I'm creating a Lawful Good alchemist character who is a member of the Fraternity of Order from Planescape. Now, D&D tradition has always held that poison is Evil™ and good guys should never use it. Even the Book of Exalted Deeds says so — right before it introduces the concept of "ravages." :)
Characters with the Poison Use ability are few and far between, so there's no way I'm creating an alchemist that doesn't use poison. Personally, I think a Lawful Good character (who is not a paladin, of course) could use poison under the following conditions:
- Follow all applicable laws and regulations, such as obtaining a writ of attorage from the Fraternity of Order.
- No ingested poisons, as these are clearly tools of assassination, not battle. (Oil of taggit is an exception, since it only causes unconsciousness.)
- Any situation in which it is both moral and legal to stab someone with a dagger is also a situation in which the dagger can be poisoned.
- Poisons that cause unconsciousness are actually a moral good, since they can end a battle quickly with a minimum of bloodshed. (Provided, of course, that no coups de grace accompany them.)
So, LG alchemists, remember: venenum non est malum.
That either means "poison is not evil" or "poison is not an apple." Of course, if an apple is poisoned, it is evil, so, yeah.
I'd agree with point 4: Using poisons that cause unconsciousness is actually a good act.
btw, strangely appropriate avatar :)
I'll take the devil's (or maybe angel's) advocate stance here and disagree with the OP.
Forewarning: I've never seen so many gray areas, judgment calls, and outright disputes of any game construct anywhere, any time, any game, than the debates and differences of opinion that arise from D&D (and by extension, Pathfinder) alignments. So this is all just one guy's opinion.
Remember, there are TWO components to being Lawful Good, and the OP only discusses the good vs. evil axis of the alignment while completely neglecting the law vs. chaos axis.
Does Lawful Good only mean you obey the laws of the land? I don't think so. Sure, a LG character should be concerned with the law of the land, but even at that, he won't always obey the law (if he did, then no PC in Council of Thieves could possibly be LG, yet their player's guide suggests it's vaild - even being a LG paladin is viable).
But Lawful Good also means upholding the laws of your god, the laws of your own moral code, and being a good and just person in general.
Poison is not evil. Using poison is. Poison is neither swift nor merciful. It's vicious. It's painful. Gut-wrenching, vomiting, spasming painful. I would far rather a swift blade to the heart, or a quick decapitation, than a painful agonizing death by poison.
Poison is also deceitful. Come at me with a blade, and I know your intentions. You've declared them right out in the open. Sneak some poison into me, via. blade or elsewise, and now you've deceived me. You've masked your intentions.
Poison is also a cheat. No honorable swordsman would earn a victory in battle by felling his foe with a foul, deceitful poison. Rather, victory should be earned by strength of arms and prowess on the field of battle. Cheating with a poison is dishonorable.
Being vicious, deceitful, and dishonorable are hardly ethics that a Lawful Good person would espouse.
Not to mention, it's very unlikely that a LG deity would approve of such things, which prohibits LG poison use from all divine classes instantly, but non-divine classes might get away with it, if the campaign isn't heavily overburdened with deities and churces meddling in common affairs.
Now, as for knockout poisons being "acutally a moral good". Well, that may be somewhat true, though I feel our judgment has been clouded by a deluge of movies and TV shows with "goodguy" spies running around tranqulizing all the gunslinging evil "badguy" spies.
It's still decietful and dishonorable, but it isn't evil, so long as the intent is to spare the victim from suffering harm or death in combat. So while the good vs. evil axis might be satisfied here, we're still a far cry from being honorable or lawful.
So if you're OK with being good but not being lawful, then knockout poisons would be perfect for you. But then you might want to drop from LG to NG and revise your character concept a little.
