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Hi, Im proposing an experiment in which those PCs of Good Alignment never take a life under any condition - In 1978 Gary Gygax defined the nature of Good as Harmless, Saintly, Honest - I would like to see whether the current version of D&D (and Pathfinder) is capable of sustaining a campaign where the Good PCs dont kill, but rather arrest villains and make sure they go to prison. So Those of any Good Alignment (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good) will not gain experience for killing anything other than Undead. In fact, they will need to not only avoid killing, but stop others from doing the same.
If you care to run such a campaign and put this to the test, please post your response here.
Sounds intriguing.
What happens if say the proverbial villagers are threatened by the proverbial orcs? Do the players gain xp if the villagers die while they are chasing away the orcs? What if the Orcs laugh at the 'honest lawman' approach and start butchering villagers?
How about the Lethal Weapon style villains: The PCs have sacrificed and fought to capture the Boss and when in custody, he makes one more bold move to kill the Hero. Our hero, being pushed beyond all reasonable restraint *must* kill the villain to end his threat to all good and decent people in the world...
Before you embark on the campaign, be sure to let the players know the gist! :) If I were a player, I would bite this hook!
Also, you said undead were fair game. How about Demons/Devils?
GNOME
Hi, Im proposing an experiment in which those PCs of Good Alignment never take a life under any condition - In 1978 Gary Gygax defined the nature of Good as Harmless, Saintly, Honest - I would like to see whether the current version of D&D (and Pathfinder) is capable of sustaining a campaign where the Good PCs dont kill, but rather arrest villains and make sure they go to prison. So Those of any Good Alignment (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good) will not gain experience for killing anything other than Undead. In fact, they will need to not only avoid killing, but stop others from doing the same.
If you care to run such a campaign and put this to the test, please post your response here.
I think it depends on the DM and the campaign. If the DM keeps allowing the bad guy to escape and kill people then I don't think the players will go for it for too long. I think this is a lot easier to handle at low levels than at high levels. How exactly do you arrest something like an owl bear though?
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I think it depends on the DM and the campaign. If the DM keeps allowing the bad guy to escape and kill people then I don't think the players will go for it for too long. I think this is a lot easier to handle at low levels than at high levels. How exactly do you arrest something like an owl bear though?Hi, Im proposing an experiment in which those PCs of Good Alignment never take a life under any condition - In 1978 Gary Gygax defined the nature of Good as Harmless, Saintly, Honest - I would like to see whether the current version of D&D (and Pathfinder) is capable of sustaining a campaign where the Good PCs dont kill, but rather arrest villains and make sure they go to prison. So Those of any Good Alignment (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good) will not gain experience for killing anything other than Undead. In fact, they will need to not only avoid killing, but stop others from doing the same.
If you care to run such a campaign and put this to the test, please post your response here.
You don't arrest it, you lure it back into the wilderness. Or worst comes to worst, you attack it for non-lethal and drag it out into the wilderness hit it with some healing magick and FLEE!
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Sounds intriguing.
What happens if say the proverbial villagers are threatened by the proverbial orcs? Do the players gain xp if the villagers die while they are chasing away the orcs? What if the Orcs laugh at the 'honest lawman' approach and start butchering villagers?
How about the Lethal Weapon style villains: The PCs have sacrificed and fought to capture the Boss and when in custody, he makes one more bold move to kill the Hero. Our hero, being pushed beyond all reasonable restraint *must* kill the villain to end his threat to all good and decent people in the world...
Before you embark on the campaign, be sure to let the players know the gist! :) If I were a player, I would bite this hook!
Also, you said undead were fair game. How about Demons/Devils?
GNOME
Anything not Undead is considered alive...So subdue and confine in a prison.
Any naughty orcs killing Civilians will need to be opposed and subdued...not killed. Every life has value in this experiment.
Just playing Devil's Advocate ;)
So, the orcs (criminals, murderers) lives are as valuable as the innocent to be protected? Let me rephrase that: the PCs are going to be Cops, but even when faced with lethal force they are not allowed to remove the threat? Could the PCs act as executioners in the name of a legitimate authority?
Demons and Devils that are often described as evil *beings* not, evil because of actions, but *evil incarnate* Also, many Devils/Demons can gate or teleport. Is imprisonment a reasonable alternative?
