#Difficult non-lethal damage

57 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

static apex
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I had the idea of awarding an extra victory per fight if the heroes don't kill anyone but since the vanilla "Knocking Creatures Out" doesn't carry any risk this wouldn't work.

I'm thinking if you want to do non-lethal damage you take a double bane on the attack and you have to do the last point of damage as non-lethal so for example if a creature has 10 hit points you can do 9 points of damage normally and then if you do 1 as non-lethal they're knocked out.

I'm very much thinking out loud here so any feedback or suggestion would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

oak lily
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Because even with a double bane you are always dealing some damage, I feel like this would just result in the party making sure they tag every opponent with some non lethal damage early on and then go back to fighting normally

static apex
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the idea is that the last attack has to be non-lethal so if you do the first attack as non-lethal and all the others as lethal the creature would still die

oak lily
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oh I misread "the last point" as "at least one point"

that just turns it into gambling or a slog (or both)

static apex
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that would be the point though: you take an extra risk to get an extra reward, the enemies are still trying to kill you so I think the slog wouldn't happen because the heroes would just be overwhelmed and lose if they can't keep up the damage. Do you think adding a Maneuver where the heroes can get more precise information on the enemies' Stamina would help with the gambling side?

oak lily
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that depends heavily on the table because some tables already play with open information

but still I'm not sure this feels like "risk vs reward" instead of feeling like "a chore we must do to hit baseline"

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because the moment players think that they can get 2 victories per fight, that is going to be the baseline they work from

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it's not "oh neat a bonus" but "oh shit, we miscalculated and now we're down 1 victory"

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(with full hp information and being able to downgrade results players can very consistently ensure they always trigger the non lethal death, at the cost of having to do things that are less fun)

static apex
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right, I wasn't thinking of the downgrades

oak lily
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sorry to be so negative

I'm not trying to be an ass, but this is my experience on how people will behave

static apex
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no, no, this is good info

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thank you for taking a look

oak lily
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no problem

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off topic, but oooh a break enjoyer

I still haven't managed to try that out

static apex
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it's fun to run, I found it very easy to create battle maps on the fly with the various conditions for the zones

oak lily
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cool

stray prairie
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What about this: instead of the price of the extra victory being paid on each roll, it could be taking an extra step.

I'm thinking the heroes bring an enemy to 0, and can then leave them to die, or use a maneuver to safely neutralize them. On minions, it could work roughly the same way damage does, so it's not annoying, and you won't have to mess with existing rules or solve the problem of players having to guess enemy stamina values this way.

slim trout
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Taking entire maneuver sounds like too much of price to me.

The (is it dnd or BG rule?) "While dealing non-lethal damage you cannot crit" is a posibility. But that sounds much less fun in DS than dnd.

I would be thinking about giving some small bonus to enemies. After all the heroes are not all in, making the enemies more dangerous. Maybe you can generate little bit more Malice? Like +2 per round?

karmic helm
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im confused by the thought process/design philosophy here - whats the intent behind making it hard to not kill someone?

static apex
# karmic helm im confused by the thought process/design philosophy here - whats the intent beh...

The idea would be to give extra reward for an extra risk, if you're deliberately hampering yourself the fights are gonna be harder so the reward should be greater also the fact that you can just choose to do non-lethal doesn't feel as heroic to me: take for example Homelander vs Superman, Homelander just goes all out while Superman tries to save the person in front of him, which is harder, it's a choice that requires sacrifice. So maybe I could actually make it the opposite where you actually gain less victories if you want to be able to be able to choose non-lethal damage. Not sure how fun that sounds though. I'm very much thinking out loud so feel free to push back on anything I said, that's why I'm asking for feedback😊

static apex
karmic helm
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maybe theres a misalignment of fantasies on my end but i feel like if im playing a hero i wouldnt wanna make taking the more heroic route of not killing someone to be harder. or at least, i feel like if i wanted killing to be an explicit decision, that could be accomplished outside of tactical balance?

static apex
# karmic helm maybe theres a misalignment of fantasies on my end but i feel like if im playing...