Or do like I do when I DM and don't use alignments for sentient, free-willed beings at all. PCs, NPCs, and many monsters in my game have no alignments. They act however they want. Their behavior determines, in a lose fashion, what their alignment is, but only in the rare cases that it matters (like when they are the subject of a Detect Evil or Smite Evil ability, etc.). All the rest of the time they are just acting according to their nature, and their needs at the time. Only non-sentient (i.e. undead) or non-free-willed (i.e. demons, angels, etc., creatures who are literally constructs of pure evil or pure good or whatever) have inherent alignments. And of course, animals, vermin, etc., are always neutral. It works fairly well in my games and in 20 or so years of doing this, I have had only a fraction of the alignment debates that I had in my first decade of using D&D alignments.
...But...but why are you taking a class so deliciously made for a Mad Scientist and making it lawful good? D:
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A paladin's code isn't just: Be Lawful Good.
It is be Lawful Good with THESE particular restrictions.
I personally don't see poison as evil. An alchemist is using every tool at his disposal to make sure that the greater good is protected. He isn't a paladin and shouldn't need to follow the exact same tenets to uphold his lawful goodness.
If he has his own particular code, then it's important that he not break it (this is his lawful component). Poison and poison use is no more evil than weapons or spells.
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Your also assuming that a "person" has an individual right to declare what is and isn't morally appropriate. You also have to look at a societal position when determining what is and isn't evil. Remember just because you don't think poisoning someone is evil doesn't mean that everyone else won't think your an evil prick for doing so.
That's where poisons evil comes from. It's a societal evil, in that in a world where skill and strength of arms still matter significantly (which tends to go out the window in a world where no matter how skilled you are one bullet = death) people tend to view poisons as a cheat and dishonorable way to achieve a victory. And while small portions of society might make exceptions in their region (cheliax or riddleport for example) when you consider how everyone outside of those communities views it once again you are back to doing something frowned on by society.
And I'm not a fool, I understand that society as a whole can be in the wrong (re: colonial times view of slavery) however this is one of those situations where it's a morally grey that 90% of the population views as a cheat and a poor way to attain victory. Which is even reflected in Golarion's setting as poisons are considered black market items and specific examples of NPCs like Pillbug who requires a password before he'll even show you his wares. If this stuff (including knockout poison) wasn't considered evil then it would be openly sold in markets that aren't considered evil markets to begin with.
DnD happens to take an absolute stance on poison use on top of the general societal concencus. But even if you decide to strip away the moral absolute you're still dealing with the societal concensus.
If you do believe poison is evil, then what about a wizard casting cloudkill? Should that spell have the Evil descriptor because it kills by poison?
And what about that Explosive Bomb discovery for alchemists? It sets the target on fire. If you're worried about lingering, painful effects, that's pretty nasty, isn't it?
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If you do believe poison is evil, then what about a wizard casting cloudkill? Should that spell have the Evil descriptor because it kills by poison?
And what about that Explosive Bomb discovery for alchemists? It sets the target on fire. If you're worried about lingering, painful effects, that's pretty nasty, isn't it?
I didn't say a thing about what I believe about poison. I was merely explaining the fact that there are more than just personal factors to be considered. As for fire effects and cloudkill, funnily enough using firebombs isn't/wasn't considered as nefarious as using poison.
Personally having been a burn victim and knowing that the worst pain I've ever had was a result of said burn (I literally sang improvisationally at the top of my lungs in an attempt to distract myself from the pain. When you're in so much pain you're delusionally singing you know its bad) I think fires one of the worst things you can use against a person. Yet you look at the way it was used in history, it was one thing to firebomb a city under siege, and yet poisoning the drinking water was considered poor form. Maybe because a firebomb you can see coming and take precautions against, but a poisoned blade/well looks the same as an unpoisoned one, I don't know the rational, yet it exited/exists in dnd.
Speaking of fire that sends me on an OT tangent. I've seen lots of players/DMs metagame being on fire. Whenever a player tells me they'll stay on fire because they know it'll only last one round (Say if hit with an alchemist fire) I always call BS. I don't care how tough you are. You don't keep fighting while on fire even if you do know because you use alchemist fires yourself that it'll go out on its own. Having experienced burns and fire, I just don't let people who haven't dealt with it make silly decisions like that. You're on fire, you're doing your damndest to put it out.
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Blake hits the issue directly.
