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View Full Version : [4e] "All right you random mooks, its jail time for you!"



Randel
2008-12-25, 09:55 PM
Okay, on page 295 of the players handbook it says that upon reducing a creature to zero hit points you can decide to knock them unconscious rather than kill them. Then, after a short rest (about five minutes) they awaken with 1 hit point.

So really, there doesn't seem to be any disadvantage to knocking opponents unconscious in combat. The only problem is 'cleanup' afterward. So, my question is how can that cleanup be handled in a way that doesn't bog down gameplay or sound unrealistic in the setting?

Possible answers:

1). Batman Justice - In a civilized area it is standard practice to take people in alive. Heros (or crimefighters) knock their opponents unconscious and then have the cops show up to haul them away. Bad guys might opt to kill their victims (that instantly labels them as Evil, if not in the arbitrary DnD alignment grid then certainly in the eyes of law enforcement). Heros usually carry rope or manacles to bind the knocked out opponents while they are unconcious. Undead, constructs, or other monsterous things might not be subject to the no-kill policy though this could open up other questions (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatMeasureIsANonHuman).

2). Mooks aren't nailed down or on fire (usually) - The adventurers are even greedier than usual and realize that a dead monster is just a corpse while a live one could be sold or exploited in some way. Adventurers with this philosophy might employ a variety of methods to get work out of their conquered foes and other methods to control and move them. Note that the same methods a properly equipped prisoner-taking team would employ are the same as orc raiders coming in to raze villages and take the women and children off in chains. Works best with evil-aligned groups or better yet the Bad Guys. Pokeballs may be useful if they have been invented in this universe.

3). Nuke first ask questions later - If it turns out that the kobolds you just beat up were in fact a perfectly legitimate mining crew then you can rest easy knowing that you didn't actually kill any of them. Similarly, area attacks properly set up may be used to handle hostage situations. Blow everyone up using non-lethal damage and sort through the cor... I mean knocked out bodies at your leisure. If they were hostages then heal them up and set them on their way, if they were villains then either send them to jail or kill them then and there. ("they were resisting arrest... honest").


Any other thoughts on how the regular use of non-lethal damage could fit in with a setting or a character? One thought I get is that since the majority of a PCs experience points come from defeating oppenents in combat, having beaten enemies go to jail for a while and then come back to fight again might make it easier for adventurers to level up without depopulating entire countries.

Ninetail
2008-12-26, 04:46 AM
It fits in the same way nonlethal/subdual damage fit in earlier editions -- it's just not got any special, overly-complicated rules regarding its use now. When would you use it? When...

...A bounty hunter wants to take a mark alive.

...A thief wants to knock out a guard, because killing carries a much stiffer penalty.

...You've instigated a bar brawl, but you don't intend to slaughter half the villagers.

...You want to take one of the patrolling guards alive, so you can question him.

...The bad guys want to capture the PCs for interrogation, later sacrifice, or whatever.

...You don't want the target dead immediately for whatever other reason. And there are lots of reasons, though they mostly boil down to either "I'm not sure they're the right target" or "They're worth more to me alive" (or the variation, "I'll be in less trouble if they're not dead").

As for cleanup, if you're in town, sure, let the watch show up. In a dungeon? A short rest is plenty of time for the PCs to gather the enemies' weapons, and they can let the disarmed and defeated foes go, or tie them up, or whatever.

Totally Guy
2008-12-26, 06:46 AM
Any other thoughts on how the regular use of non-lethal damage could fit in with a setting or a character? One thought I get is that since the majority of a PCs experience points come from defeating oppenents in combat, having beaten enemies go to jail for a while and then come back to fight again might make it easier for adventurers to level up without depopulating entire countries.

Come back again? Why do the authories let them out? Or is the jail house just not a legitimate way of dealing with high level foes?

I'm going to talk about something called player conditioning. When a player beats up the BBEG and puts him in jail that player is attempting to deal with a challenge in a particular way. When the opponent that they'd previously jailed comes back for a rematch it is reinforcing the notion that jail is not a legitimate way of dealing with the problem. This conditions the players to fight to kill rather than imprison.

But what then? You don't like that? Lets ressurrect the baddie and have him fight them again. The players are then being taught that not even death is legitimate.

If your players put the villain in jail that is where the villain should stay.

