I'm doing a session where, unbeknownst to the party, enemies are planning on only knocking them unconscious. Depending on their actions, the party might fight a reasonable amount of these, and be able to win, or fight an unreasonable number and not win.
My question is how I manage the unconscious status without allowing meta gaming. If I say "you're unconscious but don't need to roll death saves" it feels like they will know there are less consequences. The other option I can think of is to instead pretend like they are dying. So if reduced to 0hp and then they death save 3 times, fine, they are unconscious. But what about if they fail all their death saves? Do I then just say afterwards "it's ok, the attacks were designed to only make you unconscious"?
Would welcome any ideas or advice on things I've missed here! Thanks
There are a few options depending on your particular situation, but I would recommend using a simple distraction. When it comes time to roll Death Saving Throws, give some encounter appropriate descriptive flair and ask the player to roll a percentile instead of a d20. Write down whatever they say, but don't tell them what it means (if you bother to give it any meaning at all). Narrate the outcome accordingly.
A character at 0 hp but stable does not roll death saves. You can tell them at the time they're rolling that they don't have to, or you can let them roll death saves and ignore them until the result would be inconsistent with being unconscious.
I'd just tell the player that the enemy knocked their character unconscious. That doesn't mean there are less consequences, it just means that "immediately dying during the fight" isn't a consequence - probably. But nothing good ever comes from the entire party getting knocked out, and I'd assume your players will realize that.
I usually say when an enemy is choosing to do non-lethal damage. The character would notice when the bad guy starts to pull their punches. But actually, it can make the fight much more tense. Players hate to have their characters captured. If they realize that’s what the enemies are trying to do, the players will freak out. Be prepared for that.
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Hi all,
I'm doing a session where, unbeknownst to the party, enemies are planning on only knocking them unconscious. Depending on their actions, the party might fight a reasonable amount of these, and be able to win, or fight an unreasonable number and not win.
My question is how I manage the unconscious status without allowing meta gaming. If I say "you're unconscious but don't need to roll death saves" it feels like they will know there are less consequences. The other option I can think of is to instead pretend like they are dying. So if reduced to 0hp and then they death save 3 times, fine, they are unconscious. But what about if they fail all their death saves? Do I then just say afterwards "it's ok, the attacks were designed to only make you unconscious"?
Would welcome any ideas or advice on things I've missed here! Thanks
There are a few options depending on your particular situation, but I would recommend using a simple distraction. When it comes time to roll Death Saving Throws, give some encounter appropriate descriptive flair and ask the player to roll a percentile instead of a d20. Write down whatever they say, but don't tell them what it means (if you bother to give it any meaning at all). Narrate the outcome accordingly.
A character at 0 hp but stable does not roll death saves. You can tell them at the time they're rolling that they don't have to, or you can let them roll death saves and ignore them until the result would be inconsistent with being unconscious.
I'd just tell the player that the enemy knocked their character unconscious. That doesn't mean there are less consequences, it just means that "immediately dying during the fight" isn't a consequence - probably. But nothing good ever comes from the entire party getting knocked out, and I'd assume your players will realize that.
I usually say when an enemy is choosing to do non-lethal damage. The character would notice when the bad guy starts to pull their punches.
But actually, it can make the fight much more tense. Players hate to have their characters captured. If they realize that’s what the enemies are trying to do, the players will freak out. Be prepared for that.