Repelling Blast cannot be used to deal non-lethal damage in 5e. Only melee attacks can deal the necessary non-lethal damage to knock out and stabilize a creature. The basic rule of thumb is that, after damage is rolled, if the attack would reduce the target to 0 HP or less, the attacker can specify that the attack was meant to.
In D and D 5E, non-lethal damage is a rule that allows players to knock an enemy creature unconscious without killing it. This incapacitates the creature while leaving it alive. However, spells in 5e don’t specifically cater to non-lethal damage, but they can still be used to do non-lethal damage with spells if the spell inflicts melee damage.
A spellcaster can use any other spell that inflicts damage to weaken a foe before deploying one of the spells listed below to hit the target with the final blow that will render them unconscious. However, there is no rule in the rules about being able to deal non-lethal damage with a spell, it’s entirely a DM call.
Doing non-lethal damage with a melee weapon is possible, but only if the spell inflicts melee damage. The rule in the PHB specifically states that the attack must be a MELEE attack to qualify as non-lethal. In real life, arrows with a small sandbag for a head can do blunt force damage instead of non-lethal damage.
In summary, non-lethal damage is not a rule in 5e, but it can be used to knock out and stabilize a creature. However, ranged pact weapons cannot be used to do non-lethal damage.
📹 Why SlyFlourish’s Tip on Non-Lethal Damage is BAD! D&D5e
Dungeons and Dragons has a lot of homebrew rules, especially D&D 5e. I’m all for changing the rules to make the game more fun …
How does nonlethal damage work in 5e?
The D&D 5th edition adheres to a nonlethal damage rule analogous to that of the 4th edition, as delineated in the Player’s Handbook (5e). In this rule, an attacker is permitted to render a creature unconscious in lieu of killing it, thereby reducing its hit points.
Can you cast spells outside of combat?
In D and D, spells can only be cast if they are prepared, cantrips, class skills, or part of equipment bonuses. If a spell is not prepared, it must be prepared.
Your IP address has been temporarily blocked due to a large number of HTTP requests. Common causes include the latest version of the Opera browser sending multiple invalid requests to servers for every page visited, using the Brave browser or Ghostery add-on, which send extra traffic to servers for every page visited, and using unofficial phone apps that use GameFAQs as a back-end but do not behave like a real web browser.
Users should stop using these browsers until the problem is corrected. Unofficial phone apps may also cause IP blocks indefinitely.
To prevent this, users should not use scripts or add-ons that scan GameFAQs for box and screen images, run a “scraper” or “downloader” program, use poorly configured browser add-ons, or overuse the search engine with large searches in a short amount of time. If users promise to stop, the connection will be unblocked temporarily, but re-blocked if additional bad behavior is detected.
Can you change the damage type of spells in D&D?
The mastery of a damage type swap necessitates the attainment of three successes with a specific type, thereby obviating the necessity for a roll to cast the substituted damage type. In the case of spells with multiple damage types, only one unmastered type may be swapped. The aforementioned rules are available in PDF format on the ThinkDM Patreon page, which also features other spellcasting techniques.
What is the damage rule in 5e?
Damage to a creature is subtracted from its hit points, and it doesn’t affect its capabilities until it drops to 0 hit points. Damage rolls are used to determine the damage dealt by a weapon, spell, or harmful monster ability. Modifiers can be added to the damage, and magic weapons or special abilities can grant bonuses. A penalty allows for 0 damage but never negative damage. When attacking with a weapon, the ability modifier is added to the damage.
Can ranged attacks be non-lethal in D&D?
Non-Lethal Attacks are not always effective in combat, as ranged attacks and spells still deal lethal damage. However, melee weapons like swords, glaives, and daggers can knock enemies out instead. Using spells and ranged attacks to lower an opponent’s health in combat allows you to weaken them before using a melee attack to knock them out. As long as the target reaches zero health from a melee attack, they will be knocked unconscious.
Non-Lethal Attacks can be used in combat whenever you want, especially during encounters where you don’t want to fight. For example, when freeing a fighter, you can persuade them to leave, but failing the check may result in combat.
Can spells do nonlethal damage?
In the context of 5e, spells have the potential to inflict nonlethal damage if they inflict melee damage. A spellcaster may utilize alternative damage-inflicting spells to weaken an adversary before employing one of the listed spells to strike the target with the final blow, thereby rendering them unconscious.
Can you cast spells after combat damage?
Combat damage represents a distinctive form of damage inflicted by creatures during combat, occurring concurrently with the combat damage step of the Combat Phase. This turn-based action does not utilize the stack and does not permit players to cast spells or activate abilities between the assignment of combat damage and its subsequent implementation.
Do spells count as ranged attacks?
Ranged attacks are typically disadvantageous if a hostile creature within 5ft can see the attacker and is not incapacitated.
Are you allowed to change spells in D&D?
Druids are permitted to modify their prepared spells following a period of rest, which must be at least one minute in duration for each additional spell level. It should be noted, however, that this does not apply to cantrips, which remain fixed at the chosen cantrips as the druid’s level increases.
What are nonlethal damage rules?
A player may declare an attack that causes melee damage and reduces the opponent’s HP to below 0, thereby rendering the creature unconscious but not killing it outright. This is permitted provided that the damage type is melee damage.
Can you cast sorcery during combat?
Sorceries are one-shot or short-term magical spells that cannot enter the battlefield. They take effect when their mana cost is paid and the spell resolves, and are immediately placed in the owner’s graveyard. They share the same timing restrictions as all permanent spell types, only being used during the player’s main phase and when nothing else is on the stack. Instants are similar, but differ in when they can be cast. Sorceries and instants are grouped as “spells” in the Comprehensive Rules.
📹 “Non-Lethal Damage” in D&D 5e | Nerd Immersion
So non-lethal damage…it doesn’t exist in 5e. But so many people reference it. I think they’re talking about knocking a creature …
A lot of this boils down to how simple you want non-lethal options to be to take, but I really think giving enemies death saves kind of works regardless. If players want to take someone alive, they need to get to them quickly to stabilize them. If they want to take an enemy out, they’d better finish them off before one of their allies heals them. As you said, this does greatly increase the bookkeeping needed, so I guess this option won’t be Ideal for everyone, but I definitely would love to see it in action.
