Making it easier NOT to kill people...

[Kahuna Burger]

I agree. I guess I misunderstood when you said you "want it (the set of house rules) to be a realistic option."

ah, I'm sorry, I mean realistic in terms of characters having the option without ransoming their entire character concept to it... (and thus being underpowered in most other situations). I probably should have used another word, but I wasn't expecting the realism thing to be an issue... can't think of another word right now though... non-crippling option?

I don't want to remove the penalty entirely, because the realism bit does creep in, and subduing with an arrow seems exceptionaly hard.

kahuna burger

 

[XCorvis]

Consider saying that out of every standard damage attack, one point of it is sudual instead... This would give you a situation where going unconsious prior to dying would be the default, without significantly changing the length or difficulty of combat.

I like this idea. Make sure you apply it to spells as well. Personally, I'd make it more like 10-25%, but that is more time consuming. Maybe 1 point per die of damage? I'd run a few playtests with this - see how many people live.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I like this idea. Make sure you apply it to spells as well. Personally, I'd make it more like 10-25%, but that is more time consuming. Maybe 1 point per die of damage? I'd run a few playtests with this - see how many people live.

My guess is that folks would still die a lot in combat at low levels... When all it really takes is two or three dice of damage to waste you, that last die will be more likely to jump right over the accumulated 1-2 subdual range and drop you into the negs. As it takes more individual hits to take you out, the build up of the subdual damage will be more telling, and there will be a greaterrange between "up" and "dead" to land in and pass out.

In any case, it could lead to a very different feel to a campaign. More cases of having to deal with your defeated enemies, greater chance of capture for the party, but also plenty of genre precendent for the hero being left for dead then rolling over and heading out for vengance a bit later... good clean fun all around.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Bendris Noulg]

It seems to me that the D&D rules already include a number of ways to handle an adversary in combat without killing them, they're just more difficult to implement. If I wanted to make inflicting lethal and non-lethal damage equally easy, I would simply remove the penalty altogether, allowing everyone to choose whether they're trying to kill their opponent or not.

I would likely go like this only slightly altered: Rather than a hitting penalty, reducing the damage that is done. I must say, though, that a -4 for that is a bit over-the-top (20% loss in accuracy because I want to slap someone with my sword instead of slicing through him?).

Watching with interest to see if anything interestig comes to fruition..

 

[AeroDm]

I think this thread is really interesting because to a large extent it paralells many of the turmoils I've seen in my game. We toyed with vita/wounds because the entire wounds section acts as a buffer for things like surrender, flee, et al exist, but we found it to be lacking.

I find that players will only employ these options if they want to. No matter how easy you make it, it is still probably going to be harder than killing the enemy, and then they get the 'reward' of talking to it. The type of players that won't take enemies are often, at least ime, the same that don't want to talk to it. Make talking beneficial. Make the enemies realistic; if they are disarmed and surrounded while their companions are all dead, why would they fight? If the NPCs are this stupid, the PCs will be as well.

Lastly, I guess I don't really see where the problem exists with the current rules. Nets are okay, but the combat options are much better, especially in 3.5. It is easy to grapple, disarm, and trip with the improved feats, and any NPC should surrender when clearly outmatched, outnumbered and disadvantaged. Likewise, the -4 for subdual isn't really all that bad. The general rule of thumb I've seen is that the best attacked should need to roll a 10-12 to hit the AC, which means they now need a 14-16. In a party of 4, it should take more than a round or two to score the one-subdual his necessary to ensure unconsciousness. Afterall, you can beat them to 1 hp and if they have 2 subdual they are out. Only one of many hits need to be at the -4 penalty.

 

[RangerWickett]

I added Wound Points to my game. Hit points are the things that represent when you're getting hurt and are in pain, but taking wound point damage is the stuff that'll kill you. All characters get WP equal to their Constitution (or 3/4 Con for small guys), and once you're out of hit points, you start taking WP damage. It's not like Star Wars where critical hits deal damage to your WP. Instead, once you take any WP damage, you suffer a -2 penalty to pretty much everything.

