Is my moral compass crooked?? Serpent Skull Spoilers 1st book

Our group is on an island with cannibals. The cannibals have trapped the pathes of the island and lay ambushes.
The other members of the group now plan to catch at least one cannibal alive. They want to tie him up and have him walk ahead of us on the path. He'll either spring the traps he isn't aware of. If he stops they expect that he doesn't want to walk into a trap.
Is necessary they want to urge him on with a pointy stick.

Now to me this feels very wrong on a personal level and also to my character, a follower of Shelyn.

What's your take on this?

You're right. But do you play white&black or grey?

Grey means .... realistically (though I don't want to be on the wrong end of the stick held by some of those who think they are good... ).

Not a good act, no. So character wise you should speak up.

I should note it also unnerved me on a personal level.

Whats wrong with having him search for traps?

It's Evil. It's understandable and practical. Possibly even forgiveable... but it's still Evil.

I wouldn't call it evil. I would call it practical. Neutral in game terms. It's certainly not good.

I can understand where a follower of Shelyn would be unhappy about it though.

I mean, look at it this way Evil people (cannibalism is evil) set traps to hurt, capture, and kill anyone on the island. The party is hoping to avoid these traps by having their captive help navigate around it. it is possible that the captive will miss a trap and be killed. That's the part that makes it morally questionable.

How you resolve it morally afterwards...that's going to vary person by person. Personally, I consider it neutral.

Alignment is the most YMMV thing you'll ever tackle in this game. For the best answer to this, probably check where your GM stands.

That said :
Having a prisoner help you and tell you where the danger is one thing, but that's not what is being described here.
Forcing him to walk down a probably trapped path at gunpoint is not the same. Also, not really efficient : has he stopped because he knows of a danger, or just because he is uncooperative ?
The usage of human canary feels evil to me. Of course, that's subjective, but sacrificing a life for convenience (because you could just be careful and check for traps) ... Not great.
Treating scum-bags as subhuman non-entities is not a sign of goodness, no matter how evil they are. It's fine (if borderline) if you're neutral, if only because such a situation would put you on edge and likely to make poor decisions, but it should not be okay for a good aligned person.

On a cynical sidenote, and the real reason I wouldn't do it unless I was playing an easily amused evil PC : this is placing a lot of stock in his sense of self-preservation.
If he is one of those "better dead than enslaved" types, or "I'd rather die than betray my people", he'll likely just off himself or try to escape even when there's no reasonable chance of survival.

That's pretty solidly evil. Cannibal or not, you're intentionally making this (Mostly) sentient human your living trap detector heedless of what happens to them. Killing them in combat defending yourself is one thing, this is another.

Embrace the evil.

Meh, you are right. It is definitely not a Good action, and borderline (if not completely) Evil. However, characters can (and do) act outside of their own alignments from time to time without much adverse effects. Yes, it should bother you and yes, you should feel a bit guilty if you are a Good aligned character. That is what makes you different than the Neutral or straight up Evil characters.

Would you change alignment over this issue? Not in my games. When you stop feeling guilty about doing things outside the normal scope of your alignment is when the alignment changes happen in my games.

I'd say it's neutral myself, but then I could easily say my own moral compass has been dropped on rocks once or twice in my travels.

If you intend to let him die from the traps, especially slowly, then it gets much darker. If you know in advance you are willing to at least try to spare his life, then it only makes sense to have the prisoner walk in front of you in dangerous areas. You can revive him on your own recognizance, he will undoubtedly not do the same should you encounter a trap and he survive. In the meantime, his life is forfeit from the moment he attacked you, so the fact that you didn't end him then and there already speaks more towards your pleasantness about the situation in a game than many would have in real life.

Whats wrong with having him search for traps?

It's ironic you link that comic given the expressions of the lawful and good person grows dark as he realizes what's going on while the more neutral parties have a casual disinterest. Disregarding the guy with int of 6.

Indeed Cavall. Christop-K is in the same spot as Roy. Too bad that this is the extent of Roys' reaction to treating the kobold as a minesweeper.

Besides using the cannibal, level 1 human warrior probably, is not efficient as Nyerkh pointed out. If he does not kamikaze or refuse to move he will probably just die on the first trap. Summoned monsters are more efficient and less morally grey way of sweeping for traps.