You can rationalize good reasons for poison use, but it doesn't remove a societal stigma attached to the practice (no matter how benign). It's something people fear: the spider, the snake, something physically inferior being able to incapacitate or kill you with one strike. It's the tool of the assassin, the coward. It's a method of "cheating" the will of the gods in an honorable combat (where it should be skill and honor that dictate victory).
Even if you have a personal code, be aware that the rest of society may not agree with you. And if you know that poison use is unacceptable in your society, I would question the appropriateness of Lawful and as noted perhaps think about a Neutral bend on your ethical axis.
Not all poisons are gut-wrenching, torturous concoctions. Many poisons are subtle. Indeed, that's a strength of a poison... you don't know you're poisoned.
Also, keep in mind that the line between medicine and poison is often simply a matter of dose. The apothecary says, "Take a sprig of this in your tea and it will help you go to sleep." The alchemist ponders this and decides to concentrate it, creating a knock out drug instead.
In fact, sometimes medicine IS poison.
Now, putting arsenic in a town's water supply is an evil act. Putting a sleep inducing poison in the guard's ale so that you don't have to kill them is not evil.
I think it's been mentioned before, but the effect of the poison should be what determines whether or not it's evil. CON damage = painful, lethal, so its use is evil. Sleep = nonlethal, merciful, etc...
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I'm not inclined to re-write all of the poison-using animals and vermin in the Bestiary and flag them as 'evil' for being venomous, so, IMO, poison, and the use of same, like a gun, is neutral. You can use poison to evil ends (to murder someone) or to further the interests of good and law (to knock out a bear and relocate it further away from civilization, rather than kill it, or allow it to wander around causing problems for the locals). It's even used as a means of lawful execution, IRL, and, barring a bad reaction, is generally more humane and merciful (and 'good,' in so much as tying someone down and killing them can be 'good') than electrocution or hanging (or old-fashioned options like stoning, keelhauling or drawing-and-quartering).
Wisdom damaging poisons could even be *pleasurable* in their effects (which is perhaps why millions of people are addicted to various mind-altering chemicals). Neurotoxins that would, IRL, represent 'Dex damage' or paralysis, often cause numbness, and sometimes, as in the case of Fugu, a pleasurable tingly sensation. (Hemotoxins would probably count as Con damage, and are quite painful, in my limited experience.)
I'm not sure if the real world has an equivalent to Str, Int or Cha damaging poisons, but it's plausible that the latter two could include some pleasurable 'drug-like' effects (or, at least, neutral effects, like those of Sodium Pentathol or Ruhypnol, although I'd consider those to be Wisdom-damaging). Necrotic poisons (like that of the Brown Recluse) destroy muscle tissue, and could count as Str-damage, but they are rare, and wouldn't do Str-damage so much as Str-drain. I have no idea if the process is painful. Our cat survived it, but he didn't really communicate effectively any discomfort involved. He certainly *looked* miserable. :)
Poison is certainly 'unfair,' but the rule of law and the codes of manly chivalry are not the same thing (in most countries, see your local lawman for more detail!).
Longbows, and later crossbows, were also considered 'cowardly' weapons, particularly when they could punch through armor. The thought that any peasant could fletch an arrow in an hour that could kill a knight wearing armor that cost more than the peasant would see in his lifetime was seen as terribly 'dishonorable' and made the knights very pissy and brought new meaning to the word 'cheap' as in 'cheap tactic.' Equalizers generally are derided for this reason. When someone spends an entire lifetime, or a vast fortune, or parleys 'noble blood' or some sort of advantageous social structure to dominate society through 'might makes right,' the invention of something that can knock his butt right off his fancy horse is gonna upset the powers-that-be. They worked pretty hard to stack the system in their favor, and a handheld item that can turn a dirty peasant into a knight-killer is going to get bad press from society's upper echelons.
It's always going to seem 'unfair' that someone can spend a lifetime turning themselves into Bruce Lee 2.0, and some stoned idiot in a convenience store can point a gun he doesn't even comprehend the working of and has zero training with at him and strike him dead.
