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I've got a situation that I'm not quite sure how to deal with it. First, one of the characters is a Lawful Neutral Sorceror 1/Hungry Ghost Monk 3. He's also a dhampir, playing in Carrion Crown, which is set in Ustalav, where dhampir are generally viewed as monsters and met with distrust, if not outright hostility. On several occasions, he has asked clerics (both party members and npcs) not to channel positive energy to harm the undead when he is in range, explaining that he has an undead sorceror bloodline that is the result of their being some undead in his far distant past, and which causes him to take damage from channeled positive energy as if he were undead. Of course, that is a bald-faced lie, because it is his dhampir race, not his sorceror bloodline that causes that. It's a perfectly understandable lie, but a lie nonetheless, and it is still a mark against his Lawful alignment. Had this only happened once or twice, it would not be that big of a deal, but he's repeated the lie several times, most of which came after he started taking monk levels.
For the most part, the only things he does that are in keeping with a Lawful Neutral alignment are that he tries to micromanage every aspect of combat by dictating strategy to the other players - "you, go there; you, use that weapon; you, cast that spell," and to set himself up as the default party treasurer, deciding who gets what from found treasure to make sure everybody stays relatively even. But even those things aren't due to a conscious adherence to a lawful neutral alignment, but simply because that is how he has always played every character he has ever played, according to what some players from his former groups have told me.
The worst and most egregious deviation from alignment happened this past Sunday, though. Since there are a couple dhampir in the group, and I wanted to throw them a racial challenge that was different from the conventional mob with pichforks, so I threw in a side plot where an alchemist has put out a bounty for dhampir specimens. So the party runs into a group of monster hunters who want to take the two dhampir party members. A fight breaks out, all but one of the bounty hunters are killed, with one unconscious and near death. When the party discovers that the remaining bounty hunter is still alive, the paladin binds and gags him to be taken to the authorities when they reach the next town. On the bounty hunters, they find a note or hire indicating that their employer wants the specimens alive, so the party knows at that point that the bounty hunters did not intend to kill the two, only to abduct them. But at that point, the supposedly lawful neutral dhampir monk thinks to himself, "He tried to kidnap me, and his dead buddies could hurt me with positive energy, so maybe he can too. I'm not having any part of keeping him prisoner, he needs to die." So he walks up to the bound, gagged, unconscious and helpless prisoner and used ki strike to stomp on his head a few times, killing him dead dead. That murder. That's not only an unlawful act, that's also an evil act. And it was done right in front of a paladin.
Unlike the repeated lying, that's not something I can just let go without some kind of repercussion. I've got a couple ideas, but I wanted to get some opinions. Of course, at this point, I'm not sure what the paladin is going to do, as her player hasn't yet decided, and that could be a total gamechanger.
One thing I'm thinking about is forcing him to change his alignment, thus preventing him from gaining any more monk levels. I've given him lesser warnings before, and he's ignored them.
I'm also thinking about having my good-aligned npc suggest to the paladin that she execute a "citizen's arrest" on the monk and leave him to the mercy of the court when they reach the next city. Of course, the paladin may think of this option on her own.
Are there any other suggestions of how I should handle this situation?
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Ok befor we have a debate on what constitutes lawful neutral we need to define terms. I will post verbatium how the Core Rule book defines Lawful Neutral then we can move on from there.
pg 167 Core Lawful Neutral
A Lawful Neutral character acts as law,tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.
Lawful neutral means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.
Going by this definition I believe he has proven to be dishonorable, by lieing, and by murdering a bound enemy. If I were to change his alignment it would be to Lawful Evil, this would allow him to keep his Monk, but be more of a reflection of his actions. This could be done through the story, maybe his connection to the undead is catching up with him.
Once you change his alignment, clearly define what Lawful Evil is and how you expect it to he handled, maybe point out that he will still be loath to break laws and promises.
If he is really adverse to the concept of lawful evil, make him chaotic neutral and make him take the Martial Artist archtype and loose his Hungry Ghost abilities. Those are the two options I would offer him, and it would send a strong message to the other players to pay a bit more attention to alignment restrictions and not just powergame.
