Insapateh's page

Nice poison, I should remember it. ;-)

As I see it, the inability to read is an effect of the poison that the creature poisoned has already suffered. So it stays in effect even if it receives Delay poison after the save.

BTW: I think that the poison was inspired by an old Dragon cartoon:Scroll or learning disability.
Already 40 years ....

Thanks Diego.

I would assume the same, but I didn't want to shaft my party.

Only two players have been poisoned (it's a combination of Scholarblight and Insanity Mist, used as a security feature in a vault they're trying to steal from). Only one PC understands the language that all the signage and records are in, and he's one of those two. Which is hilarious for me, but less so for the players.

Next game isn't for a fortnight, so I have some time to see if there's a general consensus one way or the other, but your post is reassuring that I won't be ruling unfairly.

Delay Poison says:

Any poison in its system or any poison to which it is exposed during the spell’s duration does not affect the subject until the spell’s duration has expired

Scholarblight does 1d3 INT damage and also "More drastically, victims who fail a saving throw against scholarblight lose their ability to read or write for 24 hours, as letters and symbols seem to twist, move, and reorient themselves".

If the player has already been exposed to Scholarblight, obviously, the 1d3 INT damage has already been done, so the damage remains because Delay Poison says it does.

The other effect of Scholarblight isn't a damage effect though.

Is the inability to read or write suspended for as long as the delay is in effect or does it continue?

I'm not even sure there is RAW on this. How much do I hate my players.....?

Level 1: prep for Swarms (splash weapons of some kind, even just flasks of oil and torches); expect DR 5/Bludgeoning, Cold-Iron, and Slashing; have a melee and ranged weapon on every PC, just in case

Level 3: Prep for Darkness and consider Consumables for extra movement types, niche buffs or scouting/info gathering; expect Flying creatures; plan for differing Resist Energy types

Level 6: Expect Invisible/Incorporeal foes if they haven't already been an issue; DR 5/Silver or Good; consider one permanent magic item that grants either movement bonuses or an extra movement type

So let them fail... but then review the tape with them. Also, if someone has the accurate list of what to expect by level please post it.

Yeeeeaaaaah, my players have the tactical acumen of asphyxiated hamsters. If anyone has this list, I'd love to see it.

My computer and desk are in my bedroom and I don't always hear if someone knocks on my door, so I rely on Buster to bark if he hears something. So last week he rocketed off the bed barking and snarling (he's never aggressive so I was kind of concerned) and went to the front door. I pushed him aside and opened the door, but there was no one there. I even stepped outside to look across the lawn but nope, nothing. I came back and closed the door. As stepped into my bedroom I caught him standing up on his hind legs, eating the stack of cookies I had left sitting there.

Genius! Aonghus used to do that all the time to get Major out of the comfiest spots.

My remaining little angel, Major (a Kelpie/Collie X) has been caught raiding his food bin several times at night now. He used to be fine, but is now multiclassing to rogue.

He's had a wicked case of the runs since this post. €150 in vet bills, but getting better now.

Plus, if you see 3-6 people basically spend all of their time together, how are you going to tell whether that's a polycule or an adventuring party? It's not really any of your business anyway.

I know which one I'd have more of a problem with if they showed up in my backwater village anyway :D

I had the same thought several years ago. Here's the list for expanding for summon monster I. It has links to the other lists. I hope you enjoy the expanded list.

Bit of a late response. Is there a way I can pay you for this? It's a very good set of monsters for each spell level.

Now here's the question I add Burning to them as well. Yes they stack. Do they count as 3 HD or 4 HD for control purposes.

the pfsrd, at least says:

The bloody and burning skeleton variants are created using the animate dead spell, but count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting. Once controlled, they count normally against the controller’s limit.

I read that as the control limit, once created, is equivalent to a 1HD standard skeleton.

Thanks for that reference. Forgive a slight derail, but you raised a point upthread that piqued my curiosity. American here trying to learn a bit about the wider world.

You mentioned it's illegal to carry any weapons in your country, would that be Ireland, or was that in Australia? If Ireland, the independent nation, or Northern Ireland? Either way, is that a more modern, and universaly applied law on the isles; or is it a hold over from the medieval/Renaissance times when the British made it illegal for all the Celts to be armed? I know a smattering of history, but not super well. Just curious.