Spells level 5 (spell slots can be used to increase damage) to below in cantrip level of spells of certain damage types I say can be non lethal. Here is my a logical way that I can see. But also depending on the spell descriptions to make sense of it as well (Ice storm would not make sense). 1. Bludgeoning (Tidal wave is a good example). 2. cold (your enemy is worn out from the cold). 3. lightning (kinda like in star wars legends force lightning can be set from torture instead of killing). 4. force (depending on certain spells are descriped). 5. thunder (depends on spell description) 6. Pychic (darkness blade spell would not make sense unfortunately). The rest…yeah I don’t see how they can the other damage types can be used to ko enemy.
In a way, you could use something as ridiculous as “non lethal disintegration” as an opportunity to make the world more immersive. Now you can explain how the spell works, and that a “toned down” casting of it could accomplish a non-lethal effect. Perhaps it works like a microwave effect and a lower-powered version only heats the surface of the body into a threshold of extreme discomfort without burning, or the spell’s effect depends on the caster’s emotional state or conscious intentions. Non-standard approaches like this are springboards for inventive explanations, but first you have to be willing to take the creative liberty. If, for some dramatic reason, you need most magic to be invariably lethal in your campaign, then this can’t work. Not because the rule says so, but because then it would diffuse one of your dramatic tools. That, in the long run, will be a lot less fun than taking creative liberty.
Check out The Complete Illustrated Book of Enchantment on Kickstarter! kickstarter.com/projects/philtonellc/the-complete-illustrated-book-of-enchantment?ref=e6hw1n Phil’s Store: philstoneillustrations.com/shop?category=Dungeons+and+Dragons+5e Also, turns out I forgot to check the Sage Advice Compendium which apparently states plainly “Even a melee spell attack can be used to knock a creature out.”
Rule of cool. Unless I’m playing a gritty realistic game, they are heroes, if they want to take prisoners that’s their prerogative. As long as it could be described in a cool way. Hip points are supposed to abstractly represent defeat, not necessarily the amount of blood in your body. Maybe you cast that fireball high, and the NPC was left with scorched hair, and passes out. Fallout sales the wizard can just say he pulls back at the last moment letting the spell fizzle out just as the NPC collapses. As a player I don’t know when things are going to end, but my character is supposed to be a professional adventure, they would know. You can tell when somebody’s had enough. They don’t even have to literally pass out, just sit there and in shock for a while, or simply be spiritually broken and just stop where they stand. So yeah summary; rule of cool.
The thing about “Non-lethal” attacks, is that with the different types of damage you can do in one attack, is kinda hard to measure how “non-lethal”can you be, but the own book have something about it, that hing about instant death cause of a lot of damage. if you want knocout someone, you can use this rule. Like, for concussion damage. is way easier. You just punch and the guy fall, but for piercing and Slashing is waaaaay harder. You can just say “The damage was so big that the dude just got in shock and knock out” and the thing about having to state every time you drop someone to 0 that you want or not to “non-letaly” hit the guy. its easy to resolve. On the begining of a fight you just have to say “Hey dm, im not going to kill the guys”and if you change your idea you can just say “Ok, from now on, ill kill any npc you put in front of me cause me in *RAGE*”
I usually wait for my player’s to bring up if they want to non-lethally damage. Last session, for example, the gunslinger wanted to non-lethally damage the opposing monster so they could question it when it came to, he said he was trying to shoot the monster’s legs at. It’s also rule at our tables that spell damage is always “lethal” if it were to drop you, or a monster, to 0 hit points.
I try to remember to ask melee characters when they knock out an enemy “lethal or non-lethal?” to remind them that they can do so to interrogate someone later or just not murder everyone. If a non-melee attack is used, I allow the attacker to either give themselves disadvantage on the attack roll or give all targets advantage on their saving throw, as they are holding back
Three people in my group have DMed sessions for us, and we discuss things like this for home rules. I started playing D&D in the early 80s, and I did bring up “subdual” and “non-lethal” damage. We agreed RAW, was almost good enough. The person making the finishing blow can/must declare we are stabilising the target once they are at 0. We didn’t have any special missiles then (blunted arrows, say) so bows/crossbows couldn’t be used, but throwing hammer would work. It is entirely situational, but it did allow us to do some interrogations and made for good RP hooks as we discussed “What do we do with him now?” afterwards.
Anyone curious about which spells will work for “knocking out”. The list may be shorter than you’d think: Bigby’s Hand – 5th Blade of Disaster – 9th (TCE) Flame Blade – 2nd Inflict Wounds – 1st Mordenkainen’s Sword – 7th Primal Savagery – Cantrip (XGE) Shocking Grasp – Cantrip Spiritual Weapon – 2nd Steel Wind Strike – 5th (XGE) Thorn Whip – Cantrip Vampiric Touch – 3rd
At our table, where I really stress in my descriptions the abstraction of hp as moral, stamina, luck or minor magicl defense, this makes perfect sense. the moment you reduce someone to 0hp, what you have done is completely bypassed their defenses, exhausted them beyond their ability to resist and you have them at your mercy, at which point you either finishe them off with whatever weapon you have on hand (stab them in the chest, decapitate them, crush their skull, ect) or you knock them out with a quick unarmed back hand or some other story appropriate way to make them no longer a threat (our rogue carries shackles and I let him clip them on as a “knock out) Our reasoning is that “hit” is a game term that means you beat a traget number that represent the target’t defenses and lower a value that represent how long they can last in a fight. This avoids the mental gymnastic of explaining how, after a 12 feet tall frost giant with a 100pound club have “hit” you in any way used in common descriptive language and the result is anything other than you being smeared across the ice by a proper application of newton’s law of motion.
My group interpreted the non lethal rule to be the character not finishing the job, so if the rogue wanted to kill someone they would stab them and if it was enough to drop them to 0 then the rogue also quickly stabbed them in a vital part (note: this wasn’t an extra attack, just flavor) if they wanted to kill them, and if not they didn’t do that and just let them fall over
In my games, I ask players to tell “non-lethal damage” before the attack or spell, if they do that, they can’t use stuff like smite or sneak attack, and the attack or spell will only deal half damage. If the attack roll is a natural 20 or they roll max damage, we ignore the “non-lethal damage”. It works best because we play online on a platform that shows when a creature is below 50% and 25% hp, so the players can get an idea of when to start going for non-lethal.