It does seem this player meta-games a bit. Next time he does that ask him if he has a status spell up-which of course he won't-then start to add combat negatives since he is apparently looking around the battlefield trying to play general instead of dealing with the foe infront of him.
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I'm not so sure that this is "unLawful". Being Lawful (alignment), means that you believe in tradition, discipline, self-control, and order. Not that you can't lie, kill, or break "the law". It can, but it doesn't have to.
Are you sure that the player is not irritating you on a more personal level rather than playing "wrongly"? Alignment is a generalization about your character, not the end all, be all of what they can and can't do. At the same time, it is the DM, not the player, who controls the characters alignment.
The killing is obviously in self-defense, or at least a reasonable view of self defense, so I don't see any reason it would be Evil. Not in the sense of turning the character evil, anyway. Maybe a lot of actions like that will, over time. If the Paladin has issues, though, well yah, that's life and the Monk should expect whatever he gets from that.
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I'm not so sure that this is "unLawful". Being Lawful (alignment), means that you believe in tradition, discipline, self-control, and order. Not that you can't lie, kill, or break "the law". It can, but it doesn't have to.
Are you sure that the player is not irritating you on a more personal level rather than playing "wrongly"? Alignment is a generalization about your character, not the end all, be all of what they can and can't do. At the same time, it is the DM, not the player, who controls the characters alignment.
The killing is obviously in self-defense, or at least a reasonable view of self defense, so I don't see any reason it would be Evil. Not in the sense of turning the character evil, anyway. Maybe a lot of actions like that will, over time. If the Paladin has issues, though, well yah, that's life and the Monk should expect whatever he gets from that.
This is why I clearly defined terms, in reality there is too many conflicts, and way to many threads on alignment opinions. Lieing and Killing are at the very least dishonorable, which is in oposition to what is defined for Lawful Neutral in the Core. A disregard for life is allowed in Lawful Evil, which is why I offered that as a possible change that would allow the Monk to retain his class.
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Are you sure that the player is not irritating you on a more personal level rather than playing "wrongly"?
Actually, he's irritating the entire group, because he won't respect the autonomy of the other players. He tries to be the default party leader, telling other players, "No, your character wouldn't do that," or worse yet, when their point comes up in initiative, he will grab their minis and move them where he wants them and announce their attacks! He's been told multiple times by other players to let them play their own characters. We are playing at his house, which is the only reason he hasn't been kicked out of the group. So yeah, he is irritating, but my concerns in this thread are legitimately based on in-game events.
The killing is obviously in self-defense, or at least a reasonable view of self defense, so I don't see any reason it would be Evil.
I would have to disagree with this. If the guy were simply unconscious, I could almost see the argument that it was self-defense. But the guy was bound, gagged, unconscious near the point of death, and the rest of the party, led by the paladin, had already agreed to keep him stable but unconscious until they could get him to town, which was about half a day away. That's not self-defense, that is murder, plain and simple, especially when he was already possessed of the knowledge that they didn't intend to kill him or the other dhampir, but only to take them captive.
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I was more replying to the original post than yours. I understand what you mean about defining, but that was also my point in a way. Maybe the players view of LN (or any alignment) is (correctly) true as much as the DM's view of it is more an irritation over something else entirely. It's possible.
Maybe if we had a little more detail on why this was becoming an issue, we might have some better advice? Don't take this the wrong way, but we are only seeing on side of the issue, and don't know all the circumstances. Maybe the player really likes the character and feels the DM is overusing the Channel Energy as a personal attack?
Maybe the many attempts at hinting about alignment are meaningless if the player is or believes they are playing said alignment correctly? I'm not taking the players side, just understanding that sometimes what one person says is not what the other hears.
All in all, I would suggest the two just sit and talk about it outside the game, find out what each other's real issues are, and discuse fixing it.
