Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Bug or not? Honor Mode Hag

So I'm on my 3rd play-through but haven't played in ages. I think I did my normal and tact run prior to Patch 2. Anyhow, I prepared myself for an honor run and after wiping in act 1 just not paying attention (I noticed one of those stones that shoot fire wasn't unarmed, and in haste, I ran the entire party to try and hit the rune to deactivate and everyone blew up).

From then on, every thing I did was meticulous and double/triple checked. For the Hag fight in Act 1 in her lair, I 100% had toggled non-lethal attacks and I verified it on each character just to make sure. I got lucky and the first hag I hit was the real one after her split. I knew I was gonna 1-shot her at this point as my party was level 5 (I saved this fight for the end of act 1). She was prone and my last character shot a bow when she had 4 hp left (but still hostile and no cut scene). I once again double checked the non-lethal toggle, shot the bow and killed her. "Aunti Ethel was hit for 8 Piercing Damage", "Shadowheart killed Aunti Ethel", "Auntie Ethel was killed while Downed". Was it because she was Prone/Downed that this happened? So there goes my +1 stat since I'm on a Honor run.

I'm a little bit pissed but just want to know why you can kill someone with non-lethal toggled.

This happened to me vs Minsc, I had to literally save scum the bejesus out of it because everything I did in non-lethal killed him, even unarmed attacks. Eventually I managed to get him down by him attacking Karlach and taking a couple of points of damage from her bonespike armour, but other than that, any attacks I instigated just ruined him. Annoying bug as I really didn't want to save scum my tactician run, but I really wanted Minsc in my party.

"Toggled non-lethal attacks" only works while using a melee weapon or unarmed.
Using Ranged attacks/spells and summons (even their normal attacks) will kill the target.
Also if your attack has extra effects like poison/fire etc, they will die from the effect.

Yeah, non-lethal can still be lethal if you have bonus damage since your weapon damage will be prevented from being lethal and leave them at 1hp... Then your bonus damage will apply and just kill them.

Would be helpful to have a Sneak Attack style "Knock Unconscious" ability that can be used in lieu of a regular attack (Like whatshisface uses against Isobel) that could provide the effect of not allowing any portion of the attack to cause lethal damage (Including stuff like Cull the Weak Illithid power). Given there are benefits to knocking certain characters out (Often, it's the ability to steal equipped items without permanently removing the character from the game)

That said, you don't need to knock out the Hag. If she starts her turn at like 30-40% health, she'll go into dialogue with you.

As mentioned above, non lethal only works with melee.