Would you be adjusting any of the rules to allow PCs to effectively use non-lethal means? sic, not enforcing the -4 ot hit on most non-lethal attacks? Would it be harder for Wizards to find lethal spells? ie, Shield Scrolls are easy to find; Magic Missile not so much!
Would this be a setting restriction (think, Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane novel) or just on the Heroes?
GNOME
The restriction should only be applied to "natural" creatures. Otherworld, Undead, Etc would/should be exempt.
Hi, Im proposing an experiment in which those PCs of Good Alignment never take a life under any condition - In 1978 Gary Gygax defined the nature of Good as Harmless, Saintly, Honest - I would like to see whether the current version of D&D (and Pathfinder) is capable of sustaining a campaign where the Good PCs dont kill, but rather arrest villains and make sure they go to prison. So Those of any Good Alignment (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good) will not gain experience for killing anything other than Undead. In fact, they will need to not only avoid killing, but stop others from doing the same.
If you care to run such a campaign and put this to the test, please post your response here.
A interesting idea. I would probably expand what the PCs are allowed to kill just a little though.
I currently can't run a campaign like this...though I could revive my old Dragonstar COPS game and implement that rule...I'll let you know how it goes...also heck I can even include Undead in subdual not kill if I go that route.
But considering RL issues and other things...I don't have the time right now...unless a miracle happens.
I once played a Psion(Telepath) Diplomat who had a major pacifistic streak since his country blew up (this was back in 3.5 Ebberon). He would always try to disable people rather then kill them, failing that he would put them into a coma (usually via Cha drain). Thinking back I don't he ever killed anyone, but personally I think the coma bit is a loop-hole.
Why would I want to go along with that?
the BBEG that Im sent to capture escapes (for the nth time) kills his umpteenth village simply because he's bored. He's totally irredeemable; its impossible to rehabilitate him. And clearly you cant prevent him from escaping. Isnt it more evil to keep him around slaughtering even more villages?
The point is not to let the BBEG escape. And you DM does not have to use the same stupid plots from comics...as in prisons actualy can work in containing people. And could be sentenced to death...atleast I think.
Anyway the reason comic book villian escape and don't face the death penalty is because then they have to create how many villians? It is more to do with the economy of characters than anyother reason...which we don't have to worry as much in a RPG campaign.
Anyway the reason comic book villian escape and don't face the death penalty is because then they have to create how many villians? It is more to do with the economy of characters than anyother reason...which we don't have to worry as much in a RPG campaign.Assuming your one of the Dms that hates repeat villains (like me)
You've still got the Orc party that slaughters until caught
Then the goblin party
and the hobgoblins
and a couple of different Necromancer invasions
An evil cult or 3That jail is going to fill up fast. And one charismatic leaders turns several diverse groups into a small army (assuming they arent all killed by the local ruler)
But whats left of the region after at least 7 different marauding packs of villains have come slaughtering their way through while you try to arrest them? Should be fairly well depopulated. If you'd just rode out to kill in the first place, less would be dead
Um...you could stop them just as effectively by using non-leathal force than you could using leathal force. You might have to change the rule slightly(getting rid of the penalies for dealing subdual) etc. But you really don't have to kill people to put a stop to them.
As for overcrowding in jails etc...as I said as long the villians recieve a fair trial...I don't see a issue with the death penalty.
Though part of the problem with this...in general in the age being reflected in most D&D games prisons were not meant as a punisahment...but more to keep you from running away from your punishment. Considering what some of those punishments were...killing the SOB might be kinder.
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The Purpose of this Experiment is to test whether the RPG Engine is capable of functioning with a Good character type. If a Good Character cant function without Killing people and taking their stuff, it is a flawed Game. So no removing the penalties for subdual or anything else. The Game stands or Falls on this Alignment Test.
Good Aligned beings Dont Kill - Under any Condition. Lawful Evil condone the Death Penalty. Not Lawful Good. Life is an inherent right. This is Why A 'Good' aligned character must seek to capture and subdue villains, not kill.
The Purpose of this Experiment is to test whether the RPG Engine is capable of functioning with a Good character type. If a Good Character cant function without Killing people and taking their stuff, it is a flawed Game. So no removing the penalties for subdual or anything else. The Game stands or Falls on this Alignment Test.
