|
Massive Damage states : "You die instantly if you ever take damage equal to or greater than double your maximum Hit Points in one blow."
No mention is done of the damage being Lethal or Non-Lethal.
So does massive Non-Lethal damage kill a character instantly ?
For the record, it happened to 2 NPCs one after the other in our PFS scenario tonight. And the GM decided they died.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Non-Lethal is... not killing damage, it’s attacking to incapacitate. You can’t kill with Non-Lethal damage.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Attacking to incapacitate doesn't mean you do incapacitate. It's perfectly possible to kill someone accidentally by overdoing things trying to subdue them. I side with the GM on this one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Non-Lethal is... not killing damage, it’s attacking to incapacitate. You can’t kill with Non-Lethal damage.
I don't think this is actually that solid of an assertion, either as a Rules Argument (because Massive Damage is separate from the "when you reach 0hp" rule that nonlethal explicitly interacts with) or by simulationist logic ("less lethal" is more accurate than "nonlethal" as a description of incapacitating injury).
So, looking at the rules here, we have 2 most obvious rules to consider.
Knocked Out and Dying
Creatures cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 Hit Points. When most creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they die and are removed from play unless the attack was nonlethal, in which case they are instead knocked out for a significant amount of time (usually 1 minute or more). When undead and construct creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they are destroyed.
Massive Damage
You die instantly if you ever take damage equal to or greater than double your maximum Hit Points in one blow.
While the intent may be for massive damage to not occur from a nonlethal source, the Massive Damage rule does seem to technically bypass the part where nonlethal would matter.
|
Nonlethal damage is just a modifier for damage, like precision is. It's still whatever type it was originally (bludgeoning is the most common). It only takes effect when you knock the creature to 0, otherwise it's normal damage. Some creatures are immune to it, meaning nonlethal attacks do nothing (like punching a statue), but most aren't.
If you bring down your +1 striking great axe while trying not to kill someone and crit and roll max damage, dealing over 40 damage while the creature you were attacking only has 20hp, you just chopped that guy in half. It doesn't matter if you weren't TRYING to kill them, you still did. This was possible in 1e, and it's possible here too.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't agree with the fact that a more experience character should find far more difficult trying not to kill their target, after taking whatever measures are needed to make a non-lethal attack.
A scene where a character is so strong that they touch a low level person with a finger and accidentally send them flying can be a comic relief, but shouldn't happen in actual play.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
RAW isn't going to cover every situation you encounter in the game.
I would definitely allow my player to intentionally not crit their target if they are doing it for a reasonable cause, not for shenanigans (which usually stem from some interpretation of the RAW themselves).
And I want to avoid situations where you are aiming for a good result, but not too good. Like having to choose a different weapon to knock down an inferior enemy, but hey, which one? Let's see, I don't know my target's HP, but my legendary warhammer, with its major striking rune on, could hit too hard; while that mundane handaxe I have is probably going to need more than one hit to do the job. Yeah, I'll settle for the striking bow, improvising a concussive hit with it: that way I have the highest probability of dropping the enemy without killing it.
Come on.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Megistone, you appear to be arguing about what the rules should be rather than what the rules are. The Massive Damage rule does not depend on the attack being lethal. Further, I do not believe that was an accidental omission:
You can make a nonlethal attack in an effort to knock someone out instead of killing them
If it said "You can make a nonlethal attack so that you knock someone out instead of killing them" I might believe the Massive Damage section was missing a clause. But an effort can clearly fail.
A scene where a character is so strong that they touch a low level person with a finger and accidentally send them flying can be a comic relief, but shouldn't happen in actual play.
But if it's not accidental then that's OK?
BTW, to those posters using the term "nonlethal damage": there is no such thing in PF2. There are only lethal/nonlethal attacks and effects.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I understand that we are discussing rules here.
But for how I see it, the rules are there to let you adjudicate most common situations. If you stretch them to adjudicate everything, ugly things can happen.
In most cases you are trying to kill the evil, dangerous monster you are fighting: excess damage is not a problem, and the rule works well. But an exception arises: this time, the monster is a weak NPC, and you don't actually want to kill them.
Now, you could argue that this kind of exception is common enough that the developers could had written a special rule for that; but special rules have a cost in game complexity and page count.
So the GM decides if the standard rule is good enough for what the PC is trying to do; in my opinion, it's not.