I’ve seen non-lethal used in my current campaign a handful of times. I allow ‘non-lethal’ damage on ranged attacks, too. I have allowed it on spells, though somebody asked theoretically if they could cast Meteor Storm as non-lethal, which made me reconsider my stance on it. I like the idea that cantrips can be used non-lethal, so I think I’ll change my rule to that. HOWEVER, there was one time where one of my players crit on an attack on an important antagonist, but they asked if it could be non-lethal. I was cool with it. After they calculated damage, it was so high that it reached the negative max HP of the NPC. I allowed the insta-kill rule to overrule the non-lethal one, and they ‘accidently’ killed them. It was an interesting turn of events within 5 minutes of gameplay, and they even felt so bad they revivified the dude, and he became more of an ally out of gratitude.
In my last campaign the group was largely thieves with a heart of gold or religious folk so the term “I attack them non-lethally” came up a lot. Y’know, smack the goblin, knock them out, teach them what’s what. My character was of course the exception because he was a ranger with a crossbow. So virtually all of his attacks were lethal and he was very ‘meh’ on the ‘spare them’ mentality. At one point it got to the point where we captured some wizard and the group was trying to decide how to get evidence to have him charged for crimes for which the only witness was a Revenant while the anti-undead paladin and priest didn’t want to just give him over to said Revenant. This went on for about twenty minutes before “My drow aims his hand crossbow at the wizard’s head and says ‘Ten seconds to figure it out or I shoot.'”
From what I have played I have only used non-lethal damage once and it was to knock out an NPC because it was either kill her or capture her and the party wanted to capture her. When I did, I didn’t know too much about the rule and called the attacks non-lethal so I could try to knock her out before I roll to hit and damage, and roleplayed it as my character hitting the NPC in the head with the back of her rapier to hopefully KO her. It may be more dependent on PC’s and DM’s on how often these are made seeing as the campaigns I’m in anyway its normally fighting to the death or finding a way to talk things out before combat so it’s not used too often.
As a DM currently (and as a player), I describe the swing of a monster/player when the damage is big or a critical. I always let my players have the option of describing the hit when reducing an enemy to 0 hit points. Also, an easy way to decide knocking out an enemy is using the opposite end of the weapon when describing the hit, for example, pommel of a sword, or the pole of a pole arm.
My question is what if you have monsters that deal non-lethal damage, what will happen to the PC? Will they need to make death saves? Do they just lay there unconscious until they get a short rest? Because if the PC doesn’t make death saves thats far more effective at killing them than risking a nat 20 and them getting back up.
I don’t know what edition off hand had it, but the sleep spell had material components. So without activating the mixture as a spell. You would have a chloroform potion. Just have the strongest character grapple any individual needed first and with help from a ritual caster or alchemist apply a soaked rag. Forget initiative or use skip initiative rules.
Fun fact: If you “non” lethal damage a creature past it’s mass damage threshold you will still instantly kill them. Want to knock out that commoner or noble? you best put that great weapon away and pick up a club. Also another fun thing, you can knock out someone with touch spells. I once tried to knock out some guards with inflict wounds and ended up rolling max damage on the one and killing him while I rolled poorly and just knocked out the other.
Great article. For some reason I believed you had to call non-lethal damage before attacking, but the real rule actually is easier to use, so that understand why it is written this way. One thing that is a homebrew rule at my table is that magic damage can’t do non-lethal (or knock out an enemy with the RAW). So you can’t smite, green-flame blade or anything similar can knock someone out.
I – as a DM – tend to use a homebrewed version of the lingering injuries optional rule (the optional rule is really bad IMO but the idea is good). That is specifically because I had the experience of players cheesing encounters by healing word the fighter when he goes down 4 rounds in a row. This lead me to more strict rules regarding players taking only non lethal damage, and it also lead me to implement a “DM discretion” the enemy you killed my still be alive rule. More like a nemesis system rip-off from shadow of mordor – if you kill a hobgoblin that was really cool, he might come back with a few scars having survived that. Only way to be sure is to confirm the kill. Also, I tend not to let my enemies confirm kills on my players when they are knocked out. Regarding just changing the damage from “lethal” to “non lethal” I’m OK with it, tell me if you don’t want to kill it at any time before the dude is dead for sure, even at the last moment, and I let him live. This is pretty much what the rules use, no difference just tell me that you don’t want him dead – I don’t even tend to enforce the “not ranged” part, heck, hit him with an arrow on the foot instead of on the head and it’s non lethal.
At my table you have to declare, magic damage can’t be non lethal, and you must use a sap to deal non-lethal sneak attack. BUT unless it’s instant death enemies can enter death saves like a player if they want (non-lethal essentially auto-stabilizes them) they need only tell me before I declare them dead. P.S. non-lethal ranged weapons haven’t come up yet but I’d do the same as the sap rule and just make it special arrowheads.
If a player wants to do non lethal damage the AC is increased depending on the situation, the damage of the attack is reduced depending on the situation, and finally my player has to justify how they are attempting to do non lethal damage. If my archer player has blunted arrows and/or they say “im not going to pull the bow string back as far”, or they say im aiming for the ankle to incapacitate or can give me some kind of justification for how they arent trying kill i allow it as long as it makes sense. But its always depends on the circumstance, so i would allow someone to make an arcana check before using shocking grasp to try to do half damage and make it non lethal, but if they forgot that the target was wearing full plate armor then it would backfire and they would do regular lethal damage. The first time my players ran into non lethal damage was when a small town had about half the populations minds taken over and they didnt want to kill when they didnt have to. It was mostly cr 0 commoners so i let them use dagger pommels or the flat of thier blades but upped the AC to 11 or 12.
Had my Sharpshooter fighter player who deals out a litany of death in arrow form every turn ask to “nonlethally” take out a fleeing npc. I’m like, do you have a boxing glove tipped arrow? Your ass Green Arrow all of a sudden. He described it as “putting the arrow right through his achilles” and I allowed it cause anyone gets an arrow through the ACHILLES they’re not going anywhere, I ruled them as incapacitated not unconcious however.
The games I usually play in don’t normally take bludgeoning/ piercing/ or slashing damage into account and only judge damage as magical or non-magical. Sure it means that the DMs were probably lazy and didn’t want to focus on those mechanics but it also meant that hitting someone with the pommel of a sword or the blunt end of a pole arm (even though that’s already a thing) was a way to “non-lethally” take an opponent out. But idk, I feel that bringing a modern view point of “killing is bad and never helps a situation” isn’t what the devs wanted. We’re are talking about a world that basically takes place during the medieval period.
