Another alignment shift threat, seriously why is this so black and white? It's getting tiresome. : /


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

1 to 50 of 68 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

DISCLAIMER: I understand having black and white definitions of what is evil makes it simpler to keep disruptive players in check and provide a strong foundation for keeping PCs from ruining scenarios and annoying/working against other PCs. However, I disagree that a GM can't look at a situation and say yes, this action is perhaps a little dark, but the reason for doing it is reasonable, and is actually looking out for the best interest of the group as well as the Pathfinder organization. I am not advocating an argument between player and GM, IMO certain actions that are not straight up vile acts (a straight up vile act being murdering innocent civilians for example) but are darker in nature should prompt the GM to ask two questions and make a ruling on whether you are "being evil." First, ask the player in question for the most brief explanation of his reasoning behind the action. Second, ask his fellow players if anyone objects to the action, if even a single player objects, it is ruled that that PC (as well as any others who object) stop your PC from carrying out the action, move on, no questions asked. However if no one objects then the GM makes a ruling of your motives are not sound, I rule this as an evil action, or yea your motives are sound, proceed with the action. Perhaps even saying if you are neutral along that axis you may proceed, if not you move from good to neutral. (Seriously why is it always straight to evil?)

In this recent scenario that kinda frustrated my character was a Lawful Neutral monk. This series of adventures we have been doing has you undercover in Hellknight territory investigating the Emerald Spire. We are instructed to let NO ONE know we are Pathfinders. In one of the floors of the spire we encounter a group of humans who attack us. Thus we earn our title as murder hobos and cut them all down. The party eventually decides to take one hostage. They begin on a mini social encounter and get all friendly, TO friendly. One of my party members extends the offer for him to join the Pathfinders, to which he replied " I bet those Hellknights up there would love to hear this eh?" Thus our cover may be blown, if we let him go there is a decent chance he blows our cover since we just killed all his compadres. I immediately reprimand my party member, informing him of the situation he has caused, saying he knows to much and is likely to sell us out. I go to kill him. "That is an evil act" is what I am told. Soooo, we barge in to these people's, uh, "place of residence" and killed them all and that's totes kosher, but we take this guy out in a fight since he attacked us and leaving him for dead was also kosher, but since my teammates saw fit to tie him up, heal him up till he was conscious, and ask him a few questions it would be evil to kill him? I would have no objections to letting him go if he did't know we were Pathfinders and didn't elude to selling us out, but in the interest of protecting my teammates from a platoon of Hellknights from killing us for intruding, thus also avoiding an awkward situation for the society where they must explain why we were there as well as helping to ensure we succeed at what we were sent to do, I don't see how this is evil. Even ignoring the benefits this action potentially would've had for the society, We killed everyone down there for being a threat and that was fine, killing this guy because letting him go is a legit threat to the entire party's lives can't be seen as all bad. Even if the most appropriate thing to do was hope he listened the paladin when he asked him not to say anything, I'm neutral! Giving this guy the benefit of the doubt here is completely unwarranted and is hardly necessary, even if I was good aligned I would have to be lawful naive to not see the potential danger doing this could put my friends and I in.

More of an explanation then a rant but I feel better now. :P

Sczarni

This doesn't sound like a PFS game.

Having GMed 9 floors of Emerald Spire, I can tell you that the Pathfinder Society (and really, dealing with the Hellknights in general) is outside the scope of the sanctioned portions.

Your GM is adding material they shouldn't be (unless it's just a home game), but either way this isn't the forum for this discussion.

I'll flag it for the regular "General Discussion" forum.


Black and white? At all.

You can´t find a place where there is a list of what´s evil or what´s chaotic for aligment shifts. So, in this case this is a GM call, just what your asking for.

If you´re interested, if something similar happens to me I´ll say the same. For me it´s not the same to kill someone in combat, where your life at risk, than cold blood before having taking him prisioner.

noble peasant said wrote:
and is actually looking out for the best interest of the group as well as the Pathfinder organization

And what? being Good (with capital letter) doing things for your group, but for every body.

Kill someone for being a threat is not enough for me to consider cold bloded murder to be a neutral action. There are other options (make an agreement, intimidate him so he don´t risks to open his mouth, you can take the prisioner with you. Yes, killing him is easiest, the Dark Side is always easiest ;D

Silver Crusade

A wrong forum. Unless you GM is taking some liberties with the Emerald Spire, and even then, he would not be allowed to even let you fight a hellknight.

B sounds like level [spoiler] and personally raiding and killing every one of those bastards is fine, and fun for all the family.

