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I am about to start GMing games in Pathfinder Society (I judged a lot in old LG and LD days, so I am not a complete novice).
My question is, when do you attack unconscious player characters?
I've had it happen more than once in PFS games from different judges - most quite fine GMs, so clearly it is not breaking any rules and there may be times it is called for.
I thought I'd ask what criteria this body thought applies - or do you only do it when it calls for such action in the game?
Thanks in Advance,
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If I’m asked to advise on when to do it, I tell people when I would do it:
1) If the tactics call for it in the scenario.
2) If the PC’s continuously become threats because their allies are healing them, they stand back up and continue to do damage to the enemy. So after the 2nd time or so of that same character standing up, the enemy may just decide to ensure they won’t be getting back up again.
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If I’m asked to advise on when to do it, I tell people when I would do it:
1) If the tactics call for it in the scenario.
2) If the PC’s continuously become threats because their allies are healing them, they stand back up and continue to do damage to the enemy. So after the 2nd time or so of that same character standing up, the enemy may just decide to ensure they won’t be getting back up again.
+1 from me.
The King of Storval Stairs game the OP and I played together this is what happened. The *REDACTED* would have been perfectly fine letting you all lie unconscious, but people kept healing back up.
I will add one more #3 to the above: Mindless creatures or animal intelligence. If their only instinct is to kill prey to feed, I would see such a creature attacking downed players. Like an Ooze, undead or such. But even then, only if there were no other apparent threats.
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That is a completely personal and situational decision, but be sure to check the printed tactics and morale first. After that, here are my own guidelines:
Low level (1-4) and/or inexperienced players without direct written tactics conflicting, almost never. Intelligent opponents will try to neutralize everyone before spending time on finishing blows, and unintelligent will continue to pursue threats before stopping to eat helpless opponents.
mid-level (5+) play, if tactically or alignment appropriate. Really evil or angry foes will kill because they like it and it hurts the survivors. Intelligent opponents will spend time on helpless foes if ranged healing or curatives are shown. Unintelligent foes will stop to eat helpless victims if nothing in in immediate threatened areas.
High level (9+) play, Anytime, everytime.
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I would probably attack unconscious PCs only if it made no sense to do otherwise (e.g. in Sammy T's example, it wouldn't make sense for the bad guy to disadvantage himself in order to avoid hitting unconscious PCs with area attacks).
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The King of Storval Stairs game the OP and I played together this is what happened. The *REDACTED* would have been perfectly fine letting you all lie unconscious, but people kept healing back up.I will add one more #3 to the above: Mindless creatures or animal intelligence. If their only instinct is to kill prey to feed, I would see such a creature attacking downed players. Like an Ooze, undead or such. But even then, only if there were no other apparent threats.
Actually my character didn't die in Storval - but you did shoot a fallen PC that had never been healed, because my character moved closer to him.
However I was mostly thinking about my character situations and when as a new GM I should be doing that. I have had numerous characters of mine attacked while unconscious (not all killed, praise be infernal healing) and since many fine GMs have done the deed I wanted to get a sense of when this happens.
Do you warn players that if their characters get up after being dropped that the critters might not like it? Like for newer players?
Do you ask for sense motives about what is likely to happen if you resume fighting after being down?
Do you require bluff checks to feign unconsciousness and do the sense motive checks use the perception distance modifiers to know when one is pretending to being down?
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So if a healer heals someone and they get back up, and rejoin the fight, it is suggested (for higher tiers or all tiers or just if they are playing up?) to finish the job? Assuming intelligent monsters that don't prefer live meat.
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(I understand totally why the REDACTED finalized the REDACTED character - however there is no point to play a healer if everyone you heal or try to heal is especially targeted - I alsost stopped playing the 8th Merciful Healer after that experience)
TIA for answers to queries, which actually brings a different question for a new thread.
