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Okay, so I'm playing a NG Cleric of Sarenrae here, and I'm having an alignment problem, and need a community opinion check to see if I'm not seeing something here.
Little backstory. Party gets ambushed by a couple of goblins. 2 of them are killed within the 2nd round of combat. The third one keeps shooting said Cleric with arrows, and the Cleric cannot get to him. Goblin gets frightened by the Bard and Barbarian and runs off. We basically let him go. (The Bard sent something after him). Cleric does nothing more aggressive once he's taken off.
We hang out a bit longer, goblin comes back, gets the Cleric with 2 more arrows. Barbarian takes out goblin, who is bleeding out on the ground but still alive. Crusader stabilizes the goblin.
Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?
Additional alignment/deity questions:
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?
I'm really having trouble buying that having a "Good" alignment means you have to be a saint towards monsters.
Different groups have different views on alignment and there is no one solid answer to your questions. That being said, this is from the PRD.
Good Versus Evil
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.
The key word there is innocent life.
Now on to your god. Here are a couple of quotes from the Wiki.
The church of Sarenrae is mostly composed of altruistic priests who are also ready to be stern should it be warranted. The church is known for blessing crops, healing the sick, and reforming criminals and evil doers.
In battle, Sarenrae's clerics become dervishes, ready to destroy irredeemable corruption.
So as you can see it goes both ways. You destroy what is irredeemable or non-innocent. But convert those that can be converted and help the innocent.
In your goblin encounter the creature attacked you... fled... and then returned to attack you. Pretty clear that he is not innocent and did not learn his lesson the first time.
The goblin fell into the category of a rabid animal. It showed no sign of reforming, and putting it down quickly and cleanly would be ok in my book. Now if the barbarian decides to torture him instead of giving him a quick death, now you are into evil territory.
Reforming evil is a greater act of good that slaying it, but nothing requires you to reform evil.
Nothing requires you to attempt diplomacy with an aggressive drow. If the drow were peaceful and offered no violence, then attacking them would be bad. Basically, don't throw the first punch and you are ok.
Refusing to heal a party member in that case seems petty. Now if they had just carved their way through an orphanage it would be one thing, but they are slaying evil, and you are faulting them for their technique.
The blinded goblin, you showed mercy. They have a chance to live, which is more than they would have had otherwise.
1) and 3) not in Pathfinder, it would make playing the game untenable, you having a bit of guilt or wishing there was a better way is actaully great indication of a good character.
But be careful with 2), first and foremost this is a team game. Talk to the barbarians player about it, etc. But against definably nasty villains and creatures, theres only so much you can and should do for them.
Reforming evil is a greater act of good that slaying it, but nothing requires you to reform evil.
Sarenrae does. Her teaching is that essentially everything can be redeemed. She doesn't require redemption mid-combat or for creatures who embody evil (demons and devils and such), but a prisoner shouldn't be executed, according to Sarenrae.
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Reforming evil is a greater act of good that slaying it, but nothing requires you to reform evil.Sarenrae does. Her teaching is that essentially everything can be redeemed. She doesn't require redemption mid-combat or for creatures who embody evil (demons and devils and such), but a prisoner shouldn't be executed, according to Sarenrae.
But it also says that once diplomacy has failed, then her clerics can tear up the battlefield. Is the goblin redeemable even when he squandered a second chance? How far does a cleric have to go to stop the 9 ft tall dwarf barbarian (don't ask...) from stepping on the goblin which has tried to kill the group twice?
Also, if I recall correctly, servants of Rovagug are to be killed on sight (Could be wrong though, thoughts are a bit hazy). If this is the case, how can that be construed as a good action?
In the event that letting goblin get curb stomped is an offense, how big of an offense would you consider it to be?
Creative Director
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A cleric of Sarenrae probably SHOULD be disturbed by this situation, since Sarenrae is the goddess of redemption and her faithful should try to redeem those who can be redeemed.
That said... she's also a goddess of swift justice. She's not big on prolonged ordeals, and dragging out a creature's "redemption" in a case where redemption is unlikely and/or the target is likely to pretend to be redeemed so it can just escape and go back to its wicked ways are better served by swift justice. Which in the case of most evil foes means quick execution.
