I had a couple questions that came up during my last play session.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
1- Would casting Gentle Repose extend the time requirement for Revivfy? Revivfy must be cast within 1 minute of a character dying. Gentle Repose keeps a corpse from decomposing/aging...
2- If you are doing subdual damage to not kill an opponent can you use Sneak Attack when doing this? can you use Assassinate when trying?
1- Would casting Gentle Repose extend the time requirement for Revivfy? Revivfy must be cast within 1 minute of a character dying. Gentle Repose keeps a corpse from decomposing/aging...
Yes.
The spell also effectively extends the time limit on raising the target from the dead, since days spent under the influence of this spell don't count against the time limit of spells such as raise dead.
2- If you are doing subdual damage to not kill an opponent can you use Sneak Attack when doing this? can you use Assassinate when trying?
You can knock a creature unconscious with any melee attack. There's nothing in the Sneak Attack or Assassinate rules that say otherwise. Think of it as catching the creature off guard and getting a clean blow in precisely where you wanted it to land.
No, this is only to ensure you have a viable corpse to revive, all other restrictions on the spell still apply Edit: Reread the spell before commenting, maybe?
Yes you can, you only have to declare you're doing non-lethal damage if you actually find out you're reducing a creature to 0 hit points
When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
You don't have to declare before dealing damage, so you can do sneak attack damage, reduce to zero and then knock out instead of kill. You must still meet all the other criteria for non-lethal damage
1. Gentle Repose pretty explicitly mentions that it extends the time limit to raise a creature from the dead. That's the exact use of Revivify, so I'd say it works as intended.
2. There is no subdual damage in 5th edition. Instead, there's the rule for knocking a creature out, which says the following: "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt." The only requirement is a melee attack. Using a sneak attack or anything similar doesn't seem to conflict with anything on the rule.
That said, if the rogue in question describes a dagger stab on the throat, and then goes "oh, right, I also keep him unconscious", I'd look at them funny. :p All things considered, though, especially if they mention the intention before the attack, I can easily see a sneak attack being a knockout blow.
Edit: grumble. 25 minutes with no answers, fine. 4 minutes to type an answer, boom, ninja'd by two people! shakes fist
Another thing people tend to forget, not all the damage has to be subdual.
If the monster has 40 hitpoints, gets hit with 10 subdual, then if someone else hits for anywhere between 30 and 39 hitpoints of normal damage, it is subdued. It takes normal damage in excess of total hitpoints to kill.
Technically speaking no damage is lethal unless you do enough to drop them to the negative of their max HP in one hit. All creatures can make death saving throws - it's just most DM's don't bother because it takes a lot of time.
So as long as you just drop them to 0 HP you can do medicine checks or use a healing kit or Spare the Dying on them to stabilise them.
Another thing people tend to forget, not all the damage has to be subdual.
If the monster has 40 hitpoints, gets hit with 10 subdual, then if someone else hits for anywhere between 30 and 39 hitpoints of normal damage, it is subdued. It takes normal damage in excess of total hitpoints to kill.
This was the rule in previous editions, and is no longer the case. Subdual damage doesn't exist in DnD 5e.
The only damage that matters here is the damage that brings the creature to 0 HP. It has to be melee, and the player who's in control of that character must declare that damage to be non-lethal.
As a DM I let my players use the RAW but I strongly urge them to try to call it beforehand anyway, to avoid the 'I swing my badass axe overhead screaming at the top of my lungs and try to split his head in two... non-lethally'.
The golden rule here is to try to not be an ass with that. DnD rules are notoriously not covering this area very well and in the end, PCs should have some kind of agency over who they want to subdue and who they want to kill.
Hello
I had a couple questions that came up during my last play session.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
1- Would casting Gentle Repose extend the time requirement for Revivfy? Revivfy must be cast within 1 minute of a character dying. Gentle Repose keeps a corpse from decomposing/aging...
2- If you are doing subdual damage to not kill an opponent can you use Sneak Attack when doing this? can you use Assassinate when trying?
Thanks all for the help
~Mad
Yes.
You can knock a creature unconscious with any melee attack. There's nothing in the Sneak Attack or Assassinate rules that say otherwise. Think of it as catching the creature off guard and getting a clean blow in precisely where you wanted it to land.
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No, this is only to ensure you have a viable corpse to revive, all other restrictions on the spell still apply
Edit: Reread the spell before commenting, maybe?You don't have to declare before dealing damage, so you can do sneak attack damage, reduce to zero and then knock out instead of kill. You must still meet all the other criteria for non-lethal damage
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
1. Gentle Repose pretty explicitly mentions that it extends the time limit to raise a creature from the dead. That's the exact use of Revivify, so I'd say it works as intended.
2. There is no subdual damage in 5th edition. Instead, there's the rule for knocking a creature out, which says the following: "When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt." The only requirement is a melee attack. Using a sneak attack or anything similar doesn't seem to conflict with anything on the rule.
That said, if the rogue in question describes a dagger stab on the throat, and then goes "oh, right, I also keep him unconscious", I'd look at them funny. :p
All things considered, though, especially if they mention the intention before the attack, I can easily see a sneak attack being a knockout blow.
Edit: grumble. 25 minutes with no answers, fine. 4 minutes to type an answer, boom, ninja'd by two people! shakes fist
two responses say Gentle Repose works with Revivfy, one against that.
Still confused. lol.
Subdual damage I think i fully understand now.
Thanks guys!
~Mad
You can ignore my initial question, I was entirely incorrect and misremembering the spell
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Another thing people tend to forget, not all the damage has to be subdual.
If the monster has 40 hitpoints, gets hit with 10 subdual, then if someone else hits for anywhere between 30 and 39 hitpoints of normal damage, it is subdued. It takes normal damage in excess of total hitpoints to kill.
Technically speaking no damage is lethal unless you do enough to drop them to the negative of their max HP in one hit. All creatures can make death saving throws - it's just most DM's don't bother because it takes a lot of time.
So as long as you just drop them to 0 HP you can do medicine checks or use a healing kit or Spare the Dying on them to stabilise them.
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This was the rule in previous editions, and is no longer the case. Subdual damage doesn't exist in DnD 5e.
The only damage that matters here is the damage that brings the creature to 0 HP. It has to be melee, and the player who's in control of that character must declare that damage to be non-lethal.
As a DM I let my players use the RAW but I strongly urge them to try to call it beforehand anyway, to avoid the 'I swing my badass axe overhead screaming at the top of my lungs and try to split his head in two... non-lethally'.
The golden rule here is to try to not be an ass with that. DnD rules are notoriously not covering this area very well and in the end, PCs should have some kind of agency over who they want to subdue and who they want to kill.