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(I understand totally why the REDACTED finalized the REDACTED character - however there is no point to play a healer if everyone you heal or try to heal is especially targeted - I alsost stopped playing the 8th Merciful Healer after that experience)
Intelligent NPCs are trying to win. If you're going to yo-yo all the unconscious characters back to consciousness and they're going to rejoin the fight, those intelligent NPCs can clearly see that they can't possibly win. You might say "well, it's not like I'm not expending my channels and spells on this, so it's not coming for free". And in terms of the next fight, that might be true. But for the NPCs, whose lives are on the line right now and who don't care if your healer has fewer channels next fight, that's what they see--they can't ever win without dropping the whole team, and if each dropped character comes back through healing and keeps on fighting them, then that can't possibly be achieved.
There's two solutions for the intelligent NPC:
Solution 1: Kill the healer(s) dead. Now you don't have to worry about that whole "back into the fight" thing and can instead continue to knock out active opponents and ignore unconscious ones.
Solution 2: Finish off the unconscious PCs so they can't be healed, hopefully using as few resources as possible to do so (perhaps final iterative attacks that aren't likely to hit an active PC but are very likely to hit a 0 Dex unconscious PC).
There's really no way around this conclusion for an enemy with even remotely approaching human intelligence.
As an aside, I dislike this conclusion, so in home games I've instituted a rule that causes the trauma of being knocked out by damage to prevent you from awakening instantly upon being healed. My players love this rule, as it means that there is no longer an NPC incentive to kill unconscious characters.
Of course, this can't be used in PFS. At the least, you're using up enemy resources in most cases to obtain those kills. And if Solution 2 is getting you down, then worry not! Just make sure your healer has breath of life, and you'll probably be able to get them to switch over from Solution 2 to Solution 1.
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The way I see it, you woiuldn't be able to tell if a player is died within the past 60 seconds or is unconscious, so if a creature is hitting unconscious people it should also be hitting recently dead people.
Here are 2 cases that I have seen come up;
A creature has mulitple attacks and has no other option but to use them all on only 1 person in reach.
A creature with Great Cleave hits all standing targets in reach, then it can continue on with downed and dead bodies.
I agree with the above comment if players keep going down and keep jumping back up from healing then the creature if intelligent cound switch tactics to hit downed people an extra time to make sure they stay down.
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Here are 390 posts on this subject.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lcit?Coup-De-Gras-vs-Players-in-Pathfinder-Soc iety#1
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lwk9?Full-Attacks-and-Downed-Characters-Part-2
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2op7f?GM-hitting-a-man-when-he-is-down
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Here are 390 posts on this subject.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lcit?Coup-De-Gras-vs-Players-in-Pathfinder-Soc iety#1
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lwk9?Full-Attacks-and-Downed-Characters-Part-2
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2op7f?GM-hitting-a-man-when-he-is-down
Thanks, they mention that GMs are not allowed to break the "Don't be a jerk" rule regarding killing unconscious PCs - anyone know where that rule is?
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Players are not required to think tactically.
NPCs are not prohibited from thinking tactically.
I try to scale the NPCs tactics to the experience of my players and level of their characters, but an intelligent opponent is an intelligent opponent:
- Don't leave downed allies next to an NPC, lest they find themselves with nothing better to do than CdG.
- Don't cluster around a downed ally when you're fighting something(s) with the ability to make AoE attacks, or you may find your buddy trying to make a Reflex save with a -5 Dex modifier.
- If something dropped you to negative, and you've been healed, consider playing possum until your allies move the creature away from you.
- If your buddy has just been dropped into negative HP, consider moving the creature away from him.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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To be honest, I vote "never."
I had a humble experience with a game where Grog went down (sigh) and then the monster took a five foot step just to get Grog in the area attack as well as the two in front of him. (I believe, in hind sight, that one of them could have been next to him causing the five foot, but I can't remember)
Grog got cooked, and another was dropped at the same time. (pregen wizard)
It happens. More so in 4th season, it seems, but there are other infamous scenarios of the "tpk" variety. (One I ran recently is a room filled with water, you drown if the door isn't opened in time)
So some games are hard enough without adding insult to injury. I would be as kind as I can before stooping to enemies attacking unconscious creatures. Of course, this also means that more damage is going toward those left standing...
