"Maybe I should leave some survivors to tell other people not to... fuck with me." He's not even getting softer, he's getting more evil. There are fates worse than death.
I believe there are 2 circumstances under which you should avoid lethality: 1) When fighting intelligent creatures (>INT5) 2) When fighting creatures that pose little to no threat to your party Often it’s far more difficult to resolve encounters without killing, but it makes it far more narratively compelling to do so. Oceans of blood left in your wake, does not a true hero make
Playing shadowrun and wod really influenced my attitude towards lethal methods. Escalated conflict there usually leads to escalated aftermath, and sometimes you REALLY don't want that to happen
I usually try to talk first. It seems more reasonable from a roleplay aspect. On the other hand I'm not an evil long range blasting, demon summoning warlock lol
I run my games with NPCs making death saves at 0, just like PCs. I initially chose it as a short hand demonstration of the dying mechanic for my 8-year-old cousin, but I've since found several of my players are more likely to turn to capture, interrogation, and the like with me running the NPCs this way. I also don't tend to run my NPCs as pure kamikaze fighters. Unless they have no sense of self preservation, like low-int constructs and undead, or have consinged themselves to death, the majority of my NPCs either flee or surrender after a certain damage threshold in most contexts. Admittedly it's more bookkeeping on my end, but my players seem to like the option to rescue and resuscitate downed NPCs and it makes sense to me that the players aren't the only ones clinging to life.
My group rarely fights people, it's mostly monsters; so no ethical dilemma there. The people we do fight are generally too dangerous to be allowed to live. Then again we are 15th level.
Honestly, I think it's because of the way that 5e is made. You can do non lethal with a melee weapon, but not range or most spells. I personally just allow you to non lethally do any of your attacks that's reasonable. Shoot someone with an arrow or eldrich blast hitting them just in the leg instead of chest or something. Unless you're using like disintegrate or something, I allow you to declare most things non-lethal.
I agree that the way 5e and D&D in general is designed, that it focuses more on lethal damage than non-lethal damage. As a ranged or caster, your options for non-lethal damage are much more limited. In general, IMO, going for non-lethal damage can also put you and your party at higher risk by default, unless you already greatly overpower the enemy. It's not just that. PCs default to being able to go unconscious when reaching 0 HP, but NPCs / monsters by default straight up die if they reach 0 HP. Lethal damage is generally just easier / more straightforward to play than non-lethal damage with the default ruleset. So I think that's why people generally play that way, due to game design, and due to what is generally considered an easier / more straightforward way to play. But it also relates to DMs as well, and what a DM might consider being easier to run, and how a DM uses their mobs and NPCs. Like often, if you are going to have multiple battles per day, a DM might default to using those mobs as cannon fodder to reduce a party's resources. If mobs / NPCs are played that way, then it's really unlikely that mobs / NPCs will want to surrender to avoid lethal damage, because to them (from the DM's perspective), those mobs / NPCs don't truly care about their own lives, so they can get played more recklessly as well. IMO, for players to play in a more non-lethal way, it also requires the DM to play the mobs / NPCs with that mindset as well, and allow more NPCs / mobs to care more about their own lives and being less gungho / kamikaze / suicidal by default (including less chances for enemies that were let go to seek revenge through kamikaze type methods as well). In my own group, we don't actually play D&D anymore but a completely custom TTRPG system created by our DM, and actually, enemies by default will surrender when they're at low enough HP, and damage isn't lethal by default. While a lot of this custom TTRPG's mechanics are borrowed from 5e, to play in that sort of non-lethal way in 5e would probably require homebrew rules - like at minimum, NPCs / mobs reaching 0 HP go unconscious and start making death saves, instead of straight up dying.
Terrific topic, Bilbron! I 100% agree. As GM I try to set the culture and tone such that PCs know when killing is, and is not, appropriate. The key is to follow through with consequences for anti-social behavior.
I play a neutral good necromancer on a westmarches server. I opt for Sleep to finish fights whenever possible, and get new skeletons whenever it's not. I'm still seen as evil by most of the server.
I totally feel this. I wish I had more options as a caster other than sleep to dispatch people that I don't necessarily want to kill, but stop. It's hard to gauge in the middle of battle how much damage will kill someone (or a group of people). I've only had the opportunity to pull out a dagger and pommel strike people that I didn't want to kill once, and that was because of good party composition allowed me to play in an objectively nonoptimal way of stopping the threat. If I felt really threatened, I would have resorted to lethal magic damage, no questions asked. Party safety above coerced/noncompliant NPCs every time.
It depends on circumstance. If you get in an actual bar fight then no you shouldn't kill. And in said bar fight you shouldn't be casting lethal spells anyway.
