KitsuneSoup's page

Karui Kage wrote:

Buffy
Female human monk 9
Buffy was raised at one of Ravenloft's few monastaries. She was trained from an early age to fight the undead, demons, and devils that permeated a land. Her skill perfected, she has given herself the moniker of "Slayer" and headed for Castle Ravenloft to end the reign of its evil ruler.

Shouldn't Buffy be a Paladin?

Buffy lacks the discipline to be a Monk or a Paladin. She is a Brawler pure and simple, and wins her fights purely through the dint of being tougher and stronger. Even toward the end of the series, the 'clever' ideas tend to come from everyone else. The best her cleverness gets is taking Dirty Fighting.

Baker and the thief, effectively, have two diferent ethical systems, because their utility functions likely differ. So what's your point? They are both correct in their own ethical systems. As far as "failing as a structure", I've never said utilitarianism creates happy communities by default or whatever it is you think I have said, but it is a consistent ethical system in which you were wrong.

The point is more "In a world where Evil and Good are clearly defined, there is only one Ethical structure". Philosophy can change, though.

And now my game has been paused long enough to be yelled at for not paying attention to it, and The Lady has heard "Butcher Pete" six times; I apparently need to go deal with that.

[EDIT: Klara, I see what I did there. :p I apologize, and typing this out really quickly, I need to stop jumping between the two worlds. Let's stick to Golarion. Oh GODS SHE'S COMING FOR ME...]

Citation needed.

All that matters, to me, is that my character is altruistic, protective of life, and concerned for others, and avoids hurting, oppressing, and killing whenever possible. If my character is going to go to Hell because she went around casting infernal healing on people, so be it. She's only all the more altruistic for damning her own soul to save others, and thus more heroic to me.

That is Truth versus Fact. Nothing wrong with it, just the way it is.

I'm going to pause you for a moment here.

You're quite right about it being a new concern about digital media and IP issues. It's still theft, which is ethically incorrect. The only question is and always has been "What do we do about it?"

False equivalency, for reasons mentioned in my posts.

No false equivalency detected. I am discussing the need to understand and accept the consequences of your actions, not whether or not those consequences are correct.

It's exceedingly humorous that you not only committed slippery slope fallacy, but you did so while also using the phrase slippery slope.

No slippery slope fallacy detected. My example states that in a world in which Evil is Real, Evil must be tempered with education, something you had not mentioned. I provided the middle ground, which you had not.

KitsuneSoup wrote:

Klara Meison wrote:

Specifically pathfinder ethics or all ethics? Because I know a bunch of ethical systems where "performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person" would be considered quite ethical and not evil.

We are on a Pathfinder thread talking about a Pathfinder spell in a Pathfinder world. Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either, but we're talking about Pathfinder. But there's no real world analogous situation, because in the real world, there's no absolute fact behind "Good" and "Evil".

And you were discussing real-world piracy which doesn't exist in pathfinder, hence my question.

>Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either

Utilitarianism begs to differ.

Not really. Consequentialism just cares about "the ends justifying the means", and utilitarianism takes a step back and looks at "the big picture". "It's okay to draw on little bits of evil to perform good" is fine, but the problem with it is always no one steps back far enough. That's why ultimately, utilitarianism fails as a structure. Most people step back only to "themselves" or "their families" and doesn't expand it far enough.

Valjean steals bread from the baker. He looks only at his situation. "I harmed one person to save seven; this is fine based on my viewpoint of utility." The baker, however, states that he pays taxes based on the bread he cooked, and now doesn't have the money; he has to take the money he would buy wheat and instead pay taxes, which means less bread made, which means less income. His family now suffers, as does the community that now has less bread total, causing more than seven people's worth of suffering. But the utilitarian doesn't go back far enough to look.

Weirdly, Satanism encourages more cost/benefit observation than utilitarianism does.

