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Well some observations.
The rogue, if his concept is a thief then that's not a problem. I wouldn't get involved and let things play out IC. I am not even sure I would involve the NPC, unless they NPC would know there should be more. Then I would have the NPC bring it up to the whole group. having him just talk to the rogue makes it look like the NPC knows the rogue did it, which is bad. Though i would talk to the player about it OOC. Point out to him that while his character is free to do that, the other players are free to kick him out of the group IC, if/when they catch him doing it. At which time he will need to make a new PC and it would count as if he died aka start off lower level or with less stuff. (or how ever you handle deaths)
I wouldn't make to big of a deal of it, just make sure he understands there is IC risk to what he is doing. Point out OOC that the game is meant to be fun for all and if he keeps stealing from the rest it can infringe on their fun.
As for the other, I wasn't there so it is hard to know. Nor do I know the alignments of the PC's but I agree killing helpless people is evil typical. Though if they had no way of turning them over to authorities then it is more understandable. Sending a dream vision from their gods to the clerics if you think the gods would disapprove would be best for them. As for the dwarf, I think I would just OOC. Point out to him that his actions are leaning towards evil in your view. Don't try to influence him away from it. Just casually let him know, so he understands.
With what you have said that is the best advice I can give.
It sounds like there are a number of issues. Talking out of character with some of the people might be the easiest way to go.
For example, finishing off downed bad guys could be an overreaction to the teifling getting up. Sometimes PCs get freaked out at odd things and want to make sure that defeated enemies stay defeated. The dwarf might think that he's preventing a 20th level sorc from fighting them later.
Similarly, the rogue might have just read Dragonlance or similar, where the thief always pockets a little extra for themselves. Since this is causing OOC issues, I'd talk to him about it OOC. He might just want to play a greedy character, in which case, trying to redeem him in character might be what he wants to do. He might not realize that it's annoying, or that he did it poorly, in which case, he'd tone it down because as a player he didn't realize he overstepped. He might not care or just wants to see how much he can get away with, in which case, I'd suggest asking him to leave the game. (It's large enough and someone intentionally being antagonistic is not needed.)
It's also very clear that the players do not have the same idea of "Neutral Good" as you do. Stealing from one's own party is an evil act. Killing a helpless person is usually an evil act. (There are exceptions, especially during a battle. And arguments for why you'd make sure the people bleeding to death actually die.) There is no right or wrong way to rule this, but it is important that you and your players be on the same page, and clearly, you are not. I'd suggest doing this outside of game, so that if feelings get jostled they can calm down. I wish I had more suggestions for how to talk about it, but the main one is to not be confrontational.
Personally I have no problem with a thief character in a party, with the understanding he does not push it to the point of annoying the other players, pocketing a few extra coins is alright. Especially if he intends to use the cash for the good of the party, instead of being just plain selfish. Using it to gather information, bribing some officials or getting some resources he is convinced the party will need, but dont want to invest in or maybe just uses it to buy all of them an extra beer and a good bed are all fair uses.
If you think the clerics do not try hard enough, send them a subtle omen, maybe the holy symbol of the cleric is cracked and resists divine spells to mend it. In the case of the cleric of Cayden he might discover all the wine he drinks seems to be spoiled, it is a little more subtle than the dream vision which is so common it will feel a bit too much like "DM is watching you".
If you want to run a hero campaign sprinkle some extra reward around for hero-like behaviour. A good aligned magical item, or a banner giving the equivalent to a bless spell for good aligned characters whenever it is within sight/range in which case any evil/questionable act might negate the bonus for that battle.
I would just briefly mention it to the rogue really, just tell him not to disrupt the fun of the other players, most people will understand, maybe he is just frustrated with how the party divided loot in the past.
Fergie here.
I see two issues here:
1) The nature of party co-operation. Is the group just a bunch of people forced to adventure by circumstances, or a tight unit of comrades. The first option allows for a greater variety of roleplay options, but can result in broken friendships if everyone is not on the same page. Considering that you are in a large group of players with different experience levels, I would tell everyone straight up that intra-party conflict is unacceptable. The wizard can't charm other PC's, the fighter can't whack them with his sword, and the rogue can't rob them. Any of these actions will result in the character becomes an instant NPC. In the future you can play another type of campaign, with rules and expectations discussed and agreed upon by all.
2) The nature of alignment. In "the real word" morals and ethics are highly subjective and subject to change. Pure Goodness and Pure Evil don't really exist in the way they are depicted in Pathfinder. Everyone is born capable of good, evil, and eveything inbetween. Someone could start life commiting evil acts, relize the error of their ways, and become a good person, and even the definition of what is good and evil can change quickly. In the game, things are much more divided. There are whole races and planes of existance that are Good and Evil. Which god is evil isn't a matter of perspective, they are proudly and completely evil. Now, I don't know the specifics of the campaign, but in most circumstances teifling bandits are Evil by birth, choice, and actions. There is almost nothing that can change that, especially a little time in jail. So why is it wrong to kill these creatures of evil in a sword fight, or execute them with a coup de grace? I think the only thing that would push the characters alignment toward evil would be if they lied to the bandits, then went back on their word and killed them. Some enemies have the potential of redemption, but many, (most?) are far beyond saving.
