My Paladin has executed several bandits after finding them guity of unrepentent banditry. We didn't have a rope or axe so it came down the the Power Attacking Longsword CDG.
What I am saying is that it is all about the circumstances...if you come accross some travellors in the woods and you sneak up a CDG them, yes that is an evil act...if you are in the middle of combat and they are helpless, why would you CDG them unless the combat is pretty much over? Wouldn;t you focus your efforts on the enemies still active?
If what you are CDGing would be a threat to you if allowed to live, than not evil. If doing it because you don't have the resources to take prisoners than it isn't evil. If you are doing it for the heck of it or you enjoy killing for killings sake, yeah, then evil.
This is the kind of quandary that makes me love having an alignment system.
Coup de grace is historically considered an act of mercy, so I wouldn't interpret it as an evil act under most circumstances. Whether you've just dueled another knight in noble hand-to-hand, fought off treacherous brigands that attacked your caravan in the dark, or slain a bunch of orc raiders, is it more evil to leave a dispatched sentient victim lying on the ground in a pool of their own blood, gasping for breath as they bleed out for the next few rounds while they try to reattach their chopped-off arm, or end it all with the stroke of a sharp knife to put them out of their pain and misery?
They are going to die one way or the other, and I'd say that less suffering brought about by the quick end of a coup de grace is a heck of a lot more merciful, and merciful=good. In a kill-or-be-killed society, folks who draw their blades in battle know the consequences, and there is a reasonable expectation that vanquished foes no longer able to defend themselves would hope, and daresay I say EXPECT, to be mercifully sent to the great beyond rather than suffer further. And forget healing dying victims of evil predication. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Besides, that weezy noise of bleeding lungs from the dying goblins is going to continue for at least another 6-7 rounds if you don't do something for the poor things, and its starting to freak the wizard out. Coup de grace!
This is the kind of quandary that makes me love having an alignment system.You need more than an alignment system for quandaries like this. You also need a cultural/social system that places those alignments in context. How do civilized people handle prisoners? What are the expectations regarding surrender from both sides? When are you obliged to accept surrender? How, when, and for what are prisoners exchanged? How does this interact with the economy of your world?
Valid points. Good kingdom/bad kingdom eh? Still having a basic alignment system provides a basic social/cultural context for the (presumably) "civilized" PC's, without getting into legal minutae. Of course if your players like that kind of detail, you can provide it, like the legal codes and punishments in Greyhawk, The Adevnture Begins (I'm going from memory here so don't quote me on that title).
In my personal opinion the to any " Is ____ evil?" will always be "it depends".
I'll clarify too: my evaluation above really stems from my assumption of a late-medieval, chivalric campaigning worldview, which might not hold so true for campaigns or adventurers less steeped in that culture. EWHM is spot on...cultural context is very important.
That's a pretty good presumption---and the one that most of the very very old-school 1st edition and earlier folks who came from the wargaming background used. People who surrendered and whose surrender was accepted would be exchanged, or ransomed back for what usually amounted to around 3 years worth of income (hence the expression---a King's Ransom). People who were dying and not considered worth or feasible to treat would be given the mercy stroke. But it would be considered very very bad cricket to accept someone's surrender (who'd have the reasonable assumption they'd be ransomed and otherwise handled according to the rules of engagement applicable) and then just kill them out of hand. Races/tribes that play by those rules were generally considered Non-KOS. Races that did not, or which were EVIL instead of merely evil, generally were considered KoS (e.g. Kua Toa, Drow, trolls), or take prisoner only if it's really convenient or if you have some particular reason in mind.
This is somewhat true, but mercy it seemed was only to be expected from humans, demihumans and good fey (including treants, centaurs, etc.). If you were captured by most other creatures, e.g. "evil" creatures, including sub-races of demihumans you could expect to be sacrificed to some demon/devil/evil god or to the stewpot or have your brain eaten. If you were lucky you might get sold into slavery.
In a world of magic and the undead killing has consequences. In my game a soul that is not properly laid to rest could come back to haunt the players. They have accidentally killed one hag and executed one reptilian shapeshifter.
I say, in regards to coup de grace, consider the consequences either way before deciding.
Coup de grace is historically considered an act of mercy, so I wouldn't interpret it as an evil act under most circumstances. Whether you've just dueled another knight in noble hand-to-hand, fought off treacherous brigands that attacked your caravan in the dark, or slain a bunch of orc raiders, is it more evil to leave a dispatched sentient victim lying on the ground in a pool of their own blood, gasping for breath as they bleed out for the next few rounds while they try to reattach their chopped-off arm, or end it all with the stroke of a sharp knife to put them out of their pain and misery?
They are going to die one way or the other, and I'd say that less suffering brought about by the quick end of a coup de grace is a heck of a lot more merciful, and merciful=good. In a kill-or-be-killed society, folks who draw their blades in battle know the consequences, and there is a reasonable expectation that vanquished foes no longer able to defend themselves would hope, and daresay I say EXPECT, to be mercifully sent to the great beyond rather than suffer further. And forget healing dying victims of evil predication. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Besides, that weezy noise of bleeding lungs from the dying goblins is going to continue for at least another 6-7 rounds if you don't do something for the poor things, and its starting to freak the wizard out. Coup de grace!