I do apologize for the back and forth, I am discussing two different worlds; that was not meant to be confusing. If I include a spell, it's probably about Golarion. :)

You seemed to miss the point. You enter a room, and see a person. You cast detect evil, and it returns " yes, evil ". Is the person actually evil or just under a spell making him detect as such? If your testing equipment is 100% accurate, there is 0% chance it is giving you a false reading, so the person is definitely evil. Except, obviously, that is not true.

No, I understood your point perfectly. There is still nothing wrong with the testing equipment. "If I can fool the equipment, then the equipment is flawed" is not correct. If I put a piece of uranium inside a Geiger counter, the equipment still works fine, even though it's always detecting radiation.

Okay. You're advocating for evil being a label more than a rigorously tested ethical extreme. It doesn't matter what the spell does, only that it has that label. You're basically arguing for ashiels position by pointing out how silly that labeling is.

There's nothing silly about the label, because it's an accepted fact of the world in which the characters live. It's minimalist to call it a "label", because it's a fundamental force. It exists, it's real, it's fact. This isn't "oh, that man might be evil, he did something my religion disagrees with". This is, "He performed an evil act. Evil acts have consequences. He will have to deal with those consequences." "Rigorously tested ethical extreme" is actually not necessary, because the very first time a mortal cast detect alignment, all those questions were answered 100%. What is left is the discussion about the ramifications about the results.

In the Golarian world, you can use whatever truth you want, regardless of sociopathy or argument, but the fact doesn't change. Like the man said, if it's Truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

Specifically pathfinder ethics or all ethics? Because I know a bunch of ethical systems where "performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person" would be considered quite ethical and not evil.

We are on a Pathfinder thread talking about a Pathfinder spell in a Pathfinder world. Nothing I've said is ethically incorrect in the real world, either, but we're talking about Pathfinder. But there's no real world analogous situation, because in the real world, there's no absolute fact behind "Good" and "Evil".

Before you even begin to test something, you need to insure that your testing equipment isn't broken and that results you will get aren't determined by arbitrary factors. E.g. if you are trying to measure your body weight, you buy an accurate weighting scale, go into a room and weigh yourself. You do not try to weigh yourself on a bus driving down a bumpy road, because what the scale would show won't correlate much, if at all, to what you are trying to measure. In case of the evilness of the spell, it is practically impossible to insure proper conditions for an experiment, because it is possible to mess with the experiment and then make it seem(to any observer, including the experimenter themselves) like nobody messed with the experiment. And at that point your results are useless. Are they accurate? Nobody knows. How inaccurate are they? No idea. How can you decrease the inaccuracy? You can't.

The testing equipment is 100% accurate, because they are detailed by a specific fundamental force. The Cosmic Force Paizo, in creating the world, has stated "This spell will tell you the fact of alignment". Illusions and methods around that do not change that. My scale is accurate regardless of the piece of tape I put on the readout. You can interpret your results all you want, but you cannot change the fact.

Same with good, but because they are altruistic, protective, and concerned with furthering the dignity of others.

I can definitely accept that piracy might be evil because of the argument that it harms. I cannot accept that it might be evil just because you tell me it's wrong. People have to do better than that.

Oh, that's easy. Ethics does not play games. Piracy is by its definition theft. You are performing an informed action that is causing harm to another person. That is evil.

The actual arguments about piracy have never been about whether or not it's "wrong". People who have that argument are deluding themselves, and are amateurs in this argument. It's a question of the magnitude and scope, and whether the resources spent to stop it are worth it. "Is it better to be complacent in the realm of piracy, which will then be viewed as tacit approval of the action, or to fight a pointless war of technology to stop it?" That is not an ethical question. That's just the balancing of resource management.

The real problem with all of your arguments, Ashiel, is that they are all based on, "Whatever, I don't care what the fact is, I have a truth." That's fine, and there's nothing really wrong with that viewpoint if tempered with an eye toward society. For example, when you say, "I'm happy being in hell for casting evil spells because I'll know I did right", that's similar to saying "I'm happy for being in jail for stealing food, because I know it was the right thing to do." Sure, Jean Valjean, you might be able to justify it to yourself, but you are still committing evil (and interestingly, Valjean himself never disagreed with the fact that he was a bad person for stealing bread, he just said he had to do it).

