You can make a nonlethal attack to knock someone out instead of killing them (see Knocked Out and Dying on page 410). Weapons with the nonlethal trait (including fists) do this automatically. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to the attack roll when you make a nonlethal attack using a weapon or unarmed attack that doesn’t have the nonlethal trait. You also take this penalty when making a lethal attack using a nonlethal weapon. Spells and other effects with the nonlethal trait that reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points knock the creature out instead of killing them.
The lack of any mention of spell attacks getting a penalty is usually interpreted to mean that nonlethal spell attacks aren't a thing. But could it be that nonlethal spell attacks simply don't have the circunstance penalty? It says that weapons and unarmed attacks suffer a penalty when used for nonlethal attacks, but nothing about spell attacks being disqualified.
Nothing says that spell attacks are allowed to be made nonlethal for a circumstance penalty.
But nothing says that they aren't allowed to be made nonlethal for a circumstance penalty either.
So GMs may vary on how they rule on it.
It is even more questionable on how to handle saving throw spells that the player wants to make nonlethal for a penalty. The rule is that only attack rolls can be made to be nonlethal. But it is strange that Ignition and Frostbite can be made nonlethal, but Electric Arc and Spout can not.
There are also things like Nonlethal Spell to make a spell nonlethal for an action cost instead of a penalty to the roll.
I'd personally allow it. But only for spell attack roll spells, not for save-based ones are that would make Nonlethal Spell useless. And with the -2. I don't see the point of preventing this use of spell attack roll spells, it's not exactly as if they were somehow imbalancing the game. And blocking a player from participating to a fight isn't fun in my opinion, even if limiting them to a few cantrips (because most of the times they are just cantrips) can feel bad already.
Frostbite is actually a saving throw spell. Its legacy predecessor ray of frost was an attack though.
The thing I'm getting at though is that the rule about the penalty says:
"You take a –2 circumstance penalty to the attack roll when you make a nonlethal attack using a weapon or unarmed attack that doesn’t have the nonlethal trait."
It's saying that making a nonlethal attack with such a weapon or unarmed attack incurs the penalty. It is not saying that the penalty is what causes the attack to be nonlethal. Otherwise it would be phrased like:
"You can take a –2 circumstance penalty to the attack roll in order to make a nonlethal attack using a weapon or unarmed attack that doesn’t have the nonlethal trait."
Nonlethal attack seems to just be something you decide to do when making the attack.
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Frostbite is actually a saving throw spell. Its legacy predecessor ray of frost was an attack though.
Ah, yes. I was thinking Ray of Frost and thought that it wasn't changed mechanically - just renamed.
It's saying that making a nonlethal attack with such a weapon or unarmed attack incurs the penalty. It is not saying that the penalty is what causes the attack to be nonlethal.
No, you don't get to add the Nonlethal trait for free to attack roll spells.
That completely invalidates things like Nonlethal Spell or Safe Elements.
I don't see the point of preventing this use of spell attack roll spells, it's not exactly as if they were somehow imbalancing the game.
Well, there's live wire, but hopefully its heightened entry is getting an errata soon.
That completely invalidates things like Nonlethal Spell or Safe Elements.
This would only apply to attacks that don't use weapons or unarmed attacks. Fireball isn't an attack. Meteor Swarm isn't an attack. Nonlethal Spell is still the only way to deal nonlethal damage with saving throw spells that don't already have the nonlethal trait.
You still don't get the nonlethal trait for free even for only attack roll spells.
Are you saying then that the penalty would still happen when making a nonlethal attack with Ignition?
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Are you saying then that the penalty would still happen when making a nonlethal attack with Ignition?
That is what I would expect. GMs who allow this rule regarding making attack rolls nonlethal to apply to spell attack rolls are also going to impose the -2 penalty. There are also GMs who won't allow Ignition to be made nonlethal at all without using something like Nonlethal Spell.
Why is that surprising? What is your reasoning for thinking that it shouldn't run that way? Please make your case for that so that it accounts for the experience of all of the players at the table, not just the spellcaster ones.
Why should spellcasters be able to turn on nonlethal for their attack spells for no penalty and no cost at all, while martial players have to take a penalty in order to do it for their weapon attacks?
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No. There is nothing in the rules that allows for making a nonlethal ignition attack, with or without the penalty, without a special ability like the Nonlethal Spell feat.
