Stupidity or Genius?

[DrunkonDuty]

Treating it as a Paranoia game strikes me as the best fix for the game. Of course they are effectively already doing that.

As for genius or stupid: Unintentional genius (but most certainly funny.) As has been pointed out, punching yourself in the head hard enough to knock yourself out is almost certainly impossible. I'd have run it this way:

Player: I try to KO myself with a punch in the face.
Me: ? Mmm, OK. You punch yourself in the face, your nose goes crunch and blood spurts. The Vrock stops in mid-disembowelling strike and doubles over with laughter. You have 1 round where it is too busy laughing to do anything. Fight or run, your choice.

Later I'd have the Vrock send minions to capture your character and bring it back to the Vrock's lair to work as court jester.

 

[Delta]

With an Int 14, how could a Vrock be dumb enough to fall for the "playing dead" bluff without seeing something actually injure the character? I could buy (and would allow as a GM) making the bluff as a free action response to the last hit that landed, but waiting until your turn to fall over wouldn't work on an opponent that intelligent. After all, if a blow really knocked the character unconscious, they wouldn't have waited until their next turn to actually fall over.

You're forgetting that the incremental turns are trying to simulate a free-flowing series of actions. The PC isn't "waiting until his turn to fall over" -- for him, that's happening immediately after the Vrock hits him. So I would certainly allow it. And countering by introducing new "free action interruptions" is a bottomless pit, don't fall down that hole.

3E DMG p. 62: "Sometimes it's important for you to impose ad hoc simultaneity."

3E DMG p. 69: "Try to stress to the players - that actually all movement throughout an encounter is fluid and continuous."

 

[Korgoth]

Obviously punching yourself in the head provokes an attack of opportunity.

 

[malraux]

You're forgetting that the incremental turns are trying to simulate a free-flowing series of actions. The PC isn't "waiting until his turn to fall over" -- for him, that's happening immediately after the Vrock hits him. So I would certainly allow it. And countering by introducing new "free action interruptions" is a bottomless pit, don't fall down that hole.

easier description: the last hit knocked him to 0, such that whatever action he took, unless it involved healing, knocked him to -1.