Non-lethal damage

[Celebrim]

Flint is a stone that's high in Magnesium. The sparks are burning magnesium, not molten iron.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but none of that is true. First, 'flint and steel' only requires a hard sharp rock. It doesn't require flint specifically. Secondly, flint is not actually high in magnesium. It's semi-crystalline silicon dioxide. It might have various trace elements, but it doesn't have a lot of magnesium and doesn't require any magnesium. Thirdly, the mode of action is the same as the grind stone. The impact of the stone with the steel shaves very small particles of iron off of the striker. The mechanical impact is turned to heat, heating the tiny iron shards red hot. These in turn rapidly oxidize, or burn, because of their very high surface area compared to their volume. This releases even more heat, which in turn can ignite highly combustible objects. Paper and light cloth are very much highly combustible objects, for a lot of the same reason that the shards combust so quickly - very high surface area compared to volume. The same reason that just about anything will burn if you aerosolize it.

Getting flames for a char-cloth, "first time, every time" therefore doesn't really impress me. That's what char-cloth is supposed to do. As for lighting wood, except in extreme conditions (desert conditions) you can't even light wood with a match. You can prepare it by shaving it into very fine strips and light that, but if you try to light thicker wood lots of things work against you including the fact that the initial char acts as an impressive heat insulator that protects the wood underneath it.

You can burn yourself, slightly, with the sparks from flint and steel. You get micro-burns on the skin. Look at a machinist's hands and forearms some time.

So I'd consider the damage to be "lethal" on the "less than a hit point" scale.

And there is where we run into the big problem. There are no fractions in D&D. Nothing can do a fraction of a hit point of damage. So when you start scaling things down like this, you hit a point where the best approximation of a small quantity is zero. Those 'micro burns' do no damage. In game terms, the sparks may be lethal or not, but they cannot do damage and cannot start fires or damage anything without (as it stands) DM fiat. If they can start fires by DM fiat, it doesn't matter whether the sparks do lethal damage or not.

As for Non-Lethal Substitution: For spells like Fireball, think Flash-Bang.

Flash bangs do sonic damage; not fire. If you are close enough to them to be hit by the thermal effects, it's very much lethal damage.

For Electrical effects like Lightning Bolt, think TASER.

Tasers can easily kill you. However, the mode of action is not necessarily the same as normal electrical shock. Taser's in fact do little or no non-lethal damage. Like the flash bang, they primarily inflict a status effect. However, if they send you into cardiac arrest, well you won't notice how non-lethal they are.

Cold damage? Thermal shock. (You can knock yourself out by placing ice on your wrists or the back of your neck. )

I presume you mean cold shock physiological response. Thermal shock is a different thing that can be used to destroy objects. And I'm skeptical of your ice on the wrists trick. Cold shock response is usually induced by emersion, and it very much can kill you in the same way the Taser can.

Acid? That one's hard.

As long as we are stretching to try to accommodate the idea, any skin irritant with effects that would go away in hours rather than days. However, I'm not really convinced that any energy damage well corresponds to nonlethal damage.

 

[delericho]

Ok, point, but it's worth looking at how that works.

<snip>

Okay, since the flint&steel example isn't compelling, here's the real reason I rule as I do.

My convention with magic in 3e is very consevative - it does what it says it does, and it does nothing else. There are two reasons for that position: firstly, it's a response to having one player for years who would constantly try to make 'logical' extrapolations of the effects of his magic to get all sorts of advantage; and partly because D&D magic has generally been over-powered (and 3e most of all).

In this specific case, then, fireball states that it does X fire damage and that it sets things on fire (and softens metal, and...). The metamagic feat exchanges that fire damage for non-lethal damage - but that's all it does.

And so a non-lethal fireball does X non-lethal damage and sets things on fire (and softens metal, and...). Because it starts of as a fireball, applies the one substitution, and that's it.

