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[wierd]

That's really ambiguous though.

Say I (impotently) punch somebody in the face in the attempt to knock them out (nonlethal damage) and do 1hp of nonlethal.
Then, Dark Paladin SkullCrusher McSledgehammer comes in, and crushes their skull with his mighty hammer of darkness, and does 65hp of damage. (REAL damage)

They have 60hp of total health.  Are they dead, or unconscious?

[delphonso]

In 3.5 D&D nonlethal damage knocks you out when it goes above your current hp,

Oh boy, did I misunderstand that rule.

I think I owe some players and possibly a GM an apology.

[Rolan7]

That's really ambiguous though.

Say I (impotently) punch somebody in the face in the attempt to knock them out (nonlethal damage) and do 1hp of nonlethal.
Then, Dark Paladin SkullCrusher McSledgehammer comes in, and crushes their skull with his mighty hammer of darkness, and does 65hp of damage. (REAL damage)

They have 60hp of total health.  Are they dead, or unconscious?

They're dying, because they have -5hp and 1 nonlethal.
If you hit them for 55hp of damage and 10 nonlethal damage, they'd have 5 hp and 10 nonlethal damage, and be unconscious.

When your nonlethal is exactly your remaining hit points, it's a little tricky.  You're "staggered", meaning you only get a move action or standard action instead of both.
Being at 0HP specifically is mostly the same, but you're "disabled", so a standard action makes you start dying unless it healed you.

[Criptfeind]

That's really ambiguous though.

Say I (impotently) punch somebody in the face in the attempt to knock them out (nonlethal damage) and do 1hp of nonlethal.
Then, Dark Paladin SkullCrusher McSledgehammer comes in, and crushes their skull with his mighty hammer of darkness, and does 65hp of damage. (REAL damage)

They have 60hp of total health.  Are they dead, or unconscious?

It's not ambiguous at all. In this case they are unconscious and dying.

Damage reduces current hp, when current hp is 0 you are disabled, when it's -1 to -9 you are dying, and when you are at -10 you are dead.

Nonlethal damage is compared to your current hp, when nonlethal damage is equal to your current hp you are staggered, when it's more then your current hp you are unconscious.

None of these rules are contradictory or mutually exclusive. In your example after the first punch they have 1 nonlethal damage and 60 current hp, so they remain in the default state. After the hit with the hammer their current hp is set to -5 so they are dying and their nonlethal damage (1) is higher then -5 so they are unconscious, although part of dying is falling unconscious so it's irrelevant.

This is all the rules which are important for any edge cases or perhaps understanding the system, but in play it's very simple. Nonlethal damage knocks people out, lethal damage kills them. They both go into the same hp track.

[Jimmy]

What's really amusing is that my current group has a Neutral Good Warpriest of the deity of healing and mercy who's specialized into dealing nonlethal damage in combat, and a Neutral Evil Rogue of the deity of murder that goes around performing coup-de-grace attacks on all the people the Warpriest knocked out.

It's so great to see them bicker over the corpses.

[wierd]

"but I did 59 nonlethal! You just came in and did 1hp lethal, and you claim it killed them!? That's like chloroforming somebody, then stabbing them with a push pin, an saying that the pushpin was enough to kill them!"

(I have no problem seeing this argument actually, and yes, it is hilarious.)

[Rolan7]

Okay, but just to ruin the joke, that 1 lethal damage wouldn't kill   Just push them into stable unconsciousness.
To kill someone, their HP needs to be depleted by lethal damage.  Nonlethal damage doesn't change HP, it sits alongside.

Though if this 5e then yeah, that conversation could basically happen!  The warpriest would deal 59 damage (no such thing as nonlethal) then the rogue deals 1 damage and decides that the target dies.  Heh.

I did get in a pretty serious argument in my first 3.5 campaign, trying to take enemies alive...  Bleh.