Hi Corey,
I can see what sort of game you want to play. The good-guys are good-guys and (usually) act accordingly. That's fair enough. That's the sort of game I prefer as player and DM.
You need to get your players to think about the sort of game they want - and come to a compromise if that's necessary.
I suggest you speak to all of your players as a group with the attitude that they are not doing anything wrong, but are they sure this is the sort of game they all want to play? Do they want to have the sort of game where PCs steal from each other? Do they want to have the sort of game where PCs make decisions based on expediency rather than what is "right"?
Leaving aside alignment considerations for a moment - what sort of game do you ALL want to play and can you reach an agreement about that?
If your rogue/thief has a character driven story-arc is mind for his PC which explains his stealing, and if you and the rest of your players are happy to indulge that then fine. Likewise for your other dilemmas.
I suggest you develop an idea of what you are all hoping to get from the game character-wise, and outline a simple social contract based on that so that everyone is on more-or-less the same page, before you start looking at IC consequences and warnings :-)
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I'm not sure I agree with your method of "calling out" your players' actions.
By imposing your morality on the game, you're force-feeding the players a doctrine of "here's how I want the game to be played cause I'm the DM." Rather than confront them with the "evil" and error of their ways, sit back and analyze their actions.
Rogue: he ripped the party off in-character, and your players will resolve this if it continues. Maybe he is playing a thief. In early editions, thieves gained bonus XP for grabbing more loot. Why does your NPC care so much about the loot (or you)? Rather than confront the stealer, maybe your NPC brings his concerns to the rest of the party, and they will take, or not take, action as they see fit. In this case, let your players resolve the matter.
Dwarf: First, this is partially your house-rule fault by allowing mundane enemies to go "down and dying" so that your enemies are still a threat even when knocked out because your cleric might revive them whlie trying to save the party's butts. If the foes had surrendered and were executed, might be a different matter, but that's not the case.
Second, you're forcing YOUR morality on a fine-line issue. It's ok to brutally slaughter your enemy in battle if you happen to crit enough to drop them below the negative CON score, but not to coup de grace them? We're talking a fantasy realm, a world of conflict, and self-imposed justice like cutting the hand off a thief isn't uncommon.
I'd do away with your house-rule. I'd also avoid having "dreams" or mystery NPCs lecture your party on how they should play their characters. If you persist, you'll have players handing you their character sheets and telling you to play the character since obviously they're doing it wrongly.
On the sunny side of things, when the party does something heroic, reward them with the praise of the people. Have them see some kids pretending to be one of the heroes, re-enacting some great scene. Let the local patrons at the bar ask about their story and buy them a round when they like what they hear.
Partially your house-rule fault by allowing mundane enemies to go "down and dying" so that your enemies are still a threat even when knocked out because your cleric might revive them whlie trying to save the party's butts. If the foes had surrendered and were executed, might be a different matter, but that's not the case.
Sorry for the Derail
This is a house rule? where in the books does it say once an enemy is droped below 1 they cant be healed and get back up, Cause if we have been misplaying this I want to fix it.
The elven rogue is blatantly stealing from the party. In the leader's room the PCs found some chests and the rogue happened to be the first one too open them. He decided to try to pocket some of the gems and coin instead and only shared the larger treasure that would have been difficult to hide. Since he stated this at the table in front of the entire party, they all know out of character and are trying to screw him over in response. In addition, one of the characters did spot his actions and confronted him, but he hasn't fessed up to it. Finally, the characters will know that its fishy that the chests were so empty, so it seems like his theft is too obvious. In character he has not RPed his this level of greediness and I find it frustrating that rogue=theif. And a bad one at that.
Since the PCs were supposed to be defeating a group of thieves and bandits, I think the NPC that sent them on the quest will take the rogue aside and talk to him about the situation, if I do it in character. He won't accuse the rogue, but will state that he thinks its strange that the thieves stole so many gems and jewelry and none of it was recovered. He will also say that he had hoped they were going to be able to return some of it and build some good will. If deal with it out of character, I probably will just tell him that he is pissing everyone off, though I might try to be more diplomatic about it. Any advice for which route to take, and if it is in character, any advice for what the NPC says?