Does that give a logically-consistent set of effects? No - and it's worse if instead of a non-lethal fireball we use Energy Substitution to get a cold fireball that still sets things alight! But then, it's magic, so it doesn't have to be logically-consistent - and indeed already isn't since lightning bolt does electricity damage and can set things alight while flame strike does fire damage and yet does not (indeed flame blade does while a flaming sword +1 does not).

(Otherwise, my 'logical' player would argue that a cold fireball should of course slick the entire area with ice and so also serve as grease, or somesuch thing.)

I should note, of course, that that's just my convention for how I rule (or 'ruled', since I'm unlikely to run 3e again). As in almost everything else, YMMV.

 

[Greenfield]

Celebrim: I always considered "flint" to mean exactly that, in that a flintlock doesn't work with just any stone. I have, however, obviously conflated the actual mineral with the "mental match" compound sold in camping stores as "flint". That stuff is magnesium. My mistake.

Yes, the striking action converts impact to heat. It doesn't melt the iron though, it burns it. Sparks but no droplets of molten iron.

To light wood with flint and steel, start with wood shavings or a "fuzz stick" (dry stick dressed with a knife to have shavings that are still attached.)

The reference to the demonstrator using char-cloth was to show that it doesn't take "several minutes" to start a fire with flint and steel, just the right materials. D&D and AD&D used to include "tinder box" with flint and steel fire starting gear. That refers to the "right material" in a container that keeps it dry.

As for sparks and lethal damage: You're right, D&D doesn't have fractional hit point damage ranges. Consider Tinder as dry material with a zero hardness v fire. That makes it possible to light with sparks, if you hit the tinder with enough. But I'll stick to my guns (flintlocks though they be) when I say sparks have to be counted as "lethal" damage. The rule may not have a fine enough granularity to account for minute effects like sparks, but they're pretty clear that inanimate objects aren't affected by non-lethal damage.

Regarding flash-bangs: The effect is sonic/concussive, as well as dazzling bright light. If you're holding the thing, yes it will hurt.

Can a TASER kill? Yes. So can a toothpick. The effect is, by and large, a disruption of the nervous system, and leaves no lasting wound. Repeated hits can do more, but we're talking a comparison of effects. (I have a friend who used to run with drug dealers. His "friends" obtained high end stun-guns and literally TASERed him to death during horseplay. Stopped his heart. And, if the story is true, they then used the stun guns to get his heart started again. )

I could go on to compare hypothermic shock, such as plunging into an icy river, to a non-lethal cold attack (no actual frostbite, and if pulled from the river and left in a warm area the victim will recover in a few hours.) I could come up with similar examples for other energy types as well, and someone else could nit-pick any of them. They are just comparison examples though.

While some will say that all injury is "lethal" and others will say that almost none of our real world injuries qualify, the fact is that the real world doesn't have the hard division that the game world has to.

AD&D didn't have any way to do non-lethal damage. To knock someone out you had to do real damage enough that they were dying. If that was the case in the real world then there is no reason for the 10 count in Boxing. If they're down like that, they're either dead or dying, and aren't going to wake up and continue fighting in ten seconds or ten minutes. (Note that by the "standard" rules, people died when their HP hit zero. The -10 range was an optional rule. )

Delericho: I always considered the "melt soft metals" part of the Fireball description as simply explaining the effects of the damage on a lump of metal.

I mean, you can't "burn" gold, and it isn't going to thermal-fracture and shatter or crumble. So how else could it take/show damage, other than to melt?

And since non-lethal damage can't affect inanimate objects, a non-lethal fireball couldn't melt gold or silver.

I'm a rules guy, RAW whenever possible, for many of the same reasons you are. RAW says that non-lethal effects don't affect inanimate objects, so you can leave out lighting things on fire or melting them and still be within RAW.

So how does it work? Maybe it hits like a sudden bout of heat exhaustion, raising the body temperature enough to cause someone to pass out. Maybe it abruptly deprives them of oxygen.

Maybe all of them simply induce a "state of shock", which in the clinical sense means a sudden drop in blood pressure that can cause fainting.

Maybe it's just magic.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim: I always considered "flint" to mean exactly that, in that a flintlock doesn't work with just any stone.