I've been back in Ireland since late 2018. I'm not sure of Australian laws but believe them to be largely similar but more permissive.

I'm in the Republic of Ireland, so UK government has had no input to our laws for the better part of a century at this point. I believe that the UK actually has significantly more relaxed weapons laws than Ireland. Even fireworks are illegal in Ireland because they can be... reconstituted and repurposed... as Goblin PCs and NPCs are well aware.

Here in Ireland, I can buy a knife (or a gun) for hunting, etc. But if I was discovered to be carrying it, I would need to be able to demonstrate that I was on the way to perform one of those activities and even still it would probably be an issue if it wasn't safely stored in a bag, rather than just on my person. Even carrying a golf club would fall foul of our weapon laws if I wasn't actively heading to or from golf.

It's definitely not an old law by European standards, or if it is, it's not one that just 'hasn't been taken off the books yet'. Ireland is a very anti-weapon country as a whole. Even our police force is largely unarmed, aside from non-lethal batons, sprays, etc. And, in fact, as an organisation, our police don't like to be referred to as a 'force'. Canonically speaking, they are a police 'service' and govern by common consent rather than force of arms (individual mileage may vary, terms and conditions apply, we still killed a black man a few weeks ago). Even the name. An Garda Síochána, literally translates to 'Guardians of the Peace'.

Hi

this is a wonderfull tool but is there any way to save this into a file ?

OP hasn't posted in 18 months. I dunno how well you're gonna do on this.

Ya'll are weeeeeeeeeeeeeirrrrrrrrd.

Carry on

Essentially, not paying attention is a faux pas...and it is super-easy when playing virtually to not pay attention. Harder when everyone is looking at you.

Definitely this.

Oh no, how terribly heartbreaking. I am so very sorry. The hurt and resentment you carry inside your heart must be so heavy and I'm crying for you even as I write this.

I can't really resent anyone. It was the early days of the virus and proper precautions were being taken to protect all of us.

I have loved-ones who've lost family to it, and while not being able to say goodbye to Aonghus (a lovely wolfhound x) was hard, it doesn't compare to that at all.

I think we need to turn this thread around though, or we'll all be sobbing through the weekend.

My remaining little angel, Major (a Kelpie/Collie X) has been caught raiding his food bin several times at night now. He used to be fine, but is now multiclassing to rogue.

...Or maybe be a line of novels and not a game at all.

That sounds like a fantastic idea.

*looks to personal collection of a certain novel series, to the set I made the Collections Team in the library system I worked at buy, then looks to camera*

But yes, there are definitely more important things to be added in the limited space for an RPG product, even a setting one.

Insapateh wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Humanoid wrote:

•Humanoids breathe, eat, and sleep.

Several Elf NPCs are listed as examples in the Bestiary section on the PFSRD. These entries confirm what is written under the Core race section; elves are Humanoid types. As quoted above, Humanoids sleep. Elves sleep.

Setting specific elves such as in the ones mentioned upthread or your own personal preferences enter some kind of trance. Generic PF elves sleep.

This is the internet. It's no place for a clear and succinct response.

k

That was beautiful.

I don't mind people using their phones as tools as part of playing the game. I am very irritated by people using their phones *instead* of playing the game, however. Sadly, the person I have to yell at the most for this is my wife...

I had to check if I'd created and alias on here and forgotten.

I've seen paranoia over what animals or children might do more often than I've seen problems caused by them. Especially over children. Roleplaying isn't as sensitive to distractions as some fear.

My kids are quite young. So my biggest issue is feeling that they're not getting the attention they need when we play rather than anything they'd do. So we play after they go to sleep.

Socially distant online Game night tomorrow!

I lost one of my dogs, my beloved Rosie Girl, on February 7th.

My deepest sympathies.

I lost one of mine last May. COVID protocols meant we couldn't even be there as he was put to sleep. We had to hand him over outside the building. I'll never get over that.

(Comic + dog pic for illustrative purposes.)

You're lucky that dog pic was included. Otherwise, there'd have been uproar.

But some excellent points too.

This.