Good Aligned beings Dont Kill - Under any Condition. Lawful Evil condone the Death Penalty. Not Lawful Good. Life is an inherent right. This is Why A 'Good' aligned character must seek to capture and subdue villains, not kill.
Got it....lost interest in experiement as I disagree that good people won't kill....LE support death penalty...or etc.
But than again it works just fine, don't need to run a game to tell you that.. As there are a ton of ways around it...and since you are turning them over to the law...just have them paid for it so they equal their wealth by level guideline so you don't need to take their stuff...
You beat the encounter you get exp...the encounter condition would just be take them alive.
The penalties to subdual can easily over come via feats...and spell casters have a ton of non-leathal ways to stop someone. Heck if we include 3.5 stuff it is even simpler.
I don't get how the system could fail.
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It'd basically be fighting by the same rules Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America etc have lived by for their entire modern incarnations. They are often faced with lethal force, but they rise above.That is what makes them superheroes, and they do it even though the badguys never come around to the right side AND keep breaking out of jail. They even do it when the world hates them.
This situation works best when you help the players by letting the world respond favorably to what they are doing. Maybe even have otherwise evil people change their heart because they are amazed by it.
It happens.
But they've got script immunity. What this idea looks like to me is one of those things that works in a story but not in a game w/o just the right group of players. Right up there with low magic.
I deleted the last post. I got it thought I was in another thread.
The system in general can deal with this type of play perfectly fine. In fact...you can even use lethal force up until the last blow...meaning only the last hit to the badguys needs to be non-lethal in order to knock them out.
It is, however, a rather false situation you're proposing. In this game there is such a thing as evil. In real life, you MAY be right that every living thing has a right to life...because there isn't any species or situation of just "Those guys are EVIL. Always have been, always will be. No excuse for it, they just are flat out evil. They know it and they enjoy it and they will keep doing it if they can." In Golarion this is not the case. Devils, demons, undead, and many, many more are flat our EVIL. There is no redemption, no hope for them, no nothing. It is not a matter of subjective judgment, as it is in real life. It is literally written into the rules.
In such a world, one shade of being good IS killing evil. It is part of the core of why the game works...otherwise it would be morally disturbing to many people. Turning things over to a justice system where they will be punished with death is the same as killing, as you are facilitating it.
Now, if you want to start rewriting the alignments of creatures and giving everything a starting base of neutral that is then adjusted for their experience and society they are born into...then that's a different story. It's going to be houserule territory, however.
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The system in general can deal with this type of play perfectly fine. In fact...you can even use lethal force up until the last blow...meaning only the last hit to the badguys needs to be non-lethal in order to knock them out.
It is, however, a rather false situation you're proposing. In this game there is such a thing as evil. In real life, you MAY be right that every living thing has a right to life...because there isn't any species or situation of just "Those guys are EVIL. Always have been, always will be. No excuse for it, they just are flat out evil. They know it and they enjoy it and they will keep doing it if they can." In Golarion this is not the case. Devils, demons, undead, and many, many more are flat our EVIL. There is no redemption, no hope for them, no nothing. It is not a matter of subjective judgment, as it is in real life. It is literally written into the rules.
In such a world, one shade of being good IS killing evil. It is part of the core of why the game works...otherwise it would be morally disturbing to many people. Turning things over to a justice system where they will be punished with death is the same as killing, as you are facilitating it.
Now, if you want to start rewriting the alignments of creatures and giving everything a starting base of neutral that is then adjusted for their experience and society they are born into...then that's a different story. It's going to be houserule territory, however.
They are still a life no matter their alignment...and the taking of a life is an evil act. So give it a try if you can. I want as many as possible testing the Game Engine (and existing adventures) against the idea that Good can never take a life and as such may be at a disadvantage in the Game.
As I offered at the beginning of the post, I think the system holds up fine. Though you will find it a disadvantage, certainly. Of course when you fight by rules that limit you when your opponent has no such rules you are at a disadvantage. No experiment needed to see that.
However, it wasn't the experiment I was arguing against, but your definition of good. It's just not the definition of good that the game world is based on. In the game world (and probably even in real life) taking a life is certainly not always an evil act. Killing a virus is NOT evil. Cutting a cancer out of a body is NOT evil. Though they are technically "alive," you do more harm by NOT killing them than by eradicating them, as their purpose is simply to cause death and destruction. It is much the same in Golarion.
