Persisted Mass Lesser Vigor Ruining Combat

[Dousedinoil]

I need some help from the DM's out there. I ran a boss battle last night for my PC's and had an issue that I didn't think of before. I'm not a big fan of killing off PC's and wanted the boss to do non-lethal damage. I figured she would take the PC's alive (to be sacrificed later to her lord) and give them a chance to escape. However, whenever the PC's went below 0 or were knocked unconscious, they would go back to 1 health from vigor. The boss was fed up with them getting back up and ended killing one of the PCs. Luckily, they freed a djinn that was held prisoner by the boss. He brought the PC back to life and I dodged a bullet.

Having said all that, I don't like bringing characters back, they can't go to their local temple to res. I was thinking about house ruling persisted lesser vigor so that if you go down, you lose the buff. Any ideas?

[Troacctid]

Well, it can be dispelled. So you could try that. Otherwise, do what you did and try to kill them instead of subduing them nonlethally. They knew the risks.

[Aracor]

Fast healing is like natural healing. Natural healing doesn't work the same if you actually drop below 0 hit points. I see no reason why fast healing would change that.

[icefractal]

Keep in mind, Lesser Vigor only restores 1 hp / round, it doesn't auto-bump you to conscious every time it happens.

So for example:
R1: Enemy KO's PC, bringing their nonlethal damage to HP+5, for example.
PC heals 1 from vigor, still unconscious by 4 points.
R2: Enemy takes a full attack on unconscious PC, dealing another 40 nonlethal damage.
PC will now take 44 more rounds of healing before they become conscious again.

So as long as incoming damage exceeds 1/round, the PC in question will stay unconscious. And since nonlethal damage never overflows to lethal, there's no reason the enemy in question couldn't spend, say, half a minute beating on a PC, therefore dealing enough nonlethal to keep them out for hours.

All that it changes, really, is that if the PCs grab their KO'd party member and escape, said party member will be back on his feet in a few minutes instead of several hours.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Also having some form of cheap, low damage AoE will work too. Half the Party knocked senseless but back on their feet with 1 HP next round? A CL 1 Burning Hands knocks them both down again. A CL 9 Magic Missile will do the same AND works against the Rogue (though possibly not the Wizard, that depends). That being said, if you don't like killing PCs, I think your just running Fast Healing and Nonlethal damage wrong. Fast Healing, unlike normal magical healing, doesn't bring the target to 0 before applying. a Persisted Mass Lesser Vigor will bump everyone's HP up by 1 every round. If they are at 60 NL (with an HP of 50) will take 10 rounds, a full minute, before they are back on their feet.

[icefractal]

Fast Healing, unlike normal magical healing, doesn't bring the target to 0 before applying.No form of healing does that in 3E, it's a 4E thing. If you're at -6, then Cure Minor Wounds will only bring you to -5 (although stabilized).

[StreamOfTheSky]

Step 1: Ban Persistent Spell. It should be blatantly obvious it's a broken metamagic feat when it can turn a spell of any duration into a 24 hour duration.
Step 2: Ban night sticks. They're the fuel that makes pricey Divine Metamagic transactions possible. Without them, it loses a lot of its bite.
(Optional) Step 3: Ban or Nerf Divine Metamagic. I think w/ the first two steps, it's not so bad, it has a very real cost and the strongest thing they can do is get a quicken or something. But you could just ban it, too. Nerfing it to only let you raise the effective spell level to one you're actually capable of casting is a VERY reasonable nerf.


No form of healing does that in 3E, it's a 4E thing. If you're at -6, then Cure Minor Wounds will only bring you to -5 (although stabilized).

That's not what he was saying. Fast Healing does not heal at all when you're at negative hp. Until you heal up to 0 or higher by other means, the fast healing stops working.

What you're talking about is more akin to the silly RAW-literal "suffocation healing." (suffocation and drowning can put a creature at 0 hp...so strangling a dying ally effectively heals him....I said it was silly)

[kellbyb]

Step 1: Ban Persistent Spell. It should be blatantly obvious it's a broken metamagic feat when it can turn a spell of any duration into a 24 hour duration.
Step 2: Ban night sticks. They're the fuel that makes pricey Divine Metamagic transactions possible. Without them, it loses a lot of its bite.
(Optional) Step 3: Ban or Nerf Divine Metamagic. I think w/ the first two steps, it's not so bad, it has a very real cost and the strongest thing they can do is get a quicken or something. But you could just ban it, too. Nerfing it to only let you raise the effective spell level to one you're actually capable of casting is a VERY reasonable nerf.

I see no reason to go through more than one of those steps.

[Dousedinoil]

It would be exceptionally hypocritical of me to ban it, given that I had a cleric that had persisted spells before I took over as DM. I like the idea of fast healing out of combat but not in combat. I don't want to punish PC's with death, rather come up with a house rule or something.

I think a problem I'm having is what happens exactly when you do non lethal damage. I just figured you were at 0, but it sounds like you can go to like -40 non lethal damage? I thought you become unconscious and helpless. So wouldn't that mean you are at 0?

Oh and nightsticks are banned but I still have the problem.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Step 1: Ban Persistent Spell. It should be blatantly obvious it's a broken metamagic feat when it can turn a spell of any duration into a 24 hour duration.
Step 2: Ban night sticks. They're the fuel that makes pricey Divine Metamagic transactions possible. Without them, it loses a lot of its bite.
(Optional) Step 3: Ban or Nerf Divine Metamagic. I think w/ the first two steps, it's not so bad, it has a very real cost and the strongest thing they can do is get a quicken or something. But you could just ban it, too. Nerfing it to only let you raise the effective spell level to one you're actually capable of casting is a VERY reasonable nerf.