Not evil any more than bullrushing him into a trap is. If it's OK to kill him, it's OK to kill him.

More important than if it's bad act is that it's a bad idea. This would work for just a line of traps, but ambushes are a different matter. If the cannibals are a unified force instead of warring tribes it sounds like the canibal would walk through an ambush point unscatched, wait for the party to follow and get attacked, then run up to the nearest ally. The ally would then cut open the rope binding his hands (the other players at least did that right?) and give him their secondary weapon meaning the players would have another guy to fight.

Summoned monsters are more efficient and less morally grey way of sweeping for traps.

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

As for the prisoner, I definitely think there's some hypocrisy implicit in objecting to the trapsweeping but not to the killing. Recall that this was presented as a plan "to catch at least one cannibal alive," implying that any not captured for this purpose will simply be put to death. That in itself is problematic, and alternative methods of containment may or may not be feasible. But if it's a question of whether to kill the prisoner outright, or else allow them to choose whether to die or test for traps, I find it hard to see how the more permissive option is less acceptable.

WagnerSika wrote:

Summoned monsters are more efficient and less morally grey way of sweeping for traps.

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

If you're choosing a monster to summon, you at least have the option of choosing a similar-alignment monster likely to help you willingly, once it understands your situation. Maybe even some decent scores for perception and/or disable device, although I haven't looked the lists over lately to have anything in mind.

To me it seems more of a neutral action because it's dictated by the need to survive. It's a practical solution to avoid someone getting hurt, but yeah it's certainly not a good action and maybe borderline evil, still there's a difference between killing someone in order to survive and killing someone just because you like it. So in my opnion doing it because you need to do it doesn't make you automatically evil, but if you enjoy watching the poor cannibal getting killed by the traps you surely are. Also probably a good or even a neutral character would use the cannibal only if there's no other way to scout for traps apart from that.

To me it seems more of a neutral action because it's dictated by the need to survive...

The problem with that is that most actions that are done to survive (and are not considered evil) are done by creatures that lack an alignment or the intelligence enough to be sentient to moral issues, aka animals. When you have sentience and intelligence, why you do things tends to matter to the universe, at least in the D&D/Pathfinder universe.

It is the premeditated endangerment of another sentient being. Evil.

Was it evil for them to set the traps? Probably. Could be amoral given defense is not necessarily evil. Regardless...

But you are planning ahead to capture a cannibal alive, specifically to put them in danger instead of yourselves. Evil.

Every soldier who is willing to make that call has fallen from grace. Simply being sentient should be enough to tell you it's not ok.

It's a meathead solution to problem that can be solved with skill checks instead of the inhumane treatment of POW's.

This might be one of those situations where you probably have to suck it up for the rest of the players and the game, if that's what they want to do. Now find a way to do that and stay with the party in character.

Ham it up, lodge a formal protest and don't actively assist.
depending on your character you may see your job as now to lead them on a straighter path or maybe stoicly accept that your otherwise righteous companions fell to temptation in a moment of dire need.

I'm doing this with my LG saraenrite and the party wizard has command undead'd some incorporeal undead.
Every. Single. Encounter. I ask at least once if I can kill the monstrosity yet. I cast aspersions on the character of the wizard and the sanity of those that allow the wizard to continue with this plan - and I otherwise get on with the game.

Accidentally leave no prisoners.

We are talking about a relatively primitive tribe, making deadfall traps and punji pits, right? Things that skill checks find, things that can be avoided entirely, or disarmed with a stick, right?

Same with ambushes waiting for the party. Scout ahead. Find alternate routes. Or run through the ambush of they don't physically stop you. Withdraw back the way you came. Make them move to you.

Have better tactics that do not involve using POW hostages to set off traps.

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

How is the pain from stumbling on traps different from the pain of having the enemy stab/hack/crush the summoned monster? Are you saying that using summoned monsters to trip traps is worse than having them fight for you? In both cases you are willingly sending them to be hurt and "killed".

Avoron wrote:

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

How is the pain from stumbling on traps different from the pain of having the enemy stab/hack/crush the summoned monster? Are you saying that using summoned monsters to trip traps is worse than having them fight for you? In both cases you are willingly sending them to be hurt and "killed".

