Reminds me of a situation in Cyberpunk 2020 where I wanted to just knock someone out and rolled very well.I killed him instead. Never really enjoyed playing with that game ref.
Where are my flying cars and Cyberware anyway? Only 5 years left on the clock. (JK, I'm hopeful of not seeing a cyberpunk future any time soon).
In our case, we were playing last Saturday and they rogue had infiltrated the Burgomeister's mansion to find out who was kidnapping women from the poor side of town:
Rogue: "I hurry through the bushes and try to knock the stable boy unconcious with the handle of my blade. I'll use the auto-crit and sneak attack to make sure"
<rolls like 35 damage, stable boy only has 6 hp>
Me: "Hmm... let me check the rules for a moment. I think... I'm afraid you sort of... cracked his head open?"
Rogue: "Oh gods, oh gods, he was just a kid! I only wanted to let the horse loose for distraction!"
Me: "Yeah, well... <checking the rules for an exception>... I'm sorry, man."
Rogue: "I still check his pockets, though. What? I didn't WANT to kill him, but that's spilled milk. Pockets"
Process more or less repeats again with another servant, before he tries to do it without sneak attack or critical, in which case he doesn't do enough damage and almost raises the alarm.
A little while later:
Me: "You can hear a couple of women walking into the music hall while chatting. You get a glimpse in the mirror; both maids, one going in your direction. Neither has noticed you"
Rogue: "I sneak underneath the harpsichord and knock her out. Carefully"
Priest: "Are you sure? What if you don't knock her out? You almost got caught the last time!"
Rogue: "Shoot, right. How many HPs?"
Me: "Yeah, no"
Rogue: "Damn it, damn it! Alright, I'll only sneak attack this time, no crit!"
<Rolls enough to kill her>
Rogue: "THESE HANDS WEREN'T MEANT TO CREATE, THEY CAN ONLY DESTROY"
Me: "Hmm, this is getting out of hand. Look, I'm not sure what I'm missing here, but let's create a sap, does 1 damage but can be used for sneak attacks, and no matter how much damage, all it can do is knock people out. Deal?"
Rogue: "Deal!"
Monk: "Hold on! Are you telling me this guy has been carrying a perfectly safe sap the entire time, while 'accidentally' killing people while trying to knock them out with his sword? Yeah, some pretty good rogue we've got here"
Rogue: "Wait, it's not like that! What if... what if the maid had it and I just took it?"
Me: "Sure"
Monk: "Nice. So you 'accidentally' kill the stable boy and the maid to steal their stuff, and now use the latter's stuff to knock people out. Sure, almost celestial"
They spent the entire rest of the session mocking him for that.
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