| Zapp |
Now then, my proposed variant for how nonlethal interacts with Knocked-Down:
If you make a lethal attack against a bloodied creature it gains the Vulnerable condition. When a creature is no longer bloodied it automatically loses the Vulnerable condition.
When a non-notable creature with the Vulnerable condition reaches 0 hp from nonlethal damage it makes a flat DC 15 check: success it’s unconscious and stable; failure it is dead.
(This adds to the existing rules which remain as written. So a non-notable creature that reaches 0 hp from nonlethal damage without having the Vulnerable condition is knocked out exactly as per RAW; safely and for one minute or more etc)
This means
1) no need to track separate damage poools! :) The rule might sound complex, but in actual play there shouldn't be any difficulties. Just remember to never make a lethal attack to a Bloodied creature if you want to knock it out alive. Simple.
2) you can’t just use a nonlethal attack at the very end of a combat - you need to inflict roughly as much nonlethal damage as lethal damage to safely knock the creature out without killing it.
This last point deserves an example:
Yes, it means that if a monster has 2 hp more than its Bloodied value, and gets a Critical that brings it down to 4 hp total, then you only need to deal 4 points of nonlethal to avoid killing it. But the more general case is that the monster isn't Bloodied until it is, when it will have slightly less hp than its Bloodied value; meaning the variant accomplishes "you need to inflict roughly as much nonlethal damage as lethal damage" with no extra counting needed!
It doesn't have to be an exact science. It just means the normal case requires heroes to go nonlethal for a significant number of attacks, and seldom just one :)
It also means heroes can recover from making mistakes. If they heal a monster back up over half hp, its Vulnerable condition disappears automatically.
PS. For those of you who doesn't know what Bloodied means:
It's a concept from 4th Edition - Bloodied is a state you're in when you've lost half your hit points. For example, a character with 50 maximum hit points has a Bloodied value of 25, and is Bloodied whenever the character's hit points are equal to or less than 25.
We have used this concept for years while playing 5E and now PF2 because it's a neat way of handling damage reports without feeling overly meta the way exact numbers feel.