A question for DM's about non lethal damage and taking prisoners

[Vyanie]

During a few campaigns I have noticed quite a few DM's tend to get really pissy when you do non lethal damage to try and knock out the BBEG to take it prisoner and either use it as a slave, torture dummy, source of income ect.

Does this tend to occur often? just point blank not letting PC's do stuff (within their alignment no less)

A few examples of this were during one campaign 2 of the players were playing hand to hand characters we were fighting a very young red dragon and we both had the bright idea instead of killing it just knock it out, break its wings, then sell the thing... a few omg crit rolls from the 2 of us both doing non lethal damage and it should have been knocked out.... the DM just said it died .... now no one else was really doing damage to the thing, I had really wanted to rip its wings off and stick it under our guild hall kind of like a treasure guardian type thing ensuring it had a life of servitude. Nope... was told point blank we could not knock it out we only do full damage and killed it....

In another campaign with a different DM we were able to kill all the guards of a demon worshiping baroness. We proceeded to knock her out but as soon as the DM found out what we wanted to do she just dies (tied up after we pulled all her teeth and tied a stick into her mouth to keep her from biting her tongue completely bound and gagged)

I tend to play slightly evil characters (hell i even bring the alignments of other players more to the dark side, making paladins fall from grace even) Once the DM's find out we are going to torture or enslave the BBEG it seems quite a few of them get really really pissy and take it personally. Why is this?

[Siosilvar]

They could just not be comfortable with taking the game in that direction, and shut it down when they feel it's gone too far instead of taking about game expectations with the group. I know that personally, none of what you've described in the OP is anything I'd let fly, even for evil characters, unless we had an out of game discussion about it first.

[Vyanie]

They could just not be comfortable with taking the game in that direction, and shut it down when they feel it's gone too far instead of taking about game expectations with the group. I know that personally, none of what you've described in the OP is anything I'd let fly, even for evil characters, unless we had an out of game discussion about it first.

See that i just don't understand that. Personally with the dragon, it was evil... I was going to break it until it was nothing more than a mindless beast and leave it down in a prison. (something fun to toss bad guys into) This would serve a few things. First is one less dragon, second is a nice spot to toss enemies, third is a nice guard for our treasure, fourth is instant credibility. Do you really want to mess with the group that didn't even bother to kill a dragon but made it their **** instead. Instant shut down from DM... it just dies. These are GM's that have no problem with characters borking prostitutes and such. Hell, our once paladin after falling from grace decapitated a mother in front of their children to force a village to surrender.

It just seems many DM's seem to get pissy when players take the BBEG and try to make it suffer.... Its like they take it personally

[Rangô]

Hey there!
Just an advice, dragons such a huge amount of creatures in d&d are inmune to criticals, what means they are also inmune to non lethal damange.
So next time, be sure who you're trying to knock down, if I had been your DM, that dragon could be pretending its death and then attack you off guard. Generally isn't a great idea enslave PNC's or creatures that are under DM's domain, because he can fudge the dice making an scape artist roll whenever he whises, and the enemy, full of motivation, has been planning your backstabbing sooo long...

[TIPOT]

See that i just don't understand that. Personally with the dragon, it was evil... I was going to break it until it was nothing more than a mindless beast and leave it down in a prison. (something fun to toss bad guys into) This would serve a few things. First is one less dragon, second is a nice spot to toss enemies, third is a nice guard for our treasure, fourth is instant credibility. Do you really want to mess with the group that didn't even bother to kill a dragon but made it their **** instead. Instant shut down from DM... it just dies. These are GM's that have no problem with characters borking prostitutes and such. Hell, our once paladin after falling from grace decapitated a mother in front of their children to force a village to surrender.

It just seems many DM's seem to get pissy when players take the BBEG and try to make it suffer.... Its like they take it personally

If you can't see what's inherently wrong with torturing a sentient creature into a mindless slave I'm not really sure there's anyway anyone can convince you the DM has a point.

