D&D 5E House Rule for Subdual, is it fair?

[CapnZapp]

I thought the OP didn't want us getting into that player's attitude.

Right. Okay.

Will the jury please disregard the previous statement, thanks.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Saeviomagy]

It's not eliminating those stories, it simply relegates narrative control of such events to the players. For example, under the RAW a player might declare that his character attempts to subdue but inflicts lethal harm by accident.

... all of the time.
The problem is that if inflicting nonlethal harm is so easy that you can always do it... why do you ever kill anyone? Simply because it's inconvenient to take prisoners?

As for narrative control? There's a mile of difference between deciding that you have an accident, and actually having something occur outside of your control. After all, we don't scrap attack/damage rolls under the same logic.

This particular house rule is excellent: if you try to take a prisoner, you only risk failing if you weren't satisfied with your damage roll. It's a conscious gamble between your own safety and the safety of your prospective prisoner.

I'm of the opinion that if you make subual too harsh a penalty, your players won't want to engage with those mechanics and you'll lose out on opportunities for role playing (interrogating the enemy, showing mercy to a foe, and so forth).

My point of view is that the benefit of these actions far outweighs the penalty proposed here.

I'd suggest talking to the player to find out why they are so strongly opposed to this house rule. Perhaps the player enjoys characters who refuse to kill (but doesn't want their RP choices to be a burden upon the party), in which case eliminating the penalty for just those characters (who would logically be more experienced than the average person at subduing foes) might be sufficient.

Certainly talking to them might be able to get more information than "I don't like it, so I'm going to sulk".

 

[Fanaelialae]

... all of the time.

I doubt that a player would want to do that all the time. You'd need a very unusual concept for that.

The problem is that if inflicting nonlethal harm is so easy that you can always do it... why do you ever kill anyone? Simply because it's inconvenient to take prisoners?

Just because it is so easy as a game mechanic, doesn't mean that the characters know that it's that easy (unless the campaign concept is something extremely meta, like players who've been sucked into an MMO).

As for why not do it from a player perspective? That's really up to the group/player. Some groups will want to regularly take prisoners. Some won't. This makes both options equally valid.

If subdual attacks are sub-par, then Joe might catch flak from the group for playing a character who refuses to kill. On the other hand, the 5e RAW allows him to be just as effective as any other member of the party.

As for narrative control? There's a mile of difference between deciding that you have an accident, and actually having something occur outside of your control. After all, we don't scrap attack/damage rolls under the same logic.

I've actually had a player who narrated their character as attacking with everything they had, but declaring that the character automatically missed because he didn't want to steal another player's kill. There's a mile of difference between narrating that something unfortunate happens to you character and throwing out randomness altogether.

This particular house rule is excellent: if you try to take a prisoner, you only risk failing if you weren't satisfied with your damage roll. It's a conscious gamble between your own safety and the safety of your prospective prisoner.

Actually, as [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] pointed out, this rule is quite flawed. You can game it to actually boost your damage (because forgoing the lower damage roll is the same as rolling the damage with advantage). Why would attempting a subdual attack and then deciding at the last second to deal lethal damage lead to more damage than a normal attack?

My point of view is that the benefit of these actions far outweighs the penalty proposed here.

Most of the time, subduing an enemy is a serious inconvenience. Granted, if you happen to fight someone that you need to interrogate that's one thing, but how often does that happen? Killing the enemy is typically much more convenient because you don't have to worry about what to do with them afterwards. It's one thing to kill someone in the heat of battle while they're trying to kill you, but most people would say that it is a very different thing altogether to kill that same guy once you have him helpless and at your mercy.

Subduing the enemy leads to something I very much like to encourage. Namely, role playing! Conversely, if you penalize subdual attacks then IMO you are prompting your players to be murderhobos. The rules are how the players (but not their characters) interface with the game. Reward something and your players are likely to engage in such behavior again. Penalize something and they will be far less likely to do so in the future.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Generally, subdual damage is balanced by the fact that DMs like to bring back previously defeated enemies for another encounter... only now they know all your tricks. If you really need to penalize it, I agree with the -1 or -2 approach. If you also want it to be complicated, you can say that if you hit exact AC or 1 higher than exact AC, you instead deal normal damage. Or you can say that a natural roll of 19 or better is always a normal hit. I think you already have to be attacking with a melee weapon?

Are you not giving the player advantage effectively? "I try to subdue... an 8 and a 20? Well, that 8 seems low so I guess it is a lethal blow."

Yes, as presented this is free Savage Attacker for everyone when you want to deal normal damage.

