Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Are rules for nonlethal / subdual damage in the PHB? Couldn't find them -- did I miss them somehow?
Nonlethal / subdual damage
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
small pumpkin man
Explorer
page 295 "knocking a creature unconsious".
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Thx. Sounds pretty dicey, particularly at higher levels, but it does simplify things.
Fredrik Svanberg
First Post
Dicey? It works every time; how is it dicey?
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Fredrik Svanberg said:
Since the player doesn't know when the killing blow is going to land, you have to resort to a bit of metagaming to make it work:
PC: "8 damage!"
DM: "The kobold falls, dead"
PC: "Oh, but I want to take him prisoner."
DM: "In that case, he's just unconscious".
Sonny
Adventurer
Seems like it would just be easy to tell the DM beforehand if you're only trying to subdue him. Then whenever the killing blow lands everyone at the table knows he's only knocked out.
This kind of thing is usually discussed by players during battles anyway:
"Make sure you don't kill that one, we need him to find out what happened to the inn keeper's daughter"
"Okay!"
This kind of thing is usually discussed by players during battles anyway:
"Make sure you don't kill that one, we need him to find out what happened to the inn keeper's daughter"
"Okay!"
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
LOL. You're right, of course!
IceFractal
First Post
One thing I wonder about:
Let's say we have a group of guards trying to knock out a suspect for capture. But one of the guards is secretly a criminal agent, and wants to eliminate the suspect so he can't spill the beans.
Case 1:
The other guards hit him several times, trying to knock him out. The agent delivers the final blow and kills him. Simple enough.
Case 2:
The other guards hit him several times and successfully knock him out. Can the agent immediately administer a killing blow (since he's already at 0 hp), or does he have to be woken up and then killed? (Which would be pretty bizarre, but not impossible for 4E).
Case 3:
The other guards have a warning something like this might happen. Is there any way they can knock out the suspect without making him vulnerable to being killed on the last strike?
Let's say we have a group of guards trying to knock out a suspect for capture. But one of the guards is secretly a criminal agent, and wants to eliminate the suspect so he can't spill the beans.
Case 1:
The other guards hit him several times, trying to knock him out. The agent delivers the final blow and kills him. Simple enough.
Case 2:
The other guards hit him several times and successfully knock him out. Can the agent immediately administer a killing blow (since he's already at 0 hp), or does he have to be woken up and then killed? (Which would be pretty bizarre, but not impossible for 4E).
Case 3:
The other guards have a warning something like this might happen. Is there any way they can knock out the suspect without making him vulnerable to being killed on the last strike?
I think this is just a coup de gras - it doesn't matter whether target is conscious or not, he just needs to be helpless.IceFractal said:
Characters die at negative hit points equal to bloodied anyway.
I think the only way to do this is for at least one of the guards to take a Ready action: "if anyone strikes a killing blow, I'll hit him first."
This might not stop the killing blow, of course, but it's pretty obvious who has done it by then.
Back to Case 1:
I'd use some kind of stealth or perception roll to see if the other guards noticed the killer's 'accidental' killing wasn't accidental after all.
(That is, I would if they were a bunch of pcs; if it was entirely PC action, I'd just decide.)
