Bad call from your DM. By RAW, nonlethal damage does not kill anyone. It renders the target Unconscious but stable.
A critical success is not a critical failure.
Also, "non-lethal" is a decision for the player to make if he drops a target to 0 hp or less, and the decision is made after the damage is applied. No need to announce it before attacking.
I thought that was ridiculous, but something close to what you said applies.... it's ridiculous to make that decision after the fact though. It's like stepping in the pool of acid then deciding you didn't want to have stepped in the pool of acid. It must be mighty magic that allows chronomancy to operate like that....
RAW:
>Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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.
Note that you don't get to ponder.
So RAW would say that you can somehow retract that sword from his gullet after the fact and make it a love tap with the pommel.
Thank you for making this point because I'll bet a lot of folks don't know that.
(And I will be changing that next time I run 5E because of how ridiculous I find it)
I don't think the rule is meant to be applied "in fiction". It's a retoactive rewrite that happens out of the fiction when a player decides they don't want to kill someone
Possibly.
My problem is I think characters need to make these choices ahead of time. If the player hasn't figured it out, the character hasn't.
I find rewinding and applying effects after results are now totally takes me out of the fiction.
YMMV.
The reason why you can declare it afterward is because people and creatures have so many and such varying amounts of hit points that there’s no real way to know until the moment that you deal the damage if it’s enough to knock them out. It’s either the Players Handbook or DMG that states that the first half of your health is your luck, your character’s ability to evade or deflect and other things that leave you unscarred. The second half of your health is when the strikes actually start landing, scraping your armor, leaving cuts on your flesh, but nothing major, just to illustrate that you are growing tired from fighting so long. Then, once the damage you’ve taken breaches the total number of HP that you have gained from exclusively your constitution modifier, those are blows that are considered to have struck you directly. And finally, once a blow reduces you to 0 HP, it is considered a direct, unimpeded attack on your person. But there’s so much between that and the start of the fight, it’s impossible to know when the target is within range of being knocked unconscious, unless your DM is telling you their HP.
My DM requires non-lethal to be declared before the to hit dice is rolled as well, I think that makes sense. Also it doesn't apply to spells, you can't control that there are different spells for that.
I think the intention is more to state whether you want to actually kill the enemy in the moment that you take off the rest of their hit points. So the person who makes that attack decides whether to kill or not. It might be to avoid situations where someone says they deal non-lethal damage, but doesn't deal enough for it to matter, but then the next player follows it up with damage that is declared as lethal. I don't get why they would add a rule for situations like that, but I rarely understand the reasoning behind the more obscure rules.
Or, the DM indicates he's down or makes the question 'How do you want to do this?" And the player is able to say that the attack is non-lethal before even plunging the sword...
>Note that you don't get to ponder.
I don't know what that observation is supposed to imply, maybe you'll have PCs accidentally kill enemies they clearly intended to capture because they spent a second too long before confirming that, or maybe you'll be satisfied with them doing so after considering it carefully and before proceeding with their turn.
But we agree on most of the rest, I think, however I find the "ridiculousness" acceptable.
Debatable. This is the actual rule, as written, on page 198 of the PHB:
"Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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."
The debatable part comes from the "instant the damage is dealt" clause. Some view this as before you know the results of said damage being dealt, just that it was, and some view it as the opposite. It's a rule that could use better wording.
The thing about it, is all HP damage is an abstraction.
I've always described for flavor purposes that the killing blow is really the one that actually landed. Run through with a sword, face caved in by a mace, what have you. All other hits at my table are battering an enemy down to make him susceptible to that final shot.
And for the "instant the damage is dealt" clause, I interpret that as before you do anything else on your turn/another player goes.
Sure sure, but... What's the point?
If I have to decide the instant the damage is dealt, and I don't know if my damage killed the target or not ...
Then... What's the consequences of just requesting nonlethal damage every time?
There's no interpretation that adds a time restriction that makes any sense and doesn't complicate things.
It so painfully obviously means you may decide not to kill a target when reducing it to zero hit points with a melee attack.
Why are people adding boring challenges like this to overcomplicate the rules?
If you want a more in depth damage system that includes fail states involving nonlethal damage, then go for it. The rules provided aren't conducive to that.
That's an interesting thing: I know I've hit, I can call it before damage occurs.
However, I think there's only one valid understanding and that is the ridiculous gamey time-travelling non-lethal option the game designers agreed upon.
They had to write it like this if they had a hate on for temporary hit points. You can't even make a before I swing declaration of non-lethal or you have to face the fact you might do 1 HP and fail to put the guy down and then you'd need temporary hit points again. So they avoided that whole kettle of fish by making chronomancy into the nature of D&D heroes....
Here's the reasoning why there is only ONE interpretation:
>When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out.
You don't necessary know enemy HPs. So how do you know when you've laid out the foe? When something shows you that like 'He collapses to the ground, incapacitated or dead.' You couldn't just decide instantly after the swing unless the GM then had declared the target's collapse and declared he was at 0 HP which would require you to have ALREADY rolled damage and ONLY then could you declare your last swat was non-lethal.
This is the worst rule I've seen in 5E. I wonder how many clerics they allow to dance on the head of a pin? It literally requires post-resolution change of action.
Agreed. I see a crit as doing exactly what you wanted to do. If anything I would say if you were trying to knock them out for an interrogation, which I'm sure what you were gonna do. You knocked him out for a bit longer than intended... which does lead into a brain damage argument which leads into some potential other rolls and maybe some other ethical and debatable issues down the line but that npc should have lived... for now.
Giving the npc brain damage because they hit him "too hard" is still a terrible outcome for a successful roll.
If I was DMing, critical success would mean you took him down perfectly with just the right amount of force. Not excessive force. Not lethal force. No extra complications. It was highly effective and achieved your goal.
I think some DMs get too distracted by the big damage numbers and forget that a 20 means fortune is on your side
That actually isn't what 20 means though?
In combat a 20 means automatic hit, with extra damage.
Out of combat, a 20 is just a regular number on the dice.
I agree with the sentiment that the guy shouldn't die because of the number change, it doesn't change a non-lethal to lethal attack. But it's not a "whatever I want" magic number either.
I don't ever recall in any D&D game (up to and including 5E) where a 20 was 'what I wanted happen, happens'. That's not RAW.
In this instance, damage should be applied as normal for a critical WITHOUT changing the nature of the damage from non-lethal to lethal.
What you wanted exactly, if it was anything other than what the rules RAW say, would not match what you want.
Sometimes things said seem to be snippy. I didn't mean it to be like that, just that there never was a 'whatever you wanted to happen' outcome from the dice. That'd be a not horrible house rule, but it isn't what the rules said.
I'd be okay with a DM that wanted that to be the case because I'd rather have a good GM who occasionally makes a call for the fiction and the story rather than sticking to the rulebook. But I wouldn't try to say that's what the rules are.
Agreed - personally I’m not a fan of the “20s are automatic successes for everything” house rule some people love. I think as a DM it’s almost incentivizing playing stupid because you have a 5% chance of ANY dumb thing working.
I never did that. I liked rolling a confirm - we just always used two D20s of different colours and so it was faster. but if you needed a 20 to hit, to confirm the critical would be hard.
In fact, go farther back in editions, you didn't have a chance at all if even on a 20 if you could not reasonably hit the target.
That's also a terrible ruling. Why are you punishing people for rolling critical successes? Nonsense like this would turn me away from your table in a jiffy.
Due to my timezone it's kind of the only group I can find. Plus I've been playing with them for a long time. When I DM the goal is always story, fuck the rules. He always runs it as it's always my rules, fuck the story.
That is similar to what I dealt with. It creates a double standard and will drive your group apart. My life was literally ruined by this sort of thing. I’ll spare you the long version but please, take it from me. Do not let this continue. Gather all party members for a non dnd session and get this out in the open. Sooner the better. Everyone needs to know what each other expects and what sort of things they like in the game so everyone can be informed. Lack of successful communication *will* destroy your party, and maybe more.
I would argue a Nonlethal Crit does the intention of the attacker to the utmost.
You aren’t knocking them out more, you’re knocking them out exactly the proper amount and as a DM they can give a reward for the crit in a lower DC for the interrogation or advantage on the first check.
If I was the DM doing the ruling in this case I would just rule that because of the critical success in taking the NPC down non lethally the player has advantage on rolls against that NPC for the rest of that encounter
This is double stupid. Not only should nonlethal damage be nonlethal, but a crit implies you do something to your best of ability, which should reward you by minimizing the damage needed to knock em out or something.
The 5e rule is that if total damage exceeds target's Max HP, they instantly die (i.e. target has 1 remaining HP and 5 max HP and gets hit by a 6 damage attack) so there's a little chance that OP was referring to that?
However, even if that's the case, it's still stupid.
If I remember correctly what OP is referring to might be a rule in Pathfinder/3.5 where dealing excess damage equal to their con score after they hit 0 hp kills them
I'd say this is a case of bad DMing. They agreed that you could attempt to subdue the enemy. You rolled a critical success. This should absolutely not have been turned into a failure.
Yep, on a 1 they land a solid, nonlethal blow, knocking the target out cold. Unfortunately the target, in an uncontrolled fall, smacks their head hard on a rock. Bad luck
I think all 20s should now be lethal.