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So how *are* the authorities going to keep a 10th level sorceror captive? What about a cleric, or the druid? Martial characters will be easier, once you get them in the cell, but unless the PCs are going to escort them all the way into the cell, they could quite easily escape. Your rogues are going to pick the lock and escape. Yes, they'll have a hard time of it without the correct tools, but eventually they'll get it. Wizards are the only ones I can see maybe being held for any significant length of time, since they're fairly useless without a spellbook.
It's a fantasy game. The bad guys aren't going to say "It's a fair cop, guv," and sit politely in their cells until they are released. How many times do they escape and kill more innocent civilians before they're put down permanently. At what point do those deaths become your responsibility?
I should point out that my CotCT character is a member of the Korvosan Guard, and has tried to take people alive before, but it just doesn't work a lot of the time. Granted, if the whole party was doing the same it might be different, but even still, it's not always going to be possible.
Someone mentioned devils and demons...
When you "kill" them on the material plane, don't they just go back to where ever it is they're from? In that case, you wouldn't be killing anything, just finding a nice, bloody way to send them back home.
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Obviously never served in the military, have you?
Never had to defend anything?Always had others to do the killing and dying while you get to reap the benefits, right?
Thats not "good". Thats neutral, possibly even its own form of evil depending on how far you take the selfishness.
Go recruit children elsewhere.
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So how *are* the authorities going to keep a 10th level sorceror captive? What about a cleric, or the druid? Martial characters will be easier, once you get them in the cell, but unless the PCs are going to escort them all the way into the cell, they could quite easily escape. Your rogues are going to pick the lock and escape. Yes, they'll have a hard time of it without the correct tools, but eventually they'll get it. Wizards are the only ones I can see maybe being held for any significant length of time, since they're fairly useless without a spellbook.
It's a fantasy game. The bad guys aren't going to say "It's a fair cop, guv," and sit politely in their cells until they are released. How many times do they escape and kill more innocent civilians before they're put down permanently. At what point do those deaths become your responsibility?
I should point out that my CotCT character is a member of the Korvosan Guard, and has tried to take people alive before, but it just doesn't work a lot of the time. Granted, if the whole party was doing the same it might be different, but even still, it's not always going to be possible.
Thats right...The Good PCs are going to be fighting the hard fight. Ethics, decency, Sanctity of Life,...
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So killing the evil wizard is evil, even though he's proven that he will only escape and kill more innocent civilians?
I just want to make sure I understand your position here. I do agree that it could be an interesting experiment, but your definition of what constitutes "evil" seems to be way too rigid. What about killing in self defense? Or killing to protect innocents? Police officers do both of those, does that make them evil?
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But they've got script immunity. What this idea looks like to me is one of those things that works in a story but not in a game w/o just the right group of players. Right up there with low magic.
As long as the GM is running the narrative, the players have the same script immunity as Batman has.
And, indeed, since there is only one GM running the show, they have *better* script immunity than Batman, as the GM won't be replaced by a new GM who thinks, 'Yeah, I know the Joker was beaten and thrown in jail, but he's really cool, so I'm gonna spring him out and have him kill a bunch of people, so that Batman can fight him again...'
That sort of revolving door-jail thing makes Batman and his decision to not just shoot the Joker in the head, look like a chump. Good can never actually 'win,' and nobody can ever change or grow or say, 'Yanno, I always get punched in the face and sent back to jail, maybe I should do something with my life that doesn't inevitably end with my getting punched in the face and sent back to jail?' because some new writer is going to drag them out and reuse them, again, even if he's the twenty-seventh new writer that felt that he just had to break that same villain out of jail and reuse him.
But with a single GM, who clearly approves of this concept, this isn't a problem. The only time a villain is going to break out of jail is if the GM has a singular very specific reason for this to have happened, since he's not trying to make his own premise, that a hero can preserve life without resorting to taking life, fall down.