This is why, unless the players are trying to keep someone alive, I have enemies die once they're below 0 hit points.

...

Having to figure it out in character is fine, but chances are someone OoC is uncomfortable with it being done and prefer it to be hand-waved.

This is why I love the above ref'd Consent in Gaming checklist. It means I know all the players red-lines (anonymously if they wish, but my players were fine with just directly stating it and we actually discussed everyone's issues openly around the table at their instigation).

But yeah, these are good reasons for the 0HP rule if you know these issues exist.

And it's totally fine for the GM to be the one who's uncomfortable with it too.

Wider and more interesting is subjective, but if your table is having fun, no one can say you're doing it wrong.

Absolutely, and I hope none of my posts have come across as saying anyone doing it otherwise is wrong either.

In a Carrion Crown campaign, A cleric of Iomedae would summarily judge and execute cultists of the Whispering Way as a practical matter. The trappings of the law made him feel better about killing the fallen foes.

This is fantastic and I would 100% support it in my game.

...The DM calls the player out on this, saying that they're only doing it to torture the survivor and the player says...

This is a 100% valid reason for a GM to introduce a rule like Warpy McSav has (since they liked the name so much. Credit to MarkHoover :) ).

My experiences are based on the people I've played with across the years and continents (was in Australia when I joined the forum, lurked from there for a long time before joining, in Ireland now).

My current players have had two opportunities to torture someone for information, one my doing* and one their own. In neither case were they able to bring themselves beyond vague threats and hurtful insinuations. They are aware that this may have affected the information they got. They then left both 'interrogation subjects' alive despite knowing that it would allow things to be potentially traced back to them much more easily and also add a time crunch to their current work because one of the victims will be discovered at dawn (likely about two sessions away), which forced them to act a lot more quickly than they wanted to.

*We use the Consent in Gaming checklist, so I knew it wasn't a touchy subject before I introduced it.

The rules of the game are somewhat focused on a player centric experience...

I think I've pretty clearly established my position that applying these rules to NPCs is manifestly committing to promoting a wider and more interesting range of player experiences.

So I agree with your statement but think it supports the opposite of your point.

Why did the party decide to use lethal damage during the battle, when there are plenty of effective nonlethal options available?

They're not that effective unless built for. What with penalties and whatnot.

Why did you decide to use nonlethal damage fighting the muggers? (You could have carried a knife and stabbed them in the heart, in order to end the fight as quickly as possible. I presume you didn't.)

Carrying a weapon of any kind is illegal in my country.

So yes, I could have carried one, but that carries it's own problems. Just like player decisions have wider consequences.

Since I didn't have a weapon and haven't taken Improved Unarmed Strike, I had no option to do lethal damage.

Making a conscious decision to finish off an enemy orc is a brutal thing to do. But hitting them with a sword and not caring if they die isn't much different.

I, and obviously my players, disagree.

Doing whatever necessary to end a fight quickly is vastly different to deciding to finish off an enemy that is no longer a current threat.

There's a reason why the 'bite the kerb' scene in American History X is so memorable.

Your second point is wrong.

Well spotted. But this only results in a quicker death, so I'm okay with it for the purposes of this discussion.

...every failed Constitution check to regain consciousness results in the loss of 1 hit point...

Ruling that coup de gracing a wounded enemy after a battle is not an evil act within the morality of the game solves a lot of unfun alignment issues.

Ruling lots of actions that are ambiguous at best to be unambiguous solves a lot of alignment debates but tends to oversimplify things if one gets carried away with it for the sake of expediency.

Because pendantry is the Pathfinder National pastime:

PF1 SRD wrote:

.......Once a character makes this check, he continues to heal naturally and is no longer in danger of losing hit points naturally.

So, yes. A character left alone can take several days to die if they're unlucky.

I mean, sure. But not to the point or frequency that one can claim the moral high-ground for ganking them every time.

It needs:

1. Stabilise (DC10+NEG HP)
2. Regain consciousness (DC10) - No rules for pain if we're unconscious, hourly check, no penalty to the DC10 check. Repeated failure means death in hours, not days.
3. Fail checks to come back to 0 (DC10+NEG HP) - we've already passed the worst of these checks to stabilise unaided - once we pass this once, we recover HP natuarally and are no longer at risk. So we only have to pass once and we're golden. History is on our side.