D&D poisons are wonderfully reliable and safe compared to real-world toxins, making them ethically and morally un-troubling to consider using. (Ditto hacking people to negative hit points and stabilizing them, as people in D&D rarely have to worry about opportunistic infection or complications or strokes or whatever, being back to full health within a couple of days, with bed rest, or a week of working a regular job, as if nothing happened, at HD hit point / day!) Even the most 'harmless' sleep agent or sedative can kill someone, or lead to a 'complication' or a bad reaction or a bad combination with some other substance in the body, or a damaging, coma-inducing or fatal overdose if the exact weight of the subject is mis-judged.
D&D poisons that cause Str, Dex, Int, Wis or Cha damage never 'accidentally' kill someone by paralyzing their diaphragm leading to suffocation (as neurotoxic paralysis inducing 'dex poisons' tend to do IRL) or breaking down the blood's ability to oxygenate the body (again with the suffocation, as hemotoxins occasionally do). A poison that induces sleep or unconsciousness won't kill someone in the manner that surgical anesthesia might. A paralyzing toxins similarly won't mess up your breathing and lead to death, unless you fall face first into a puddle (or are paralyzed while swimming!).
Back in Ye Olde Days of AD&D, when poison use was forbidden, it was equally forbidden to throw flaming oil onto someone. These days, there are no rules either way. A Paladin who coats arrows with sleep venom to capture people to bring back for proper justice, instead of administering 'frontier justice' with the sword (a slippery slope into lawlessness!) is, IMO, a hell of a lot easier to rationalize than one that flings alchemical fire onto someone...
And that's the issue with a LG Alchemist, IMO. Blowing people up (and / or splashing acid on them, or setting them on fire) is a hell of a lot less 'nice' than hitting them with some numbing toxin and then carting their paralyzed butts off to jail. And what do the local laws say about ingesting dangerous compounds, like drugs? Do mutagens have a specific exception? Are they considered 'potions' and not 'drugs?' The local authorities may not care if you just sample your own product, but once you start selling stuff, there will be laws, and perhaps even guild monopolies to consider.
I would imagine that most cities would have pretty strict laws about fires in town (whether alchemical or magical or mundane), and frown a frowny frown upon those who fling such around, or even carry / produce quantities over a certain limit within city limits, due to the risk of losing their city. Ditto effects that explode and can affect people other than their intended target, such as bombs, or, worst of both worlds, fireballs.
It's up to the GM to decide what s/he wants to do in this situation. If Alchemists are a known quantity in the setting, the local authorities would already have them in mind, and, like spellcasters, they'd know as part of their training what is allowed openly and what is to be kept on the down-low, at least in their starting area.
If the PC Alchemist is a ground-breaking new concept, or from a 'mysterious far away land,' there might be some negotiating to be done with local authorities the first time unusual abilities, like throwing bombs, occurs in a civilized space.
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I know I'm opening a can of worms, but:
1) the Alchemist has absolutely no Alignment restriction in his prerequites (as opposite, for example, to Monks, Barbarians, and Paladins), nor any kind of specification on the use of Poison depending on his own alignment (there is no sentence, for example, which says 'Use poison: this ability is restricted to non-lawful and non-good Alchemists only', as could be, for example, with the Channel Positive or Negative energy for Clerics).
2) regarding 'cheating' and 'fighting with honor', I hardly can consider Sneak Attack to be 'honourable' (EDIT: or, for what matters, as Set pointed out above, using a long-range weapon in sniping), yet a Rogue can be of any alignment - even LG. And again, no rules are specified regarding 'Sneak Attack: a Lawful Rogue cannot use this kind of special ability, since it is not honourable', or 'Stealth: a Lawful character cannot use Stealth, since it's not honourable', or 'Ranged weapons: Lawful characters cannot use a ranged weapond beyond the 3rd range increment, since it is considered dishonourable to fight away from the enemy'.
Now, can a LG Rogue steal or use Sneak Attack ? Well, why not I answer, it all depends on the circumstance. Could it be LG to enter the mansion of an evil Warlord and steal his plans for mass genocide in order to twart them ? I say that a LG character is not stupid, and if 'stealing' such plans can save thousands of life, isn't it better than letting soldiers die in vain ? Of course, the very same LG Rogue who steals apples in the street can still be Good, but decidedly not Lawful...
