The Paladin attacked neutral sentient beings while asleep and, so it would appear, without provocation.
Evil? Arguably.
A Dishonourbale violation of the Paladin's Code that results in the loss of power and requires atonemnent before they are regained? Beyond any doubt.
I disagree. *speeds off*
The wyverns may actually have been good aligned and willing to protect nearby villages. So, yes it is VERY evil and dishonorable. The paladin should have found out for sure about the wyverns before assaulting the wyverns.I think it's fair to have players respond to 'monsters' per their write up or general reputation (ravenous, territorial, poisonous monster). Yes, there might be that one in a million 'good' wyvern that only eats deer and feels bad about it. Do you risk the lives of your friends on a one in a million chance?
A paladin can go to war with his rightful liege, on a 'legitimate' war (let's call it a defensive battle vs. an invading force) and STILL he'll probably end up fighting non-evil people, as well as some genuinely 'good' folks - whom he'll probably kill, because it's war, they're the enemy, and life sucks that way. Do you take away his paladin powers because of it? No, of course not.
Yes. You do.
You must unflinchingly never compromise.
As a paladin in this situation I would let the entire enemy army know that I will not cut them down if they do not try to cut me down first and that it is their choice to join the battle, and if they do not want to die, they should leave. I would allow them all that. If they wish to join the battle, that is on their terms.
I would attempt to discern the reason behind the battle and attempt to make peace. I would try to dissuade the conflict from ever happening and for everyone to go home happy.
Assuming that fails? For my king and country, I would go into battle and willingly lose my paladin powers if it meant keeping others safe. Because sometimes you can still be the paladin without being a paladin. After exhausting every possible angle, you still have a duty to protect people whether the actions you are taking are right or wrong.
And then, after the battle, I would seek an atonement for the killing I had done. Because even if I killed a thousand, no, a million evil people, a single good son's corpse on the battlefield completely invalidates everything I have done.
Never compromise.
EDIT: Paladins are not pragmatists. A paladin is the person who chooses the third option.
Which is to say, when the villain is holding his girlfriend and the car full of people and throws both, the paladin will save both of them. He will not abandon one to death and later explain his reasoning. He would rather die than see one of these people hurt, so he's going to save both of them even if it means he dies.
I would even go so far as to say that paladins should only kill evil people. Chances to surrender should always be allowed and abided by, even if your enemy is a genocidal maniac.
The problems come up when, of course, the paladin is forced to party with four CN individuals who constantly challenge his ideals. And that's why, in real life tabletop games, paladins almost never act like paladins. Because, eventually, the GM gets tired of the paladin telling everyone else that he can't sneak up through the backdoor because it's against his personal code and you have to go along with it so that you don't waste more game time.
Alignment = PFphb page 166 good vs evil = Good = Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good character make personal sacrifices to help others.
If you choose good for your character then.
Protect Innocent life.
You have respect for life.
Concern for the dignity of sentient beings.
Will make personal sacrifices to help others.
If you select a good alignment, these things, based on the alignment system listed in the players hand book, you well be judge against.
Now if you do not want to play your paladin this way, fine. If you do not want to play your cleric or rogue this way, also fine.
BUT = I would shift your alignment to neutral if your in my game. As GM.
As a player i never choose LG. I never play paladin because of there alignment. Not because i do not respect them, but because it is very hard to do the right thing, and i am too lazy.
I like clearing out dungeons, i like looting every dead body i come across in a dungeon, i would rather kill the dragon in its sleep, then again i also like looting every commoner and house i run across. This is way i play Neutral Alignment characters.
The other alignment i usually play is Neutral Good Priest. When i play that i do my best to do the right thing, and uphold that list of values listed in the PHB. Sometimes i do a good job, Sometime i have had a GM call me on being to greedy. When that happens, i change the way i play to better fit my character within his alignment. Thats the challenge of being good, to be good.
Hey guys, thanks for all the thoughtful replies on BOTH sides of the argument.
I did give this paladin a list of things not to do, including attacking sentient beings while they are asleep and being honorable in his way of combat. Not killing innocents or being the cause that innocents die (like the unborn hatchlings) The only reason he is allowed the use of a bow, is cause erastil uses a bow as his favoured weapon.
In the past he has botched many encounters and near started a war with a tribe that the party just signed a treaty of non-aggression (thereby saving multiple villages of raids/getting attacked). And in one occasion he even managed to kill his allies mount which was under his care because he attacked people that the party was helping(the ally was a cavalier based on horseback riding combat, so he was uber pissed off).
After reading all the comments, I am sticking to my guns, and the paladin requires an atonement spell although he doesn't need to do anything further like take care of the hatchlings, and he is going to get a phylactory of faithfulness so that he can straight up ask me if something is evil/unlawful/ or cowardly/unbecoming of a knight.
Again thank you for all the comments/opinions.
Sounds like a good plan. After all of that, I might consider allowing the "Paladin" to go Fighter/Cleric, or even Ranger. He doesn't sound like much of a Paladin type =/. Not everyone can play a Paladin(self included); it requires a high level of restraint and, in a mixed-alignment party, a willingness to disengage from the game for a while and look the other way.
What is the role of your PC's: monster-slaying, treasure-hunting, hapless villagers-protecting adventurers, or pro-monster zoologists? IMO wyverns in this context are as much a threat to the PC's as if they were going to pass by a sleeping T-Rex inside it's habitat in Jurassic Park. I wonder if it would simply yawn and say "oh it's just you, hello" and lie down again to get back to sleep if a wyvern were to wake up when the PCS were trying to sneak past it...
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No. I wouldn't constitute it as evil. The wyvern is a predatory animal and those creatures would kill the party. It would be no different than killing a huge quantity of fire ants or rattlesnakes before you went into a cave.
Except that rattlesnakes and fire ants don't have an intelligence of 7 and speak Draconic.
These are sentient creatures -- not animals. Read the stat block for Wyvern.
killing innocents(which those wyverns definitely were at the time of being attacked) is an evil act
Let it be known that Paladins are no longer allowed to eat meat :d, Unless of course it's the meat of an evil animal.
MordredofFairy, you keep expecting the Paladin to play up to your standards, which honestly are the standards some people play the stereotypical druid by. The player shouldn't be expected to play by the lawful stupid stereo-typical Paladin either. It's not evil to kill for food nor is it evil to kill when there is the fear of a threat.