The slippery slope in a world where Evil Is Real is that when those children you're healing by 'just summoning evil' need also to be tempered by (in-character) conversations about how it's okay to steal 'little bits' of evil for good purposes. Otherwise, when the incubus shows up and goes, "Hey, you think healing was impressive, check out this other thing!" the children will have no reason to believe that they shouldn't accept it.

So casting protection from evil on random strangers becomes an 'anti-corrupting' influence?

does that really sound like a good idea to you?

Sure it does. You have a limited number of resources per day. You spend all of those resources ensuring that others are protected from the fundamental forces of evil in the world, which is a real, proven threat. That is an ethically good act; you could be use those spells for self-gain, but are instead using them to protect others.

I think the closest relative argument in the real world to this infernal healing thing is the legalization of marijuana, which I completely understand is a can of worms to open, but bear with me.

Marijuana. It's illegal, so utilizing it can result in consequences. Should it be? Nope. There are lots of arguments on both sides. However, the fact is, it's illegal. Every time you use it, you're aware of that fact. Whether or not you choose to use it is still your [character's] choice. But you're still making an informed choice.

The important part isn't the "is it illegal?" question, much like "is infernal healing evil?" isn't the question. The fact to both is, "Yes." But whether or not you choose to live with the consequences of your actions if they come home, is up to you. The only difference is, if you're suffering the consequences, at least with marijuana you can still affect the system, instead of being in Hell and just suffering forever.

Back in the game world, if your class abilities don't care about your alignment (read: most people that would cast infernal healing), why do you care? If you care about other's opinions of you or what aura they see, you as a character should not be casting those spells. If you don't, they have no impact on you. Other than, you know, that ultimate reward.

"Wait", says John the wizard," how do you know that? "

"How do I know what?" Answers Pete the cleric
"That it is Evil. How do you know that?"
"Well, I wave my arms around, chant some words, magic happens and I know wherever something detects as Evil. My God beams the information straight into my mind."
"And how do you know that it works correctly?"
"What do you mean? It never failed me before."
"Watch this." *casts misdirection on his planarly bound succubus and the paladin * "check our Robert the paladin."
Pete checks the paladin and finds him quite evil
"Well this proves nothing, you cast a spell on him"
"So your God can be tricked by a second circle spell? A very reliable source of information, that. How would you ever know if your detector stopped working?"
Sorcerer Lara chimes in "We can detect that spell you cast"
She tries casting Detect Magic, but wizard is faster and slaps Robert with Magic Aura. Lara detects no spells on the paladin.
"Well, I guess you don't actually know if Infernal Healing is evil or if it just detects as such. Guess we will have to stick to old-fashioned ways to find evil, like finding things that hurt and oppress sentient beings, which infernal healing is not."

Hylen the Ethics Major sits back and says, "You are deliberately corrupting the test, John, by not only introducing a new variable, but changing the rules of the test. The question is not "can I hide evil?" but is "Is this one action, by itself, evil?" The test results are clear; the ability to check if a spell is evil or not is not necessary to come from a God, but is a fundamental force."

Jacola the Atheist Cleric pipes in. "Ya, I can still cast detect evil, and I don't believe in gods at all. My spells come from unfettered access to the core of magic, which all people should have access to, if not for higher beings claiming they were deities blocking our natural growth as a species."

Hylen nods sagely. "And the better question is, why are we even discussing this? You know it's evil, and you're fighting a vanguard action to... justify it? One of two things are true: Either you do not care if the spell is evil and will cast it anyway, which is ethically incorrect but is then based on your viewpoint so is your decision to make, or you have a fundamental doubt in whether or not you should be casting the spell, in which case you should, from a purely ethical viewpoint, wait until you have an answer. The observed fact, not truth, is that this spell is evil. If you choose to use it or not is up to you. Using evil tools will make you more evil, regardless of the end result, because you know there is an alternate option that you simply choose not to utilize. You could, for example, make scrolls or potions that you sell or barter to purchase more potions of healing, but you instead choose to use this option. As you are an educated, informed user, you must accept the consequences of your choice."

