Hostile monster/npc knocks player unconscious. Does it keep attacking?

[The Shadowdove]

Hey forum-lurkers,

Something I feel that has always been in the favor of the players is that DMs tend to have hostiles walk away from an unconscious player.

I feel this is appropriate in many, if not most encounters. Especially if an intelligent foes has neutralized a threat and has others to deal with.

However, if feel that some low intelligence monster would at least continue their attack on their for or prey after it's unconscious. Whether out of desire or natural instinct to make sure their opponent is dead, or because it has some sort or lock jaw who's to say some of these super low int monsters wouldn't keep attacking until their perceived another for as a large enough threat to turn their attention?

Some monsters are described as having an attack or kill mentality that is not unlock blood thirsty animals and such. Why wouldn't they actually kill their for if they are so kill crazed?

I'm guilty of this. I dm 2-3 times at different stores for Adventure's League groups, as well as a home game. The only reason I can think of is the obvious, we don't want to discourage our players or ruin the fun by taking away their character investment.

Does anyone tend to or sometimes have their monsters continue attacking a downed player?

Are there any other reasons that you can think of the explain why we do this?

Thank you in advance,

Dove

[Potato_Priest]

In what I consider the best encounter I ever made, an NPC cleric holed himself up in a room with the unconscious barbarian, attacked him enough times to kill him, and then bargained for his life by offering the party a resurrection spell.

[Unoriginal]

Hey forum-lurkers,

Something I feel that has always been in the favor of the players is that DMs tend to have hostiles walk away from an unconscious player.

I feel this is appropriate in many, if not most encounters. Especially if an intelligent foes has neutralized a threat and has others to deal with.

However, if feel that some low intelligence monster would at least continue their attack on their for or prey after it's unconscious. Whether out of desire or natural instinct to make sure their opponent is dead, or because it has some sort or lock jaw who's to say some of these super low int monsters wouldn't keep attacking until their perceived another for as a large enough threat to turn their attention?

Some monsters are described as having an attack or kill mentality that is not unlock blood thirsty animals and such. Why wouldn't they actually kill their for if they are so kill crazed?

I'm guilty of this. I dm 2-3 times at different stores for Adventure's League groups, as well as a home game. The only reason I can think of is the obvious, we don't want to discourage our players or ruin the fun by taking away their character investment.

Does anyone tend to or sometimes have their monsters continue attacking a downed player?

Are there any other reasons that you can think of the explain why we do this?

Thank you in advance,

Dove

Errr, aside from specific abilities that say the being attacked is knocked unconscious, the only way to knock someone unconscious is to do it deliberately, when you drop them to 0 HP in melee and declare your blow to be non-lethal.

If you meant "once the PC is making death saves", then it's a different issue. Most beings, low int or not, confronted by several opponents will attack until they think one opponent is not a threat, then move to the other ( or until their opponent is too big of a threat to be worth it, in which case they flee). Unless they specifically want to make sure the being is dead, in which case they'll make so.

So it all depend on at which point the being think the opponent is no longer a threat (ex: you can probably fool a T. Rex by playing dead, an educated knight is a different story).

Some beings, that have poor impulse control, like the Gnolls or a raging animal, that don't care about what other combatants might do to them, like summoned Devils, that want to make 100% sure the opponent stay dead despite being in combat, like someone who behead their foes to prevent Revivify, or that don't perceive that their opponent has stopped being a threat, can keep attacking an opponent who's not conscious.

[MrFahrenheit]

Some beings, that have poor impulse control, like the Gnolls or a raging animal, that don't care about what other combatants might do to them, like summoned Devils, that want to make 100% sure the opponent stay dead despite being in combat, like someone who behead their foes to prevent Revivify, or that don't perceive that their opponent has stopped being a threat, can keep attacking an opponent who's not conscious.

This. Zombies will eat a fallen PC in the middle of battle, as might gricks or anything else that has an eating>surviving mentality. Dire wolves and other big predators may be more likely to attempt taking the body someplace else, trying to break its neck along the way.

But enemies who don’t fit the category? I’d DM it as they only kill a downed PC if they know they’re going out too (e.g., enemy assassin has 9 hp left on his turn, and knows there’s no way out).

[krugaan]

If the PC party has been repeatedly reviving targets, I would certainly have intelligent foes attempt to insure they stay down.

Beasts and such? They might figure it out too.

[mephnick]

Unintelligent/raging monsters I have roll all their attacks at once as they attack whatever's threatening them. If the first roll puts you to 0 and there's two more hits you're dead. It doesn't stop to see if you're ok and then ignore you.

Ghouls and other pack things that eat people I have try to drag unconcious players away while the rest of the pack defends or tries to get more.

Intelligent NPCs will kill downed players once they realize healing is an option for you. Enemies that know this already will confirm their kills (generally with just one extra attack to give the player a slim chance).

So yes, I do it all the time, but I tell players before we start.

[Talamare]

It honestly depends on the monster, but I would talk with your players first

If they care more about the adventure, and not the risk. Then doing it often will just make them stop coming.