Someone could choose to allow it at their table, but that is something the GM is adding, not something the rules already allowed for.
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As the above, you have to pay for non-lethal. There could certainly stand to be more options for it, but it makes sense for it to be hard to not kill someone with a ball of fire or a touch of negative energy. Non-lethal alchemical salts would be great, too.
Have you ever played a PFS scenario where everyone is forced to rely on nonlethal means of self-defense or else they gain Infamy? These scenarios tend to receive criticism because of how many classes struggle to do nonlethal damage, let alone enough nonlethal damage to prevail against a difficult encounter. That's what led me to wonder if we've been misinterpreting the nonlethal attack rule.
As for attack spells, how often do you use them? They usually do slightly more damage when successful (sometimes not even that) but nothing on a miss. I thought having nonlethal attack as an option could be an incentive to prepare a few such spells at least sometimes.
Someone could choose to allow it at their table, but that is something the GM is adding, not something the rules already allowed for.
What exactly is disallowing nonlethal ignition attacks? The rule states "You can make a nonlethal attack to knock someone out instead of killing them (see Knocked Out and Dying on page 410)," and then adds no caveats for what happens if you do so without using a weapon or unarmed attack.
But I'll concede that it's reasonable to assume the penalty is RAI supposed to apply to any lethal option used for a nonlethal attack, not just weapons or unarmed attacks. Casters ignoring the penalty entirely for free would be cramping on martials that need feats or class features to do the same.
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Remember, non-lethal damage only matters when the damage would reduce the target to 0 health. You can do 50 points of lethal damage to a 60 HP creature, then finish it with 10 pints of non-lethal to leave it unconscious and not dying.
But I'll concede that it's reasonable to assume the penalty is RAI supposed to apply to any lethal option used for a nonlethal attack, not just weapons or unarmed attacks. Casters ignoring the penalty entirely for free would be cramping on martials that need feats or class features to do the same.
That is my conclusion as well.
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To address the problem of scenarios where it is expected to use nonlethal means, I will mention the Agents of Edgewatch AP. It has a 'campaign rule' (basically a houserule published by the authors of the AP that applies only to that AP) that the PCs playing in that adventure are all given for free the ability to have their damage gain the nonlethal trait - weapon attacks, attack roll spells, and saving throw spells, or anything else that does damage and isn't one of those.
For PFS scenarios and other APs and such, I would hope that the people writing these with the expectation that the PCs don't use lethal force are accounting for the opportunity cost of having nonlethal measures available to them or the increase in difficulty of using lethal options in a nonlethal manner.
Someone could choose to allow it at their table, but that is something the GM is adding, not something the rules already allowed for.What exactly is disallowing nonlethal ignition attacks?
I think it is ambiguous because the rule regarding nonlethal attacks says 'attack rolls' but then gives the rest of the rules to only account for weapon and unarmed attacks. It mentions some of the attack actions that have attack rolls, but not others such as spell attack or skill checks from actions like Trip that could potentially also deal damage.
So on one side of the argument, since it mentions weapon attacks and unarmed attacks specifically, it may be an error of using too generic of a term. Instead of 'attack roll' it should be using 'melee or ranged attack roll'.
On the other side, it does say 'attack roll' in the rule. And Attack Rolls do include spell attack rolls.
Attack rolls take a variety of forms and are often highly variable based on the weapon you are using for the attack, but there are three main types: melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls, and spell attack rolls.
Wait, I just found some old errata that might be relevant.
Page 453 and 634: In Nonlethal Attacks, nonlethal effects other than Strikes weren't explained directly, so at the end add "Spells and other effects with the nonlethal trait that reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points knock the creature out instead of killing them" On page 634, add the nonlethal trait "An effect with this trait is nonlethal. Damage from a nonlethal effect knocks a creature out rather than killing it.
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Remember, non-lethal damage only matters when the damage would reduce the target to 0 health. You can do 50 points of lethal damage to a 60 HP creature, then finish it with 10 pints of non-lethal to leave it unconscious and not dying.
On top of this you have non damaging cantrips you can use for when the fight gets to those last few HP when your martials are all taking that penalty to knock something out.
I don't think there's many options for non lethal for this reason. Burn, chop and run the enemy through just make sure to put the finishing touch as a face punch or hand chop to the back of the head to gently put them out.