C This changes once people surrender and you have captured enemies, then things become complicated. Killing of torturing a prisoner is an evil act - maybe you can make it into a lawfull act if you are allowed to sentence the bandit right then and there... but that doesn't really matter.


Torturing a captive is an evil act. Unless you're going to declare the death penalty evil executing one if you know they deserve it. The latter is a little problematic with a lawful good empyreal lord of executions floating around. Some DMs do have a problem with it though.

They are bandits, so a lawful neutral monk looking to execute them for murder mayhem and disrupting society is certainly in character and on alignment.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Personally I would not call it an evil act if I were the GM. Neither would I call it good, lawful or chaotic. Not every action has to have an alignment attached to it.

It's an unfortunate circumstance brought about by your own party member's boneheaded move that created a loose end that need to be tied up. The NPC now knows knowledge that he cannot be allowed to possess, one that puts not only ever single member of your party in danger, but others as well. Threats and agreements cannot guarantee that the NPC in question will not spill the beans the first opportunity it gets.

Liberty's Edge

I would not consider executing an imprisoned opponent who could still be dangerous to you, as an evil act.

But even if your GM does, and some do, its just a note on your chronicle. You have to do that sort of thing repeatedly to lose your character for being evil.

Grand Lodge

The idea that you have to "take prisoners back" is absurd

"Back to what?" exactly? A judicial system where the local lord's half-wit brother holds sway? Why would "Lord Mucky Muck" care what happens in a neighboring area (where the evil thing SHOULD HAVE GONE) and what is going to be the outcome?

As most parties have character more intelligent AND good, they are more than capable of "meeting out justice" even if that means death.

I love the idea that you take all these "evil characters and monsters" to some LG society where they lock them up. Sounds like a great day for an evil power to "pack the jails" and release all of that evil for a night the population will NEVER get.

Sorry, but "Lawful Stupid" and "Stupid Good" are not alignments, those are death sentences for the majority of people living in the area


BB36 wrote:

The idea that you have to "take prisoners back" is absurd

Maybe, but one of the goals of Silver Crusade is to redeem this kind of people.

I GMed one scenario where the Silver Crusede Boon was realted to let live some ruffians (and do more of course). An my Silver Crusade Cleric had let go a prisioner who attacked us with the promise of redemtion (in a previous season, so no possible boon, and without the Faction cards. But it makes a lot of sense for my cleric when the other Silver Crusade player suggested it).

Also, the reason we´ve been given is not make justice, but do what is best for the party.

EDIT: See, aligment is not Black and White. There are different opinions here for just one case


The Pathfinder Society is a Neutral organization and occasionally engages in Evil acts. If not for Decemvirate themselves, at the very least for the "esteemed" faction leaders. Maldris has you off the betrothed of an underaged girl that he boinked so that his good name won't be spoiled. If that's not a cold-blooded murder, I don't know what is, but it doesn't get counted against you.

You were perfectly justified in your stated case. That said, I'm with Andrew here. Unless the GM was trying to scribble "wantonly evil" on the chronicle to make you perma-dead, then it's not much to worry about. If they are, then you're able to address that with the local VOs as necessary.


I think the problem is his team mate not keeping his mouth shut, more than the alignment system. Maybe he should be gutted along with the NPC.

Sovereign Court

2 people marked this as a favorite.

If your prisoner threatens to expose you to the [Hellknights/whatever enemy] if you let him live, isn't he basically asking for you to kill him? That sounds like Suicide By PC to me.

At the least, you're improving the general IQ.

Shadow Lodge

Eh, get out there and do good. What's one evil act in a sea of decent ones? Well, unless you are a paladin, that is.

Our group has been a bunch of complete bastards in the Spire, starting with getting a permit from the Order to allow us free reign inside. Deputized murderhobos, the lot!

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Even if it's an evil act, so what? Many great books and series had one of the characters do something evil because they deemed it necessary without turning the character itself evil. Some are displayed as quite cold (but not evil) or struggling with their decision afterwards (still not evil) while others are driven over the edge by this. Examples:

