Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="5ekyu" data-source="post: 7585063" data-attributes="member: 6919838">From last to first...DND 5e rules in the PHB state"Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable."That makes it clear that when a creature is dropped to zero by melee attacks the attack can choose to Ko instead of kill.yes, the Gms job is to narrate the results but that does not mean skipping past choices the player can make that alter the outcome.point is, it was the Gm choice to skip over the stage where the player can choose (by RAW) that led to your allegedly "awkward" case of the Gm jumping to the wrong conclusion. This is not a case of a player not stating his goal when he should, but of the Gm not asking when the choice was there for the player.OBVIOUSLY if the table has agreed to a house rule which says these have to be pre-declared before each attack - the player cannot know it will be a drop-to-zero before the attack and so must declare every time - things change but thats the house rule issue.But for 5e - the minimum extent of "how do you want to do this" is - "Are you going to KO?" when the zero hit occurs.First case - sorry but the point made was the player could just as well had declared the distance they travel up the wall, where they stop and *not* what they intended to do once they got their. its was an incomplete ACTION declaration - "how far do you climb" - not a lack of statement of whats in the mind of the character. Like i said, if a player tells me their character walks down the corridor towards the T intersection - i need to know "how far" to resolve that action, not "what is he thinking about doing once he gets there." I cannot imagine circumstances in which i as Gm would "gotcha" him by having his character just walk out into the corridor and get spotted without him having given me more info. It seems like the term goal here is being used more in the manner of describing the action and that the assumption really being put forth is that without that stated the Gm *will* move straight to a means in which that bites the character. yet at the same time its oh so greatly protested as "not gotcha" and "not magic words".Me, i just show them in play and by simply asking "how far?" a few times early on if i need to. But, in fact, i find that when the players-to-Gm conversation *includes* game mechanical info like "move 25'" or "making stealth check or using stealth" these examples are practically eliminated. So, in my experience, your climb 25' up a 30' wall is resolved the same whether or not your goal is to peek over the top or to ferret out a item from the cliff thats only 25' up. You as a player told me how far you wanted to climb - knowing you do need to define "where" when you say "i move". Again i come back to that the more one forces the players away from the mechanics, it seems the more they are opened up to getting these "GM decides how to resolve" that go against them - based on the examples provided. But thats just me, perhaps.</blockquote>

Verification