I rule that mooks fall down once they hit 0 HP, and usually cower on the ground in pain, or lay unconscious from the shock of being hurt. People can choose to keep fighting, but that's usually reserved for PCs and big bad guys. So feats like Great Cleave are still useful, but PCs can take prisoners if they feel like it. If they don't, then people without HP take a point of WP damage every minute without help, so the PCs can just run on and leave the bad guys for dead without having to systematically disembowel everyone.

If you're at 0 HP but still have full WP, you might have a nasty slash across your face, or you might be bleeding from your wrist. If you drop to the ground, play dead, and try to staunch the bleeding, you might just survive.

 

[Kemrain]

My game uses the Grim and Gritty rules.

We added a called shot to the table that lets you make an attack, but only aginst a Flatfooted opponent, as a standard action, at a -6 penalty, -10 with a lethal damage weapon, that provokes an attack of opportunity, though that usually doesn't matter as you normally can't AoO while flatfooted, which forces the wounded party to make a Fort save DC 10+damage dealt or be rendered unconscious for X time.

We've used it a few times and it worked just fine, because there's no sneak attack damage being added, and people's helmets give them a little DR. Having played the Thief series (R.I.P. Looking Glass Studios), being able to blackjack opponents is just DAMN cool. Plus, you basicially only get one chance to do this, as you can't do it while flanking or anything. Makes feinting in combat more useful again. Doubt this is terribly useful, but I thought I'd share regardless.

I like the idea of 1 point of damage from each damage die being Subdual. That'd give GnG characters a lot more, um, survivability. It'd take Crits down a notch, too, as in GnG you only add bonus damage once, so your 1d8+3 (1 sub) would become 3d8+3 (3 sub). You'd take leathal damage off first, in the dcase of DR, so it would mean that a lot of hits might only deal subdual damage. Cool idea. I'll have to throw this one at my GM, though, it'll make me have to remake my character sheet AGAIN!!

- Kemrain the Unofficial Grim and Gritty Spokesbeing.

On a side note, would "Unofficial Grim and Gritty Spokesbeing" fit under my nickname if I became a community supporter?

 

[MerakSpielman]

I like this idea. Make sure you apply it to spells as well. Personally, I'd make it more like 10-25%, but that is more time consuming. Maybe 1 point per die of damage? I'd run a few playtests with this - see how many people live.

The idea of weapons automatically causing some amount of subdual damage makes sense to me. This is the way I'd do it (off the top of my head)

Piercing weapons: First 1 point of damage is subdual.
Slashing weapons: First 2 points of damage are subdual
Bludgeoning weapons: First 4 points of damage are subdual.

All wounds inflicted will include some subdual damage. Some wounds, especially from blunt weapons, will often only inflict subdual damage.

 

[maddman75]

Here's a house rule for you. It came from many discussions of what hit points actually are.

Let's take a 10th level fighter with a hundred hit points. Now a long sword only does 1d8 damage. Does that mean that if you ran the sword right through his heart he's just yell 'tis but a scratch!'

Not at all. A blade in the heart would kill him as surely as it would a 1st level commoner. But here's the kicker - you *can't* put the sword right into his heart. His hit points reflect his martial skill, reflexes, and luck that prevent this from happening. The blade may be aimed at his heart, but he'll turn at the last second to make it just a scratch on his shoulder, or perhaps twist his body so it just glances him.

Now, after you do this enough and wear him out, his ability to do this is decreased. When he's down to 4 hit points, he can no longer turn aside your blows at all. There's nothing stopping you from driving it right into his heart like you could with a 1st level peasant.

But, if you can do this, you can pretty much do whatever you like. Own him, as they say in the deathmatches. So IMC, whenever you do enough damage to kill someone, you can instead tell the DM you want to do a Called Shot instead. Rather than put your blade in his chest, you hold the tip to his throat and tell him not to move. If he does, you can CDG as a free action so long as you don't move out of position yourself. You can also do other fun things, like staple someone iwth an arrow, put out an eye, or carve a letter in someone.

My players haven't used it much, but I think its a good rule.

 

[Dogbrain]

Lots of proposals, none of them simple.

Here is simple:

Death doesn't automatically occur until you are at -Con hit points. That should leave plenty of unconscious enemies around to capture and nurse back to health if it would amuse you. The rest can just bleed to death while you chuckle.