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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8080443" data-attributes="member: 16814">Of course.  The GM should be considering the totality of the situation and making the call.  They shouldn't, however, feel that because there are combat rules that they've lost that authority to consider the totality of the situation.  This isn't a replacement "always" rule.  A sleeping target MAY be killed instantly, if the fiction leads to that outcome.  It's not a "a sleeping target is ALWAYS killed instantly." This is a false dichotomy -- there's a huge range of middle grounds being instantly killed in their sleep here.  For instance, I'm pretty sure that my application of the combat rules would be indistinguishable from [USER=6788736]@Flamestrike[/USER]'s most if not almost all of the time.  Just because I allow for an outcome within the rules does not mean it's a go to or very common at all.   ON the other hand, it does sometimes happen.When?  Well, let's take your top example -- sleep is cast, the target fails the save.  The target is then tied up and secured.  If the other side wants to kill the target at this point, I'm not going to invoke the combat rules and roll for them until it's done -- it happens, the target is dead.  This has come up in my games a few times, where the PCs have captured an enemy and been unable to convince the enemy to offer their parole and so have decided to kill the captive.  I did not invoke the combat rules in this case, as this wasn't a combat at all.  On the other hand, in a fairly recent game, all of the PCs were incapacitated in a combat and were captured, tied to posts, and were being left as sacrifices to a monster their foes worshipped.  The PCs tried to escape, with some being still tied, but since some had escaped and combat was in place, I used the combat rules even for attacks on the still bound PCs -- because I was in that tight resolution with a melee ranging around, there was no need to do otherwise.  However, if, for some reason I cannot imagine, I decided that the NPCs would just outright kill the tied and incapacitated PCs, I wouldn't have gone to the combat rules -- I used those already when they were captured to begin with.  The fiction was already in a place that the answer was pretty straightforward and obvious.  And also very uncommon for how the game's fiction is positioned.  Follow the fiction, rule uncertainty on the totality of the situation, and use your authority as GM (according to the rules, no less) to make the call as for success, failure, or uncertainty.  If uncertain, apply the mechanical test most suited for the situation.  This really shouldn't be controversial or require the postulation of imaginary jerks to dismiss.</blockquote>

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