In the case the OP outlines above, where the goblin was obviously a menace and tried to kill the cleric and allies, the cleric of Sarenrae basically has two choices... either heal the goblin and take him under wing to try to redeem him, or to kill him quickly rather than let him languish at the edge of death and perhaps endure a painful recovery after which he'll just go back to being an evil troublemaking goblin.
Curb stomping is a pretty grisly way to do it, and not something a cleric of Sarenrae herself would do (she'd likely opt for a swift decapitaiton or sepuku type execution), but letting the barbarian do it is not an evil act.
The thing to remember with Sarenrae is that while she wants to redeem, she also realizes that putting allies in danger just in order to redeem something that might not want to redeem itself isn't a good solution. During adventures where there aren't resources or time to take a lot of prisoners, swift justice (aka curb stomps) is allowed.
We hang out a bit longer, goblin comes back, gets the Cleric with 2 more arrows. Barbarian takes out goblin, who is bleeding out on the ground but still alive. Crusader stabilizes the goblin.Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?
Not really, I think it's a bit disturbing to kill someone who's helpless when someone else has made the effort to stabilize him, but that's maybe just be.
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
If we talk about the drow who were torturing you that's justice. If they would surrender by themselves then killing them would be evil according to the Book of Exalted Deeds, but still probably not enough to let a cleric loose anything (Paladin could be another question). However if you would consider diplomacy failed for all drow you meet in the future and kill them on sight, that would be probably evil. ;-)
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
It's as much a good act as it would be if the barbarian would see you surrounded by evil monsters and just watch while they kill you. As long as the "evil" monsters aren't children or other non-combatants there's usually nothing evil about bisecting them. And in battle you usually don't care if you really killed someone or just disabled them. You go on to the next threat.
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?
Neutral act at best. I'm in the camp that it would've been more merciful if Obi-Wan would have killed Anakin instead of leaving him without any appendages burning near a lava pit.
Think about it, what kind of life will the goblin lead? Was there a rest of his tribe who would take him in (are goblins in Golarion even that social)? Or would he slowly starve until a predator kills him?
I'm really having trouble buying that having a "Good" alignment means you have to be a saint towards monsters.
A good alignment doesn't mean that you have to be saint towards monsters. Only being a paladin or exalted character makes it necessary to be a saint. But then not only towards monsters but towards everybody. Like the barbarian you fought side by side with while refusing to heal him.
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When playing a very good character I tend to do this:
"Round 1: I exclaim - "Surrender and we will show you Serenrae's Mercy!"
(Hold Action until after the bad guys).
IF Bad Guys Surrender. Tie them up and lead them to a nearby temple.
IF Bad Guys continue to attack.
"I am sorry I could not save you. Feel free to surrender any time in the next 30 seconds." (Unleash holy wrath).
Little backstory. Party gets ambushed by a couple of goblins. 2 of them are killed within the 2nd round of combat.
Couple of goblins attack, 2 of them killed. The 3rd one must be a mirage.
Then no problem of alignement...
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Little backstory. Party gets ambushed by a couple of goblins. 2 of them are killed within the 2nd round of combat.Couple of goblins attack, 2 of them killed. The 3rd one must be a mirage.
Then no problem of alignement...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/couple
Look at the Idiom section, #14:
"—Idiom
14.
a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few: It will take a couple of days for the package to get there. Also, a couple."
But if you prefer, 3 goblins attacked. :)
Edit: Sorry, I reread what I had written and that might have come off a bit jerkish. (I have a thing for grammar) I chuckled when I read the quoted post.
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We hang out a bit longer, goblin comes back, gets the Cleric with 2 more arrows. Barbarian takes out goblin, who is bleeding out on the ground but still alive. Crusader stabilizes the goblin.Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?
Not really, I think it's a bit disturbing to kill someone who's helpless when someone else has made the effort to stabilize him, but that's maybe just be.
The Barbarian has always had a hatred for goblins, he just doesn't have much occasion to show it. In this particular instance, I didn't do anything to stop him from stomping the goblin, but I didn't tell him to do it, nor did I take action to kill him myself after he had been stabilized (and he was stabilized by the character which had just a few minutes prior hunted down and killed a fleeing goblin..).