I recognise that you were being pedantic on purpose, but the rules as they stand don't make this particularly likely at all and tend to make recovery almost a certainty once someone stabilises, despite the flavour text saying it's unlikely.

We sure get to days, if we're really unlucky, but almost certainly never the weeks that made mercy killing a thing.

This even ignores being able to take move actions and seek additional help once stable and conscious when these daily self-heal checks become relevant.

Insapateh wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

... "how do their houses look if they don't need bedrooms"...

I know the game, and therefore the forum are generally PG13 and a bed is never required for anything at all, but a large, relatively soft space that can fit a couple of human-sized-ish humanoids easily is pretty handy for most homes in the long run, I would have thought.

Yeah, you definitely need a comfy bed to binge Netflix.

I bet the elven equivalence is full of fancy foreign movies and subtitles and you need to pass an IQ test to unlock the good movies.

mumble... mumble... pretentious... mumble

Humanoid wrote:

•Humanoids breathe, eat, and sleep.

Several Elf NPCs are listed as examples in the Bestiary section on the PFSRD. These entries confirm what is written under the Core race section; elves are Humanoid types. As quoted above, Humanoids sleep. Elves sleep.

Setting specific elves such as in the ones mentioned upthread or your own personal preferences enter some kind of trance. Generic PF elves sleep.

This is the internet. It's no place for a clear and succinct response.

I would argue that it's modern morality (at least in part) that creates this viewpoint

I would argue that it's a modern and irrelevant morality that creates the opposite viewpoint.

There is nothing in PF rules that allows for a lingering death over several days (or even weeks) as a result of a combat injury (DC10+Neg HP check to stabilise from dying, dead in a matter of seconds to minutes otherwise). So there is no moral imperative to end that non-existent suffering.

That significantly changes the act of throat-slitting to one of personal convenience unless the wider considerations, mentioned above, are considered.

Honestly you can argue it all kinds of ways.

You sure can.

FTR, I don't see this as a moral issue IRL and am not judging anyone on that basis. I know this stuff can get touchy, but once we all realise that none of us are espousing the ONE TRUE WAY, I think we're alright.

Again, ask your GM how they deal with settings with objective morality.

I am my GM (pretty sure I've said that a few times now) and, as I think my other posts show, including the one you responded to regarding an already downed enemy, I disagree with the rest of your post almost entirely.

There are many other options besides slitting throats and a non-Evil party should at least explore them.

...isn't really any more evil than the initial decision to kill the creature to begin with.

Why was the original decision to kill the creature (or person) and not merely to end the fight as quickly as possible, accepting that this might result in killing the creature (or person)?

They are very distinctly different decisions with very distinctly different alignment implications.

Edit:

It's personal story-time folks!!!

I live in a city and country that has (had, I dunno) a fairly sizeable heroin problem, especially in its cities. I've been mugged more than once at the point of a blood-filled syringe.

Heroin addicts are... not know for their high DEX, high init. bonus, possession of the Combat Reflexes feat, or anything else that would make this a good idea for them to do.

I defended myself more than once, despite not being the most amazing of warriors in the universe (see above penalties for chronic heroin use).

I would be a very different person if I decided to 'finish them off' when they were down.

IME, plenty of player fights amount to little more that this and a CdG goes far beyond necessary into alignment-shifting behaviour.

One of my issues with regular throat slicing is: It's not good aligned at all, even if the target is evil to the core. As a good person, you stop threats to others and yourself - but once the monster is unconscious, it's helpless and no longer a threat. It might recover and proceed with evil deeds, but that's a) just a possibility at the moment and b) something you can address with other means (prison, take them with you, let them swear to relocate far away etc.).

So if a PC's class features depend on being Good (paladin is the most obvious case), the player IMO risks them with both throat slicing and allowing throat slicing to happen. Even if a PC is "just" good aligned, with no class features attached, IMO every throat is a little step towards neutrality.

I was talking about exactly this with a friend who plays 5e and not my campaign earlier.

We decided that Batman (holy alignment thread!!) is a great example of this.