Recently, I have seen Animal Companions and pets get pummeled as the PC's tried to figure a strategy. My sorcerer (Lemtwist Bratham Mallentwine Smith Olgen Jeebs Nathers Bingham the Third) is on his ninth riding dog.
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Unless tactics say so, never. Not even if they're mindless or similar. It's tough enough when you're on the ground bleeding and helpless.
I had an incident where I was taken from 11hp to -1hp before I could act, on my turn I stabilised.
On the next round, the bad guy attacked me again because nobody else was in the area (thank you to my high will save vs fear and nobody else's), taking me down to -10hp, and on my turn, I again stabilised.
On the third round, the bad guy attacked me a third time, and that killed me off.
The reason wasn't actually in the tactics in the stat block, but that the outsider dog was in the area, "hungry". And the kicker - and I bet you didn't know this - outsiders don't need to eat.
If that doesn't sour you, I don't know what will.
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Outsiders don't need to eat, but they do like to.
I fully support an enemy finishing off the only alive person in the vicinity. This applies if they've run because of a fear spell, or they've retreated because the encounter was too difficult.
Tactics don't cover everything. If a player is being yo-yo'd, if the healer has been WAY too effective, or if there is absolutely nothing for the enemy to do but finish off a downed opponent, then it's a viable option.
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Again, while I agree that GMs should avoid looking for excuses to kill a PC, the PCs should be doing their best to make sure that the GM has better options.
If the party abandons a downed teammate in front of the BBEG to regroup (willingly, not talking about a Fear, here), then what do you expect the BBEG to do?
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An animal can wait. It has all the time in the world to do whatever it's planning if nobody else is around.
For the sake of the player not losing a character to a completely helpless situation, it's worth finding any excuse.
It wasn't a helpless situation until they got knocked unconscious. Furthermore, I don't know of any animal that would wait to eat until enemies showed up to try to take its dinner away.
I try not to softball my games, and that includes looking for reasons not to kill a character when every sign points to killing the character as the most logical thing for the creature to do.
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Again, while I agree that GMs should avoid looking for excuses to kill a PC, the PCs should be doing their best to make sure that the GM has better options.
If the party abandons a downed teammate in front of the BBEG to regroup (willingly, not talking about a Fear, here), then what do you expect the BBEG to do?
This is actually an exception - while I'd still consider taking prisoners before killing, it's a terribly bad situation to put a fellow PC in, and there should be consequences. But even then, I'd look for anything else I could do with them - this is a great way to make the PCs call surrender with a hostage.
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If it's not an animal, it's something else - I can't give a list of every possible situation. The point is, as a GM, I try to think of something, anything to avoid attacking downed characters.
The example I used was completely helpless, but it's an extreme example (walk in the room, roll initative, the bad guy gets a higher dice roll on initiative, fear, attack, dying - to argue that the will saves or the hp or the initiative should have been higher is pushing it, these aren't min-max con-dumped characters or anything like that).
The bad guy, including an animal, can have any motive for waiting 6 or 30 seconds. It's not that long a time, especially while under no duress from that target.
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I understand that you don't want to kill a player's character that they probably worked hard on, especially in so inglorious a fashion.
However, I would personally be insulted if my character was saved by the GM deciding that THIS dog in particular likes to spend thirty seconds running circles around my dying body. I don't want my life to be saved by the whims of the GM. I want my own good playing to do that, and if the dice happen to be against me, so be it: I'll make a new character and have learned something.
Hungry animal? It eats! At most it would drag the body somewhere, but not for very long, and not in a way that makes it EASIER for the character.
Evil outsider? They REALLY like to kill things. If you don't give it a threat nearby, you had better believe it'll kill.
Random human? Maybe not. Hostages are pretty useful.
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If it's not an animal, it's something else - I can't give a list of every possible situation. The point is, as a GM, I try to think of something, anything to avoid attacking downed characters.