EDIT: In the same way, can an Alchemist be Lawful Good and still using poison ? Why not, it all depends on the type of poison he uses, why, and how. Sneaking and pouring a Con poison into the food of an evil lord to kill him could be considered CG at the very best, of course not LG; but using an incapacitating poison to capture him and bring him to justice, LG all the way.
LG doesn't mean 'All right, I'm standing in the middle of the street waiting for the whole horde to come challenging me', not even a Paladin can be so much stupid (IMHO), unless this is the only way to save the life of other people.
I hope this shows my point of view without starting another heated Alignment debate...
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Now, can a LG Rogue steal or use Sneak Attack? Well, why not I answer, it all depends on the circumstance. Could it be LG to enter the mansion of an evil Warlord and steal his plans for mass genocide in order to thwart them?
In the case in the OP, the dwarven 're-acquisition specialists' wouldn't even consider it stealing. The items are clearly dwarven, of dwarven make, usable primarily by dwarves, never to be sold and only left dwarven hands by theft, grave-robbing and / or looting from the hansd of dead dwarven heroes.
They wouldn't see it as 'stealing' such as as recovering items that have been stolen from them. The police seizing stolen (or illegal) goods work in a similar manner. Yes, they are taking something from someone against their will, in some cases products that were paid for, and in some cases, products that are legal to own and purchase (that happen to have been previously stolen, by a third party, or that were purchased with 'drug money' or whatever, even if the police really have no way of knowing whether or not every dollar that the drug kingpin spent on that car or house or boat was actually 'dirty' money, and not legitimately gained). But it's not theft when the police do it, and the dwarven 'recovery' people would probably feel the same way.
They're just taking back what they feel is rightfully theirs.
A group of Andorans seizing a Qadiran vessel and freeing all of the slaves is also 'stealing property' from the Qadiran merchant (or the Chelish buyer who already paid for them), but also doesn't see their noble acts as 'theft,' since, in their view, the 'property' didn't rightfully belong to the 'owner.'
The Wraith has said it clearly. I agree.
Spellcasters can use spells that do the same thing poisons do: Hold Person, Sleep, etc. and those don't have evil descriptors.
A witch (who also has no alignment restriction) has access to some nasty hexes (agony, death curse, etc.) and those also have no alignment restriction.
It's about the use, not the weapon.
Now, I agree that a "Good" character would probably go out of his way to avoid causing unnecessary pain/harm/etc. to a foe. But some poisons might help achieve this goal.
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Another facet to consider is what are you poisoning? If you're talking about an intelligent creature, then there are moral implications, take your pick, depending on your point of view, but even the most lawful good paladin shouldn't have an issue with poisoning rats in the cellar, and by extention, other vermin, animals, etc, and certainly a LG alchemist shouldn't have a problem with that.
There is actually a precedent for a Lawful Good alchemist: Sheriff Josh Acid from Saturday Night Live.
He didn't use a gun... he didn't use a knife... he threw acid on people... that's how he took a life...
"Well, Jim Bowie used a Bowie knife, and Derringer used a Derringer... I use acid 'cause that's my name." :)
I don't see poison use as evil at all. No more so than slicing and dicing up the same target. Poison is weapon and something you can choose.
So really poison is not evil but the uses poison is put to may be evil. Same as sword or fireball.
Now the legalities of poison use depend on the laws of the land.
In some cultures poison use could be extremely honorable and completely legal. A person from this location would be lawful in their own culture with poison use.
On the flip side in society where poison use is frowned upon and considered cowardly would make it the opposite.
I have no idea where this blanket rule that poison use is Evil came from. It's silly and I rule zero it in my games.
Animals, traps, poisons, and other potential perils are not evil, and as such this spell does not detect them. Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.
From PFRD.
Intent is an important factor.
And as the OP said its no more "evil" to kill something with poison than burning it alive with some alchemical napalm.