Batman has decided that he won't kill regardless of villain (yes, we know, for the most part, what about that time he...?). That has caused a lot of problems for Gotham in the long term. But a Batman that kills everyone is a very different beast and creates just as many problems for Gotham.

Generally, unless you're playing a specific type of campaign, you're probably going to be facing a lot of people who don't necessarily deserve to die just for opposing the party, even if it's convenient. And killing for convenience is, as you say, not on the 'G' end of the alignment spectrum.

But there will always be some villains that just need to be put down.

My players enjoy that distinction. some don't.

It's funny you all mention the "when a foe hits 0 HP they're dead" thing followed by the "what if you want to keep an NPC alive" thing. A tactic employed by these players twice now in this game has been: 1. attack with all lethal damage, 2. go among the defeated and find one that is in negative HP but not ACTUALLY dead yet, 3. tie them up, 4. cast Stabilize and then expend some charges from the Wand of CLW so that the foe awakens, 5. question the foe, 6. slay captured foe, specifically noting a coup de grace.

You have my sympathies. My players just couldn't do it. They left the sap tied up, knowing (because I told them) that he would be discovered within 8-10 hours and then booked it to do what they came to do, in the hopes that they could beat that clock. I even specifically reminded them of the CdG rules at the time, because they did discuss it and they're not always super hot on the rules.

I would agree with Warpy McSav upthread and others though. I've communicated MY expectations to my players, that monsters will be replacing their fallen and if we're following the precedent that 0 HP doesn't equal death that some of these replacements may simply be those left laying about.

I guess I started this thread just wondering if anyone else does any of this or if it's just me. It might just be me then.

In the situation that you specifically called out, I might have them convalesce enough to be added to combat again, just like happens in the real world. But the conversation kind of got beyond that very quickly to the whole 'recurring NPC who won't die thing' which is related but separate.

I think you've made the right call and I reckon my players would be okay with it. They definitely wouldn't think they were being 'gotcha'd'.

ETA: I don't think it's just you. And I think for nameless troops it's an amazing idea, and one I will be stealing. But when it comes to named NPCs, I'll be sticking with my Checklist-of-Unlikely-But-Possible-Return (TM, patent pending).

Angelwiings wrote:

Saffron Marvelous wrote:

Did Dragonlance elves sleep? I recall the 2e elf handbook was where they introduced the reverie and that seemed to be setting-agnostic.

Biggest issue I have is the plot holes without having a trance. The biggest one being there is not a single bed in all of Kyonin. Ultimately it's not a huge deal, but the fact there's an entire AP with them doing trancing makes me lean towards that to be honest.

As a follow up, again, those books use 3.5 rules where elves did Trance. If you’re running using Pathfinder rules just put in beds, since they don’t Trance.

And beds are generally useful, even outside of sleep.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

A nice soft, comfy place to lie down is always good and elves never struck me as the utilitarian, minimalist types when it comes to home furnishings.

... "how do their houses look if they don't need bedrooms"...

I know the game, and therefore the forum are generally PG13 and a bed is never required for anything at all, but a large, relatively soft space that can fit a couple of human-sized-ish humanoids easily is pretty handy for most homes in the long run, I would have thought.

If the group expresses that they want to keep someone alive any half-decent GM would then keep track of how close to actually dead the NPC is no matter if they normally do or not.

Implying that someone wouldn't is ridiculous and shows that you're at least pretending to treat things and a solid yes or no rather than shades of grey.

I think my post above covers my opinion on that and how shades of grey are both 1. Where the game gets interesting and 2. Better accommodated in the existing rules re: 0HP, stabilising, not ganking every downed foe etc. But, IMO, YMMV, and so on and so forth.

Yep!

Sometimes it's good to get opinions from other people, but usually it comes down to what the GM wants to do and what the group enjoys.
A GM knows what they want to do and knows their group better than anyone on here.

I suppose that's part of it. The player I've known for the least longest time in my current group, I first met in 2009. The next newest person in the group is my wife, so I reckon I know her at least a little.

Of the three remaining players, two have been friends since our mutually embarrassing teenage years and the other almost two decades.

