Minions Dropping Immediately when they reach 0 Endurance

[Glorelendil]

Oh, the offered is scenario perfectly plausible.

It's the claim that "all players in such a situation" would interpret it that way that I find...well, let's call it "remarkably self-assured".

And easily avoided if the LM prefaces combat by saying, "Hey, this is resolved in turns but it's really happening basically all at once. Also, if your Endurance reaches zero it means you're blacking out, but you don't drop instantly."

[zedturtle]

It can be easily fluffed away... "The orc is bleeding profusely. He flails out with his spear and with one desperate stab he pierces your side. He steps forward, collapsing as he drives it into you." could easily describe the posited situation (successful drop to 0 Endurance, but then opponent gets a successful Piercing Blow).

But it seems strange to be doing this all the time. I wish we knew if the combat example was wrong or if the rule was wrong.

[jamesrbrown]

I do believe this has been addressed in the past somewhere. I'll try to look it up on the archived forums. If I'm remembering correctly, I believe the intention of the RAW is that adversaries reduced to zero Endurance fall unconscious immediately without a chance for an attack (unless they have a special ability that allows them to keep fighting, such as Great Size).

[Dunkelbrink]

Yeah it's been addressed before, at least once in a thread from June 2013: "When do enemies die?". Among other things, the semantics of the term "round" has been discussed. Are the terms "round" and "turn" interchangeable? In the combat example Francesco writes about a monster attacking Beran back "on its round".

My view is that it is clear that an enemy is unconscious immediately after being reduced to 0 Endurance.

[Falenthal]

Yeah it's been addressed before, at least once in a thread from June 2013: "When do enemies die?".

This thread, right?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=92&p=464&hilit=When ... ie%3F#p464

[Rue]

Makes sense, glad to have it clarified.

[Glorelendil]

Funny, I didn't think that thread clarified anything...it's basically the same debate as this thread.

On the matter of players not knowing whether or not an adversary is "dead", and consequently "wasting" an attack on one who is, it's possible to view that as a good thing: it could help counter "Oh, ok, I'll pick a new target because mine just died" way of playing. It's a tactic we all use in basically all RPGs...but isn't it just a little bit gamist?

(On the other hand, hard-core metagamers would probably discreetly track HP themselves...)

[cuthalion]

"The orc is bleeding profusely. He flails out with his spear and with one desperate stab he pierces your side. He steps forward, collapsing as he drives it into you." could easily describe the posited situation (successful drop to 0 Endurance, but then opponent gets a successful Piercing Blow).

^^ Yup. Agree with this. Anything that supports a more abstract/narrative based combat, vs. hack, miss, hack, miss, hack, miss, hack, hit, it's dead.

I think that's another point of confusion here--I don't see the attack rolls as corresponding to a single, discreet action. See p. 148 in the general explanation of tasks:

A die roll made to resolve a normal action doesn’t necessarily indicate a single act, but possibly a series of efforts (for example, an attack roll doesn’t generally simulate a single sword swing).

The PC turn/enemy turn is an abstraction of the exchange of blows and other actions that make up that combat turn--and there are countless ways that you could understand/imagine the rolls. From Zed's example, to . . .

• an enemy that throws his last breath into an attack, is parried by a PC and thrown backwards and knocked out
• an enemy that doesn't realize that is struck by an arrow while charging towards a PC to attack and doesn't realize how injured it is until after it has finished its charge
• dare I say it, an enemy who makes a last attack from beneath a sheet of ice or some such rubbish

+1 to getting an official ruling on this since there's the discrepancy between the extended example of combat and the rules, and it would seem to change the way the game plays significantly. I'd like to see TOR keep its toes out of the DnD style of play as much as possible, seeing as that's what makes it so special.

On the matter of players not knowing whether or not an adversary is "dead", and consequently "wasting" an attack on one who is, it's possible to view that as a good thing: it could help counter "Oh, ok, I'll pick a new target because mine just died" way of playing. It's a tactic we all use in basically all RPGs...but isn't it just a little bit gamist?

Totally agree.

[Glorelendil]

dare I say it, an enemy who makes a last attack from beneath a sheet of ice or some such rubbish

Clearly you dare.

I lol'd.

[Majestic]

Funny, I didn't think that thread clarified anything...it's basically the same debate as this thread.

On the matter of players not knowing whether or not an adversary is "dead", and consequently "wasting" an attack on one who is, it's possible to view that as a good thing: it could help counter "Oh, ok, I'll pick a new target because mine just died" way of playing. It's a tactic we all use in basically all RPGs...but isn't it just a little bit gamist?

(On the other hand, hard-core metagamers would probably discreetly track HP themselves...)

Agree that such an approach is more than a little bit gamist.

After reading that older thread from a few years ago, it is as Glorelendil said: it merely has people on both sides of this issue explaining how they perceive it.

It would be nice to have something "official", but until then I think we could just go with james' memory: that it was clarified before that adversaries fall unconscious when they reach 0 Endurance.

I don't think it would be that bad if a LM did it whichever way made more narrative sense at that moment. Or altered things occasionally (using both methods, depending), to keep their players on their toes. If nothing else, doing things the other way (where an adversary could get one last hit in), prevents the tactic of players immediately moving on to the next target, as if it was a video game and they knew exactly how much health each opponent was currently at.