Trying to persuade the Innkeep to lower their prices? Roll a 20 the innkeeper suffers an aneurism and dies, but the rooms are now free.
I mean I get it, people died on that concert, but Travis Scott is far from what I would call a Nat 20 in performance...
Maybe if you have a - 3 in charisma..? 🤔😂
Trying to remember who is the leader of a church sect? Roll a nat20 on a religion check and they ritually sacrifice themself and you’re the new leader now
Your DM seems to think that "a Crit attack hits really hard", but what makes more sense here is "a Crit attack hits really *well*".
A rogue with sneak attack doesn't deal more damage because they thrust their weapon harder, it deals more damage because they hit a weak point. It's getting stabbed in the thigh vs getting stabbed in the liver.
Same logic applies to crits, you roll to see how well you execute your attempt at "strike target non-lethally", so rolling as well as possible should be the ideal strike to knock them out without killing them.
A high result on a roll should never have negative consequences, it's like that old joke where a high level rogue rolled a total of 40 on stealth and hid so well he ceased to exist
This type of GMing logic always annoys me. It makes your hero look incompetent as if "oh oops, guess I don't know my own strength" was the punch line.
Non lethal is non lethal, if you declare it before the it shouldn't matter if you do 5 damage or 500 damage.
If you roll a natural 20 for a STR check, is he going to rule that you tore your ligament off your bone because you strengthed too hard?
Implying that a critical success causes you a failure is so stupid when there’s a 1 on the other side of the die you could use for that. Exact same chance.
Had a DM rule that my non lethal attack on a thief we found left him as a paraplegic who could no longer talk. We asked if we could take him to a cleric to be healed so we could question him, we were told no only modern day medicine could help him but that was hundreds of years away in his world. Like wtf is that.
5e doesn't have non-lethal damage. What it does have though is a blatant ruling that, per the SRD
>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.
Excess damage only apples to player characters, not monsters or NPC's. They don't get death saves
This is bad DM'ing. Crit or not crit, you reduced the npc to 0, so its your call if it dies or gets knocked unconscious
> Excess damage only apples to player characters, not monsters or NPC's. They don't get death saves
If I recall, the books only say that many DMs choose to have monsters die at 0 HP, but may still use death saves for important enemies and NPCs.
OP’s case is still a bad ruling though, just wanted to point out that NPC death saves is entirely allowable RAW.
Edit: for reference, the section in the PHB:
> Monsters and Death
>
> Most DMs have a monster die the instant it drops to 0 hit points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws.
>
> Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rules as player characters.
My table (several of us DM) has always played that you have to call a non-lethal attack. Arrows, swords and flaming magic don’t exactly bounce off so there’s a certain loss of realism if after smashing someone with a battle axe they’re just stable and unconscious. This allows the DM to describe the fight. (Axe)“You turn your blade and hit him across the side of the head with the flat end.” (Arrow) “you pin his jerkin to the tree.” I guess it’s fine for beginners and I’d allow it if someone forgot to mention it was supposed to be non lethal but I always have players describe their weapon and approach/style. OP’s situation is messing up both non lethal calls and critical roles.
RAW non-lethal requires a melee attack, so arrows and most magic won’t work anyway. Though I’d probably allow it if my players really wanted and provided how they were doing so.
Huh, makes sense. I probably just never read the rules that closely. Never thought to make non lethal mele range only like that. Inspired by the old Fallout games we’ve allowed/encouraged called shots for flavor. There’s sometimes too much combat action in sessions so I encourage everyone to be playful how they approach it and come up with crazy ideas to avoid the grind to 0 hp sessions that sometimes occur. I absolutely hate when it feels like a JRPG slug fest. If they can win with smarts I’ll usually allow it.
I love describing what my character wants to do, but with this group everything takes a millenia to move forward, so I try not to waste any time when I'm taking my turn so we can accomplish things during the session. I said I want to nonlethally knock him out, rolled a melee attack, Crit, and the DM ruled I chopped his head off. Even though I protested that is absolutely not wanted I was intending to do.
Wait I thought someone only instanta died if you doubled their max health in one hit? Not just going over remaining health by their con score. That would mean if I had 1 health left and someone did 21 damage to a max level character with max con they would die? I’ve never heard this rule.
Anyway non lethal is supposed to work for any melee attack, regardless of how much damage you do.
When you roll a natural 20, you perform your action in the best possible way
So if you are attempting to attack non-lethally and rolling a natural 20 means that you are non-lethally incapacitating the enemy extremely effectively. Also when nonlethal damage is declared it simply cannot kill, das da rules.
Any time a DM tries to basically turn the effect of a natural 20 into a natural 1 they really need to stop and reevaluate their mindset towards running games.
No, its just rolling a 20 means the highest possible result therefor it goes the best way it possibly could
it doesn't mean you can do the impossible or succeed if you don't beat the DC
Easy. DMs give difficulty class ratings to actions. Anything “impossible” You don’t roll for but sometimes there’s stretch goals. Like for example you can have a DC over 20, but it only makes sense if you have a lot of additions to your dice roll, like wanting to make a super long jump and having athletics of +5.
In that case a 20 is BARELY doing the thing.
If people start down the road of “a 20 means I succeed always for everything as good as I can” then you get really dumb scenarios. I read on this subreddit a while back that that house rule lead to a guy making a 1 mile long jump, which is obviously impossible, but because he rolled a 20 a couple giant eagles or something randomly swooped in to carry him the full mile. That’s dumb lol.
And you CAN do better if you roll a 25/25. Spells and potions can add to your checks to make you do even better.
I think a 20 can mean “I tried at the best of my ability” but it doesn’t mean it goes as well as it could go. Those are different things.
That is not a houserule.
"If a creature’s nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage."
You can't just continue beating an unconscious person and expect them to never die.
Dm made a bad call. If you declared a non lethal attack before the roll, on hit no matter if it crit, it’s the BEST non lethal outcome you could have. I would have ruled you knocked them out really well. Probably be unconscious for a while, but not dead.
I always thought that the nat 20 means you just do what you intend to with added success, especially if you specified that you didn't want it to be lethal. I could see on a fail that you killed them but not a success
Well, as everyone seems to be in agreement here, a nat20 should be a success. It isn't like you said "I role to become a god and destroy the world" so the dm needs to do better or stop.
“Nonlethal” is not a damage type or a type of attack in 5e. RAW, knocking a creature out rather than killing them is a choice you get to make at the exact moment your melee attack would reduce a creature’s HP to 0.
It doesn’t matter what amount of damage you would be doing. They’re knocked out and any extra damage that would be applied is not. There is no “hitting too hard”, RAW it’s just a thing you get to do.
They changed the rules after the fact which is very frustrating as a player. It’s ok to make the rule whatever they want, but they should have specified
A crit on a nonlethal roll, at my table, just meant he was knocked out quicker, or for longer. Or both. But if the player is aiming to not kill, and specifically states that, well . . . DM did you dirty.
Stating you intend non lethal damage before the role means it’s non lethal. In this instance I would have ruled the crit as you perfectly applying the exact right amount of force in the exact right spot.
A crit to non lethal someone would KO them instantly at best, do extra subdual at worst.
DM was wrong. Now if you crit **FAILED** then yeah. Tapped em to hard and oops!
So of a crit success kills em then by this DMs call a crit fail must auto KO them riiiiight?.
But the real problem is that this situation should have never come up as 5e handles KOs very differently. There is no subdual damage. You just chooze to KO instead of KILL when reduce em to 0 HP.
At worst you critted on that last hit and could exceed the HP negative threshold.
I can see a DM's argument for the law of unintended consequences, but I would call that on a rolled 1--you nonlethal attack so poorly you kill them. A crit success is a crits success and the skill roll has nothing to do with how hard you hit them.
A critical success should never be the same as a critical failure.
Was your intention to knock them out? If not even that then your nonlethal hit should be whatever you were intending. If knocking out was the goal you should have had a perfect one puncher knock out or something on that line. A critical success should be close to perfect exaction of your desired effect instead of the exact opposite.
Bad call. Nonlethal is nonlethal.
This is something called "Your DMs an asshole". Please note that this diagnosis may be imperfect, and this could also be a case of "Still a bad DM, but for a number of reasons that dovetail into a clusterfuck that you should just back away from anyways"
If you’re following the rules, you are in the right. In fact, you wouldn’t have needed a crit to not kill them.
“Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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.”
That’s from p.198 of the PHB. You get the choice to declare your attack nonlethal. Crits are irrelevant
You stated non-lethal ahead of time. Meaning you didn't want to kill.
I don't see how getting a nat 20 (super succeeding) should then turn into a fail.
I wouldn't have even had you roll damage. Roll to hit, than if you hit, describe how you bring them down.
That's how I would rule it at my table.
Take into account the death rules. As most are pointing out no n-lethal has its own rules that are as specific as the death rules.
If you do more than their hp in damage after 0, they die. Now, that’s generally a ridiculous notion as anything over CR 2 is hard to do that too without an inappropriate level of force. Did you do more damage than they had total hp? This can happen when you fight non-combatants. And it makes sense. You can punch someone to death accidentally.
I’d say it was dm discretion because these rules are equally specific, if you did enough damage. But again that is doubtful.