[Renen]

If I was the DM I would just stop it from happening as not to have my player gleefully describe his character torchuring a dragon.

Unless you are playing a very very evil campaign

[nedz]

AD&D had a rule about subduing Dragons. It was actually easier than killing them - and so a smart strategy.

Thurbane made some interesting points, but I would certainly allow this. We see prisoners taken routinely in our games.

[Renen]

We see prisoners taken routinely in our games.

I think prisoners are fine to take, except in this case it's less a prisoner and more a torture toy, for the PC to fall to evil alignment, and get hunted by hordes of paladin for torturing sentient beings into insanity.

[TheFurith]

During a few campaigns I have noticed quite a few DM's tend to get really pissy when you do non lethal damage to try and knock out the BBEG to take it prisoner and either use it as a slave, torture dummy, source of income ect.

Does this tend to occur often? just point blank not letting PC's do stuff (within their alignment no less)

A few examples of this were during one campaign 2 of the players were playing hand to hand characters we were fighting a very young red dragon and we both had the bright idea instead of killing it just knock it out, break its wings, then sell the thing... a few omg crit rolls from the 2 of us both doing non lethal damage and it should have been knocked out.... the DM just said it died .... now no one else was really doing damage to the thing, I had really wanted to rip its wings off and stick it under our guild hall kind of like a treasure guardian type thing ensuring it had a life of servitude. Nope... was told point blank we could not knock it out we only do full damage and killed it....

In another campaign with a different DM we were able to kill all the guards of a demon worshiping baroness. We proceeded to knock her out but as soon as the DM found out what we wanted to do she just dies (tied up after we pulled all her teeth and tied a stick into her mouth to keep her from biting her tongue completely bound and gagged)

I tend to play slightly evil characters (hell i even bring the alignments of other players more to the dark side, making paladins fall from grace even) Once the DM's find out we are going to torture or enslave the BBEG it seems quite a few of them get really really pissy and take it personally. Why is this?

It's really a question of why they object. Are they objecting to the maiming and torturing? Or to taking prisoners?

Some DM's do not abide torture. Straight up murdering twenty-seven of the things that attacked you for invading their house to take their stuff is cool though. Don't ask me why....

But prisoners in general are just a can of worms nobody wants to deal with. You first suddenly have some mook that the DM has to now actually be something that's not just fodder. If it's to be questioned it now has to be a character and have knowledge. How much knowledge? Nobody thought about that beforehand. Or worse the party good guy wants to turn the whole trip around so it can stand trial. While another character would just rather stab it like the rest and move on. Argument ensues, somebody gets butthurt, game dies. Happens too many times.

In general, just don't do it unless you already know everyone is on the same page to begin with unless you want issues to come up.

[Siosilvar]

See that i just don't understand that. Personally with the dragon, it was evil... I was going to break it until it was nothing more than a mindless beast and leave it down in a prison. (something fun to toss bad guys into)

It's almost like abuse is way more personal to most people than murder is.

[Morcleon]

Hey there!
Just an advice, dragons such a huge amount of creatures in d&d are inmune to criticals, what means they are also inmune to non lethal damange.
So next time, be sure who you're trying to knock down, if I had been your DM, that dragon could be pretending its death and then attack you off guard. Generally isn't a great idea enslave PNC's or creatures that are under DM's domain, because he can fudge the dice making an scape artist roll whenever he whises, and the enemy, full of motivation, has been planning your backstabbing sooo long...

Dragons are neither immune to criticals nor immune to non-lethal damage. Also, dice fudging to just mess with the PCs is not a sign of a good DM.

[Doc_Maynot]

Honestly, I usually never run pre-made modules, and when I do I deviate from the script a smidgeon anyways. So I never have an issue with players capturing enemies.
My issue starts up with the aforementioned "Make the Dragon your *****" and "break it until it is a mindless beast" part. Those are typically powerful, and intelligent creatures. Not to mention beings with sorcerer casting 9 time out of 10. Were you able to domesticate such a creature in an AMF? Did you just use intimidate? If so, that will just end up with the dragon more upset with you than not after a few minutes. Handle Animal could be used, but the DC is 40+HD. If a PC was able to pull that, then sure. Otherwise, the dragon most likely will only submit until it has a calculated chance at freedom.
Perhaps there are torture rules I am not aware of though?

Also, I know dragons aren't immune to crits, but where does it say in 3.X that creatures immune to crits are automatically immune to non-lethal?

[BowStreetRunner]

There are really two different issues involved here, and I will tell you my policy as a GM for each of them.

First of all, when the PCs manage to do something unexpected that might derail my plans, I roll with it. If the players are creative enough to come up with things that I didn't anticipate, in most cases I will find a way to reward them for it even while I am scrambling to figure out how to deal with this unexpected turn of events. Now not all GMs are experienced with handling this sort of thing. I play in LARP events where it is much more common as the GMs have much less control over things, so it's familiar territory. I also know some people who do improvisational comedy that have a principle called 'Yes, and..." that I think would also prepare a GM to better handle these curve-balls from the players.

As to the second issue, I draw a clear line whenever I start a game that says players are allowed to do whatever their alignment dictates up to a point. The line they need to avoid crossing is where the character stops being a hero or anti-hero and becomes a villain. As GM I maintain a monopoly on all villains in the game. If a PC crosses this line they become my property - an NPC that the party will eventually need to deal with. The player can then roll up a new PC. Certainly this is a policy that is going to vary from one GM to the next, but the important consideration is that it is CLEARLY STATED at the outset, before play even begins. If a GM doesn't want to run a game where characters do certain types of evil acts, that needs to be stated upfront. In all of the games I have run that way I have never had a single player complain, even when they did lose a character who crossed the line. (In fact, I lost a PC that way myself in a game run by someone else once and I was pretty proud of how that former PC became the greatest nemesis the party had ever faced, never mind that I had to play another character fighting against my old PC.) Where I often see the most complaints is when DMs don't take the time upfront to properly set the players' expectations.

[ShurikVch]

Just an advice, dragons such a huge amount of creatures in d&d are inmune to criticals, what means they are also inmune to non lethal damange.

Are you sure?
Descriptions of neither Nonlethal Damage itself, nor Critical Hits, don't say anything about it
Furthermore - Elementals, Oozes, and Plants are all immune to Critical Hits, but not to Nonlethal Damage

[Chronikoce]

It could be a simple matter of the DM being uncomfortable with that level of brutality but not wanting to admit it.

I personally would allow both of these actions to be done, though there may definitely be consequences. However, I don't want to hear you describe your techniques for torturing a sentient being into mindless servitude and rage.

Even the description of the captured cultists leads me to believe you probably are describing things at a rather graphic level. One could say, we knock her unconscious and bind her hand, mouth, and foot so as to prevent her from escaping, harming herself, or others. Instead you described pulling out all her teeth and tieing a stick into her mouth which has me wondering where you are going next and whether I'd want to sit through you describing it at a gaming session.

[Sith_Happens]

Yeah, this is definitely less about your DMs not wanting you to take prisoners and more about them not wanting you to be really freaking evil.

[Fouredged Sword]

I had a game that the party worked for a spymaster as disposable cat's paws. We took a goblin chieftain prisoner and the DM had the spymaster pay us a little extra because he had good intel.

This may have been a miscalculation on his part because out came the blunted arrows and the party warcry turned into "That one looks important!".

The party was a duskblade, swift hunter, and monk/rogue who focused on disarming and tripping.

The DM made it work out in the end. We took bonus loot at the end of each quest based on the value of the creatures we hauled back (the DM adhoced a formula based on CR of the creature and a modifier based on how tied up it was in larger plots). We had fun working out ways to haul creatures around and keep them from killing us in our sleep (it was a low level game).

[Segev]

Because your argument includes "it should be okay because I tend towards evil in my PCs," this is something you need to discuss OOC with your DM. Find out what it is to which he actually objects. It is highly possible that he is objecting to the torture and the level of visceral, descriptive evil being suggested.

If so, then you should probably play less evil; the game needs to be fun for the DM, too, and if he's not comfortable with torture and the like, don't try to force it. This really does sound like an expectations thing: you and he don't expect the same thing, so you need to talk to each other about what you want out of the game and come to a mutual understanding to get on the same page.

[Scorponok]

The only time it gets to be a pain in the @$$ is when you want some intrigue/mystery in the story but the characters are at a high enough level to spam Zone of Truth/Suggestion and a semi-high level minion who is involved in the plot gives the whole plot away.

[Gallowglass]

... use it as a slave, torture dummy, source of income ect.

... break its wings, then sell the thing... I had really wanted to rip its wings off and stick it under our guild hall ... ensuring it had a life of servitude.

...We proceeded to knock her out but as soon as the DM found out what we wanted to do ... we pulled all her teeth and tied a stick into her mouth ... completely bound and gagged)

Perhaps the DM just doesn't feel like servicing as your personal sadistic erotica provider.

You could perhaps go pull wings off of flies or torture neighborhood cats on your own instead of getting your fix through gaming.

[Vyanie]

It could be a simple matter of the DM being uncomfortable with that level of brutality but not wanting to admit it.

I personally would allow both of these actions to be done, though there may definitely be consequences. However, I don't want to hear you describe your techniques for torturing a sentient being into mindless servitude and rage.

Even the description of the captured cultists leads me to believe you probably are describing things at a rather graphic level. One could say, we knock her unconscious and bind her hand, mouth, and foot so as to prevent her from escaping, harming herself, or others. Instead you described pulling out all her teeth and tieing a stick into her mouth which has me wondering where you are going next and whether I'd want to sit through you describing it at a gaming session.

We specifically stated pulling the teeth out because the last thing we knocked out in that campaign bit its tongue off and died, we figured you cant do that with no teeth. We were trying to cover all our bases (cant bite down because of stick and no teeth to break stick)

[Vyanie]

Perhaps the DM just doesn't feel like servicing as your personal sadistic erotica provider.

You could perhaps go pull wings off of flies or torture neighborhood cats on your own instead of getting your fix through gaming.

Sadistic maybe, erotica not a chance... we were being more pragmatic. In the campaign with the dragon we just basically wanted to bind it down in the basement so it could not escape and since it was evil anyways while we were trying to get info from other things we captured use it as intimidation "One of you will tell us and one gets to be dragon chow... now who is gonna talk first" Its not like the dragon is going to care it is eating someone and hey we also gave the DM an arch nemesis on a silver platter if we never broke its will. Our goal was to take over a kingdom .... assassination was cool, murdering people in front of loved ones to stop a rebellion was fine... but not the dragon apparently. This was also an evil campaign.

The demonic baroness was a different campaign with a different DM. The reason we had to describe the immobilization was because the last thing bit its tongue off before it could talk, we just thought of a way that the damn thing couldn't this time. We were literally trying to cover all the bases.

[Zanos]

Torture, to the point of breaking a creautres mind into a slave, is incredibly Evil. Even if you do it to an Evil creature.

I personally would allow a player to do this, with the OOC understanding that what they're doing is enough to force a full alignment shift to Evil. I wouldn't, as others mentioned, send a horde of paladins after them. What the PCs are doing is awful, but if I were a Paladin, "guy who tortures Evil dragons" probably isn't super high on my list of things that are a priority to get purged.

Mostly it sounds like the DM is uncomfortable with describing these things in detail. You should talk to him OOC, and ask him that if he doesn't want you guys to describe what you're doing to your prisoners in such gratuity, he needs to not take advantages of holes in your plan.

So the DM has something you guys wanted to interrogate bite off their own tongue, fine, cool. The next guy got his teeth pulled out since you wised up, and the DM got uncomfortable.

The only time it gets to be a pain in the @$$ is when you want some intrigue/mystery in the story but the characters are at a high enough level to spam Zone of Truth/Suggestion and a semi-high level minion who is involved in the plot gives the whole plot away.

Division of labor and need-to-know. Works pretty well for real world organizations. The guy in charge of recruiting orc armies and taking over nearby silver mines doesn't need to know what the silver or orcs are for.

[Vyanie]

Torture, to the point of breaking a creautres mind into a slave, is incredibly Evil. Even if you do it to an Evil creature.

I personally would allow a player to do this, with the OOC understanding that what they're doing is enough to force a full alignment shift to Evil. I wouldn't, as others mentioned, send a horde of paladins after them. What the PCs are doing is awful, but if I were a Paladin, "guy who tortures Evil dragons" probably isn't super high on my list of things that are a priority to get purged.

Mostly it sounds like the DM is uncomfortable with describing these things in detail. You should talk to him OOC, and ask him that if he doesn't want you guys to describe what you're doing to your prisoners in such gratuity, he needs to not take advantages of holes in your plan.

So the DM has something you guys wanted to interrogate bite off their own tongue, fine, cool. The next guy got his teeth pulled out since you wised up, and the DM got uncomfortable.


Division of labor and need-to-know. Works pretty well for real world organizations. The guy in charge of recruiting orc armies and taking over nearby silver mines doesn't need to know what the silver or orcs are for.

Thank you for understanding, the party was already evil (me being the least evil with NE). These are just 2 of the most extreme examples. I have been in quite a few groups where taking prisoners is just a straight up no for some reason. I was wondering more is this a trend that you cant just smack around the bad guy and keep them prisoner... DM's tend to get annoyed when you don't just kill it but keep it alive and such.

[Tanuki Tales]

In regards to the dragon:

The GM just might not wanted you guys to have an extra 2,500 gold*.

*CR squared x 100 gp, per Lords of Madness pg 101.

[Jay R]

I enjoy doing work to support people's desires to be heroes.

I would not enjoy doing work to support people's desires to be torturers or slavers.

This is a purely emotional response - but my own.

[Zanos]

I enjoy doing work to support people's desires to be heroes.

I would not enjoy doing work to support people's desires to be torturers or slavers.

This is a purely emotional response - but my own.

OP clarified several times the DM was running an evil campaign anyway.

[Fizban]

All the other arguments aside, it's just a pain in the ass to deal with the players capturing stuff they were meant to kill. Now you have to make up names and information and plot escapes and all sorts of other stuff that have nothing to do with a simple combat encounter. And that's just on the DM side, then on the player side you get the arguments about what you should do with the prisoners, unless the whole party is evil in which case you get worse.

If your DM is declaring that your prisoners have bit off their own tongues to commit suicide, maybe you should take the hint and knock it off.

[Tanuki Tales]

All the other arguments aside, it's just a pain in the ass to deal with the players capturing stuff they were meant to kill. Now you have to make up names and information and plot escapes and all sorts of other stuff that have nothing to do with a simple combat encounter. And that's just on the DM side, then on the player side you get the arguments about what you should do with the prisoners, unless the whole party is evil in which case you get worse.

If your DM is declaring that your prisoners have bit off their own tongues to commit suicide, maybe you should take the hint and knock it off.

If they just want to GM a smash and grab, but their players want something more in depth, then the obvious answer is he/she/what have you should either acquiesce or give up the chair to someone else to run the game.

[Darrin]

The Spoony One addresses these issues:


Counter Monkey - So You Want To Be Evil

Counter Monkey - The Prisoners' Dilemma