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.