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This might be a stupid question, but Power Attack feat says Touch Attacks or effects that do not deal hit point damage could not use this feat. Thus, Is Nonlethal Damage from Merciful weapon such a “effect” that could not use this feat or a “attack” that could use this feat although it does not deal hit point damage?
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Nonlethal damage is HP damage that can just doesn't kill the target therefore, power attack works for merciful weapons, normally nonlethal weapons, and blunt weapons effected by the bludgeoner feat, as does piranha strike for light weapons under the same circumstances.
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Nonlethal damage is HP damage that can just doesn't kill the target therefore, power attack works for merciful weapons, normally nonlethal weapons, and blunt weapons effected by the bludgeoner feat, as does piranha strike for light weapons under the same circumstances.
When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you’ve accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not “real” damage. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you’re staggered (see below), and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious.
This is what is said in CRB which tells that Nonlethal damage is not HP damage| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is still damage that is tied to your HP, and weapons with the Merciful property, or normal weapons used to deal nonlethal damage, still roll their regular damage dice.
That phrase about non hit point damage means you can't use it on attacks that cause, say, ability score damage or drain. Mostly that applies to monsters with special attacks.
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It does affect hit-points...once you take nonlethal equal to your current total, nonlethal damage does hit point damage!
Max hit points, not current hit points.
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.
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It does affect hit-points...once you take nonlethal equal to your current total, nonlethal damage does hit point damage!Max hit points, not current hit points.
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage.
Correct. To kill someone with non-lethal you essentially have to do double their hit points plus their constitution score. (that is assuming there is no other lethal damage.)
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Oh, c'mon. If you wanna split hairs today, the question in the title is a yes/no question, and that is also the OP's question. : P
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Actually, based on the grammar of the question, the real answer is "3".
Nonlethal damage is a subset of "damage" and not a wholly different thing. It is damage, but has additional rules, not different rules.
So, it's your claim that any rule that doesn't specifically refer to "nonlethal damage", but only refers to "damage", has no bearing on "nonlethal damage" because they're different?
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Lets take Power Attack, since it's the most relevant to the thread.
Does PA refer to "hit point damage"? (hint, it just says damage)
Also, what does nonlethal damage deal damage to? If it isn't hit points, is it an ability score? Where on my character sheet would I find the number that nonlethal damage is interacting with?
In addition, your interpretation means that a nonlethal attack with a weapon cannot crit. Based on your assumption that "damage" does not mean nonlethal (since PA says "damage" and you say that it doesn't apply), and we know that PA bonus damage is multiplied on a critical hit, that means critical hit damage is also different from nonlethal damage. Wow, the designers must really not know what they're doing, since every nonlethal weapon (weapons that only deal nonlethal damage) all have critical damage multipliers!
The Strength score bonus damage is also multiplied on a critical hit, and uses the same language as Power Attack, so by your ruling, nonlethal weapons do not benefit from Strength bonus damage.
Hmm.... your interpretation seems to create all sorts of problems. Perhaps it isn't correct.
For what it's worth, IIRC there's an NPC in RotRL:AE who has Power Attack and whose strategy is to use unarmed strikes to beat opponents unconscious. It's possible that this was intended to only use nonlethal damage for the finishing blow (the NPC also has Improved Unarmed Strike and thus could fight lethally), but the rest of the encounter description leads me to believe that only nonlethal damage was intended and, thus, that the encounter designer (possibly JJ?) believed Power Attack was compatible with nonlethal damage.
Lets take Power Attack, since it's the most relevant to the thread.
Does PA refer to "hit point damage"? (hint, it just says damage)
As quoted by OP "The bonus damage does not apply to touch attacks or effects that do not deal hit point damage."
Also, what does nonlethal damage deal damage to? If it isn't hit points, is it an ability score? Where on my character sheet would I find the number that nonlethal damage is interacting with?"Effects of Hit Point Damage
Damage doesn’t slow you down until your current hit points reach 0 or lower. At 0 hit points, you’re disabled.If your hit point total is negative, but not equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you are unconscious and dying.
When your negative hit point total is equal to your Constitution, you’re dead."
"When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you’ve accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points"
Hit point damage is damage that reduces your hit points, nonlethal damage does not reduce your hit points so it is not hit point damage.
In addition, your interpretation means that a nonlethal attack with a weapon cannot crit. Based on your assumption that "damage" does not mean nonlethal (since PA says "damage" and you say that it doesn't apply), and we know that PA bonus damage is multiplied on a critical hit, that means critical hit damage is also different from nonlethal damage. Wow, the designers must really not know what they're doing, since every nonlethal weapon (weapons that only deal nonlethal damage) all have critical damage multipliers!Everything under critical hits refers to "damage", not "hit point damage", so your point here is moot.