[SOLDIER First]

The major point to know about nonlethal damage is that, as far as I can tell, you retain HP when taking nonlethal damage, even to the point of unconsciousness; if you knocked out that guy with 60 HP using nonlethal damage, then healed 1 point of that damage, he still has all 60 HP left. Nonlethal damage is converted to lethal damage when your target's nonlethal damage is equal to their HP total, though. Lovetapping Joe 60 HP at this point would make him Joe 55/60 HP, and so on.

Your example does have a bit of sense to it, but only after Joe stabilizes himself at -5. If you were to give him a point of nonlethal damage at that point, he would instantly pass out again for an hour (after which the nonlethal damage heals itself at its usual rate of 1 point per hour) before he returns to being disabled again. It is silly, but this way it's not too hard to, say, keep a prisoner around at negative HP, unable to effectively defend themselves without risking damage and possible death, while you can easily render them unconscious whenever you want.

[Egan_BW]

If the target has 60 HP and you hit him for 59 nonlethal, he still has 60 HP and is uninjured, still able to fight, but is battered and exhausted. If you then deal 2 lethal damage to him, his HP falls to 58, which is lower than the amount of nonlethal damage but still more than 0, so he falls unconscious but isn't dying. Essentially the small amount of stabbing weakened him enough to succumb to his existing exhaustion.

Which makes more logical sense to me than the way that 5e handles it, but 5e is quicker to wrap your head around. 5e is just like, if you drop them to 0HP you can choose to not be killing them. It also does away with being at negative hitpoints, 0 is the lowest you can be. Rather than lose 1 HP each turn until you drop to -10 and die, or get healed by someone else, you roll to not die each turn. If you're lucky you can even stabilize all on your own.


Well that was half restating what other people said and half irrelevant to the conversation, but hey I'm not being paid to make constructive comments. :V

[delphonso]

I reckon WotC got rid of that non-lethal thing because chumps like me misunderstood it - and found it erroneous, so didn't use it.

I'm fond of you choosing whether or not you kill someone with your final blow - but it doesn't reflect reality well. I'd rather there be some sort of a roll to see if you can strike with enough precision to not kill with your final hit.
(or at least, not put them in a critical position)

[Persus13]

Did nonlethal damage in 3.5 have to be melee or could they be ranged?

[Rolan7]

You couldn't take a -4 to use a lethal ranged weapon nonlethally, that only worked with melee weapons.  Uh, apparently.  I did nonlethal arrow damage once by "firing the arrows backwards" I think, we didn't notice it wasn't RAW.

There is at least one naturally nonlethal ranged weapon in the SRD though, bolas.
(And apparently you *can* use such ranged weapons nonlethally, with a -4)

[Cruxador]

"firing the arrows backwards"

Jesus, the handwaving at your table is something. This wouldn't pass muster even in manga.

[Culise]

Did nonlethal damage in 3.5 have to be melee or could they be ranged?

If the weapon ordinarily dealt lethal damage, it had to be a melee weapon to substitute nonlethal damage in general per RAW.  Specific rules overrule that if a weapon had the option or explicitly only could deal nonlethal damage: I found the boomerang in Sandstorm and blunt arrows in Races of the Wild on a cursory run-through, though I don't think there are too many options out there.  There's also a feat for spells called "Nonlethal Substitution" (Book of Exalted Deeds and Complete Arcane) that let you replace any energy type to deal nonlethal damage instead. 

EDIT: Ah, I only went through the SRD with a Google search, so I did miss the bolas mentioned by Rolan. I likely missed it because I was skimming, saw the table, and failed my Spot check.

EDIT 2: Good heavens, I also forgot the entire Whelm series of spells in the PHB2: Whelm, Whelming Blast, and Mass Whelm.  There's also Overwhelm, which flat-out deals nonlethal damage equal to the target's current HP, but it's a touch spell instead of being ranged.

[Gentlefish]

Yeah I was just about to add that with craft (fletcher) I was allowed to make nonlethal (blunt) and slashing-type arrows alongside piercing damage.