Hitting to subdue and criticals

[Darkness]

How many times have you seen after school specials where someone pushes another person down the stairs and the person dies. Ooops, max damage, death may not have been the intent, but it was the result none the less.

1. That's real-life, not D&D; in D&D, things are a bit different (just look up falling damage and marvel at how easily a high-level character - assuming a somewhat decent Fort save - can survive even the most extreme of falls).
2. I wouldn't exactly call pushing somebody down the stairs an attack to subdue, ya know.

 

[Kibo]

1. That's real-life, not D&D; in D&D, things are a bit different (just look up falling damage and marvel at how easily a high-level character - assuming a somewhat decent Fort save - can survive even the most extreme of falls).
2. I wouldn't exactly call pushing somebody down the stairs an attack to subdue, ya know.

D&D is supposed to contain a model of real things, such as what happens when you hit a restrained child in the back of the head with a 2 foot long steel bar (not the edge, they aren't monsters after all).

Not to mention most D&D characters will not have the opportunity or sufficent "luck" to best the record of that Aeroflaut flight attendant who had a gravity assisted flight from 35000 feet up and made a less than ideal but realatively safe (two year coma iirc) landing with the help of a tree. Not bad for a commoner who probably had very few ranks in tumble.

I wouldn't exactly call hitting a child, hard, with a substantial piece of steel a wise move that unlikely to have dire consequences. Next time the players decide to flirt with murdering children, they might want to try a grapple check, intimidating the child into submission, or bluffing the kid in such a way that the child doesn't know that they're exactly kidnapped (kinda gotta set this one up in advance). At least in those circumstances a 20 isn't a strike to a vital area.

I mean if you're going to metagame, at least do it decently, that's all I'm saying. But I try my best not to play with kooks and dummies. It's not that I don't enjoy their company, it's just that I already have enough ammusing RPG anecdotes.

 

[Goose]

I was playing a rogue in one game and we were around level 8. We were fighting some drow and when i finished mine off, i noticed that the apparent leader was lacing into our cleric, this was also the last drow standing, so i decided to knock him out in order to intterogate him. So i told the DM i was gonna nut shot him. I rolled a 20, follow up roll was also a 20. Needless to say i did like 50pts plus of subdual damage to this guys sack. I did manage to knock him out, but he died from internal bleeding very shortly thereafter. Heh, that was cool.