I guess that would depend on how common spell casters with Detect Evil are in the games you run; in your example, only 2 of them can actually tell. Wouldn't the majority of the population say "Evil? A wizard used Infernal Healing to save me when I was savaged by an owlbear. An owlbear, I might add, which Holy Joe the Paladin and Granola Steve the Druid both agree totally isn't evil; nuts to Paladins and Druids!"

Owlbears are animals (INT 2). You wouldn't use the same argument on a wolf that attacked you; it was just acting like a beast.

If you remove the ability to detect alignment, then moral ambiguity can exist in a game, yes. To truly do that correctly, you have to remove all spells that directly affect good or evil (so no dispel alignment, holy word, etc.). Once you do all that, you can then begin to debate the nature of good and evil. :)

It's not as limiting as you think, because you are specifically creating an item that functions exactly as desired. The fact that I can "only" assume a form that can fly, gets a bonus to DEX and AC is not limiting enough for a discount. It's very like saying that another ring "only" lets you turn into a panther, not a bear, or "only" a red dragon, not a blue dragon. It shouldn't be discounted for unique magic item creation.

Only being allowed to speak with one specific type of animal is a severe limitation on the spell. But if you created a unique spell that let you turn into a bat when cast, it would probably be the same level as the minimal level of the appropriate beast shape spell.

Ashiel wrote:

For the same reason, I like good characters, because I respect and admire characters that are altruistic, protective of life, and concerned for others. Being good means you are a good person who does good things. Not that you're simply acting like a normal person but wearing the right uniform.

But, if it's just how many celestial badgers you can poop out in a day, or how many times you used magic circle against evil as the circle used to conjure an earth elemental, it's pointless. It has little to no
narrative value to the character, and so I simply don't care.

It's particularly wonky when your wizard goes to planar bind a night hag to try and recover a stolen soul (evil spell! good act?) and having to cast protection from good as a prerequisite (good spell!) and your good alignment descriptor peanut butter gets all up in your evil alignment descriptor chocolate.

The wizard also had the option of summoning another creature, and chose the left-hand path. The action of the choice solidifies the ethic definition. In this highly undefined example, the character could have summoned an equally-powerful good-aligned creature. There was no good act here.

It's always been a narrative question of whether it's 'more good' to cling to your ideals (such as a code against killing) even when the world is burning around you because of it (an example being Batman constantly putting Joker, etc. into the revolving door that is Arkham, instead of going all Punisher on them, which is the fault of the writers, obviously, since multiple life sentences are generally more effective at preventing mass murder spree recidivism in the real world than in a serial medium that requires iconic villains to be back on the street every time a new creative team is on the book) or 'more good' to sacrifice your own ideals and go all morally-relativistic-boddhisatva and make the 'hard choices' or 'realistic choices' or 'practical choices' as a Punisher type would maintain, claiming that by holding to a code against killing, someone like Batman or Daredevil is valuing his own shiny moral code over *other people's entire lives.*

This is not a question of a moral code versus the value of others. Placing the Joker in Arkham the first time was the ethically correct thing to do, as it was the correct location to prevent the most harm. The second time, Batman was still ethically correct, as the comics have shown that Wayne Enterprises invests a lot of money on better security, better cameras, and Batman has been shown to spend all the "downtime" he gets monitoring Arkham himself. It has gotten to the point that when villains break out, it was either due to an unknown flaw or due to the actions of another person outside of the control of Batman, which means placing the Joker back inside the secure prison is still ethically correct, if the loophole has been closed.

There's no real right answer there. If a new writer wants to use the Joker, and code-against-killing hero has put him away, he'll escape, and if 'I'll kill him to...

Well, this is just a problem with the serial nature. There's legit bad storytelling there. :D

Which also makes me think about control and the urge to resist control. We exist in a game world with characters that we create. There are powers in that world, but ultimately:

We are given the power to reshape the physical world through our actions.
We accept that there are gods with mandates, but ultimately we enslave those gods.
We grow exponentially more powerful than other sentient lifeforms, with a clearly defined and quantified justification for considering ourselves "superior".

