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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5193774" data-attributes="member: 7006">Depends entirely on your DM.Mechnically, hit points are the measurement of how long a person can continue to fight.  No more, no less.  Now we will fluff this as saying it's the person or monster's 'energy' or 'will to continue' or 'health' or whatever else we deem to explain this game mechanic.  And this is also true when they reach 0 HP or less.  We fluff it as 'knocking him unconcious' or 'giving up' or 'dying' or whatever else.It's the fact that once you reach less than 0 HP and then go into 'three strikes and your dead' territory that all of a sudden we players seem to want to consider the damage that a character took to reach that point to suddenly become 'real'.  If you go beneath 0 that suddenly that fireball actually burned you alive... that the sword tore open your abdomen.  But it's still not.  It's still nothing more than fluff description.  Mechanically, all you've done is just cross the threshold that says you get to take actions in subsequent rounds.  That's it.  And we know the damage isn't 'real'... because you can still get the person back on his feet with a warlord or bard's non-magical "C'mon!  Get up and fight!" non-magical so-called 'healing'.  The only really true 'damage' per se is that third 'death save' roll.  That is the only point where an actual physical change occurs to a PC that cannot be rectified by any sort of 'healing' power.  They go from 'living' to 'dead'.  That's the only one.  Everything else can be fixed via the so-called 'healing' mechanic.Thus, as a PC you do not in any way have to say whether your damage is 'subdual' or 'real' not... because those two terms are nothing but fluff description you are adding to a mechanical game concept.    It's only after a fight is over that the PCs can now choose to say "Okay, we killed all these guys, except the leader, who we've kept alive for questioning".  And the only reason why you as a PC couldn't do that would be if your DM made the executive decision to say "No, they're all dead" or "No, they are all still alive and just knocked out" or anything in between.  And if he does that, there's a specific storyline reason he is choosing to do that... not because of any mechanical rules reason.</blockquote>

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