A Paladin is not the paradigm of mercy, a paladin is the paradigm of Justice. Doing what is right by his or her virtues. This often means slaying those that are evil and monstrous. That's why Paladins have a full BAB and a proficiency in all martial weapons.
The fact that this was a Paladin of Erastil means that hunting is within his right. Why shouldn't a Paladin of Erastil hunt a threatening monster?
The more I think about it the more I question the OP's decision. The problem isn't really whether it was sleeping or neutral or even had a higher than average intelligence. The problem is that the player was being perceptive and effectively taking out challenges the DM set up. I'm not trying to be offensive, but I feel the DM here isn't effectively playing to his player's strengths, which is effective planning. Instead it seems like the DM is just trying to find a reason to punish the Paladin for being cunning (though I understand that it can be frustrating to have a player foil your encounters). What the DM should do is set up some subtle red herring that looks like a good idea and then twist it on the players.
EDIT: Though the whole sentient thing is a good reason to pull his powers, which he might have not realized that they were sentient creatures and can atone for it.
Also the claims of metagaming are unfair, the player did give appropriate in game responses to his actions while keeping to knowledge that his character would know. Slaying the threatening monsters that would kill his entire party in the near future hardly takes out of character knowledge or assumptions. In fact to know that the creatures are not dangerous takes more out of game knowledge and thus more metagaming to do otherwise.
killing innocents(which those wyverns definitely were at the time of being attacked) is an evil act
...Wyverns are not animals. They have human-like intelligence and speak.
Just because they are not animals does not mean that they are innocent. Apparently, you run a world in which wyverns are not monsters. That's fine, but I'm guessing that most people run games in which they are monsters. Thus most of this thread is just grating drone, rather than productive discussion. If wyverns are not monsters, then the paladin is in trouble. If they are, then the paladin needs rewarding.
As far as GMing goes, I'm betting the player is making assumptions closer to the more common assumption, and in that case, you owe the player more than you owe your idea of wyverns--work out a solution that is fun, doesn't punish the player, and communicates your vision of the world, whether that solution is in-game, out-of-game, or some combination of the two.
I saw a little film some while ago, called Collateral murder. It showed the reasoning of an apache crew in Iraq. They were circling an area, watching it, and the crew sees two men walking down a street. One of these men is carrying something looking like a large backpack. Actually, it was a large camera bag. The guy was a CNN reporter. However, the hel crew decides it might be a RPG launcher, so they request permission to fire, and recieve it quickly enough. They fire, and two seconds later, the entire area is riddled with bullet holes. The two men fall down. Some people in the vicinity try to get the fallen people into a car, and the heli crew fire again. A good quote is "Look at all those dead bastards". However, the car contained children, and the crew saw this before firing on the car. Nothing in the comments by the heli crew give any hint that this might be behaviour out of the ordinary.
So how about it? Killing because something MIGHT be dangerous, is that okay? Killing children because someone tried to get your targets to a doctor, is that okay?
There is a reason you're probably right when you say being a soldier is in no way doing good. And, yes, the things they have had to do are the things that torture them when they go back home. Live in your "war is noble and just" if you want. It's just not likely people will agree with you about it.
ESPECIALLY because he is a paladin of erastil.If he kills and takes the spoils, for rations, thats perfectly fine.
If he kills for sport, thats not.
We are talking about a sentient being that was killed in it's sleep because the paladin decided it may eventually, under the right circumstances, prove to be a threat later.
He's not supposed to be lawful stupid, my standards are only that he doesn't default to the bloodiest approach possible. Which in this case, was done. No deliberation, no alternatives, kill on sight.All aside: If a Paladin knowingly out of his free choice, without need, ate the meat of another, innocent, non-evil sentient being, possibly killed for his eating pleasure, i'd be more than inclined to rule thats an evil act.
Just because it's not technically cannibalism doesn't make hunting elven children and roasting them slowly over open fire any better.
Wyverns are not animals. They have human-like intelligence and speak.
Vanquishing dangerous monsters from the land is part of the Paladin of Erastil's duty. This paladin had stated that he was killing off said 'dangerous monster'. Regardless of whether or not these specific wyverns might have been different, their species is generally regarded as dangerous. As far as being negotiable creatures, their species only negotiates or runs when they are dying and know they can't kill their opponent.
Everytime you try to argue that they were sentient, it just grates at the situation; how do you know that the deer you are hunting wasn't awoken? Int should never be a factor when determining whether or not you can take the life of something. The intelligence is something that would require a knowledge check.
Besides, that would also mean that any creature that kills a human should probably be evil, so all that nature you're trying to protect, it must be evil going around attacking innocent humans.
Instead of comparing Wyverns to a sleeping barbarians, compare them to sleeping bears, another dangerous creature. How would Erastil feel if you slayed them? Are you hunting them? Alright. If not, Erastil might have a problem with your lack of honor. Killing them because they seem like a threat in the cave you're going in, while not evil isn't very honorable.
The issue was that the Paladin was seeing the Wyvern's closer to monsters, while the DM saw them closer to the part of the nature. The DM didn't exactly clear it up and I'm not sure if he warned the player, but the player made a mistake, so I actually can see the paladin losing his powers temporarely as a fair judgement. However I feel the DM may have done the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. It's a very touchy matter here. Perhaps a binding or something of that sort should have been present instead of an outright killing.
Face it, in the mentality of most fantasy, wyverns are dangerous dragons and it's usually honorable to slay one.
Wyverns are mentioned in Dante's Inferno (Canto XVII) as the body for one of his creatures in hell.
So, tough call.
I'd have to say I'm more in line with Mordred on this one. Too often I have seen many a player "justify" their actions in-character for the rewards they wanted out of character (loot/xp).
"It would have attacked us"
Really? You use your ESP to determine it's intended actions?
"They are evil"
But you didn't detect on it, and didn't succeed in the knowledge to know whether they typically/usually are or not.
"I follow the God of Hunting"
Oh, didn't realize your intent was to provide meat and skins for survival
I can come up with a few innocent reasons why they may be situated so close to the tomb.
It's a region far enough from society that the hunting is good (undead mostly don't eat) so no local competition.
For some reason, of which they don't care, there's a fair amount of free meat that gets dumped from that nearby cave (failed adventurers, spoils of the kills the tomb discards, etc) I don't need to range far to hunt and feed my young.