I would rule as a DM that if you tried to knock out a creature and dealt enough damage to kill it outright (i.e. after bringing the creature to 0 hit points there is enough damage left over that it is greater or equal to the creature’s maximum hit points) that creature is dead, regardless. Otherwise, the attack works as intended.
I guess i didnt realize this wasnt technically a thing! I literally TONIGHT explained nonlethal damage to my players lol. The way i see it, if youre making a melee weapon attack to someone and there arent other things like elemental or magic damage associated with it, if you claim you are attacking nonlethally and deal a “killing blow” you drop the enemy to 1 hp and it falls unconscious. Obviously you cant always do this with certain spells or magic weapons that add damage to things and magical effects. Which i guess isnt all that different from whats set with knocking someone unconscious. It really depends on the type of attack for me, but i would allow ranged to be more of a “the ending blow hits their knee making them black out with the final tipping point of pain” or some spells where you would theoretically stop the casting of the spell before it became fatal. Rules are malleable in this game and the intent is what matters and if i can imagine the capability of turning a final blow into a nonlethal blow I allow it.
I have ruled that only bludgeoning or force damage can knock someone out. There will always be that player that says “I hit them with the hilt of my sword”. But I rule that they would do 1 + Str/Dex damage or maybe 1d4 + str/dex. I personally don’t understand a Dragonborn using nonlethal lighting breath, or a paladin doing nonlethal “Feel the Wrath of my god” damage. It’s not something that comes up often, but every time I have to either retcon or restate the rule at the table
Typically, in my games my players do usually just outright kill the target, but on many occasions they have opted to knock out a creature, we don’t use the term “non-lethal damage”. When they do it, it is typically because it is somewhat of a “valuable” enemy that they want to obtain information from and I love that they use it to really embrace some great RP moments. I actually even allow them to do it with spells or ranged attacks. The internal logic I use is that any archer or spellcaster familiar enough with their craft would understand how to conjure a spell in such a way or shoot an arrow in such a way that it would not result in the immediate killing of a target. Yeah, it requires some suspension of belief but we feel the RP elements it adds outweigh the “weirdness”.
For “lethal or non-lethal damage” I have the players announce it before their attack. Being as when the PC’s attack is narrated, that narration is different for either option. I keep HP secret at the table for enemies, so the player to retcon their last attack after learning their “lethal” attack was “lethal” feels wrong (and the rest of the party agrees). We stick to it just being melee attacks that allow you to make it “non-lethal”. As for ranged, we just keep it simple as cant be “non-lethal” since it is hard to narrate a piercing damage arrow or a fire damage fireball not being lethal to the target so we just keep it simple as melee can only declare “non-lethal” damage.
From the start, I’ve ruled things as having death saving throws unless they’re critical hits that really have fatal descriptions for all the NPCs and mobs. It’s just that commoners and minion class mobs have such low hit points, that they go over their hit point maximum and die, very easily. It’s actually been interesting having some of the minions get up or try to play dead. I guess most people don’t bother with that, but I actually find it interesting and can lead to more than just the combat is done. An arrow that made someone go into shock or a magic bolt that burned and ruptured something isn’t the same as being cut in half or being incinerated.
my table rule is most spells can’t do it weapon attacks can take a -3 penalty to hit if the player chooses to attack nonlethaly it works because there’s a character in my table who does not like to kill, so i give the player a choice, do you want to fight in the optimal way, or do you want to save peoples life? it creates a nice in character dilema that translates to out of character choices
A friend of mine made a one shot and I was playing a sun soul monk with a soldier background He was tired of war and seeing death so I decided he would just knock out every humanoid enemy he would find rather than kill them The one shot started with a group of “terrorist” composed of the marginalized groups of the city So they sounded pretty innocent if you ask me, also since my character wasn’t a human either he fitted more with them than with the rulers of the city They assaulted a tower and we went all the way up to the roof, knocking every enemy we found (luckily I was first in initiative cuz judging by the other PCs and DM reactions, they didn’t expect that at all) Later the one shot turned from political intrigue into straight up zombie apocalypse, so yeah, my sun soul monk ended up being the doomguy of the party I even got a sun sword at some point We would keep knocking humanoids that we found instead of killing them and them hiding them in rooms or closets or whatever, so if we had to backtrack at some point, there would be less zombies that intended So yeah Pacifist route Unless zombies
When i did it i asked my dm if i can swing with nonlethal damage so i can interagate the gaurd. He asked me to describe how i am hitting him i reponded i swing my halberds staff staff portion onto his head for a knock out. My players in my campaign actually would fight and try to subdue the assailant when able by pinning them to the ground or knocking them prone and describing how they hold a sword to their throat
We run the rules that if anyone’s HP is reduced to the negative more than the person’s max hp you out right kill them. Reason: MinMaxer wants to deal +200dmg from SINGLE HIT to a child -> The child is going to take 200dmg taking his 2 hp to -198 and outright killing him. I want my players to Work on the “let’s leave someone alive” instead of going LOLZ MAX DMG BONK! Too lazy to open the book to read with Dyslexia how the rule went on this 😀 I may be using the rule wrong but it fits and makes sense that if you drop a nuke from Paladin’s Hammer the kid will Explode in Core and Stuff
At lest it’s not as Bad/Crazy as None-Lethal Damge in 4E. In this edition, a much simpler non-lethal rule appeared in its Player’s Handbook (4e), p.295. “Whoever reduces a creature to zero hit points or below may opt to have it knocked unconscious instead of killed or incapacitated.” There is otherwise no distinction between lethal and nonlethal damage in this versions of the game. (Meaning any form of Damage can be Declared as Non-Lethal.) Aka: Players could choose to use “Non-Lethal” magic damge. While D&D 3E and back had a status called “System Shock” which could kill a Character forever, even if their body & soul was healed back before the Status was put on them.
I’m pretty loose with knocking targets unconscious vs killing them… I’ll often track death-saves for important villains, because if the PCs get them, why not the Big Bad? It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense how Death Saves work, and that a Healing Word will bring you from 2 fails to Fully Functional in an instant… but… games.