Well no. It won't work with just 'any' stone. But it would probably work with any quartz derivative that took a hard edge. The reason that flint is used as opposed to say chalcedony or jasper, is that flint is far less rare and valuable. However, I believe that the Japanese - lacking good access to flint - successfully used agate in their flintlock muskets.

Yes, the striking action converts impact to heat. It doesn't melt the iron though, it burns it. Sparks but no droplets of molten iron.

It does both. The core of those sparks are little tiny droplets of molten iron. That iron, because of its high temperature and high surface area, burns.

The reference to the demonstrator using char-cloth was to show that it doesn't take "several minutes" to start a fire with flint and steel, just the right materials. D&D and AD&D used to include "tinder box" with flint and steel fire starting gear. That refers to the "right material" in a container that keeps it dry.

Which is I think why I said, "Which is why, in real life, if you are forced to resort to using flint and steel to start a fire, you by all means carry a special box of especially dry and especially combustible very fine and thin tinder." Nonetheless, while you can light charcloth almost instantly once you get out the flint and steel, place the cloth on the flint, and strike it, what you'll initially get is a little hair thin red flame working its way across the char cloth. You then have to transfer that flame from the char cloth to increasingly larger tinder and/or kindling by blowing on it while in contact with the tinder and carefully nurturing the flames until they are hot enough to sustain their own draft.

Or to put this in game terms, that spark on the cloth as of yet still isn't doing even 1 point of fire damage. As such, in game terms, it's not yet 'burning'.

(If you've ever played with fire and newsprint, you've probably observed that at very low temperature the fire appears to creep across the face of the paper without ever producing a flame. This is because it's not volatilizing the paper fast enough and producing enough heat to create a vapor column, which means its poorly mixing the fuel with oxygen and achieving only very partial combustion. Often at this stage the ink even remains visible in the burnt paper. At this stage, a fire is very vulnerable to going out spontaneously, and this is particularly true if you has less than ideal tinder or kindling.)

So I stand by my claim that starting a fire with flint and steel is a lengthy process.

As for sparks and lethal damage: You're right, D&D doesn't have fractional hit point damage ranges. Consider Tinder as dry material with a zero hardness v fire. That makes it possible to light with sparks, if you hit the tinder with enough.

I would consider tinder as dry material with zero hardness vs. fire. I would also still insist that under the normal rules, you'd need to do at least 1 point of fire damage to the tinder to light it. Any other expectation requires either DM fiat or special exceptions in the rules.

But I'll stick to my guns (flintlocks though they be) when I say sparks have to be counted as "lethal" damage. The rule may not have a fine enough granularity to account for minute effects like sparks, but they're pretty clear that inanimate objects aren't affected by non-lethal damage.

We are actually somewhat in agreement on this. The sparks have to be 'lethal' damage.

The main thing I disagree with is that I don't think there is any good justification for 'nonlethal' energy damage in the first place, so all fire damage is 'lethal' in my game and this argument doesn't occur. So to the extent that I think sparks inflict fire damage at all or could inflict fire damage, it would IMO be lethal damage in all cases.

My argument is basically that if you disagree, and suggest that there is non-lethal fire damage, you have no basis for saying that the sparks are not non-lethal damage. If the sparks aren't non-lethal damage, then you have no physical representation of nonlethal fire, since the smallest least damaging observable fire is according to you 'lethal' and everything more intense and damaging should be more lethal and not less. The better ruling IMO would to be suggest that 'sparks' are not damage at all - lethal or otherwise - because they do zero damage, and that the ability of a spark to cause a fire in certain limited circumstances has nothing to do with their ability to inflict damage at all but is an intrinsic product of their 'sparkiness'. Sparks would fall in their own class of thing.

This the nerdiest nerd argument I've had in a very long time. And that's saying something in my case.

 

[delericho]

I always considered the "melt soft metals" part of the Fireball description as simply explaining the effects of the damage on a lump of metal.

Fair enough - except that very few other spells have the same effect. As I noted, flame strike doesn't. It would, of course, be reasonable to add that effect.