They know I won't gotcha them, just as I can trust them not to just try and murder their way out of every problem. They've actually surprised me a few times with the number of people they've actively decided not to kill. And it is likely to go poorly for them in the next couple of sessions based on one such decision. But they understood that when they made the decision (so I'll probably go a little bit easy on them).

I just think it's a little more black and white, binary, and less conducive to versimilitudinous (that word was a nightmare to type) story-telling to have hard and fast rules of either '0HP means dead' as a GM or 'gank 'em all just in case' from a player one. Even if you then conjure reasons to waive those rules on the occasions that you need to.

Sorry for the double. Forum ate bits of my last post.

I was clever and copied it. Will delete the old one in a sec:

Well if their intention is to knock him unconscious and take him alive, then that's not a problem. I'm not a douche.

I'm saying "generally speaking", if they reduce an enemy's HP to 0, he doesn't stabilize after they leave and then start hunting the group.

Funnily enough, that's what I said too:

None of this implies that any and every enemy will:

1. Not be brought straight to dead by either massive damage or just going below -CON
2. Make the CON check to stabilise (yes, I roll the check)
3. Wake up later and decide they still have an appetite to cross the people who just ground them into a fine paste
4. Have the wherewithal and resources to act on that desire
5. Still be relevant to a potentially world-traveling party by the time they catch up

Using the rules as they stand seems to be a bit more straightforward than just DM-fiating a "my previous rule of 0HP=insta-death doesn't apply in this specific case because... reasons". And, in my experience, there are often a variety of reasons where a non-murder-hobo party will want to not-kill everyone with whom they happen to cross swords (or spells, or whatever).

People coming back after stabilising to hassle the party later should be rare but equally it should be possible and if that makes the party gank every poor sap they KO, then that's a decision they are free to make and might have consequences in how they are reacted to, if word gets around (which it might not - dead men tell no tales as they say).

So long as you let the players know what your expectations are with the game you're running it shouldn't be a problem.

Wouldn't all GM threads be way shorter if people stuck to this advice?

If you drop an enemy NPC to zero, he’s dead, and unless he’s a lich with an undiscovered phylactery or some type of Magic Jar / Spirit Jars nonsense, he doesn’t come back.

That must be super awesome for when an NPC needs to be captured alive.

"Take the non-lethal penalty, even though the enemy is trying to kill you, or lose"

That sounds even less fun, tbh.

I can say from experience that the party very much enjoyed encountering the ambushing archers that got away a few levels later when the bard could dimension door the fighters behind them...

I try to have some evidence of the benefits of leveling up at least once per level.

Normally in the form of a bestiary creature that used to be a challenge now just being a minor hindrance to the actual intent of the encounter, or even being come across on it's own and getting stomped into oblivion.

Lets the players feel they're accomplishing things and that they're powerful.

I'll disagree with this, if only because typically the players are the good guys. They might care how the game world reacts to them.

NPCs on the other hand only exist as a foil to the players.

It's rarely in the interest of the bad guys (assuming beyond the first few levels once the party has established who they are) to allow such persons to live.

I try to avoid TPKs by simply not letting it be such a close fight. Which was easy in PF1, considering it was usually more of a struggle to make it a tough fight (post level 5).

World reactions can be just as much practical considerations as moral ones but the point is, overall, not lost.

There aren't many moustache-twirler villains in my campaign. Although the players don't actually know that yet.

It's more that the players start to recognise that there might be a reason someone would want to keep them alive than anything else. Long-term and short-term convenient aren't always the same.

Reward the behavior you want to see.

You want efficient executions? Have surviving enemies return.

You want merciful warriors? Have enemies steer clear of their victorious foes.

You want people to think about it? Have a mix of the two.

Hell, the returning enemies don't even have to become stronger. Sometimes it's nice to let the party say "you again?!! lolz" and just straight up slap somebody silly.

And to be honest, if the party don't kill every downed foe, you create a world where it's easier to avoid a TPK by a bad set of rolls because there can be a reasonable expectation that other people might behave the same for their own reasons when they beat the bejeezus out of your players, and it doesn't have to have the whiff of DM ex machina.

It's about setting the right expectations for your game.

[...]

Doing it as a surprise "gotcha" is a jerk move the first time you do it.

[...]

Personally, that's not the kind of game I'd enjoy.