Nope, I'm asserting that in both situations inflicting suffering on a being with some degree of sentience and no choice in the matter is a gross moral bad, and can only become a net moral good if it prevents greater harm. Which I'm sure is often the case - good character's don't typically send summoned creatures to their deaths just for amusement, and from a mechanical perspective the whole point of summoned monsters is often that they get hurt so that the party doesn't have to. Doubly so if the party's survival is crucial to some world-saving goal.

My point was mostly to the comparison between using a summoned monster to trigger traps and using the prisoner. I don't think it's as cut and dry as you presented it - no permanent death is a plus, but not if you'll be killing the prisoner anyway. And at least the prisoner might know where the traps are, so they'd have the opportunity to reveal them and then nobody has to get hurt.

Interestingly enough, a nice bloody skeleton would probably be a more ethical way of testing for traps then either of these methods. They're mindless, obedient, and practically indestructible - what's not to love?

Avoron wrote:

Still pretty morally grey. Summoned monsters can't permanently die, no, but they're still entirely capable of suffering. Unless you're shelling out a delay pain for that pony, you're getting into some pretty serious moral problems of your own.

How is the pain from stumbling on traps different from the pain of having the enemy stab/hack/crush the summoned monster? Are you saying that using summoned monsters to trip traps is worse than having them fight for you? In both cases you are willingly sending them to be hurt and "killed".

Vastly. A celestial creature will happily fight against the cause of evil, even enduring pain. That's fighting for a cause.

Summoned to be slowly crushed under a 900 log trap because you needed a heavy body to set it off?

Not the same ballpark.

What about monsters that are not celestial? Are they happy to fight against evil? Druid summons normal animals with SNA, should he "fall" for mistreating animals?
I don't see a difference in sending dire tigers to fight a t-rex or sending them to trigger potential traps. They are not fighting "for a cause" in either situation.

About bloody skeletons. Animating undead is Evil. So it is actually more evil to trigger the traps with skeletons than trigger them with ponies from Mount spell. If you feel bad about your pony dying slowly under the log trap, just dismiss it.

In Golarion at least it seems that summoned monsters don't actually exist when they are not summoned.
From this thread

If you instead use a summon spell to conjure an outsider, the thing you summon isn't real before and after the summon spell ends. It doesn't "go back" to an outer plane when you kill it or dismiss it or the spell ends... it just stops existing, just as it didn't exist before you cast the spell in the first place.

About bloody skeletons. Animating undead is Evil. So it is actually more evil to trigger the traps with skeletons than trigger them with ponies from Mount spell.

Oh, it's definitely "evil" in the game mechanic sense, it's just clearly the more ethical thing to do. If you're interesting in racking up cosmic points, sure, never summon undead and spend all your time spamming spells with the [good] descriptor. But if you're interested in actually doing what's right, maybe don't send helpless ponies into excruciating deaths when there's a much less harmful alternative.

In Golarion at least it seems that summoned monsters don't actually exist when they are not summoned.

That directly contradicts the rules for summoning in the core rulebook.

A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again.

That's a hard call though between the ask a Dev and the rules which probably had a lot of copy paste from 3.5 and may never have been intended to work that way so much as overlooked. In addition, you could consider it an unofficial errata.

I would say more pragmatic than evil. To the cannibals, you are a 'food' source. A captured cannibal is a useful 'tool'.
And if your cleric of Shelyn wants to stand on principal, that is fine. I expect you to stand at the front of the party as the point man then.
Problem solved.

But, seriously, it is easy to make a push device with bamboo and wood that would reveal pit traps and set off trip wires and snares. Or avoid the well travelled paths and stick to cross country. Think outside the box. There is plenty of options that can come to mind.

If the cannibal didn't want to be used a trap detector, I guess the cannibal shouldn't have left all those traps laying around...

Sounds like a personal problem for your cannibal prisoner to me.

The excuse that the person is evil therefore hurting them is less evil shows a lack of understanding of how good is supposed to work.

And these cannibals are born of culture not choice. So they may not be warriors at all.

Removed some inflammatory and offensive posts.

And these cannibals are born of culture not choice. So they may not be warriors at all.