Being the good guys and not a bunch of murder hobos is difficult.
Wait, I just found some old errata that might be relevant.
Page 453 and 634: In Nonlethal Attacks, nonlethal effects other than Strikes weren't explained directly, so at the end add "Spells and other effects with the nonlethal trait that reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points knock the creature out instead of killing them" On page 634, add the nonlethal trait "An effect with this trait is nonlethal. Damage from a nonlethal effect knocks a creature out rather than killing it.
Does this mean that when the old rule was written without that last sentence, it was only talking about Strikes? Were they just using "attack" and "Strike" interchangeably?
One of the reasons that spells (or abilities like breath weapons, etc.) don't have automatic non-lethal options is to make sure that AOEs are scary to use on your allies. Safe Elements has costs and limitations even though you've already burned a whole feat on it and can't even get it until level 4 because it has a lot of tactical benefits, especially when paired with healing.
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Nonlethal spell is a great spellshape feat, exactly because spells are so difficult to use non-lethally otherwise. I think it was intended for spells to be difficult to use in situations where you are not trying to kill anyone. There is absolutely no reason ever to take daze if you can just take a -2 to telekinetic projectile to do nonlethal damage.
Now, I can see why some folks would house rule around this, because many players don't spend any time thinking through scenarios like "what if I need to do non-lethal damage" and as a GM, maybe you don't want them to, but casters can use weapons and unarmed attacks and can have a back up nonlethal weapon attack with a potency crystal or runic weapon spell to beef it up as their back up plan fairly easily.
As a GM, I recommend being sure to encourage your players to look at a couple of common situations and make sure they are building characters that won't be useful in them, especially if you know they will come up in your adventure/campaign:
Can your character do something to help fight an incorporeal creature effectively?
A flying creature?
An invisible creature? Or an encounter where enemies will be concealed and hidden?
A creature that you need to take alive/be dealt nonlethal damage?
Can your character contribute to a social encounter?
Can your character get out of lost cause encounter? Even if an adjacent enemy has a reactive strike?
Do you have a way to significantly boost your speed if called for? Especially if you generally move around with a 20 speed, you can be useless in an encounter if there is any long distances that need to be traversed.
At level 1 characters won't be able to cover all of these, but by level 4 or 5 they should at least have a each covered by some kind of back up plan. This is also where a handful of cheap consumables are trivially easy to have as back ups.
At least for me, as a GM, I find having this conversation once in session 0 makes it a lot easier to avoid hard feelings later on when issues come up. And as far as nonlethal damage, I tend to reward players for managing to not kill enemies, minimally with additional information about upcoming challenges, so the casters and Kineticists just killing everyone tends to make dungeons a lot harder than they would be otherwise.
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Remember, non-lethal damage only matters when the damage would reduce the target to 0 health. You can do 50 points of lethal damage to a 60 HP creature, then finish it with 10 pints of non-lethal to leave it unconscious and not dying.
Very dangerous game, nat 20 happens, as do high damage rolls. And you're not supposed to know the enemy current hit points. I unvoluntarily killed an enemy because of that.
For PFS scenarios and other APs and such, I would hope that the people writing these with the expectation that the PCs don't use lethal force are accounting for the opportunity cost of having nonlethal measures available to them or the increase in difficulty of using lethal options in a nonlethal manner.
There are many situations where your character wants to deal non-lethal damage while the writer assumed you'd deal lethal damage. A lot of bandit attacks assume you'd deal lethal damage, while a lot of characters don't do justice by themselves (or are not for the death penalty).
No. There is nothing in the rules that allows for making a nonlethal ignition attack, with or without the penalty, without a special ability like the Nonlethal Spell feat.
Having no solution for nonlethal damage as a caster but a level 2 Wizard feat and a couple of spells is in my opinion a big issue. And SuperParkourio has clearly found a small gap in the rules: The use of the words "nonlethal attack" in the first sentence and the use of the words "nonlethal attack using a weapon or unarmed attack" in the third can be seen as a contradiction in the rule. One way is to consider that the first sentence is flavor text and the only mechanical text is the third sentence, another way is to consider that the first sentence convey an intention that the mechanics fail to produce.
