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You people are the ones trying to apply modern real world ethics to a medieval fantasy setting.
The alignment system of the game is based on popular modern Western morality and ethics.
Hence why nobles enforcing prima noctis, mobs burning witches at the stake, and the atrocities of the Crusades get called out as evil in-setting.
You people are the ones trying to apply modern real world ethics to a medieval fantasy setting. I was just trying to point out that when one has the backing of their "god", church, and the society at large then who is there to deem that it was evil other than the "victim" (or history/future)?
Yes, in hind sight the burning of "witches" was not good but to the people at the time they fully believed that they were delivering righteous justice in the name of their "god'.
No. They're applying the ethics of a system with an absolute standard of "good" and "evil", unlike RL. In D&D / PF terms the Church was Lawful but not necessarily good. LG / LN / LE I'd say, depending on what aspect you are talking about. Burning witches was "right" in terms of Church teaching but not "good" in D&D terms. Lawful Evil? Probably. Good does not = "right" and evil equal "wrong" in D&D / PF like it does in RL.
People in a fantay setting who are evil think, I'm sure, that they are "right" and those soft headed good types are wrong.
All imo, of course.
*edit* I think it's necessary for people to be able to label themselves "evil" and feel OK about it. To believe they are "right". Otherwise, if every religion thinks they are "right (= good)" you get 20 different definitions of "good" and the alignment spells, etc. are pretty useless.
I agree with R_Chance. In PF, it has to be not-insane to cry out "In the name of Evil" When you charge into battle.
It makes sense because You are rewarded in the afterlife for following your alignment, not for being good.
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Hence why nobles enforcing prima noctis,
Mikase, primae noctis is a legend from age of enlightenment. There is no contemporary record of that practice.
For serfs there was a tax on marrying and the need of lord permission (and even that wasn't applied the same way in all of medieval Europe) but not what now is called the Ius primae noctis.
I am glad that we cleared that up.
So, in conclusion, it is not evil for a good creature to torture an evil creature in order to perform a good deed.
Whew, finally it is settled.
Let's see. Simply put, good people can be pushed until they do evil things or can believe something is a "necessary evil". And do an evil action (i.e. torture). What is hard to understand about it?
One, or at least a rare, evil act does not automatically make you "evil". It would take more than that, well barring a massively evil action anyway. Example, a father tortures a kidnapper to find his kidnapped daughter. Evil act. He has lived an otherwise good life. Evil action, not evil alignment. A professional torturer who does it all the time. Tortures a criminal. Evil action, evil alignment (probably anyway). As for Paladins, they are held to a higher standard. Evil action, no Paladin powers (without Atonement etc. anyway). Again, simple to understand.
I think you judge the action (good, evil or neither). Good intentions are fine, but the road to H3ll is, as they say, paved with them. The intention can't excuse the action. The ends do not justify the means. Again, easy to understand.
You can complicate it endlessly. It's simpler if you remember that good and evil are objective standards in D&D / PF and they aren't synonymous with right and wrong (which would have to be subjective -- what is "right" for a good person is not "right" for an evil one).
My 2 cp of course.
@scrmwrtr42 Actually my Inquisitor believes that undead *don't* "have rights and to be worthy of the same protections as living "people" or even animals". He sees them as echoes at best, mockeries at worst. But he would never torture an undead, he'd destro- er put it to rest. Then he could use speak with dead on the remains.
One can't use Speak with dead and similar abilities on dead that once were undead
One can't use Speak with dead and similar abilities on dead that once were undead@scrmwrtr42 Actually my Inquisitor believes that undead *don't* "have rights and to be worthy of the same protections as living "people" or even animals". He sees them as echoes at best, mockeries at worst. But he would never torture an undead, he'd destro- er put it to rest. Then he could use speak with dead on the remains.
The wording on the spell is a little weird.
You grant the semblance of life to a corpse, allowing it to answer questions. You may ask one question per two caster levels. The corpse's knowledge is limited to what it knew during life, including the languages it spoke. Answers are brief, cryptic, or repetitive, especially if the creature would have opposed you in life.
If the dead creature's alignment was different from yours, the corpse gets a Will save to resist the spell as if it were alive. If successful, the corpse can refuse to answer your questions or attempt to deceive you, using Bluff. The soul can only speak about what it knew in life. It cannot answer any questions that pertain to events that occurred after its death.
If the corpse has been subject to speak with dead within the past week, the new spell fails. You can cast this spell on a corpse that has been deceased for any amount of time, but the body must be mostly intact to be able to respond. A damaged corpse may be able to give partial answers or partially correct answers, but it must at least have a mouth in order to speak at all. This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature.
I can read it as either:
1) You can't cast it on a corpse that was ever, in the past, an undead creature
2) You can't cast it on a creature who is, right now, undead.
If you go with 1, there is also the question of what happens if the former owner of the corpse is currently a ghost? Personally, I prefer the second interpretation, since you are just reading the echos of the dead body's personality. The first interpretation, however, is consistent with the limits on Raise Dead.
