Is it possible for vampires to not kill commoners when feeding? 1d6+3 piercing + 3d6 necrotic, Like a willing commoner would always die unless a vampire can somehow reduce their bite?
Being reduced to 0 hit points doesn’t automatically kill anyone. Even by normal combat rules, the vampire can choose to leave their victim unconscious and stable, since their bite attack is melee.
But, the Necrotic damage reducing their maximum would almost be, you can't choose not to do the necrotic part. They would have to roll a 1 on 3 dice to have a chance at that.
But its the necrotic damage that determines death at 0 maximum HP, so even if its all considered one attack, so long as it deals 4-8 damage, its pretty much ensuring death except in rare cases.
Background: I'm trying to stick as close to RAW as possible in developing a setting with a Vampire Empire. This Empire wouldn't want to drink its entire population dry, so killing nightly isn't practical. Even if only a handful of rulers are vampires, this would quickly become problematic. Sure I could handwave it, but knowing my players... it will come up.
The DM saying “this only deals 1 point of necrotic damage because it’s dumb to automatically kill commoners 215 out 216 times” is 100% entirely RAW. That is a thing the DM gets to do.
The vampire in the Monster Manual is a specific vampire designed to fight player characters. There’s absolutely no rule requiring that every vampire have the same damage output, or even that the MM vampire have the same damage output in every circumstance.
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Is it possible for vampires to not kill commoners when feeding? 1d6+3 piercing + 3d6 necrotic, Like a willing commoner would always die unless a vampire can somehow reduce their bite?
Being reduced to 0 hit points doesn’t automatically kill anyone. Even by normal combat rules, the vampire can choose to leave their victim unconscious and stable, since their bite attack is melee.
But, the Necrotic damage reducing their maximum would almost be, you can't choose not to do the necrotic part. They would have to roll a 1 on 3 dice to have a chance at that.
Right, and your question was “is it possible.” It is possible to roll a 1 on three dice.
In any event, the DM is always free to just choose to deal less damage.
The bite damage with the necrotic damage should for the sake of simplicity or GM fiat be considered one attack.
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But its the necrotic damage that determines death at 0 maximum HP, so even if its all considered one attack, so long as it deals 4-8 damage, its pretty much ensuring death except in rare cases.
Background: I'm trying to stick as close to RAW as possible in developing a setting with a Vampire Empire. This Empire wouldn't want to drink its entire population dry, so killing nightly isn't practical. Even if only a handful of rulers are vampires, this would quickly become problematic. Sure I could handwave it, but knowing my players... it will come up.
The DM saying “this only deals 1 point of necrotic damage because it’s dumb to automatically kill commoners 215 out 216 times” is 100% entirely RAW. That is a thing the DM gets to do.
The vampire in the Monster Manual is a specific vampire designed to fight player characters. There’s absolutely no rule requiring that every vampire have the same damage output, or even that the MM vampire have the same damage output in every circumstance.