  • Batman stated time and time again that he won't kill someone because if he crosses the line once he'd do it again and again and again.
  • Giles (from Buffy) killed a helpless man in cold blood because if he recovered he could become a threat again (as in world-destruction). But he is never portrayed as evil because he doesn't take decisions like this lightly or often, only if he sees it as the only way.
  • Faith (Buffy again) kills an...well, not innocent, but human. While it's in accident, this sets her on a path to evil.
  • In the new Netflix series, Daredevil is pretty ruthless from the start and does quite a few things where every GM would send the Paladin right to falltown for. But his struggling with the line between good and evil is an important aspect of the character in that series.
  • Gunn (from Angel) kills a human who sends lots of innocents to a hell dimension for...reasons, breaking the usual "Killing hundreds of demons is okay, but we draw the lines at humans!" rule. This sets of a long plot about how he deals with this. Again, not evil.
  • Anakin (Star Wars) does a few evil things in Episode II (letting his anger take over, small-scale genocide) but is still not really EVIL. He is portrayed as one of the good guys, but struggling. He's getting to the evil side later, of course. Spoiler: He becomes Darth Vader.
  • Mal (Firefly) kicks a prisoner straight into Serenity's turbine, killing him immediatly. Reason? He wanted to hunt them down after being let go. Though that universe usually runs on grey-and-black-morality at best, it's more a case of "You just threatened to kill us, so..." - pretty much the same as what happened to you, just not with the awesomeness of the turbine.

So yeah, maybe it's an evil act. But it shouldn't shift the alignment immediatly.


It was definitely an evil act in my opinion. Worthy of an alignment of an alignment shift? I would probably say 'no' regarding the act the in isolation given the context. Then again we don't exactly know if there was any sort of pattern of events that caused the GM to declare that this was finally too far.

And also...

noble peasant wrote:
Giving this guy the benefit of the doubt here is completely unwarranted and is hardly necessary, even if I was good aligned I would have to be lawful naive to not see the potential danger doing this could put my friends and I in.

While I'm appreciative of the artistic value of the idea that sometimes a virtuous person slips and sometimes even people will justify evil for the greater good, I will say that I don't really see a greater good in this situation just personal convenience. The murderer was pretty self serving and in my opinion sometimes the very nature of being good is bearing additional hardship because the safer route is morally unacceptable.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.

"Kill 'em all, let Iomedae sort 'em out. If you need information, that's why she grants the speak with dead spell."

As long as they die in combat there's no messy moral dilemmas, no uncomfortable interrogation/torture sequences, no "he's way more scared of the bad guy who might kill him later (if you don't kill the bad guy first) than of you who can unambiguously kill him right now and therefore won't say anything useful. It's written in the module, right here," and most importantly, no 50 page alignment threads.

Reward something and get more of it. Punish something and get less of it. Clearly the pathfinder community approves this message. Too bad it doesn't really work until you have a level 5 cleric.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
BigNorseWolf wrote:

Torturing a captive is an evil act. Unless you're going to declare the death penalty evil executing one if you know they deserve it. The latter is a little problematic with a lawful good empyreal lord of executions floating around. Some DMs do have a problem with it though.

They are bandits, so a lawful neutral monk looking to execute them for murder mayhem and disrupting society is certainly in character and on alignment.

As a paladin of The Weighted Swing, I feel like I should clarify that little annoys Lord Damerrich like careless and unnecessary executions. As a Pathfinder I can say that I can count the number of times I've executed prisoners on one hand. Takng a life is serious business, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Thus the moral of the story is "take no prisoners".


I think the moral of the story is "talk to your GM and ask them if that's what they're trying to do". In-game, taking prisoners is not only a good idea (for information purposes), but it prevents the Society from being branded a bunch of murder hobos, which is bad for gathering information in the future. Many GMs don't seem to realize that they are forcing their PCs into bloodthirstiness by their actions of having prisoners escape/attack/cause trouble.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Maybe the prisoner thinks the best way out is through - he's doomed if the PCs take him back for trial, he's doomed if he goes back to his gang. So he figures he'll taunt the PCs and give them a reason to kill a helpless prisoner unjustly, banking on such an unfair death having good chances of making him come back as a vengeful undead.

At least that's what I'd do with this as a GM. No alignment shift unless the party starts making a habit of killing for convenience. But in my group we don't do punitive alignment shifts - alignment is an agreement between the players and GM and shifts are deliberate.


On this level at mepacon my saranite swashbuckler built up a pile of unconscious foes (the rest of the party built up a pile of dead ones) Since we had no information on how bad the bandits were we recruited the survivors.


Never take prisoners. They only lead to moral quandaries and complications.

If you need information after a fight, that's what Speak With Dead is for.


Asking a player for their motivation behind an act doesn't change whether the act itself is Good or Evil.

There's an old adage, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Even the most pure motivations can result in the most horrific of actions (and have throughout history), and those motivations will not save a character's soul from the damnation his actions have earned.

