Damage as part of RPing?


Advice


Is it ok, as a GM, to do a little damage to a player if their character says the wrong thing while roleplaying or makes a bad bluff/diplomacy?

Like say the person is being hounded by some overeager city guard, and in saying the wrong thing, the guard bashes them in the face with the pommel of their sword. It's not a combat situation (yet) but it's obviously an attack that comes out of nowhere and it seems kinda silly to do an attack roll for it. And it's more for RP flavor.

It wouldn't do much, like 2-3 damage. But does that make sense? Can this be done? And is there a specific rule for this without having to worry about initiating combat?

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Just have the guard make an attack.


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Guard could do either an Improvised Weapon attack, or an Unarmed Strike (Punch) on the PC. And no, the PC wouldn't be flat-footed or anything because he's aware of the guard's presence.

But inflicting automatic damage, even a small amount, isn't really fair in that situation.


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The guard should definitely have to make an attack. The PCs are probably way more capable than your average city guard so dodging an attack like that isn't really out of the question. Even if they weren't any better than your unassuming city guard, keep in mind 2-3 damage is some serious pain for your average commoner. From that perspective 2-3 damage is a large amount.

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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Guard could do either an Improvised Weapon attack, or an Unarmed Strike (Punch) on the PC. And no, the PC wouldn't be flat-footed or anything because he's aware of the guard's presence.

But inflicting automatic damage, even a small amount, isn't really fair in that situation.

He'd be flatfooted because he hasn't acted in initiative.


Blue Tempest wrote:
do a little damage to a player if their character says the wrong thing

Ah, if only...

Kidding aside, I think the idea is silly. Errors in combat cause physical damage. Errors in conversation cause social damage. Have bystanders guffaw or something, and give that PC a circumstantial penalty to further social interactions for a while. But you don't suddenly get a nosebleed just 'cause you made a faux-pas.

(p.s.: combat is roleplaying too, or at least it can be.)


Definitely unfair. 2-3 points of damage is in the same region as a full-blooded blow from a gauntlet, which would be 1-3 or 2-4 if the guard had a +1 strength bonus. You would have a very, very hard time explaining how the guard isn't attacking and likely end up with justifiably p*ssed- off players.

At the absolute very most the guard's blow should be 1 point of non-lethal damage and an attack roll should be made. You should also be very clear in your description that the guard is attacking non-lethally; something along the lines of "amazed at your impertinence the guard admonishes your rudeness by striking you in the face, do you wish me to roll for attack or do you let the guard strike you for 1HP of non-lethal damage?"


Cyrad wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Guard could do either an Improvised Weapon attack, or an Unarmed Strike (Punch) on the PC. And no, the PC wouldn't be flat-footed or anything because he's aware of the guard's presence.

But inflicting automatic damage, even a small amount, isn't really fair in that situation.

He'd be flatfooted because he hasn't acted in initiative.

That is of course, assuming the guard beats the PC in initiative. If the GM decides to houserule that the guard automatically acts first then I would atleast expect the opportunity to make a sense motive roll to realize the guard is seething with anger (though if you said something horribly wrong you should probably realize after you said it anyway) to avoid being flatfooted.


VRMH wrote:
Blue Tempest wrote:
do a little damage to a player if their character says the wrong thing

Ah, if only...

Kidding aside, I think the idea is silly. Errors in combat cause physical damage. Errors in conversation cause social damage. Have bystanders guffaw or something, and give that PC a circumstantial penalty to further social interactions for a while. But you don't suddenly get a nosebleed just 'cause you made a faux-pas.

(p.s.: combat is roleplaying too, or at least it can be.)

Now see, I find this a bit not that unrealistic. Like if you piss off a guy enough, he might very well throw a punch at you out of nowhere.


Cyrad wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Guard could do either an Improvised Weapon attack, or an Unarmed Strike (Punch) on the PC. And no, the PC wouldn't be flat-footed or anything because he's aware of the guard's presence.

But inflicting automatic damage, even a small amount, isn't really fair in that situation.

He'd be flatfooted because he hasn't acted in initiative.

Except the GM Ruled that combat hasn't started, meaning no Initiative is required, meaning no flat-footed condition occurs, as both parties are aware of each others' presence.

I'm not going to say that the Guard making an attack shouldn't be constituted as combat not beginning (in normal cases, it is), but the OP specifically handwaved that the Guard making the attack after the PC's snide response would not initiate combat, even though in normal circumstances, attacking anything, or even signaling an obvious proxy to attack, would trigger combat.


What levels are the players? If they're level 1, that's a low blow. If they're level 10, they'll just shrug it off and take the guard down with their bare hands. If they're level 20, I find it unlikely the guard would be willing to stare at them too hard in fear of spontaneously combusting from one of the Wizard's contingencies.


