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I was wondering how racism fits in with alignments,Well, I would probably suggest using what the Core Rulebook actually says about racism and alignment:
He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank.Seems pretty clear-cut.
Not particularly. The key word is "condemn" a person based off of race. You can be racist without condemning a person for it
"Well, y'all see here, now you see here...y'all are one of the best workers I got, and I like ya, but you got to admit that your orc blood makes you as sharp as a sack o'bricks. You can plainly see here on this chart that this bump on the skull indicates...." (note: read that in the voice of Leonardo DiCaprio).
You can be benevolent to a person and still assume they are inferior to you due to heritage.
Hell, even President Lincoln didn't support equal treatment of the races, and instead just drew a line at what slavery brought (I am not experienced enough with history to know whether that was his actual opinion, or if it was simply his political stance because he already had a ton of states succeeding just off the 'lets treat them better than we treat cows' stance).
It was, in fact, exceedingly popular during the era of American slavery to assume that individuals of African descent were 'the cursed sons of Ham' and 'needed the white man's guidance, much like children'.
In summation- even being a LG person providing charity does stop you from being a condescending racist jerk. It is just that it is far, far easier to justify LE when you have a convenient excuse like racist.
Execution for crimes is proper treatment.We need rules for "My Little Pathfinder" for those that think the bad guys just need a hugThere's a world of difference between thinking bad guys need a hug and treating prisoners properly (especially considering you accepted the surrender).
Behaving evilly towards Orcs doesn't make you much different than them.
1. Legal execution is a matter of law and chaos, not good and evil. This is directed at everyone in this conversation, not just you.
2. Many people strongly disagree. Killing is killing.
Regarding 2, Pathfinder has a Lawful Good Empyreal Lord of Executions. And a Lawful Good Lord of Vengeance who stops giving you his powers if you don't kill an evil doer at least once a day.
While people may personally disagree with this, Good in Pathfinder doesn't have to perfectly match your moral beliefs. And I don't see how a GM injecting his own moral code onto the game makes it better for his players.
Sure, but not every game is Golarion-based.
And I don't see how anyone injecting their own moral code onto the game makes it better for players. That includes the creators of the game. :P
"Hey little orc dudes. I can't let you eat that corpse. He was my brother. But! There is good news! You don't need to eat it! See, we slaughtered your entire tribe, so that means there are over forty of your family's corpses lying around this cave. Eat those instead. Bon appetit."
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Evil is still Evil, even when it's done for a good cause. Just because the Good character's moral code and beliefs say it's a good action to kill baby orcs, for example, doesn't mean it is one. Just that they feel justified. Now, if a Good character worships a god who's doctrine is "all orcs must be cleansed from the land" then the act has the full approval of their god. If their god however doesn't condone such actions, then even if the character believes it's an act of Good to kill orc babies, their patron god may not agree.
I think it's totally fine if a good PC isn't sure whether killing these orc babies is right. Because in doubt he can move on to one of several other solutions. It's not a binary decision between 'killing them' and 'leaving them to grow and harm innocents'.
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Ah, but the paladin who follows a god that doesn't approve of killing orc babies... Well, they may still be Lawful Good... but their god is going to be angry. Welcome to needing an Atonement. For the common man on the street, they probably wont get smited by their god or goddess. Nor would a fighter or arcane caster, probably. But those who get their power from their connection to the gods are a whole different story.
Fortunately Paladins don't get their powers from a god. To the best of my knowledge, there is no mechanism whatsoever for a god to pull the powers from a Paladin. If the god doesn't like the Paladin choosing their code and their morality over the god's wishes, then that is bad luck for the god.
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So Snowblind, you're saying that the martial class with divine magic, the class that can lose all their class abilities if they violate their Code, doesn't get their powers from a god or goddess?
Through a select, worthy few shines the power of the divine.
Called paladins, these noble souls dedicate their swords and
lives to the battle against evil. Knights, crusaders, and lawbringers,
paladins seek not just to spread divine justice but
to embody the teachings of the virtuous deities they serve.
In pursuit of their lofty goals, they adhere to ironclad laws of
morality and discipline. As reward for their righteousness,
these holy champions are blessed with boons to aid them
in their quests: powers to banish evil, heal the innocent,
and inspire the faithful. Although their convictions might
lead them into conf lict with the very souls they would
save, paladins weather endless challenges of faith and dark
temptations, risking their lives to do right and fighting to
bring about a brighter future.