Was the DM at fault for saying hey you see Wyverns (traditional bad guy since way back), sure if he wanted moral dilemma he could have described them vaguely enough to warrant investigation. Do the Paladin's actions warrant automatic loss of power? I tend to not go straight for the kill as a DM, they do Evil I let them know, that it was and tell them that continuing in that method will be detrimental. I can also see another side of telling them there are Wyverns. Did the PC's arrive at the tomb on mounts? If so, and knowing anything about wyverns, it could have been the DM's subtle way of saying they might want to better situate their mounts for safety before they come out and find them eaten. Do you kill the wyverns to save your mounts then, or do you find a peaceful solution that let's sleeping wyverns lie? Maybe find a safe place to keep them til you return.
Paladins have been (IIRC in my 20+ yrs of D&D) a stick in the mud to the party that gets inflated powers both because the scores required to make one and the strict and unforgiving code they must follow. I love playing paladins just for the fact that it causes very involved in character discussions of taking the hard right over resorting to the easy wrong. I've gone so far as to have been playing multiple toons in one game, one a rogue, and the other a pally and argue with, well, myself over the actions the group was planning on taking. It was the high price of getting all the pally had to offer. Sure if the standards are lower to become one, and their powers more on par with other characters, I can see where people can not see the payoff for having to follow such a bright and righteous path and therefore use it more as a guideline than a strict adhereance to a set of rules. But the main idea with paladin from way back was always the "convert or die" mentality. Yes they killed things and justified it as the greater good, but the first option was "convert", then if that was not possible, it was followed by "die".
In this particular situation, I as a paladin, would have approached the creatures and warned them that though we intended no harm to befall them, if they hindered our attempts they would most likely be dealt with in a means unfavorable to both parties. If they, would even go so far as be cooperative, a mutual agreemant could be reached that works to everyones benefit.
I just stopped playing (scheduling issues) a 3.5 campaign where I was indeed the Paladin/Cleric of the god of healing. Did I avoid combat, not always, mostly I used party buffs to ensure the well-being of my companions. At most times I was a pain in the butt for the group because of my standards that I expected from them. Did the players dislike me for it no, did their toons, quite often. Our last session (in an anti-drow war style campaign) we saw a single drow watching us from atop the hill. The ranger (the most violent of the group) with a favored enemy drow, asked me if we were in kill mode. I told him to shoot to hinder, not to kill, as a scout could be a valuable source of info for us if he didn't get away. The ranger instead went for the kill shot, my paladin was forced to ride close enough to warn the drow that if he surrendered I could protect him from my allies. He refused. Ranger shot again, Drow fireballed our pack beasts and warned us, I moved closer to detect evil, since he chose to target them and not us. Chasing him led us to a larger drow force, that were looking for him as an outlaw. My pally offered him sanctuary if he were to submit, he again refused, we rode away without him and from the vastly more powerful army after him. Was any of it lawful stupid? Or not pragmatic? Not at all, having more allies will always be safer than having more enemies. Was it righteous, fair, considerate, heck even tactically sound having a enemy on my side, indeed. All withoput promoting bloodshed. All the while using my spells and abilities to buff/heal the party, and fight the drow force that had attacked us first. To top it all off, even when most of my party had left the field, my Paldain was the last to leave, again not stupid but in line with the code that if my life be forfeit so that my allies can live, then so be it. Was I doing it recklessly, of course not, AC buffs on, Total defense, taking cover. Chivalry and honor do not = stupid.
Above just LG, Paladins are expected to adhere to a higher standard than even any regular LG character. Because not only do they have the belief of their alignment to follow, they have their code on top of that, making them the goodliest of the good characters. As such they are held to the highest expectations. I hold the firm belief that LG is the most challenging alignment to role-play, and a paladin, multiplies that difficulty. I play pallys because I love that challenge, and I will take a role-playing challenge over a combat challenge any day. Too many people seem to me to only be seeing a paladin for his powers, and justify away the rationale behind so many of their actions, so that they can try and avoid the actual challenge involved and still get the benefits.
Sorry for the length, I find I ramble when I have a strong opinion about something.
The party is about to enter a tomb in between two cliffs roughly around 200 ft apart. On the opposite side of the tomb, the party notices a pair of sleeping wyverns.
The paladin (Paladin of erastil) says "lets kill the wyverns before we enter the tomb" (he also said out of character that the wyverns are going to attack the party so it's best to kill em before they kill the party and was metagaming).
The party pulls out it's bows and wakes up the wyverns, kills one of the wyverns. And the other one runs away because she was mortally wounded.
I told the paladin that he lost his powers cause he committed an evil act by acting a sleeping sentient being that was not evil. And I told him that he essentially killed 3 wyverns as the pair had a nest and that the one wyvern wouldn't be able to properly hunt and feed her litter of wyverns (2).
His argument was that they were monster and needed to be purged from the land.
So my question is that is what he did an evil act in killing the wyverns while they are asleep. At the very least the action is cowardly, as paladins' should not attack sleeping foes.
Hmm Lets see.
Wyvern, dangerous monster. Paladin Monster killer.
Sleeping monster or wake it up and kill it. Hmmm Are we being cowardly or using our brains and fighting intelligently.
I play Paladins all the time and honestly I do not see a thing wrong with it.
It might be different if it was a sleeping guard.
Yes. You do.
You must unflinchingly never compromise.
Paladins compromise ALL THE TIME. Part of being good is a willingness to compromise. If a paladin is always "It's my way or the highway.", no-one has any business playing one in a game of D&D.
I think what you mean is that Paladins should do things that are right, not convenient. Killing the wyvern was convenient for certain, and whether or not it was right really depends on how the GM has them function. The write-up of the wyvern is basically that of an evil creature, never mind the "N" in the alignment column.
As a paladin in this situation I would let the entire enemy army know that I will not cut them down if they do not try to cut me down first and that it is their choice to join the battle,
He's facing an army. By default, a lot of the people there aren't there because they're willing. Many of them will be conscripts. They will be told to attack the enemy, and they will be cut down by their superiors if they fail to do so. He will be attacked by neutral and possibly even good people, and have to defend himself.
I would attempt to discern the reason behind the battle and attempt to make peace. I would try to dissuade the conflict from ever happening and for everyone to go home happy.
Yeah, okay. It's usually to late for this when the invasion has already started.
