Hey guys.
In the game we were playing tonight, I had cast Hex on a bad guy and decided to knock him out. Since I was hitting him with a Maul in melee, this wouldn't normally be a problem; however, the DM decided that since Hex was on him, that extra damage would be enough to kill the guy, instead of me knocking him out.
I argued that it shouldn't matter if it is necrotic damage, it's still coming from my melee weapon attack. The enemy in question was drunk and nearly passed out already and my character is lawful good and wouldn't purposefully kill someone who was that incapacitated.
Also, I argued that the Hex damage could come before the weapon damage, instead of after it, which is how the DM was justifying saying that it would be why the enemy died, instead of being knocked out, since the weapon damage was apparently not enough by itself, but the 4 points from the Hex damage die was enough to drop him to 0 hit points.
So, can extra damage tacked on from magic bypass the "knocking enemies out" part of a melee attack? And, if that is the case, can you determine to place extra damage from magic effects at the top of the damage stack, so the non-magic damage is what actually drops the enemy to 0 hp?
My main concern with this is that someone of Lawful Good alignment wouldn't necessarily just go around killing bad guys randomly. Even with a good enough reason for killing them, I shouldn't have to worry about my character getting innocent deaths on his conscious if I am making the effort to *not* have him kill in cold blood.
I'd say you could still subdue the target. Subdual damage isn't a damage type, subduing is just a decision that a character can make when they "drop" an opponent with a melee attack. The damage from the hex spell also should be considered part of the same attack and damage roll as the weapon attack that triggered it. All the dice should be rolled together and treated as one melee attack "hit," even though parts of the damage can be resisted separately.
There's no rule that says necrotic damage can't subdue a person, or even spell damage. The only restriction is that the damage must come from a melee attack. Vampiric touch causes a melee spell attack that deals necrotic damage- vampiric touch can subdue opponents if the caster/toucher chooses. It's a melee (spell) attack.
On the other hand, there's something to be said for a curse from a demonic pact (or whoever you sold your soul too) doing harm you didn't intend. It also doesn't make you non-LG to cause someone's death on accident, because you didn't realize what the curse would do. It could actually be an interesting character crisis. Maybe you start to question whether hexing people is really a "good" thing to do. Or you've just learned not to do it again 
Unless a player was really uncomfortable with playing their character this way, I would feel fine imposing this as a DM. But no, it's not in the rules. So if you're arguing that your character should definitely have known what would happen if they used curse and almost killed someone, and they intentionally attacked in such a way that curse didn't accidentally bleed through and kill them, you shouldn't be penalized for it.
Macv12 wrote:
Undrhil wrote:
Timborama wrote: