Subdual Damage and Deathless Frenzy

[KarinsDad]

Killing me softly

heh heh heh

 

[KarinsDad]

Deathless Frenzy:

At 4th level and higher, a frenzied berserker can scorn death and unconsciousness while in a frenzy. As long as her frenzy continues, she is not treated as disabled at 0 hit points, nor is she treated as dying at -1 to -9 hit points. Even if reduced to -10 hit points or less, she continues to fight normally until her frenzy ends. At that point, the effects of her wounds apply normally if they have not been healed. This ability does not prevent death from massive damage or from spell effects such as slay living or disintegrate.

There are a lot of ways to go unconscious and to die in DND. Deathless Frenzy stops normal lethal damage mechanisms, nothing else. It deals only with lethal hit point damage.

I think this should have included nonlethal damage, but it doesn't. Nor is there any indication that the designer intent was to do so. The Frenzy ability does do nonlethal damage, but I suspect that the designer never actually thought about it one way or the other.


I think it is reasonable to house rule that it does handle nonlethal damage (i.e. the nonlethal damage outside that of the Frenzy ability itself), but as written, it doesn't.

 

[pawsplay]

Is he conscious in a coma-like stupor, helpless? Is he unaffected? Is he conscious but unable to think (sounds like a Frenzy anyway)? Or is he unconscious, because 'scorns unconsciousness' doesn't actually allow him to stay conscious?

-Hyp.

I'm just going back to what what I said before: death and unconsciousness are the results of lethal and nonlethal damage, respectively. There are other ways to make someone unconscious, just as there are other ways of making them dead, and Deathless Frenzy does not help against some of those ways. Since finger of death and massive damage stop the ability, I think it's reasonable (though not explicitly stated) that ability score damage to 0 also stops the deathless frenzy.

But though the passage does not mention nonlethal damage by name, I believe in mentioning death and unconsciousness, that sufficiently covers nonlethal damage. You are free to disagree, but I don't see any other reasonable way to intepret it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm just going back to what what I said before: death and unconsciousness are the results of lethal and nonlethal damage, respectively. There are other ways to make someone unconscious, just as there are other ways of making them dead, and Deathless Frenzy does not help against some of those ways.

Except that death and unconsciousness are both the results of lethal damage - when hit points are between -1 and -9, unconsciousness results from the dying condition. Deathless Frenzy specifically prevents the dying condition applying.

Unconsciousness can also result from non-lethal damage. Deathless Frenzy makes no mention of applying to non-lethal damage.

So, we have an example of something Deathless Frenzy explicitly protects against which would normally cause unconsciousness - the dying condition at -1 to -9 hit points. This shows how the Deathless Frenzy ability can allow the berserker to scorn unconsciousness.

We also have an example of something Deathless Frenzy does not explicitly protect against, which causes unconsciousness - non-lethal damage. This is unconsciousness that the Berserker cannot scorn, just as he scorns death, but not if it results from massive damage.

The passage mentions death and unconsciousness, which can both result from negative hit points, and describes the mechanics of the ability in relation to negative hit points.

Non-lethal damage circumvents negative hit points in order to cause unconsciousness.

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

Unconsciousness can also result from non-lethal damage. Deathless Frenzy makes no mention of applying to non-lethal damage.

True. But, Frenzy does. Since Deathless Frenzy is based on Frenzy, Frenzy automatically does nonlethal damage, and Frenzy has a duration, it seems reasonable that unconsciousness from at least Frenzy nonlethal damage should be ignored (and for simple bookkeeping, all other nonlethal damage should be ignored as well).


Otherwise, Deathless Frenzy has virtually no utility at all. It would never work for the unconscious portion of it.

Round one:

PC does Frenzy: Takes 2 Nonlethal

NPC hits takes PC to -3 hit points, if nonlethal damage is not ignored by Deathless Frenzy, PC's Nonlethal is greater than his current hit points and he falls unconscious. The unconscious portion of Deathless Frenzy never occurs. In fact, the PC would go unconscious automatically any time his hit points got to 1 (one round of Frenzy) or lower (3 hits or less 2 rounds of Frenzy, etc.).


Since it is obvious that the designers wanted it to work, minimally one would have to ignore the Nonlethal damage caused by Frenzy itself, or Deathless Frenzy is fairly worthless except keeping a PC alive at -10 or lower.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Otherwise, Deathless Frenzy has virtually no utility at all. It would never work for the unconscious portion of it.

Unless the FrB can arrange immunity to non-lethal damage.

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

Unless the FrB can arrange immunity to non-lethal damage.

Err, so? This really has nothing to do with the discussion since that is not an ability of Barbarians or Frenzied Berserkers.

The point is that Deathless Frenzy is basically worthless (except for the prevent death portion) if it does not stop at least the nonlethal damage of Frenzy itself.

Do you agree with this assessment?

 

[Hypersmurf]

The point is that Deathless Frenzy is basically worthless (except for the prevent death portion) if it does not stop at least the nonlethal damage of Frenzy itself.

Do you agree with this assessment?

Certainly... but I don't see anything in the ability that would let it 'stop' any non-lethal damage, from the Frenzy or otherwise.

Much like the Exotic Weapon Master class feature that lets him treat a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands as though it were a two-handed weapon for the purposes of Power Attack... Just because a class feature is essentially useless doesn't mean that extra powers can be added to it willy-nilly.

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

Certainly... but I don't see anything in the ability that would let it 'stop' any non-lethal damage, from the Frenzy or otherwise.

Much like the Exotic Weapon Master class feature that lets him treat a one-handed weapon wielded in two hands as though it were a two-handed weapon for the purposes of Power Attack... Just because a class feature is essentially useless doesn't mean that extra powers can be added to it willy-nilly.

I do not think that a slight change to an ability to allow it to work at all is exactly willy-nilly.

Like I suggested, allowing it to ignore the Nonlethal from Frenzy itself (but not other Nonlethal damage) is perfectly reasonable since it allows the ability to work as written. Otherwise, it cannot work as written (shy of other game elements added in). This looks like a total designer oversight, probably because it was not playtested.

When something is broken because it is too powerful, the DM should step in. When something is broken because it does not work at all, the DM should step in. IMO.

 

[Sejs]

Like I suggested, allowing it to ignore the Nonlethal from Frenzy itself (but not other Nonlethal damage) is perfectly reasonable

I could certainly agree to that.

It'd actually serve to make Frenzy all that more lethal to the user, as a matter of fact. The non-lethal damage that accrues from frenzy normally serves as a buffer of sorts, keeping the FB alive when they're in a chaotic melee in which once an opponent drops, they're ignored in lieu of actively dangerous combatants. With the non-lethal damage building, an FB goes down before they're actually dead (often, anyway). Deathless Frenzy would mean that buffer is gone, and that now they're in for the whole ride start to finish.