Assuming that fails? For my king and country, I would go into battle and willingly lose my paladin powers if it meant keeping others safe. Because sometimes you can still be the paladin without being a paladin. After exhausting every possible angle, you still have a duty to protect people whether the actions you are taking are right or wrong.
No, here's what the paladin does. He makes sure that his side is in the RIGHT (if he cannot, he stays out of the war and sucks the consequences - or joins the other side if they are in the right). Once he is sure of that, the other side is in the WRONG. So while there may be good people in that army, they are in the service of EVIL. It is sad that they lack the courage to rise up against the injustice that they are serving, but that is THEIR FAILURE.
Certainly, he exhorts the enemy to abandon their misguided ways as he fights them. He accepts their surrender where possible. He'll bind the wounds of the fallen after the fact and treat them with respect and mercy. But in the end, he'll have the blood of a few non-evil people on his sword, but he'll have been justified in every regard, still a proper paladin.
I don't understand why people want to hold the paladin to literally impossible standards. Maybe way back in 1st edition when they were super-powered they might have deserved the treatment, but nowadays they're just another character choice, one that comes with a code of ethics. Yes, hold them to a standard, one that makes them 'the good guy', but let them function in the world they live in, at least! Paladins shouldn't be held any more strictly to a code than a cleric would.
By the write-up, Wyverns are menaces. The kill indiscriminately for food. That might be understandable for animals, but wyverns aren't animals. They are capable of discerning right from wrong but don't care. I don't know how they rate being Neutral. They're pretty much brand-name CE.
I saw a little film some while ago, called Collateral murder. It showed the reasoning of an apache crew in Iraq. They were circling an area, watching it, and the crew sees two men walking down a street. One of these men is carrying something looking like a large backpack. Actually, it was a large camera bag. The guy was a CNN reporter. However, the hel crew decides it might be a RPG launcher, so they request permission to fire, and recieve it quickly enough. They fire, and two seconds later, the entire area is riddled with bullet holes. The two men fall down. Some people in the vicinity try to get the fallen people into a car, and the heli crew fire again. A good quote is "Look at all those dead bastards". However, the car contained children, and the crew saw this before firing on the car. Nothing in the comments by the heli crew give any hint that this might be behaviour out of the ordinary.
So how about it? Killing because something MIGHT be dangerous, is that okay? Killing children because someone tried to get your targets to a doctor, is that okay?
There is a reason you're probably right when you say being a soldier is in no way doing good. And, yes, the things they have had to do are the things that torture them when they go back home. Live in your "war is noble and just" if you want. It's just not likely people will agree with you about it.
This goes under the category of "warzone" and what was done was about the same as fragging an old scribe with a pencil because it looks like a wizard with a wand.
In the confusion of a mass battle, it's also very possible the paladin might stabinate someone who in 20/20 hindsight he was there to rescue.
That all said, a nest of sleeping wyverns is something you'd have time to study, check your Audobon Society Guide to winged monsters, refocus your binoculars a few times, and conclude that, barring polymorphing and illusions, these appear to be genuine wyverns, and if they follow standard wyvern behavior, they'll attack as soon as their woken up, and even if you somehow get them to agree to let you pass peacefully into the tomb, there's every chance they'll try to steal your shiny grot from you when you come out in a weakened condition.
Unless your world has a long history of cheerful friendly wyverns who are just like big dumb kids with carnivorous jaws and poison stingers, who can be led away from bad influences by kindly wizards, bards with a specialty in gang intervention, and witches who fancy themselves social workers, I'd say it's simply a bad day to be from a race of bad-tempered bullying monsters who were not labeled "evil" either as a typographical error or else an editorial decision reserving "evil" alignments for undead, demons, devils, and other creatures who actively seek to kiss the tootsies of the dark gods rather than just tending to be thugs and bullies.
Frankly, however, I think that the whole Phylactery of Faithfulness is an item that's completely unnecessary if you have a good line of communication between the GM and the player.
In my current game, there's one player playing a paladin. He's asked if various things radiate evil, including things like murder weapons. My answer? Generally no. They may pick up a shadowy aspect if they get haunted because of being associated with a death, but generally speaking, wickedness only inheres in things like bonded items of terribly evil wizards whether or not they physically bludgeoned innocents to death with their staff or just fondled it a lot while casting spells to cause misery and suffering.
Other people's worlds can be completely different. You can be tainted with evil from eating a bad zucchini, at least if you follow the rules in the 3.5 Heroes of Horror, and these are perfectly fine rules if that's what you want--though as before, I think that paladin players should have the moral cosmology of your world explained to them in clear and certain terms.
IMHO, Erastil is an old-fashioned god who doesn't consider monsters people unless they do some pretty amazing things in respect to Law and Good. Mengkare, the great gold dragon of Hermea? Erastil probably would say something like "A credit to his race" with all the assorted baggage that would come with that statement.
I think Erastil would think that killing a couple savage wyverns would be just fine, but then tell the paladin to adopt any chick or egg and raise it up to be his noble steed, with as much patronizing "white man's burden" language as you can translate to "humanoid's burden" (not quite counting the orcs either, except those that are a "credit to their race") and shoehorn in without having 21st century players revolt.
Other GMs are fine to play Erastil differently, but they need to be very clear with their paladin players as to what Old Deadeye considers appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
It wasn't the confusion of a mass battle. It was a "normal" afternoon in Baghdad. The helicopter crew shot a number of people dead because someone was carrying something that was big enough that it COULD contain a weapon that could be dangerous to the helicopter. They killed not only the person in question, but several others as well. If this was something exceptional to the soldiers, they wouldn't have been joking about it, or been as calm as they were.
Thing is, according to all the people here who have said that "the paladin needed to neutralize the danger of the wyverns so that they wouldn't need to take chances with their friends' lives", what the helicopter crew did was not only acceptable, but admirable.
That kind of reasoning makes me sick. See the movie if you need to see the consequences of it.
If you aren't willing to risk your own life, then what the hell are you doing away from your cabbage patch, commoner? If you aren't willing to fight to make things better, to take the moral high ground, then why fight at all? If you're so scared of having bad things happen to your adventurer friends, then why aren't you discussing your sheep farming with sheep farmer friends at the local pub instead of signing up to explore ancient ruins?
It's a game. The DM should do his job, and some part of you need to trust the DM as you play, for example, that you as a paladin will not by necessity have to act against your code to survive. If you are playing with a "killer DM" who gets off on putting a paladin character in impossible situations, then take my advice: Lay off the paladins. Perhaps a fighter or rogue could be fun, and without all this pesky morality stuff?