I've got a situation that I'm not quite sure how to deal with it. First, one of the characters is a Lawful Neutral Sorceror 1/Hungry Ghost Monk 3. He's also a dhampir, playing in Carrion Crown, which is set in Ustalav, where dhampir are generally viewed as monsters and met with distrust, if not outright hostility. On several occasions, he has asked clerics (both party members and npcs) not to channel positive energy to harm the undead when he is in range, explaining that he has an undead sorceror bloodline that is the result of their being some undead in his far distant past, and which causes him to take damage from channeled positive energy as if he were undead. Of course, that is a bald-faced lie, because it is his dhampir race, not his sorceror bloodline that causes that. It's a perfectly understandable lie, but a lie nonetheless, and it is still a mark against his Lawful alignment. Had this only happened once or twice, it would not be that big of a deal, but he's repeated the lie several times, most of which came after he started taking monk levels.
First of all... I'll agree that killing the guy is wrong, and quite evil. Even if it was to protect his own hide... that's pretty bad. But I CAN see where the character was coming from.
NOW as for the lying... FIRST thing that has to be determined... WAS he lying?
IF I was playing an undead sorcerer bloodline, AND a Dhamphir... I'd have fluffed it all together. The sorcerer bit is because of undead in his heritage... which as dhamphir means it was CLOSE in his heritage. But honestly, if I had a player (or DM) expect to seperate what mutant ability is from dhamphir and what is bloodline I'd consider that metagaming of the highest order. the CHARACTER wouldn't know what comes from where... just that he has abilities beyond a normal man.
SECONDLY... Who cares if he's lying?? This isn't a standard lie... this is a SECRET IDENTITY lie... they aren't the same thing. Superman is one of the most Lawful good people around... yet he'll bold face lie to jimmy and Lois that he must have JUST missed superman when he locked himself in the closet...
Monks lie all the time. They'll constantly send thier pupils on long drawn out quests for some ancient mcguffin... only to prove to them that they never needed it in the first place... the power was INSIDE them...
Not even going to bring in the concept of politicians and such... Lying (sadly) is PRETTY much in the 'lawful' bag of tricks...
However, Lying would not be GOOD... (secret identity lies not withstanding...) And there should be some inner guilt about misleading people.... but as he isn't portraying himself as 'good' and only 'neutral'... theres no conflict there either.
Which brings us to the killing. In a world where everyone thinks your a monster, and will probably try to destroy if it gets out... i can completly understand why 'killing the bounty hunters' seemed like a good idea...
However, i'd still hit him with some kind of warning or something for that. that's pretty evil.
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I would have to disagree with this. If the guy were simply unconscious, I could almost see the argument that it was self-defense. But the guy was bound, gagged, unconscious near the point of death, and the rest of the party, led by the paladin, had already agreed to keep him stable but unconscious until they could get him to town, which was about half a day away. That's not self-defense, that is murder, plain and simple, especially when he was already possessed of the knowledge that they didn't intend to kill him or the other dhampir, but only to take them captive.The killing is obviously in self-defense, or at least a reasonable view of self defense, so I don't see any reason it would be Evil.
But is the NPC has the power to channel energy, that means he could sit there, bound and gagged, and replenish his HP without really alerting anyone (channeling to heal living does not = harming undead and wouldn't hurt the dhampir at the same time). I just mean it is a reasonable threat. As far as not kill, just capture, they are intending to capture and take the characters for experimentation, which clearly implies a "fate worse than death". I'm not saying you are wrong, just that I can see grounds for the action not being " outright murder".
Now, with the inclusion that the entire party is having out of game issues with said player, that changes things. I still think the best thing to do is to simply talk to the guy/gal outside of the game about the issues. DM to Player, and as a friend. Don't gang up on them, and don't let everyone basically blast them. Simply say that things are ruining the fun for others, why, and what you and others would like to change, and how you can all do so, and then also include any issues he/she might have with the others as well.
This is why I clearly defined terms, in reality there is too many conflicts, and way to many threads on alignment opinions. Lieing and Killing are at the very least dishonorable, which is in oposition to what is defined for Lawful Neutral in the Core. A disregard for life is allowed in Lawful Evil, which is why I offered that as a possible change that would allow the Monk to retain his class.
