Merciful with a Duskblade

[GollerMerciful]

Hey guys,

Im DMing for the first time (a 3.5 game), and one the players is a duskblade who doesnt want to kill anyone, so he had his weapon enchantend to be merciful. now we have a discussion whether or not the spells cast through arcane chanelling will also be merciful because (as he claims) the damage goes through the weapon. the rest of the players disagree and i simply dont know.. what do you guys think?

[Fable Wright]

Nonlethal damage from the blade will accumulate, and lethal damage from the spells will decrease their HP. When their accumulated nonlethal damage exceeds their damaged HP, they're KO'd. Duskblade should be fine as long as his spells don't kill anyone outright.

Also, this should be on the 3.5 subforum as it's a discussion of a particular game's mechanics.

[Anxe]

I think it's open to interpretation. I'd say that by RAW arcane channeled spells are not affected by the merciful weapon.
Arcane channeling states, "If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved."
The spell is separated from the melee weapon dealing its damage, so merciful would also be separated.

No reason you can't house-rule that. Another option is for the Duskblade to take the Nonlethal Substitution feat. I think Fable Wright's suggestion is also fine. Unless the foe is killed outright from the spell's damage, the extra nonlethal damage will just knock them unconscious instead of killing the foe.

[illyahr]

Agree with previous. The Merciful enchantment only affects weapon damage, not damage from another source. However, the nonlethal damage will stack up faster than the lethal damage so you won't kill the target.

If current HP = 50/60 and nonlethal damage is 51, they are KO'd even though there is still 9 nonlethal damage to match max HP.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Post moved. Please post edition-specific queries in their appropriate subforum.

[DarkSoul]

There's a metamagic feat that makes a spell do nonlethal damage. "Subdual Substitution" maybe? I'd look in BoED first, then work through divine books to arcane.

[Darrin]

From the DMG: "The weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of damage, and all damage it deals is nonlethal damage."

From the PHBII: "Beginning at 3rd level, you can use a standard action to cast any touch spell you know and deliver the spell through your weapon with a melee attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved." (bold added for emphasis)

Hmm. It's not quite rock-solid RAW, but I'd say there's a strong argument there that the damage from the spell is still being delivered by the weapon, so I think it should be nonlethal.

The Nonlethal Substitution feat (BoED) should also work. It doesn't increase the spell level, but there may be an issue with adding a metamagic feat to a spontaneous spell... this should increase the action cost to a full-round action, in which case it couldn't be channeled. But this is a stupid rule, so I would recommend just ignoring it and let it be cast through Arcane Channeling as normal.

Even if you allow Merciful to convert all spells cast through the weapon as nonlethal without the feat, I would think the Duskblade would want Nonlethal Substitution for all of his non-channeled spells as well.

[illyahr]

If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved." (bold added for emphasis)

This indicates that the attack and the spell damage are separate.

As far as I'm concerned, the RAW on Nonlethal Substitution with the Duskblade's channeling is murky enough that I'd allow it since the spell itself casts as a standard and the channeling says less than full-round. As per the bolded, the spell doesn't resolve, so the metamagic doesn't apply, until after the attack is resolved. An argument could be made that the spell is still a standard action until after you have already channeled it.

[GollerMerciful]

thanks for the replys guys!
id say then that the spell and weapon damage are separate based on
If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved." (bold added for emphasis)

so hes in bad luck and will need to use a feat to be fully nonlethal

Also sorry for posting in the wrong forum! :smalleek:

[Zaq]

By RAW, all of this is correct. The weapon damage is nonlethal, but the spell damage is not nonlethal unless you use a spell that does nonlethal damage (either naturally or through something like Nonlethal Substitution). I will also mention, of course, that Nonlethal Substitution alone won't really help a Duskblade, since metamagic applied to a spontaneous spell increases the casting time (typically from a standard action to a full-round action), and Arcane Channeling specifies that the spell that you're channeling has to have a casting time of a standard action or less, so a Duskblade would need to find a way of reducing or ignoring the casting time penalty.

Anyway, all of that is RAW. But what I want to point out is that you're the GM, so if you want to change the rules, you can do that easily. Yeah, it's generally wise to stick to RAW until you have a reason not to, but this might just be such a reason. Unless the player is doing something weird and trying to abuse some kind of trickery, it's not likely to be broken or overpowered to allow a Merciful weapon to convert a channeled spell's damage to nonlethal, regardless of whether that's RAW or not. It's thematically appropriate, and it's not like there's no cost at all (a Merciful weapon isn't free, after all). Barring some kind of shenanigans, nonlethal damage isn't somehow stronger more powerful than lethal damage (assuming that the target isn't immune and isn't being healed mid-battle, nonlethal damage is exactly on par with lethal damage when it comes to bringing someone out of the fight, and if the target IS being healed mid-battle, it's actually less effective to use nonlethal damage), so on a round-by-round basis, it's not really going to change how combats look.

Always reserve the right to modify a ruling if the ruling ends up being abused, but honestly, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't just allow this, if that's what the player feels would be appropriate for the character.

[GollerMerciful]

he agreed with me that the rules say that spells are lethal, because for some reason he suddenly decided against being fully nonlethal. guess ill find out why soon enough :smalltongue:

[Einselar]

Why would you go duskblade if you want to remain non-lethal? That class is made to hit people over the head as hard as humanly possible....