Impairing easy heals of subdual

[Escheton]

you ar fighting bad guys with a -4 or a mercifull weapon and one of them keeps healing it off. Doing so easily due to the mechanics of it.
You don't want to kill him, but this is getting dangerous.

Any spells or even better, weapon enchantments that bar or hinder healing against subdual damage or damage altogether?

Can't really think of any.

[jiriku]

I misremember the name of it, but there's a spell that reverses the polarity of healing and inflict spells in Spell Compendium.

Generally though, that's a problem I would use tactics to fix. Gank the healer, then subdue the others enemies. Alternately, you could cast delay death on your foe as he falls, or use enchantment magic to persuade him to stop fighting, or use battlefield control magic to trap him without dealing damage, or grapple and pin him.

[cdrcjsn]

I'm assuming you're playing 3e?

If you can't incapacitate him through hit points, hit one of his other stats, like Strength. If you can drain it to 0 (curse, poison, etc.) then he won't be going anywhere. Even if you can get it to just Str 1, you can slap him in chains, and put heavy armor on him (or the equivalent) to reduce his chances of getting out.

If you just need to transport him somewhere, then a polymorph will work.

[nedz]

If you can't incapacitate him through hit points, hit one of his other stats, like Strength. If you can drain it to 0 (curse, poison, etc.) then he won't be going anywhere. Even if you can get it to just Str 1, you can slap him in chains, and put heavy armor on him (or the equivalent) to reduce his chances of getting out.

Presumably all that would happen here is that instead of casting curing spells they would cast restorations. So this might not work.

You have to Take out the Healer or stop them moving.

[tyckspoon]

Presumably all that would happen here is that instead of casting curing spells they would cast restorations. So this might not work.

You have to Take out the Healer or stop them moving.

Cure spells: 1 standard action, has double efficiency (works against standard damage and then also removes equal non-lethal)

Restoration: 3 whole rounds to cast, about as useful in the middle of a fight as standing still wearing a "Free Hits!" sign.

Generally, tho, it shouldn't be all that hard to out-damage the healing that is provided, as long as you're focus-firing properly and not splitting the party's damage between lethal and subdual. Make sure everybody is doing one or the other so you avoid the double efficiency healing. If you pick lethal, remember that you only need to do subdual equal to or greater than the target's current HP, so you can knock him down to ~10 and then throw 30 more subdual on top (also there's no upper cap on subdual, so once you have him down you can beat him up further to make sure he stays down.)

[2xMachina]

Mummy rot?

lol, no heals for you. (Ok, unless you CL check 20.)

[lsfreak]

Everyone gang up on the healer and do nonlethal damage to him. Knock him negative. Alternatively, save-or-loses (dominate, suggestion, solid fog.

Just keep at it until they run out of healing spells.

Ability score damage. You only need to get the healer down to 10Wis and he can't heal any longer.

Do lethal damage, but inform your DM you are pulling your punches. Essentially, you're doing lethal damage but making sure you never do more than 10 point of damage (i.e. longsword for 1d8, you choose to only ever apply +2dmg from Strength, so that the lowest someone gets is is -9. And then be prepared to heal them).

Talk your DM into just allowing a rule that you can pull what should have been a lethal blow, turning it into nonlethal damage. Depends on how your DM views hit points; I always allow this as I view hit points as someone's ability to dodge blows. Thus an attacker can strike in such ways that are simple to dodge/block, but still tiring, and consciously pulls that last blow that an enemy just couldn't dodge.

[true_shinken]

Silence the healer.
Use inflict spells as counterspells.
Ready an action to smack the healer as he casts his spell.

[Dr Bwaa]

The above are all good tactics if you simply aren't dealing enough damage. If the problem is that he's able to heal subdual much faster than he can heal lethal damage, the answer is simple--do lethal damage until he looks like he's about to drop. Then hit with with some nonlethal to knock him out with no danger of killing him.

Frankly, you could just do lethal anyway. So long as you don't kill him outright when you incapacitate him, a guy with that much healing ought to have a potion you can pour down his throat to keep him alive once you KO him.

[Irreverent Fool]

Bull Rush and Trip. If the healer can't touch the guy, he can't heal him, except with very inefficient spells.

obnoxious
sig

[nedz]

Cure spells: 1 standard action, has double efficiency (works against standard damage and then also removes equal non-lethal)

Restoration: 3 whole rounds to cast, about as useful in the middle of a fight as standing still wearing a "Free Hits!" sign.

There are ways of doing this faster: Items, Rapid Spell, Heal, etc.

Generally, tho, it shouldn't be all that hard to out-damage the healing that is provided, as long as you're focus-firing properly and not splitting the party's damage between lethal and subdual. Make sure everybody is doing one or the other so you avoid the double efficiency healing. If you pick lethal, remember that you only need to do subdual equal to or greater than the target's current HP, so you can knock him down to ~10 and then throw 30 more subdual on top (also there's no upper cap on subdual, so once you have him down you can beat him up further to make sure he stays down.)

Evidently, from the OP, this hasn't worked.

I'm not sure what level you are, but something like Antimagic Field should stop the healing.

[Zaq]

Now I'm imagining a 1d2 Crusader with a whip. They're not dead... they'll just take a really, really long time to wake up. (The hilarious part is that a 0th level Druid spell can wake 'em up... but maybe that's the point.)

I have nothing useful to add. Carry on.

[cdrcjsn]

Ah. I misunderstood. I thought the OP was talking about a prisoner that had regeneration or something similar.

If the opponent healer is a caster with a character class, then most likely they can be shut down by Silence + Grapple to prevent any healing. Heck, a silence spell on a Tanglefoot Bag can mess up a lot of casters that don't have silent metamagic prepped. A readied silence can work as an effective counterspell and you don't even need to roll caster level checks (my bard used to keep a silence spell on a scroll just for this very thing).

If it's a creature casting it as a spell-like (or even supernatural) ability though, then it's a lot harder.

If you're facing a foe and you would be hindered by using a merciful weapon...why not just switch weapons? (I can't recall if the merciful enchant can be turned off at will). Losing a couple of d6 of damage is a lot easier to stomach than losing all your damage.

Heck, most people carry the golf bag of weapons anyway to deal with DR and various resistances.

[awa]

vile damage is hard to heal if i recall correctly

[Escheton]

Thanks guys. Good points, though unfortunately none I had not considered myself.
The main problem is that I myself try not to kill my target but deal a minimum of 9 dmg (lvl3 chars) but my pet does, and so do some partymembers.
DM ruled that animals keep attacking when given the order till their target is dead. I do not have a mercifull weapon yet, and taking a -4 against powerfull (outlvled by a few) foes is too risky. So I have already knocked 1 probably good cleric into -1 to -9 after which my (climb)dog finished him off.
He was already on the floor due to a trip and I could not spot he got knocked out so calling my dog off didnt occur to me.

[Prodan]

I misremember the name of it, but there's a spell that reverses the polarity of healing and inflict spells in Spell Compendium.

Captain, I can't find the spell!

[hewhosaysfish]

Captain, I can't find the spell!

Something in my brain is saying "Veil of Undeath". I think it gives you a bunch of the usual undead immunities but makes you vulnerable to positive energy.