You could offer up the lawful Unaligned alignment. I've known a lot of players that love that one. It more or less fits in with my own feelings.
However, the three major generallities between intellectual socities are, "don't steal, don't lie, and don't kill." I don't know if his character would have a problem with stealing. You can ask, "do you adheare to any sort of personal code." In character, either she'll say, "yes. It is BLAH!" or no. At which point you change her alignment.
I usually tell my (more expierenced) players not to write anything in the alignment spot, just to be the character.
It sounds like your player likes to take money out of the bank during monopoly. When I catch that happening I tell them to either replace it with an extra 20 percent of their entire pile, or quit playing. It really ruins the game for everyone.
If someone said, "jacob, you need this shield." I'd be like, "Give it to the rogue, I want that wand, it's pretty."
Actually, he's irritating the entire group, because he won't respect the autonomy of the other players. He tries to be the default party leader, telling other players, "No, your character wouldn't do that," or worse yet, when their point comes up in initiative, he will grab their minis and move them where he wants them and announce their attacks! He's been told multiple times by other players to let them play their own characters. We are playing at his house, which is the only reason he hasn't been kicked out of the group. So yeah, he is irritating, but my concerns in this thread are legitimately based on in-game events.
Wow... that is just so unexceptable on so many levels....
I would have to disagree with this. If the guy were simply unconscious, I could almost see the argument that it was self-defense. But the guy was bound, gagged, unconscious near the point of death, and the rest of the party, led by the paladin, had already agreed to keep him stable but unconscious until they could get him to town, which was about half a day away. That's not self-defense, that is murder, plain and simple, especially when he was already possessed of the knowledge that they didn't intend to kill him or the other dhampir, but only to take them captive.
Sometimes murder and self-defense can overlap. After all... he was STILL a threat. They were going to tie him up and gag him.. then what?
Take him to town? Turn him into the authorities? What happens when the gag comes off and he looks at the Dhamphir and says 'But that's an undead spawn!!!"
To anyone else in the party, the threat was over... to the Dhampir, it was STILL very active.
Now... I would say that the PALADIN would have a MASSIVE issue with this. AND SHOULD!! Especially since he doesn't know the whole story about WHY he killed the guy... and I doubt a paladin would CARE for any excuses!
I see it as kind of a 'What if' random bad guy found out James bond was undercover... Yeah, He'd get himself dead VERY quick... ;)
A dhampir in ustalav would be very similiar to living a life undercover... That secret should be protected at all costs...
Being lawful does not mean you can't lie.
Honor varies from society to society. Devils lie, and they are the epitome of law, even though it is lawful evil.
Now as for being "bossy" that is another issue. I would start looking for another place to play so you can bounce him. That would not go at my table. I would even tell him the game will end if his behavior continues.
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Actually, he's irritating the entire group, because he won't respect the autonomy of the other players. He tries to be the default party leader, telling other players, "No, your character wouldn't do that," or worse yet, when their point comes up in initiative, he will grab their minis and move them where he wants them and announce their attacks! He's been told multiple times by other players to let them play their own characters. We are playing at his house, which is the only reason he hasn't been kicked out of the group. So yeah, he is irritating, but my concerns in this thread are legitimately based on in-game events.
This… Needs to change, fast. Find a new place to play, staying there is only going to hurt the group.
Being lawful does not mean you can't lie.
Yes, please. If a lawful character can't lie I couldn't play lawful characters anymore…
Lieing is as the OP stated, the least of his worries. I also would allow some lieing from a LN character. I do think excessive lieing would make you dishonorable, and unreliable which are both listed as traits for a LN character in the core.
Lying make affect him on the good-neutal-evil axis, but not the the lawful one. As I said devils lie, and manipulate people a lot, and they are very orderly.
"He tried to kidnap me, and his dead buddies could hurt me with positive energy, so maybe he can too. I'm not having any part of keeping him prisoner, he needs to die."
Does he have any reason not to feel this way about the paladin now? He killed the hunter as a preventive measure, but clearly the paladin is gonna to be a threat to him now, so he should probably get to being preventive.