Edit:
A good alignment doesn't mean that you have to be saint towards monsters. Only being a paladin or exalted character makes it necessary to be a saint. But then not only towards monsters but towards everybody. Like the barbarian you fought side by side with while refusing to heal him.
I actually have never refused to heal him, that was just a suggestion offered by another player as to how a good character would act. Which I disagree with. I was just making sure that I wasn't crazy for disagreeing.
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If we talk about the drow who were torturing you that's justice. If they would surrender by themselves then killing them would be evil according to the Book of Exalted Deeds, but still probably not enough to let a cleric loose anything (Paladin could be another question). However if you would consider diplomacy failed for all drow you meet in the future and kill them on sight, that would be probably evil. ;-)
Actually, funny you should mention that. One of the ones who had tortured us survived, and is now the cohort of one of the members. I've not started working on redeeming him yet, I was waiting on a specific power...
Edited to correct spelling of "started"
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In your goblin encounter the creature attacked you... fled... and then returned to attack you. Pretty clear that he is not innocent and did not learn his lesson the first time.
Yeah, that's my line in the sand on this one. The fool came back after a party wiped out his little raiding buddies to plink arrows at the healer. That goes beyond misunderstood or 'had a rough childhood' to 'cold, calculating, surgical evil' with a dash of 'too stupid to live.'
Curb-stomping, on the other hand, belongs in Grand Theft Auto, along with woman-slapping and cop-killing. Tell the Barbarian that's what the sharp pointy thing in his hand is for, assuming he isn't holding it by the wrong end again.
Killing a goblin is one thing, but being all gangsta-pimp about it is inexcusable.
Not only is it a genre violation, it's also tacky.
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In your goblin encounter the creature attacked you... fled... and then returned to attack you. Pretty clear that he is not innocent and did not learn his lesson the first time.Yeah, that's my line in the sand on this one. The fool came back after a party wiped out his little raiding buddies to plink arrows at the healer. That goes beyond misunderstood or 'had a rough childhood' to 'cold, calculating, surgical evil' with a dash of 'too stupid to live.'
Curb-stomping, on the other hand, belongs in Grand Theft Auto, along with woman-slapping and cop-killing. Tell the Barbarian that's what the sharp pointy thing in his hand is for, assuming he isn't holding it by the wrong end again.
Killing a goblin is one thing, but being all gangsta-pimp about it is inexcusable.
Not only is it a genre violation, it's also tacky.
More than that, it's gratuitous.
Killing the evil beastie is fine, showing off about it and enjoying doing it... I assume that the Barbarian is not a good character?
If you've gone to the lengths of refusing to heal a party member, why are you still in the party as that character?
I play a cleric of Sarenrae myself. At table, I get pretty peeved with certain party members who constantly whine about me not healing them when they seemingly deliberately engage things out of even reached Heal (high level play) while there are loads of beasties and archers between us, and frankly it's getting rather annoying. In character, I watch the wizard attempt to coup de grace held archers, and I am wondering what the poo my character is doing in the group, until I remember that our kingdom needs my character more than the king of "why can't you get Heal off when I'm 80 feet away and running further from you each round" and the wizard of "IT SHOT AN ARROW AT ME! CHAIN LIGHTNING!"
Wisdom means shrugging off the 15 minute work day and having perspective on the progress that has come in the three years of working to improve the living conditions and the lives of the citizens of her country, and perhaps becoming an international inspirational figure of healing and light that can bring Sarenrae's message to people living in the darkness of the River Kingdoms.
Tell the barbarian in character that you serve a higher power, and his actions worries you. Try to redeem him and see the high road, and if he wants to take it, Sarenrae might give you a cookie. If not, then you have to run damage control and explain to the player that you cannot stick around if he does evil.
"You hate the goblins, do you not? Then you should consider what you are doing, for if you visit the same cruelty on them, show no mercy, and offer no clean deaths, then you become a goblin yourself."
You are a cleric, you should have wisdom and charisma. Talking things over and giving spiritual advice is kinda your job out of combat.