[Indeed, if this is a setting premise, and there are good gods that support it, the local jail / rehabilitation system will be backed by their clergy and local laws passed down by good-aligned rulers. No revolving door prison system here. Indeed, through the use of magically-enhanced cracked-out diplomacy scores, rehabilitation might actually be the order of the day, with former bandits, orcs, etc. being brought around to agree with the morals of their captors, and released to serve as citizens in the nations they once terrorized, and that's without resorting to morally dubious alignment-changing magics, memory modification, geases or behavior-limiting uses of bestow curse or whatnot.]
Is killing villains, to ensure that they never kill again the easiest choice, far simpler and more convenient and less bothersome than marching them back to face justice? Sure is.
And sometimes (well, usually!), the morally *right* choice is the harder choice, not the easiest choice.
Thats right...The Good PCs are going to be fighting the hard fight. Ethics, decency, Sanctity of Life,...So how *are* the authorities going to keep a 10th level sorceror captive? What about a cleric, or the druid? Martial characters will be easier, once you get them in the cell, but unless the PCs are going to escort them all the way into the cell, they could quite easily escape. Your rogues are going to pick the lock and escape. Yes, they'll have a hard time of it without the correct tools, but eventually they'll get it. Wizards are the only ones I can see maybe being held for any significant length of time, since they're fairly useless without a spellbook.
It's a fantasy game. The bad guys aren't going to say "It's a fair cop, guv," and sit politely in their cells until they are released. How many times do they escape and kill more innocent civilians before they're put down permanently. At what point do those deaths become your responsibility?
I should point out that my CotCT character is a member of the Korvosan Guard, and has tried to take people alive before, but it just doesn't work a lot of the time. Granted, if the whole party was doing the same it might be different, but even still, it's not always going to be possible.
The game's version of good is supported by the game. Your version of good is not. Good(game version) don't kill unless they have too. Evil kills when it is convenient. That is how it works in the game. The game also has its own definition of good and evil because without a set standard people would just argue about it at the table, and even that set definition does not stop all debates. Now if you want to use the Exalted Handbook's version of good that is different.
How good is it to continue to allow innocents to die.All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, and in this case sending the bad guys through a revolving door is the equivalent of nothing since all you are doing is stalling them at best. They might even kill all the guards on the way out of the prison. In that case either you don't have guards because it is too dangerous or only those that are powerful get to be guards, which might cause money issues with the government since these individuals will most likely require more money, and they will have to negotiation advantage if they are required to hold on to high level ______.
Wow, what a new age version of Good, eh?
Remember when comic books first came out, and batman/robin and crew punched out their way through everything? Ka-Blam, Pow, Boom!
Definitions of Good and Evil change through the times. Letting bad guys live is such a new-age definition of good that there's no place in the world or history, prior to 100 years ago even, that it wouldn't have been laughed at.
And what are the PCs now? Vegans? Is the butchering of the Cow evil? Or shall we redefine it to the killing of Sentient beings?
While I understand the reasons and objective of the experiment, this is something better done on a per-player scale, not a whole game scale. Otherwise you tend to force a more monk/wizard party of people using prison-ish spells and unarmed combat. It's not what players interested in a backstabbing rogue, a swordmaster, a fireball pyromaniac, etc are gonna want to play. Or, if you want to do it as a DM, just make their goal (Reward: Dragon raiding farms in belleview, capture Alive for a 500 Gold Piece Reward.) (Reward: Lord Mastermind 500 Gold Pieces if brought to Trial - Alive. Wanted for inciting Riots and Women.)
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Remember when comic books first came out, and batman/robin and crew punched out their way through everything? Ka-Blam, Pow, Boom!
Not really, I wasn't born yet in the late '30s, early '40s. :)
But punching is fine. Punching is awesome. Indeed, you picked a terrible example with Batman, since he's pretty much the gold standard of violent heroes who don't actually kill people.
Perhaps you meant when *Image* comics came out in the '90s and everyone had blades and / or guns sticking out of random body parts, and randomly shoved things through other things with explosions of blood, and half of the new characters had some version of Blood, Pool, Death, Kill, Blade, Rip, Wyld, Claw or Fang in their name?
I'm pretty sure they even had a Batman who stabbed people with flaming knives around that era, although Batman decided that he was a bit too psycho to be calling himself Batman and got up from being paralyzed- for-life to take the name back.
I'm pretty sure Batman was never new age or vegan, 'though, despite not being into homicide. Come to think of it, there was one famous vegan who advocated a final solution to crime, but I don't think that was what you meant...
