Best way to take foe alive?

[Nettlekid]

In a low Epic (level 21) game I'll be playing in soon, I'm going to have a cohort with all the Sacred Vow feats, including of course Vow of Peace. So, I'm going to have to think of good ways to capture foes alive, and take them out of battle nonlethally. Before you get worried about my party's reaction, I'll mention that in this campaign we're going to have to do a lot of making deals and interrogating people, so we'd probably want to keep them alive anyway.

I know there are SoDs like Dominate Monster or Flesh to Stone (which technically isn't killing, right?), and I could probably Calm Emotions/Diplomance (I'm a Bard/Sublime Chord with very high skill checks) so I could always resort to those, but I've never been a huge fan of SoDs. What would be a good way to spend my turns so that I can either rack up nonlethal damage or otherwise bring down a foe more...gradually, so it's not just "You're up, and now you're down." Something that makes it feel like a fight, but ends up with them not dead.

[BowStreetRunner]

Book of Exalted Deeds has nonlethal weapons that includes not only weapons that do non-lethal damage, but also ones that entangle and grapple.

The ravages and afflictions section in the same book includes substances that do ability damage that can eventually render a foe helpless.

[Lightlawbliss]

(last I checked, dominate was a Save or suck, not a save or die) as a bard, spells are likely your best bet.

we would all benefit from more info on what the rest of the party involves, including everything else you are planning on starting with from what appears to be the leadership feat.

[Twilightwyrm]

Well, there is the Whelm line from PBH II. In particular, Overwhelm comes to mind, as it is a Sorc/Wiz spell, and deals nonlethal damage equal to the target's current HP on a failed save, so following it up with even just 1 point of lethal or nonlethal damage will knock them unconscious. For a move crowd centered approach, Mass Whelm allows you to deal nonlethal damage to a large group of enemy mooks, so you can even save the little guys. The one catch is that this is mind effecting, so the various creatures that are immune to mind-effecting spells, so this shouldn't be your only option, but it is a good one.

For added effect, Empower the Overwhelm. That will keep your enemy knocked out for hours.

[Nettlekid]

Oh yeah, I forgot, ability damage would do the job pretty well. Things like Shivering Touch are a bit overkill, but I could work with that.

>_> Save or Die/Save or Suck doesn't matter. Dominate is worse than death in many ways. And in any case, it doesn't change the way that it's just "save or be done with the fight."

Ooh, Overwhelm is absolutely perfect. Well, it's still a bit Save or Die-y, but at least that battle's not ACTUALLY over when it works. And yeah, Mind-Affecting is bad, but I plan to dispel buffs beforehand anyway.

[Azoth]

In BOED there is a metamagic feat that turns all your spell damage to subdual damage. I think it is a +0 metamagic. So you can prepare blasts and just drop them with impunity on people.

You can also modify shivering touch into a chain version and just drop people to 0 DEX and thus paralyzed and prepped for antimagic shackling.

[Twilightwyrm]

Ooh, Overwhelm is absolutely perfect. Well, it's still a bit Save or Die-y, but at least that battle's not ACTUALLY over when it works. And yeah, Mind-Affecting is bad, but I plan to dispel buffs beforehand anyway.

True, but it does actual damage which means it has a fair chance to be modified (a la Empowered Spell) or reduced. Still, if it starts striking you as too save-or-die-y, the rest of the whelm line can be decent.

[lsfreak]

While most (or all?) of the spells that deal negative levels are Necromancy, very few are labelled evil, thus there is nothing wrong or evil with them in stock D&D fluff. Reinterpret it a bit into suppressing someone's life energy and it becomes something more akin to "lifeforce anesthetic" than "mwahaha ripping your soul to shreds." You'd still need a way of actually disabling them, but it could work as a strong debuff. Of course you've have to be careful about overdoing it.

[Ravens_cry]

A good old fashioned rope can be useful if you can make sure they don't have certain spells, especially since Use Rope is a skill and skills are, wow, quite cost effective to pump to obscene levels.