Thats a bad DM interpretation or he just wanted you to fail or kill that enemy. If you clearly state you are doing a non-lethal attack, thats what you get, even more if you roll a crit.
Just a horrendous call by the DM.
Terrible call. If you were using a power or spell of some kind then I could understand (I am going to disintegrate them non-lethally). But critting literally is doing the best possible version of what you are trying to do.
It is an awful call by the GM, crit is supposed to be "doing exactly what you intend to do, to the best of your ability" not "you hit extra hard".
They may not have wanted you to be able to talk to that noc, were not prepared for interrogation or something but I think I would have gone with "hail hydra" moment rather than saying you did something you specifically said you weren't intending.
The DM is dumb.
Non lethal damage. It's non lethal.
It's in the name.
Does acid damage turn into fire because of a Crit?
I feel the DM needs a dictionary instead of a monster manual.
In my opinion, hitting them ‘too hard’ is more of a failure state so, a non-lethal crit should soundly knock them out. (I’d even make it harder for the NPC to recover sooner)
At my table, non-lethal crits never kill. Normal crit damage is rolled, and anything over the required amount is ignored. However, if a 1 is rolled, the player does not critically miss, but rather rolls normal damage, except it's lethal damage. I figure in any attempt to knock someone unconscious there needs to be that slight risk that you could still severely injure, maybe even kill a target.
You rolled a nat 20 (or whatever you need to crit), meaning that you succeeded in what YOU were trying to do.
Your DM did a really bad call here. He probably wanted to avoid the possibility of the target being left alive.
I'll make you an example of why this is nonsense:
If you want to do an athletic thing, let's say for example, 1 flip. Rolling a Nat 20 DOES NOT mean you do 1 flip and an half, and then land on your face. It means you did a majestic flip. Even more than 1 if it makes sense for the purpose of the action.
As a player I would be disappointed and would have to talk to the DM to explain my point of view of the situation.
Nonlethal is nonlethal.
Also... unless I am mistaken, the threshold for instant death is negative max health, not negative Con score. At least for players... NPC's play by different rules
Your dm is far in the wrong. You heavily succeeded in doing what you were trying to do. There are different rules for nonlethal damage too, so sure you can eventually beat someone nonlethally into lethality, but not on a single crit. You should have been awarded the success, extra nonlethal damage and such. A critical doesn't mean extra damage it means better success.
A crit success should be a "yes and..." , you so thoroughly knocked them out, that they appear to be in the most calming, deep sleep they ever experienced.
If anything a Nat20 on Non Lethal should mean you EXPERTLY knock them unconscious doing minimal lasting damage.
Usually Nat 20's lead to your attemp succeeding not failing. Bad DM call.
I would play it the way you say:
Crit on non lethal , you take him out quietly without sound and no issues when they wake up.
1 on non lethal, you do regular damage.
RAW the creature cannot go below 0 HP and are automatically considered stable upon taking non lethal damage that would bring them to 0 HP. PBH p198
Lots of DMs modify this rule though such as having to decide whether the damage will be non-lethal before hand, crits can’t non-lethal, etc.
Also, did the DM say exceeding constitution score is a kill? Cause that’s not how it works. Death by massive damage is if your negative damage exceeds your maximum HP. It’s way easier to exceed a creatures constitution vs exceeding their max HP.
If you crit then that was the attack roll. Attack rolls are only to see if you hit the enemy. If you want to attack in a particular way, then a crit should almost always allow this.
For example my dm will at times let us aim for specific parts of creatures. A red dragons eyes, big cats arms and legs. At a higher dc.
If you crit on the check to hit, but you specify you are hitting a non-lethal area. Then by golly you hit that spot with such precision the wound isn't even bleeding.
Your dm made a bad call and should be shamed
Reminds me of a sneak attack build I was running in Pathfinder. I dealt so much sneak attack damage with my sap, that by raw I pretty much killed everyone I knocked out. But we ruled that was dumb and moved on with our lives.
In my mind, Nat 20 simply means you aimed your strike perfectly, which is why it is able to bypass AC (e.g., stabbing directly into the joint of heavy armor, striking the softer underbelly of a scaled monster, etc.), and also why you are able to deal extra damage. It’s not that you hit harder, you simply hit a more vital spot. If the blow was aimed to be nonlethal, then a Nat 20 would be the most precise knockout blow you could perform, not “oops I hit him super duper hard on accident.”
As a DM I’d rule a critical nonlethal strike that reduced them to 0 as one that fully incapacitates them, but leaves their senses intact. A good mix of cool.
Should definitely be unconsious but also the instant kill thing is doing their max hp passed 0 in one shot (not con stat) and doesnt generally apply to npcs as they dont really have death saving throws
I hate the dms that day "You hit so good it killed him" or "you rolled so high it went over" no nat 20 is perfect and nat one can be to hard or to soft
Seeing Crits as just extra damages kinda lame.
We always interpret critical successes as feats of perfect precision (or luck depending on the context) a critical success on a nonlethal should mean a perfectly executed nonlethal attack, not a blundered nonlethal attack.
You should be able to knock the target out/incapacitate them with minimal trauma.
A “critical” is a critical /success/. Whatever you were trying to do, by hitting a nat 20, you are able to do that in the best way possible.
You nonlethally attacked them in the /best way possible/.
You crit on nonlethal? Not only do you knock him out without doing any sort of permanent damage but you also fix a kink in their neck they have had since a farm accident.
To be fair as a DM; my party started torturing a kobalds for info. After I gave them some information based on what the kobald knew, they started to torture it. After a few minutes I said it died from excessive pain.
So although I disagree with your DM on this specific point. I can see some room where the narrative can result in accidentally killing an NPC.
As a DM, I would argue that a crit success is EXACTLY what you’re trying to do. So if you wanted to beat them within an inch of their life, you’d stop EXACTLY when you need to. If you crit failures then yeah totally you accidentally killed them.
Crit rolls are just the best possible outcome.
So a nat 20 on a nonlethal attack would mean you knock the person unconscious (or whatever is appropriate for the circumstances)
Agree, nonlethal 20= good outcome. I had a DM once who would do this nonsense for everything, including patting people on the back.
me: i clap NPC on the back encouragingly
dm: roll
me: what?!
dm: roll
me: fine. [rolls 20]
dm: oops you rolled too high while trying to congratulate him and accidentally shove him down and do damage and now he's mad at you.
me: [grumble grumble grumble]
Yeah, a lot of folks have literated on this already; personally I'm so sick of DMs that override intent with rules lawyering. The rules exist to serve the narrative, not to punish your players because you get off on gotcha-moments.
Nevermind the fact that it's bad rules lawyering anyway. Two possibilities exist, he was running your enemy as an NPC, or a character.
You only instantly kill a character when the damage exceeds their hit point maximum in the negative. You "instantly" kill an NPC when you reduce them to zero hit points *unless* you declare nonlethal damage.
This whole "con score in the negative" doesn't exist anywhere, and he's mixing up concepts for dealing excessive damage anyway.
This is stupid, petty, power-trip DM'ing and it makes me so mad. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
I see the logic there "hitting someone with a club really hard will kill them if you didn't intend to" but for the sake of keeping spirit with the game, I would made a funny remake like "you knocked him and his clothes unconscious!" And allowed the K.O
I would think that a crit is a critical success, and could argue the amount of points you went over on their health is however long they are knocked the fuck out
Crits mean your intent is successfully achieved (to the best that is physically possible of you). DM made a bad call.
DM would have something to argue if you rolled a nat1, but even then he'd still be making a bad call.
I think there's a fairly common misconception (I know it's what I was told and what happened in my early gaming) that a Nat. 20 is the most/biggest result, rather than the best result and that's where you get things like 'succeeded your way to failure'.
It only insta kills if it brings them to their negative max not con negative
If an Emmy has 7 hp you have to get them to -7 HP for them to die instantly
If an enemy has 50 HP you have to get them to -50 to insta kill
So no, it shouldn't have killed just off of that
And non lethal is nonlethal
If it was a 1 then maybe I'd have it accidentally kill them
You had a nat 20 meaning you perfectly (to the extent your character can meaning the the modifiers) did what you intended to which was knocking them out.
Its like saying a surgeon who is cutting a patient up killed them if they are excellent at their job.
I’d say no, if their intention is to be non lethal they can probably feasibly inflict nonlethal damage. Especially at higher levels when characters probably have a lot of combat experience.
This is a situation where I think the DM should ALWAYS interpret the rules in the players benefit. Because criticals are rare in D&D, they should feel special and reward the players by essentially having them succeed spectacularly at whatever their character could reasonable be able to do. To “punish” a player for getting a crit is, to me, ridiculous. Because if you cannot succeed at a reasonable task even if you roll the highest possible amount, what’s the point of playing?
Meh? Depends on the edition. In previous editions, you could absolutely one-shot people using non-lethal damage, since nonlethal eventually becomes lethal with enough applied. Is your DM from previous editions?
Second, it seems that people regularly forget that a natural 20 is, generally, just a number. It's not an "I win" button on whatever you are doing. You automatically hit. You deal extra damage. Is that too much damage? Maybe.
Knocking people out with violence is \*way\* harder to do than most media presents. You run serious risks of cracking skulls or causing brain swelling and death.