Hi, Im proposing an experiment in which those PCs of Good Alignment never take a life under any condition - In 1978 Gary Gygax defined the nature of Good as Harmless, Saintly, Honest - I would like to see whether the current version of D&D (and Pathfinder) is capable of sustaining a campaign where the Good PCs dont kill, but rather arrest villains and make sure they go to prison. So Those of any Good Alignment (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good) will not gain experience for killing anything other than Undead. In fact, they will need to not only avoid killing, but stop others from doing the same.
If you care to run such a campaign and put this to the test, please post your response here.
Subdual damage rules would be a lot more important. I think their is even a feat somewhere to make spell damage nonlethal. *Sudbual damage fireball anyone?*
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But they've got script immunity. What this idea looks like to me is one of those things that works in a story but not in a game w/o just the right group of players. Right up there with low magic.As long as the GM is running the narrative, the players have the same script immunity as Batman has.
And, indeed, since there is only one GM running the show,....
Good point; it's been long enough since I read "traditional" comics that I'd forgotten about that.
That sort of revolving door-jail thing makes Batman and his decision to not just shoot the Joker in the head, look like a chump. Good can never actually 'win,' and nobody can ever change or grow or say, 'Yanno, I always get punched in the face and sent back to jail, maybe I should do something with my life that doesn't inevitably end with my getting punched in the face and sent back to jail?' because some new writer is going to drag them out and reuse them, again, even if he's the twenty-seventh new writer that felt that he just had to break that same villain out of jail and reuse him.
Ever read "Soon I Will Be Invincible"?
But with a single GM, who clearly approves of this concept, this isn't a problem....
[Indeed, if this is a setting premise, and there are good gods that support it, the local jail / rehabilitation system will be backed by their clergy and local laws passed down by good-aligned rulers. No revolving door prison system here. Indeed, through the use of magically-enhanced cracked-out diplomacy scores, rehabilitation might actually be the order of the day, with former bandits, orcs, etc. being brought around to agree with the morals of their captors, and released to serve as citizens in the nations they once terrorized, and that's without resorting to morally dubious alignment-changing magics, memory modification, geases or behavior-limiting uses of bestow curse or whatnot.]
I'm not sure I see the qualitative difference between magically-enhanced Diplomacy and the morally-dubious magics, though.
Is killing villains, to ensure that they never kill again the easiest choice, far simpler and more convenient and less bothersome than marching them back to face justice? Sure is.
And sometimes (well, usually!), the morally *right* choice is the harder choice, not the easiest choice.
I agree that this can work with the right group of players and proper DM support. I'm pretty certain that the setting would have to be designed from the ground up, though--Golarion would have to be changed almost beyond recognition to make this work.
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Ever read "Soon I Will Be Invincible"?
I really have to, it keeps getting recommended to me. :)
But yeah, I agree with your other points. A high enough diplomacy skill is pretty much indistinguishable from magical mindrape, as Clarke didn't say, but would have, in this context.
And yeah, the world would have to be designed from the ground up. Shelyn and Desna are pretty mellow, but Iomedae and Sarenrae seem to be quite okay with the killin' of folk what desperately deserves it.
I'm probably too amused by the contrast between this alignment position (killing people when it would be inconvenient, unrealistic or boring to keep them alive / march them to town to face justice is 'good') and that of the old 'you can't be a neutral cleric of Norgorber because the church kills someone once a year' debate.
Also, James Bond, CE or LG? 1,2,3... Fight!
Also, James Bond, CE or LG? 1,2,3... Fight!
James Bond is true neutral loyal to the crown and willing to do the necessary evil and leaving the place in chaos for the greater good?
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Y'know, turning people into trees isn't killing them...
Back in 2nd edition, I had an elven wizard who researched a spell that polymorphed willing or helpless targets into natural animals, sylvan creatures (elves, gnomes, centaurs) or fey, generally keeping them close to the same size, shape and intelligence rating. Wiped out the orc raiders and track back to their lair? Okay all you non-combatants, you can march east until you're officially somebody else's problem, or you can submit to immediate reincarnation (skipping the painful death part...)!