For the record, I did make an attack roll and It did beat the player's AC.

I'm basically trying to go for the typical corrupt, harsh guards. Where they see no problem with kicking you to the dirt if you're in their way or something. Trying to talk them out of doing what they want will just piss them off more... plus the player did fail the diplomacy roll. :p


Blue Tempest wrote:
VRMH wrote:
Blue Tempest wrote:
do a little damage to a player if their character says the wrong thing

Ah, if only...

Kidding aside, I think the idea is silly. Errors in combat cause physical damage. Errors in conversation cause social damage. Have bystanders guffaw or something, and give that PC a circumstantial penalty to further social interactions for a while. But you don't suddenly get a nosebleed just 'cause you made a faux-pas.

(p.s.: combat is roleplaying too, or at least it can be.)

Now see, I find this a bit not that unrealistic. Like if you piss off a guy enough, he might very well throw a punch at you out of nowhere.

And if you're a player character, it's reasonable you could react to it. PC should get to roll initiative IMO, and potentially beat the guard to the punch (if he wants to). Trying to sucker punch someone who's trained at combat is not necessarily the best idea.

Dark Archive

Hugo Rune wrote:
At the absolute very most the guard's blow should be 1 point of non-lethal damage and an attack roll should be made. You should also be very clear in your description that the guard is attacking non-lethally; something along the lines of "amazed at your impertinence the guard admonishes your rudeness by striking you in the face, do you wish me to roll for attack or do you let the guard strike you for 1HP of non-lethal damage?"

This. Because the attack by the guard is within the non-combat part of the narrative, I believe the player should be given the opportunity to determine whether they want to keep to the non-combat part of the narrative, or "take it to the flip-mat" and move into the combat part of the story.

Another idea is to not have the physical blow do any damage, but instead be part of the narrative description of an Intimidate check by the guard, resulting in a Shaken condition for the character.

In my mind at least, any guard/watchman would have Intimidate in their social skill set.


Unless the PCs are actively angling for a fight (in which case, you can give it to them) it's probably better to have the guard put in a bad word about the PCs to his superior officer, and pass that up the chain. Since, as was explained before "getting bopped on the head" is never really a balanced, appropriate, and punitive repercussion for the PCs. But having someone with political power initially disinclined towards the PCs because of the reputation they've acquired from the people that NPC listens to is something that PCs of all levels are going to feel.

I would not just arbitrarily assign damage to players for RPing mistakes. It's better to have mechanical penalties come from die rolls and the like and narrative penalties come from RPing failures.

Liberty's Edge

I'd potentially give the guard an automatic surprise round if the PCs clearly weren't expecting violence, but that's as far as I'd go in this direction.

Not rolling for an attack is a load of crap, and makes no sense in-universe. Would you let a player do damage without rolling in the middle of conversation? No? Then why allow NPCs to?

AC in Pathfinder is not simply how difficult it is to hit you, but how difficult it is to actually damage you. Someone in full plate who gets punched in the face probably doesn't get hurt because there's a helmet in the way, and punching helmets isn't useful. Ditto for punching force-fields like a Ring of Protection provides and so on and so forth. So...not having to roll because its 'not combat'? Huge load of crap.

Liberty's Edge

Along with having to roll an attack role, you should have the guard roll a bluff versus the sense motive of the PC to see if the character sees the punch coming or not. Even if the PC doesn't want to respond with violence, if he sees it coming he should be able to go total defense to block the strike.


In a situation like this combat has actually started. Whether the players want to retaliate or allow the guard to abuse them should be their choice not yours. Assuming the guard is a medium sized humanoid his unarmed damage is 1d3 +STR bonus in nonlethal damage. That would be the amount of damage I would use.

The only thing a player controls in the game is his character. For the most part they should be allowed to decide if and how their characters react.

Also in less the players are very low level they should be getting a certain amount of respect from most people. Most player characters are well armed with quality weapons and armor. When someone in masterwork full plate walks up to a city guard they are not going to assume they are peasants they can bully. Obviously I don’t know the circumstances of this encounter but getting bullied by ordinary city guards is a very over used cliché.


Goose and the Gander is how I'd decide this.

Can an NPC do automatic damage to a PC for roleplay in reasons?

Flip the question, would you let a PC do automatic damage to an NPC without initiating combat?

Double standards, if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander. Be careful what you set precidents for.


Edymnion wrote:

Goose and the Gander is how I'd decide this.

Can an NPC do automatic damage to a PC for roleplay in reasons?

Flip the question, would you let a PC do automatic damage to an NPC without initiating combat?

Double standards, if it's good for the goose it's good for the gander. Be careful what you set precidents for.

But you forgot this part: would it be fine for the story if an NPC could do this?

I'd say that as long as it is an insignificant amount of damage, it's fine. Otherwise, start rolling.

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