That was taken directly from the CRB, page 60. To regain their spells they have to spend time in prayer. Or how about the description of one of the paladin class abilities.
Divine Bond (Sp): Upon reaching 5th level, a paladin forms a divine bond with her god. This bond can take one of
two forms. Once the form is chosen, it cannot be changed.
Sounds like getting their power from their god to me. And if your god says that killing orc babies an evil act because the baby is innocent, but you do so anyway because you personally believe they are irredeemably evil at birth... That is a willful act of evil according to your god.
While the core rule book may not specify it outright, I think the book detailing the various gods does list what those gods consider a violation of their paladin's codes. Or at the very least goes into what the gods stand for. Not entirely sure since I don't have that book yet.
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So Snowblind, you're saying that the martial class with divine magic, the class that can lose all their class abilities if they violate their Code, doesn't get their powers from a god or goddess?
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Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Paladins get their powers from Law and Good, not a Lawful and/or Good deity. Just like Rangers and Druids are divine casters despite not getting powers from a God.
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Clerics gain spell power from deities or from divine forces. The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells, and the divine forces of law and good power paladin spells.
Unless you want to take the stance that Paladins must obey the desires of their god despite their spellcasting explicitly being independent of a deity and their code making no mention of needing to obey their god, then what a god wants is irrelevant as far as the Paladin's powers are concerned.
Now, there would be some wiggle room to say that the designers of the Paladin writeup simply forgot to add the "obey your god" clause given that there are a couple of offhanded references to the paladin's god, but...
Of all the classes in Golarion... only clerics MUST have a patron deity, since only clerics get their spells from a patron deity.Other divine spellcasters CAN have patron deities, and in some cases (inquisitors and paladins) they USUALLY have patron deities, but that's not always the case.
I'm not sure where and when I said all paladins need deities, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't and that's a misquote.
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If your deity is lawful neutral or neutral good, then you'll occasionally have conflicts between your faith and your paladin vows. When these conflicts occur, you need to err on the side of your paladin code and not on the side of your faith. Religions like Sarenrae and Abadar are very forgiving of that, and thus they have pretty robust paladin orders. Those of Shelyn are not AS forgiving, and Irori's faith is even less forgiving.
So Snowblind, you're saying that the martial class with divine magic, the class that can lose all their class abilities if they violate their Code, doesn't get their powers from a god or goddess?
Well, admittedly, druids are also a divine casting class with a code.
This doesn't necessarily prove any rule paladin's play under, but it does mean that you can have a divine class unconnected with a divine creature, even when they have a somewhat arbitrary set of rules to follow to keep their abilities.
note- arbitrary here means violations that do not obviously lead to a loss of powers; alignment change could be justified, since paladins run off of LG juice (ie-no shiny soul, no shiny soul juice, no shiny soul juice powered sword), and druids have some kind of balance thing going on...I guess. No, arbitrary here is 'no lying' or 'don't teach other people druidic'. Actions that do not appear to mechanically connect to the loss of power. That 'arbitrary' nature implies that the rule would most likely only affect the power if there was some kind of higher being that could be angered by the violation and cut off the juice.
The divine punishment of goblin babies.
I was much of a mind that a Paladin who DOES worship a God needs to keep favor with their God, but those who simply follow a code just need to stick with their code.
I think killing a prisoner who you've restrained can still be Good. Not really Lawful, but certainly not Evil at all times. These guys were (presumably) just trying to murder you, or otherwise do bad stuff. Just because you tied them up to ask them some questions doesn't change that they were trying to kill you. The only thing separating this prisoner from his now-dead friends is that you needed to know what he did.
Now, if you make some deal to let him go afterwards, then you kill him, you're in Neutral territory. But if you just ask, and he just tells, you're not any worse for killing him than you were for killing his friends.
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Killing a helpless prisoner would still violate a paladin's Code. It's a dishonorable act after all. Now, if the rightful authority such as the local king or duke pronounced sentence and that sentence was execution, then a paladin wouldn't fall if they carried out the sentence. But in general a paladin will fall if they coup de grace
Paladin? Yes. Everyone else? No.