[Humble Master]

Otto's Irresistible Dance works and it is also quite funny.

Illusions can also be used to mislead targets to enter a trap that locks them down with antimagic and walls of stone.

[Seffbasilisk]

Cityscape has shockwave.


If you're on-hand with a medic, something like Drown could work, to drop'm to 0hp without damaging them permanently.


Neither strikes me as particularly exalted though.

[Nettlekid]

Ooh, Drown is pretty excellent. It'll be tough to make them fail a Fort save, but it could be done with some debuffing. Then one round of threatening, followed by them going to -1 while the medic rushes over with a Heal check.

The thing is, my Cohort is the Exalted one, so she's against the killing and violence and dirty tricks. I am not. So if it ends up not killing the beast but putting things where I want them, then the ends justify the means.

[Mutazoia]

In a low Epic (level 21) game I'll be playing in soon, I'm going to have a cohort with all the Sacred Vow feats, including of course Vow of Peace. So, I'm going to have to think of good ways to capture foes alive, and take them out of battle nonlethally. Before you get worried about my party's reaction, I'll mention that in this campaign we're going to have to do a lot of making deals and interrogating people, so we'd probably want to keep them alive anyway.

I know there are SoDs like Dominate Monster or Flesh to Stone (which technically isn't killing, right?), and I could probably Calm Emotions/Diplomance (I'm a Bard/Sublime Chord with very high skill checks) so I could always resort to those, but I've never been a huge fan of SoDs. What would be a good way to spend my turns so that I can either rack up nonlethal damage or otherwise bring down a foe more...gradually, so it's not just "You're up, and now you're down." Something that makes it feel like a fight, but ends up with them not dead.

Zoë: Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin'?
Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.

Chopping of a leg or two won't usually kill a person outright. And if that fails you can always choose to do subdual damage rather than lethal damage...

[Lightlawbliss]

Zoë: Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin'?
Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.

Chopping of a leg or two won't usually kill a person outright. And if that fails you can always choose to do subdual damage rather than lethal damage...

offtopic: wasn't book holding a shotgun when he said that?

in topic: a monk's belt does wonders

[Mutazoia]

offtopic: wasn't book holding a shotgun when he said that?

in topic: a monk's belt does wonders

Offtopic: Yes...yes he was.

On Topic: Using a club or mace as a weapon will make doing subdual damage a bit easier. You can also use a whip to attempt to entangle and trip your opponant. Net's work wonders this way as well.

On a side note, Pacifisism usually means you don't fight at all. So a true pacifist would stand there and let some one beat/stab/chew him to death. A pacifist NPC would heal or buff the party but not participate in combat otherwise. He might not like the fact that the PC's are slaughtering their way thought the world but that's on their souls, not his.

[Nettlekid]

Offtopic: Yes...yes he was.

On Topic: Using a club or mace as a weapon will make doing subdual damage a bit easier. You can also use a whip to attempt to entangle and trip your opponant. Net's work wonders this way as well.

On a side note, Pacifisism usually means you don't fight at all. So a true pacifist would stand there and let some one beat/stab/chew him to death. A pacifist NPC would heal or buff the party but not participate in combat otherwise. He might not like the fact that the PC's are slaughtering their way thought the world but that's on their souls, not his.

Er, I think I disagree with that. I think a proper Pacifist would seek to prevent death and violence if at all possible. Especially considering that Vow of Nonviolence imposes penalties on your allies for killing in your presence, and Vow of Peace says you may not disable enemies for your allies to kill, I think that to keep my Cohort happy, I'm going to have to try not to kill at all.

I think I've found something that'll work really well, though. Cast Delay Death on my enemy. Let my allies (and myself) wallop the foe as much as we like, bringing them to -Whatever, so long as it knocks them unconscious. Before Delay Death runs out, cast Vecna's Malevolent Whisper to bring them to -9 and stable. Ta-da!

[Darrin]

Maximized shivering touch is usually a one-shot takedown. Not very sporting, though.