I'm not sure how this is a negative. It is a challenge that can lead to further adventure, what's to hate about that?

This is D&D. *All* doors lead to adventure. Most players prefer the ones that have treasure and magic behind them instead of those that have challenges of prisoner management and criminal rehabilitation.

 

[Ganymede81]

This is D&D. *All* doors lead to adventure. I prefer the ones that have treasure and magic behind them instead of those that have challenges of prisoner management and criminal rehabilitation.

Fixed it.

Please don't pretend to be a spokesperson for the gestalt D&D community, and pretty please don't ping my notifications over it.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I doubt that a player would want to do that all the time. You'd need a very unusual concept for that.

Like having a good alignment? Because otherwise you're just deliberately murdering people for, at best, convenience when you have an effective alternative...

Just because it is so easy as a game mechanic, doesn't mean that the characters know that it's that easy (unless the campaign concept is something extremely meta, like players who've been sucked into an MMO).

Having characters in the game world react to how the game world behaves is the opposite of meta, since meta is reacting to things that are not in the game. Bribing the DM with pizza is meta. Your character knowing they are good at bribing guards with pizza is not.

As for why not do it from a player perspective? That's really up to the group/player. Some groups will want to regularly take prisoners. Some won't. This makes both options equally valid.

If subdual attacks are sub-par, then Joe might catch flak from the group for playing a character who refuses to kill. On the other hand, the 5e RAW allows him to be just as effective as any other member of the party.

So his refusal to kill loses some impact and drama. The response to "my character refuses to kill" becomes "and? so what?"

I've actually had a player who narrated their character as attacking with everything they had, but declaring that the character automatically missed because he didn't want to steal another player's kill. There's a mile of difference between narrating that something unfortunate happens to you character and throwing out randomness altogether.

... except you're specifically saying "we should throw out the randomness and rely on narration" in this case.

Actually, as [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] pointed out, this rule is quite flawed. You can game it to actually boost your damage (because forgoing the lower damage roll is the same as rolling the damage with advantage). Why would attempting a subdual attack and then deciding at the last second to deal lethal damage lead to more damage than a normal attack?

You are right. I'd mentally stored the rule as keeping track of which was the 'original' die, and reverting to that resulted in non-subdual if it was higher, but that's not what's written.

Most of the time, subduing an enemy is a serious inconvenience. Granted, if you happen to fight someone that you need to interrogate that's one thing, but how often does that happen? Killing the enemy is typically much more convenient because you don't have to worry about what to do with them afterwards. It's one thing to kill someone in the heat of battle while they're trying to kill you, but most people would say that it is a very different thing altogether to kill that same guy once you have him helpless and at your mercy.

Right - so with the rules as-is, killing foes is done out of convenience. At that point, are your protagonists heroes in any meaning of the word?

Subduing the enemy leads to something I very much like to encourage. Namely, role playing! Conversely, if you penalize subdual attacks then IMO you are prompting your players to be murderhobos.

No, that's caused by prisoners being nothing but an inconvenience, and leaving living foes a ticket to revenge plots, like [MENTION=6777737]Bacon Bits[/MENTION] suggests. Oh, and using the rules from the DMG for any downtime activities.

If you don't want murderhobos, make murder a bad thing, make building and maintaining a home a good thing and make your goons real people instead of cardboard cutouts.

 

[CapnZapp]

This boils down to two opposing arguments:

"if you don't want murderhoboes, don't play D&D"​

and

"it's just a game. No actual bandits and cult fanatics were harmed"​

I don't really see how this can cause an argument.

Either you buy into the fiction so deep that you consider sparing the lives of your foes to be a central part of retaining a good alignment, and then you obviously will want there to be a cost of doing so or there's no point in staying good.

Or you will focus on getting to the next dungeon and each minute spent on discussing what to do with prisoners is not getting you there, and so you're fine with a more pragmatic "anyone trying to kill me has to be okay with me killing them" approach, especially since it's all a game, and so there's no actual body trail to inconvenience you later.

Either you buy into the need for subdual to have a cost, or you don't. Neither side is more right than the other.

Except this thread is about subdual damage, and not about "not subdual damage". There's far too much sniping ideas at ENWorld, and "plus threads" is really REALLY needed, where if you're not agreeing to the original post's premise, you're considered to be off topic for the thread.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Like having a good alignment? Because otherwise you're just deliberately murdering people for, at best, convenience when you have an effective alternative...

