I'd like to share a possible variant of dealing with lethal/non-lethal damage and hope to get some feedback on them :
1 - Any (lethal) damage you get gives an equal ammount of non-lethal damage and causes you to be staggered once your non-lethal damage exceeds your current hitpoints.
2 - Non-lethal damage will be converted to lethal damage once it exceeds your maximum hitpoints + constitution score.
designer's notes :
- This will (typically) result in being staggered when you lose half your hitpoints since your non-lethal damage equals or exceeds your current hitpoints.
- The 2nd point is there to prevent effective doubling of damage once you go unconcious and also creates a window where a creature being pummeled by non-lethal damage will be staggered, it also makes dealing non-lethal damage inherently a bit less optimal.
- Makes undead, constructs and others immune to non-lethal damage more dangerous since they suffer no risk of being staggered, making them more 'relentless' which I like, since they can be critted in PF I feel this gives them back some flavor.
- Gives more in game justification to in combat healing, since it also restores effectiveness besides healing.
- It is easier to determine when a foe is seriously hurt, or vice versa.
- Makes Vital Strike and several other standard/attack actions/feats more interesting to pick or use.
- I hope it will create a more tangible threat in combat, since much of the time PCs will be at risk of becoming staggered.
- I am not sure wether this will end up being too lethal, I am still considering wether this variant would work better with maximum hitpoints overall. Though probably just for elites and PCs.
shameless bump, I'd like some feedback on these.. I will just bump it once.. promise.
This seems like it would make melee combat more lopsided or slow paced, depending. Once a creature becomes staggered, it becomes far less dangerous and has a more difficult time trying to escape or maneuver. Considering how quickly the health pools of creatures in combat already disappear, it just seems like whoever got the initial upper hand in the fight would just win by an even larger margin then they would have with a much lower chance of the other side making a comeback.
In the case that one side quickly lowers the other to half, they now have an action advantage allowing them to maneuver more than the other team.
In the case that both sides hit half health about the same point, they each now have standard actions to try and kill each other rather than a full round of actions, slowing the combat without necessarily making it any more interesting.
On the case of making a comeback, I would give a Fort save vs. non-lethal damage. Maybe that way they could stage a comeback.
This seems like it would make melee combat more lopsided or slow paced, depending. Once a creature becomes staggered, it becomes far less dangerous and has a more difficult time trying to escape or maneuver. Considering how quickly the health pools of creatures in combat already disappear, it just seems like whoever got the initial upper hand in the fight would just win by an even larger margin then they would have with a much lower chance of the other side making a comeback.
In the case that one side quickly lowers the other to half, they now have an action advantage allowing them to maneuver more than the other team.
In the case that both sides hit half health about the same point, they each now have standard actions to try and kill each other rather than a full round of actions, slowing the combat without necessarily making it any more interesting.
You have a point after thinking about it for a bit, perhaps staggered is too much of a penalty, also I rather want a penalty that does not just penalize martial characters.
Maybe I will simply tag on 1 or 2 negative levels when creatures get over half their hitpoints.
Ok, with a few changes :
1 - Any (lethal) damage you get gives an equal ammount of non-lethal damage and causes you to be affected by 2 negative levels once your non-lethal damage exceeds your current hitpoints.
2 - Non-lethal damage will be converted to lethal damage once it exceeds your maximum hitpoints + constitution score.
designer's notes :
- undead, constructs and elemental subtype creatures are immune.
- Gives more in game justification to in combat healing, since it also restores effectiveness besides healing.
- It is easier to determine when a foe is seriously hurt, or vice versa.
- I hope it will create a more tangible threat in combat, since much of the time PCs will be at risk of becoming staggered.
I am intrigued by the idea of having a 'comeback', not sure how to implement that yet though.