Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Use of Knock Unconscious?

Huge fan of the game so far!

One mechanic I was excited to try out was the non-lethal knock unconscious feature. So many games boast about being able to 'choose who lives or dies' but it really comes down to either everyone lives or once you kill one NPC, they all become hostile so they all have to die. I thought the knock unconscious feature would be a way around killing NPCs who become hostile. I used it in the Druid Grove after trying intervening when a Tiefling was going to kill a Goblin Prisoner. Now every time I go back and the Tiefling see's me, the whole grove turns hostile. Intentional? Missed opportunity if so.

This was also game breaking for me when you come across the Dwarf and two humans who believe in the Absolute. When the humans find out I killed the Mind Flayer, they attack. I knocked one unconscious not wanting to kill her and later at the Goblin camp where I'm suppose to be able to walk in, she's standing next to Volo and once she see's me (even when Disguised by magic) EVERYONE attacks. An impossible encounter at that point.

Suggestion: A day or so after knocking someone unconscious, they hold no ill will (or at least not deadly intentions) toward the party. This would allow non-lethal resolutions for some skirmishes.

I Knocked out Nettie, when she got mad at me for poking about her back room (didn't really have a better option). In the fight she turned into a Wild Spider, and there's now an unconscious Spider back there. No one has noticed yet.

+1. I knocked out Astarion's Gur pursuer, hoping to find out more information about him or pay him off to not hunt my vampire. Took a long rest, he woke up with 1 HP and immediately tried to attack me. I mean...ballsy move but it sucked not being able to further interrogate him after spending such a long time knocking him unconscious.

The feature itself is somewhat cool to have. It would be better if the game acknowledged its use more.
For instance I used it on my third character to knock out the mind controlled fishermen at the beginning of the game.
For all intents and purposes for the game they were basically dead, except marked as "unconscious" and with one HP left. Also, still marked as mind controlled until I killed the mindflayer, which is a bit of a bummer.
Second time it was in the "hag cave" with the masked guys. I expected to be able to free them from the mind control knocking them out and removing those masks. I wasn't.

I havent tried it yet actually but I love that they included it. Thread makes me want to give it a go on my next playthrough

I agree so much.
For some NPCs who attack you right there, I hoped they would aknowledge me for NOT killing them when they just hurdled at me with killing intent. I especially hoped to be able to save the people wearing the masks of the hag, so it felt disappointing when knocing them unconcious didn't seem to alter anything at all.

Yeah, I agree with this. Right now it feels like the game doesn't really acknowledge the "knock unconscious" feature much.

+1
I would also suggest making the "knock unconscious" attacks a mode that can be turned on and off. Currently I sometimes kill NPCs by accident with an AoO (reaction).

Yep it's kind of an underwhelming feature at the moment. Especialy when it triggers the whole camp against you. It looks like it's never better than Killing the npc (me and my friends had the same problems, Nettie,absolute's belivers, and the 2 npc and the goblin).

Must add the action is bad in combat as such : Laezel just did 2 non-lethal damage with her 18 Str. ... Sigh.

Also, it currently can be exploited : if you are not in combat, you can do Knock Unconscious at will ... it does not set in you combat (at least, not while someone else is in combat).