In actual fact I put in a session where the players learnt of a futile escape plan that a lesser villain had attempted. With this knowledge the players actually set a trap for her boss and killed the BBEG 2 sessions before the campaign got to a conclusion. It was still good though.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-12-26, 07:02 AM
Well, you can have some villains recur by breaking out of jail. Just don't escalate it to Joker levels.

Totally Guy
2008-12-26, 07:13 AM
Well, you can have some villains recur by breaking out of jail. Just don't escalate it to Joker levels.

Oh go on then. You can do it once. And towards the end of the narrative.:smallwink:

Randel
2008-12-26, 02:47 PM
Come back again? Why do the authories let them out? Or is the jail house just not a legitimate way of dealing with high level foes?

I was thinking more about the low-level minions and such more than Big Bads.

Minions and other low level nameless thugs who don't kill people (they would use non-lethal damage for the most part) would get jail sentences or be put into forced labor or something. The thugs the players beat up in their first adventure in the city might show up again working under another employer, either stronger to be a threat again or reduced to minions. Players who look closely might see that 'one-eyed Jim' the minotaur they beat before now has a new boss and a few prison tatoos.

Big Bads like The Joker would likely get beheaded the first time someone noticed how dangerous he is. The thugs would tell the authorities everything to pin the blame on him instead of them. Depending on the setting, there 'might' be cardboard prisons, but its more likely that there would be a public execution if the bad guys crimes were nasty enough. PCs could get jobs as guards to make sure the Bad guy doesn't escape during the event. If big bads are captured, it should take some serious work for them to escape.

Plus, if resurrection magic is widely used, it may be that the authorities have the equipment to make sure they don't come back. Crematoriums to make sure there isn't enough of them to resurrect, mages who can tell if he has a soul jar in reserve, or in the case of a Lich they might have an anti-magic field or a freezer to put him on ice until the heros can find his phylactery.


So, basically I meant that the relatively harmless thugs might only get prison time. Albeit that each sentence in jail might last several months or years depending on the severity of their crimes. Each time Jack the goblin serves his time and gets out of jail means that he doesn't get killed, and that means that you don't need a race of goblins who are predisposed to being thugs or who reproduce ten times faster than humans. Or at least not to an excessive degree. Though hopefully many of the criminals put in jail will get reformed so its apparent that the prison works.

CarpeGuitarrem
2008-12-26, 06:45 PM
Minions probably wouldn't survive combat. If they have 1 HP, any attack will bring them down past their bloodied level easily.

Gralamin
2008-12-26, 07:09 PM
Minions probably wouldn't survive combat. If they have 1 HP, any attack will bring them down past their bloodied level easily.

Monsters die at 0, or are knocked out (Your choice). A Coup de Grace kills them if it deals their bloodied value. Thus Monsters don't die at -bloodied, and in fact cannot have -HP.

KKL
2008-12-26, 07:11 PM
Semi related to the topic, there's a magic item in the AV that forces enemies to wake up after an extended rest instead of a short rest. Gloves of the Bounty Hunter I think.

Meek
2008-12-26, 07:30 PM
Semi related to the topic, there's a magic item in the AV that forces enemies to wake up after an extended rest instead of a short rest. Gloves of the Bounty Hunter I think.

You got it exact. They're really nice.

shadow_archmagi
2008-12-26, 09:01 PM
though this could open up other questions (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatMeasureIsANonHuman).

.[/QUOTE]

Oh, that's okay. I didn't really NEED those four hours of my life. %*(#ing TV tropes. It gets me every time.

Gralamin
2008-12-26, 09:15 PM
though this could open up other questions (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatMeasureIsANonHuman).

.

Oh, that's okay. I didn't really NEED those four hours of my life. %*(#ing TV tropes. It gets me every time.

Everyone knows that TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife).

EDit: Incorrect quote tags messed up by quote

Coidzor
2008-12-26, 10:22 PM
And remember, slavery is always an option, since there are notable examples of practices where defeated warriors that survived were enslaved. A foe defeated in combat has essentially had their life taken from them already by virtue of it being put into the hands of the victors. That's a take on how John Locke viewed it anyway, with his quip about the only acceptable form of slavery being the form of the defeated foe becoming the victor's slave.

Though there's also the practice of ransoming captured members of a tribe or fiefdom or whathaveyou back to their kin/masters. Say, if you capture a group of goblins who'd been hired by Bill the necromancer to tidy up the place and set traps and such while he researched in peace, since they'd been making the tribe some money, they might just trade something to get 'em back.

Your mileage will vary, of course, depending upon fluff and personal taste.