In my opinion, there's enough of a gap to consider that there are 2 interpretations and that a GM allowing nonlethal Ignition is not houseruling but just reading the nonlethal rule in a rather permissive RAI way (as intention is in the eye of the beholder).
Nonlethal spell is a great spellshape feat, exactly because spells are so difficult to use non-lethally otherwise. I think it was intended for spells to be difficult to use in situations where you are not trying to kill anyone. There is absolutely no reason ever to take daze if you can just take a -2 to telekinetic projectile to do nonlethal damage.
Considering the way Spell Attack modifiers lag behind at a lot of levels, an extra -2 is a really substantial penalty. It doesn't matter if its easy to do nonlethal Telekinetic Projectile if you can't hit anything with it.
Now, I can see why some folks would house rule around this, because many players don't spend any time thinking through scenarios like "what if I need to do non-lethal damage" and as a GM, maybe you don't want them to, but casters can use weapons and unarmed attacks and can have a back up nonlethal weapon attack with a potency crystal or runic weapon spell to beef it up as their back up plan fairly easily.
Nonlethal Spell is also not easy for a lot of classes to get. Telling all the other casters "the only way you can do Nonlethal spell attacks is to bump your INT and take a Dedication" is a pretty big ask, and repertoire casters can't be swapping spells in and out constantly to have Daze on the the day when they need it when it's otherwise going to be such an underperforming spell. Folks are house ruling this because the practical alternative is "oh you need to take things alive and your spells aren't allowed to do that, so you're now support" and that's just not great.
At least for me, as a GM, I find having this conversation once in session 0 makes it a lot easier to avoid hard feelings later on when issues come up. And as far as nonlethal damage, I tend to reward players for managing to not kill enemies, minimally with additional information about upcoming challenges, so the casters and Kineticists just killing everyone tends to make dungeons a lot harder than they would be otherwise.
It's a good conversation to have, but it's not super relevant to this discussion since the system just doesn't give most casters a good way to deal with this without the GM giving them a method like allowing a nonlethal spell attack with a -2.
One of the areas I struggle with on this is should it apply to all spell attacks, or only some of them? Like, Telekinetic Projectile sure, I can see how you can nonlethally hit someone with a rock (its just like doing it with a weapon). But Live Wire? How does nonlethally electrocuting someone look different from lethally electrocuting them?
Our local group has been allowing it on spell attack spells that deal physical damage for that reason vs energy damage, though I'm not really sure the distinction serves much purpose now that I think about it.
One of the areas I struggle with on this is should it apply to all spell attacks, or only some of them? Like, Telekinetic Projectile sure, I can see how you can nonlethally hit someone with a rock (its just like doing it with a weapon). But Live Wire? How does nonlethally electrocuting someone look different from lethally electrocuting them?
Our local group has been allowing it on spell attack spells that deal physical damage for that reason vs energy damage, though I'm not really sure the distinction serves much purpose now that I think about it.
Would you prevent it on an Eidolon making an Electric Unarmed attack (you can do it with Energy Heart, a level 1 evolution)?
Would you prevent a high level character using a Shocking Weapon from making nonlethal attacks?| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I reviewed daze and saw that it's not on the primal list. It looks like buffeting winds is the only nonlethal spell primal casters get.
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How does nonlethally electrocuting someone look different from lethally electrocuting them?
Similarly, how does stabbing someone for lethal damage with a rapier look different (narrative description) than someone making a non-lethal attack with that rapier ... against a creature with immunity to slashing and bludgeoning damage?
The only narrative description I can think of is to stab them in a less lethal part of the body.
So that same description can be used for energy damage. Burn, freeze, electrocute, ... somewhere on their body that is less lethal.
Nonlethal damage is in general described in 2 different ways:
- Striking with the hilt of the weapon, or another part that is not dealing deadly injuries.
- Striking at non lethal parts of the body like arms and legs.
Unfortunately, both are unsatisfying mechanically. The first one would change damage type and dice, there's no way the hilt of a Greatsword deals d12 Slashing damage. The second one would incapacitate the enemy instead of making it Unconscious, it should also have an impact on critical hits and Precision damage like Sneak Attack.
Depending on the narration, you'll consider that Ignition either can't or should deal nonlethal damage if necessary.
Unfortunately, both are unsatisfying mechanically.
Agreed.