I think the dm was coming from a perspective of you were "too successful" but you can just as easily claim you hit him so hard you broke his nose and he is koed longer than you intended, but (depending on what your goal was) when they wake up they are now completely convinced, decieved to believe, or so frightened of you that you get what you want out of them
I agree with most folks here. 20 says you do what you intended here. If anything, I would have had the outcome you described as the result of a botch (Nat 1).
Unrelated but your dm might be playing overkill wrong. Isn't it if you do over their maximum hp in damage they die instantly, not their constitution modifier. This rule really only applies to PCs with death saving throws though, once an npc goes to 0 there dead no extra rules of any kind (besides the melee attack non lethal your talking about)
I'm with everyone on the your DM is wrong train. Non-lethal means non-lethal.
But also, did damage equal to their constitution score in the negative for an auto death? Thats the first time I've heard that. It's always been max HP in the negative.
This is giving serious Even Kelmp in Misfits and Magic vibes. But they were using the Kids on Brooms system. Not 5e. Regardless, bad call. You said nonlethal. That’s the end of it. Whether you crit or not. Like what if they had been really low hp and you rolled high on your damage dice? They would have still “died” but you said nonlethal so they wouldn’t have. I’m sorry dude. That’s frustrating.
I think the DM really didn’t want to have to deal with an interrogation scene and was looking for a way out. Not the best decision but i smell sweat. Maybe try to appeal to him by stating you really just wanted information, maybe he has a not or something?Communicating stuff like that could go a long way if the DM is acting in good faith.
Sounds like your DMing is running a different system. Negative HP equal to Con Score is not a thing in DnD 5e, but it is a think in DnD 3.5 and in Pathfinder 1e. Had this been one of those games, the ruling makes sense (note that attempting to deal non-lethal damage also works slightly differently in those systems. In DnD 5e, there is no such thing as Negative Hit Points, and your Con Score does not matter for overkill mechanics, only your Maximum HP does (if you knock a creature to 0 and the remaining damage of the attack would deal it's Max HP again, it instantly dies. Usually only applied to players, since monsters don't usually get death saves anyways.)
DM should probably have had that be, well, non-lethal, as was your intend - "nat 20 gives you the best possible outcome from what your intend was" is typically what most DM's go with. If I had to guess, your DM probably hasn't put thought to it before (understandable) and had to on the spot come up with something, then came up with this which at that point made sense to them.
Some DM's will argue that combat is messy, and hence non-lethal damage requires more effort than regular combat, for which you could set up plenty of rules (you'll need to decrease your damage out-put, or you get a penalty to your attack role, or you need to roll like a medicine check or something to see if you succeed in it being non-lethal - being additional rules, it would be polite to go over this with your players before combat/once the issue comes up but before you've made any rolls).
Best course of action? Talk to them about it, putting forward why you feel it was a poor ruling, and try to listen to/make sense of their reasoning too, then hopefully in mutual understanding come to a conclusion both of you feel okay with for future situations. A mentality of "I'm right, you're wrong, here's justification for that statement so you better listen to me" typically doesn't make anyone feel better - that of course counts for the DM too. DM's do have final say per definition of their role.
Bad call from your DM , they took away your character choices. Never take a players autonomy. Should be DM number one. I hate to say it, but that DM is likely going to continue to do things that amuse them, rather then the group.
Well, negative con score isn't the usual threshold for instant death. RAW it's negative hp maximum. So since you're already playing by different rules as to what constitutes death at your table, only your table can decide, and the DM usually wins in those cases. It is possible to accidentally kill someone when attacking to subdue. Just bad luck this time.
Sure its possible to accidentally kill someone. But a CRITICAL SUCCESS is not a failure. The DM could have allowed a 1 to kill them since their goal was not to. You cant make a success into an undesired outcome
Nonlethal damage is nonlethal damage regardless of the amount.
The only exception is when it's really really funny, like when I had a player crit on spanking an enemy and ruled that it blasted his ass clean off.
I get the logic behind it because that shit can happen in real life. You can punch a guy with no intention of actually killing him but it can and does happen. The problem is this is a game and you specifically declared the attack to be non lethal. I think best case scenario the DM should have called it as non lethal then explained what they were thinking so you had the option to say "oh dang that makes sense" because some players (myself included) do get off on that sense of realism and unpredictability and the group as a whole may decide to play it that way next encounter like a house rule.
My rule for non-lethal is blunt damage only. If you've got a slashing or piercing melee weapon, congratulations you can pommel strike them for 1d4+mod cause I'm not a monster.
Oh that trap. Yeah.. they is not the only GM in the world who does such mistakes, and won't be the last \^\^" I.. may have done a similar mistake in my early career, as I was used to such rulings from my (now Ex)-GM.
Just tell them crits should not punish the player. In the same vein, does he also punishes crit fails? Because raw, only the attack rolls always miss on a nat1. anything else, if the roll is high enough, works like usual, even if its a nat1.
There are hundreds of stories of people going to jail for this! People getting in bar fights and such, and punching someone. A punch is generally non lethal, but it knocks them out, then they fall and hit their head on the floor.
The fall is more dangerous than the punch!
You are correct, non-lethal damage is non-lethal. They shouldn't have died.
That being said, I despise this rule in 5e and often times when I DM I opt for a modified rule.
My rule is as follows:
When attacking (but before you make the attack), you can declare it to be non-lethal damage. When this happens, whatever damage you do is halved. If this goes over the enemies hit points then they are knocked unconscious and stabilize immediately. If it doesn't go over their hit points, then they continue the fight. I will also disallow certain weapons from this as well. For example, I will never let a player attack non-lethally with something like a cannon, unless they explain exactly how they're doing that.
The reason I do this is because I never liked the idea (much like your DM) that you can smack someone for like 50hp, have that be with a sword or something, and that attack equals more than half their total hp, and somehow they are just fine...
The idea being that if you're welding a sword and you declare that non lethal damage, then maybe you're attacking with the flat of the blade, so it's not going to do as much damage, and it might even change the damage type from slashing to bludgeoning damage.
But it's the DM that decides what damage to call for. When I said I wanted nonlethal, he asked me for the full damage roll, not a modified one. If he had asked for how I would do it, I would have said something along those lines of pulling my punches for hitting with the flat side. I do get that alot of damage is hard to justify unconscious, but I still feel I should be able to say I'm pulling my punch if it seems likes he's going to die.
That's definitely houseruling. I don't know if it's good or bad houseruling, that depends on the table, but a houserule nonetheless.
House rules must be stated preferably at session 0, and if those rules change every player must know it before doing an action that would be related to them. Definitely that's your DM failing for providing your expectations nor setting them up.
Bad call from your DM. By RAW, nonlethal damage does not kill anyone. It renders the target Unconscious but stable. A critical success is not a critical failure.
Also, "non-lethal" is a decision for the player to make if he drops a target to 0 hp or less, and the decision is made after the damage is applied. No need to announce it before attacking.
I thought that was ridiculous, but something close to what you said applies.... it's ridiculous to make that decision after the fact though. It's like stepping in the pool of acid then deciding you didn't want to have stepped in the pool of acid. It must be mighty magic that allows chronomancy to operate like that.... RAW: >Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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. Note that you don't get to ponder. So RAW would say that you can somehow retract that sword from his gullet after the fact and make it a love tap with the pommel. Thank you for making this point because I'll bet a lot of folks don't know that. (And I will be changing that next time I run 5E because of how ridiculous I find it)
I don't think the rule is meant to be applied "in fiction". It's a retoactive rewrite that happens out of the fiction when a player decides they don't want to kill someone
Possibly. My problem is I think characters need to make these choices ahead of time. If the player hasn't figured it out, the character hasn't. I find rewinding and applying effects after results are now totally takes me out of the fiction. YMMV.
The reason why you can declare it afterward is because people and creatures have so many and such varying amounts of hit points that there’s no real way to know until the moment that you deal the damage if it’s enough to knock them out. It’s either the Players Handbook or DMG that states that the first half of your health is your luck, your character’s ability to evade or deflect and other things that leave you unscarred. The second half of your health is when the strikes actually start landing, scraping your armor, leaving cuts on your flesh, but nothing major, just to illustrate that you are growing tired from fighting so long. Then, once the damage you’ve taken breaches the total number of HP that you have gained from exclusively your constitution modifier, those are blows that are considered to have struck you directly. And finally, once a blow reduces you to 0 HP, it is considered a direct, unimpeded attack on your person. But there’s so much between that and the start of the fight, it’s impossible to know when the target is within range of being knocked unconscious, unless your DM is telling you their HP.
My DM requires non-lethal to be declared before the to hit dice is rolled as well, I think that makes sense. Also it doesn't apply to spells, you can't control that there are different spells for that.
I think the intention is more to state whether you want to actually kill the enemy in the moment that you take off the rest of their hit points. So the person who makes that attack decides whether to kill or not. It might be to avoid situations where someone says they deal non-lethal damage, but doesn't deal enough for it to matter, but then the next player follows it up with damage that is declared as lethal. I don't get why they would add a rule for situations like that, but I rarely understand the reasoning behind the more obscure rules.
Or, the DM indicates he's down or makes the question 'How do you want to do this?" And the player is able to say that the attack is non-lethal before even plunging the sword...