The Strength score bonus damage is also multiplied on a critical hit, and uses the same language as Power Attack, so by your ruling, nonlethal weapons do not benefit from Strength bonus...
You failed to quote other portions of the rules. If your argument requires selective reading, and has to leave out certain sentences, than your argument is wrong.
Can nonlethal damage deal hit point damage? Simple yes/no answer.
You failed to quote other portions of the rules. If your argument requires selective reading, and has to leave out certain sentences, than your argument is wrong.
Can nonlethal damage deal hit point damage? Simple yes/no answer.
What rules didn't I quote? Where does it say I'm wrong? Stop making baseless assertions.
No, only lethal damage can deal hit point damage. "If a creature’s nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage." In this instance the damage is by definition not nonlethal damage anymore, it is converted to lethal damage.
Even taking your premise as true; the vast majority of times that nonlethal damage is done, it does not result in lethal damage so your point is moot anyway.
You left that bit out when it wasn't convenient to you earlier. Read it again. The damage is still nonlethal. It's just treated as lethal, but that doesn't change it's core characteristic of nonlethal. If you try to deal nonlethal in that situation with a sword, the -4 penalty to attack isn't removed.
Does Power Attack refer to "lethal damage"?
It refers to "hit point damage". Nonlethal attacks deal damage that references hit points. Therefore, Power Attack applies, because nonlethal is a type of damage that interacts with hit points.
Feel free to show that nonlethal interacts with a different statistic. Just curious, where on the character sheet, or monster stat block would I find this mysterious statistic?
"Most common" does not mean that the two terms are synonymous. It means that "loss of hit points" is a broader definition than "lethal damage," because there are more ways to "lose hit points" than "lethal damage."
You're trying to constrict "loss of hit points" to only "lethal damage," but that is not what that sentence means. Therefore, if your argument is based on that that sentence being restrictive, you are wrong. The sentence is inclusive, not exclusive.
What's awesome is you already know you are wrong. You even admitted it when you said that RAI it isn't intended to lock out nonlethal. So now you are inventing a RAW (because it doesn't actually say what you are saying it says) in order to be "right". But you aren't.
I'm done with this. You can continue if you want, but what you are doing is intentionally trying to introduce problematic readings into the rules where there are none. Your reading of this text is not helpful, nor insightful. All it does is encourage other people to introduce other readings that are also not helpful, nor insightful, because it presupposes that we must ignore our understanding of English in order to read the rules, and instead read it in the most rigid and unhelpful manner possible.
You aren't right. You know you aren't right. Yet you persist.
If PA did not work on non-leathal, then you get the weird effect of PA suddenly switching on when the non-leathal reaches max hit-points, and the non-lethal damage does lethal-damage.
/cevah
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That is not how to parse that sentence. It is saying there are other ways to be hurt (ability score damage for example) but the most common way is to take lethal damage and lose hit points. "the most common way" is singular indicating one clause, not two separate clauses meaning "to take lethal damage and lose hit points" is a combined singular effect.
I can understand you not wanting to continue as you are unable to provide any evidence that doesn't require a twisting of the rules.
Your placing a rule into the mix that is simply not there.
Non-Lethal Damage is done to the character, and it is tallied up separately than the HP damage that is lethal. If the two added together go beyond the total HP of that character, then that character goes unconscious. The two are linked and effect the same "stat" when taken, even when the book keeping is separated to see if the character is staying on their feet.
Your thinking is more along the lines of Temporary HP. Some abilities that have Temp HP have some things (like Poisons) not effect the character if Temp HP have prevented real damage.
OPs Question: yes. If a character didn’t know he was holding a merciful weapon, he could use power attack with it, and the weapon would add 1d6 damage and turn all of the damage done into non-lethal damage. This is a feature of the weapon special ability, and it would be really weird to allow an ignorant character to use power attack, but a character who knows what weapon they have not to use it.
There is, however, the other question now being talked about “can a character purposefully doing non-lethal damage (either with a non-lethal weapon or choosing to do non-lethal damage) use the power attack feat?” I’m not sure, personally.
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For the people saying that non-lethal is not hit points: how is said damaged tracked?
It is weirder that a Rogue can cause bleed damage with a non-lethal sneak attack than non-lethal with a power attack.
Yes. And even more weird is that with the right feats it's possible to with a merciful weapon attack force someone's guts to start to spill out due to Con bleed.
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You didn't quote the next part, where if the total of HP and Non Lethal HP added together exceed the max HP of the character, then the character goes unconscious. They are linked and effect each other. The separation between them is for ease of tracking the difference. Typically, one tracks up as the other tracks down. When they meet, the character sleeps.