At my table you can also knock a creature out from range if you’re using a ranged weapon that deals bludgeoning (like a sling or hunting bolts for crossbows meant for killing small game without punching a massive hole in it) or spell that deals bludgeoning, thunder, force or something like that. Smacking someone in the head with a greatclub, flinging a rock at their head, or even an EB literally applying force like any other projectile all are equally capable of knocking someone’s lights out. If a Wizard puts up a Wall of Force and a Barbarian successfully grapples a foe, I will 100% allow the Barbarian to smash the foe’s head repeatedly against the Wall of Force for “nonlethal” force damage like that one fight scene in The Raid: Redemption’s (iirc, could definitely be a different movie) hallway fight. Edit: Lol, you addressed it right after I posted the comment.
I’m a “forever DM”, I play many times a week and have done so for a few years now, and I’ve never seen it work very well. Classic example, one player announces they’re going for non-lethal (or “knock out your opponent, or whatever). Then it gets to the next guy’s turn, and they try to justify why they’re going for lethal themselves. It usually is one version or another of “that’s what my character would do”. For many people, their d&d character is their “power fantasy”, and going for a KO may not make them feel badass, I don’t know. Whatever the justification is, the fact of the matter is, if 10 bandits are dead and 1’s unconscious, did it really make a difference? I sincerely wish more players would go for a knock out, WAY more fun stuff can come out of that, but I’m not there to tell them what to do and i’m not there to judge either. I am the to have the guards arrest them from time to time though ;P
How I would run non-lethal damage. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points, you have the option of immediately making them stable but unconscious for up to 4 hours. The creature will eventually wake up after 4 hours (or sooner if awakened earlier) at 1 HP. Any damage type (with a few exceptions) can be nonlethal. Yes, that includes fire though instead of burning the creature to ashing, non-lethal fire heats the creature till they pass out. Cold damage chills the creature to the point of passing out. Any attack with one or more of the following damage types cannot be made non-lethal: Acid, Necrotic, Piercing, and Slashing.
A group I play with also use blunted arrows as a thing, but with the carveout. For a knock out, the creatures AC is considered 2 higher (a 12 becomes a 14), if you would have normally hit with a roll less than the new AC (12 or 13 in my example), the damage is lethal, otherwise (14+ in the example) the damage is non-lethal. We felt this was fun way to make dealing non-lethal with a missile weapon still potentially dangerous.
We’ve used this rule as-is, and it works fine for those rare situations where you don’t want to kill a target. But it resulted in incredulous disbelief the first few times, because it’s so dumb. I mean, the rule lets you basically retcon your attack by saying, “oops, just kidding, I’m not stabbing his heart after all,” after you stab his heart. Once we got used to it, we ignored the fact that it’s dumb, because we hardly ever need to care about saving a foe’s life. For something we don’t care about 99% of the time, a dumb rule is a lot better than no option at all, or a complicated option we probably forgot about. But, if it were easy for the DM to handle Team Monster rolling death saves instead of insta-death (how we play), I would find the “Save his life! Quick!” gameplay after a killing blow to be a lot more interesting and fun for those rare situations.
If a player wants to Knock-Out an enemy; I let them make an attack with a Blunt Weapon (the Pommel of their Sword or Dagger works fine), and the enemy must make a Con Save vs the Damage Inflicted (like a Concentration Check). *If they were undetected before hand, then the enemy has Disadvantage. If they were already in combat, then the enemy has Advantage.
My only big issue with the RAW of knocking out in 5e is that, odds are (without metagaming) only your GM knows when a blow is gonna drop someone to 0. In my limited experience this leads to the GM deciding that they’ve “died” which is typically what that means across media. The issue being since I don’t know when they fall it puts me in the awkward position to have to go, “um actually I’d prefer it if I bonked them unconscious with the flat side of my battleaxe . . . but your beheading narration was really cool though!”
I say non-lethal damage, but it’s only really relevant when a character goes to 0, but I do say you have to declare it before you attack (because you generally don’t know if they were going down before you attack). Because of house rules, this matters for damage type. Non-lethal, or knocking someone out, is always bludgeoning, and generally you don’t target the head if you want them to live. In my games, it always does an injury to a character when they are brought to 0 hitpoints, but a non-lethal injury targets non-lethal parts of the body. If you crit on a non-lethal attack, you do lethal damage inadvertently (accidents happen). I don’t allow non-lethal with ranged, or spells, or spell damage, except with a casting check (dc 10 +spell level) and only if it’s plausible. I have trouble believing you can smite someone merely unconscious, but if you exert your will upon your magic you might get it to function against its normal purpose. You can do bludgeoning damage with almost any melee weapon, (pommel strikes, using the flat of a blade, or the butte of an axe or polearm) and I see no problem with allowing it with sneak attack, the whole abstraction of sneak attack is the rogue is capable of precise strikes that are significantly more injurious. THat’s how it works at the tables I run, barring adjustment of house rules for table preference.
I guess like most things in the game I would just make a ruling using common sense. I can see non-melee attacks working. I have no problem with a player saying they are trying to knock their opponent out and at 0 hp, the victim goes unconscious. I mean, really, all damage in D&D is non-lethal except the final blow. It doesn’t use hit location or wounds charts. Declaring intention is enough for me without having rules for “non-lethal attacks.” I’d even be amenable to letting a caster use a ranged spell like thunderwave to cause unconsciousness. Again, it just boils down to common sense. I also like using old school subdual damage where a flat-of-the-blade attack can reduce a dragon (or other intelligent foe by DM-fiat) by enough hit points (either a certain ratio of the total or zero) to make them surrender and bring them under the subdue-er’s will. Subduing may not be done with missiles or spells, but each DM may tule as they see fit. I think subduing dragons is really the beginning of non-lethal damage in later editions.