And since non-lethal damage can't affect inanimate objects, a non-lethal fireball couldn't melt gold or silver.

There's not any reason to assume that. After all, presumably it must have some heat.

I'm a rules guy, RAW whenever possible, for many of the same reasons you are. RAW says that non-lethal effects don't affect inanimate objects, so you can leave out lighting things on fire or melting them and still be within RAW.

Sure, I don't disagree. This is a topic RAW doesn't answer definitively, so it's just a question of rulings.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, it has some heat. Enough to, after cutting in half (as fire spells are for inanimate object damage) overcome the hardness of the soft metal, and then have enough left over to do any actual damage to the metal?

That argument is an admixture of physics and metagame mechanics, of course. In physics we'd talk about thermal mass and heat distribution rates. Silver, by the way, is an excellent conductor of heat. Gold? Not so much. With Silver you end up needing to bring the entire mass to melting point before you can melt any at all. That takes a lot of energy, and the only way to avoid this is to apply truly intense heat to a localized area, to take it through the change of state from solid to liquid so fast the metal hasn't time to conduct the heat away.

In short, physics is a lot more complicated than game rules. Like we didn't already know that.

Game rules say you can't damage inanimate objects with non-lethal damage. In play, I stick with that. Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[delericho]

Game rules say you can't damage inanimate objects with non-lethal damage.

Yes, but you have chosen to tie the "melts metal" effect of the fireball to the fire damage. That link is not made in the rules - the spell description places them in different paragraphs* and there are many other sources of fire damage that don't have this same effect, including spells of higher level and/or doing more damage.

It's also worth noting that you cannot meaningfully damage D&D gold coins by melting them, since a 1lb mis-shapen lump of gold is worth the same 50gp as, well, 50gp.

* Edit: It would, of course, be entirely sensible to point out that the fireball description didn't take into account the effect of Non-lethal Substitution when it was written, since the feat didn't exist, and so it could be argued that it didn't need to make the link explicit since it was obvious. So I'm certainly not saying your ruling is wrong - just re-stating that there is room for different rulings. (Which, in turn was obvious from your "YMMV", so by now I'm wasting electrons. I think I'll stop now. )

 

[Water Bob]

Anyway, what are your thoughts? How do you handle these things in your games?

I run it by the book, with a few tweaks. We have a lot of non-lethal combat in my game (which, as you know, is the 3.5 based Conan RPG). Not everybody is out to murder and kill in my game. NPCs regular use non-lethal combat to subdue enemies and capture them or just knock them out and keep on truckin'.

Under the Conan rules, a character does not drop unconscious when Non-Lethal = HP. Instead, this is a condition known as Disabled. A character can make half a round's worth of actions. He can either make a Standard action or a Move action, but not both. And, if a Disabled character drinks a pint of ale or other strong drink, it heals him by 1 Non-Lethal point, so that he can perform normally.

When Non-Lethal exceeds HP, then the character drops unconscious.



The two tweaks I made are this:

1. If an attack is made, looking for non-lethal damage, but a Critical Hit is the result, the damage is considered lethal damage. This, because we sometimes don't mean to beat someone to death.

2. If non-lethal damage is used to attack an unconscious or restrained character, then the damage is lethal, as the defender cannot defend himself at all.

 

[Greenfield]

That last point may need some consideration.

A prisoner being tortured is almost certainly restrained or otherwise helpless. But the torturer has to be able to inflict pain (read "non-lethal damage") or the entire concept of torture is obsolete in the game.

It's not like PCs do in game torture, but for story purposes, the mechanic has to exist in a workable format.

 

[Water Bob]

That last point may need some consideration.

A prisoner being tortured is almost certainly restrained or otherwise helpless. But the torturer has to be able to inflict pain (read "non-lethal damage") or the entire concept of torture is obsolete in the game.

It's not like PCs do in game torture, but for story purposes, the mechanic has to exist in a workable format.

Good point. I haven't had that come up in a game, and I was already shaky on the second tweak. I like the first tweak a lot, though.