[Foxhound438]

for me there's three situations that will prompt me to kill something

1) enemy is unintelligent, exactly as you describe
2) your character has been brought up from 0, and the enemy is smart enough to know to KO into finish the character. Usually this would result in decapitation (it is critical hits, after all), so not even revivify could work. It's certainly a mean thing to do, but it's what an intelligent creature that understands magical healing would do.
3) enemy has a personal grudge, "you killed my father" and whatnot.

In any case, it's probably not something to do all the time, even in those cases. As you've said, there's a lot of player investment into characters for some people, and taking that away can discourage people from coming back.

[Chugger]

Whatever you do, be consistent and allow the party to react to it.

Back in AD&D, long ago, when death was actually scary - you didn't run a party without a healer and maybe a backup healer. And you healed like crazy to keep people from going to zero or below because that usually meant death - and rez spells weren't always easy to come by - and you had to roll a system shock save iirc to see if you even survived being rezzed. And if your Con was 12 you could only be rezzed 12 times.

An alt rule or a common feature was negative health - i.e. you could go to -5 and not be dead but needed 6 healing pts to be back up at 1.

With 5e going to zero is not a big deal unless you as a DM make it a big deal. Is it wrong to never have monsters chewing on a zero'd hero? No. What is wrong is if you as a DM have never done that - and then you start doing that. Give the party a chance to react to the new way you're running things.

Also consider that 5e is meant to run fine w/out a healer or cleric or w/ever. But if you change things such that going to zero is even sometimes a major deal - and no one was given the chance to play up a healer - is that right? In AL if you kill a player they've wasted the evening - they get nothing for the adventure - and if they're teir 2 or higher they're out 1250 or so gold. How often can you do that to a player and expect them to keep showing up. Some players drive a fair distance to do AL. Now sure if everyone's on board and okay with it - or if people've had a chance to prepare for it and do something about it or have a response - that's another story. But if you spring this on them, you really have to ask yourself if that's right. Because if being zero'd has serious consequences, we play differently. Maybe that needs to happen again - maybe this weird zero mechanic has to go - but make changes in a sensible and fair way.

[opaopajr]

Why not?

Animal-level intelligence would often be more in the throes of frenzy, (from fear, hunger, or anger,) will likely just keep going and finish the PC. The only thing that'd stop that sort of frenzy would be an even greater fear of survival if it does not run away. Animal unpredictability should come into play, and any sort of wild critter should give PCs pause, demanding respect.

As for sapient creatures, those with human-like intelligence (demi-human, humanoids, pretty much anything INT 4+) they would be more apt to spare life if they feel they can: a) get in more trouble for murder, b) get away with their life, or c) get something from the bargain. But if your heroes are bloodthirsty, offering no-quarter and expecting none, then their reputation should have an effect. This goes double if NPC acts to spare life when people drop unconscious are then popped back up to slaughter them.

5e has a pretty spiffy rule on dropping sapients into unconscious but stable. I've had NPCs do so as a gesture to see how PCs will react. Often PC bloodthirst received an in kind response.

NPCs should make sense to their fictive coherency. The players should play their PCs with at least an acknowledgement to that fictive coherency. You push against the setting world, expect the setting world to push back. No whining thereafter.

[samcifer]

Funny you should ask. A few months ago the fighter of our group picked a fight with some bandits of the bandit organization he used to be a part of while haggling for a potion and was dropped to 0 HP by a drug-cook who got a crit with the frying pan he was attacking with after blinding the fighter with the contents of the pan, then kept attacking him while he was down until he died. The revival potion he'd gone to get we had intended to use on a female npc, but we had to instead waste it on bringing him back instead. Not really worth it as the character is a moron. :P

[Laserlight]

Generally no. Once they're down, they're no longer a threat, and you attack something that is a threat.
Some monsters will drag a body off to eat it, but that's not "attacking".
Some monsters, such as zombies, might start eating right there, regardless of the fact that there's a fight going on. The DM should decide that ahead of time, not on the spur of the moment; and should probably give the players that information too. If it's a type of monster they've never heard of before, you might want to use an NPC to show "this is how the monster works".

We play it that you get Exhaustion for every time you hit zero HP, so players generally make an effort to fall back and get some healing instead of fighting to zero. We haven't really had a situation where an opponent would have reason to say "Oh, you're down, you're back up again, eh? Let's make sure you stay dead."

[Lord Vukodlak]

Most of the time PC's assume guys who fall down aren't getting back up, so I tend to have NPC's do the same.

The goals of the NPC's should normally be to win the fight, not to cause the greatest amount of grief before going down. Taking the extra time to finish someone off are attacks you aren't using against someone whose still a threat. And finishing someone off is likely to make you the focus of the party's attention. Depending on how the fight is going knocking a PC unconscious might be the best time for the NPC's to retreat assuming the PC's will be more concerned with treating the fallen comrade then chasing them down.



Animals should either turn there attention towards prey that's still moving, attempt to drag off their catch or leave intendeding to come pack later after the herd has moved on. (animals wouldn't know about human customs to depose of their dead). Because that's how a predator in the wild is going to behave, most herd animals don't take revenge on a predator of it kills one of their own.(there are exceptions of course).