That being said, I don't believe that a single Evil or Good act should automatically result in an alignment shift imposed by the GM. If such acts become a pattern, then forcing a shift in the alignment on the character sheet is merely making the character sheet actually reflect how the character is being played. In this case, if I were the GM, I would merely have made the observation that this is an Evil act, asked if the player were ok with that, and then made a note to myself about the action for future reference. As the GM, it's not my place to play your characters, and your in-character actions have repercussions with the other players that are far more significant than what alignment is written on the character sheet.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
noble peasant wrote:
Soooo, we barge in to these people's, uh, "place of residence" and killed them all and that's totes kosher, but we take this guy out in a fight since he attacked us and leaving him for dead was also kosher, but since my teammates saw fit to tie him up, heal him up till he was conscious, and ask him a few questions it would be evil to kill him?

GM made a judgement call based on the situation. It sounds like you want things more black and white, not less.


Convenience is never an excuse.


A couple of thoughts:
If the prisoner was made "friendly", he wouldn't be likely to rat you out. Killing his comrades was a factor in the Diplomacy roll, and if he was going to retaliate for it, you shouldn't have been able to make him "friendly" in the first place. If he's not going to rat you out, there's no reason to kill him.

If the GM suggests the prisoner will rat you out (via a Sense Motive check, for instance), then he's a potential threat (especially if you've been told the Hellknights will kill/imprison you). If he's a threat, then killing him is less of a problem. Now, you could try threatening to kill him if he rats you out ("And the Society will hunt you down and kill you in horrible ways if you say anything" or "It's a secret society, so you don't know which Hellknights might be members..."), which might be a better option in this case.

As far as the player spilling the beans, is this a case of "I thought it was out of character but the GM said it was in character"? I've run across that a lot over the years, because different GMs have different "default" settings, ranging all the way from "everything said at the table is in character unless you specifically say otherwise" to "everything is out of character unless you say otherwise". If your GM doesn't spell out the assumptions in advance, it can cause a lot of problems.

In PFS, when a player says something stupid (that will get them killed, blow the mission, etc.), especially when it's in a flip or joking way, I will often ask whether they intended to say it in character. If they say no, I'll give them one warning about mouthing off out of character. Sometimes, players are looking to start a fight, cause trouble, etc., or they'll say, "Yeah, my character is just that dumb." In which case, we proceed with the mayhem.


Blackbot wrote:
So yeah, maybe it's an evil act. But it shouldn't shift the alignment immediatly.

This.

It has to be a terribly evil act to lead to an Alignment Shift for just one deed, like literally burning down an orphanage for sh*ts and giggles, or selling ones soul to Fiends.

Only if this killing prisoners becomes a habit could an alignment shift be indicated. An alignment shifts when the core of a characters personality has shifted.

Reminder:
A Neutral charcter can be neutral not because he has a sophisticated philisophy of Neutrality, but rather because he does good and evil deeds, aka he isnt afraid to get his hands dirty, but does so only under serious circumstances.
--> Neutral character, NOT evil!

Some people are literally blind to the alignment system when they ignore all those neutral squares.


Guru-Meditation wrote:
Blackbot wrote:
So yeah, maybe it's an evil act. But it shouldn't shift the alignment immediatly.

This.

It has to be a terribly evil act to lead to an Alignment Shift for just one deed, like literally burning down an orphanage for sh*ts and giggles, or selling ones soul to Fiends.

Only if this killing prisoners becomes a habit could an alignment shift be indicated. An alignment shifts when the core of a characters personality has shifted.

Reminder:
A Neutral charcter can be neutral not because he has a sophisticated philisophy of Neutrality, but rather because he does good and evil deeds, aka he isnt afraid to get his hands dirty, but does so only under serious circumstances.
--> Neutral character, NOT evil!

Some people are literally blind to the alignment system when they ignore all those neutral squares.

Unfortunately the GM flat said this will make you evil. I even said fine I'll pay for the atonement he said he wouldn't allow me to pay for it...


@Gwen Smith: We actually had no indicator of whether he was actually "friendly" or not. When I say they got to friendly with him I mean they got him to tell us a few things then my fellow PCs got to friendly with him by offering him a job working for the society. So him spilling the beans was totes in character.

Also this is the first time this character has done anything questionable in the slightest, so there is no way there is any sort of pattern here.


noble peasant wrote:
Unfortunately the GM flat said this will make you evil. I even said fine I'll pay for the atonement he said he wouldn't allow me to pay for it...

I think you should show your GM this thread, and talk it over with your GM again afterword. Is this PFS?

Edit: So far, I'm seeing a majority of posters either say that this is either a Neutral act, or is an Evil act but should not single-handedly drop you to Evil alignment. I'll agree to either of these two options over what your GM has said.


voideternal wrote:
noble peasant wrote:
Unfortunately the GM flat said this will make you evil. I even said fine I'll pay for the atonement he said he wouldn't allow me to pay for it...

