Michael J. Card's page

And so, we see several different GM interpretations of non-lethal damage. That's why I posted. The rules as written seem very clear that if the damage that reduces a character to 0 hp is non-lethal, they are stable and unconscious, but not dying.

Then the book, as written, includes environmental effects that deal lethal and non-lethal at the same time, and has checks associated with among others, the falling damage rules discussed above, it gets muddy as far as tracking damage or stability.

I prefer the interpretation that only the last damage dealt makes any difference, but this seems to be a situation where every GM is going to rule differently.

There must be a point to tracking non-lethal damage in game. Could anyone point out what it is?

I understand that if damage that is dealt to you that reduces you below 0 hit points is non-lethal, you are unconscious and stable. However, my concerns arise from the following:

Many environmental effects deal both lethal and non-lethal damage. In such a case, since even non-lethal damage subtracts from the same pools of SP and HP, how should one determine whether the final damage has a PC dying or stable?

And for falling, should one jump, the first d6 is considered non-lethal, and if you do an Acrobatics check, you may be able to further reduce damage. So, if you were to jump a 40 drop and succeed at the Acrobatics check, you could say 0 for the first 10 feet 1d6 non-lethal for the next 10, but 2d6 lethal for the final twenty. If that reduces a character to less than 0 up, there was no point in adding the non-lethal damage to the rules.

I feel I'm missing something...