That being said, I am not sure I would let the corpse answer questions about it's undeath. Only about its life.
Well then it is a good thing that undead, sentient or otherwise, are not people and do not have the rights that living creatures do. Undead and Demons/Devils are "lost" or unrepentently evil and past redemption. So, their torture does not count as an evil act.
Ah, the good old reliable 'XXX have no rights, and so one can do with them whatever one wants' approach.
Young padawan; this way, fascism lies.
former discussion about undead has been answered by pathfinder devs that while an undead exists the actual soul/person of the body is not present, that is why after revival a paladin that had been undead doesn't have to atone for sins, as it was basically a soulless creature at that time
Using this, it is easy to understand that speaking with a corpse of a former undead will not work, as its soul was driven out, and even if speak with dead would work (but it doesn't) the soul couldn't answer what happened during its body being undead, as it has no clue, nor about possible actions/decisions/arguments/etc the undead made
Well then it is a good thing that undead, sentient or otherwise, are not people and do not have the rights that living creatures do. Undead and Demons/Devils are "lost" or unrepentently evil and past redemption. So, their torture does not count as an evil act.Ah, the good old reliable 'XXX have no rights, and so one can do with them whatever one wants' approach.
Young padawan; this way, fascism lies.
Nope, that way human nature lies.
Be it religion, culture, ethical and morale beliefs, the "XXX has no right because it is XYZ" is what is present during the whole of human history, without a singe decade or year that this would be otherwise
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Well then it is a good thing that undead, sentient or otherwise, are not people and do not have the rights that living creatures do. Undead and Demons/Devils are "lost" or unrepentently evil and past redemption. So, their torture does not count as an evil act.
Ragathiel and Adriel exist, as do white necromancers. Risen fiends happen, and fiends made from the souls of innocents happen. Even evil undead are often destroyed specifically to release their non-evil souls to move on to their proper afterlife. And all of that is beside the point. Your target does not change the nature of the act.
Again, torture doesn't leave a mark on only the tortured.
What you're doing is reducing Good and Evil into two teams where the only real distinction is what's on their jerseys. Good and Evil mean more than that or any simple "us vs. them" conflict.
Good and evil is an 'us vs them or them vs us. Depending on which team you are on.
Of course.
And this gives you every right to torture them, rape them, flay the skins from their living bodies, hang them out to dry, and rape both their physical remains and their irredeemable souls once more.
All while knowing with perfect clarity that, cause you are the GOOD guys, you're doing something GOOD.
Thank you SO much for this... breakthrough in philosophical insight.
I would say that would fit well for a chaotic good necrophile that fights undead XD
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Good and evil is an 'us vs them or them vs us. Depending on which team you are on.
If even Friedrich Nietzsche gets it, then I'm pretty sure you're missing the point.
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."
Are there any female nipples involved?
you must love broodmothers, but let me remind you they aren't really undead
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I take my paladin cues from Michael from the Dresden Files.
Should a paladin engage in torture? No. Torture is an evil act.
Should a paladin allow torture? No. If he sees torture he should stop it.
Can a paladin go outside and run some errands while the others might do torture? Yes. But only if he is sure the creature is irredeamable, and he must feel guilty and remorseful about the whole thing.
Can a good aligned character, not a paladin, torture a known-to-be-evil villain, who is part of an evil plot? Yes, as a last resort and desperate measure. Paladins have to be above it all, but for the rest of us, sometimes the ends DO justtify the means, specially if the ends involve saving lots of innocents.
Can a good aligned character regularly use torture, or count it as a tool to get info? No. And no for a neutral one too. Torture is a last resource, cruel action, that any but the most evil characters would use only in times of desperation.
Wheter you do it on an undead, demon, human or halfling makes no difference and has no bearing on the evilness of an action.
Is torturing intelligent undead an evil action?
Let make question simpler is torturing evil?
YES! YES! YES!
If you think other wise let me torturt you then answer that question about me ... You would say hell yes I was mean EVIL SOB.... This really not hard of a question. Why this thread got up to over 390 post blows my mind that some you think other wise.
Side note I have never torturted anyone nor do I want to.
Sorry, Tom S, but I think maybe you might be missing the point. First, so many people are responding to this thread because this is actually a fascinating discussion of morals and philosophies that can unfold in a roleplay setting without risk to one's actual soul. I find that very interesting and well worth discussing, ad infinitum.
Secondly, the specific question was "is torturing INTELLIGENT UNDEAD an evil action?" Do you consider undead to have rights and to be worthy of the same protections as living "people" or even animals? (For the record, I'm not saying they don't...God, this is getting ridiculous...also for the record, this is ALL within the contextual argument as pertains to roleplay...I don't think undead exist in reality!) Also, your answer does not take into account torture as used to save a life, or lives. That was the point I was bringing up with the 'Dirty Harry' reference above. Is torture wrong? I would say, most likely, yes. Is it evil? Depends on why the torture is occurring. Would you torture someone if it was the only way to find out where a friend or relative or loved one was being held underground and suffocating? I think most people, when confronted with such a horrible situation, would probably break down and do some terrible things. Are they evil? Not really. Wrong...yes (probably). See? So many conundrums. This is why there are 390+ posts.