Might be true, we do not know. They might very well be cannibals by choice. It would not matter though, cannibalism is Evil, no matter why you do it. You choose to live up to the standards of your culture. If those standards are considered Evil, then you choose to do Evil acts. Even if they do not seem Evil to you.

I do agree it is not a good act to use the cannibal as a minesweeper in any case, even if they are warriors and/or Evil.

It seems that everyone agrees that it is not a Good act to use the cannibal as a minesweeper. Might not be Evil but definetly not Good.

Using summoned monsters is starting to get off the original topic so spoilered

It would not matter though, cannibalism is Evil, no matter why you do it.

Which rulebook is that in again?

It seems that everyone agrees that it is not a Good act to use the cannibal as a minesweeper. Might not be Evil but definetly not Good.

I'm not so sure. I think if you have reason to believe they can and will reveal the traps rather than walk into them it could be a good act, or if the only alternative is killing them outright. Then you're just straight-up reducing the amount of suffering and death.

Many thanks to all of you for voicing your opinions on this.
My take away is that this course of action would have been somewhere between neutral and evil in alignment terms but definitely not for a follower of Shelyn.

So to let you know what happened:
Actually I had my character speak up right in this session and the plan was dropped. Instead we went the route of making our own perception checks. There was a bit of hp damage but nothing major.

Still I think my character will leave the group after getting off the island. This was not the first time he felt that the rest of the group had significantly different ideas about moral standards after all.

This is no big thing though. I'll have to make a new character for the adventure. We've had this before that another of our players felt that his character would not get along with the other characters.

Fortunately irl I play with a group of friends I have know more than two decades so this will not sink our friendship.

That is cool you play with a good group and can just role play that character leaving the party and a new one coming in. It allows people to play true to their characters without fear of falling from grace, ruining a character. The cleric gets to stick with their convictions and moves on to find a new party of adventurers at his nearest convenience.

I think sticking through with it is the better idea. You've shown Good comes with some sacrifice and effort but you're better for it.

It may be a good idea to stay on that course, given the overall story line. You'll find that to be a rewarding experience. There's a lot of bad, but some heartening moments where you see Good wins vs Evil.

I played the AP, and that's all I can say for that.

I'm glad they listened sounded like a good opportunity to roleplay.

So as not to completely derail this thread, good job Christopk-K.
Speaking up in-character was a good thing to do. Since they listened maybe your character could try to stay with the group and steer them towards the right path? It worked once, why not again? It seems your group would be fine with that sort of roleplaying.

And now back to derailing...

WagnerSika wrote:

It would not matter though, cannibalism is Evil, no matter why you do it.

Which rulebook is that in again?

Good question.

I think I have to tone down my earlier stance though. Eating the flesh of sentient creatures if you would otherwise starve would not be Evil. Circumstances and intention matter.

Thank you Avoron for your answers on the summoned monster questions.
You mention that consent is important in defining whether it is good or not, having the monsters basically die for you. Problem is, I don't think they actually can consent. The spell forces them to "fight for you to the best of their ability".

You bring up a good point. Why is it more evil to use mindless undead as meat shields/trap detectors than summoned animals?
I suspect that the answer is that what ever powers enforce the alignment system, have deemed the desecration of corpses is worse than causing pain and discomfort for sentient creatures.

Could you use summoned Giant soldier ants guilt free? They are mindless, so incapable of suffering and won't really die.

There is the Cannibalism subdomain of Evil domain hinting that cannibalism is evil. Raging cannibal barbarian archetype hints that eating the flesh of sentient creatures is evil.

I mean, there's also the Fear subdomain of the Evil domain, but you wouldn't argue that using fear is inherently evil, right? All sorts of good actions can involve making people scared.

As for the raging cannibal, that archetype doesn't even have any alignment restrictions beyond the standard non-lawful rule for barbarians, so if anything I'd see it as an argument against a monolithic view. In fact, it specifically draws attention to the distinction between different reasons for cannibalism in its flavor text (no pun intended).

Is there a list or description of what constitutes an evil act anywhere?

Yep!

Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit... Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Cannibalism itself doesn't hurt, oppress, or kill anyone, so long as you're eating people who are already dead. It doesn't debase or destroy innocent life because it doesn't do anything to innocent life, it does something to a dead pile of flesh.

I think I have to tone down my earlier stance though. Eating the flesh of sentient creatures if you would otherwise starve would not be Evil. Circumstances and intention matter.

Agreed. I'd go even further, and say that as long as you're not causing or contributing to the deaths yourself, and as long as you're not stealing corpses from distraught family members, there's nothing particularly evil about cannibalism in the first place.

You mention that consent is important in defining whether it is good or not, having the monsters basically die for you. Problem is, I don't think they actually can consent. The spell forces them to "fight for you to the best of their ability".

They certainly don't get any say in whether or not to obey you, which is a big part of the evil. But as far as I can tell they still have a mind of their own, so as long as you can communicate with them you can instruct them to tell you truthfully whether or not they would cooperate if they had the choice.

I suspect that the answer is that what ever powers enforce the alignment system, have deemed the desecration of corpses is worse than causing pain and discomfort for sentient creatures.

And I'd argue that behaving a certain way because some cosmic force of the universe will reward or punish you for it is at best a lawful action, and at worst a selfish one.

Could you use summoned Giant soldier ants guilt free? They are mindless, so incapable of suffering and won't really die.

I'd say so! Real-world insects are a bit more iffy, because it's hard to tell with certainty exactly what sort of capacity for suffering they have, but Pathfinder rules seem pretty clear that vermin are just as lacking in thoughts as zombies or robots.

So yeah, that might be a pretty unambiguously decent choice. Of course, a bloody skeleton would be a much more efficient option, since you wouldn't have to spend another spell every couple minutes, and efficiency translates to morality to the extent that the opportunity cost of those summons includes spells you would be using to help people.

If you do prefer summoning, though, a lemure devil might be an even better option of the same level. They're just as mindless as the ant and have loads of resistances for tanking traps and other hazards. Unfortunately, summoning one of them gives the spell the evil descriptor just like animate dead, so it might not be more appealing. I have a hard time seeing how putting one of the building blocks of Hell out of action for a day is an evil act, but that's the way it goes.

Queequeg was a cannibal, and he was pretty unambiguously good.

I really don't see how eating a dead person is in any way unethical, why meat that used to be sentient is any worse then eating meat that wasn't.

More on topic, as to whether using a captured enemy to check fire traps us immoral, I know I wouldn't do it or let someone else do it if I could stop them ... I imagine that if I was raised among Evil humanoids my alignment would ping the same color. How could I claim myself just, using someone as a living shield, someone no better or worse then myself?

Thank you for your supportive comments.

We'll still be on the island for a bit so I don't have to make the decision yet :-)

I'll let you know, how things turned out.

The thing I love about Shelyn is that she's opposed to killing anyone who could be redeemed, and also believes that EVERYONE can be redeemed.

You made the right choice, that was a stupid evil plan. While it would make sense for your cleric to distrust the other party members from here on out, it's also possible for him to work tirelessly for their conversion. I mean, you just saved a cannibal and more importantly saved your party from going down the road to Rovagug. Why go sit at a temple painting things when you could be slowly making them see the majestic beauty of the Eternal Rose?

This still makes you an outsider to the party and they'll still probably do evil stuff, but you can be the moral compass if the group here.

I wouldn't call it evil. I would call it practical.

If you heard of a group of fighters in Syria were using captured soldiers to "clear a minefield", would you have the same reaction?

This is getting dangerously close to verboten politics chatter.

@Irontruth, didn't have a specific location in mind but that sums up my missgivings for the idea very nicely.

In our session last night things were looking better. My character might well stay with the group.

We'll have a bit of a break now due to some of us having vacation and business trips coming up.

Claxon wrote:

I wouldn't call it evil. I would call it practical.

If you heard of a group of fighters in Syria were using captured soldiers to "clear a minefield", would you have the same reaction?

I wouldn't call them evil either. Just because someone is ostensibly an enemy doesn't make them evil. I'm not going deep into this to avoid going down the path of "political discussion".

I will however say real world morality is very different from Pathfinder morality. It tends to be much more grey.

You wouldn't call that evil either? Damn son. Neutral people in your game must be some real bastards.