Alignment should never be viewed as a straight jacket for how you play your character. Your character might find that pacifism is unrealistic in the harsh real world. Neutral Good doesn't necessarily mean you cannot kill.
In one of the modules I recently ran, my Cleric of Sarenrae shot a humanoid enemy (that had been tied up and disarmed) in the head. This was because interrogation revealed that he planned to chop up a dead man's body and feed it to village children to spread leprosy as part of a revenge scheme. Disgusted with this act of wanton sadism, my Cleric decided such an evil person is not worthy of being alive.
As they say, some people are beyond redemption and do not want to be redeemed. Some people are better off dead, and even Neutral Good can believe that.
In your case a LG or NG character might reason that leaving the Goblin alive could be dangerous to any nearby settlements. Or that killing in self-defense is perfectly justifiable
I dont want to start an alignment debate but i've always seen neutral good characters the MOST likely to kill of all 3 good alignments. the old alignment description was something like "someone who disobeys his king to go kill something he sees as evil... would be neutral good".
a NG character has no particular motivation towards law or chaos and is motivated by the pursuit of just doing good. I always consider NG- TRUE good as they don't let law get in the way of this pursuit and are likely to self sacrifice for the greater good. Somebody who knows a convicted killer can pull some legal strings and beat the legal system and will return to killing so takes him out instead would be NG. i always played NG the ultimate monster hunters on a quest to rid the world of evil. If a NG character feels he will put his soul in jeopardy but to achieve a greater good, this would also be NG. Undead hunters, evil dragon slayers, cult hunters these would be pefect places for NG characters. They seek out evil and eradicate it no matter what the laws or peoples opinion may be for the greater good of mankind.
I think in the case of a cleric of Sarenrae it would be a little bit fine lined, in that because of his belief he SHOULD try to redeem them first. Now he's not going to be an idiot eather. He would be more likely to slay a vampire than buy his word he will change. A goblin however isn't SUPER evil, meaning it doesn't necessarily detect as evil. They are rather dumb as well though and redeeming itself would require some higher cognitive thought that most goblins wont put forth. You could have tried to sense it's motives or had another player do so and asked it if it was willing to change it's ways. if you detected deceit, well you tried... If it was sincere you could have taken it prisoner and left it with your church to convert him.
Okay, here's the dilemma. Barbarian decides to curb stomp the goblin. Cleric (me) chooses not to stop him from doing so. Is this an evil act? Would it be grounds for losing Cleric abilities or spells?
Additional alignment/deity questions:
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?I'm really having trouble buying that having a "Good" alignment means you have to be a saint towards monsters.
Rule 0: Good/=Dumb
For the goblin, I'd say that it depends on your table.
For #1, yes, diplomacy has failed.
For #2: Evil. And a pain in the ass at the table, likely to lead to intraparty dissention. Don't do it.
For #3: Medieval, but not evil.
You might consider working with your DM to set up conversion rules if your party's going to capture a bunch of people. Make it a die roll and some RP to speed things up.
Here is my opinion:
Medieval timescrime punishible by death (rape, murder, torture and kidnaping)
he can execute (in cold blood) such individuals and it is a Good Act
No, no and no.
Be happy you are not playing with me as a GM. This is not England Anno 920, nor do good give capital punishment for minor crimes, and killing non-fiends is at BEST a neutral act, only redeemed from being evil by being swift and humane.
Curb stomping is a pretty grisly way to do it, and not something a cleric of Sarenrae herself would do (she'd likely opt for a swift decapitaiton or sepuku type execution), but letting the barbarian do it is not an evil act.
A seppuku-type execution? They'd bathe the goblin, dress him in white robes, feed him his favourite food, make him write a death poem, and then hand him a knife so he'd cut himself open in a precise manner, before the cleric decapitates the goblin in a way that the head is still attached to the body by the skin?
Sounds a bit too elaborate. A swift beheading with your trusty scimitar would be better, especially since goblins are quite honourless! ;-P
A seppuku-type execution? They'd bathe the goblin, dress him in white robes, feed him his favourite food, make him write a death poem, and then hand him a knife so he'd cut himself open in a precise manner, before the cleric decapitates the goblin in a way that the head is still attached to the body by the skin?
