0hp for bad guys is not death, but near death. So that last sword slice was to the gut instead of the head, the fireball gave the person 90% full thickness burns, etc. They are beyond the reach simple magic to heal, but aren't fully dead yet. The PCs have a short time they can use to interrogate, but the dying creature isn't necessarily going to give useful info.

 

[Ingolf]

Unfortunately, this means we must now fight with knives.

That's fine, so long as the winner only subdues the loser and does not kill him . . .

 

[IanArgent]

Funny, I never had a problem with this in a game where subdual damage is easy, cheap, and powerful (shadowrun). Generally speaking, the PCs never cared whether they killed the opponent or merely dropped them unconcious (barring squaring off against the cops, or the handful of bar brawls they were in - both cases where they did not escalate to dealy force if they could help it). I know the milieaux are different, but doesn't have to be a problem.

Being at 0 just means they are out of action - they are bleeding on the floor attempting to hold the blood in that's escaping from the stump of their hand could be a 0 HP status, but not immediately lethal. And that's within the realm of character decision - does he lop ff th hand, or stab in the chest?

 

[Jim DelRosso]

D&D seems to be stealing a lot from Feng Shui. One of the rules in Feng Shui is that all of your characters are such supreme badasses that they only kill when they want to. Even with a shotgun to the face.

Actually, IIRC, Feng Shui did note that describing your action as "shoving the barrle of my M-16 down the guy's throat and pulling the trigger" meant you couldn't then declare that you just knocked him out.

All in all, I think this is a good rule. Heck, I invoked it last night to preserve the life of the clue-bearing witness that the party wizard decided to hit with an Acid Arrow. "He's alive, but very badly burned."

As for ranged weapons, depending on the skill of the attacker, I'd totally allow for Green Arrow-style subdual shenanigans.

 

[hong]

Actually, IIRC, Feng Shui did note that describing your action as "shoving the barrle of my M-16 down the guy's throat and pulling the trigger" meant you couldn't then declare that you just knocked him out.

That's just because you haven't seen ME shove the barrel of MY M-16 down a guy's throat and pull the trigger.

 

[Vayden]

Similar to the old warp-drive rule ("The ship moves at the speed of plot"), in my games lethality will be house-ruled to "whatever is best for the story". Bar-fight? Non-lethal. Melee with people who don't necessarily have any information? Lethal. Fight with the NPC holding crucial information? Non-lethal if it's a good time for the PCs to have that information for the story, lethal other-wise.

That's my house-rule. I'm pretty flexible with it, but that's the general rule.

 

[malraux]

That's just because you haven't seen ME shove the barrel of MY M-16 down a guy's throat and pull the trigger.

I love it when you talk dirty.

 

[Zinovia]

To preserve some degree of "Oops, I killed him by accident" you could just make the assumption that NPC's are sort of like the players in that they have a negative HP threshold in which they are dying, but not yet dead. If they take damage that reduces them below that threshold they are dead. Make the threshold whatever you like. -1/4 HP, or -10, or whatever other number makes you happy. So that critical strike with a daily by the fighter when BBEG was only at 3 hp remaining did "jog him too hard" and he's croaked. So much for interrogation this time.

If the bad guy is below zero, but above the designated threshold, then the characters can take a simple first aid check to stop the guy from dying, and interrogate him later.