How to knock someone out..

[Raflar]

This may be more for House Rules... My group is playing with the Wounds & Vitality Points system from Unearthed Arcana. It states that there is no difference between lethal and non-lethal damage (it all comes off your Vitality)....

We are trying to find a way to knock someone unconcious and can't find a good solution. We'd rather not have to take a Feat just for this as my group is more into Role Playing than combat.

They are looking for a way to 'take prisoners' or just not kill someone but take him out of the equation (ie, Rogue sneaks into house, knocks out servant)... My players wouldn't abuse this to kill the victim, so I'm not too worried about that.

If there is no Official ruling, any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks.

 

[Ranger REG]

[Houserule] Nonlethal damage applied as normal damage against VP. When VP reaches zero, begin tracking remaining nonlethal damage and compare to WP. If nonlethal damage is greater than current WP, then he's knocked out.

 

[Darkness]

Well, if you do Wound damage to someone, there's always a chance they're knocked out.
You can also grapple someone if you want to take them prisoner.

So much for tactics. Now to something entirely different...


The Vitality rules were first used in the Star Wars RPG, so it might be helpful to look how SW handled knocking people out.

Specifically, it has a Stun setting for blasters. There were also some stun-only weapons, like stun rods. It works like this:

• When you're hit with a blaster set on stun, you must make a Fortitude save.
• If you fail this save, you're knocked out for 1d4+1 rounds.
• If you succeed, you're stunned for 1 round.
• Stun attacks using a ranged weapon are limited to a range of 4 meters (12', let's call it 15').
• A weapon set on stun cannot score a critical hit.
• The save DC of the Fortitude save varies by weapon (from 10 to 18).

Let's see. D&D weapons have no stun setting; they're always lethal unless you attack very carefully. So let's use the usual D&D rules for attacking to deal nonlethal damage (i.e., -4 to hit unless you have a special ability that allows you to ignore this penalty, like e.g., a monk). I'd also disallow using ranged weapons for this purpose, per the normal D&D nonlethal attack rules.
Now for the save DC... It probably shouldn't be very high; it might unbalance combats too much if you could knock out tough opponents easily. Maybe make a normal damage roll and base the DC on that. E.g., DC 10 + 1 per 5 damage the attack would normally have done. (See the SW summary, above, for what happens on an unsuccessful save. Maybe let successful saves prevent all effects - your choice.)

You'll need to consider what creature Types will be immune to this. Undead and Constructs should be and IMO Elementals and Plants too.

I hope it helps.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

This is my rules for knock-out, which are adapted D20 Modern/Grim Tales.

If NonLethal damage done in a round is equal-to or greater-than CON, make a Fort. save DC 10 + (1/2 Damage) or become unconcious.

That works in hand to hand or trying to club down somebody while they're trying to fight back, etc.

Now, added to that ...

Whenever struck from Surprise or by a Critical Hit, roll a Fort save DC 10 + (1/2 Damage) or become unconcious.

Otherwise track everything as you usually would. This gives people trying to knock somebody out at least a chance if they can strike from surprise and makes fistfights last somewhat less than an hour and a half. Any crit is a chance to be knocked out, even if the damage is less than their CON. Which is quite likely with an unarmed unschooled fighter dealing 1d3 damage. He might only get 4 damage, but that DC 12 save is at least SOME chance of striking a lucky KO.

--fje

 

[lotuseater]

This is my rules for knock-out, which are adapted D20 Modern/Grim Tales.

If NonLethal damage done in a round is equal-to or greater-than CON, make a Fort. save DC 10 + (1/2 Damage) or become unconcious.

That works in hand to hand or trying to club down somebody while they're trying to fight back, etc.

Now, added to that ...

Whenever struck from Surprise or by a Critical Hit, roll a Fort save DC 10 + (1/2 Damage) or become unconcious.

Otherwise track everything as you usually would. This gives people trying to knock somebody out at least a chance if they can strike from surprise and makes fistfights last somewhat less than an hour and a half. Any crit is a chance to be knocked out, even if the damage is less than their CON. Which is quite likely with an unarmed unschooled fighter dealing 1d3 damage. He might only get 4 damage, but that DC 12 save is at least SOME chance of striking a lucky KO.

--fje

i think this is a pretty good way of handling it. if what you are looking for is a realistic method to knock someone out, you should bear in mind that our idea of the "knockout" has been shaped by television and movies, where one punch can knock someone unconscious. this is totally unrealistic. at most, you might be stunned rather than knocked out cold. in truth, the kinds of blows that would actually knock someone out would most likely be close to life threatening in many cases. boxing is a good example of people taking non-lethal damage to the point they are knocked out (although sometimes they are killed). and it's even analogous to say that the better trained and accomplished the boxer(the higher the level) then the better able they are to shrug off blows and avoid real damage (the greater their hitpoints). football is an example of a sudden blow knocking someone out, and usually when this happens it is a serious, lingering injury. so i think the 3.5 rules do a pretty good job at approximating real life (probably only lacking in some kind of fatigue factor which causes characters to slow down as they take damage).

but if you don't really care about realism, and just think it would be cool to be able to knock someone out, then any of these solutions that doesn't unbalance the game works fine. especially since you are saying it's not something your player's would abuse.

 

[Thanee]

We are trying to find a way to knock someone unconcious and can't find a good solution. We'd rather not have to take a Feat just for this as my group is more into Role Playing than combat.

We use the coup de grace rules. If the situation is reasonable you can perform a "subdual coup de grace" (yeah, the name is a bit silly) - the subject does not necessary need to be completely helpless, but definitely should be unaware at least - which works exactly like a regular coup de grace with the exception, that damage is subdual damage and the target goes unconscious instead of dying, if the save is not passed.

Of course, the weapon has to be suitable to deliver subdual damage. No scythes...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Raflar]

We use the coup de grace rules. If the situation is reasonable you can perform a "subdual coup de grace" <snip> - which works exactly like a regular coup de grace with the exception, that damage is subdual damage and the target goes unconscious instead of dying, if the save is not passed.

I really like this one... I'll pass all these suggestions to my group, but I think this is the one that's favour most, given their style of play.

Thanks alot everyone.