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I agree with Nimon that from what you have said right now he seems more lawful evil than anything.
As for the player, with out having seen it first hand it is hard to say. But the way you describe him, you might be better off finding a new place to play. Cause if he tries to control the group and other PC's eventually I think one or more of the other players will get tired of it and stop coming themselves unless he is forced to stop or himself kicked from the group. i think that is by far the bigger worry right now.
Play alignment as descriptive, not prescriptive.
Killing the unarmed prisoner to protect his secret was an evil act. A single evil act does not an evil character make.
I would tell the player that killing the unarmed NPC was an evil act before I allowed him to perform it. I would also make it clear that if he continues to perform evil acts, I would change his alignment to evil to accurately describe his personality.
But then again, I have no problem with evil PCs if they adhere to the social contract of my games. Kill the innocent if you please, but make someone willing to take up adventure hooks and who won't be a constant nuisance to the other players.
He is definitely acting in an LE manner than LN. Your paladin should give him a stern talking to.
Sometimes murder and self-defense can overlap. After all... he was STILL a threat. They were going to tie him up and gag him.. then what?Take him to town? Turn him into the authorities? What happens when the gag comes off and he looks at the Dhamphir and says 'But that's an undead spawn!!!"
To anyone else in the party, the threat was over... to the Dhampir, it was STILL very active.
Now... I would say that the PALADIN would have a MASSIVE issue with this. AND SHOULD!! Especially since he doesn't know the whole story about WHY he killed the guy... and I doubt a paladin would CARE for any excuses!
I see it as kind of a 'What if' random bad guy found out James bond was...
I agree. Just cause a prisoner is bound up and helpless doesn't make a person evil for executing the prisoner. IMO, it's an unlawful act, not an evil act (unless you can somehow the killer is obeying some code or tradition which seems unlikely).
For example, I would allow a chaotic good character kill a helpless goblin on the basis that goblins are an inherently evil/threatening race.
Now, if there was no reasonable cause for killing the victim (i.e. I killed him cause it's fun), then I would characterize that as an evil act.
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Actually, he's irritating the entire group, because he won't respect the autonomy of the other players. He tries to be the default party leader, telling other players, "No, your character wouldn't do that," or worse yet, when their point comes up in initiative, he will grab their minis and move them where he wants them and announce their attacks! He's been told multiple times by other players to let them play their own characters. We are playing at his house, which is the only reason he hasn't been kicked out of the group. So yeah, he is irritating, but my concerns in this thread are legitimately based on in-game events.
This is the most important problem you have in the game. Not the PC's alignment. If he's doing that on my PC, then on his turn, he commits suicide and saves the party spectacularly. What? Of course that's the best maneuver! If he can move me, I can move him. Or heck, feel free for you, as DM, to move him the next time he tries to move someone else.
Personally, I would not require an alignment change for the lie, nor for the murder (and yes, it is murder). HOWEVER, the Paladin should definitely get a sense motive here--how can the bound inquisitor be a threat to the sorcerer/monk, when he wasn't even trying to kidnap him in the first place? After all, the sorcerer/monk isn't a dhampir... or is he?
This is definitely the sort of thing that would earn in-character consequences, not mechanical consequences. First, the PCs should REALLY suspect having a guy who would kill a non-threat in their midst. And if word of that should reach town, then a whispered word and gold exchanged between a bartender and the city watch... A nighttime visit from the constabulary and local Pharasma cleric... A warrant for his arrest presented to the party paladin... and problem solved.
He's got a world of problems coming.
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Lying make affect him on the good-neutal-evil axis, but not the the lawful one. As I said devils lie, and manipulate people a lot, and they are very orderly.
Lieing is as the OP stated, the least of his worries. I also would allow some lieing from a LN character. I do think excessive lieing would make you dishonorable, and unreliable which are both listed as traits for a LN character in the core.
Yes, that is why I suggested changing him to LE, since his Neutral axis is being challenged by his constant lieing. I really do not understand why you quoted me and said this as if I was in disagreement. I guess you did not read my first post.