Rules for knockouts

[shilsen]

I was discussing with my group the fact that using the D&D rules as written, it's very difficult to knock out enemies without first beating them down over time, and also that unconsciousness due to combat wounds occurs only in the very narrow space between -1 and -9 hit points. One of my players suggested the following house rules:

1) Surprise knockout attempt. If a target is surprised, and the damage dealt is nonlethal, the target needs to make a Fort save, with a DC of 10+ damage dealt. If they fail, they are knocked unconscious for 1 minute.

2) Knockout from combat damage. On massive damage and critical hits, the target is subject to a Fort save DC 15. If successful, half of the damage is nonlethal.

I was thinking of using these two, but using a DC of 15 + (damage dealt/5) for both. For the second, instead of massive damage, I might let it occur on sneak attacks and any blows which could kill you (and perhaps drop sneak attacks too).

How do you think using these rules would affect the game? Are there any major problems that you can see arising?

All comments/suggestions welcome.

 

[shilsen]

Anyone?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Frankly, I don't even like spells that bypass hitpoints in incapacitating opponents. Hitpoints is an abstract measurement of combat integrity. As long as you've got them you are still standing. So the only way you've got to knock someone out is by reducing their hitpoints to -1. The problem is characters start bleeding at -1. Maybe the solution is making the attacker's choice to wound or not to wound when dealing the blow that sends the victim into the negatives.

In my mind the petrifying bite of a basilisk should do damage and only turn the victim into stone if the bite succeeds in incapacitating the victim. By the same token sleep should do damage by dice and any victim reduced to less than zero should fall asleep, and not bleed.

Still, if you really like to allow an attack to bypass hitpoints all together, á la Tintin, then both your suggestions seem fine to me.

 

[shilsen]

Frankly, I don't even like spells that bypass hitpoints in incapacitating opponents.

I'm not a big fan of bypassing hit points either (though I'm okay with spells doing it, since I think that's one of the big ways of differentiating magic from weapon-based combat in the game). However, I did want an option for being able to knock out or take down an unsuspecting enemy. I don't want it to be easy or happen often, which is why the restriction on it only happening when the enemy is surprised (not just flatfooted or losing Dex bonus).

 

[monboesen]

The problem is that unconcious equals being dead in D&D. So your mechanic is in effect a one hit kill option. And one with a potentially big DC.

IMO you can not simulate these kind of effects without replacing the HP system with something else.

The problem remains though. It needs to be harder to knock someone out than it is to kill them. Otherwise smart players (and enemies) will go for knock outs and then kill afterwards.

In the HP system this translates to doing subdual damage. It is harder but will knock out an opponent. Rogues have a good chance of doing it when they sneak attack. Even fighters might do it by getting surprise and winning initiative afterwards. An attack followed by a full attack could often do enough subdual damage to knock someone out.

 

[Kid Socrates]

The Brawl rules in d20 Modern work out this way, where there's no nonlethal damage and instead you're hoping for one good roll on damage to beat someone's Con score. Unfortunately, I think this ends up boiling down to beating on each other indefinitely until someone gets one lucky shot.

I do agree that unconscious tends to equal dead, in D&D. I'd be wary of making it too easy, but if you make it too hard there's really no point.

Is there a specific reason you want to implement it? Maybe there's another way to reach that goal.

 

[shilsen]

Is there a specific reason you want to implement it? Maybe there's another way to reach that goal.

The second rule is supposed to set up situations where instead of being killed, someone goes down unconscious from accumulated damage. In the current rules, if someone goes down from damage, he's in that narrow window of -1 to -9 hp and is dying. One of my players and I were talking and we thought an option such as this might be useful.

As for the first rule, that was intended for situations such as when the PCs are trying to sneak in somewhere and want to sneak up on a couple of guards and knock them out. Alternatively, it could also happen to PCs too - which another player (not the one who suggested the rules) is worried about As the person who suggested the rules said, even Conan sometimes gets knocked out by an unexpected attack. In D&D, that's effectively impossible once a character (PC or NPC) has a few levels, since even the most powerful enemy can't do enough nonlethal damage to drop them with one blow.

 

[Kid Socrates]

The second rule is supposed to set up situations where instead of being killed, someone goes down unconscious from accumulated damage. In the current rules, if someone goes down from damage, he's in that narrow window of -1 to -9 hp and is dying. One of my players and I were talking and we thought an option such as this might be useful.

As for the first rule, that was intended for situations such as when the PCs are trying to sneak in somewhere and want to sneak up on a couple of guards and knock them out. Alternatively, it could also happen to PCs too - which another player (not the one who suggested the rules) is worried about As the person who suggested the rules said, even Conan sometimes gets knocked out by an unexpected attack. In D&D, that's effectively impossible once a character (PC or NPC) has a few levels, since even the most powerful enemy can't do enough nonlethal damage to drop them with one blow.

An initial thought is to have everyone that goes down from damage just be unconscious, if you're worried about too many deaths, but then you have dispatching of unconscious enemies, which gets a little needlessly cruel (stabbing the unmoving orc in the head, all that). Maybe up to half their Con score in negative HP is unconscious? What would the drawbacks there be?

As for the first...hrmmmm. Nonlethal damage can be done by taking -4 to an attack, and then it deals regular damage? What about doing that, and if the damage taken exceeds their Con score and they fail a Fort save, they're knocked out for a number of rounds, like 10 - Con modifier? Constitution might be the best core ability for this. And maybe it can only be done when an opponent has their guard down (i.e. no Dex bonus to AC). That may be too much. Thoughts?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I was discussing with my group the fact that using the D&D rules as written, it's very difficult to knock out enemies without first beating them down over time, and also that unconsciousness due to combat wounds occurs only in the very narrow space between -1 and -9 hit points.

That is a design decision. Remember that D&D is not really meant to reflect a terribly realistic vision of combat. It's heroic combat where the rules are designed more to enable the PC's to do spectacular things without being realistically vulnerable. And -1 to -9 isn't much to a 10th level fighter, but to a 1st level wizard it's enormous leeway. The 10th level fighter doesn't NEED additional "unconciousness" spread because he's got tons of additional hit points that keep him conscious and fighting long before he gets to that margin.

One of my players suggested the following house rules:

1) Surprise knockout attempt. If a target is surprised, and the damage dealt is nonlethal, the target needs to make a Fort save, with a DC of 10+ damage dealt. If they fail, they are knocked unconscious for 1 minute.

The only problem with it is that it's effective. It becomes MORE effective to simply knock someone out than have to conduct additional regular combat. But then if you start to water it down any more it's INeffective and nobody would ever try to just knock someone out with a single blow because it's more effective to beat them into unconsciousness over several rounds of combat.

Simply because of the way D&D combat, hit points, etc are designed it is problematic at best to deal with combat that is NOT just straight-forward hit points.

2) Knockout from combat damage. On massive damage and critical hits, the target is subject to a Fort save DC 15. If successful, half of the damage is nonlethal.

Well it means that the massive damage knockout effect will really only apply to higher level characters because only higher level characters are going to be facing 50 hp damage from single attacks. And it rather removes the sting from criticals which means that being knocked out is only likely to apply in the real knock-down drag-out fights where cumulative non-lethal damage will exceed current hit points.

How do you think using these rules would affect the game? Are there any major problems that you can see arising?

Good ideas as far as they go but as I said D&D is just not built to handle well anything but direct-damage kinds of combat effects. Any mechanic you come up with needs to be powerful enough to make it worth bothering with in at least a few cases, weak enough not to suddenly make "knockout specialist" PC's a viable approach, and easier and more sensible than, say, grappling rules?

 

[shilsen]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.