Oh, and if you're a paladin, you follow the paladin code. If your deity doesn't like that code, and allows for lots of things the code doesn't condone, it's a deity that likely has no paladins. I wouldn't expect to see many paladins of Norgorber, for example. Would you?
Sure is PETA in here.
Killing a monster does not equal killing a commoner. Yes, they are both intelligent non-evil beings, but only one of them raid farms and feast on little Tommy's entrails.
If the wyvern is a threat, you kill it. Your duty is not to pussy-foot like some rabid vegan protester, claiming that a monster's life holds equal value to that of a human. A paladin is not only supposed to defeat evil, he is supposed to protect GOOD, also from neutral monsters. Even if the flying draconic menace doesn't cackle gleefully like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, it is still a threat to all the people who CAN'T defend themselves against it, and thus your duty to defeat it (doubly so when said paladin serves the patron god of farmers and hunters, who rely on being able to travel in the local wilds).
The only reason I would even give the paladin a "You feel queasy inside for killing them" is if said tomb was 500 miles away from ANY human settlements, and the wyverns would NEVER cause harm. But from the original post, it seems that the paladin in question would get that for not offering prayers for the dead veggies that make up his dinner.
Casting sleep, hold or whatever, and killing something is a valid tactic to gain advantage. It's the same reason SWAT dump gas in through the windows of armed and dangerous criminals, instead of going in for a "fight fair". There is a reason such paladin-players get mocked as Lawful Stupid.
Also: 200 feet away. Unless the paladin has a spyglass/+10 or more in perception, enough ranks in knowledge (Arcana) to identify the species of dragon, and so on, look at what he sees: Two dragons (members of the big 3 in terms of smiting) within striking range should they wake up, overlooking the ONLY spot we might have to retreat to should the tomb prove too difficult to do in one run.
Edit: Also, I kinda call BS on the whole Wyverns being neutral thing. From the bestiary: "Wyverns are nasty, brutish, and violent reptilian beasts akin to more powerful dragons. They are always aggressive and impatient, and are quick to resort to force in order to accomplish their goals." Something that is smart enough to qualify as sentient, yet still behaves this way deserves to be made CE in my book.
While I regard the killing of the wyverns to be a grey area, not necessarily an evil act but borderline on the justifiable side also, if you read to see the paladin in question's other acts as posted above, you will see he does this kind of 'grey area' thing a lot and is generally careless with the lives of his friends and always takes the most convenient path.
As evil is never so easy to do as when it is convenient, he's definitely on a slippery slope and needs a reminder.
No. I wouldn't constitute it as evil. The wyvern is a predatory animal and those creatures would kill the party. It would be no different than killing a huge quantity of fire ants or rattlesnakes before you went into a cave.Except that rattlesnakes and fire ants don't have an intelligence of 7 and speak Draconic.
These are sentient creatures -- not animals. Read the stat block for Wyvern.
Heh, like the player should have?
I don't even think I'll restate it, and instead just quote Cartigan's post:
"Metagaming would be 'Those are Wyverns and they are intelligent so we shouldn't sneak up on them while they are sleeping and bash their brains in so they don't kill us in a protracted fight."
You know, the argument of everyone agreeing it was an evil act."
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There's no reason for a person who doesn't know what he's looking at to think that the things are in any way a sentient neutral creature, and not just an animal.
A Paladin seeing a crocodile for the first time in his Mwangi adventure would apply the same reasoned logic: It looks like it will kill us for food, and we are going to disrupt it and force a confrontation. Fire arrows at it until they are dead or driven off!
I understand this player has been a dick in the past, and it may be appropriate to lay down punishment for repeated acts of negligence (depending.. people can be Good aligned but still a-holes).
However, like has been repeatedly stated, he has to willingly commit an evil act.. and quite frankly, unless someone told him he was killing sentient neutral creatures in their sleep and he went ahead anyways, how the heck was he to know? There's a very strong case for treating this the same as firing arrows at a crocodile sleeping at the entrance to the cave you need to get through, in the hopes of killing it so it won't kill you, as you go about doing your good deed.
A Paladin's abilities aren't so fragile as this.. he has to WANT to do evil... that's what shatters his link to his powers, is his unwavering attitude wavered. If the information he has tells him he is doing a good act, then his conviction hasn't wavered, has it.
Should he have fallen prior to this? Maybe, depending on the severity (and depending on whether he was just being a jerk, and not actually negligently evil).
Should this decision have done it? No. Because it fosters a "read my mind, slaves" style of DM vs Players.
I know that's not what you wanted to portray, but that's exactly how it comes across. The player obviously saw the situation differently from you, but because you think he should have known how you looked at it, he should have acted differently.
Taken in a vacuum, this situation feels like you punished the player for NOT metagaming.
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The GM also failed in this instance to properly describe the situation. Wyverns are huge, carnivourous fell beasts. Even if the group didn't KNOW that they were a menace to the land, the bones and various other signs of previous victims would almost certainly litter the area where they laired or slept.
That aside, the standard you're holding that paladin to is silly. To have to awaken and parley with every single creature to the point of losing every edge is moronic. A warning before crippling a character should be a NECESSITY. Some things are clear cut, but you can literally justify anything given enough time.
NO other class is held to the same scrutiny, and any other class could make the choice to do this killing with impugnity, paying no cost for killing the lawful good wyverns. Even a priest of Erastil (not a paladin) could get away with the "kill em before they wake" defense without losing his or her ability to cast spells (at least by the book). DM's could choose to do so of course, but thats an aside.
If you view this act as evil, what price did your good or neutral characters pay for their part in the deeds? Did you have a cleric present? Was it a cleric of a good god? Did that character pay a price for performing an act contrary to the beliefs of their diety? What about the groups rogue? Did his chaotic good alignment change to chaotic neutral because he'd committed such an EVIL act?
While I understand and agree that the paladin should hold himself to a more honorable standard, if you're doling out power loss for what is CLEARLY a grey issue, then you should hand them out across the board. Rangers used to have similar restrictions on alignment, why SHOULDN'T they lose their powers if the paladin did?
I too would have walked out of that game. Where is the fun if you have to play your character to a standard he or she doesn't even understand or have explained to them? It's a GAME, not a morality lesson.