I was aware that it was melee attack, but I didn’t know that you could decide after… Generally in my campaign we limit knocking out to melee weapon attacks as a homebrew rule tho. Something I was wondering, what about sending creatures to -max hp? If the paladin smites a 5hp goblin for 30 damage and wants to make it non-lethal, can he do it? In my campaign you can’t, and it’s a pretty interesting mechanic when dealing with some homebrew enemies that I have: they possess creatures making them stronger and giving them extra hp, but when the creature goes unconscious, the possession ends, thus if the base creature was a commoner, it may die due to the remaining damage taking it to -max hp. This has made for some fun and interesting fights… But yeah, what do you think about the “massive damage” related to this knocking out? (I know, massive damage is from previous editions, but it’s such a catchy name)
We are still using a sort of Gen 1 home brew. You can state non lethal, supposedly they get three quarter of hps taken back after subdual. Now a caveat, if any damage, non lethal or otherwise, reduces your target to less than – 10 hps, they are dead. We did make an exception for Spare the Dying, and I am considering Healing Word also. This is most likely in, but hasn’t come up in practice. Yes, we have had some very strong players that did a crit and killed an npc they were trying to capture. Good article, thanks.
I sent my PCs against a small wererat tribe before they had silver or magic weapons using a chokehold rule I found online: “In order to strangle someone they must be grappled. Once they are grappled you must use your action to choke them. You make a Strength check while the victim makes a constitution saving throw. If the strangler succeeds then the victim takes one level of strangulation. If the victim wins the contested roll then he/she maintains their current strangulation level. A creature may have an amount of strangulation levels that is equal to 1+CON mod. When a creature reaches its max level of strangulation then the creature becomes unconscious for 1d3 rounds. If the victim breaks free or wakes up remove all strangulation levels from them.”
This came up in a recent session for me. We were trying to resolve a Dwarven clan issue by helping the younger generation essentially execute a coup against the older clan leadership but we wanted to avoid killing as much as possible. Me being a Soul Knife rogue could use my soulblades in melee to knock them out but accidentally killed one of them by using a ranged blade, even though the damage was the same and with the nature of the soulblades there’s no “angling the weapon just right” (I killed a named NPC who the DM had already said when we asked that he’d allow named NPCs death saving throws so we still stablized him) But one was a Melee attack and one was a Ranged attack so RAW one could be a knockout blow and the other couldn’t.
I am using a HB version of this rule I found and now use in my games, where it says that all weapons can make a none lethal strike, which is none lethal (duh), but does shit for damage. Some weapons have the non-lethal trait, letting them deal their full damage whilst also knocking others out. As my barbarian at some point said to me “It is too easy to be good. Mercy should require effort, because then why wouldn’t it always be done?”.
At my table I have the rule that any attack knocks out the target (unless it would die instantly from the ‘overkill’ damage) and that players can declare to kill them. But if we ever start a new campaign, I might try to go back to something more in line wit h3.5, because I don’t really like the 5E system. But the weird “it’s a ranged attack, so it doesn’t work” sounds stupid to me
At my table if a player intends to knock out a creature they must declare it before the attack is rolled and the damage dealt is halved. This is meant to take into account the original intent of the blow and the character’s restraint while dealing the blow. “That hits. Roll for damage.” “With smite that is 45 points of damage. O by the way that was non-leathal” “So as you slapped him across the face with your mace instead of caving in his skull you knock him out with a force that could kill more than 10 commoners.” That just doesn’t sit right with me.
Just goes to show we are creatures of habit. Outside of not killing an opponent it’s rather worthless. Say you want to knockout a guard before he can give warning of your presence. You can’t. With emphasis on the (.). You must go through all of his/her hp before that can happen. Now some will point out the sleep spell. That’s still a situation where you have to go through all the hp. So the rouge / any character without the sleep spell is out of luck. Once a guard takes note of you, you are caught. By note I mean movement or less than debilitating damage. Then you are one initiative roll away from him/her sounding the alarm. Now out side of this rant I do have an idea. Why not make it a save. An player states that he wants to ko an opponent. He would need to make a successful attack role ( still doing damage) . Then the opponent would have to make a con save vs attackers strength mod + 8+ proficiency bonus . With the stipulations that they must already have proficiency in athletics. Just an idea.
Your article jogged my memory as a young teen playing Becmi D&D as to when we were introduced to the Blackjack weapon in the Companion Rules set. The ability to knock a target out with a single strike to the head or neck and knock them unconscious, stun them, or even knock them out of their initiative and delay them was game changing. I always thought later additions concept of declaring “subdual”, or “non-lethal” damage silly. A target can take all kinds of damage and be near death but my last strike if I declare Non lethal doesn’t kill them? It’s silly. I think though that the 5e rule is intended not only to take such silly damage record keeping off the table and at least give players some agency, especially to those of martial skills with poor diplomacy. If the players don’t want to kill a target, but things get off on the wrong foot, they can at least knock out the target, and allow them to talk things through. Thus it is here for player agency.
I do like non-lethal damage as an option available to players. That being said. I’m working on homebrew that allows multiple levels of proficiency with a weapon, to extend the damage available. Shorts words, can get bludgeoning, but at a dice level lower, quarterstaff gets piercing as they stabbed at their target with the butt or tip. As examples
It really comes down to semantics. In past editions, non-lethal damage was absolutely a thing. Then again, to declare “I’m doing non-lethal damage” is not necessarily calling upon a rule; it’s calling a generally common turn of phrase at this point. That said, I love when my players invoke this type of ability because it means they aren’t just killing anything that’s less than friendly to them. It shows a conscience, which to be fair and disappointingly honest, many dnd adventuring groups lack from time to time.
Great article! Really got me thinking cause I’ve been letting a player do “non lethal” with eldritch blast as a celestial warlock and I think I’m gonna revoke that ruling on him. Lightning Lure is a melee spell attack it just has range so I think it would still count as a melee attack, while ur example of a ranged spell cast within 5ft with disadvantage would not from my understanding.
Long story short is just like many of the other things in dnd my players wish to do that may be bending or outside of the rules is I want them just to explain how they think it could work. If you shoot an arrow at a target and aim for a non vital part of the body I’d allow that to “knockout” an enemy if they got them to 0 hp. A lot of stuff at my table is haggling “ok you want to slide over a table and not have it take your movement because you really want to hit that one goblin specifically ? Acrobatics sounds fair how about you beat a 10 ?” If the table agrees to the deal that’s the rule for that moment. Along with this inspiration in my games are now little tokens the players can “gamble/haggle” with me to do things. (The “price” depends on what they want to do and how many tokens I’ve given out) if you want to shove a creature as a bonus action ?… Hmm ok you have 5 tokens ? Give me 3 and I’ll allow it. Let’s the players really feel free to do whatever they want while also inspiring them to RP more and get into the game more and more
Personally I’ve been a big fan of players having death saving throws so should the enemy. Common enemies or just random nameless mobs generally fail death saving throws automatically but I will roll death saving throws for particular enemies. So if my players don’t double tap or make sure that a Troublesome enemy is dead for good that trouble might come back around later.
