That's how Fallout New Vegas worked (not sure about FO3, but maybe). Negative stamina put them unconscious.

That's cool (I didn't play enough FNV to discover this; too buggy). But this seems to indicate they've thought of it, maybe it will be in Skyrim.

Um i usually use gas or an anesthetic/chloroform(not sure about this one could just be a movie thing). But yeah while you are kinda right this isn't real life and personally i think this would be a very cool gameplay option. Bethesda has been heading this way since incorporating fists do fatigue damage in MW.

OP i love your idea and would kill/drug to see it implemented!!

Chloroform/inhalants have a tendency to stop peoples' hearts, and the hostages in that Moscow theater thing a few years back could tell you a bit about the use of gas (ha ha just kidding they are dead)

But an injected general anesthetic is reasonable, I suppose. Anyway, like I was saying, the sun is a hole left in reality by an escaping magic-god. Rules can be bent.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Boxing_gloves

I hate to break it to you, but there are more deaths in boxing today than there were in the bare knuckle days. The padding and tape are there to protect the hand, which could easily break if they used full power on the stronger cranium. They usually concentrated on the body instead.

It was banned as people thought padding made it safer, but the brain gets knocked around WAY more now because they are able to fight without fear of breaking their hand.

You shouldn't hate breaking that to me. Thats great knews. That means hand to hand is deadly, what I was going for anyway. I could have sworn it was the other way around, but meh, I don't really care all that much. Its deadly, and should be treated as such.

I suppose it would be deadly if you were wearing gauntlets or could be if you were wearing leather gloves. Bare knuckle shouldn't be deadly, though. It's so, so rare that someone dies in a bare knuckle, stand up fight. Obviously people die in fist fights in real life all the time, but that probably has more to do with what they fall on (concrete usually) or the victor not stopping at the knock down.

True. Though, a master of hand to hand would also probably do more than just throw left and right hooks all day as well. It should get deadlier as you get better with it, pretty much like every other combat skill.

If you play on the PC there is many mods which make stealth much more immersive and fun, mainly Stealth Overhaul and Thieves Arsenal (Adds all the weapons from the Thief games like Blackjack, rope arrows for climbing, water arrows for putting out torches, paralyzing arrows, smoke bombs to flee etc)

i hate to say it, cause im likely to get flamed, but this concept was in morrowind.
When you get punched, your stamina goes down. when it hits zero, you collapse with 'exhaustion'.
In this state you cant move, and your target is free to whittle down your health.
besides stoping a person from moving, it doesnt really do much else, so in skyrim i would really like to be able to drag someone off whilst they were incapacitated, demand money, info etc.

Hitting someone in the back of the head (brain stem) is likely to kill them as much as knocking them out. Pisol whipping and black-jacks in movies don't convey how serious such actions really are. It is the least protected segment of your head and is why smacking someone there while boxing/MMA/etc. all disqualify any participant who does it. To the people who think the gloves are not there to protect heads.... the only reason boxers can smack each other around long enough to cause brain damage is because the padding protects the head. Without the padding fights would be a LOT shorter which would lessen the overall chance of brain damage (due to fewer blows to the head) but also would dramatically increase the chance of brain damage on any single blow. The only way to prevent brain damage is stop having people punch each other in the head.

In real life that's true, but this is a game where I can be hit by a warhammer and not die.

You always could make attacks which deal non-lethal damage primarily also deal some lethal damage, but I think to keep it seperate and avoid the "save/reload until you succeed" situation, it'd be better to suspend disbelief a bit.

As for using the stamina bar, the only reason I'm not as much of a fan of that is because I like the distinction between hort and long term exhaustion.

By the way, I take it most people got the reference in the title, from some of the responses.

What no paw hooks?!

@sentakai

Exactly! It could be a handy mechanic to have for some quests where it would open up some options beyond "go to x and kill y to fetch z" possibly rescues, certainly expanding thievery options and escaping from guards even avoiding a bounty for murder by knocking out then escaping? Maybe even start earning money as a highway man, knock out and tie up.

Ever since Morrowind, I've thought this should be the main use of Hand-to-Hand.. to beat people into submission without killing.

In fact, Hand to Hand was a thief skill in Morrowind, and would have been VERY useful for thieves if it had had this capacity. I fail to pickpocket a key off someone and he attacks me.. what am I supposed to do? Killing him would make a costly bounty and is frowned on by Thieves. I should be able to just punch him out

Morrowind did it reasonably well... It was nice to be able to get someone "down for the count" and then run off instead of killing them.
But at the same time, the 'internal logic' behind "Fists don't hurt you until you lie down" is a bit hard to understand.

The way it was in Oblivion, fists dealt both fatigue- and health-damage. I would've liked it if they had dealt more fatigue-damage and less health-damage, since you always seemed to end up beating on people, who would stay on their feet, literally until the final, deadly blow. That did break immersion for me, a bit. Who the hell stays up and keeps fighting until he dies ? Why doesn't he fall to his knees in exhaustion, or pain - or run away ?

But generally, there are simply things that are inherently illogical in RPGs, because the alternative would be too annoying...
In the end - who the hell fights to the death, if they've not landed a single blow on you, and they are grievously wounded themselves ? Anyone would run away...
If they did a "hardcoe mode" I'd like to see things like that implemented in the AI, actually.