In our Starfinder game last night, we were running the second module of the Dead Suns series (I am GM), and we came upon an issue with one of the monsters - the first Ksarik that is chasing the party
The party did enough damage to drop the Ksarik to 0 hit points and knock it to dying, but the creature still had all three of its resolve points left. That meant that I understood that it was dying, but not yet dead. Unfortunately, at the start of its turn, its fast healing brought it back up to 2 hp and it was no longer dying. In theory, I could have ruled that this combo effectively makes it impossible to kill the ksarik by hit point damage unless you can somehow do damage on its turn in between the fast healing and the end-of-turn dying resolution stage. I ruled that the party could kill the thing by hacking it to pieces and burning it, which ended the encounter, but the party and I weren't really happy with the rules confusion.
When we looked closer at the resolve point rules, apparently I was supposed to rule that resolve points work differently for monsters. Apparently a monster that goes to 0 is dead, even if it has resolve points.
This is where I reached a 'point of frustration' as I like to call it.
As a GM, I like a character feature (such as resolve points) to work the same way for PC's, NPC's, and monsters. If you call them resolve points, have them work the same way for everyone. I'm fine with the way the number of points being determined differently for monsters vs PC's (a good example is mythic power points in Pathfinder), but please, please, don't make me have to remember how the same damn points work differently for different creatures!
In the future, could you just call the monster resolve points something different rather than calling them resolve and - OH, FOOLED YOU, THEY DON'T WORK THE SAME WAY AS PC RESOLVE! I understand you want a similar game mechanic for the monsters, but this whole 'they're the same but not the same' gives me a GM headache
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pretty sure the loss of Resolve points when a creature is at 0 HP is the absolute first thing that has to happen on that creatures turn. Hence why it would still need to spend resolve to prevent death since that 'step' is checked before fast healing happens.
So your fast healing creature is put to 0. At the start of it's turn it either pays the resolve or dies, before ever getting to it's fast healing step. If it DOES pay the resolve (assuming it has enough) then it gets to fast heal. But then it gets blasted down again and the process starts again.
Eventually the creature WILL run out of resolve and die.
When we looked closer at the resolve point rules, apparently I was supposed to rule that resolve points work differently for monsters. Apparently a monster that goes to 0 is dead, even if it has resolve points.
Monster and NPC Death
Most monsters and NPCs don’t have Resolve Points, so injury and death work differently for them. A monster or NPC reduced to 0 HP is dead, unless the last bit of damage it took was nonlethal damage, in which case it is knocked unconscious.
If it is ever important to know exactly when a monster dies, such as if you want to capture the creature alive, the GM can decide that a monster reduced to 0 or fewer Hit Points with lethal damage dies in 3 rounds unless it takes any additional damage or receives healing.
If a monster or NPC has Resolve Points, the GM can choose whether the monster dies at 0 HP or if it uses the normal rules for dying and death.
Page 250.