No. I wouldn't constitute it as evil. The wyvern is a predatory animal and those creatures would kill the party. It would be no different than killing a huge quantity of fire ants or rattlesnakes before you went into a cave.Except that rattlesnakes and fire ants don't have an intelligence of 7 and speak Draconic.
These are sentient creatures -- not animals. Read the stat block for Wyvern.
Which should prevent them from being Neutral as an alignment.
And the ONLY people metagaming here are the people whining that "Wyverns are intelligent creatures and aren't Evil!"
How the hell would the Paladin know that? As far as your average Paladin would know, given how Wyverns act and how they would register on Detect Evil, they are just giant, flying, unintelligent lizards (ie, animals) that want to kill him.
Paladins should just outright avoid any combat situation, so as not to do something their god wouldn't approve of. Put everything into Charisma and Diplomacy.
call for new item: Paladin Sword, a fake sword that deals subdual damage.
I see that got quite a few of the "removing a threat, any threat, to anyone, is a noble act" crowd riled up. Let's take a look at the arguments presented:
* Shut up you whiny veggie-lover, monsters are monsters and deserve to die unless they could NEVER harm anyone EVER again, and besides, SWAT teams don't fight fair, why should paladins?
See above. Sounding like a pompous blowhard isn't giving your arguments any more strength. Calling people PETA doesn't either. And if you seriously think everyone that could EVER present a threat to anyone else should be put to death, please report to termination booth 314A on the double, citizen. Or prove that you will NEVER become a threat to anyone else. And if you think SWAT teams are made up of paragons of good and justice, maybe you should get some information that isn't patriotic american TV shows, eh?
* If it looks like a monster, it deserves to die.
Just because something is big, is it a monster? Would people in a fantasy world consider the same things monstrous? What if someone is covered in an illusion? More generally: Is it okay to murder someone just because of his race? I can see the argument for demons and devils and other flavours of supernatural evil, but this?
* A paladin needs to WANT to do evil and do it, otherwise his powers are safe.
So any paladin that manages to stay uneducated enough not to understand his own actions is safe from consequences? Besides, this is clearly quite false. A paladin loses his powers even from unwitting evil acts. However, if they were unwitting, he can atone for the deed, which is not the case if he knowingly commits an evil act.
* You want a paladin to wake up every creature he could fight beforehand, which is being Lawful Stupid.
I never said that. The best option is probably just leaving them alone. If you need to make a hasty retreat, that's another situation which will have to be dealt with then. And, if they're sleeping, it's a pretty good chance they'll be gone when the time comes. There are many alternatives here: You can take a chance with the entrance, you can find another exit, you can wait them out, you can deal with them when leaving. Handing over some treasure to get out wouldn't be such a bad deal, would it, compared to preemptive murder and loss of paladin powers? Don't tell me putting loot before acting properly as a paladin is also a gray area.
* Every one of the other good characters should also suffer if the paladin does.
No, being a paladin is an entirely different deal. They are champions of good, and examples of what people should strive to be. A cleric is the hand of a deity in the world, but a paladin is an inspiration and a representative. People trust paladins because they know a paladin does not do evil. Shaming that image is a serious offense to the deity, and should be.
* Every one of the other good characters should also suffer if the paladin does.
No, being a paladin is an entirely different deal. They are champions of good, and examples of what people should strive to be. A cleric is the hand of a deity in the world, but a paladin is an inspiration and a representative. People trust paladins because they know a paladin does not do evil. Shaming that image is a serious offense to the deity, and should be.
Yes, they should. Paladins only lose their powers if they willfully commit an Evil act. And if they committed an Evil act then THE REST OF THE PARTY committed the SAME Evil act at the same time and should have their alignment affected.
If coup-de-grace'ing sleeping Wyverns is evil, then the entire party committed an evil act, not just the Paladin. They may not lose any abilities - not yet, anyway, but it doesn't just magically not affect them.
I think you have to consider the other possibilities, depending on the party's knowledge of wyverns:
1) Talk to them. If they know wyverns are intelligent enough to talk to, and presumably therefore smart enough not to mess with a well-armed group of humanoids, they could be a source of information. They could discuss with the wyverns what they are doing and determine if they pose a threat or if they can be dealt with peacefully.
2) Scare them off. If the party think that wyverns are dumb beasts, they could as easily try using smoke, fire and loud noise to just scare them off, as you would with a pack of wolves.
3) Let sleeping dogs lie. In either circumstance, the party could have elected to simply bypass the encounter. If the wyverns are soundly asleep you can be assured they are the top predators in the area with nothing to fear.
All of these avoid the 'kill it because it might be a threat' option.
I think you have to consider the other possibilities, depending on the party's knowledge of wyverns:
1) Talk to them. If they know wyverns are intelligent enough to talk to, and presumably therefore smart enough not to mess with a well-armed group of humanoids, they could be a source of information. They could discuss with the wyverns what they are doing and determine if they pose a threat or if they can be dealt with peacefully.
2) Scare them off. If the party think that wyverns are dumb beasts, they could as easily try using smoke, fire and loud noise to just scare them off, as you would with a pack of wolves.
3) Let sleeping dogs lie. In either circumstance, the party could have elected to simply bypass the encounter. If the wyverns are soundly asleep you can be assured they are the top predators in the area with nothing to fear.
All of these avoid the 'kill it because it might be a threat' option.
But all of those are completely irrelevant to the point.
We aren't discussing alternative courses of actions. We are discussing whether or not coup-de-gracing creatures, and creatures that are presumably mindless animals to boot, is evil.
But all of those are completely irrelevant to the point.
We aren't discussing alternative courses of actions. We are discussing whether or not coup-de-gracing creatures, and creatures that are presumably mindless animals to boot, is evil.
To the contrary - consider that:
1) Killing sentient creatures is normally regarded as evil.
2) Killing in self defence or to protect others is justifiable.
3) When killing in self defence you are not morally obliged to let the other person hit your first - if you can feel threatened you can take pre-emptive retaliation.
4) Killing in self defence when you did not need to do so is under category 1, however: if somebody attacks you with an axe and the only way you can stop them is to kill them, that is justifiable. If a drunk in the bar swings a half-hearted punch, summarily decapitating him is using excessive force.
While we are not in a 21st century courtroom, the fundamental principals apply that context determines the morality or lack of it of the action. In order to assess what the party did, you must assess what the party could have reasonably attempted to do instead. Hence it is very relevant to consider their options, because killing is a justifiable option only when you have no reasonable alternatives to doing so.