ב"ה In 3.5 edition there were a lot more rules for non-lethal damage, and even spellcaster could do it with their damage spells. I personally think it is a better edition. The only reason I play 5th edition is because it is a lot easier to find players for 5th edition (and at the end that is what make a campaign persist).
Tried to spare the dying to keep npcs that were just working in a shipping house alive but when others killed workers there it just turns into a blood bath. Then I tried to to use bless the dead, search the bodies, and then use fire bolt to cremate them. One player said that was crazy and brutal and made fun it, then a few minutes later he suggested we cut off heads to take them to ask them questions later. I had to ask him how that was not more brutal and worse. Just funny
The tone of a campaign, the laws in the realm (or lack thereof), the magic level and more factors all play in. A serious game with deep cultural canon and well-characterized npcs will be able to establish norms more easily. Something as simple as a noble character's Lord, or their father, or a friendly shopkeep can simply be disappointed in the party for killing needlessly, or even prevent it by setting an expectation early on. If your world has a powerful government or culture where it's illegal to kill sentient humanoids, especially if there's a powerful force that investigates and punishes murderers- then players may behave differently. If magic is common and people can fairly easily be raised, it's often easier to just kill them while they await trial or for a minor conflict- death has less meaning in that world. In this "easy raising" world, the new high crime may be hiding bodies or killing them in a way that prevents resurrection. For a murder hobo party, you can always create a villain that gains arcane and inhuman strength each time one of their minions are killed... Finally, it's very reasonable to have PCs face consequences for their actions. Have the local town leader throw a celebration and give them a key to the city for their noble deeds... But there are protestors- poor families of the henchmen they ruthlessly slaughtered. The town leader has the guards beat them and drive them off unless the PCs stop it- if they let this happen, one of the young women in the crowd will swear her vengeance upon them... You just set up the next antagonist. And it could be a political opponent who wants to outlaw adventuring completely in the new Empire- Having pacified the Wildlands, adventurers are no longer needed! Anyway, great topic and thank you.
I think we only suffer that ethical dilemma when facing other humanoids who we know have the propensity for good. usually when we think of monsters, we automatically think of them as evil so death is the choice made. then for the humanoids we do kill, it's typically because it's too dangerous to let them stay alive as they can hunt you down and kill you at the most inopportune moment. or hurt the ones you love or end the world. Revenge is more common in dnd than the real world. with that said there have been times we've let enemies live where 1 particularly did a "thor infinity war moment" in the last big fight of a campaign where he came in to turn the tide against their former master (the super bbeg). others, we just dispose off. it mostly boils down to can this enemy be redeemed? can we use this enemy against the final boss? does this enemy actually believe himself to be the hero of his own story (ala kingpin)? if he can't answer yes to any of those then we just dispose and protect ourselves from future trouble.
I did have humanoids mostly in mind, though I run into a lot of intelligent monsters that are taking a child's perspective to motivate their actions and honestly violence for their goals is suboptimal, so working it out isn't off the table.
@@Bilbrons-and-Dragons i think if the campaign is built around that where these types of questions comes into play and it's a theme of the campaign, then it's a fair discussion to be had with the people in the group. however, if the players are just looking for just some action and a chance to unwind, then it's not a good fit to discuss these questions. i think alot of people think dnd is a game. it's a form of escapism much like stories, video games, sports, etc. the questions you pose is already something people can deal with in the real world. when people play the game, these types of considerations may actually be the thing they want to "escape" from and they just want to have fun. to put this into analogy, dad's would probably teach their children that cussing out someone/trash talking is wrong. that same dad however may be caught trash talking someone in a game of basketball.
@@TheRobversion1 I get it, but I also think alignments matter and RPing them properly is a valid part of the game. That said, it's hard not to play Lawful Good in regards to colleagues because of the metagaming harmony that we seek/expect/demand, and the difficulty of telling IC from OOC. It's a tough balance! I try not to overthink it but it's something that I've noticed for sure.
Game system doesnt support it as easily. If you wanted nonlethal damage at a home table, i would talk with the DM to give death rolls or other homebrew to humanoid/sapient NPCs for the game to allow it more easily. Westmarches though, where each session is mostly self-contained, would stray toward murderhobo-y and also has to be more RAW in general.
The game system DOES support nonlethal damage! Lethal weapon damage is currently the default. Anyone can hit with a weapon and say, "I inflict nonlethal damage", thus not killing the target. It's right there in the 5e rulebook. Any group can easily reverse this default simply by discussing it and reaching that arrangement with the GM.
@@energyscholar That only applies to melee damage. RAW, any ranged attacks or spells cannot deal nonlethal damage... Even though the same attack on a PC leads to death saves instead of instant kill. That's what I was referring to.
Makes a lot of sense in real life not to kill people, since you have jails and courts of law. Those resources aren’t always available in D&D settings. That said, humanoid enemies should probably be targeted nonlethally a bit more often.