As I interpret it, a PC making a nonlethal attack implicitly "pulls their punch". So if the target is already at 1 HP, for example, whatever damage is rolled doesn't really matter. The PC doesn't inflict massive damage while simultaneously saying, "I'm making a nonlethal attack". The only roll that is really even necessary in that circumstance is the attack roll, because they could still miss. But if they hit, there should be no chance of killing the target.
It seems very inappropriate to say that doing a lethal attack with an axe that does say 40 HP and the target had 20hp the target dies, because of lethal massive damage.
Yet, after realizing that the rest of the party screams, we need to question them, and they attack the next target with the same 20hp and gets the same 40 damage, but done non-lethally, it seems WRONG to say they died.
I'm not saying you can't intend to incapacitate someone and instead kill them. But I would think it would be reasonable to assume you would need to do 3 or 4 times their MAX HP in non-lethal damage to outright kill someone. Otherwise you aren't seeming to honor the intent that the damage was focused on not killing them, which they have like paid a price in accuracy, selection, or some feat to achieve.
So say the second target only had 10hp, and you did 40hp non-lethal damage. It might be sad, but I would feel like I would need to acknowledge that such a ruling could make sense in that case. I could even see making the Massive damage nullify the non-lethal part, meaning the target who too 40 nonlethal damage against their max of 20HP might be knocked down in a dying state, after taking that damage. (just not necessarily dead, just yet)
edit:
But yes, RAW, either because it is non-lethal, death/dying will not occur should be one valid ruling, or the second, death occurs anyway, because damage is compared first to max and gives you an alternate result, death. My take, giving there are the two viable options, when comparing them, the first seems most in line with the intent. While the second seems to me, again, fails to honor the intent of the action, so the second seems like the worse GM ruling.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Creating a scenario where someone can be too good at fighting to know how to subdue someone seems deeply counterintuitive and creates scenarios where players are effectively punished for rolling well, which is fundamentally contrary to the rest of the game.
But if that's how people want to run it at their tables that's fair I guess.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After reading this thread I'd definitely have to saw that RAW, massive damage can trigger from nonlethal damage.
But if it actually happened at the table, I'd definitely give the player the option to forgo the crit if they were worried about accidentally killing the target.
I'm not actually so sure I'd worry about it happening at the table. Accidentally killing someone that way (dealing twice the targets HP plus their CON score in nonlethal) did happen to me in PF1, and playing the accident the way the dice fell made the game more interesring, not less.
While PF1 is irrelevant to the rules discussion, the narrative impact should be a direct match.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
BTW, to those posters using the term "nonlethal damage": there is no such thing in PF2. There are only lethal/nonlethal attacks and effects.
This is a good point. Nonleathal is a trait not a damage type.
Creating a scenario where someone can be too good at fighting to know how to subdue someone seems deeply counterintuitive and creates scenarios where players are effectively punished for rolling well, which is fundamentally contrary to the rest of the game.
But if that's how people want to run it at their tables that's fair I guess.
If someone was really good at subduing a creature they wouldn't be using deadly weapons to do so. There are plenty of options to incapacitate a creature without doing damage, such as grappling or using an ability with the Incapacitation trait. And if a fighter with a +2 Major Striking Greatsword wanted to KO someone instead of kill them, it's probably better to just punch them instead.
Finally, dealing massive damage at high levels is virtually impossible, so this all only really applies to low level characters.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
By RAW, a level 15 Fighter wouldn't be able to subdue a minor commoner, only kill them because technically there's no way to subtract one's bonuses nor decline a crit. So I'd say we have to set RAW aside for narrative purposes.
In the OP's example, using fists for nonlethal Strikes, I'd have to side w/ the intent of the PC, player, and likely the scenario itself that a PC trying to bring in that NPC alive should be able to if they take precautions, which the PC did.
(I'm reminded of that movie that spoofed Dnd where a wizard was too afraid to cross a river due to a phobia so the barbarian punches him to knock him out. The barb rolls some uber-crit, killing the wizard spectacularly.)
I don't think there's a question that RAW they died.
Massive damage rules bypasses the stage where you check if you dropped someone unconsious or dying.
The question is if that's RAI or not.
For me, it depends on the actual situation and I wouldnt use a uniform rule for all of them.
As an example, in the middle of the combat, the fighter switches to trying to keep his enemy alive, he hits with the flat of his blade, taking the appropriate penalties, and deals non-lethal.