I would say killing the sleeping wyverns is an evil act, though perhaps not massively so. It's quite enough to destroy a paladin, but whether someone good would become evil or neutral for joining in on it, I wouldn't say so. This one really depends on the situation, unlike the paladin's dilemma. Mostly, I would say that someone who was good, and generally acted in accordance with that, would not have to worry. They are not paladins, however. The demands on the paladin are much, much higher.
And yes, the possible alternatives you could have chosen rather than killing the wyverns are absolutely central to the question posed. Killing a sleeping wyvern in a situation where it's blocking the only way out of the dungeon, and you're so wounded you can hardly stand on your feet, much less cast a spell or mount a credible defense, and a murderous mummy who just beat twelve kinds of stuffing out of you is shuffling along the passage behind you, that's reasonable and justified.
My point is: You're an adventurer, not a cop, or a soldier. People pay you to take risks most people consider insane. That's why they pay you a lot. It's also the reason you find valuable treasure that nobody else has dared or managed to go after before. You don't get the luxury of preemptive neutralization of any perceived threat. Not if you're somehow also trying to set a moral example. Yes, it's a tall order. If it bothers you, you really shouldn't be playing a paladin.
what if the Paladin catches the wyvern sleeping.. with his wife?
To the contrary - consider that:
Fine. Let's pretend for a minute that we are NOT discussing what we are actually discussing - that being the consequences of coup-de-grac'ing creatures.
1) Killing sentient creatures is normally regarded as evil.
Knowing wyverns are intelligent (sentient) is metagaming.
*snip the rest of the points that all manage to say the exact same thing*
Having read everything you wrote I have no idea why you replied to me and can therefore only assume you are trying to take this even FURTHER off-topic. Nothing you said there is relevant to topic of whether or not coup-de-grace'ing creatures in D&D is Evil nor is it even related to your previous statements about alternate courses of action which are STILL not relevant to this thread. There is no point discussing the finer points of the varying ways to start climbing a mountain once you are half way up it.
I see that got quite a few of the "removing a threat, any threat, to anyone, is a noble act" crowd riled up. Let's take a look at the arguments presented:
* Shut up you whiny veggie-lover, monsters are monsters and deserve to die unless they could NEVER harm anyone EVER again, and besides, SWAT teams don't fight fair, why should paladins?
See above. Sounding like a pompous blowhard isn't giving your arguments any more strength. Calling people PETA doesn't either. And if you seriously think everyone that could EVER present a threat to anyone else should be put to death, please report to termination booth 314A on the double, citizen. Or prove that you will NEVER become a threat to anyone else. And if you think SWAT teams are made up of paragons of good and justice, maybe you should get some information that isn't patriotic american TV shows, eh?
I'll admit I am crass in this, because this issue is borderline retarded, and the GM did a really bad call, a "you shouldn't be GMing with paladins, and maybe not at all"-bad call.
As for the "Everyone's a potential threat": There is a difference between a humanoid and a monster. Point me to a wyvern society where they create art and music, record history, develop a socio-economic structures to help the wing-torn wyverns who cannot hunt for themselves, and daycare for baby wyverns so they can learn to socialize and count to 10. Wyverns are vicious, poisonous flying monsters that will eat you in 99 out of 100 times, and not feel a lick of shame about it. Making it Neutral is a mistake in the first place, and was probably only in order to make them useful as mounts.
* If it looks like a monster, it deserves to die.
Just because something is big, is it a monster? Would people in a fantasy world consider the same things monstrous? What if someone is covered in an illusion? More generally: Is it okay to murder someone just because of his race? I can see the argument for demons and devils and other flavours of supernatural evil, but this?
Then paladins should start play with at-will True Seeing, get all creature-related knowledge skills as trained class skills, and get 8 skill points per level. If your GM is so lax that you can safely discern the alignment, threat level and presence of illusions before attacking anything, then sure, I see no problems. Otherwise, I would make the hesitant paladin fall from grace as he is directly responsible for the death of 2-4 potentially good-aligned party members.
And we are not talking about murdering baby goblins, humans with different pigments and so on, we are talking about huge poisonous monsters that are WELL KNOWN for attacking people indiscriminately.
* You want a paladin to wake up every creature he could fight beforehand, which is being Lawful Stupid.
I never said that. The best option is probably just leaving them alone. If you need to make a hasty retreat, that's another situation which will have to be dealt with then. And, if they're sleeping, it's a pretty good chance they'll be gone when the time comes. There are many...
There is a band of battered and bloodied humanoids, likely with a fire, sleeping within 200 feet of the nest of their children. What predator do you know of that would do nothing when someone posing as both prey AND threat, came close to their nest? From what it looks like, the wyverns were written in to the adventure as a threat/encounter, and would have to be dealt with. From a survivalist point of view, a preemptive strike is by far the best option. Ignoring them is inviting disaster, unless the players are so high level that wyverns are inherently harmless to them.
My point is: You're an adventurer, not a cop, or a soldier. People pay you to take risks most people consider insane. That's why they pay you a lot. It's also the reason you find valuable treasure that nobody else has dared or managed to go after before. You don't get the luxury of preemptive neutralization of any perceived threat. Not if you're somehow also trying to set a moral example. Yes, it's a tall order. If it bothers you, you really shouldn't be playing a paladin.
"Sir Ulric, why did you not kill those monsters when you passed their lair?!"
"Silence, immoral peasant! They were asleep, and they are not evil! I must abide my moral code!""But they killed the Tatchers! And ate their pet dog Spotty as a snack!"
"Still, killing it in its sleep is an evil act, and I refuse do that."
"You monster! Now they can come back and eat more of us!"
"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF JUSTICE! I must stay pure, even if you all die!"
I would say killing the sleeping wyverns is an evil act, though perhaps not massively so. It's quite enough to destroy a paladin, but whether someone good would become evil or neutral for joining in on it, I wouldn't say so.
I'm sorry. Did there suddenly become different shades of Evil based on what class you are? What class do you have to be for an Evil act to barely be evil at all? Maybe a Sorcerer with the Demonic, Infernal, or Undead bloodlines could perform an Evil act and be able to not take any Evil points.
And yes, the possible alternatives you could have chosen rather than killing the wyverns are absolutely central to the question posed.
In what way? The alternatives aren't relevant to a discussion of the action taken.