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It should also be noted that for all his genius when it came to game design, Gary Gygax was not really a historian. Much of what we accept as 'fact' from D&D's weapon charts and armor effectiveness/weight comes from his lack of knowledge. If you read the very early issues of his first magazine, you'll notice that many times he was guessing about how weapons were used or how effective armors were. Often he made poor guesses, such as believing that spears and halberds were ineffective weapons which were rarely fielded. The entirety of his weapons knowledge came from miniature war games. Several of which he created or published.
Even a little research shows that his claim of how rape and/or murder of women was punished in anglo-saxon times was far off the mark. The punishment he described was not actually what happened. Rather a wergeld was paid, with the amount actually being codified. Think about that for a second. There were codified rules for how much a woman or child's life is worth. And these laws were put into place to try avoiding blood feuds. This tells you that it wasn't safe for women and children to walk the length and breadth of the land. In fact, it tells you rape and murder happened often enough that there needed to be codified amounts for how much wergeld had to be paid based on age, gender, and social station.
As such, I'd say take Gygax's view on if a paladin should fall if he kills a helpless prisoner as based on historical accounts with a grain or eighty of salt.
I was much of a mind that a Paladin who DOES worship a God needs to keep favor with their God, but those who simply follow a code just need to stick with their code.
I suppose that if you devote yourself to a god, you choose to live by that god's rules. Breaking the god's commands would thus be unlawful. A less common reason for a paladin to fall, but yeah, it works.
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If you want a Pathfinder-relevant example of executions being a-ok, there is a Lawful Good Empyreal lord of executions who has Paladins serving him. In fact, as far as Paladins are concerned Damerich is one of the most commonly worshiped empyreal lords. That should give you a hint as to what is actually acceptable for a paladin.
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I suppose the problem with discussing the morality of executions is that the kind of setting typically used based on time periods where the law was a much looser concept. I mean... people hire adventurers rather than just going to the guards and military. That says something.
It is just a problem of premodern law enforcement: it is hard to move personnel around fast enough to properly police EVERYTHING. Ergo, outside of the immediate city area, you will often find bandits and the like. It takes time and effort to go out and root bandits out... and during that time, there is a personnel shortage while they run around in the woods.
Death sentences were commonly attached to thievery because of teh simple problem that a thief that gets 20 miles away might be entirely out of your reach. So rather than allowing a thieves, murderers, and rapists to run around, it was better to execute them.
Also, due to the loose law enforcement in the wilds (where adventurers often work, since they are mercenaries fixing problems outside of normal law enforcement areas), you sometimes have to be your own law.
The practice of summary execution of enemies can often be rather pragmatic. You are a small group of warriors, and you cannot be expected to handle dozens of prisoners 24/7 while going the long trail back to town without a potential escape (and slitting of your throat in the middle of the night).
Now, if you are in a city, or close enough to an appropriate outpost so that you can drop the prisoners off? No, don't execute them, allow more established legal procedures take hold. But when you are alone, in the woods, 100 miles away from anyone that could properly contain the prisoners? Yeah, you might have to make pragmatic choices.
Generally, it is best if you give them a mini trial, a chance to be heard, and a swift, painless execution if at all possible.
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His reasoning was based on faulty knowledge of history. Which is why I say take it with a grain of salt. For one thing, he modeled paladins off of the romanticized European concept of a noble knight. One which was rarely accurate historically, but that's besides the point. But he used Islamic crime and punishment ideas of 'an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' in his essay on if a paladin can summarily execute a captive, which is a culture that doesn't fit the mold for paladins. Let alone the feudal Europe style of game setting D&D typically has. He then attributed those Islamic ideas of justice to anglo-saxons. Even then he was inaccurate in his descriptions of said punishments. A thief in Islamic culture would have their hand cut off and thrown in prison, not be executed as he described.
There's two competing concepts here. The first is that paladins must be honorable to a fault. They can't preform a dishonorable action or they fall. Nor can they condone dishonorable actions or they fall. The second is that it's okay to kill someone who is helpless. Evil or not, the captive is still helpless.
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The code of how to punish criminals he was citing was a distortion of Islamic culture in the dark and middle ages. He took their eye for an eye methods of punishment, and assumed them to be even more brutal. Which is not to say the punishments weren't brutal, but Gygax described extremes which either didn't happen, or were infrequent. To be fair though, the distortions he was citing were probably originally based on European propaganda during the time of the crusades.