Curb stomping is a pretty grisly way to do it, and not something a cleric of Sarenrae herself would do (she'd likely opt for a swift decapitaiton or sepuku type execution), but letting the barbarian do it is not an evil act.
Stoopid cleric man
Dog tasted bad, hoomans suckNow I stabby guts
For most of what you've listed, as the responses indicate, reasonable people may disagree about the good, evil or neutrality of the actions. My only recommendation is that you, in character, think about what you want your characters ethics to be (taking into consideration your god's teachings) and then do your best to have the character live by those ethics, knowing that you will occasionally fall short of your ideals. Certainly none of what you've listed falls into such a balck and white category that a single instance would lead to loss of powers.
The thing I want to address is the need for your party to have an in-character conversation about what your standard policy is going to be with regard to prisoners, or in similar morally gray areas. At best, you can come up with an agreement between all involved about what you are going to do in such situations. At the least, you should have an agreement that no one will execute prisoners or anything similar until the group has discussed it first. Personally, I would be ticked if a character, without warning, killed a creature I had just stabilized and probably wanted to interrogate. While some might say he is just roleplaying his alignment and his hatred of goblins, I find that to be a crutch to excuse immaturity and poor impulse control (unless the character is also immature and has poor impulse control. Good roleplaying, IMHO, might be to angrily ask the character who stabilized the goblin what the hell he is doing saving this miserable creature's life and demanding the creature be executed. It is not acting unilaterally in contradiction to what another character is doing without discussing it.
That said, refusing to heal another party member is an extreme step to be avoided in most cases. Once you get to that point, the party has become pretty disfunctional, and is likely doomed. I'm not aying you should never take that road, just only take it in the most extreme situations.
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Additional alignment/deity questions:
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?
I shall answer your questions in accordance to the code I live by as mandated by the Dawnflower. I'm a paladin, and as such held to higher standards than even clerics (though it's not that much higher really), so they should be right for you, or even a bit too harsh (but, again, not too much).
1. Yes, I'd say you can safely consider diplomacy failed at that point. Though the fabled dark elves are said to be universally evil, some of them will probably just respond to peer pressure that is omnipresent in their society. However, if you're trying to break out of drow captivity, you probably won't be able to survive the attempt to ascertain which of your enemies has a chance of redemption, especially if you're not alone and need to look after friends, allies, or innocent victims.
It might be a different matter if you're not within their fell cities, if they're acting alone and you can overcome them with relative ease once free. But otherwise, the Goddess will not punish you for dealing swift justice.
What you can do, however, is try to get an understanding of the nature of your tormentors as they are working on you. You might be able to see past your pain and recognise someone who isn't too comfortable with what he does, thinking he has to do it in order to survive in a harsh society. Then you might try to help him should the opportunity present itself - but helping other victims, or getting out of there alive will still have priority. You cannot help anyone if you're dead, after all.
2. Withholding healing from your allies would be a grave evil. You are supposed to heal and redeem those around you, not let them suffer. Such a person as you describe would not have to be evil, at least not yet. Try to guide him toward the light instead of countering his evil deeds with ones of your own. That will only benefit evil that much more - especially since he will in all likelihood respond with scorn and anger.
3. Ask yourself this: Do you expect that goblin to survive? In this specific situation, I wouldn't give him a chance. He'd probably be helpless all alone, and his "friends", when they find him, will be more likely to torment him and do away with him for being useless than to help him.
Do you think the goblin could be redeemed? If so, protect him. Maybe leave him blind but make sure no harm comes to him, or restore his eyesight to show him what kindness feels like.
If you do not think he can be redeemed, you should kill him right there. Show mercy with your blade. A swift, mostly painless death is better than drawn-out torment.
This is hardly an universal answer, though: Another kind of creature, in other situations might have a better chance to survive even if blind, or whatever affliction they find themselves with, so choose your actions according to that.
I'm really having trouble buying that having a "Good" alignment means you have to be a saint towards monsters.
Nobody is saying that you have to be a saint towards monsters. But being good means not being a monster yourself. It also means that you look beyond their shape to define whether they are monsters.
The heat of battle can be a dangerous place, and you won't always get the luxury of stopping to offer quarter. However, once you're out of battle and find enemies at your mercy, the biggest excuse to just cut down everything you find is gone.
Plus, no one ever said that being good is easy. It's not, which makes not being good so popular with many people: They don't want to make an effort to be good.
I take it the barbarian brings a chunk of sidewalk with him so he can do the curb-stomp?
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Permanent blinding could be a more merciful and still harsh punishment a Sarenraen could dish out, but only if said being wasn't going to be condemned to a slow and miserable death because of it. If you're going to sentence someone to death, do it quick, don't draw it out.
I take it the barbarian brings a chunk of sidewalk with him so he can do the curb-stomp?
Face-up, fetish.
Face-down, hate crime![/tosh]
A cleric of Sarenrae probably SHOULD be disturbed by this situation, since Sarenrae is the goddess of redemption and her faithful should try to redeem those who can be redeemed.
That said... she's also a goddess of swift justice. She's not big on prolonged ordeals, and dragging out a creature's "redemption" in a case where redemption is unlikely and/or the target is likely to pretend to be redeemed so it can just escape and go back to its wicked ways are better served by swift justice. Which in the case of most evil foes means quick execution.
In the case the OP outlines above, where the goblin was obviously a menace and tried to kill the cleric and allies, the cleric of Sarenrae basically has two choices... either heal the goblin and take him under wing to try to redeem him, or to kill him quickly rather than let him languish at the edge of death and perhaps endure a painful recovery after which he'll just go back to being an evil troublemaking goblin.
Curb stomping is a pretty grisly way to do it, and not something a cleric of Sarenrae herself would do (she'd likely opt for a swift decapitaiton or sepuku type execution), but letting the barbarian do it is not an evil act.
The thing to remember with Sarenrae is that while she wants to redeem, she also realizes that putting allies in danger just in order to redeem something that might not want to redeem itself isn't a good solution. During adventures where there aren't resources or time to take a lot of prisoners, swift justice (aka curb stomps) is allowed.
Awesome. You have a direct reply from a Paizo game designer involved in Golarion world design to provide your DM. It doesn't get any better than that.
It might be better to create a personality for your character and then assign an alignment, it will make the players and GM think of alignment less in black and whites. Alignment is a gaming aid not a rule in my opinion, consider your character personality first, possibly with some flaws, the cleric might be a little too hot-tempered, arrogant and vain, but still be NG. A well-developed character avoids in large part the traps of alignment rules, though you might want to discuss it with your GM beforehand.
The acts themselves aren't always an indication of alignment, but the way you deal with your choices often is, your cleric might feel shame or regret after slaying an attacking bandit for example, perhaps offer a short prayer to guide his soul shows you respect life.
Consider that even clerics of Saranae will not always agree which is the right path to walk, that is not to say they are necesarily wrong or right in the choices they make. Even in a fantasy campaign, asking 'God' is not always an option or rarely even desirable since religious characters are more often than not convinved they are right and or 'God' is likely more interested in true devotion to it's ideals than worshippers who follow 'the rules' blindly.
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It might be better to create a personality for your character and then assign an alignment, it will make the players and GM think of alignment less in black and whites. Alignment is a gaming aid not a rule in my opinion, consider your character personality first, possibly with some flaws, the cleric might be a little too hot-tempered, arrogant and vain, but still be NG. A well-developed character avoids in large part the traps of alignment rules, though you might want to discuss it with your GM beforehand.
The acts themselves aren't always an indication of alignment, but the way you deal with your choices often is, your cleric might feel shame or regret after slaying an attacking bandit for example, perhaps offer a short prayer to guide his soul shows you respect life.
Consider that even clerics of Saranae will not always agree which is the right path to walk, that is not to say they are necesarily wrong or right in the choices they make. Even in a fantasy campaign, asking 'God' is not always an option or rarely even desirable since religious characters are more often than not convinved they are right and or 'God' is likely more interested in true devotion to it's ideals than worshippers who follow 'the rules' blindly.
You could try the PC Pearls character quiz.
Mine took it (click on her face).
Do you think the goblin could be redeemed? If so, protect him. Maybe leave him blind but make sure no harm comes to him, or restore his eyesight to show him what kindness feels like.