Then there's only one thing to rail against: The Great Cosmic Force, which is our GM. The only barrier to our growth is the decision of something more powerful than us. In the real world, we fight against things that limit us. Then in the real world pertaining to the game world, we can only argue against the ruleset, which is made easier as there is an intercessor right in front of us. We can change the rules of the universe if we can argue loud enough.

That's likely the real victory to most of the players that would argue Good versus Evil.

Why do players feel it necessary to argue the alignment rules? In my experience? Storytelling and game creep. And honestly, bad storytelling.

At character creation, you declare your character's alignment, supposedly based on the character's background and upbringing. Then, you grow as a character. So if you make your wizard NG, you should be a fairly decent person. That's your storytelling character.

Then a new splat book comes out and has a new evil spell that sounds cool, and you want it. As a player, you start to argue about why it's not really evil, my Good character should have it, he'll research it himself if you won't give it to him, blah, blah, blah. Basically, the player is now changing the role of the character to try to take advantage of the change of the rules, but doesn't want branded as "the person that changes alignment just to get new powers". So the argument begins.

A good player should recognize that the character knows what is right and wrong, and act accordingly to further the story. But when you add in a score and a victory, the drive to win beats the drive to maintain original concept.

And just to throw out a few ethics problems in the examples given:

• Obi-Wan performed an ethically correct act by leaving Anakin there. He, as a person needing to stop a murderer, went precisely as far as was necessary to stop him from murdering again (to the best of his knowledge). To kill Anakin would be to commit murder from an pure ethics point of view; Anakin's ability to cause harm was removed.
  
• In a world where Force Lightning exists as the only Jedi power, the option to utilize it may be open for an ethics debate. It is not the only power available. So when the character makes the decision to learn the power and utilize it, they are making a conscious decision to cause unnecessary harm and are therefore knowledgeable of the Dark act.
  
• There is an interesting ethical question in this: A woman suddenly manifests Force Lightning, and only Force Lightning, and there is no other knowledge within her isolated social culture of Jedi powers. She uses it exclusively for hunting non-sentient animals to make her tribe's life easier. As she can receive no feedback of "the agony", and uses it only on ethically non-existent beings, is she being evil? In the real world, no, she is not. The first time she receives any form of feedback (from a reliable outside source, or from using her powers on a being that provides feedback she can understand, say, an animal large enough to survive the first moment of exposure or a human, and that she understands the screams of pain), continued use becomes an ethically inappropriate act. However, as she exists in a universe with a semi-sentient pervasive Force that dictates the effects on her soul, she is always committing an evil act, as she is corrupting herself and will eventually become, by those mandates, a person that will lose control.
  

Here, it's more like this:

Favored Form Ring
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 10th
Slot ring; Price (see below); Weight --
Description
This thick brass ring is ornately carved with a specific tiny animal in motion and religious iconography, and regardless of the polish and care to the ring, leaves a green mark on the wearer where the ring rests. A favored form ring bestows the following abilities to the wearer:

• +1 deflection bonus to armor class
  
• speak with animals, only with the species depicted on the ring
  
• twice per day, the wearer can assume the form of the species depicted on the ring for up to ten minutes (per beast shape II)
  

Figuring the cost of the ring, you have the following:
+1 deflection bonus to AC (2,000 gp)
beast shape II, CL 10, 2x day (12,000gp)
speak with animals, continuous, one species only (4,000gp, arbitrary to 2,000gp)

So 12,000gp + (2,000gp*1.5) + (2,000gp*1.5), or a base cost of 18,000 gp. Given that the ring lets you assume a tiny animal twice per day and speak with that animal continuously, this might be a very fair price.

That means the +2 AC version would be 27,000gp by raw math, then +3/39,000gp, +4/53,000gp, and +5/71,000gp.