[...]

Just because it's by the rules doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

As a few people have said, it depends on wat kind of behaviour you want to see in your players.

Sure. Gotcha GMing is among the worst types of DMing (in my opinion, no such thing as wrongfun, and so on and so forth. But I don't see how this is gotcha GMing. Outside of a beer n' pretzels dungeon crawl, actions should have consequences, good and bad.

These are the things players, and their characters, should be considering in a game with any level of even semi-serious RP.

- Do we always want to be the ones to instigate violence?
- Do we always want to be the ones to take it to lethal damage when non-lethal attacks might do it?
- Do we want to be the kind of people, and have the reputation of people, who will execute any and all downed and defeated enemies without hesitation?
- Do we ever have reason to want to keep an enemy alive?
- Do we want to specifically not kill downed enemies, and accept the various consequences of leaving people behind that have no real reason to like us?
- Are there different considerations in each fight, or potential fight, that will change these decisions?

None of this implies that any and every enemy will:
1. Not be brought straight to dead by either massive damage or just going below -CON
2. Make the CON check to stabilise (yes, I roll the check)
3. Wake up later and decide they still have an appetite to cross the people who just ground them into a fine paste
4. Have the wherewithal and resources to act on that desire
5. Still be relevant to a potentially world-traveling party by the time they catch up

But the potential for this shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, because that's how people actually work in the real world. People hold grudges for a variety of reasons. sometimes they act on them, sometimes they don't.

There's nothing wrong with a more gamist approach, but it's certainly not any more virtuous just by nature of being more gamist. And slitting everyone's throat just to avoid the possibility of later issues, without any repercussions in-game-world, is no less gamist than hand-waving the need for a party to make that decision.

If you have some kobolds survive, be prepared for statements like "we stripped their gear and checked them over for stuff but didn't notice they were still breathing? None of them cried out in pain? They were all silent while barely clinging to life?"

Well, yeah, they were silent. Did you make a Heal check or just rifle through their pockets? Were you particularly concerned with checking an unconscious enemy for vital signs?

That's how the game rules work and it's only a DC10 (plus penalty) CON check to stabilise. Not everybody is gonna make it, but inevitably some will.

They get a CON (DC10 again) check every hour to see if they regain consciousness so that's an hour where they're silent and clinging to life. How long does it take to search a handful of bodies?

Should players either:

1. Expect that the rules apply differently to NPCs than to them?
2. Be under the impression that somehow, by sheer coincidence, that they always do at least enough damage to bring an NPC to negative-CON HP on their last attack?

Both seem less reasonable to me than just understanding the rules and how they apply.

Sysryke wrote:

...Even the little module/AP we're doing now we stuck into our world...

To each their own. I'd much rather play in a setting with established lore than a Calvinball...

I don't think it's necessarily fair to describe a homebrew world as Calvinball just because it doesn't retain one specific piece of Golarion lore.

like ancient forgotten race devoted to Ihys (and long extinct) who fashioned cities of coral deep below the sea

This ties in rather attractively with the various corruptions affecting aquatic races now, including whatshisface that's under the Lake of Mists and Veils (avatar of Deskari, rather than Deskari himself, iirc). Maybe they're more susceptible because Ihys is no more.

Like... domains, or a more general 'areas of interest'?

He'd likely have at least Law or Good, if not both, since he's LG. That surprised me since he's the reason for mortal free-will, but there we are.

Something Creation related would be good too. Equally surprised there's no direct counter to the Destruction domain, tbh.

Depending on how he feels about the whole thing with his brother, it might be interesting to have a LG deity with a keen interest in revenge or retribution.

If you're interested in context, I'd recommend searching for the Monadnock Expandable PR-24 (although realize you're going to get links to a bunch of police supply companies).

From personal experience selling weapons like this (in a country where they are illegal - but let's hear it for teenaged work in a military surplus store), there does not seem to be any reasonable way for a Monadnock side-handled collapsible to measure a total of 8 inches when not extended and also be as easily concealed as is described. The handle below the 'side-' is generally long enough to explicitly exclude this.

It seems more likely that this 'nightstick' is designed to replicate batons with no side-handle at all.

What's with the questions?

Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you are.

;)