If the other players are visibly annoyed at the rogue, I would talk to the player out of character. No one should infringe on other players enjoyment of the game just because they want to be a 'theif'. Using your characters abilities against the party is a big issue for me. I would label this akin to the party fighter stepping aside and allowing bad guys to walk right up to the wizard and smack him, or the party wizard refusing to buff a specific player. A certain measure of cooperation should be expected in a rpg, and the distribution of wealth can be a touchy one, so I always recommend Out of Character solutions to how it should be handled.
The second problem is that the elven rogue and dwarven fighter are on the fast track from NG to CE and don't admit it, and dragging both clerics with them. During one battle the PCs had defeated a number of teiflings, but were still fighting the boss. I have decided to play NPCs/monsters the same way as PCs, and still allow them to not die until – Con score. The cleric used his positive energy to heal the party, and woke up one of the tieflings. Before the tiefling had a chance to respond, he was slaughtered. Fine, no problem. But then the rogue (supported by the dwarf, though he was otherwise occupied) methodically slaughtered the rest of the tieflings so they couldn't get healed. Ok, it was battle and they needed to be able to use healing. I can understand it. In a separate, later battle, the PCs had defeated all of the tieflings and were trying to make plans for the rest of the area. The clerics were out of healing spells and only had the surges available. To expedite the healing, the dwarf slaughtered the teiflings so that they wouldn't be healed by the cleric. He also justified the deaths as preventing the tieflings from doing any more evil. This was after the party had defeated the leader and knew that they had accomplished their immediate goal. The dwarf did allow two tieflings to live, but chopped off the hand of one as punishment for stealing. An NPC advised him not to chop off all their hands, as it would probably just encourage retribution or make enemies. The cleric of Iomadae did “object,” but it was half-hearted and he said he didn't want to slow things down with an argument. The cleric of Cayden actively participated with the dwarf.
The only kind of character this might be an issue with is a paladin, or the cleric of iomede. I think you are trying to impose your own moral compass on the players. Slaying fallen enemies may be a touchy subject, but i dont think partys should always have to choose between 'let them go' or 'take them prisoner'. Its just not practical. And I as a player have seen alot of times where letting an enemy go come back to haunt the party (sometimes literally). So often if a enemy is alive but down, i will finish them unless there is a relatively convenient way to take them into custody (such as cooperative town guard in an urban setting). Your players dont have this option, so leaving enemies behind always means leaving potential dangers behind.
I don't have a problem with the PCs being evil, or with them killing the creatures they face. I do have issues with them trying to pass off this style of slaughter as a good action, and it doesn't jive with the two good clerics' ideals. I am thinking of a series of one-on-one encounters for most of the party to deal with this in-character.
Are you sure it doesnt jive with their ideals? Or is it that it doesnt jive with what you believe their ideals should be?
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Sorry for the Derail
This is a house rule? where in the books does it say once an enemy is droped below 1 they cant be healed and get back up, Cause if we have been misplaying this I want to fix it.
The rules back up your style but are contradicted by the spirit of older editions. In 1st/2nd edition, when one hit "0" health they were dead. This led to the "stabilization" rule for players only since players were biting the bullet often without it. A "hero" was supposed to be able to hang on, cling to life against impossible odds.
However, the way Pathfinder and 3rd edition are written, it would appear one must make stabilization checks for each and every enemy, tracking negative hit points for each, an extreme chore that defeats the entire reason the stabilization rule was created: to save the player character.
There was a brief discussion about this on another thread:
So, admittedly, it's more of a house-rule from my old-school perspective, but from RAW, it's to be played as you've been doing it. I'm just not keen on keeping track of 20 goblins' stabilization chances and thus only apply the rule to BBEGs with character levels.
Still, I'd do away with it, if only to avoid having my players end each fight with "I go around and slit everyone's throat to make sure they're dead."
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Much of the alignment issue has been caused because the OP said he decided to treat NPCs/monsters like PCs and use the -CON rule. I understand that some people think it is "fair" to treat PCs and NPC the same but NPC adversaries are put into the game by the GM to be defeated anyway so dead bad guys don't break the game. However, unconscious bad guys have forced the PCs to make difficult choices.
If the enemies had died rather than been unconscious then the clerics would have been able to channel without fear of reviving enemies. And the party wouldn't have been put into a situation where they may not be able to get healing unless they slit the throat of every bad guy during a battle.
And then there's the problem of what to do with unconscious bad guys after a fight is done. Not a big deal if you're close to a town but what if you're three weeks out of town in the third level of the hidden underground temple? Tying the bad guys up and leaving them to starve to death is almost worse than just killing them but at the same time the party can't drag tied up enemies everywhere they go until they get to town.
My suggestion is to just off the bad guys at 0 hit points and be done with them... they were meant to be defeated anyway. If the party wants to keep someone alive they can use the subdual rules and deal with the consequences. Otherwise, this problem with killing unconscious bad guys will come up a lot (possibly every fight).