I was also going to bring this up. It's worth remembering, though, that mercy is hardly ever the reason coup de graces occur in D&D. When was the last time you coup de graced something that was below 0 hp that probably wasn't going to get back up? For many, the answer is never.
Most often, they occur when an enemy is rendered helpless, usually via magic (Color Spray, for example.) Blinding someone with magic and then stabbing them in the throat is hardly an act of mercy.
Blinding someone with magic and then stabbing them in the throat is hardly an act of mercy.
That is a point I didn't really tackle in my first post. We don't do a whole lot of that flash-and-dispatch sort of thing in my home group, and it does open up the argument quite a bit versus regular-old putting someone out of their misery.
Of course, we might stay away from it since what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and if it that sort of coup de grace style becomes a habit, it is only a matter of time before the GM comes after your unconscious character with a sharp knife... =-)
Doesn't it depend on whether one is coup-de-gracing wyverns?
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Yes it's evil.
For a given value of evil.
this has come up in my games so much, we have guideliens for it. which, I know, is pretty silly.
Short form: If you CdG because:
1. you have good reason to believe doing so gives you a tactical advantage, it is not evil. (For example, enemy has a healer, and a "downed" foe may well be brought back into the fight.)
2. you are facing a foe that if left alive could pose a threat to others when you are not around and you have no practical way to prevent that other than killing them, it is not evil. (Also know as the "submarine situation" in our games.)
3. you are facing a foe as #2 but *could* take them in, but doing so might put other people at risk, it is not evil. ("We could get this guy to the nearest knight's tower... but that would take three days and delay our search for the antitdote for posion slowly killing Lady Evervane.")
4. the creature will suffer more if you don't, or has an Int of 2 or less, it is not an evil act. (The horse will die of wasting sickness. The giant scorpion is just unconscious. The kraken will be eaten alive by sharks.)
5. it's more convenient, but taking another option does not put you or anyone else at risk, then it's an evil act. If you are in the middle of town, the fight is over, constibles are on the way (and are a reasonable law authority), then killing them because you don't want to be bothered to explain they jumped you in an alley, it's evil. Mostly if they attacked you and you could have killed them in combat without it being an evil act (ie you arent assassins), even this is "low evil." It will cause trouble for paladins and clerics of some gods, may make good characters slide to neutral if a regular thing, but it doesn't slide a neutral character toward evil.
Is it evil? Yes
Are most players Good? NO
Will most player argue that slitting someone neck is a good act? Yes.
I would view it as less evil than torture which they could face as prisoners in some nations' prisons.
I can definately see arguments for situations where CDG could be seen as either good or evil.
That said, whenever I make a good character with a code of conduct, one of the key points of my code is always that I cannot kill a helpless, living intelligent creature (or even kill a threatening intelligent creature when other options are available.) So, I guess my personal belief is that it is evil...
I can definately see arguments for situations where CDG could be seen as either good or evil.
That said, whenever I make a good character with a code of conduct, one of the key points of my code is always that I cannot kill a helpless, living intelligent creature (or even kill a threatening intelligent creature when other options are available.) So, I guess my personal belief is that it is evil...
Right. It seems the original point is maybe a little flawed (no offense to the OP), because ultimately CdG has some RP and alignment components to it that transcend the black-and-white, good/evil argument.
As others have noted, in a fantasy/magic setting where things lie in wait to rend and devour adventurers, the survivalist mentality of the adventurers usually means those things are going to die by any means necessary, regardless of various shades of morality .
Is coup de grace evil?Nope, but a Coupe de Ville can be pretty damn wicked. ;-)
lol
And all I could find was this.
As evil as stabbing someone in the face with a sharp piece of metal is.
There's a bit more of a span than that.
Why are they helpless? Did you sneak up on them in their sleep, when they have absolutely no protection, no forewarning, and no reason to suspect attack? That is murder and it is definitely evil.
Did they get knocked out by your Wizard's sleep or color spray and they'll be back in the fight momentarily if you don't take care of them now? That's a more debatable situation.
Just for fun, watch a few action movies where the participants use armor and sharp, pointy weapons, or clubs, or axes or what have you. Now watch how man times characters that are otherwise portrayed as completely heroic deliver a mortal wound to a character, and said character is obviously incapacitated, and they do something like slashing their throat as they walk away from said incapacitated, mortally wounded enemy.
If you don't think there are many scenes like this, pay special attention to mass combat scenes in action movies. I think often Coup de Grace actions are viewed like fatalities out of Moral Kombat, when, despite being a full round action . . . its something that takes place in six seconds time.
I think there is also a bit of a disconnect with metagaming versus what a character in the setting would actually know. You stab an orc, he falls do his knees and then falls over . . . but he's still breathing.
You, the player, know that he probably wouldn't have fallen down from your hit unless he was in negative hit points. Your character doesn't know that same orc might not take a deep breath, pull his belt knife, and hamstring you when you walk by his incapacitated form.
Because the player can calmly decide when to use a coup de grace or not, the feeling is almost that the character is calmly deciding to do so, instead of worrying that in the chaos of combat a foe that is still breathing is still a variable in the fight.