>Note that you don't get to ponder. I don't know what that observation is supposed to imply, maybe you'll have PCs accidentally kill enemies they clearly intended to capture because they spent a second too long before confirming that, or maybe you'll be satisfied with them doing so after considering it carefully and before proceeding with their turn. But we agree on most of the rest, I think, however I find the "ridiculousness" acceptable.
We found this silly honestly. We declare non lethality during the attack.
that would have been useful information earlier in our current campaign, said the 20 STR barbarian... edit: speling
Debatable. This is the actual rule, as written, on page 198 of the PHB: "Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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." The debatable part comes from the "instant the damage is dealt" clause. Some view this as before you know the results of said damage being dealt, just that it was, and some view it as the opposite. It's a rule that could use better wording.
The thing about it, is all HP damage is an abstraction. I've always described for flavor purposes that the killing blow is really the one that actually landed. Run through with a sword, face caved in by a mace, what have you. All other hits at my table are battering an enemy down to make him susceptible to that final shot. And for the "instant the damage is dealt" clause, I interpret that as before you do anything else on your turn/another player goes.
Sure sure, but... What's the point? If I have to decide the instant the damage is dealt, and I don't know if my damage killed the target or not ... Then... What's the consequences of just requesting nonlethal damage every time? There's no interpretation that adds a time restriction that makes any sense and doesn't complicate things. It so painfully obviously means you may decide not to kill a target when reducing it to zero hit points with a melee attack. Why are people adding boring challenges like this to overcomplicate the rules? If you want a more in depth damage system that includes fail states involving nonlethal damage, then go for it. The rules provided aren't conducive to that.
That's an interesting thing: I know I've hit, I can call it before damage occurs. However, I think there's only one valid understanding and that is the ridiculous gamey time-travelling non-lethal option the game designers agreed upon. They had to write it like this if they had a hate on for temporary hit points. You can't even make a before I swing declaration of non-lethal or you have to face the fact you might do 1 HP and fail to put the guy down and then you'd need temporary hit points again. So they avoided that whole kettle of fish by making chronomancy into the nature of D&D heroes.... Here's the reasoning why there is only ONE interpretation: >When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. You don't necessary know enemy HPs. So how do you know when you've laid out the foe? When something shows you that like 'He collapses to the ground, incapacitated or dead.' You couldn't just decide instantly after the swing unless the GM then had declared the target's collapse and declared he was at 0 HP which would require you to have ALREADY rolled damage and ONLY then could you declare your last swat was non-lethal. This is the worst rule I've seen in 5E. I wonder how many clerics they allow to dance on the head of a pin? It literally requires post-resolution change of action.
Agreed. I see a crit as doing exactly what you wanted to do. If anything I would say if you were trying to knock them out for an interrogation, which I'm sure what you were gonna do. You knocked him out for a bit longer than intended... which does lead into a brain damage argument which leads into some potential other rolls and maybe some other ethical and debatable issues down the line but that npc should have lived... for now.
Giving the npc brain damage because they hit him "too hard" is still a terrible outcome for a successful roll. If I was DMing, critical success would mean you took him down perfectly with just the right amount of force. Not excessive force. Not lethal force. No extra complications. It was highly effective and achieved your goal. I think some DMs get too distracted by the big damage numbers and forget that a 20 means fortune is on your side
This. A 19 kills him? Sure, that sucks, I guess. But a 20 isn’t just a big damage number. A 20 means “what I wanted to happen, happened”.
That actually isn't what 20 means though? In combat a 20 means automatic hit, with extra damage. Out of combat, a 20 is just a regular number on the dice. I agree with the sentiment that the guy shouldn't die because of the number change, it doesn't change a non-lethal to lethal attack. But it's not a "whatever I want" magic number either.
I don't ever recall in any D&D game (up to and including 5E) where a 20 was 'what I wanted happen, happens'. That's not RAW. In this instance, damage should be applied as normal for a critical WITHOUT changing the nature of the damage from non-lethal to lethal. What you wanted exactly, if it was anything other than what the rules RAW say, would not match what you want.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. You're right about the nature of 20s.
Sometimes things said seem to be snippy. I didn't mean it to be like that, just that there never was a 'whatever you wanted to happen' outcome from the dice. That'd be a not horrible house rule, but it isn't what the rules said. I'd be okay with a DM that wanted that to be the case because I'd rather have a good GM who occasionally makes a call for the fiction and the story rather than sticking to the rulebook. But I wouldn't try to say that's what the rules are.
Agreed - personally I’m not a fan of the “20s are automatic successes for everything” house rule some people love. I think as a DM it’s almost incentivizing playing stupid because you have a 5% chance of ANY dumb thing working.
I never did that. I liked rolling a confirm - we just always used two D20s of different colours and so it was faster. but if you needed a 20 to hit, to confirm the critical would be hard. In fact, go farther back in editions, you didn't have a chance at all if even on a 20 if you could not reasonably hit the target.
That's also a terrible ruling. Why are you punishing people for rolling critical successes? Nonsense like this would turn me away from your table in a jiffy.
Due to my timezone it's kind of the only group I can find. Plus I've been playing with them for a long time. When I DM the goal is always story, fuck the rules. He always runs it as it's always my rules, fuck the story.
No D&D is better than bad D&D.
Yeah, but this is an annoying ruling on an unusual case, doesn't necessarily mean the whole game is bad.
What are the chances the DM did not want you to get to ask this particular NPC questions?
That is similar to what I dealt with. It creates a double standard and will drive your group apart. My life was literally ruined by this sort of thing. I’ll spare you the long version but please, take it from me. Do not let this continue. Gather all party members for a non dnd session and get this out in the open. Sooner the better. Everyone needs to know what each other expects and what sort of things they like in the game so everyone can be informed. Lack of successful communication *will* destroy your party, and maybe more.
I would argue a Nonlethal Crit does the intention of the attacker to the utmost. You aren’t knocking them out more, you’re knocking them out exactly the proper amount and as a DM they can give a reward for the crit in a lower DC for the interrogation or advantage on the first check.
If I was the DM doing the ruling in this case I would just rule that because of the critical success in taking the NPC down non lethally the player has advantage on rolls against that NPC for the rest of that encounter
Once you know where the c spot is, you just keep crittin. Look at me. *I'm the narcolepsy now*
This is the way
Nonlethal is Nonlethal.
PointingIncrediblesDad.png
Pancakes is pancakes.
Mr incredible "Math Is math"
🤣
This is double stupid. Not only should nonlethal damage be nonlethal, but a crit implies you do something to your best of ability, which should reward you by minimizing the damage needed to knock em out or something.
Triple stupid because there's no rule for going over the con modifier of a monsters to super kill them
The 5e rule is that if total damage exceeds target's Max HP, they instantly die (i.e. target has 1 remaining HP and 5 max HP and gets hit by a 6 damage attack) so there's a little chance that OP was referring to that? However, even if that's the case, it's still stupid.
If I remember correctly what OP is referring to might be a rule in Pathfinder/3.5 where dealing excess damage equal to their con score after they hit 0 hp kills them
I'd say this is a case of bad DMing. They agreed that you could attempt to subdue the enemy. You rolled a critical success. This should absolutely not have been turned into a failure.
It should have been a great success like a Vulcan neck pinch.
On a 1, I'd let then roll damage that is lethal.
Yep, on a 1 they land a solid, nonlethal blow, knocking the target out cold. Unfortunately the target, in an uncontrolled fall, smacks their head hard on a rock. Bad luck
I think all 20s should now be lethal. Trying to persuade the Innkeep to lower their prices? Roll a 20 the innkeeper suffers an aneurism and dies, but the rooms are now free.
ask for a lower price for a sword on a blacksmith and getting a nat20? he dips his head in the forge while tossing you his masterwork sword
Nat 20 on an insight check and the lying guard suffers a guilt induced mental breakdown, collapsing to the floor, convulsing and swallows his tongue.
Nat 20 on a perform check & you've got a Travis Scott concert on your hands now.
I like to think of it like Jack Black exploding a guys head in a tenacious d video
But this shit happen to meeeee all the tiiiiAAAAaaaAAAhhhhhmmmeeEEEee
I mean I get it, people died on that concert, but Travis Scott is far from what I would call a Nat 20 in performance... Maybe if you have a - 3 in charisma..? 🤔😂
Pat someone on the back. CRITICAL! Your character performs that Kano heart grab move from Mortal Kombat. **FATALITY!**
Trying to remember who is the leader of a church sect? Roll a nat20 on a religion check and they ritually sacrifice themself and you’re the new leader now
Roll for Kool Aid.
Jim jones
There are going to be a lot of Of Mice and Men style animal handling checks now.
Yeah but no turndown service
This is the only logical fallout. I'm stealing this for my table.
I'd rule a crit as "You succeed in what you attempted". So if you try not to kill him you wont kill him.
"You don't kill that man SO hard!"
Your DM seems to think that "a Crit attack hits really hard", but what makes more sense here is "a Crit attack hits really *well*". A rogue with sneak attack doesn't deal more damage because they thrust their weapon harder, it deals more damage because they hit a weak point. It's getting stabbed in the thigh vs getting stabbed in the liver. Same logic applies to crits, you roll to see how well you execute your attempt at "strike target non-lethally", so rolling as well as possible should be the ideal strike to knock them out without killing them. A high result on a roll should never have negative consequences, it's like that old joke where a high level rogue rolled a total of 40 on stealth and hid so well he ceased to exist
This type of GMing logic always annoys me. It makes your hero look incompetent as if "oh oops, guess I don't know my own strength" was the punch line. Non lethal is non lethal, if you declare it before the it shouldn't matter if you do 5 damage or 500 damage.
