galsiah said:
I'm not saying that there aren't sometimes good ways to reduce the odds of killing an opponent. I am saying that the most effective way to deal with an opponent non-lethally should make sense at all times.
Well, you've not really shown that this isn't the case imo.
I'm not saying you've suggested it: I'm suggesting it, and asking what you propose be done about it. If there is a solution, that's great. I don't know why you're getting so shirty about this.
Obviously because that's now how I interpreted it. I'll explain why too. Here's why:
galsiah said:
And would suck IMO - unless the player always has a means of reducing damage that makes sense for his character (i.e. NOT putting away his main weapon, and selecting a dagger he can hardly use to avoid the risk of killing).
With your own words: If the player always has a means of reducing damage that makes sense for his character (i.e. NOT putting away his main weapon, and selecting a dagger he can hardly use to avoid the risk of killing), it would
not suck. It appeared to me that I had demonstrated that this is the case, but you weren't acknowleding it.
So you can't blame me for not realizing that your real point wasn't that a sensible strategy should be available, but that a nonsensical one shouldn't be, or at least shouldn't be favourable under any circumstances.
However, for the situation to be coherent, you need to make sure that the optimal non-lethal-victory strategy (preferably all non-lethal-victory strategies) ALWAYS makes sense. There are many examples where it might not. My good-Swordsman-inept-dagger-user situation is just one example.
Well, to be perfectly honest I don't see how you've shown that your example is actually valid. I've seen no evidence that the optimal non-lethal-victory strategy isn't also optimal in the context of your example, or that your suggested nonsensical strategy actually makes sense of the player.
I assume changing weapons costs AP, and as your complaint is based on the idea that the character isn't skilled with a dagger (if he were, using a dagger wouldn't be nonsensical), it would also decrease his chance to hit - against an opponent presumably fighting back, without a gargantuan buffer of hitpoints to protect you while fooling around.
Since swords have the special ability "disam" which may be very helpful for a non-lethal takedown, using fast attacks with the sword actually appears to be a superior way of dealing with an opponent for your swordsman. You could argue that he might switch to a dagger after disarming his opponent, but I am not sure why that would make much sense.
The way I see it, you'll first have to show that the situation where it makes sense for a skilled swordsman to switch to a blunt dagger despite lacking skill with that weapon actually exists.
The main issue I see is how large the range for nonlethal victory is, since that determines how much control the player has over reaching it and whether or not switching to a particularly weak weapon to not do too much damage makes sense.
The way I see it, a threshold of 5HP would be too small. It ought to be more than the maximum damage of a fast attack with most weapons, also taking a possible strength bonus and armour into account.
And last not least, someone else already suggested another mechanism to counter your scenario: Make unconsciousness depend weapon skill, although I'd tweak it so a character would reach a chance of 100% even at a mediocre skill level, otherwise that'd be annoying. Also, not counting synergy.
Of course a character could still train a dagger as take-down weapon, but in that case I wouldn't consider the strategy nonsensical anymore.