Topic: Killing after 0 hits?

[markc]

How many PC's in your groups really make sure that the opponents are really dead? And then finish them off if they are not dead?
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

As a general thing, all of them.

[markc]

As a general thing, all of them.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Seems like back in the day there was a religious fanatic character who would heal the monsters if you'd let him. That got people into the habit of making sure it was not only dead, but would be a real pain in the butt to try to bring it back.

Leftover monsters are even worse than bad pizza. 

[GrumpyOldFart]

That and regenerating monsters. If you smack something to death with a morningstar, there are probably a lot of torn off bits lying around. If you walk away now and come back in a month, will there be a few dozen monsters, clones of the one you "killed"?

[yammahoper]

Sometimes PC's don't check, or even knowing many of the foes are only wounded, retire the field allowing the enemy to live.

My first player with a PC that NEVER allowed enemy combatants to live was a Noldo Elf in MERP.  No orc was allowed to continue breathing if he had a say in it.

I played my first murdering little bastard just a few years ago.  Poppy, a halfling rogue.  I rarely play non humans, but I really got into Poppys storyline.  A young lad that commits murder, he fled his happy homeland and joined a mercenary band as a cook.  He became a dentist and efficient knife man.  Combing the battle field and sending off the wounded was one of his jobs, as was pulling their good teeth, particularly the ones with gold fillings.  Poppy was a tortured soul full of regret and to many dark deeds under his belt to turn back or ever expect attonement.  He died on a hangmans noose.

I have had some blood thirsty players.  That brings out the speech about the reality of slitting throats and committing cold blooded murder.  Most players turn away from it, but I have had some utterly vile PC's run through games.

[intothatdarkness]

Depends on how much the foes are bleeding when they hit 0 HPs. Of course, many kills come from crits, so it's not as big a deal (the mighty armpit crit was much feared in my group - 81-85 Krush). Typically, though, we'd have one who would always check. Often it was a dwarf...

[Marc R]

I've seen it forgotten, but often throat cutting is part of the "I loot the bodies AND finish off any wounded"

I've often seen people forget to burn those skeletons, then get a shock on the way back.

"Making sure" often comes up with casters, and generally in either the "I smash the head" or "I burn the body" variants.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Often, but not always. I had a fighter get serious about such things after he got attacked by nearly a dozen regenerating monsters several months after "killing" one in the same place. After that he not only burned bodies, he hunted down all the bits too large for small scavengers to take care of.

[intothatdarkness]

My parties tended to burn all undead after their first encounter with skeletons and other nasties that can regenerate/reanimate.

[markc]

I've seen it forgotten, but often throat cutting is part of the "I loot the bodies AND finish off any wounded"

I've often seen people forget to burn those skeletons, then get a shock on the way back.

"Making sure" often comes up with casters, and generally in either the "I smash the head" or "I burn the body" variants.

 I agree but I have found with my present group they leave out the "...And finish off the wounded" part. But I think it is just because they assume that they are dead as learned from other games.
MDC

[intothatdarkness]

 I agree but I have found with my present group they leave out the "...And finish off the wounded" part. But I think it is just because they assume that they are dead as learned from other games.
MDC

That's quite possible. RM is somewhat unique/unusual in that you're not "dead" until your CO reaches zero OR that handy crit kills you dead.

[GrumpyOldFart]

That's one of the things I always loved about RM... it's the only RPG I know of where it's possible to be beaten down and left for dead.

[arakish]

Sometimes, it did depend on the situation.

If the pcs were only trying to escape with themselves intact, most often, they would leave incapacitated, but not dead, enemies behind as they continued fleeing.

Excepting that situation, most often, my pcs would make sure they were dead.  Sometimes they did not and allowed the enemy to escape.  However, if it were monsters, they'd make sure it was dead/destroyed.

If they were hunting for bounties, then it depended upon the reward.  Sometimes I'd have rewards posted as "Dead or Alive" then a smaller line of text would be "But twice the reward if Alive."  Then comes the fun of them making sure their quarry did not escape before collecting on the "Alive" reward instead of the "Dead" reward.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

I did have a party bring an undead tyrannosaur back to town as a gift to the clergy of the Goddess of Knowledge and Secrets, figuring they could buy themselves some cred, have some favors owed, that sort of thing. But they knew in advance that they'd have to keep putting it down again all the way back to town too, it's not like "Surprise! You only thought you'd killed it!" No, they knew they hadn't truly "killed" it, that was the whole point.