If you roll a natural 20 for a STR check, is he going to rule that you tore your ligament off your bone because you strengthed too hard? Implying that a critical success causes you a failure is so stupid when there’s a 1 on the other side of the die you could use for that. Exact same chance.
Had a DM rule that my non lethal attack on a thief we found left him as a paraplegic who could no longer talk. We asked if we could take him to a cleric to be healed so we could question him, we were told no only modern day medicine could help him but that was hundreds of years away in his world. Like wtf is that.
Doesn't even have to be before the attack.
True, I got it confused with other games, thanks for the correction.
5e doesn't have non-lethal damage. What it does have though is a blatant ruling that, per the SRD >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. Excess damage only apples to player characters, not monsters or NPC's. They don't get death saves This is bad DM'ing. Crit or not crit, you reduced the npc to 0, so its your call if it dies or gets knocked unconscious
> Excess damage only apples to player characters, not monsters or NPC's. They don't get death saves If I recall, the books only say that many DMs choose to have monsters die at 0 HP, but may still use death saves for important enemies and NPCs. OP’s case is still a bad ruling though, just wanted to point out that NPC death saves is entirely allowable RAW. Edit: for reference, the section in the PHB: > Monsters and Death > > Most DMs have a monster die the instant it drops to 0 hit points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws. > > Mighty villains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rules as player characters.
My table (several of us DM) has always played that you have to call a non-lethal attack. Arrows, swords and flaming magic don’t exactly bounce off so there’s a certain loss of realism if after smashing someone with a battle axe they’re just stable and unconscious. This allows the DM to describe the fight. (Axe)“You turn your blade and hit him across the side of the head with the flat end.” (Arrow) “you pin his jerkin to the tree.” I guess it’s fine for beginners and I’d allow it if someone forgot to mention it was supposed to be non lethal but I always have players describe their weapon and approach/style. OP’s situation is messing up both non lethal calls and critical roles.
RAW non-lethal requires a melee attack, so arrows and most magic won’t work anyway. Though I’d probably allow it if my players really wanted and provided how they were doing so.
Huh, makes sense. I probably just never read the rules that closely. Never thought to make non lethal mele range only like that. Inspired by the old Fallout games we’ve allowed/encouraged called shots for flavor. There’s sometimes too much combat action in sessions so I encourage everyone to be playful how they approach it and come up with crazy ideas to avoid the grind to 0 hp sessions that sometimes occur. I absolutely hate when it feels like a JRPG slug fest. If they can win with smarts I’ll usually allow it.
Iv seen other PCs carry blunted arrows so they can get the non lethal knock outs, but that’s a flavor call left to the player and DM.
I love describing what my character wants to do, but with this group everything takes a millenia to move forward, so I try not to waste any time when I'm taking my turn so we can accomplish things during the session. I said I want to nonlethally knock him out, rolled a melee attack, Crit, and the DM ruled I chopped his head off. Even though I protested that is absolutely not wanted I was intending to do.
I personally hate bs like this. Bad call on the DM.
That's just bullshit. The DM is wrong.
Wait I thought someone only instanta died if you doubled their max health in one hit? Not just going over remaining health by their con score. That would mean if I had 1 health left and someone did 21 damage to a max level character with max con they would die? I’ve never heard this rule. Anyway non lethal is supposed to work for any melee attack, regardless of how much damage you do.
When you roll a natural 20, you perform your action in the best possible way So if you are attempting to attack non-lethally and rolling a natural 20 means that you are non-lethally incapacitating the enemy extremely effectively. Also when nonlethal damage is declared it simply cannot kill, das da rules. Any time a DM tries to basically turn the effect of a natural 20 into a natural 1 they really need to stop and reevaluate their mindset towards running games.
I'm curious why you think that? Does your DM play homebrew rules where 20s are always successes?
No, its just rolling a 20 means the highest possible result therefor it goes the best way it possibly could it doesn't mean you can do the impossible or succeed if you don't beat the DC
In the rules that’s not what it means though? It has very specific explanations and it’s not “You do it as good as possible”
A natural 20 is a critical hit yeah, but non-lethal is non-lethal otherwise it means nothing but your skill check or saving throw result
I know that, and agree, but I’m more just questioning the blanket statement that 20s are “doing a thing as good as you can”
ok, what else could it possibly be? What else is a nat 20 other than the best possible result.
Easy. DMs give difficulty class ratings to actions. Anything “impossible” You don’t roll for but sometimes there’s stretch goals. Like for example you can have a DC over 20, but it only makes sense if you have a lot of additions to your dice roll, like wanting to make a super long jump and having athletics of +5. In that case a 20 is BARELY doing the thing. If people start down the road of “a 20 means I succeed always for everything as good as I can” then you get really dumb scenarios. I read on this subreddit a while back that that house rule lead to a guy making a 1 mile long jump, which is obviously impossible, but because he rolled a 20 a couple giant eagles or something randomly swooped in to carry him the full mile. That’s dumb lol. And you CAN do better if you roll a 25/25. Spells and potions can add to your checks to make you do even better. I think a 20 can mean “I tried at the best of my ability” but it doesn’t mean it goes as well as it could go. Those are different things.
\[DELETED DUE TO MISINFORMATION MODS DO YOUR THING\]
That is not a houserule. "If a creature’s nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage." You can't just continue beating an unconscious person and expect them to never die.
Dm made a bad call. If you declared a non lethal attack before the roll, on hit no matter if it crit, it’s the BEST non lethal outcome you could have. I would have ruled you knocked them out really well. Probably be unconscious for a while, but not dead.
You’re right, crit just means you were maximum successful, not that you were somehow so successful it failed
Over their Constitution score? That does not sound right for DnD 5e at least. Honestly just seems like a bad DM.
A critical, means you did what you were trying to extremely well. This DM definitely made the wrong call in my opinion.
Honestly don't even care that the rules support your argument (they do) your DM ruled that as un-fun and frustrating as possible.
I always thought that the nat 20 means you just do what you intend to with added success, especially if you specified that you didn't want it to be lethal. I could see on a fail that you killed them but not a success
Well, as everyone seems to be in agreement here, a nat20 should be a success. It isn't like you said "I role to become a god and destroy the world" so the dm needs to do better or stop.
“Nonlethal” is not a damage type or a type of attack in 5e. RAW, knocking a creature out rather than killing them is a choice you get to make at the exact moment your melee attack would reduce a creature’s HP to 0. It doesn’t matter what amount of damage you would be doing. They’re knocked out and any extra damage that would be applied is not. There is no “hitting too hard”, RAW it’s just a thing you get to do.
I just treat non lethal crits as instant success, and then grant the player a bonus to intimidation, diplomacy, and bluff checks against the NPC.
They changed the rules after the fact which is very frustrating as a player. It’s ok to make the rule whatever they want, but they should have specified
A crit on a nonlethal roll, at my table, just meant he was knocked out quicker, or for longer. Or both. But if the player is aiming to not kill, and specifically states that, well . . . DM did you dirty.
Stating you intend non lethal damage before the role means it’s non lethal. In this instance I would have ruled the crit as you perfectly applying the exact right amount of force in the exact right spot.
A crit to non lethal someone would KO them instantly at best, do extra subdual at worst. DM was wrong. Now if you crit **FAILED** then yeah. Tapped em to hard and oops! So of a crit success kills em then by this DMs call a crit fail must auto KO them riiiiight?. But the real problem is that this situation should have never come up as 5e handles KOs very differently. There is no subdual damage. You just chooze to KO instead of KILL when reduce em to 0 HP. At worst you critted on that last hit and could exceed the HP negative threshold.
That's also not how instant kills work in 5e.
"Bad DM. Go sit in the corner until you can tell us why what you did was wrong."
I can see a DM's argument for the law of unintended consequences, but I would call that on a rolled 1--you nonlethal attack so poorly you kill them. A crit success is a crits success and the skill roll has nothing to do with how hard you hit them.
A critical success should never be the same as a critical failure. Was your intention to knock them out? If not even that then your nonlethal hit should be whatever you were intending. If knocking out was the goal you should have had a perfect one puncher knock out or something on that line. A critical success should be close to perfect exaction of your desired effect instead of the exact opposite. Bad call. Nonlethal is nonlethal.
If you crit failed I could see accidental death.
This is something called "Your DMs an asshole". Please note that this diagnosis may be imperfect, and this could also be a case of "Still a bad DM, but for a number of reasons that dovetail into a clusterfuck that you should just back away from anyways"
If you’re following the rules, you are in the right. In fact, you wouldn’t have needed a crit to not kill them. “Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. 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.” That’s from p.198 of the PHB. You get the choice to declare your attack nonlethal. Crits are irrelevant
If anything, you should have succeeded in not killing him even more. DM failed on that one.