For me as a DM, I allow players to knock out enemies basically whenever they want to declare that they are knocking them out. Especially for enemies with a lot of hp, or who are running away, it makes it more difficult to only use melee attacks. And, to justify this, I would like to point out another rule, one you can actually see a little bit of in the article. And that is that all monsters and enemy creatures are subjected to Death Saving Throws. Most DMs do not use Death Saves for monsters and NPCs to save time. However, it is not a rule that they can’t use them, it is just a tool for saving time at the table, and I find it very important to remember that. Especially when the DM puts you in a situation with commoners under attack that you are trying to save. They are going to get hit. Nothing you can do can prevent that from happening in the combat, and so having them die at 0 is very disheartening. (This has happened to me multiple times when the DM puts commoners under threat of a monster, with us just arriving on the scene. Then the monsters roll good enough on initiative to instantly kill many of the commoners or there are simply enough monsters that we can’t get to them all in a single round of combat and we are left feeling like we failed the mission when the rules should give us time to actually save them) And with this rule, I am fine letting people knock out with spells and ranged attacks, because especially if they are the only target or it is the last round of combat, then they can easily be reached within two to five turns and given first aid to stabilize them.
Actually a solid discussion. I think what a lot of people are missing here is the reason for the rules being what they are; they want to make it easy for you to not kill someone if you don’t want to. I really don’t think it needs to go any further than that, and honestly I think I’d just say with any attack – why can’t you shoot them in the leg with an arrow or an eldritch blast, and the accumulated damage they’ve taken knocks them out? There’s no reason to get twisted with the ‘realism’ of what’s happening; combat (and specifically hp) is an abstraction. It’s not intended to directly represent the actual reality of a situation, just a system of mechanics meant to allow us to resolve these situations in a ‘fair’ manner. The game shouldn’t be exclusively about murder, and allowing PCs to murder less is cool.
My players were absolutely murdering their way across the world, until they were conflicted about killing an enemy who had intel during a fight. I suggested they could use the non-lethal damage option. It turns out they had only been killing everyone because they had just assumed it was the “only way” in the game once the fighting started. They had never asked about other options, and I had never suggested because it seemed they always just wanted to kill the “baddies”
If we think about hitpoints as an abstraction of skill, luck, stamina and physical toughness then it kinda makes sense as written. It’s only the final blow that drops hitpoints below zero that is actually a serious injury. Everything up to that point is just wearing down the target and minor “flesh wounds”. So from a narrative standpoint it’s all the same wether they are “lethal” or “nonlethal” attacks up until the final strike that drops them. At which point you decide if you run them through with your rapier or smack them with the pomel and knock them out. I’ve redone the weapons in 5e and expanded the weapon characteristics. Some weapons have a nonlethal characteristic. With those weapons a successful hit forces a Constitution save. Success means no effect. Failure leaves the target staggered. A staggered target who is then hit with a nonlethal attack must make another con save. Failure leaves them incapacitated. An incapacitated creature who is hit with a nonlethal strike makes another Con save. Failure leaves them stunned. And a stunned creature who takes a nonlethal hit makes a con save and gets knocked unconscious. This allows creatures to be knocked out even if their hitpoints aren’t worn down. And if someone is incapacitated or stunned by some other effect they can be knocked unconscious with a single successful strike from a nonlethal weapon and following failed con save.
Striking someone’s head with a lamp isn’t a magical off button. It knocks you out from brain trauma. You’re just as knocked out if you’re hit with a flail or a sword to the head. Ideally you don’t hit them in a way that chops their skull open. Spell attacks are a little more of a reach, not sure how my burning-hands sleeper hold works but it’s in there?
If you wanted to add some element of reality but not over complicate things terribly, you could add a DC based on the lethality of the attack. When a player declares a “non-lethal” attack on/after the final hit (or whenever) they have to beat that DC or the target still dies. This allows the players to make a choice but understand that the more lethal an attack the less likely you could pull off a non lethal version of that attack. This DC could be modified based on a number of things including roleplay.
I’d say lightning and cold and air can noc. People out but not fire but they explain how and why. I pull the air from around enemy causing him/her/it to lose consciousness. I hold back the lightning enough that they fall jerkily to the ground. The ice blast hits its chest and causes a shock to its system causing a few minutes of unconsciousness.
The way I interpret this is you always fight to win, in the way you were trained and your survival impulse compels you to; The moment your oponent lost it’s ability or will to keep on fighting you have the oportunity to take and enforce a choice (and mechanically that can be done in the space of time of an player action, because the combat is over anyway at least for this enemy in this side of the board). Anything before that final hit that drop the hp to 0 is mostly beyond your full control, as it is a contest between you and the enemy trying to beat you, so underusing your prowess isn’t a feasable behavior (the pc can try tho, the ramification is up for dm-party dialetics), unless the pc have an technique or spell that is specifically to faint an enemy without killing it (think jackie chan’s uncle in the cartoon for an example), in that case it is clear the pc has a focused battle wim that allow for such calculation in the midst of action to be performed consistently and with no risk to kill the target. Such rational actions are premeditated and declared beforehand. Actions taken when the enemy is incapacitated are not premeditated before the action, but reactions an chance (and I like this word for this context because it ‘enrolls’ the idea of dice as a metaphore for chance).
For melee you could say the player you hit them with a pommel strike rather than the blade. I would it allow for ranged, for arrows/bolts could say it bounced of the enemy’s helmet (if they have one) but did not penetrate but the force ko’d them anyway, or like mad max fury road the arrow through the hand then the tip of the arrow just in the head so not full penetration as they try to block, for a knockdown/ko. As for spells i would flavour it like a indirect hit, it hit the wall or the ground near them and the concussive force ko’d them, lightning damage is pretty easy to do it just acts like a taser.
okay… if my players want to knock the opponent out rather than kill, then at some point during or before combat before the opponent reaches 0, the player should say “I don’t want to kill them, can I just knock them out?” or something along those lines… basically telling the party at least out of character that they want the opponent alive for something
I basically just let my players not kill who they want with any attack or spell (ranged or melee), I am surprised this rule isnt made more aware to everyone or even re mentioned in newer books especially considering WOTC has been more conscious of topics that involve everyone agreements on certain topics and killing people could be one of those topics a player may not like.