My thought is that the lack of satisfying narrative description shouldn't be reason to prevent doing something that is allowed by the rules.
Just wanted to give a quick shoutout to the cantrip Torturous Trauma.
While the provenance of the spell is rather bleak, my Plague Dr. Chirurgeon in Str o Thousands uses/used it a fair amount due to it being a bludgeoning nonlethal save spell. (Though the AP does not account for the PCs to take foes alive for later questioning, which seriously sucks.)
TT is 1d4 below the Needle Darts scaling, 30ft single target Fort.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1270
But yeah, spells are supposed to be rather inflexible from a conceptual standpoint, that's where the idea of metamagic steps in.
IMO it's expected/fine for GMs to mandate the metamagic to make spells non-lethal, even for AC targeting spells.
Don't forget that mental/illusion damage is very often non-lethal. Really not much of an excuse when even evergreen spells like Illusory Creature are non-lethal.
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Thematically, it makes for a good tension when spellcasters may not have a great non-lethal option, and instead need to scramble to support the other party members in the non-lethal takedown.
Any Arcane caster without a few scrolls of things like Grease or Gust of Wind in their bag could do with a surprise "take them alive" scenario to get their thinky-parts ticking again; something to break up the "I cast Fireball" monotony of solving all problems with catastrophic violence.
I think a non-lethal encounter can go miles toward helping players get some more verisimilitude with what their PCs really may want to do. Pushing back on the mechanical norm for players to make their PCs into optimized murder machines of supreme violence.
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Edit: there's also the R1 Forced Mercy spell that you can keep in your bag. All phys damage of the target (not just weapon strikes!) becomes non-lethal, w/ no penalty for 1 min.
That spell is super generous in it's balance / power of effect when used for the purpose of taking targets alive.
It even Heightens at R4 to affect 8 targets in 100ft for a one-and-done party buff.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1118
That completely invalidates things like Nonlethal Spell or Safe Elements.This would only apply to attacks that don't use weapons or unarmed attacks. Fireball isn't an attack. Meteor Swarm isn't an attack. Nonlethal Spell is still the only way to deal nonlethal damage with saving throw spells that don't already have the nonlethal trait.
Yes, so expecting it to automatically work with any spell, whether it has the Attack trait or not, is why we can't allow it, because Nonlethal Spell applies to both Attack and non-Attack spells.
Also, given that the entry is written in a Weapons chapter, not a Spells chapter, the argument of the paragraph also applying to spells is a non-sequitur.
Torturous trauma looks kinda busted. It does more damage than daze at every rank and even scales in damage faster. Since it's an uncommon option from an adventure, maybe it's not broken specifically in that adventure, but I don't see many GMs allowing this one outside of that adventure.
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Also, given that the entry is written in a Weapons chapter, not a Spells chapter, the argument of the paragraph also applying to spells is a non-sequitur.
What are you talking about? It's in the Playing the Game chapter.
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Because the rules for Nonlethal Attacks specify either weapons and unarmed attacks or the nonlethal trait, I figured that spells without the nonlethal trait deal lethal damage with no nonlethal alternative. But to add to this discussion, I have an example where that ruling mattered.
In the first week at the Magaambya School of Magic in Kindled Magic, 1st module in Strength of Thousands, the PCs are given 5 service projects by the school. Their fellow student Esi Djana gave them a preject to remove some gremlins infesting a storage room--without harming them.
“Morning, o!” Esi bobs her umbrella in greeting. “It’s
only me today, I’m the only one of us who plans to join
the Tempest-Sun Mages. That’s the branch that defends
Nantambu and the people around the city from outside
threats, big and small. Today, you’re going to help us with
a very small threat. Some gremlins have gotten into one
of the school’s storage rooms. I want you to get them out
without harming them.
“I mean it,” Esi adds with emphasis. “They’re sour little
pests, but they haven’t done anything except throw some
jars around and be obnoxious. The Magaambya doesn’t
approve of killing anyone just because of who they are.
A student was even expelled because of it, back before I
came here.
“Between you and me, I don’t think anyone will mind
much if you gave one or two a whack to the head, but get
them out of the storage room and release them off the
grounds—really, it’s probably best to release them outside
of Nantambu entirely.”