Not that those aren't reasonable nerfs for a lower power game, but they won't help much in this specific case. Fast Healing 1 isn't all that hard to get.


It would be exceptionally hypocritical of me to ban it, given that I had a cleric that had persisted spells before I took over as DM. I like the idea of fast healing out of combat but not in combat. I don't want to punish PC's with death, rather come up with a house rule or something.

I think a problem I'm having is what happens exactly when you do non lethal damage. I just figured you were at 0, but it sounds like you can go to like -40 non lethal damage? I thought you become unconscious and helpless. So wouldn't that mean you are at 0?

There is no limit on nonlethal damage. When your nonlethal damage is = your hp you're staggered. When it exceeds your hp you're unconscious until you have more hp than nonlethal damage again.

Dealing Nonlethal Damage

Certain attacks deal nonlethal damage. Other effects, such as heat or being exhausted, also deal nonlethal damage. When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you’ve accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not "real" damage. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you’re staggered, and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious. It doesn’t matter whether the nonlethal damage equals or exceeds your current hit points because the nonlethal damage has gone up or because your current hit points have gone down.

Just knocking them down into enough nonlethal damage to keep them out for a minute or two should be enough to deal with this issue. Combat rarely lasts that long, so you can dispel after they're all down, strip off their equipment and throw them in a cell.

[kellbyb]

It would be exceptionally hypocritical of me to ban it, given that I had a cleric that had persisted spells before I took over as DM. I like the idea of fast healing out of combat but not in combat. I don't want to punish PC's with death, rather come up with a house rule or something.

I think a problem I'm having is what happens exactly when you do non lethal damage. I just figured you were at 0, but it sounds like you can go to like -40 non lethal damage?

Oh and nightsticks are banned but I still have the problem.

Yeah, you gotta keep track of all the nonlethal damage. The fast healing just knocks off one point, it doesn't automatically bring you back to 1 hp.

[HunterOfJello]

Nonlethal damage is healed by Fast Healing, but Fast Healing doesn't wake a character up from unconsciousness.

Also, as far as persistent spell shenanigans go, they chose a very weak one by using mass lesser vigor. Real enemies don't sit around trying to knock people out and +1 hp per round is very little in real combat.



Fast Healing does not heal at all when you're at negative hp. Until you heal up to 0 or higher by other means, the fast healing stops working.

Source? I don't see anything about this in the SRD.

[Troacctid]

Nonlethal damage doesn't actually affect your HP total. It adds up, and you track how much of it you have. When your total nonlethal damage is greater than your current HP, you fall unconscious.

So let's say I'm at 20 HP, and you hit me with a sap, dealing 10 points of nonlethal damage. I'm still at 20 HP, because nonlethal damage doesn't affect HP totals, but now I have 10 points of nonlethal damage marked. Then you hit me with a Quickened Burning Hands, dealing 11 points of lethal damage to me, so my HP total goes down to 9. My 10 nonlethal damage is now greater than my current HP, so I fall unconscious. You're kind of a jerk, so you start kicking me while I'm unconscious. Since you don't have Improved Unarmed Strike, your kicks deal additional nonlethal damage, causing my nonlethal damage total to increase, although my HP remains at 9.

[Glimbur]

A related issue if you want to scare but not kill PC's is that the window of unconscious but alive is always* 10 hp, at level 1 and 20. You might make people die at - 1/2 max hp if you want to be able to knock them out of a fight but do not want to kill them.

[Dousedinoil]

A related issue if you want to scare but not kill PC's is that the window of unconscious but alive is always* 10 hp, at level 1 and 20. You might make people die at - 1/2 max hp if you want to be able to knock them out of a fight but do not want to kill them.

A great suggestion but one of my PCs has diehard. Personally I think it's stupid but I wasn't going to ban it. I don't want to give him a larger pool to work with.

[Segev]

A great suggestion but one of my PCs has diehard. Personally I think it's stupid but I wasn't going to ban it. I don't want to give him a larger pool to work with.

Interestingly, Diehard doesn't help with nonlethal damage. Deal even 1 point of nonlethal damage, and when the PC hits 0 hp, he drops unconscious. Because his hp are less than his nonlethal damage.

[Necroticplague]

Source? I don't see anything about this in the SRD.
Here you go.

Recovering without Help

A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance, however, of recovering on his own.

A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.

Even once he becomes conscious and is disabled, an unaided character still does not recover hit points naturally. Instead, each day he has a 10% chance to start recovering hit points naturally (starting with that day); otherwise, he loses 1 hit point.

Once an unaided character starts recovering hit points naturally, he is no longer in danger of naturally losing hit points (even if his current hit point total is negative).

Since fast healing is natural healing (just really fast natural healing), that listed clause stops Fast Healing when you're disabled.

That being said, that rule doesn't apply in this case, because nonlethal damage doesn't cause you to be disabled. But others were right as well, no reason you can't smack them for way more nonlethal Hp than they have HP, and just give them a smack every few minutes.

[MesiDoomstalker]

No form of healing does that in 3E, it's a 4E thing. If you're at -6, then Cure Minor Wounds will only bring you to -5 (although stabilized).

Huh. Must be one of those ancient houserules that faded into the background as a houserule. My mistake.

That's not what he was saying. Fast Healing does not heal at all when you're at negative hp. Until you heal up to 0 or higher by other means, the fast healing stops working.

Actually not what I'm saying. I don't know if it RAW or not (I don't have time to check) but my group runs that Fast Healing adds new HP (or subtracts NL) equal to the Fast Healing value at the start of the creatures turn, with no caveat of when it does or does not happen (except specific things that prevent healing).