What i do is that only normal weapon damage in melee can knock someone out. However i do allow to save npc and enemies after killing them if they are stabilized fast enough. What i do is give them death save but auto fail so that my players can save people by healing them after they are dropped instead of casting revivify for a few turns. I feel that this showcase the danger of combat and it makes my player more keen to try to talking down npcs instead of just beating them all down as the know the risk killing them if the are not fast in stabilizing them.
In a game where I am the DM, we had a situation where the wizard had brought two goblins to 1 hp each while two other PCs attacked with blades as reactions, they had declared it would be non lethal to interrogate them later. By some luck, the damage they did took the goblins below their max in the negative… I guess I was wrong here but but I told them they just outright would be dead with that much damage, but since they had declared previously and that had been the intention from the start, I gave them a chance to get a few answers out of them…
It seems more streamlined but I like the drain on action economy that requires you to knock them out and the next attack kills them better. To me killing them where they stand should be part of level progression. Assassins should get this advantage upon taking that subclass. If everyone has action surge who cares about the fighter.
I take hit points to mean stamina too, so if you’re wanting to do ‘non-lethal’ it could be wearing them down to a passout or using the flat edge of a sword to knock them out, or cutting them to bleed to unconsciousness. Spells are tricky but I feel like you could argue a magic user can control the potency of their spells, or aim for a certain area, for example using fire spells to give heat stroke so they are non-lethal, or shocking their nervous system into passing out.
Personally I would allow a player to try to take down an opponent with a ranged attack if they ask before rolling to hit. I would rule the attack does half damage, normal damage on a crit and if they only just hit the AC it can kill despite the intention. Otherwise If the damage reduces the creature to zero they are knocked out. That seems fair and not too unwieldy.
I make my players declare before the attack that they intend to knock the target out and then I have them explain to me how they plan to do that. If I think it could logistically work, I will allow it. If it doesn’t make sense, then I don’t. Case in point, the rogue wanted to shoot someone with an arrow and when I asked how it would work, he said he would stick an apple on the end of the arrow. I had him roll with disadvantage due to the extra weight on the arrow and he hit. He rolled high on damage and the guy was a bandit from the MM, so he knocked him out.
Nonlethal finishing moves should be melee attacks made at disadvantage if the enemy is aware, and should do half damage. The idea of doing the same amount of damage when going for a knockout attack with a blade or piercing weapon as if you were using the weapon as intended is absurd and immersion breaking.
I preferred in pathfinder that doing non lethal damage was a -4 to hit or required a feat, trait, or class feature to mitigate that. Not killing someone with a lethal weapon require a lot of skill and control and that isn’t reflected in the 5e rule system. People are accidentally killed in reality all the time by people simply trying to incapacitate them.
The 5e approach makes a much sense as anything else and eliminates the need to adjudicate the effect of mixed lethal and non-lethal damage. Non-lethal damage isn’t realistic anyway. The realistic way to capture an opponent alive is to grapple and restrain them but that isn’t all that feasible against an armed and determined opponent.
In my opinion the battle/damage options in 5e are rather broken either way. Coming from 5e, I was used to the option “called shot”, giving the options to target a particular part of the target (e.g. neck, eyes, behind the knees), resulting in particular, potentially immediately lethal, damage. On gets a minus on attack rolls, depending on the difficulty of the target. In 5e, you can sometimes hit what you want, and taking several rounds to kill a creature/target, however, more realistically, if you hit a vital artery, the heart, the brain, the creature/target would die, even when it theoretically still has a bunch of hitpoints left. I did find this unofficial version for 5e (5esrd.com/gamemastering/alternative-rules-other-publishers/called-shots/), but nothing from the official releases as far as I’m aware
we use non-lethal damage in our 5e games. Any melee attack the player can choose to knock them out rather than kill. We dont let ranged attacks do it and we don’t normally let magic do it. I currently have a player that has openly stated that they are only attempting to do non-lethal damage unless they specifically call out differently.
the way i always run this rule is you have to state before you attack that you dont want to kill the creature, and i allow them. If the creature critically hits the creature or deals a lot of damage (either way over the amount the creature had left or almost max damage for the character) i have them make a skill check (str/dex) to see if they can manage to not kill them. Just cause the idea that you could choose to make an attack non lethal after you, like you mentioned, divine smite the hell out of some poor bastard, makes no sense.
My players like to tie enemies up when they get low on hp. I run it as contested athletics to get them restrained then survival to tie them and to set the escape DC if the enemy tries to get away. Sometimes I skip all the grapple checks if it is at the end of combat though because it is obvious the pcs are going to win eventually and there isn’t much reason to just roll until they get the number they need.
It would be interesting to see how older editions or other systems handle this to come up with ideas. If anyone knows please share! That said: -I think the most “5e way” to do this is say non-lethal attacks have disadvantage to hit. -Another approach is to reduce damage dealt, but I think the first approach hits closer to home. Its just harder to hit someone if your worried about killing them. I’d consider combining both but I’m worried it might be too much. -Spells cant do non-lethal. Casters have other ways to do this like the sleep spell. (though i might let an evoker wizard get way with Sculpt Spells or a sorcerer using careful meta-magic). -Disadvantage also encourages the use of the help action and teamwork. Generally it should be a tough thing to do 1on1. As a team it shouldn’t be too hard but it will force players to decide who to kill and who to spare in a big fight. It will put them in the interesting position of putting themselves at risk and they might find out halfway through the process that if they don’t fight back full heartedly they might just die. I do believe this will help roleplay too. These fights will create tension and moral decisions wont always be so easy.
I allow it to exist with melee weapons. They have control over where the impact is and how much damage they really wanna do. Typically only if they’ve captured an enemy by actively trying not to kill. A monk using stunning strike and then a fighter slapping manacles on the enemy is one of those things that says “okay, now you can control damage” I also treat this kind of damage as a standard unarmed strike in that it’s 1 + weapon modifier.
The rule I’ve used is, unarmed is non lethal unless monk or fighting style, otherwise non lethal has to be announced before u roll and it’s at disadvantage when using a weapon not modified for non lethal, is it right, I’m the DM ur allowed to disagree, I do allow ranged because u can always kneecap someone