How do you redeem a goblin btw ? (especially when you're not a cleric/paladin and are in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of prisoners).
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(especially when you're not a cleric/paladin and are in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of prisoners).
Well, if it looks like it's gonna be hard then perhaps you should just take the easy and practical route and kill anyone that surrenders.
Being good shouldn't require one to go out of one's way to do anything that isn't terribly convenient, after all. It's not like it says anywhere in the rules that one should have standards of decency or respect for life or be willing to go one step further than a chaotic evil person would go or anything.
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But, eventually word will get out, from someone who ran away or from a bystander that was not involved in the fracas, and less and less people will bother surrendering to the party, instead pushing the fight with deadly intensity, no quarter given, since they know none will be offered. Given a choice between being executed after surrendering, or chopping at the support beam to the mine and collapsing 10,000 tons of rock on their own heads (and the party's as well), they'll go for the support beam...
(especially when you're not a cleric/paladin and are in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of prisoners).Well, if it looks like it's gonna be hard then perhaps you should just take the easy and practical route and kill anyone that surrenders.
Being good shouldn't require one to go out of one's way to do anything that isn't terribly convenient, after all. It's not like it says anywhere in the rules that one should have standards of decency or respect for life or be willing to go one step further than a chaotic evil person would go or anything.
I have absolutely nothing against trying something hard, it's just that I'd appreciate some advices or ideas about how to do it ;).
I take it the barbarian brings a chunk of sidewalk with him so he can do the curb-stomp?
That's what portable holes are there for!
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How do you redeem a goblin btw ? (especially when you're not a cleric/paladin and are in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of prisoners).
Do you think the goblin could be redeemed? If so, protect him. Maybe leave him blind but make sure no harm comes to him, or restore his eyesight to show him what kindness feels like.
You don't need to be a priest with the atonement spell help someone be redeemed. It's mostly something they have to want and do for themselves. Goddess will help them if they're really winning, and her priests will be her conduit, but it's not just a spell being cast.
It can be done in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of prisoners. Might not be easy, but if you want easy, I can probably get you a job as a camel herder's assistant.
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If you've gone to the lengths of refusing to heal a party member, why are you still in the party as that character?
I just noticed this thread had been revivified!
Anyhow, I hadn't refused healing, it was a suggested action by one of the other players for something a Good Aligned Cleric should do. I strongly disagreed with that assessment, so I added it in for commentary.
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Additional alignment/deity questions:
1. After being tortured by drow for 2 weeks, is it okay to consider diplomacy failed and not offer them surrender?
I'm not quite sure, but I'd assume in this scenario you're in the Drow's domain. It absolutely would not be an evil act. It would be impractical and dogmatic to the point of absurdity to require the cleric to interview every drow for their motivations.
I could see the character feeling a burden for it. Many people who fight and kill out of necessity in a warzone carry that for the rest of their lives; but it didn't make the killing an evil act.
2. Refusing to heal a party member who is helping you fight through a bunch of evil monsters, because he generally slices said monsters in half and doesn't bother seeing if they're alive or not (the aforementioned barbarian), is this considered a Good act and within a NG alignment?
Not healing a struggling party member during combat: Evil and petty. Not doing this in a non-life threatening situation is probably a bit petty, but not necessarily evil. Even if you don't approve of his actions, he is your ally, and turning your back on allies you disagree with is the hallmark of a cravenly Neutral Evil character. (The more brazen ones would just kill them outright.)
3. Another goblin is blinded by a holy spell. We leave the goblin helpless in the woods, but still alive. Good act, or evil act?
I'm going to break form here and say this is a good act. The threat has been pacified, meaning that any further attacks against him would be unnecessary and therefore evil. You might contend that killing it is an act of mercy, but blind does not equal helpless. Yes, he would definitely be shunned from his goblin kin, but I would have to think any who grew up and were raised by goblins would know of their ways and would not flee back to them. It would be an opportunity for the evil humanoid to learn values like compassion and empathy.
For that matter, Saranrae's divine wrath often comes in the form of blindness, lasting for as long as the deity deems necessary, so you're also looking at the whole "Divine plan" aspect.