Here's something I've learned at my tables that works very well for adjudicating races. Do a point buy. Increase the points available by the average race of your world (in most worlds, that's humans, so nine points). So, if you're allowing a 25 point buy, everyone has 34 points and has to buy the character's race first. Remaining points can be spent on stats. So a Suli, valued at 16 RP, means you then have 18 points to buy stats.

So far, this has balanced the table very well in several campaigns. Maybe it will assist you as well. :)

I would posit that Gorum would be fine with it. Fighting in a war should be all encompassing, and anything that removes distractions would be beneficial to the warrior.

Alternately, you could argue that only the greatest warriors and survivors are welcomed to the victory orgy with the sacred prostitutes, with the highest kill counts being permitted the first selection from the men and women in the camp. This would encourage more ferocity and greater competitiveness in war, which would also be approved.

Diamond B wrote:

23. Weapon speed this piggybacks on the above mention of weapons. I loved the idea of weapons impacting how quickly they could be brought to bear in a round. I recall with fondness the suffering of my battle axe wielding dwarf as he almost always went last in the round.

Weapon Speed would simultaneously placate the people who whine about Iterative Attacks and enrage people who decry "Martial/Caster Disparity!"

I like the idea in theory, but don't think it's viable in practice.

Except you'd bring back casting initiative as well, and for most things, those were much slower than weapons. Wizards used to have to track initiative and weapon speed much closer than the fighters...

That isn't the question.

The question is, do animals have the anatomy to mechanically make use of IUS.

I say no.

The game rules, mechanically define unarmed strikes by animals as natural attacks. As such, teaching an animal to hit with its head or fist would become a slam attack. Not an unarmed attack.

IUS does not grant a slam attack and both in real life and in game mechanics terms, an animal needs to have been taught a trick to make non lethal attacks. And in some cases may need to be pushed.

The game mechanics just do not support an animal learning IUS.

Based on the question above (anatomy), you're wrong. If you believe otherwise, you have never seen an animal, acting as an animal without training, act. The llama's "natural attack" in the real world is a kick, when fighting off predators. When reprimanding offspring, they perform untrained, nonlethal strikes with their heads. Goats do the same. Horses kick opponents, and headbutt to both reprimand /and/ to make Diplomacy checks; it can be a sign of affection. Cats claw, but headbutt and make nonlethal paw strikes.

[EDIT: You can't argue that the untrained nonlethal strikes listed above are Diplomacy/Intimidate checks, because animals that are not trained do not have those skills mechanically. And since it is not a trick that can be mechanically taught, the mechanics do not support representing those as skill checks, only as "beating my children until they somehow learn, which I am not intelligent enough to know if it works this way or not".]

Again, the mechanics of animal companions simply state: Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can select any feat they are physically capable of using. No other checks are required. Unarmed strikes only ask for a body that is capable. Any creature with moving parts can make unarmed strikes. Regardless of what those strikes are considered based on type, the only check for "are you capable of unarmed strike?" is "Do you have a body that could be capable of it?", not "Do you naturally choose to do so?"

Those two checks are /all/ that matter. "Is the animal's INT 3 or higher?" and "Do they have a body that is capable?" If they are both yes, and all animals will be a yes to the second one, then they can take the feat. This is RAW. This means that the mechanics you're referring to completely support animal companions have IUS.

Feats do not care if you can use them or not, provided you meet the prereq. An intelligent tree can take Fleet or Run, even if it has no locomotion abilities, because it has no prereq. I has a fighter can take Combat Casting, even though I have no spellcasting, because it has no prereq; in fact, there are several builds that "prebuy" feats for later. In fact, I may be wrong on this, but I can't find where most metamagic feats have a prereq of actually being able to cast spells.

All the potential gateway feats later could be explored outside of this discussion, but I'm having a lot of problems picking out ones that would be physically impossible for an animal to accomplish as well.

Even once per day, it seems overpowered to me. But that's just the way I'm looking, I suppose. How many natural 20's do you roll in a day? Compare that from a 5% to a 10% chance when you need that to happen.

I didn't realize that about the skill checks, but since "once per day" powers aren't mandatory, you can still store it if you rolled it at the wrong time.

