Ashbury137's page

Ashbury137 wrote:

but what if the goblins in question have only raided the town for food and their surrender was sincere?

How would the party know if it was? Have you set up a world where non-evil goblins live? Is it a known factor in the world? If not, it's a pretty big leap of faith that THESE goblin are an exception to the norm.

So it's NOT that they are sincere but does the party have a realistic reason for thinking they are. Have you set the groundwork for them to think it's possible?

As PCs, we know that none of the townsfolk have been injured in the goblin raids, just that food and livestock have been stolen. And I'm pretty sure the goblin was telling the truth when he told us that they only raided because they were hungry (tbh at this point I can't remember if any of us failed or passed our sense motive checks... lol Maybe my DM or some of the other players can chime in here if they remember).

As far as the sincerity of their surrender, we're playing the Pathfinder beginner box wherein I think the goblins are supposed to try and broker some kind of truce with the PCs. The dragon invaded their home and they want him gone... enemy of my enemy kind of situation I think.

And, in all honesty, my DM is probably just making them "good" because this whole scenario is not going in the direction he was expecting. So as far as some kind of groundwork for good goblins... no idea lol

Zhayne wrote:

They surrendered, that makes them noncombatants.

Not...quite.

Surrender can be offered, but circumstances may require that it be rejected. (This is where many parties in this situation screw up, because once they accept, then they're burdened.)

I hear you... but what if the goblins in question have only raided the town for food and their surrender was sincere? Which was the case in this instance. While I agree that we could have just mowed them down in the first round of combat, they weren't our real target. We came for the dragon, they happened to be in the way.

Our party has a Dwarven Paladin and everyone else's alignment is either some shade of lawful or good. We got a surprise round on a group of Goblins in their cave and killed 2 of the 5. On the first normal round of combat the leader of the Goblins surrendered because he didn't want to fight. He wanted us to help get rid of the dragon that was messing with him and his clan. We bound the three survivors and took the leader with us so that if any other Goblins were in the cave, they would know not to attack us.

So, the Dwarf, being Lawful Good, felt that it would be an evil act to strike these Goblins down. The Lawful Neutral Elf Magus wanted to just kill the Goblins and be done with them. It's turned in to a pretty heated debate as to how our party should handle these Goblins.

The Dwarf wants to take them back to the town to work out some kind of bargain with the townsfolk. The reason the Goblins have been ransacking the village is because they are hungry. They haven't killed anyone, just stolen cattle/goods so they can eat.

The Dwarf also took the Wyrmscourged racial trait that replaces hatred. So from a roleplaying aspect, he has no real racial bias against Goblins.

The Elf Magus wants to just kill them because "they are vermin." Even though Goblins are typically CE, does the Dwarf not have an obligation to protect his prisoners? The Dwarf did not attempt to detect evil on them, this is all being played out based on the actions of the Goblins.

So, how would you handle these Goblins?