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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SableWyvern" data-source="post: 4256737" data-attributes="member: 1008">Hi Hong. I've been away from EnWorld for a long time, and I've missed you. (Although I didn't realise that until I arrived back here.)  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />Correct, to a point.If one presumes that Gug the Paladin has more control over his ability to attack or not attack than his ability to successfully subdue or unsuccessfully subdue, then it may follow that Gug's player should have more control over the former than the latter.The biggest problem I have with the subdual rules is this, though -- assuming the PCs have time to interrogate their captives, subduing is almost always of greater benefit than killing. Easy subdual also makes it very difficult to have the party attacked by ninjas sent by an anonymous enemy for unknown reasons, without giving the game away as soon as the encounter ends.Preventing captured opponents from giving away too much information is fairly trivial - perhaps they don't know anything worthwhile, or are immune to intimidation. However, IMO, persistently using these techniques disempowers players and is far more artificial than making subdual more difficult in the first place. And PCs acting intelligently will be subduing all the time if it's easy to do. Player's metagaming to prevent this situation is another solution, but I like to avoid placing players in situations where they feel the need to make sub-optimal choices.If subdual is more difficult, players are forced with a choice -- take the harder route for greater reward, or the easy, lower risk route with less reward. That, to me, is a nice, simple, in-built balance that sweeps all these issues away.For those who like the subdual rules, go for it, I say. For me, they don't work.</blockquote>

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