It dose not matter who you are doing it to. It matter what it dose to you the person doing the torturer. You can try to justify it all you want…. but it still evil. One Small evil act to save countless more. Still Evil. What you are try to do is make feel that ok to do it. If times are harsh or for the greater good. Wrong Evil is still Evil. Do not try and sugar coat it so it easy to swallow. That bad taste left in you mouth is the taste of evil.
Rape undead? you are sick?
Oh come on, Vampires and humans having sex or something equivalent is faaaaaar older than Twilight. Dhampires have to come from somewhere.
I would say that would fit well for a chaotic good necrophile that fights undead XD
Aside from the fact that necrophilia and goodness pretty much exclude each other (corpse desecration is considered evil) why the crap do people attach things like torture and rape to the chaotic side of the law/chaos axis? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the only chaotic alignment left in 4E is chaotic evil?
Not according to James Jacobs, whose opinion is, in fact, controlling on these matters. In Golarion, Pharasma judges all souls and sends them where she sees fit. This is based on how well they live up to their own ideals and intentions...which caqn result in souls going to Planes other than the one their Alignment says (a Paladin of Sarenrae or Shelyn might easily wind up with their deity despite the Alignment diffference, for example...as might an Antipaladin of Gorum or Calistria), and can also wind up as something more than a mere petitioner sometimes. Hell, one serial killer wound up a nascent demon lord almost immediately.
Do you have a book reference or internet link for this, Deadmanwalking?
I do not doubt you -- I simply want to read more.
I still get a warm fuzzy feeling from having commanded an Air Elemental to put a Lich's phylactery in orbit before I destroyed the Lich.
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart...
Ah, so rape is abhorrent for and to everybody, but the goodness of torture is for you dependent on the target? Gotcha.
Get a moral compass.
It is the motivation behind the torture. I have yet to hear of a person raping someone or something for the greater good.
Rape can be torture too. You mean if a villain laughs about hot irons, doesn't care when his/her nails are pulled out and breathes in deeply during waterboarding just to spite you but is deathly afraid of being raped you mean you wouldn't do it even if the fate of the world is at stake?
I take my paladin cues from Michael from the Dresden Files.
Michael is AWESOME.
Best Paladin I've ever read!
Love how they describe him..."Righteous, but without being SELF-righteous" Abig believer in free will.. This is MY code... I know it's not YOURS, Someday I hope you join my path, but until then serve the forces of good how YOU will."
He got me excited to play a Paladin in Kingmaker. ^_^
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It is the motivation behind the torture. I have yet to hear of a person raping someone or something for the greater good.Rape undead? you are sick?You are saying there is something that is wrong even if you do it to the opposite team?
I'm sure the Serbs (And Croats!) raping the Muslim women in Bosnia-Hertzogovina would say they were doing it for the greater good of Serbia.
Same thing with the Kosovar rebels who attacked and raped the Eastern Orthadox nuns after the cease fire in Serbia.
Heck, rounding up all the Jews, Rrom and Homosexuals in Germany (And Serbs in Yugoslavia) was for the greater good of the Fatherland.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I take my paladin cues from Michael from the Dresden Files.Michael is AWESOME.
Best Paladin I've ever read!
Love how they describe him..."Righteous, but without being SELF-righteous" Abig believer in free will.. This is MY code... I know it's not YOURS, Someday I hope you join my path, but until then serve the forces of good how YOU will."
He got me excited to play a Paladin in Kingmaker. ^_^
I'm not quite up to Paladinhood, but I'm taking a cue from Michael for Dex, my tiefling inquisitor.
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Rape undead? you are sick?Oh come on, Vampires and humans having sex or something equivalent is faaaaaar older than Twilight. Dhampires have to come from somewhere.
In the Balkans there are legends of dead husbands returning from the grave to feed on their wives and impregnate them. They are called vampires. I have at hand relations on those legends written in the late XVIII century, but the legends are much older.
So yes, sex with the dead returning from the grave is a old legend.
It is the motivation behind the torture. I have yet to hear of a person raping someone or something for the greater good.Rape undead? you are sick?You are saying there is something that is wrong even if you do it to the opposite team?
Argentina? "We do it to fight Evil Communism."
Ex-Yugoslav, used as a method of Ethnic cleansing?Plenty of African states?
I don't know if it is a urban legend but apparently even the raping of African slaves in America was justified as a way to "better" their genetic patrimony.
A good number of those people are convinced they were and are doing it for the "greater good".
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Not according to James Jacobs, whose opinion is, in fact, controlling on these matters. In Golarion, Pharasma judges all souls and sends them where she sees fit. This is based on how well they live up to their own ideals and intentions...which caqn result in souls going to Planes other than the one their Alignment says (a Paladin of Sarenrae or Shelyn might easily wind up with their deity despite the Alignment diffference, for example...as might an Antipaladin of Gorum or Calistria), and can also wind up as something more than a mere petitioner sometimes. