Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976971Or were a gang hanging around at the pub bullshitting, not engaging in academic discourse, because at the end of the day we're talking about silly-ass games.

Which are different from silly ass-games.  Punctuation matters.

I take ass-games very seriously and intend to indulge in academic discourse over them.

In many genres (especially medieval fantasy), PCs are engaged in lethal, take-no-prisoners combat - where they always kill their opponents, and they expect to be outright killed by their opponents if defeated. Under those circumstances, rushing the enemy with hostages is often a good idea - while giving in to enemy demands may put everyone in greater danger.

If the enemy are logically trying to maximize their own survival, then if rushed, they will fight against the PCs attacking them rather than spending actions to kill helpless hostages. On the other hand, some enemies may be irrationally vindictive or sadistic, and kill the hostages on principle even if it means that they themselves die. As a GM, though, I would be wary of my own bias to have the enemy behave in a way to teach the PCs a lesson - as opposed to acting in their own best interest.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;976953How did players rescue princesses back in the '70s?

We stabbed the bad guy before he put a knife to her neck.
Or we cast stoneskin on her.
Or gambled and magic missile -ed the creep.
Or dimension door-ed her away.
Or charmed the creep.
Or negotiated with him, ransoms work too.
Or said "kill her! We'll just raise her!" (BTW, not a good plan.)
Ooh! My favorite was polymorphing the princess into a troll! Then they get to take out the bad guy, instead. They like that- good plan.

Quote from: jhkim;976978In many genres (especially medieval fantasy), PCs are engaged in lethal, take-no-prisoners combat - where they always kill their opponents, and they expect to be outright killed by their opponents if defeated. Under those circumstances, rushing the enemy with hostages is often a good idea - while giving in to enemy demands may put everyone in greater danger.

If the enemy are logically trying to maximize their own survival, then if rushed, they will fight against the PCs attacking them rather than spending actions to kill helpless hostages. On the other hand, some enemies may be irrationally vindictive or sadistic, and kill the hostages on principle even if it means that they themselves die. As a GM, though, I would be wary of my own bias to have the enemy behave in a way to teach the PCs a lesson - as opposed to acting in their own best interest.

This is true.  What's really, really funny is that in a genre based on loot, capture and ransom is unknown.  Dude's got plate armor, a warhorse, and a manor... he's money on the hoof if we take him alive, lads!

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;976908I love turning combats into hostage situations when a PC is downed. Rather than instantly kill him, it lets me wring some drama out of the situation, and it makes sense for the enemies too.

The problem I've noticed is that 99% of the time the players will just ignore however much danger there is for the hostage and try to bulldoze the other side and get their friend back.

Well, I guess my first question is: IS that a problem?

If they do that, should I just roll with it, or go ahead and kill the hostage?

In D&D 5e you have the additional problem that "attacking" someone who is at 0 hp still requires an attack roll, AND they need to fail saving throws, so you end up in the absurd situation where an orc has a knife to the unconscious character's throat and somehow misses the attempt to slit his neck open. Or he does it but the guy still has one more saving throw so it made no difference, really, that he was being held hostage, and the players can assume they have some time to free him.

That seems to undermine the tension of what the situation is supposed to be. In those cases, is it right to say the PC instantly dies? But I know people would get upset by that probably too since it's circumventing the traditional rule.

How do you handle these situations? Have you ever had a PC die because of a hostage situation? Do you let them get rescued? What do you do?

I roleplay the NPCs, and have them do what makes sense and is in-character. I don't remember any players choosing to ignore a hostage threat on another player's character in my own games, though I have seen it happen in a friend's game (the PC hostage was killed) and I have had players decide to fight on when they clearly should not and are being given chances to surrender or flee - these have lead to PC death, maiming, and capture.

As for the rules, I play GURPS or TFT rather than D&D, and they tend to have logic/reality-based rules, including the ability to kill helpless foes unless there's a real reason it wouldn't work. In some cases though, the victim really might survive and/or some rolls would be involved, and/or it might even be difficult (e.g. the victim is in full armor and/or has an "iron flesh" spell still working, or the slayer is distracted, incompetent, and/or makes a mistake or has a reason not to kill the PC).

In general, PCs who ignore serious risks tend to hit consequences and learn or they don't last very long in my games, though they may luck out for a while.

A little slavish to rules, I see. For reference:

Unconscious
• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the
attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

You are reading an Unconscious and held (Grappled) creature must be Attacked by attack rolls only, Many attacks are Str or Dex saves, so you can just rule that an Unconscious Held Hostage being attacked is just a Str or Dex save -- which automatically fails and they are hit, critically, because the hostage taker is assumed to be within 5'. That's two Failed Death Saves because of the Critical.

Better?

Just kill the hostage. Otherwise your players think your threats are just part of their scripted heroics.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976971Or were a gang hanging around at the pub bullshitting, not engaging in academic discourse, because at the end of the day we're talking about silly-ass games.

Which are different from silly ass-games.  Punctuation matters.

Do you think the "King of Tits and Wine" class covers these silly ass-games, or does another class need to *cough* fill in this niche?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976984This is true.  What's really, really funny is that in a genre based on loot, capture and ransom is unknown.  Dude's got plate armor, a warhorse, and a manor... he's money on the hoof if we take him alive, lads!

If this were classic D&D then fuck yeah!  Sadly, in the default 5E universe, gold isn't very valuable and players don't spend much time pursuing it. To the 5E murderhobo storygamer-if you can't use it to buy better shit to make you better at muderhoboing then what good is it?

Also, with regard to the whole hostage thing, 5E makes it joke to care enough to disadvantage yourself to save someone. Death is easily fixed in a number of ways using just a little of that useless gold and the poor bastard is none the worse for wear and doesn't suffer any long term consequences no matter how many times he takes a dirt nap and gets brought back. Because 5E makes the threat of DEATH so empty who the fuck cares if the bad guy kills someone. So regardless of how easy or hard it is to kill someone with a knife to the throat, logical thinking players aren't going to let that deter them. The hostage dies? So the hell what?  One 3rd level spell and 300gp later they are back up and ready for action. Death is a joke in 5E. Without the ordinary consequences that make death actually suck it will not be particularly feared and rightly so,

From a player perspective, every bit of news and fiction tells us that hostage situations only end well for the hostages if the people holding them get taken out swiftly and decisively.

When the guy hauls the girl up with a gun to her head and tells you to drop your gun, you shoot the guy in the head or drop it to put his guard down long enough for you pull the hidden piece you taped to your back and THEN shoot him in the head or... worst case scenario... shoot the victim through a non-vital area into the vital area of the hostage taker.

In real life, hostage situations never to my knowledge end with the hostage-takers getting away; either the hostage takers back down and release the hostages or SWAT does its thing to end the threat. Any time hostages are involved the hostage-taker is already losing the situation and the only leverage they have (the hostages) are the things they're going to HAVE to give up before the opposing side will let them leave, but if they give them up their leverage is gone and the side that was already pretty much guaranteed to win is free to finish the job.

And real life has shown that just about any time someone is kidnapped (i.e. taken hostage, just without cops around to negotiate), giving in to their demands almost always gets the kidnap victim killed (if they weren't already dead).

In short, there is nothing in real life or fictional experience that would encourage the PC's to surrender in the situation you set up instead of just going for broke, focus-fire the guy physically holding their friend and hope you drop him before he can follow through on the threat.

This would be true regardless of how easy you made it to kill the hostage; the only difference is how difficult the task is in saving them.

Frankly, if the PC's gave in every time a villain put a knife to someone's throat; they'd be faced with it again and again as word got out. That's why the official police policy on hostage/kidnappings is not to give in to demands. They don't want crooks thinking they can get away with their scheme if they just take innocents hostage. Instead they want them to know that threatening innocents will not get them anything except more likely to die.

So further, from a long term survival aspect, the PC party is much better off being known as the guys who'll shoot through their own ally to kill someone cowardly enough take a hostage (but who let enemies who surrender to them go minus their weapons and coin purses). Hell, if I were a PC, I'd hire some minstrels to spread stories and songs of how my party did exactly that throughout the surrounding countryside. The more opponents know that sort of behavior is a sure death sentence instead of a ticket to survival and that throwing down arms when they face us IS their surest ticket to survival, the better it is for all concerned.

TL;DR... The PC's are behaving entirely rationally, its the OP hostage situation concept that's askew from reality.

Actual Medieval hostage taking was done AFTER the battle with those who surrendered. They were held under generally humane conditions (under guard, but with food and water) and then released when paid; which like the example above acted to reduce causalities on both sides (because there was an option other than fighting to the death).

If you wanna pull the hostage gambit, I suggest not doing it until more than half the party is down and then instead of "stop or we kill them" make it "if you surrender now we'll let you leave with your friends and your lives; though a bit lighter in the purse." That's a situation where the odds favor ceasing the fight, not the situation the OP has been using.

If you want to give them pause, but still leave options open, house rule death saves that every failed death save is a level of exhaustion.  They may still go ahead, but at least there will be some short-term consequences.  It's enough to get players to at least consider talking.  And unlike automatic kill house rules, the players won't be able to abuse it going the other way, either.  Plus, it will possibly mitigate a little the "go down, pop up" behavior with the way hit points work.  A series of fights using that rule can kill, by picking up that 6th level of exhaustion.

Or if you don't want the hassle of tracking exhaustion, use the house rule we used during the Next playtest:  Your failed death save counter resets only after a long rest, not when you make a successful one.  Walking around with 2 failed death saves from a critical is a little scarier if the party has any chance of being involved in another fight today.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;976908In D&D 5e you have the additional problem that "attacking" someone who is at 0 hp still requires an attack roll, AND they need to fail saving throws, so you end up in the absurd situation where an orc has a knife to the unconscious character's throat and somehow misses the attempt to slit his neck open. Or he does it but the guy still has one more saving throw so it made no difference, really, that he was being held hostage, and the players can assume they have some time to free him.

With an action you can inflict two deaths in a round. If they are not at zero hit points you inflict a critical hit.  Because if you look under the unconscious condition you find.

QuoteUnconscious
* An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can't move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
* The creature drops whatever it's holding and falls prone.
* The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
* Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
* Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

I presuming the reason still having even an attack roll with advantage because Armor Class represent damage resistance AND avoidance. So it not certain that with everything going on in a six second combat round that the right chink through the armor will be found to deal the needed damage.

But while not spelled out there is no dex bonus to AC, there is no shield bonus to AC, only the character base AC of his armor is the target number for the to hit roll that at an advantage.

Plus there is the massive damage rule that could come into play.

What I would allow in a hostage situation is if the attacker had initiative is to make a hit roll with advantage and if successful I will allow the attacker to HOLD the damage. The damage can then be inflicted as a reaction before any other player can get a move off.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976972Gary Gygax is the reason the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association had a "No killing the princess!" rule.

I was in the West Coast LA Hoobanger Chapter. We clearly missed that memo.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976984This is true.  What's really, really funny is that in a genre based on loot, capture and ransom is unknown.  Dude's got plate armor, a warhorse, and a manor... he's money on the hoof if we take him alive, lads!

In my Majestic Wilderlands campaign, I only had the ransom thing happen once in recent years. But my players have long learn to strip their opponent of their gear (including horses) and sell it. I use medieval pricing for equipment (started with using Harn as a sourcebook in the 80s) so chain and plate are very valuable.

Quote from: Chris24601;977100...
In real life, hostage situations never to my knowledge end with the hostage-takers getting away; either the hostage takers back down and release the hostages or SWAT does its thing to end the threat. ...

Your knowledge is incomplete. It depends on the situation and the what the other side does. It's also currently a politically-charged topic, and US government policy to not pay ransoms etc since about the Nixon era, as well as the usual situation when you have criminals surrounded and they're making demands to go free etc, skew what we generally hear about in modern US media etc.

For example, in the typical recent situations with hostages taken by "terrorists" in the Middle East, the USA doesn't pay ransoms but European nations often due, and guess which hostages are liable to survive, and which are not? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2731097/America-start-negotiating-terrorists-hostages-Reporter-held-prisoner-Taliban-says-US-policy-needs-change-save-lives.html

It's true that many players are exposed to US media which tends to encourage attacking hostage-takers. And that may often be the right move, especially if the GM is also thinking that way, or the situation really makes that the best choice, or if your game system/world has trivial resurrection.

QuoteSo further, from a long term survival aspect, the PC party is much better off being known as the guys who'll shoot through their own ally to kill someone cowardly enough take a hostage (but who let enemies who surrender to them go minus their weapons and coin purses). Hell, if I were a PC, I'd hire some minstrels to spread stories and songs of how my party did exactly that throughout the surrounding countryside. The more opponents know that sort of behavior is a sure death sentence instead of a ticket to survival and that throwing down arms when they face us IS their surest ticket to survival, the better it is for all concerned.

That could also mean that people would decide not to try to negotiate with them or to think ill of them.

QuoteIf you wanna pull the hostage gambit, I suggest not doing it until more than half the party is down and then instead of "stop or we kill them" make it "if you surrender now we'll let you leave with your friends and your lives; though a bit lighter in the purse." That's a situation where the odds favor ceasing the fight, not the situation the OP has been using.

That's reasonable. The situation surrounding the knife-to-throat really does make a big difference, as does what each side stands to lose or gain, and what the odds are. And, what the customs and reputations are. A losing force might also try to negotiate for their own safe escape, for instance.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;976932If you're going to be the rules' bitch, this will happen.

Though before next session you probably want to tell everybody "I'm changing the rules.  A coup de grace on a helpless opponent is an instant kill, period."

Rather than just springing it on them.

Agreed on the not changing the rules mid course.

In reality, if they do hit, it almost always is a kill. the hit is a crit, which is 2 of 3 failed death saves required to kill, but that's in addition to the save they make this round, plus the one they have to make every round before and after (likely before anyone has initiative to do anything about it).

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;976908In D&D 5e you have the additional problem that "attacking" someone who is at 0 hp still requires an attack roll, AND they need to fail saving throws, so you end up in the absurd situation where an orc has a knife to the unconscious character's throat and somehow misses the attempt to slit his neck open. Or he does it but the guy still has one more saving throw so it made no difference, really, that he was being held hostage, and the players can assume they have some time to free him.

The attack roll (with advantage, which is as good a perk as the edition allows) is probably the only realistic part. The hit should be an instant kill (or at least take you down to -2 death saves, regardless of current hp) if they throat-slice you when paralyzed. But people in high-stress, Mexican standoff or hostage situations, absolutely do fumble when pushed. Missing is possible.

Quote from: Baulderstone;976951Based on the first post, I was going to say to just play it by rules and let the players live with the results, but those are some terrible rules. Fix the rules, then let the players live with the rules in case like this. If you are going to cave and just let the players win every time they do something stupid, they are going to do something stupid every time.

No, it just wasn't explained well. The death saves thing is a little strange if you are used to some other method (like simple death saving throw or dead at -10), but it is pretty much conceptually the same. They really needed to specify no dex to AC if unconscious or held, but otherwise the still needing to hit makes sense, especially given a 6-second round. As Estar said, you aren't guaranteed to get a blade to the neck of a guy in armor when being rushed by their friends in a 6 second round.