The example I used was completely helpless, but it's an extreme example (walk in the room, roll initative, the bad guy gets a higher dice roll on initiative, fear, attack, dying - to argue that the will saves or the hp or the initiative should have been higher is pushing it, these aren't min-max con-dumped characters or anything like that).
The bad guy, including an animal, can have any motive for waiting 6 or 30 seconds. It's not that long a time, especially while under no duress from that target.
If we're talking shadow mastiff, and it sounds like we are, then they specifically do hunt out of hunger, in their description, even if as outsiders they won't die of starvation it doesn't mean it doesn't feel hunger.
On the Material Plane, they prefer to travel in shadow, moving soundlessly and unseen to find prey, hunting in vicious sport just as often as in hunger.
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I played a healer that the DM targetted because I was bringing people back from near death to full health multiple times in multiple encounters. iirc even 'killing' the others did not really help. After a while, the enemies learned that to stop the party the healer needed to stop. I also could not attack. No benefit without penalty, after all. (Thank god for multiple encounter teleports...)
As to when is it 'ok'? Mostly when tactics, or common sense for the enemy. Abandoning a party member for an extended period, usually fits (if not worse than death, which there is in pfs, like in LG).
The 'not be a jerk' also is in the phb, the rule 0: Have fun (for everyone not just yourself.)
As to an outsider (or other mob) killing a character when no other feasible options presented themselves (whether players hid/teleported out of sight, etc) I can see them taking a few seconds (ie: a round or two combat time) to look around to make sure the coast is clear.
Dont get me wrong, it sucks having a character die, especially when playing up (or higher). But, if a group is barely able to play up, and they choose to for better mcguffins, then I probably would not go out of my way to kill/tpk, but I would take off any sense of kid gloves. I think its one thing if its a homegame, but standardized play is set up in theory for a specific level to be able to beat... (unless its an impossible APL 0 Bandit kingdoms mod...)
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If you want to play in hard mode, I'll gladly GM for you in hard mode and kill you while you're on the ground, but there are a lot of non-veteran players out there, and likely some veterans, who find that style of play a bit too hardcore, and you'll likely not hear about it unless you get lucky enough for someone to have their voice heard about it.
I guess the answer is that the answer to this questions is always going to change depending on who the players are, and as GMs, we should be conscious of that and adapt accordingly - even if that means raising or lessening the "realism" factor in the game.
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If you want to play in hard mode, I'll gladly GM for you in hard mode and kill you while you're on the ground, but there are a lot of non-veteran players out there, and likely some veterans, who find that style of play a bit too hardcore, and you'll likely not hear about it unless you get lucky enough for someone to have their voice heard about it.
I guess the answer is that the answer to this questions is always going to change depending on who the players are, and as GMs, we should be conscious of that and adapt accordingly - even if that means raising or lessening the "realism" factor in the game.
And I fully support this. If it's a table where I know there are new players, I WILL be more lenient. Tier 1-5, I have never killed a character. Going back through my memory, I can only think of once instance ever where a character died in a 3-7, and ALL the players were close friends of mine AND expert players. On top, I have never had a TPK.
In general, I try to read all BBEG tactics AS WELL as their personality. Scenarios usually do a good job of telling you why bad guys are there, and what they are like, even if the players never find out. The last encounter in Cyphermage Dilemma, don't you think she would CDG people if given the chance? the shadow mastiff description above is a great example.
Sometimes (like in the case of storval stairs) enemies have been studying your party for quite a while. They know what each player does, they know which characters heal others, and which look like the BDF with low will saves against the cleric with high ones. They will make better or worse tactical decisions for it.
In summary, read your table. It comes with time after GMing a lot, and it gets easier over time, especially when GMing for the same group of people. I am sure the player that died in said table I mentioned before was fine with it, and understands why the *redacted* downed him.
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On Animals and non-intelligent beasts, this is how I handle it, and it fits very well in my opinion and gives the chance for the rest of the group to save them.
If the main motivation is feeding with the animal or beast then I will have the beast try to grab and carry the body to a safer location so they are not in danger while feasting.