No, like being under a curse. Why would having a good alignment cause you to accidentally kill people with regularity. As with anything else, the DM can and should call shenanigans if players seek to abuse the system.

Having characters in the game world react to how the game world behaves is the opposite of meta, since meta is reacting to things that are not in the game. Bribing the DM with pizza is meta. Your character knowing they are good at bribing guards with pizza is not.

Outside of perhaps a very unusual setting (like the aforementioned MMO) characters who are aware that their fates are determined by a cosmic d20 are exceedingly meta.

Characters should not behave as though they have read the rules. If, for example, you suffer no penalties for eating every other day (by the rules) characters should nonetheless seek to eat every day, just as in the real world.

So his refusal to kill loses some impact and drama. The response to "my character refuses to kill" becomes "and? so what?"

I very much doubt that, as it still brings to the forefront what will be done with those captives.

... except you're specifically saying "we should throw out the randomness and rely on narration" in this case.

No, I'm saying we CAN rely on narration in this case. Per RAW there is no randomness.

You are right. I'd mentally stored the rule as keeping track of which was the 'original' die, and reverting to that resulted in non-subdual if it was higher, but that's not what's written.

Right - so with the rules as-is, killing foes is done out of convenience. At that point, are your protagonists heroes in any meaning of the word?

No, that's caused by prisoners being nothing but an inconvenience, and leaving living foes a ticket to revenge plots, like [MENTION=6777737]Bacon Bits[/MENTION] suggests. Oh, and using the rules from the DMG for any downtime activities.

If you don't want murderhobos, make murder a bad thing, make building and maintaining a home a good thing and make your goons real people instead of cardboard cutouts.

So what then? You've done all this work to give the bad guys depth, and now anyone who wants to maintain a good alignment must suffer a combat penalty on top of the challenges presented by sparing enemies (such as having to mind them until you can throw them in a jail cell)? That seems to me like it would encourage the players to play non-good alignments, much the same as an experience penalty for being good would.

 

[Saeviomagy]

No, like being under a curse. Why would having a good alignment cause you to accidentally kill people with regularity. As with anything else, the DM can and should call shenanigans if players seek to abuse the system.

Your line was "what sort of character would anyone want to spare people all the time?" My answer is that if you're good,

Outside of perhaps a very unusual setting (like the aforementioned MMO) characters who are aware that their fates are determined by a cosmic d20 are exceedingly meta.

On fine grained matters, perhaps, and the interplay of hitpoints, attack rolls and unknown stats does a pretty good job to avoid (say) having a character attack another character and determine that combat effectiveness is quantized in 5% increments. In broader strokes, knowing that it's no harder to subdue someone than to kill them seems pretty fundamental, and expecting every player to pretend they don't know that is being optimistic to say the least.

Characters should not behave as though they have read the rules. If, for example, you suffer no penalties for eating every other day (by the rules) characters should nonetheless seek to eat every day, just as in the real world.

People in the real world know the rules, they still don't optimize for them. I know for a fact that if I ate less food and worked out, I would be fit and live longer... it doesn't mean I do it.

I very much doubt that, as it still brings to the forefront what will be done with those captives.

Except part of my point is that prior to implementing this rule, most characters shouldn't be killing them anyway unless you're simply ignoring the entire question.

No, I'm saying we CAN rely on narration in this case. Per RAW there is no randomness.

Except in that case the actual argument is you must rely on narration because the raw doesn't have any randomness.

So what then? You've done all this work to give the bad guys depth, and now anyone who wants to maintain a good alignment must suffer a combat penalty on top of the challenges presented by sparing enemies (such as having to mind them until you can throw them in a jail cell)? That seems to me like it would encourage the players to play non-good alignments, much the same as an experience penalty for being good would.

What work? I had to plan out the story arc anyway, so "goons knowing things" is trivial. My goons do things like surrender when a situation isn't worth what they're paid, or when they're convinced they're not fighting for a sane cause. I already do this work to make combat encounters that aren't just excuses to roll dice, so there is no work wasted when henchmen aren't captured.

 

[77IM]

As others have pointed out, you're actually giving players advantage on lethal melee weapon attacks, which seems backwards.

FWIW, I, too, have a problem with the RAW for knocking out. It violates my expectations for a player to say, "With a mighty roar, I swing my greatsword at my foe... [rolls a natural 20] for a massive 26 damage! His skull is cleft in twain... no, wait, he is just knocked out." The setup for that action really doesn't match the outcome.

My house rule is pretty simple: You must declare your intent to do non-lethal damage before the attack, and if you roll a natural 20, it's lethal anyway.