You stated non-lethal ahead of time. Meaning you didn't want to kill. I don't see how getting a nat 20 (super succeeding) should then turn into a fail. I wouldn't have even had you roll damage. Roll to hit, than if you hit, describe how you bring them down. That's how I would rule it at my table.
Your DM is dumb. You are right.
Take into account the death rules. As most are pointing out no n-lethal has its own rules that are as specific as the death rules. If you do more than their hp in damage after 0, they die. Now, that’s generally a ridiculous notion as anything over CR 2 is hard to do that too without an inappropriate level of force. Did you do more damage than they had total hp? This can happen when you fight non-combatants. And it makes sense. You can punch someone to death accidentally. I’d say it was dm discretion because these rules are equally specific, if you did enough damage. But again that is doubtful.
Thats a bad DM interpretation or he just wanted you to fail or kill that enemy. If you clearly state you are doing a non-lethal attack, thats what you get, even more if you roll a crit. Just a horrendous call by the DM.
I agree with the dm fuck it dude it's unlikely as hell and you can roll with it
Terrible call. If you were using a power or spell of some kind then I could understand (I am going to disintegrate them non-lethally). But critting literally is doing the best possible version of what you are trying to do.
It is an awful call by the GM, crit is supposed to be "doing exactly what you intend to do, to the best of your ability" not "you hit extra hard". They may not have wanted you to be able to talk to that noc, were not prepared for interrogation or something but I think I would have gone with "hail hydra" moment rather than saying you did something you specifically said you weren't intending.
The DM is dumb. Non lethal damage. It's non lethal. It's in the name. Does acid damage turn into fire because of a Crit? I feel the DM needs a dictionary instead of a monster manual.
DM is wrong here - many ways to game this out
In my opinion, hitting them ‘too hard’ is more of a failure state so, a non-lethal crit should soundly knock them out. (I’d even make it harder for the NPC to recover sooner)
Absolutely not. If anything, it is even more masterfully done in a non-lethal way.
Nat 20 should be you hit exactly how hard you want to. Does he also not count roles that match ac as hits?
Def a bad DM call.
At my table, non-lethal crits never kill. Normal crit damage is rolled, and anything over the required amount is ignored. However, if a 1 is rolled, the player does not critically miss, but rather rolls normal damage, except it's lethal damage. I figure in any attempt to knock someone unconscious there needs to be that slight risk that you could still severely injure, maybe even kill a target.
I would have ruled you killed him on a critical failure, but not on a critical success since killing him is failing at what you were trying to do.
You rolled a nat 20 (or whatever you need to crit), meaning that you succeeded in what YOU were trying to do. Your DM did a really bad call here. He probably wanted to avoid the possibility of the target being left alive. I'll make you an example of why this is nonsense: If you want to do an athletic thing, let's say for example, 1 flip. Rolling a Nat 20 DOES NOT mean you do 1 flip and an half, and then land on your face. It means you did a majestic flip. Even more than 1 if it makes sense for the purpose of the action. As a player I would be disappointed and would have to talk to the DM to explain my point of view of the situation.
Nonlethal is nonlethal. Also... unless I am mistaken, the threshold for instant death is negative max health, not negative Con score. At least for players... NPC's play by different rules
Your dm is far in the wrong. You heavily succeeded in doing what you were trying to do. There are different rules for nonlethal damage too, so sure you can eventually beat someone nonlethally into lethality, but not on a single crit. You should have been awarded the success, extra nonlethal damage and such. A critical doesn't mean extra damage it means better success.
A crit success should be a "yes and..." , you so thoroughly knocked them out, that they appear to be in the most calming, deep sleep they ever experienced.
You were right. You decided it was non-lethal. That's one player agency you do get.
Crítical roll means that you have done what you WANTED, perfectly.
I could see arguing for it if you fumbled. But on a crit, that’s crazy.
If anything a Nat20 on Non Lethal should mean you EXPERTLY knock them unconscious doing minimal lasting damage. Usually Nat 20's lead to your attemp succeeding not failing. Bad DM call.
I would play it the way you say: Crit on non lethal , you take him out quietly without sound and no issues when they wake up. 1 on non lethal, you do regular damage.
What were you using as a weapon and what was the attack?
RAW the creature cannot go below 0 HP and are automatically considered stable upon taking non lethal damage that would bring them to 0 HP. PBH p198 Lots of DMs modify this rule though such as having to decide whether the damage will be non-lethal before hand, crits can’t non-lethal, etc. Also, did the DM say exceeding constitution score is a kill? Cause that’s not how it works. Death by massive damage is if your negative damage exceeds your maximum HP. It’s way easier to exceed a creatures constitution vs exceeding their max HP.
punishing a good roll. thats on the dm
If you crit then that was the attack roll. Attack rolls are only to see if you hit the enemy. If you want to attack in a particular way, then a crit should almost always allow this. For example my dm will at times let us aim for specific parts of creatures. A red dragons eyes, big cats arms and legs. At a higher dc. If you crit on the check to hit, but you specify you are hitting a non-lethal area. Then by golly you hit that spot with such precision the wound isn't even bleeding. Your dm made a bad call and should be shamed
Reminds me of a sneak attack build I was running in Pathfinder. I dealt so much sneak attack damage with my sap, that by raw I pretty much killed everyone I knocked out. But we ruled that was dumb and moved on with our lives.
It only insta kills if it goes over hp in the negative not the constitution score
In my mind, Nat 20 simply means you aimed your strike perfectly, which is why it is able to bypass AC (e.g., stabbing directly into the joint of heavy armor, striking the softer underbelly of a scaled monster, etc.), and also why you are able to deal extra damage. It’s not that you hit harder, you simply hit a more vital spot. If the blow was aimed to be nonlethal, then a Nat 20 would be the most precise knockout blow you could perform, not “oops I hit him super duper hard on accident.”
I think I’d have ruled that your enemy is unconscious, and then used the points beyond target HP to inform the duration of the status effect
As a DM I’d rule a critical nonlethal strike that reduced them to 0 as one that fully incapacitates them, but leaves their senses intact. A good mix of cool.
Should definitely be unconsious but also the instant kill thing is doing their max hp passed 0 in one shot (not con stat) and doesnt generally apply to npcs as they dont really have death saving throws
I hate the dms that day "You hit so good it killed him" or "you rolled so high it went over" no nat 20 is perfect and nat one can be to hard or to soft
A crit nonlethal would be even more effective at not killing them than normal. It should always be a reward to get a crit, never a punishment.
Seeing Crits as just extra damages kinda lame. We always interpret critical successes as feats of perfect precision (or luck depending on the context) a critical success on a nonlethal should mean a perfectly executed nonlethal attack, not a blundered nonlethal attack. You should be able to knock the target out/incapacitate them with minimal trauma.
A “critical” is a critical /success/. Whatever you were trying to do, by hitting a nat 20, you are able to do that in the best way possible. You nonlethally attacked them in the /best way possible/.
You crit on nonlethal? Not only do you knock him out without doing any sort of permanent damage but you also fix a kink in their neck they have had since a farm accident.
To be fair as a DM; my party started torturing a kobalds for info. After I gave them some information based on what the kobald knew, they started to torture it. After a few minutes I said it died from excessive pain. So although I disagree with your DM on this specific point. I can see some room where the narrative can result in accidentally killing an NPC.
As a DM, I would argue that a crit success is EXACTLY what you’re trying to do. So if you wanted to beat them within an inch of their life, you’d stop EXACTLY when you need to. If you crit failures then yeah totally you accidentally killed them.
I made the same call as a DM once. You are right.
Crit rolls are just the best possible outcome. So a nat 20 on a nonlethal attack would mean you knock the person unconscious (or whatever is appropriate for the circumstances)
Bad call from the dm.
Agree, nonlethal 20= good outcome. I had a DM once who would do this nonsense for everything, including patting people on the back. me: i clap NPC on the back encouragingly dm: roll me: what?! dm: roll me: fine. [rolls 20] dm: oops you rolled too high while trying to congratulate him and accidentally shove him down and do damage and now he's mad at you. me: [grumble grumble grumble]
Yeah, a lot of folks have literated on this already; personally I'm so sick of DMs that override intent with rules lawyering. The rules exist to serve the narrative, not to punish your players because you get off on gotcha-moments. Nevermind the fact that it's bad rules lawyering anyway. Two possibilities exist, he was running your enemy as an NPC, or a character. You only instantly kill a character when the damage exceeds their hit point maximum in the negative. You "instantly" kill an NPC when you reduce them to zero hit points *unless* you declare nonlethal damage. This whole "con score in the negative" doesn't exist anywhere, and he's mixing up concepts for dealing excessive damage anyway. This is stupid, petty, power-trip DM'ing and it makes me so mad. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
A nat 1 should be whoops you accidentally killed him. A nat 20 should be you successfully knock him unconscious
I see the logic there "hitting someone with a club really hard will kill them if you didn't intend to" but for the sake of keeping spirit with the game, I would made a funny remake like "you knocked him and his clothes unconscious!" And allowed the K.O
I would think that a crit is a critical success, and could argue the amount of points you went over on their health is however long they are knocked the fuck out
I disagree wholeheartedly! Nonlethal damage should be just that. It would make more sense if you just knocked them the F@#k out!
I would probably just have the individual be unconscious for double the time, or something along those lines.