Source: Blood of the Night

Ru-shi Dhamphir are allowed to take the racial trait below.

Numerological Gift: Since birth you have had an intimate connection with a certain number. When you select this trait, roll 3d6. The resulting number becomes your numerological totem and can never be changed. Once per day, when you roll your totem number on a d20 (such as an attack roll, save, or skill check), you may treat that roll as if you had rolled a natural 20 on the die.

So my question at this point should be obvious: Does this gift the character two critical numbers? If my totem number is 10, do I critically hit on both a 10 and a 20, and succeed on all skill checks on a 10 and 20? Or was this intended to move the critical location on the die to somewhere else? If it's the previous method, it seems a bit overpowered for a race trait, especially compared to other ones that tend to give limited +2 bonuses to skills.

I don't need to control my wife or her beliefs. She we share the same values, she just believes many of those values are reflective of her reading of the bible (she is actually a christian who has read the bible cover to cover, which I find to be rare...) as allegorical stories that fit the times they were written in, rather than as the absolute word of "God".

I didn't mean that to be control, only that you seem to have a good breadth of understanding of the necessity of differing viewpoints. As long as we all end up at the same "Don't Be A Jerk" landmark.

I like you. Thank you for understanding that it's the morals and values, regardless of the origin or whether the beliefs are from a caring soul or from a logical mind. Vaya con Dios... o su equivalente lógico y su creencia en la moral humana y la igualdad, I guess.

Or, more realistically and in keeping with the tenants of Lawful Good, a paladin would exert every lawful means in his disposal to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person was innocent, while using the law to delay the execution.

If the paladin in question is a well-respected member of the community, he should be able to request a few days to delay. A law-abiding, just court would listen when the character states he may be able to find evidence exonerating the prisoner. A secretly-manipulated-one would probably still give the time extension, either because they feel they cannot be unraveled, or they need the populace to be shown that the paladin was wrong.

After that, we have to make an assumption that the paladin cannot simply "detect lies" the prisoner for whatever reason. We'll claim we're in Cliffport, where magical testimony is not considered valid. We can't time-scry, then, either. But the paladin should have his own contacts. In some feudal settings, a simple "God wants you to tell the truth" to a serf-witness would cause them to break and reveal themselves.

Of course, that's not even factoring in what the paladin's companions would be doing. When a anything-but-evil rogue hears the paladin's lament, he's going to start digging as well. And while the paladin cannot condone spying or burglary to get evidence, the rogue can act independently.

Generally, this kind of thing should not be a "one-hour game session". It's a serious question of the character's motivations and his take on his own alignment, and therefore should be played out slowly and methodically. There should be small questions of faith and righteousness before this kind of "hard break" moral dilemma, and something everyone at the table is going to enjoy. If your paladin is more interested in the notion of the jailbreak, then they're not really a paladin, they're a fighter that wants a different set of powers.

As for the jailbreak... Lawful Good can't think that way, or it will rapidly use the ends to justify the means, and cease being Lawful Good, just Self-Righteous Good.

KitsuneSoup wrote:

There are a number of posts that are "this is the problem with Christians", "This is why I hate Christians", etc. I understand it's currently still chic to hate Christians. Do you hate the people, or do you hate the church? Do you hate the message, or do you hate the doctrine?

Tolerant Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc...are all fine. Hell I married one :)

When they want the doctrine of their church to be law I have to live by, purely because it is the doctrine of their church, I have a problem.

That is the line, period.

You married a tolerant Christmusjew? Seriously, though, that statement implies that you don't agree with all of your partner's beliefs... and you are a wonderful person for not letting your love be blinded by labels. Or vice-versa.

I /am/ with you on that one. I see the double-standard of having a "you can't tell us we have to provide birth control, you don't have any right to say what the Church does!" with "We enjoy tax-exempt status and the law should reflect our beliefs because it's the right thing to do!" But that might just be me... my wedding present to my little brother was a box of condoms because they couldn't afford birth control.