He crits, and ends up breaking the poor man's skull, WITH the flat of the blade, that he was using for nonlethal.
I see no issues here. Battles are usually chaotic, accidents happen. What you calculated as you performed it as the perfect hit, because the enemy stumbled for a second, costed him his life, and etc.
That's distinctevely different than a control enviroment where you have the enemy bound, and you hit him in the back of the head to knock him unconsious.
That's definately a much more controlled enviroment, and you are much more in control of "exactly how much damage i want to do".
At this case (if for some reason i asked for an attack roll), I wouldnt kill the NPC.
I think this a good house rule. I might let a player get away with it if they are swinging nonlethal weapon or unarmed attack with no runes enhancing it or anything. (Though I suppose monks could run into problems with that.)
It feels worth noting that the default fist damage assumes you actually slug your target with everything you have. A slap in the face is not that and is unlikely to deal hit point damage. You won't see many NPCs with less than 6 hit points and 6 slaps isn't likely to knock someone out.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not like "Oops, I was trying to subdue them but accidentally killed them" never happens IRL. It even happens to RL law enforcement personnel who, unlike most PCs, have actual specific training in how to subdue harmlessly.
If I hand you (any of you) a blunt weapon and ask you to strike some third party hard enough to knock them out but not enough to kill them, do you really think you could reliably manage to do so?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not like "Oops, I was trying to subdue them but accidentally killed them" never happens IRL. It even happens to RL law enforcement personnel who, unlike most PCs, have actual specific training in how to subdue harmlessly.
If I hand you (any of you) a blunt weapon and ask you to strike some third party hard enough to knock them out but not enough to kill them, do you really think you could reliably manage to do so?
But this game situation applies to fists & slaps too, as well as choking out and nonlethal weapons like whips & saps.
The example would've killed with any of those methods.And the game's played in a different genre than reality. It's heroic fantasy where most every martial should be able to pass your blunt weapon test.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not like "Oops, I was trying to subdue them but accidentally killed them" never happens IRL. It even happens to RL law enforcement personnel who, unlike most PCs, have actual specific training in how to subdue harmlessly.
If I hand you (any of you) a blunt weapon and ask you to strike some third party hard enough to knock them out but not enough to kill them, do you really think you could reliably manage to do so?
But this game situation applies to fists & slaps too, as well as choking out and nonlethal weapons like whips & saps.
The example would've killed with any of those methods.
If the player had said "I slap the NPC" I for one would neither have called for a damage roll nor considered having it knock the NPC out. As for the other methods, people have punched other people to death IRL. Admittedly they were quite strong people (boxers come to mind); do you suppose the fighter in the OP's case might have been quite strong?
And the game's played in a different genre than reality. It's heroic fantasy where most every martial should be able to pass your blunt weapon test.
One, I"ve never seen knocking people out as a huge part of the heroic fantasy genre, by which I mean I can't even think of any examples offhand. Two, there are limits to the heroic fantasy genre---that's kind of the point of having the Massive Damage rule in the first place.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
have actual specific training
But in PF2 the more trained and experienced you are, the more difficult it is for you to successfully subdue someone if you're running it this way at your table.
A level 1 fighter can never accidentally kill a Commoner in a single attack using their bare hands. A max damage crit with fists does 16 damage and the commoner has 10 HP.
A level 20 fighter, on the other hand, can only successfully subdue that commoner if they roll a natural 1 on their attack roll, because all other results end in them critically striking for massive damage.
The attempts to connect this to real life are silly and out of place.
|
|
We were a party of 1st level in a PFS scenario.
1st level Fighter, uses fists to try and KO his first opponent like my 1st level Barbarian just did to his own. Nat 20 on the second attack and max damage. Killed the NPC through massive damage rule. I do not know how many HPs the NPC had.
Next round, the Fighter crits his second opponent through hitting over AC+10 and again max damage. Second NPC killed because of the massive damage rule.
We were definitely not trying to kill them. Thankfully, the PFS scenario where it happened did not put us in hot water because of their deaths.
Well, we know they had to have 8 hp or less, for that to happen, unless the fighter had more than a d4 fist for some reason.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
At level 20 you are basically a demigod, on par with angels and demons. I can totally buy killing a commoner when you're just trying to KO them.
So you become better at everything, but you have no way to pull your punches?
In my opinion, the more experience and skill you get, the better you should become at doing what you are trying to do. I could understand an argument that a magic weapon enchanted to kill better may not help when you are using it non-lethally, but I'd still rule that the powerful magic you are wielding helps you even if you aren't just chopping heads.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pulling your punch means you inflict less damage than you might. That's telling the GM "I want to forgo my Str bonus" or whatever, before you roll. At which point you're less likely to kill them... and less likely to knock them out. There's a price to it.
Pulling your punch does not mean whacking as hard as you can and magically getting the correct result.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Besides the fact that forgoing Str is already going outside RAW, damage is much more than hitting harder. Imagine a Rogue, or a precision Ranger: they know how to hurt their target by striking the best spots. Why shouldn't they be able to strike a spot that incapacitates instead of killing?
In any case, the fact that a more experienced character finds more difficult (if not impossible) to do what he could do when they were less skilled, is an outcome that I really don't like.
EDITED to answer The Gleeful Grognard below:
I think the point is a high level characters who wants to knock out a low-level commoner, or something like that. Which they simply can't do without killing.
Keep in mind that outside of level 1-2 this will essentially never happen.
Massive damage is a weirdly niche rule.
E.G. A level 10 titan barbarian with a large scythe will deal 88 damage on a crit with maxed rolls.
The health a level 6 foe will have is ~90-100hp.
So the foe would have to be level 3-4 (-7 or -6), you would have to play a high damage class AND roll exceptionally well.
Imagine a Rogue, or a precision Ranger: they know how to hurt their target by striking the best spots. Why shouldn't they be able to strike a spot that incapacitates instead of killing?
That's a great reason for the CRB to give them the ability to use a lethal weapon for a nonlethal attack without getting the normal -2 on the attack roll! Except it doesn't.
Investigators OTOH have a feat that does do that to represent training in subdual.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Imagine a Rogue, or a precision Ranger: they know how to hurt their target by striking the best spots. Why shouldn't they be able to strike a spot that incapacitates instead of killing?That's a great reason for the CRB to give them the ability to use a lethal weapon for a nonlethal attack without getting the normal -2 on the attack roll! Except it doesn't.
Investigators OTOH have a feat that does do that to represent training in subdual.
And when you do take the -2, then should they be allowed to do what they are trying to do, or are they 'too good' for that?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And that's why I said that it's correct to leave it up to GM to judge each instance.
Trying to subdue someone while engaged in life or death combat and outside of it are two distinctively different scenarios.
Yeah. And fighting a 1st level commoner at level 20 is not life or death. The level difference makes it about as dangerous as being attacked by a toddler in real life. It is the sort of scenario that you don't bother rolling initiative for.
And when you do take the -2, then should they be allowed to do what they are trying to do, or are they 'too good' for that?Imagine a Rogue, or a precision Ranger: they know how to hurt their target by striking the best spots. Why shouldn't they be able to strike a spot that incapacitates instead of killing?That's a great reason for the CRB to give them the ability to use a lethal weapon for a nonlethal attack without getting the normal -2 on the attack roll! Except it doesn't.
Investigators OTOH have a feat that does do that to represent training in subdual.
They get to do exactly what they're trying to do; they get to make a non-lethal attack, which as I quoted previously is defined as an effort to knock someone out harmlessly. It's not automatic any more than hitting the NPC at all is automatic, even though that's also "what they're trying to do."
If they're worried about being too pumped, they should ask the GM to let them damp down their damage, thus lowering the chance of a knockout as well as the chance of a kill. (I've never seen a GM refuse to let someone voluntarily do less damage, at least down to the weapon die.) Asking the GM to let them wallop the NPC as hard as they can but magically not have any chance of killing the poor sucker is unrealistic and silly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
DM here.
About my ruling:
First, I ruled it that way because it's RAW, and it was a PFS game. Well, even outside a PFS game I would have defaulted to RAW as I find PFS2 RAW to be quite solid.
Second, the Fighter never told me he was pulling his punches. Even after having killed the first guy. I would have totally accepted to reduce his strength modifier to avoid an accidental kill as long as they told me before attacking. I've seen with them and they haven't been affected by my ruling.
Third, the guys were some bad mercenaries the Pathfinders met in the sewers. Both parties were interested in the same thing but had no reason to kill each other. Drawing a lethal weapon would have been illegitimate but, for me, it was closer to a back alley fight than a situation where the PCs were actively trying to not kill the enemies. People die in back alley fights.