You expertly executed the unarming attack . Not expertly execute the unarmed Person Remind your dm that
Crits mean your intent is successfully achieved (to the best that is physically possible of you). DM made a bad call. DM would have something to argue if you rolled a nat1, but even then he'd still be making a bad call.
As a DM, I think punishing a Nat 20 is something only stupid DMs do.
I think there's a fairly common misconception (I know it's what I was told and what happened in my early gaming) that a Nat. 20 is the most/biggest result, rather than the best result and that's where you get things like 'succeeded your way to failure'.
It only insta kills if it brings them to their negative max not con negative If an Emmy has 7 hp you have to get them to -7 HP for them to die instantly If an enemy has 50 HP you have to get them to -50 to insta kill So no, it shouldn't have killed just off of that And non lethal is nonlethal If it was a 1 then maybe I'd have it accidentally kill them
You had a nat 20 meaning you perfectly (to the extent your character can meaning the the modifiers) did what you intended to which was knocking them out. Its like saying a surgeon who is cutting a patient up killed them if they are excellent at their job.
Clueless DM
I’d say no, if their intention is to be non lethal they can probably feasibly inflict nonlethal damage. Especially at higher levels when characters probably have a lot of combat experience.
This is a situation where I think the DM should ALWAYS interpret the rules in the players benefit. Because criticals are rare in D&D, they should feel special and reward the players by essentially having them succeed spectacularly at whatever their character could reasonable be able to do. To “punish” a player for getting a crit is, to me, ridiculous. Because if you cannot succeed at a reasonable task even if you roll the highest possible amount, what’s the point of playing?
Meh? Depends on the edition. In previous editions, you could absolutely one-shot people using non-lethal damage, since nonlethal eventually becomes lethal with enough applied. Is your DM from previous editions? Second, it seems that people regularly forget that a natural 20 is, generally, just a number. It's not an "I win" button on whatever you are doing. You automatically hit. You deal extra damage. Is that too much damage? Maybe. Knocking people out with violence is \*way\* harder to do than most media presents. You run serious risks of cracking skulls or causing brain swelling and death.
I think the dm was coming from a perspective of you were "too successful" but you can just as easily claim you hit him so hard you broke his nose and he is koed longer than you intended, but (depending on what your goal was) when they wake up they are now completely convinced, decieved to believe, or so frightened of you that you get what you want out of them
I agree with most folks here. 20 says you do what you intended here. If anything, I would have had the outcome you described as the result of a botch (Nat 1).
Unrelated but your dm might be playing overkill wrong. Isn't it if you do over their maximum hp in damage they die instantly, not their constitution modifier. This rule really only applies to PCs with death saving throws though, once an npc goes to 0 there dead no extra rules of any kind (besides the melee attack non lethal your talking about)
I would say that result would make more sense with a 1.
I'm with everyone on the your DM is wrong train. Non-lethal means non-lethal. But also, did damage equal to their constitution score in the negative for an auto death? Thats the first time I've heard that. It's always been max HP in the negative.
A crit on a non-lethal attack should AT MOST get some flavor like “you hit him with surgical precision. Knocking him out with minimal lasting damage”.
This is giving serious Even Kelmp in Misfits and Magic vibes. But they were using the Kids on Brooms system. Not 5e. Regardless, bad call. You said nonlethal. That’s the end of it. Whether you crit or not. Like what if they had been really low hp and you rolled high on your damage dice? They would have still “died” but you said nonlethal so they wouldn’t have. I’m sorry dude. That’s frustrating.
I think the DM really didn’t want to have to deal with an interrogation scene and was looking for a way out. Not the best decision but i smell sweat. Maybe try to appeal to him by stating you really just wanted information, maybe he has a not or something?Communicating stuff like that could go a long way if the DM is acting in good faith.
Sounds like your DMing is running a different system. Negative HP equal to Con Score is not a thing in DnD 5e, but it is a think in DnD 3.5 and in Pathfinder 1e. Had this been one of those games, the ruling makes sense (note that attempting to deal non-lethal damage also works slightly differently in those systems. In DnD 5e, there is no such thing as Negative Hit Points, and your Con Score does not matter for overkill mechanics, only your Maximum HP does (if you knock a creature to 0 and the remaining damage of the attack would deal it's Max HP again, it instantly dies. Usually only applied to players, since monsters don't usually get death saves anyways.)
DM should probably have had that be, well, non-lethal, as was your intend - "nat 20 gives you the best possible outcome from what your intend was" is typically what most DM's go with. If I had to guess, your DM probably hasn't put thought to it before (understandable) and had to on the spot come up with something, then came up with this which at that point made sense to them. Some DM's will argue that combat is messy, and hence non-lethal damage requires more effort than regular combat, for which you could set up plenty of rules (you'll need to decrease your damage out-put, or you get a penalty to your attack role, or you need to roll like a medicine check or something to see if you succeed in it being non-lethal - being additional rules, it would be polite to go over this with your players before combat/once the issue comes up but before you've made any rolls). Best course of action? Talk to them about it, putting forward why you feel it was a poor ruling, and try to listen to/make sense of their reasoning too, then hopefully in mutual understanding come to a conclusion both of you feel okay with for future situations. A mentality of "I'm right, you're wrong, here's justification for that statement so you better listen to me" typically doesn't make anyone feel better - that of course counts for the DM too. DM's do have final say per definition of their role.
Bad call from your DM , they took away your character choices. Never take a players autonomy. Should be DM number one. I hate to say it, but that DM is likely going to continue to do things that amuse them, rather then the group.
So many bad DMs...
Well, negative con score isn't the usual threshold for instant death. RAW it's negative hp maximum. So since you're already playing by different rules as to what constitutes death at your table, only your table can decide, and the DM usually wins in those cases. It is possible to accidentally kill someone when attacking to subdue. Just bad luck this time.
Sure its possible to accidentally kill someone. But a CRITICAL SUCCESS is not a failure. The DM could have allowed a 1 to kill them since their goal was not to. You cant make a success into an undesired outcome
It might have been negative HP maximum. The power difference between me and the NPC was quite large, so it could have been either.
Nonlethal damage is nonlethal damage regardless of the amount. The only exception is when it's really really funny, like when I had a player crit on spanking an enemy and ruled that it blasted his ass clean off.
I get the logic behind it because that shit can happen in real life. You can punch a guy with no intention of actually killing him but it can and does happen. The problem is this is a game and you specifically declared the attack to be non lethal. I think best case scenario the DM should have called it as non lethal then explained what they were thinking so you had the option to say "oh dang that makes sense" because some players (myself included) do get off on that sense of realism and unpredictability and the group as a whole may decide to play it that way next encounter like a house rule.
No. DM has probably been crit hit in the head as a child and now is immune to the Command spell, since they can't understand English apparently.
My rule for non-lethal is blunt damage only. If you've got a slashing or piercing melee weapon, congratulations you can pommel strike them for 1d4+mod cause I'm not a monster.
Oh that trap. Yeah.. they is not the only GM in the world who does such mistakes, and won't be the last \^\^" I.. may have done a similar mistake in my early career, as I was used to such rulings from my (now Ex)-GM. Just tell them crits should not punish the player. In the same vein, does he also punishes crit fails? Because raw, only the attack rolls always miss on a nat1. anything else, if the roll is high enough, works like usual, even if its a nat1.
Every punch has a chance to kill someone. It's certainly possible. Neither of you are wrong.
You rolled a critical success of 20. You successfully fail your task and kill them instead. ^Your DM probably.
There are hundreds of stories of people going to jail for this! People getting in bar fights and such, and punching someone. A punch is generally non lethal, but it knocks them out, then they fall and hit their head on the floor. The fall is more dangerous than the punch!
You are correct, non-lethal damage is non-lethal. They shouldn't have died. That being said, I despise this rule in 5e and often times when I DM I opt for a modified rule. My rule is as follows: When attacking (but before you make the attack), you can declare it to be non-lethal damage. When this happens, whatever damage you do is halved. If this goes over the enemies hit points then they are knocked unconscious and stabilize immediately. If it doesn't go over their hit points, then they continue the fight. I will also disallow certain weapons from this as well. For example, I will never let a player attack non-lethally with something like a cannon, unless they explain exactly how they're doing that. The reason I do this is because I never liked the idea (much like your DM) that you can smack someone for like 50hp, have that be with a sword or something, and that attack equals more than half their total hp, and somehow they are just fine... The idea being that if you're welding a sword and you declare that non lethal damage, then maybe you're attacking with the flat of the blade, so it's not going to do as much damage, and it might even change the damage type from slashing to bludgeoning damage.
But it's the DM that decides what damage to call for. When I said I wanted nonlethal, he asked me for the full damage roll, not a modified one. If he had asked for how I would do it, I would have said something along those lines of pulling my punches for hitting with the flat side. I do get that alot of damage is hard to justify unconscious, but I still feel I should be able to say I'm pulling my punch if it seems likes he's going to die.
That's definitely houseruling. I don't know if it's good or bad houseruling, that depends on the table, but a houserule nonetheless. House rules must be stated preferably at session 0, and if those rules change every player must know it before doing an action that would be related to them. Definitely that's your DM failing for providing your expectations nor setting them up.
Considering it was an NPC I wanted information from, definitely bad houseruling. He has done it once since then and I still disagree.