Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Non-lethal combat idea

One feature I am missing on most RPG and one that would actually fit perfectly into D:OS (IMO) is the ability to resolve combat without killing every opposing enemy.

Of course I don't mean fighting mindless undead, frenzied enemies, etc. But sentient humanoids, especially humans, rarely fight to the death. It would improve the game a lot if they an ability to surrender / flee / something in this vein.

I got this idea when watching the 5th or 6th preview of D:OS, seeing the poor drunken guards slaughtered once again on the bridge.

Just imagine real life conflicts if they could only be resolved when one side is completely wiped out. Yikes.

A game like D:OS with so many realistic underlaying systems running in the background would benefit a lot from something like this. Of course this would also need to be another such system, which would track some kind of morale stat and exclude an enemy from a combat encounter (because he panicked and won't fight anymore) while his morale reaches zero. Players of course could still attack such enemies and kill them, if they want to.

Mechanically this could be done as temporarily excluding an enemy from a faction (and making him non-hostile) when his morale reaches zero, and returning him to his faction after the combat (but still as a non-hostile). Such defeated enemy could disappear from the initative bar for the remainder of combat (exactly as if he/she/it was killed) with his turns ignored, or be marked as "neutral" on the bar (staying idle on his turn, or moving away from harm).

Such enemy would still count as defeated (awarding XP for the player), and each enemy could be only defeated once to avoid exploiting the system (another flag).

I'm not sure how to handle loot dropping. I guess defeated but unkilled enemies would not drop anything, or they would only drop items held in their hands.

Another, separate, idea is to allow players to surrender during combat (option similar to now-present fleeing). This would only be viable for certain enemies (they would need to be flagged) like guards and citizens and would end with players involved automatically transported into the prison.

You can simply agree to go with the drunk guards at the bridge to avoid fighting them.

Some enemy opponents can be talked out of fighting.

You're basically talking about some sort of morale system. If they fail the morale break they'll run and count as defeated. They should have something like this for fear and illusion spells.

Many there will be more option with the traits and talents system?

Of course, You can, but that's not the point.

I don't mean being able not to fight someone, I mean being able to fight someone and not kill him/her.

Like, have You ever tried to roleplay someone with Batman's personality in an RPG? It's impossible. Batman does not avoid combat, and defeats his opponents, but he never kills, as a rule. In RPGs defeating = killing.

In Gothic/Risen (two more games inspired by Ultima VII) enemies were divided into two cathegories. "Monster" enemies fought to the death and could only be defeated by killing them. They also killed you, if they defeated you. But there were also "Human" enemies, which were left with 1 HP after defeating them, fell to the ground unconscious and could only be killed if you performed an explicit coup the grace when they were lying on the ground. These enemies also did not kill you when they defeated you, and instead took your money before leaving (for example).

"Human" and "Monster" cathegories is my simplification. For example, there were many enemies who were humans and who fought to the death.

I also don't mean exactly implementing morale system. Morale system is just one way of handling non-lethal combat, but it is not equal to it. Baldur's Gate had a morale system where outmatched enemies would run away, but then would turn hostile again after their fear wore off, and that's not what I mean for D:OS. Gothic/Risen had no morale system but they handled non-lethal combat regardless, as mentioned above.

This is a very good point. Games such as Dishonoured have it so you can actually go through the game without killing anyone - quite a feat considering you're an assassin and there are several plot-based assassination targets. Stealth games often have this kind of thing, but it's rare in RPGs, as the OP said. Skyrim had a perfunctory surrender mechanism but (a) it rarely triggered and (b) true to Bethesda's form, it glitched when it did trigger, usually, with the enemy suddenly attacking you again right after they'd surrendered and forcing you to finish them off.

One way loot could still work with this is that the enemy offers you money or items to not kill them. They'd say "I yield, please - don't kill me! Take this!" and then drop their gold and run away. Something like that. They wouldn't always do it, perhaps, which would make sparing people less profitable than killing them. There could also be weapons that merely knock people unconscious, like a truncheon, and then the player can search the body for items.

Hmmm ... fighting but not kill the other feels to me like "trying to intimidate"
(but intimidation can also be done via dialog options and personally I love that much more that fighting to intimidate" or something ...

Risen? O yes 'Risen and the combat system' ... it was one of the reasons I sell that game back to where it come from : I send it back to Hell !!
(I mean a gameshop, just kidding )

Joram, well he simply means that there's no such things as simply a fight or a brawl in most RPGs. Everything is a fight to the death. In a pub in real life, or at a sporting event, you get people fighting each other, but the vast majority of the time it doesn't end with one of them dead and the other guy looting his corpse and stealing his clothes. Someone may try to steal my phone off me and I may punch them in self defence, I certainly wouldn't murder them and then steal their trousers!

I quite like the concept of non-lethal resolution, whether by morale break or by incapacitating rather than killing enemies.

This is something I strongly agree with and considered creating a topic for too. I would like to have a character who is capable of handling themselves in a fight but is not some kind of mass murderer who by the end game will have slaughtered countless humans.

I want my character to have good options to talk their way out of combat (which I believe we are getting), and when am fighting some humans (eg. the drunk guards) the option to defeat them and not kill them.

If it is handeled like in Piranha Bytes games, as the OP has requested, then that is fine by me.

I just hope that people don't start requesting pacifist playthroughs including elaborate stealth mechanics. Don't get me wrong, I like games that offer pacifist playthroughs, but I am tired of people requesting this feature for every single effing game on Kickstarter. Original Sin does need it nor should it have this feature.


True, unless the human NPC is tagged to die on defeat, which generally only applies to human enemies that attack you on sight and cannot be interacted with.


Risen is AWESOME! It is one of my favorite RPGs.

The combat in Risen is challenging, and I loved it. Risen gave the player a real feeling of progression. Many enemies were impossible to kill on a lower level, and it was satisfying to finally be able to kill them once you reached a higher level and improved your equipment.

If your PC is attacked on sight by hostile human NPCs, and your PC kills them, then that is a right of self-defense and not murder.

Haha, exactly. I wouldn't have said it better myself.


Yes, as I mentioned the human/monster distinction was a simplification on my part.

Ignoring Risen's combat system quality, which is not everyone's cup of tea (I liked it, however), it was one of the games that did non-lethal combat right, but it was strictly tied to NPC attitude system (beaten up NPCs did not like you), which is not present in D:OS, I think, and could be a potential difficulty to overcome.

BTW, I'm not so big on pacifist playthrough too. If You go adventuring, you should expect to fight a lot!

I had the same feelling about those drank guards. They needed a lesson, and there was need to put them away, because in that condition they were a threat to passengers, but that doesn't mean that we need to kill them, putting them unconscious would do the trick.