Nevertheless, the seven PCs were 1st-level students at a school of magic, so most of them attacked with spells and none learned the 2nd-level Nonlethal Spell feat. Nor did either of the two bards select Daze cantrip for their spell repertoire. The magus and wizard could have quickly studied the cantrip, but they didn't. Instead, the party borrowed nonlethal weapons, such as a poi, and also Gremlin Bells to scare the gremlins away.
Thus, the spellcasting students ended up in a fist and nonlethal-weapon fight with the gremlins rather than using their spells. The Gremlin Bells were more successful and a critical success at Intimidation sent one gremlin fleeing down the tunnel they had dug to enter the storeroom. This changed the fistfight into a shoving fight in which the PCs repositioned the gremlins to drop them down the hole. Then the party boarded up the hole.
Their next service project was to renew the anti-gremlin ward on the storeroom.
Later in the module, they had fights with nastier enemies willing to kill the party. The PCs used their spells dealing lethal damage. However, one bard cast Stablize on each dying enemy to keep them alive (she had multclassed to druid for her free archetype and learned Stablize as a primal cantrip). With either a divine or primal spellcaster prepared with Stabilize, taking an attack penalty or using a spellshape action to deal nonlethal damage is not worth the trouble.
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Agents of Edgewatch allows for the nonlethal capture of criminals. Just last Saturday I nonlethally disintegrated a reoccurring villain.
He's sleeping it off still.
How does nonlethally electrocuting someone look different from lethally electrocuting them?Similarly, how does stabbing someone for lethal damage with a rapier look different (narrative description) than someone making a non-lethal attack with that rapier ... against a creature with immunity to slashing and bludgeoning damage?
The only narrative description I can think of is to stab them in a less lethal part of the body.
So that same description can be used for energy damage. Burn, freeze, electrocute, ... somewhere on their body that is less lethal.
SuperBidi covered that already, including the problems with it.
I guess I just have an easier time with suspension of disbelief of "hitting them with the hilt of the rapier" (ala Princess Bride) than I do "you're electrocuting them in exactly the same way except it somehow doesn't cause the same kind of damage."
The fact that one of these is in a famous movie I saw as a kid probably skews my perception of it. Because rationally? Yeah it doesn't make a ton of sense in that you definitely can nonlethally burn someone and the concussion from being whacked in the head by a greatsword's broad side may not kill you but it's going to cause serious long term problems that we kind of shrug off.
So, maybe I just need to relax this and get over it. :) I don't have any problem with Needle Darts doing nonlethal damage so Ignition shouldn't be that big a leap from there.
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Torturous trauma looks kinda busted. It does more damage than daze at every rank and even scales in damage faster. Since it's an uncommon option from an adventure, maybe it's not broken specifically in that adventure, but I don't see many GMs allowing this one outside of that adventure.
It's a worse Needle Darts / Scatter Scree in almost every respect. With the tradeoff of gaining non-lethal.
It's very odd to hear cries of overpowered for something like TT.
Torturous trauma looks kinda busted. It does more damage than daze at every rank and even scales in damage faster. Since it's an uncommon option from an adventure, maybe it's not broken specifically in that adventure, but I don't see many GMs allowing this one outside of that adventure.It's a worse Needle Darts / Scatter Scree in almost every respect. With the tradeoff of gaining non-lethal.
It's very odd to hear cries of overpowered for something like TT.
It only makes sense to compare it to daze since many in this thread are using daze's existence to demonstrate that spell attacks are intended to not have a nonlethal option. And I'll admit it's a compelling argument. Daze does half the damage of many other cantrips and scales at half the rate with the only benefit being that it's nonlethal. So nonlethal options on spells need to be scarce right?
And then we look at Torturous Trauma and it just completely undercuts the existence of Daze. Just give up a single d4 of damage. That makes up for the nonlethal trait, right?
Admonishing Ray also exists.
Agents of Edgewatch allows for the nonlethal capture of criminals. Just last Saturday I nonlethally disintegrated a reoccurring villain.
He's sleeping it off still.
First, I personally think that Disintegrate is a terrible damage spell. The utility of making a hole in the wall at any given opportunity is infinitely better.
Second, AP-specific optional rules are not the same as standard rules, otherwise we would have people say multiclassing is fine because the game has Free Archetype.
Admonishing Ray also exists.
Wow, that's two-thirds the damage of Hydraulic Push with none of the forced movement in exchange for the nonlethal trait.