I think you should show your GM this thread, and talk it over with your GM again afterword. Is this PFS?

Edit: So far, I'm seeing a majority of posters either say that this is either a Neutral act, or is an Evil act but should not single-handedly drop you to Evil alignment. I'll agree to either of these two options over what your GM has said.

Yes it is PFS.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Given the default situation:

-The party saved the guy's life with intent to make him a prisoner for information.
That's an aggravating factor for me; sparing a life for a utilitarian purpose, only to end it once that purpose is served, tends toward evil.

-The party is on a covert mission.
The ethics of the mission weigh heavily here. I imagine it's a typical PFS "see what's there and report on it, and bring back stuff for our Chroniclers to study - and for Society's sake, don't provoke the Hellknights!" As such, the mission is a Neutral circumstance.

-If the fellow is willing to call the Hellknights over the party being PFS members, the fellow would be willing to call the Hellknights over a bunch of murder-hobos ganking minions (and finding things that the Knights of the Pike might be interested in.)
The PFS compromise is "you caused the harm, doing more bad to uncause the harm doesn't fly," and so does not mitigate at all.

ALL THAT SAID, I'd consider it a minor act of evil, and I'd advise good characters (especially Silver Covenant or paladins) to take pause-time to consider possible alternatives before permitting the kill.

I wouldn't consider it alignment-changing on its own, nor wantonly evil.

----

But one more thing needs to be said. If, in response to an act that is being advised that it would change alignment, the player told me "fine, I'll just pay for the Atonement," I'd enforce the alignment change at that moment.

Call me heavy-handed, call me a heretic, but Atonement is not a tactic. It's not there so that people can incorporate it into alignment-violating acts. "Hey, Kass, I'm going to eat approximately all the babies tomorrow. Could you prep Atonement and tempt me back to neutral good?"


@sandslice: I have never responded to an alignment shift threat by saying I will pay for the atonement before the only reason I even mentioned this as someone has told me before in similar discussions to this one to simply look at an atonement the same way as resurrection, simply make sure you can pay for it. (Although I don't see why that is even a factor here, why wouldn't I pay for it? Why is atonement even allowed as an option in response to an alignment shift if for you are going to not allow me to pay for it for the sole reason of me saying I would pay for it obviously out of character? Then what is the point?) Honestly I don't see why this is a big deal, would you rather me metagame and say that there is probably no scripted response in the written adventure for the Hellknights discovering that we are Pathfinders? Thus releasing this guy is no big deal? Or would you rather me actually try to play out my alignment? It is hysterical that I designed this character with zero role-play in mind, just an alignment, and even that laughable amount of role-play was crushed. I'd understand if the questionable act had some bad ramifications but this was a realistic decision that would have honestly made no difference in the adventure save that it would've made much more sense in a real life equivalent scenario and didn't involve metagaming that there is no scripted response for letting someone who knows we are pathfinders leave the dungeon who eluded to selling us out and did. Plus this action falls well into my alignments purview. I'm neutral, which means I do evil and good in equal measure, Frankly not even in equal measure since this is the first remotely dark thing he has ever done.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Atonement (other than the redemption / temptation version) requires a state of sincere repentance and/or desire to right the misdeed (REP) in the target. You can't intend to have REP toward an act not yet done, if "intending to have REP toward the act" is part of your strategy for doing the act --- especially when it's the part of the strategy related to avoiding the consequences of the act.

That's what I mean by "atonement is not a tactic." It was in response to this:

Quote:
Unfortunately the GM flat said this will make you evil. I even said fine I'll pay for the atonement he said he wouldn't allow me to pay for it...

To reiterate my position in full:

-I do think the act, in its full context, is a minor act of evil, and any good (and especially obligate good) characters cannot first-option it. In PFS, I think your GM is reaching for the nuclear option rather prematurely.
-I do not think the prisoner's intention to inform the Hellknights is a mitigating factor, because a player character caused that complication through negligence.
-I do think that responding to "the act will make you evil" with "fine, I'll pay for an atonement" is evil.


TheFlyingPhoton wrote:
noble peasant wrote:
Soooo, we barge in to these people's, uh, "place of residence" and killed them all and that's totes kosher, but we take this guy out in a fight since he attacked us and leaving him for dead was also kosher, but since my teammates saw fit to tie him up, heal him up till he was conscious, and ask him a few questions it would be evil to kill him?
GM made a judgement call based on the situation. It sounds like you want things more black and white, not less.