I don't agree that an Animals or non-intelligent beast would just stop worrying about the danger around them and start chowing down on the fresh meat the PC just became. I think they would be more worried about the danger of the other PCs to themselves and their food. They would either protect themselves from that danger or try to bring the fresh meat to a safer location to chow down in peace.
This allows the PC a chance to save their compatriot and still fits within the action of the animal or non-intelligent beast.
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@Adam... yes... why did you have a fast zombie? they are not supposed to be fast...
on a more serious note, I think you were rough, but not neccesarily wrong and it is, in theory, possible to survive said thwomping.
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Seems like the main consensus is that GMs should exercise leniency when it comes to attacking downed PCs which I tend to agree with. However, at the end of the day the GMs main job is to be a neutral arbiter in the game. This means that NPC motivation should technically trump not wanting to be a jerk to your players.
A good (horrible) example of this is the hungry ankheg. Last time I had one of these beasts pop up in a game, it managed to drop the gnome druid to the negatives. The next round, the rest of the party had to scramble to grab hold of her as they realized the ankheg was trying to abscond with her back into its burrow (almost certain death). Would I have felt like a mean jerk for killing her character? Absolutely. At the same time though, I felt like my hands were sort of tied. This thing had accomplished its main goal, so why would it bother to stick around in an obviously dangerous situation instead of retreating with the spoils? (Happily, they managed to slay the thing before it got away.)
For humanoid NPCs the main motivation in a fight is (rarely) hunger, though. However, I can think of many more reasons for NPCs to keep unconscious characters alive, (ransom, slaves, interrogation... ) rather than taking a quick swipe to finish them off.
And then there's this. "Oh, I have found myself next to an knocked-out foe in the middle of this fracas. what shall I do? My, that is a nice looking flaming sword he is carrying. Maybe I shall pick that up along with that nifty amulet he is wearing..."
As far as AoE attacks go.. well yeah, the character might just be boned. It happens.
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Michael Brock Quote
Source?
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As for attacking a downed foe, how would a mindless undead know to do any different, especially if it can't move that round?For the same reason it doesn't keep attacking the dead body in the corner for months at time???
You're right. However, it might take a bite out of its new meal. It might just start eating the downed opponent there, with the same result.
With the exception of a brand new player's first time with Pathfinder, I'm not going to go out of my way to not kill a character. If a mindless undead has leftover attacks, they will be directed at an enemy.
If the character gets up at a later time, smart enemies may take measures to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Apparently coup de grace is out, but using regular attacks to finish off a downed opponent in a healer-happy group is a valid tactic that a group of PCs would certainly take.
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As for attacking a downed foe, how would a mindless undead know to do any different, especially if it can't move that round?For the same reason it doesn't keep attacking the dead body in the corner for months at time???
What about Full Attacks? If the dragon downs you on the second of five natural attacks, does it complete the sequence, or just stop at two and stare at the body (assume it already 5-ft stepped and can't move)?
If the Evil Cleric is channeling negative energy (per tactics) and drops one of the PCs, does it stop channeling even though the other PCs remain standing within 30ft?
I'm not looking for ways to kill a PC. In fact, when it gets to that point, I make every effort to make sure the PC is getting all their bonuses counted and anything else within reason that I can think of to save them.
But at the same time, as a player, I don't want my GM to just hand-wave it to keep me alive. If the character dies, he dies. It's not the end of the world. It's often not even the end of that character.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that GMs should not be trying to kill players, but players should not expect GMs to save them from their own mistakes (or bad luck).
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As a fellow player recently demonstrated to my GM, it often makes far more tactical sense to NOT kill the PC. Because the other PCs will go out of their way to heal him and will spend precious resources doing it while you keep pounding on them. Also they will become more emotional and prone to make tactical mistakes.
In our game situation, the Paladin cohort downed by the Demon was healed a little, just enough to channel to heal. The Demon was in the channel area and that channel just voided 3 rounds of PC attacks, not counting the action (move+standard) one of the PC used to heal the Paladin instead of attacking the Demon.
In the end, the Demon died. But it would have died far earlier if it had killed the Paladin.