What do you mean with "outside tactical balance"? Something like the story goes in a different direction depending if you kill or not? Or perhaps titles could be involved so they change if you kill or not so it's also not just doing it for the extra victory. Like the rewards are the same but "flavoured" differently so it would be an actual choice of killing vs not instead of more rewards vs fewer.

stray prairie
slim trout
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I was thinking of it like this: if players declare "we don't wanna kill these guys" they will deal only nonlethal damage in the encounter in exchange for little bit malice. It wouldnt be director's decision.

After some though, I would probably make it flat flat number of malice gained with the decralation. Maybe equal to number of heroes?

oak lily
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I think I understand the intended fantasy: “being a hero is difficult and requires hard choices”

But

That kind of narrative is usually in stories where the majority of characters are not heroes

In a game where being heroes is a given I’m not sure we want to introduce incentives to act less heroically

karmic helm
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sigfried nailed what i was trying to say

static apex
static apex
karmic helm
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i dont wanna yuck ur yum

static apex
# slim trout I was thinking of it like this: if players declare "we don't wanna kill these gu...

What if they want to kill the leader but leave the minions alive? That's why I was leaning more toward a per decision basis, maybe it could even be the opposite where if you choose to kill you give the director malice, kinda like the batman thing of killing a killer doesn't change the number of killers: the more you kill the more malice in the world. The question though it's always: is it fun to play or am I getting caught up in my own narrative?

karmic helm
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personally speaking i would just say killing someone is an out of combat decision, not an in combat one. the inclination for players to assume killing and death deeply disturbs me and i dont find it especially heroic. but thats not the topic of this thread so thats all ill say on the topic.

oak lily
static apex
# karmic helm i dont wanna yuck ur yum

No worries about that, I won't be the only player in the gane so it's good for me to hear from someone that comes from a very different place🙇‍♂️

static apex
static apex
# karmic helm *personally speaking* i would just say killing someone is an out of combat decis...

I think for now I will play rules as written but I'll make sure the players know that they are choosing to kill or spare when they reduce the enemies stamina to 0, so no mechanical consequences but only story ones: you didn't kill anyone in the whole dungeon: then you get the "Dungeon angel" title, you killed every single NPC you met? You get the "Ruthless" title and so on. I think this is the best way to keep the combat fun but still have some consequences related to the choice of kill vs spare. The idea came from your comment so feel free to share more here or open another thread to talk about whatever you like: I'm interested😊

karmic helm
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a phenomenon ive seen a lot is death feels "less real" when its abstracted via gameplay mechanics (most commonly in combat)

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players are able to disconnect from the killing on display, even moreso because i feel a lot of folks are desensitized to violence

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whenever ive given the players the choice to kill or spare a character out of combat, those moments have landed a lot better because the characters feel more real in those moments

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i cant exactly explain why this is, but my best guess is its cuz theyre lot abstracted through a variety of numbers and mechanics

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and just on a personal philosophy level, i dont find "death as the assumed default" super engaging as a narrative conceit. or rather, i dont find death dramatically compelling.

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for me, heroism lies not in "oh no you killed/didnt kill them!" but instead in providing the chance to believe in a better future. that a better way is possible

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i find the hand wringing over the morality of murder/killing exemplifies the lowest expression of heroism, and not what i consider to be the harder decision, forgiveness.

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anyways thats just my soapbox on this topic

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sorry to take up a lot of space

static apex
static apex
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The better future part

karmic helm
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a classic thing is villains joining the party or being convinced they were wrong

worn minnow
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I think the basic concept--rewarding nonviolent takedowns and making them a challenge--seems promising

junior marten
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Why not turn it around? Make the boss controlling all minions against their will, and make the player know that those are innocent people they should save /protect, then you can offer the deal non-lethal vs malice, and just make the players do an informed moral decision