It seems strange that so may of these nonlethal options are coming from pre-written adventures, though...
... But Live Wire? How does nonlethally electrocuting someone look different from lethally electrocuting them? ...
Taser level of shock vs. lightning bolt level...
Admonishing Ray also exists.Wow, that's two-thirds the damage of Hydraulic Push with none of the forced movement in exchange for the nonlethal trait.
It seems strange that so may of these nonlethal options are coming from pre-written adventures, though...
Well at least one of those is an AP where nonlethal options are useful to fit the theme of the adventure and the system doesn't seem to do a good job of enabling that for casters. So they could be trying to fill in the gap.
It does seem like it's a highly valuable trait on the part of whoever is writing these things, though.
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It only makes sense to compare it to daze since many in this thread are using daze's existence to demonstrate that spell attacks are intended to not have a nonlethal option. And I'll admit it's a compelling argument. Daze does half the damage of many other cantrips and scales at half the rate with the only benefit being that it's nonlethal. So nonlethal options on spells need to be scarce right?
And then we look at Torturous Trauma and it just completely undercuts the existence of Daze. Just give up a single d4 of damage. That makes up for the nonlethal trait, right?
Daze does so few damage that you never end up an enemy's hp pool... making it functionally useless.
Nonlethal is a purely narrative thing. Taking a -2 is already a strong penalty for that. Spells like Daze just add insult to injury. Preventing casters from doing nonlethal damage in a satisfying way is uselessly punishing.
Do I need to remind you that PF2 is a game where you can perform rituals without being a spellcaster? Artificial niche protection of narration doesn't make the game better.
Agents of Edgewatch allows for the nonlethal capture of criminals. Just last Saturday I nonlethally disintegrated a reoccurring villain.
He's sleeping it off still.
First, I personally think that Disintegrate is a terrible damage spell. The utility of making a hole in the wall at any given opportunity is infinitely better.
Second, AP-specific optional rules are not the same as standard rules, otherwise we would have people say multiclassing is fine because the game has Free Archetype.
Spoilsport. :P
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I always want to defend Daze as being way better than everyone claims -- and then I remember that my experience with it is as a Silent Whisper Psychic. (Which ups the range to 120 ft, and when amped doubles the dice, changes them to d10s and gives Weakness Mental and Will save penalties on a failed save.) Man I love that Psychic version.
I am strict about requiring Nonlethal Spell to make spells do nonlethal damage, but my house rules circumvent that problem by having opponents die at Dying 2 rather than at 0 hp. (You still need to use nonlethal attacks to be 100% sure, since a crit will still kill them.)
Spoilsport. :PAgents of Edgewatch allows for the nonlethal capture of criminals. Just last Saturday I nonlethally disintegrated a reoccurring villain.
He's sleeping it off still.
First, I personally think that Disintegrate is a terrible damage spell. The utility of making a hole in the wall at any given opportunity is infinitely better.
Second, AP-specific optional rules are not the same as standard rules, otherwise we would have people say multiclassing is fine because the game has Free Archetype.
I mean, I've used Disintegrate pretty readily for my Wizard, from making a hole in the wall (not including a Wall of Force), to outright obliterating a trap. And for each time I have done those, I have also used Disintegrate to attack an enemy. And each time, it was very lackluster by comparison.
Disintegrate is for the Twisting Tree Magus who can combine it with Sure Strike and Lunging Spellstrike. It's hard to use effectively on a normal spellcaster.
It is probably the silliest thing to make nonlethal though.
Disintegrate is for the Twisting Tree Magus who can combine it with Sure Strike and Lunging Spellstrike. It's hard to use effectively on a normal spellcaster.
It is probably the silliest thing to make nonlethal though.
The thing is that it's not the spell attack that makes it bad (though I will agree that a Magus utilizing it definitely helps in the odds of a critical hit); it's the factor that it's a Fortitude save on top of it (kind of what makes Ray of Enfeeblement pretty terrible), and 95% of monsters in this game have Good or higher Fortitude saves, meaning at-best you will do normal damage, and more likely, you will do half damage, or even nothing (especially if it's just a hit).
It might be more applicable in situations, but honestly, Chromatic Ray is a potentially stronger damaging spell, and it's 2 levels lower starting out.