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The paladins of first edition D&D, and the paladin of today are not the same by rules or ethics. It really doesn't matter what any previous edition rules were when discussing what works for the current model of the game. Gary could have said paladins could just take a man's wife, and murder his kids just because he(the paladin) wanted to, and it would still not matter for how the game works now.
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The code of how to punish criminals he was citing was a distortion of Islamic culture in the dark and middle ages. He took their eye for an eye methods of punishment, and assumed them to be even more brutal. Which is not to say the punishments weren't brutal, but Gygax described extremes which either didn't happen, or were infrequent. To be fair though, the distortions he was citing were probably originally based on European propaganda during the time of the crusades.And you know that how?
Since he's got it all distorted anyway, how sure are you that he's distorting Islamic culture, which he doesn't mention, not European - whether Anglo-Saxon or some other source. Many of which were also quite brutal.
Research primarily. At one point I was writing a short story set in a middle eastern style society. So I did research into the customs, as well as crime and punishment standards in such a society. What Gygax described was an exaggeration of some punishments I'd researched. The 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' comment he made is another clue. In European countries such a concept was not widely used. This is in part due to how widespread the roman catholic church's power was in Europe. It was also in part due to the fact that nobility were often quite literally able to get away with murder if their victims were commoners.
To put things in perspective, Vlad Tepes is famous for his many atrocities. He was deposed and imprisoned many times. Yet he was also put back on his throne by the roman catholic church many times. A lesser known historical figure is the baroness Elisabeth Bathony, also known as the baroness of blood. By the time she was arrested she'd murdered countless women because she believed bathing in the blood of a virgin woman would keep her young forever. Yet her sentence was not brutal execution but life imprisonment within a tower. If European nations had followed the eye for an eye method of punishment, both historical figures would have been brutally killed. Instead Tepes was repeatedly put back in power because he terrified the turks and Bathony was imprisoned in a luxurious tower.
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There's two competing concepts here. The first is that paladins must be honorable to a fault. They can't preform a dishonorable action or they fall. Nor can they condone dishonorable actions or they fall. The second is that it's okay to kill someone who is helpless. Evil or not, the captive is still helpless.
Executing those guilty of severe enough crimes is not dishonorable. Period. It is, in fact, perfectly justified morally. Especially in situations where you lack the option of imprisonment.
Now, in any place with actual legal authorities you can take prisoners to, that should obviously be the preferable option (at least for a Paladin), but sometimes you don't have that luxury.
And, for the record, suggesting otherwise is gonna offend some people quite a bit. I mean, the above paragraph says that any one who believes that execution is ever appropriate is dishonorable. Which includes me, BTW.
How Medieval Law worked is basically immaterial to this, as is what Gary Gygax thought. The way Alignment and Evil or Dishonorable acts work has very little to do with 'eye for an eye'...and is pretty well established within the rules and setting of the current game. Which include the LG Empyreal Lord of executions.
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My experience has long been that the situations where you're taking prisoners tend to be more urban adventures. Badguys typically tend to get killed in combat, or manage to escape to plague the heroes later. Escape is a less frequent occasion though. It's not often that the party manages to merely KO the enemy, especially when someone is built to be a power hitter.
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that's true John. But it's also true that many of the foes you'll face at lower levels don't have that impressive of con scores. It can be shockingly easy for someone to get a hit in which will reduce the enemy to -con late in the fight. Especially if the enemy was low on hit points and planning to try escaping on their next turn. Or they bleed out just after the fight, or drown due to failing too many swim checks in a row... Was actually kinda funny when that happened tot he BBEG in one PFS scenario I was in.
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I'm pretty sure, of the last 10 enemies who've gone down to my Mummy's Mask party, less than half have died outright and we've just hit 9th level.
Now, many of those didn't cause any moral conflict whatsoever (two were Bulettes, for example), and some are due to spells (we have a Heavens Oracle...Color Spray is a thing), and some are due to the Paladin Archer (1d8+12 damage per shot or something like that, which rarely kills outright unless they're at like 2 HP)...but neither of those (ie: archers and spells that incapacitate without killing) are unique situations.
In short, IME, enemies go down without dying outright pretty regularly. Sometimes they bleed out during combat...but not actually as often as all that.