Well, think about it realistically.
A third level thief sneaks through a large estate. She's just stolen a priceless piece of jewellery and is about to make her escape when not a meter in front of her, a door opens. Light pours out, and the lady of the house emerges, candle in hand. Luck is on the thief's side, and the woman turns her back to the thief and heads down the corridor. Now, the thief may or may not have the nerve to actually kill someone, but her top priority is escaping the manor undetected. All the estate's windows are barred, and the only exit is the door downstairs. The thief knows that if she trails the noblewoman from a distance there's a chance she'll be able to slip past without being seen, but there's a fairly high risk behind that, so she has two choices - use her dagger and slit the woman's throat, or use her blackjack to knock her unconscious. Consider what could happen. She's third level - there's a good chance she'd miss a critical point with the dagger and the woman would scream, and she can't gag her with a hand, because the woman has a candle in front of her; she'd see the thief in her peripheral vision. In any case, if a body was found, especially the body of a noble, there could be guards all over the city by the next morning, so there's a good chance the thief would have to skip town in the same night. In this scenario, which might be fairly typical for a thief, it'd be easier and far less risky to simply disable the noblewoman rather than kill her.
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