Story so far: A session, arena-style happened. No killings, which side killed the combatant of other side first loses. Turns out the party is up against a huge monster, arena special ruled that if party survives 15 rounds without getting knocked out of stage area, we win.
Turns out, the monster is wayyyyy much more trouble than expected and I accidentally dealt the killing blow slightly below 0 HP (I think). We tried to save the poor sap, no dice. It is dead.
Now, just for future references if the party are faced with similar situation again. Can enemies, both humanoid and monster if dropped below 0 HP in combat but not their -CON automatically assumed dead? Cannot spare a quarter in combat, but might want to stabilize some poor sap for further 'questioning' later...
Yes. Monsters use the same rules as PCs for determining death.
Some creatures do suffer critical existence failure at 0 HP, like (most) Undead.
Never assume that. As a GM I track monster health below zero if they have regeneration or somesuch. I've had a few get back up and escape and so on.
Ditto, most monsters (constructs and undead excepted) do not die if reduced to less negatives than their Con score. Summoned creatures return to their home plane, though.
Thank you, I will sure to keep that in mind and tell the group, most of them automatically assume 'monster/enemy auto-die' rule after that session.
Imagine their surprise if you have enemies getting back up. :D
As a practical convenience, most GMs don't track CON, stabilize rolls and similar things for monsters. Mostly because it's too much work, for too little gain.
If it's regenerating or a smart cooperating group with a healer, that's different.
It also means the party doesn't have the moral dilemma of going around slitting throats after each fight.That said, if they want the enemy to survive, it's easy enough retroactively apply the normal rules.
This is how I handle it when I run games.
I could see keeping up with a major NPC, but in the games that I've run, those NPCs have been reduced to well below their CON scores by attacks.
When it comes to trolls, they've always used fire/acid because I've always played that some aspects of certain monsters are common knowledge.
I pretty much agree with the Jeff. We handwave it for a number of reasons, both practical and thematic, and handwave it back if someone wants to try and keep someone alive IE interogate them or take them prisoner. Otherwise it gets very complicated in a world where 'dieing' or 'bleeding out' is resolved with a 0 level spell, and magical healing brings you instantly from 'knocked out' to 'deadly threat'. The whole cutting the throat of every downed enemy becomes a really moral issue I personally dont want to deal with.
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I think I know the combat in question... If so, then I think it was not so much a matter of the monster dying at 0HP, but rather that dropping it (even unconscious) "ended" the fight as far as the crowd's entertainment value was concerned.
Was this a pre-written scenario called...
I haven't read it, but I've played it, and the impression I got was that the fight had to still be going on for X rounds, not just have both sides technically be alive. But I could be wrong.
The moral issues are good. I like when entertainment also provides some introspective feedback that lets me be a better person. Think Star Trek. It forces good to be good and lets evil be evil. If good characters don't want to feel skeevy then they should probably reevaluate how they act and engage in combat in general. Subduing an enemy is just as valid as killing them and can have a ton more RP value.
People have said how for functional reasons they don't like "tracking" the HPs/Stabilization Saves of unconscious monsters/enemies at negative HPs. I don't see a reason why you should BREAK THE RULES there, but in fact you don't have to "track" them in most situations, because once the creature is unconscious, it isn't going to do anything unless something specifically revives it/heals it/etc.
So, only when another character/effect/etc interacts with it (or might consider interacting with it, depending if it's alive) do you need to "catch them up" with however many rounds of Stabilization checks to see if they actually bled out/what their negative HP score actually was at that moment. That goes for healing, that goes for PCs considering whether to spend an action attacking them, etc. If there is 'incidental damage' that would happen anyways (AoEs, final iteratives with no other target around) you can just apply that damage without resolving the rest of the pending effects. Otherwise, if the battle is ignoring them whether they are dead-meat or unconscious in negative HPs, you can ignore them also until the point something cares about the difference or they are specifically affected by an outside force.
I had one evil GM who had a very interesting ruling.
We had just finished a very tough fight with a bunch of mooks, and we were doing post-combat healing. Being out of healing spells, the cleric channeled. To our surprise, our enemies were healed as well, and the fight began anew.
The moral issues can be good. OTOH, it means there always has to be an alternative. PF characters don't often have the backup the Star Trek or superheroes get. They're often alone, miles, if not days from any place they could leave prisoners. And often on a deadline before bad things happen. If you really want to play a game that's mostly about escorting prisoners (that the local authorities may not want), that's one approach. Or the classic trying to rehabilitate the goblin children.
And just put the save the world plotline on hold while we deal with this.If you're playing a city game, then capturing the thieves guild or the traitors and delivering them to justice does work well. As long as the authorities are on your side.
So in your games if being good is inconvenient it simply gets hand waved? That's the summarization I get from your post.
There are a lot of options. Most times, you just need to get past enemies so you can get the item, reach a certain spot, so on. That doesn't require mass murder in the vast majority of cases. It doesn't change the base Pathfinder definition of evil away from "killing for your own gain/convenience."
I don't see why you'd ever have to cart several prisoners around. Strip them of their gear like you do anyway when you loot them and they're practically ineffective. Tie them up but only enough to slow them down rather than leaving them permanently helpless to give you time to distance yourselves. If they're a caster just cut out their tongue after you knock them out. It leaves them alive and is even Paladin Friendly (TM).
I just don't see why the adventurer should default to "kill them all" on average. By definition good is "respecting life." The characters I play try to play that line. It makes them stand out from the rest.
That's not to say killings don't occur. It just shouldn't be the default option for good characters.
I had one evil GM who had a very interesting ruling.
the cleric channeled.
To our surprise, our enemies were healed as well, and the fight began anew.
I would hardly call that a 'ruling', that's just how the rules clearly work, if you have unconscious but still living creatures within the Channel AoE, and didn't specifically exclude them via Selective Channel. That's exactly what you should expect in PFS.
I would hardly call that a 'ruling', that's just how the rules clearly work, if you have unconscious but still living creatures within the Channel AoE, and didn't specifically exclude them via Selective Channel. That's exactly what you should expect in PFS.I had one evil GM who had a very interesting ruling.
the cleric channeled.
To our surprise, our enemies were healed as well, and the fight began anew.
I'll admit "ruling" was a bad word choice.
"Decided to punish us for not thinking of the enemies bleeding out" would have been better.
I have had situations where the party accidentally healed a "dead" NPC before. Not often, but just enough to remind them that their enemies aren't always dead, sometimes they are just unconscious.
I don't track all the unconscious NPCs or monsters though. I just guesstimate which ones have died and which ones haven't when such a situation comes up. It's not a common situation and I've got better things to do with my time than obsessively track the draining hit points of a dozen monsters during combat.