You purposefully quoted that out of context... The people we killed before were killed because them being alive was endangering us since they were you know attacking. Thus we killed them so they didn't kill us. This captive has eluded to doing something upon being released that would make him a threat. Thus the reason for killing him is the same for killing the others. You can question whether killing any them was appropriate all you want but that isn't what I'm looking at here. We killed all those people for the same reason, threatening our lives, I wanted to kill this hostage as releasing him would potentially threaten our lives. The only difference in the situations is that one of these guys was forced into the position of being hostages. Thus killing a hostage is always an evil action no matter what is the black and white thinking I'm looking at.

Taking that line out of context is the only reason your statement works.


@Sandslice: Well stating I will pay for the atonement was not a statement made by the character. However I understand that your character has to be in a state of true repentance for it to work and that it probably wouldn't have worked on him I guess. I"m simply frustrated that it seems like the only thing PFS tolerates you playing is Paladin levels of being an upstanding goodie goodie. My reasons for wanting kill that guy were arguably solid, and I was playing a neutral character, if my compadres hadn't felt the need to heal him and ask him some questions no one would've thought twice about leaving him bleeding out on the floor. Even if my party member made a bone head move that caused him to become a threat again, I can't kill him? What if my party member's bonehead move was accidentally giving him a means to escape his bonds and attack? Either way it is a hostage who has gone from a captive to being a threat.

Grand Lodge

Leave the guy tied up, go to the next floor. An indefinite amount of time passes between scenarios, during which any number of solutions could be rendered, including the enemy's starvation, being attacked by a monster moving into the dungeon floor, or perhaps the Pathfinders sending an NPC agent that doesn't have the same moral restrictions as PCs.

Solution by timewarp.

Silver Crusade

Point of order on the evil side of things.

Even if you leave the dude behind, a good DM wouldn't automatically have him cause trouble.

Prisoner: They were Pathfinders!

Hellknight Interrogator: Really? How do you know!

Prisoner: Well they said they'd take me back!

HKI: . o (They might have been normal adventurers or a Aspis Consortium false flag operation..) Did you see their badges or wayfinders?

Prisoner: Well, no..

HKI: Did you get names, or indicators of where they might have come from?

Prisoner: ..no..

HKI: We'll look into it...


I definitely see a lot of GMs who think that if someone surrenders, you have no choice but to give them the royal treatment. My characters routinely are in favor of executing captives. My paladin in PFS happens to be a "no killing" sort, but I have a paladin in a home game who takes the time to judge those he captures, and has no compunctions about executing them himself if their guilt warrants it.

Killing a prisoner isn't necessarily evil.


noble peasant wrote:
@Sandslice: Well stating I will pay for the atonement was not a statement made by the character. However I understand that your character has to be in a state of true repentance for it to work and that it probably wouldn't have worked on him I guess. I"m simply frustrated that it seems like the only thing PFS tolerates you playing is Paladin levels of being an upstanding goodie goodie.

I'm not sure it's that, so much. You don't have to be good to not be evil. Also, neutrals don't do good and do evil (donating a thousand gold to a lawful good charity needn't be counterbalanced by eating twenty babies with each baby valued at fifty gold!)

Rather, neutrals simply don't care enough about people on a macro scale to be bleeding-heart good; but they still have a moral compass that evils don't have, albeit one that has a small circle of caring and tends to appear more selfish as a result. Evils may have a circle of caring, but their moral compass is broken.

Quote:
My reasons for wanting kill that guy were arguably solid, and I was playing a neutral character, if my compadres hadn't felt the need to heal him and ask him some questions no one would've thought twice about leaving him bleeding out on the floor.

And that would have been fine. The problem is, your party stopped him from dying in order to get information from him in a neutral context. Using someone up and discarding him...

Quote:
Even if my party member made a bone head move that caused him to become a threat again, I can't kill him? What if my party member's bonehead move was accidentally giving him a means to escape his bonds and attack? Either way it is a hostage who has gone from a captive to being a threat.

In the case of him attacking, he's attacking - OF COURSE you can kill him in self-defence!

In the actual case, you're adding another selfish motive (restoring your covertness with respect to your neutral mission for a neutral employer) to an already evil act.

But here's a different what-if. What if the minions had had a commoner hostage that you saved, and the scenario played out otherwise as you describe? Would your character have the same argument for killing the commoner? The minion would certainly try to leverage the commoner's existence...


Game Master wrote:
I definitely see a lot of GMs who think that if someone surrenders, you have no choice but to give them the royal treatment.

Are you accidentally describing anything that is "not death" as "royal treatment"?

Whoops on your part.

Silver Crusade

Arnwyn wrote:
Game Master wrote:
I definitely see a lot of GMs who think that if someone surrenders, you have no choice but to give them the royal treatment.