I didn't realized my ruling would cause an issue at the time we played. I'm contacting (privately) the offended player and will handle that with him.
I suggest if this is a real concern use a normal Blowgun, fist or a Shortbow on that "1st level commoner": your crit is only 2, or 2d6 damage.
.
Second, the Fighter never told me he was pulling his punches. Even after having killed the first guy. I would have totally accepted to reduce his strength modifier to avoid an accidental kill as long as they told me before attacking. I've seen with them and they haven't been affected by my ruling.
Given the obvious outcome, did you ask him before letting him rolling the dice?
Or you had the impression that he wanted to kill the person?
I didn't ask. I didn't have the impression they wanted to kill the person.
I've seen with them, they told me there is no issue. So, I think it just happened that way because nobody especially cared about not killing the mercenaries.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And when you do take the -2, then should they be allowed to do what they are trying to do, or are they 'too good' for that?Imagine a Rogue, or a precision Ranger: they know how to hurt their target by striking the best spots. Why shouldn't they be able to strike a spot that incapacitates instead of killing?That's a great reason for the CRB to give them the ability to use a lethal weapon for a nonlethal attack without getting the normal -2 on the attack roll! Except it doesn't.
Investigators OTOH have a feat that does do that to represent training in subdual.
They get to do exactly what they're trying to do; they get to make a non-lethal attack, which as I quoted previously is defined as an effort to knock someone out harmlessly. It's not automatic any more than hitting the NPC at all is automatic, even though that's also "what they're trying to do."
If they're worried about being too pumped, they should ask the GM to let them damp down their damage, thus lowering the chance of a knockout as well as the chance of a kill. (I've never seen a GM refuse to let someone voluntarily do less damage, at least down to the weapon die.) Asking the GM to let them wallop the NPC as hard as they can but magically not have any chance of killing the poor sucker is unrealistic and silly.
Again, damage is not just hitting harder. But as long as you are willing to let your high level players be able to pull their punches somehow, I guess it will work at your table.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah. And fighting a 1st level commoner at level 20 is not life or death. The level difference makes it about as dangerous as being attacked by a toddler in real life. It is the sort of scenario that you don't bother rolling initiative for.And that's why I said that it's correct to leave it up to GM to judge each instance.
Trying to subdue someone while engaged in life or death combat and outside of it are two distinctively different scenarios.
but if a toddler was annoying you would you punch it? No, you would grab it and move it or restrain it some other way.
At level 20 all you have to do is grapple a commoner then tie them up. There's no way out of that with that level gap.
If you want to knock them out, just tell your GM and I'm sure they will say "Yea sure, you flick them in the forehead and KO them."
You do not have to damage someone to incapacitate or restrain them
.
Second, the Fighter never told me he was pulling his punches. Even after having killed the first guy. I would have totally accepted to reduce his strength modifier to avoid an accidental kill as long as they told me before attacking. I've seen with them and they haven't been affected by my ruling.
Given the obvious outcome, did you ask him before letting him rolling the dice?
Or you had the impression that he wanted to kill the person?
I didn't ask. I didn't have the impression they wanted to kill the person.
I've seen with them, they told me there is no issue. So, I think it just happened that way because nobody especially cared about not killing the mercenaries.
For whatever it is worth, I think you made the right call. It is supported by RAW, but it also makes sense that a low level character fighting at their hardest might unintentionally kill someone who is an actual threat. That's very different than a level 20 character finger flicking commoners.
I suggest if this is a real concern use a normal Blowgun, fist or a Shortbow on that "1st level commoner": your crit is only 2, or 2d6 damage.
Wasn't the example a fist? (It simply had Str & a crit behind it).
It could take way too many hits with a blowgun! (Especially if trying to prevent the target from sounding an alarm or fleeing.)And a shortbow does +1d10 on a crit, so could easily hit 12+, up to 22 damage, which could kill level 0s.
More than a few players in my area for PFS-PF1 took a feat where you could retroactively not kill if you slew your target. Bad feat...except when it mattered and then became priceless.
And a powergamer w/ a PFS Druid memorized lots of Merciful Snowballs simply because so many instances arose for nonlethal combat solutions.
Thankfully that's not so much an issue in PF2 except with the lowest of low level targets.