Killing a sleeping wyvern in a situation where it's blocking the only way out of the dungeon, and you're so wounded you can hardly stand on your feet, much less cast a spell or mount a credible defense, and a murderous mummy who just beat twelve kinds of stuffing out of you is shuffling along the passage behind you, that's reasonable and justified.
That's not an alternative. That's a discussion of mitigating factors.
It is evil if you are killing for the sake of killing.Therefor it's relevant to know if there were alternatives to killing.
You people are confusing "alternative actions" and "mitigating factors."
Mitigating factors ARE relevant. Discussions of the 50 different ways to sneak past sleeping Wyverns are not.Parley: Wyverns can be made into allies, as per the bestiary. There's precedences of them working together with other races.
Assuming you succeed on your Knowledge (Arcana)/metagaming check to figure out Wyverns actually ARE intelligent and aren't just slathering beasts. And presuming you can convince them you are such a threat that it is better for them to parley than eat you.
You know, this thread amuses me. Everyone is arguing the question 'was killing a sleeping wyvern wrong' when all that matters is that the OP thinks it is and told his player so. No one else's opinion on that matters.
I find this thread hilarious because people are replying with their opinion about whether killing sleeping Wyverns is Evil when the OP asked.
Hi, welcome to forums. If you want to say stuff and have no one reply, you can get a Blog and NOT ASK WHAT PEOPLE'S OPINIONS ARE.
What I find hilarious about this thread is all the pretentious self-importance and metagaming being used to accuse the Paladin of metagaming.
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Okay, if the PC's had no idea what wyverns were, I'd say this was an evil act.
Yes, the wyverns had teeth and a stinger. Does that make them a predator? Possibly, but they could have been scavengers that used the teeth and stinger for protection.
Now, they could have followed this train of thought: Dragons that aren't shiny = Bad
But I think readers of that comic know what happened to that particular paladin...
"Sir Ulric, why did you block the doors of that apartment block and set fire to the house?"
"Because there were people inside who registered as evil. Thus, they could become a threat to people in the future."
"But there were two hundred people in there! How could you?!!?"
"Well, I did set fire to the wall of the apartment where the evil people lived. I had no idea the fire would spread to the entire apartment block. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
"But, but, you're a paladin, you can't just go around doing stuff like that!"
"As my paladining teacher told me, as long as you don't willfully commit an evil act, you're safe with your god and keep your powers. I had no idea fire would spread. Rejoice, citizen! Sir Ulric has made your town safe again. Safety must be upheld, even if thousands have to die for it."
well, any by what right can you assume that the character does NOT expect a creature described as a dragon to be intelligent, but rather see it as a mindless beast attacking on-sight?
...because that's exactly how the creature acts?
They are always aggressive and impatient, and are quick to resort to force in order to accomplish their goals. [...] Although far from animalistic in intellect, and capable of speech, most wyverns simply can't be bothered with the subtlety of diplomacy, and prefer to fight first and parley later, and even then only if faced with a foe they can neither defeat nor flee from.
Wyverns speak Draconic, but usually don’t bother with anything more elaborate than a loud hiss or a deep-throated growl much like that of a bull alligator.
[...]
Wyverns are rather stupid but always aggressive: They attack nearly anything that isn’t obviously more powerful than themselves.
What exactly is the difference between a Wyvern and an alligator at that point? One has wings? D&D has creatures that are half-bear and half-owl
Nothing indicates they attack humans or have a bad temper.
Other than common knowledge of Wyverns.
"Hey, that's a giant flying reptile! Like a Wyvern? I hear Wyverns are ferocious beasts that have been terrorizing the local village!"
"Sir Ulric, why did you block the doors of that apartment block and set fire to the house?"
"Because there were people inside who registered as evil. Thus, they could become a threat to people in the future."
"But there were two hundred people in there! How could you?!!?"
"Well, I did set fire to the wall of the apartment where the evil people lived. I had no idea the fire would spread to the entire apartment block. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
"But, but, you're a paladin, you can't just go around doing stuff like that!"
"As my paladining teacher told me, as long as you don't willfully commit an evil act, you're safe with your god and keep your powers. I had no idea fire would spread. Rejoice, citizen! Sir Ulric has made your town safe again. Safety must be upheld, even if thousands have to die for it."
A paladin kicks down the door and smites the wretches. Anything that detects as evil are now PROPER evil, after the fix to detect evil. Even if they detect as faint evil, they are at least mid-level characters (and you don't get to mid-level by pickpocketing or weaving malicious right-winged messages into scarves, you get there by committing some serious wrongs, and get real damned skilled at it), and anything stronger than faint are evil clerics, anti-paladins, undead or fiends. And all of those do in all likelihood deserve a good smiting.
The creature was sleeping in a nest. Hardly acting in a very threatening way, i'd say.
DC 25 bear knowledge check: Bears are known to attack with their huge claws.
Basically the whole description of wyverns, you could apply on a cliched party barbarian as well.
Which is why most people would rather kill the Barbarian in his sleep.
It does NOT make them evil,
Actually yes, it SHOULD make them Evil. The only way Wyverns should be Neutral is if they had animal intelligence.
and it does NOT make them attack everything they see.
Yes it does.
Wyverns are territorial creatures.
Let's see. Violent. Aggressive. More likely to attack than parley and territorial.
That's the definition of "attack everything they see."Nowhere does it say they prey on humans,
Not explicitly. I'm sure the bear description doesn't explicitly say they feed on berries and fish either.
nowhere does it say they are prone to attacking without provocation.
Other than every single word in its description, no.
If you interact with them, it may be hard to get them to listen,
Once they have decided they can't eat you....
thats from old wyverns in 3.5
The flavor text and description was changed for a reason.
What EXACTLY changed about it?
Note that their Intelligence also increased since then,
Yes. One point. Meteoric.
Intelligence? Language?
It doesn't count if they don't use it first.
Knowledge about the danger of attacking an adventurer?
Any animal stupid enough to attack something that can obviously kill it doesn't exist any more.
If you heard they are terrorizing the local village, that may well be a reason to attack them, or find out why they attack the village.
You find me a location where there are NO human settlements within 200 miles of a temperate hill. Good luck.
Common knowledge of Wyverns should then also include that they are Dragons and, as such, intelligent, should it not?
Why would common knowledge tell you the creatures that act like slathering beasts are intelligent?