Pathos |
Well I'm not to sure where to put this question, so I figured the Rules forum as someone more familiar with the fringe stuff might be able to shed some light here... But...
What kind of action is it to surrender?
Is it a free action on your turn, while you drop your weapon?
Or is it an immediate action, which can be triggered by a set contingency?
EDIT:
Derp.... I meant to post this in the Rules Forum... Sorry.
Rynjin |
...Whatever action you think it is, I guess. There's no special "Surrendering" rules.
If it's just a matter of saying "I surrender", then a free action you can take even when it's not your turn. Roll Buff if you're faking.
If you want to drop your weapon and drop prone, then say "I surrender". there's 3 Free actions (one to talk, one to drop, and one to go prone).
Anything more complex? GM fiat territory.
Pathos |
Thank you for the input...
With everything out there, I wasn't sure if this had come up before. So I figured I would ask here before moving forward on my own to cover this situation...
With that said, I believe I shall treat surrendering as two potention actions:
Free Action = Verbal Surrender: to verbally voice your intention to surrender.
Immediate Action = Total Surrender: verbally voicing the desire to surrender while dropping to knees and your weapon.
Taku Ooka Nin |
What kind of action is it to surrender?
It is a free action to surrender. You are stating your desire to surrender to your enemy. This is inadvisable in the vast majority of situations, since your enemy may just accept your surrender with the intention of killing you while you are rendered helpless.
If the enemy accepts your surrender his side of the conflict will likely move into advantageous positions around you, but they hold their standard actions to attack you if you make any actions that appear hostile. From this point you will be able to make a single diplomacy check VS the hostile DC (25) which may be modified further to 30 or 35 if you killed any of the opposing side.
If you have an absurd diplomacy then you may be able to talk your way to freedom.
This all said, the enemies don't have to accept your surrender. Then again, it is almost always to the benefit of your enemies to accept your surrender as it gives them a great deal of leverage in making you do thing for them. They effectively get a free craft/labor/murder slave until they are done with you. This might be until they move on, until you are done being their crafting slave, or until you murder the people the want you to murder (while likely keeping something important to one of your characters, E.G. a familiar or animal companion, as collateral).
Devilkiller |
I'm not sure if the game really needs an immediate action to surrender, but if you expect a lot of surrenders in your game (perhaps as part of a pirate theme?) then maybe it is a good house rule.
Good and or Lawful opponents are probably more likely to accept your surrender. Our Chaotic Evil goblins might accept your surrender too, but surrendering to them is a very bad idea.
ryric RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32 |
Our group also allows the talking part of surrendering to happen out of turn, but dropping weapons and such must wait until the character's turn. Usually players will ready actions in case it's a trick, so they still get the jump on the guy if he changes his mind.
On a side note, if you can make a DC35 Diplomacy check, you might be better off staying their prisoner and using honeyed words to sow strife within the enemy group.
Also this makes me think of the Hackmaster Knight Errant class, whose entire class abilities revolve around staying LG while being a complete evil jerk. There was a whole section about surrendering enemies, where you didn't have to accept surrender if they didn't throw down weapons, or even then if they might be a monk or spellcaster, or they could be a shapeshifted monster. Even if you accept the surrender you still get in one more hit "because your arm was still moving from the last one."
Slamy Mcbiteo |
It is 2 free actions, drop weapon and speak..I would allow it off turn at any point during the battle. Drop you weapon and scream "I surrender!!!" but by rule it would be on your turn.
Snowblind |
talking can happen whenever.
Then you just ready an action, if they don't drop weapons, you continue attacking.
It's a cute way to deny a full attack for a little bit though. They either ready an action and only get a standard action before you harm them, or they delay and push the faking surrenderee ahead in the initiative order.
alexd1976 |
alexd1976 wrote:It's a cute way to deny a full attack for a little bit though. They either ready an action and only get a standard action before you harm them, or they delay and push the faking surrenderee ahead in the initiative order.talking can happen whenever.
Then you just ready an action, if they don't drop weapons, you continue attacking.
That's how we do it in our games.
If they don't surrender after saying they are going to... horrible horrible things happen.
If they do surrender, we usually take all their gear and let them go. I mean ALL their gear.
Off you go, naked into the wilderness. Good luck! ;)