I might fiddle around with a Mister/Sprayer and some drugs. For example, the mister (Drow of the Underdark) can be used to deliver inhaled poisons with a ranged touch attack as a standard action (no save). Deliver three doses of Mushroom Powder (100 GP, Book of Vile Darkness p. 43) within 12 hours and the target takes some damage and is also paralyzed for 2d4 hours (no save).

Or you can use Kammarth (80 GP, Lords of Darkness p. 183) as a contact poison. Mister delivers it as a 5' ranged touch attack, or a sprayer (A&EG p. 25) delivers it as a 5' x 10' area effect (no attack roll, no save). Two doses delivered within 8 hours renders the victim paralyzed for 2d4 minutes (no save), and three doses within 24 hours paralyzes them for 2d4 hours (no save).

Both of those deal damage, though, so I'm not sure how that or the whole "drug/poison" thing really jives with Vow of Peace (I suspect it doesn't).

[ArqArturo]

Monk + unarmed strike (nonlethal damage) + flurry of blows.

[Unusual Muse]

Sleep-Smoke from City of Splendors: Waterdeep is a cheap inhaled poison that causes Unconsciousness (for both primary and secondary effects) for a few rounds. Fun to use with the spell Launch Item!

[Nettlekid]

Maximized shivering touch is usually a one-shot takedown. Not very sporting, though.

I might fiddle around with a Mister/Sprayer and some drugs. For example, the mister (Drow of the Underdark) can be used to deliver inhaled poisons with a ranged touch attack as a standard action (no save). Deliver three doses of Mushroom Powder (100 GP, Book of Vile Darkness p. 43) within 12 hours and the target takes some damage and is also paralyzed for 2d4 hours (no save).

Or you can use Kammarth (80 GP, Lords of Darkness p. 183) as a contact poison. Mister delivers it as a touch attack, or a sprayer (A&EG p. 25) delivers it as a 5' x 10' area effect (no attack roll, no save). Two doses delivered within 8 hours renders the victim paralyzed for 2d4 minutes (no save), and three doses within 24 hours paralyzes them for 2d4 hours (no save).

Both of those deal damage, though, so I'm not sure how that or the whole "drug/poison" thing really jives with Vow of Peace (I suspect it doesn't).

Ooh, I like those ideas. My character's Chaotic Good, but isn't unwilling to use some slightly underhanded means of keeping people alive. He's already got some BoVD and LoD drugs on hand, since they have some decent stat-boosting effects. I hadn't thought of purposely using them as offensive poisons, though. But don't the overdose effects only activate if you're subjected to the drug's effects more than once in a short time? An unwilling user gets a Fort save, and aren't the DCs pretty low?

[dascarletm]

Offtopic: Yes...yes he was.


Still offtopic: If you are talking about the episode where they are mounting the rescue on the space station then it looked like a rifle with a scope.

Ontopic: If you can do enough subdual damage to just have a large enough buffer for the rest of the team they can deal regular ol' damage. With the added bonus of (was it staggering?) staggering them when they have half that damage in HP left.

[Darrin]

But don't the overdose effects only activate if you're subjected to the drug's effects more than once in a short time? An unwilling user gets a Fort save, and aren't the DCs pretty low?

Unwilling users who make all their Fort saves are still exposed to the drugs. Thus, the overdose effects kick in regardless of whether the initial or secondary effects ever took hold. Most of the overdose effects involve a Fort save to avoid, although there are a few that don't have any saves at all.

At least, that's how I interpret them. Poison has always been a sore spot with DMs in every edition of D&D, so you're very likely to run into differences of opinion on how to adjudicate the overdose effects.

[Bickerstaff]

Ask your DM if you can port over Merciful Metamagic from Pathfinder?

[Darrin]

Ask your DM if you can port over Merciful Metamagic from Pathfinder?

Not really necessary. Just slap Nonlethal Substitution (Book of Exalted Deeds) into any Mailman or Cindy-style build and you can knock people out with fire, acid, etc. Once you metamagic an orb or ray spell up to 300ish nonlethal damage, you can take out most targets with a ranged touch attack.