The GM liked the idea, but also decided that the local elves took *great* offense to this idea, and pretty much excommunicated the mage with extreme prejudice for flooding the local lands with former-orcs that were now elves (and, per the old polymorph rules, didn't remember anything other than having always been elves).
It was kind of a fun way to deal with the whole 'women and children' thing, and the elf PC finally took the surviving 'new elves' (who didn't remember ever having not been elves, and didn't understand why the other elves in the area wanted them dead and called them abomination) and founded a land far away, where these Spam Elves didn't have to interact with snobbish Free Range 100% Organic Elves. :)
Ah, spell research. How I miss thee.
I had an Idea of starting a evil campaign with a daring escape from an demi-plane prison. It's filled with Inevitables and it's magic dead unless you have a specific magic item. More or less it can hold anyone save the OBSCENELY powerful or cunning. It even held an immortal (who has their immortality stolen from them, which allows the PCs to escape in the first place). There is no reason this can't happen in every campaign.
You could even use Hell/Hades/Nifflehiem/whatever as a prison. Evil hates everyone, so there is no reason to assume that a powerful Wizard sent to hell won't be squished by Arch-Demons as soon as they start to even remotely be a threat. Or you could send them to a Heaven and keep them in prison there with angels on constant watch. The Big Evil Bad Guy can get devils to serve under him but the heroes can't even get the angels to bat an eyelash? Sounds like a double standard to me.
The problem's I've read so far basically stem from people making evil magical and good mundane. If evil has crazy superpowers there's no reason good can't follow suit.
I definately think this can be done it would just have to be atypical and the players and dm would all have to buy in fairly heavily. For instance, a typical dungeon crawl would literally be impossible. You couldnt go through a dozen or more encounters (over several days) in adventure, because you couldnt carry enough rope to tie up all those prisoners, let alone practically tie them up.
But if you change the focus of the game and make use of the extensive libray of options this could work. Focusing more on investigation and bigger but fewer encounters would be a good idea. So alot of your game would be searching out and chasing down the bad guy, and not fighting your way through hordes of minions to get to him. Then you have the big climactic fight where the pcs are disadvantaged because they are trying not to kill.
I would have a long hard look at the 3.5 beguiler in a game like this. Great skill list, and a ton of mind effecting and subdual damage spells, as well as some divinations. And ofcourse most of those spells can be used by other kinds of casters.
I would however make a kind of distinction between what was and wasnt ok to kill. I dont think just undead is a fair list. Demons, devils, aberations, and probably even animals and magical beasts. These arent really 'people' in the sense we would consider it. Even the most just person in the world would kill a wolf to protect their family, I think restricting that is kind of silly and doesnt serve the concept. Orcs, giants, fey, and other similar things though would definately fall under the good people dont kill these.
But who wants to play police in an urban setting? If thats your thing, why play PF and not a modern cop RPG?
I've done it, it can be quite fun. There is no reason you cant have modern themes in a fantasy setting. Besides pathfinder is a rather robust system. It can handle a fairly wide range of styles of play.
People love to come on here and suggest you play a different game than modify pathfinder to your liking.But who wants to play police in an urban setting? If thats your thing, why play PF and not a modern cop RPG?I've done it, it can be quite fun. There is no reason you cant have modern themes in a fantasy setting. Besides pathfinder is a rather robust system. It can handle a fairly wide range of styles of play.
In this case I dont think you need to modify the game at all, just change your focus. Attacks, spells, skills can work the way they normally do as can all classes. The issue is the way the game is run and how the players react to it needs to change. That isnt a systemic issue, its a style issue.
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Also, James Bond, CE or LG? 1,2,3... Fight!James Bond is true neutral loyal to the crown and willing to do the necessary evil and leaving the place in chaos for the greater good?
James Bond functions in violation of Section 1: Treason where the only grounds under which a commonwealth state can take a life is if the victim is resiting arrest under charge of Treason. If the Vic is not resisting arrest under charge of Treason, and No warrant exists - The Taking of the victims life would become an Act in violation of Section 1 - Thus James Bond functions and Exists under the Authority of a Government that is Guilty of Treason against it's own State. But then, Conspiracy includes all the minions in the employ of the BBEG in that they are assaulting the State (Just like James Bond and his Government). Huzzah! The only Good People are those who conform to their obligations to Section 1. And thus never qualify for charge of Treason. If you take a life you are evil...