Are you accidentally describing anything that is "not death" as "royal treatment"?

Whoops on your part.

As a DM who frequently has people surrender, its less 'the royal treatment' so much as not re-enacting the Japanese Empire's Prisoner of War policy during World War 2.

Frankly, if you're the kind of person who thinks you should cut thumbs off of someone to motivate them or who kills people once they no longer have value, I'm not sure if I want you in my species, let alone my game.


So let's say you do 12 great wonderful things, and then do one vaguely "evil" thing (which of course presents your character with a serious moral dilemma, it's not like you enjoy doing the "evil" act).

Your DM then says that "nope now you become evil from doing 1 evil thing."

By this logic, can't you just do a good thing and become good again? If one act against your current alignment is all it takes, it should work both ways, right?


Flame Effigy wrote:

So let's say you do 12 great wonderful things, and then do one vaguely "evil" thing (which of course presents your character with a serious moral dilemma, it's not like you enjoy doing the "evil" act).

Your DM then says that "nope now you become evil from doing 1 evil thing."

By this logic, can't you just do a good thing and become good again? If one act against your current alignment is all it takes, it should work both ways, right?

"Vaguely evil" moral dilemma thing, sure. It's a stretch to jump straight to evil.

OTOH, helping a bunch of little old ladies across the road isn't going to make up for a rape and murder.

It's also not so much "The act makes you evil", it's "If you're willing to do that, you're already evil. You just had the wrong thing written on your sheet."


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Flame Effigy wrote:

So let's say you do 12 great wonderful things, and then do one vaguely "evil" thing (which of course presents your character with a serious moral dilemma, it's not like you enjoy doing the "evil" act).

Your DM then says that "nope now you become evil from doing 1 evil thing."

By this logic, can't you just do a good thing and become good again? If one act against your current alignment is all it takes, it should work both ways, right?

It doesn't work both ways, because evil people CAN do good deeds for evil motives. (In fact, this is explicitly part of the antipaladin's code of conduct - the antipally, of course, being as much a paragon of Evil™ as the pally is of Good™.) Indeed, an evil individual can only transgress against evil by doing good deeds for purely good (not even neutral!) motives.

Also, karma is not a currency. Like I said before, donating a thousand gold to an orphanage doesn't allow or obligate you to eat babies; nor is it a credit to you if you decide to eat babies.

If the evil thing is only vaguely evil, unless you are obligate good, it shouldn't be an instant alignment change. At worst - at absolute worst - using UC's alignment-matrix system, you'd get a +1 on the good/evil axis (high numbers indicating evil on the moral axis, or chaotic on the ethical.) So the GM shouldn't be saying "you chased the ogres instead of saving the tavern wench, enjoy being Evil."

While I think the act described in this thread is clearly evil in its context, I'd treat it the same way: a +1 if UC is in play, a post-session explanation of my beef with it in any case.

Especially in PFS, where declaring someone evil has several far-reaching effects, instant death for the character being the least of them.

Grand Lodge

Sandslice wrote:

Atonement (other than the redemption / temptation version) requires a state of sincere repentance and/or desire to right the misdeed (REP) in the target. You can't intend to have REP toward an act not yet done, if "intending to have REP toward the act" is part of your strategy for doing the act --- especially when it's the part of the strategy related to avoiding the consequences of the act.

That's what I mean by "atonement is not a tactic." It was in response to this:

Quote:
Unfortunately the GM flat said this will make you evil. I even said fine I'll pay for the atonement he said he wouldn't allow me to pay for it...

To reiterate my position in full:

-I do think the act, in its full context, is a minor act of evil, and any good (and especially obligate good) characters cannot first-option it. In PFS, I think your GM is reaching for the nuclear option rather prematurely.
-I do not think the prisoner's intention to inform the Hellknights is a mitigating factor, because a player character caused that complication through negligence.
-I do think that responding to "the act will make you evil" with "fine, I'll pay for an atonement" is evil.

Let's look at it this way. My character feels it is against his code of conduct to kill the prisoner. However, it is also against his code of conduct to cause an unnecessary risk to his teammates and endanger the mission solely to appease his personal sense of morality. Either choice would be an alignment violation by his standards. Thus he decides he must, regretfully, choose the lesser of those two evils, suck it up and pay the price (the price being the cost of an Atonement). It does not mean the character is insincere in his remorse at what he is doing or that he genuinely did not wish atonement. It meant he made a choice for the greater good that came with a price, and he was willing to pay it. I do not see, under a situation like that, why he should be denied an Atonement.


I wonder if killing a helpless prisoner "isn't an evil act," how many other "isn't an evil act(s)" have you committed.


Atonement wrote:
The creature seeking atonement must be truly repentant and desirous of setting right its misdeeds.

If your response to "that's an evil act!" is "fine, I'll do it anyways and get an atonement later", the GM's well within his rights to say the atonement won't work.


trollbill wrote:
Let's look at it this way. My character feels it is against his code of conduct to kill the prisoner. However, it is also against his code of conduct to cause an unnecessary risk to his teammates and endanger the mission solely to appease his personal sense of morality. Either choice would be an alignment violation by his standards. Thus he decides he must, regretfully, choose the lesser of those two evils, suck it up and pay the price (the price being the cost of an Atonement). It does not mean the character is insincere in his remorse at what he is doing or that he genuinely did not wish atonement. It meant he made a choice for the greater good that came with a price, and he was willing to pay it. I do not see, under a situation like that, why he should be denied an Atonement.

In your view, I'd sooner imagine that you'd be prepared to confess the transgression to your Society handler (in-game) and/or a cleric of your god/alignment, and let me (acting as that agent) pronounce your judgement. In your case, it wouldn't be much more than some minor penance if you were bound to a CoC, with similar being recommended (but not enforced) for NG characters that aren't bound.

You also have a different starting assumption from the OP, which changes how I see your version; you aren't going into the decision gate with a right/wrong branch, but a wrong/wrong - that you recognise this matters with regard to how I would judge the decision.

Shadow Lodge

I am generally of the opinion that if you are going to consider it a blanket evil act to kill a prisoner, you must also consider it an evil act to withhold medical treatment from the wounded and dying after fighting has concluded and the wounded are no longer an immediate threat. Failing to admit your responsibility for the life of the defeated enemy does not absolve you of that responsibility.

Sandslice wrote:
-I do not think the prisoner's intention to inform the Hellknights is a mitigating factor, because a player character caused that complication through negligence.

You can't be held morally responsible for things you have no control over, and the OP's character didn't appear to have the opportunity to prevent his party member from creating the threat. Therefore it shouldn't count against him in this situation any more than a paladin would fall because the party rogue killed an innocent.

Sandslice wrote:
The problem is, your party stopped him from dying in order to get information from him in a neutral context. Using someone up and discarding him...

That would be a problem if the OP's character killed the prisoner because he had no more information. However, OP's character killed the prisoner because he became a threat. Killing someone who is a threat is morally less wrong than killing someone who is simply of no use to you.

Sandslice wrote:
In the case of him attacking, he's attacking - OF COURSE you can kill him in self-defence!

The fact that someone is not actively attacking you doesn't mean that they are not a potentially lethal threat. If someone walks into a public place and begins assembling a bomb, they are a threat. If an unarmed Nazi walks into my attic and spots the Jews I'm hiding, they are a threat. If the character has reason to believe that the prisoner will inform the Hellknights, and that the consequences of him informing the Hellknights is not just inconvenient but dangerous for his party, the prisoner is a threat. It is of course preferable to find a solution to threats other than killing them, but I don't see a moral difference between killing someone who is attacking you with a knife and killing someone who is running to summon armed reinforcements to kill you. There may be a legal difference, but that's not always the same thing.

Now, if blowing the party's cover would be merely inconvenient rather than dangerous then the prisoner is not a bodily threat and it would be morally worse to kill him. How bad it is would depend on what the alternative is - is it actually possible to bring captured bandits to some proper authority for trial? I don't have enough information about the scenario to judge.

Sandslice wrote:
-I do think that responding to "the act will make you evil" with "fine, I'll pay for an atonement" is evil.

Given that it's an OOC remark that looks more like a player not wanting to argue with the GM about whether an alignment shift is appropriate, deciding it will be less disruptive to have his character seek atonement (suffering relevant costs). That sounds like reasonable player behavior to me. You can then RP the atonement any way you want - perhaps the character realizes when reflecting on the mission that it was indeed not right but merely a lesser wrong and seeks church guidance.

This is particularly relevant because it's PFS and you can't play as a character who as slipped morally into evil and may or may not later regret their actions and be redeemed. Would you accept anything near this level of GM fiat when it comes to whether a character dies and can be resurrected?

The GM may be acting in good faith based on his understanding of morality but this does boil down to someone losing their character over a difference of opinion in a morally grey area - without the opportunity to use the game mechanic that exists to prevent someone from losing their character due to a morally grey situation.

1 to 50 of 68 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Another alignment shift threat, seriously why is this so black and white? It's getting tiresome. : / All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.