[ANNOTATION: This applies beyond religion, though. "Corporations are people, we deserve tax breaks and your worship!" versus "We are corporations, you cannot hold us accountable for actions that would get a person jailed!"

[ANNOTATION SECUNDUS: I don't agree with that picture you linked to, cire, but only because it feels hurtful. Read incorrectly (or perhaps correctly, I don't know the author personally), a reader may infer that "Christians are idiots and are therefore easy targets, and arguing with them is not fun, so I will stay intellectually superior and not do so, because by not being Christian, I am automatically mentally superior". That has become a large part of my frustration with my atheistic friends. When I become infallible in my logic and statements, all too often the retort is "Ya, but you believe in the Sky-god". And suddenly they're in the Ivory Tower again, gaining one life for... wait...

But I am willing to admit that's my own cross to bear, and not something that factors into the global argument.

I just wish I could be Christian and not lumped in with all the others. I'm tolerant, intelligent, and while I have faith, it's in people as much as it is in God. I don't pray for magical healing from the stars, but if God is willing to nudge the surgeon's hand from time to time, that's cool.

But I have too many friends that are have had so many bad experiences with Christians, or that are their own personal brand of atheist (where their atheism is a religion, or it's not atheism, it's just Christian-bashing), or just plain believe that Christians have to be idiot Westboro jacks, that I find myself giving up on trying to convince them that you can be a person of faith while not being a hate-mongering fifth grader, and instead just be a loving, peaceful person.

There are a number of posts that are "this is the problem with Christians", "This is why I hate Christians", etc. I understand it's currently still chic to hate Christians. Do you hate the people, or do you hate the church? Do you hate the message, or do you hate the doctrine?

And I know, I know. There's always someone that's going to stand up and say, "But Kistune, you amazing stallion, /you're/ tolerant. /You/ love. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about how the church or a community treats people." I'm not blind to that, honest. No, I don't have the power to stop it on a grand scale, but I will stop and have stopped it if I see it happening. I can be there for the people that were mistreated. I don't have to participate in the bashing on either side. Even if I never affect a change in the world, I can know that I care about people, and do what I can to stop the injustices when and where I see them. Wasn't it the "hippies" that said "Think Globally, Act Locally"? I have my grand wishes for tolerance and understanding, but I'm realistic. I just want people to be happy around me, and if it ripples outward, which I believe it does, maybe a change can happen.

Reading a lot of these posts, I see some very open-minded people in both directions (gays are okay, and so are Christians!) that I am happy to be here.

+1 to Pigbear.

take a Pig, call it a bear.

Honestly, I like this one. I like all the other notes here, it's just that the player is much more interested in the concept than having a battle bear. She's not the kind to be min-maxing, more the kind that tends to forget the animal exists. I already told the player I would have to stat the creature, so I'll just use pig stats, write "polar bear cub" on the sheet, and she won't really know the difference. Thanks!

{EDIT} Also, I rather like the idea of the Diplomacy bonus... there's something to be said about the person that walks into a negotiation with a polar bear, even a cub.

Alright, so I have a player as a Witch, from a mostly frozen world and an ice coven. The player is interested in having a polar bear as a familiar, and while a full-grown bear is obviously out of the question, I do see that the stats for a "small bear" is an option for a druid companion.

The player is fine with the notion of having a polar bear cub that will eventually grow up. What do you all think about that as an idea? I was thinking that for the sake of balance, the familiar can be the basic "small bear" option under Druid, and give no skill mods for its advanced combat abilities. It will only age if the player takes Improved Familiar or when the familiar hit points hit average for the adult bear, having it grow to full size slowly with the witch. Given bear stats, especially polar bear stats, I'm figuring that will happen around Witch 14 or so, at which point the bear is still technically underleveled as a companion (and thus likely appropriate as a familiar).

Alternately, is there a witch mod that gives better familiars? I looked at Beast-Bonded as a template, and it doesn't give you a better familiar, just makes the familiar you have more effective.

I'm just looking into ideas to maintain game balance while letting the player have what is a fun and neat concept.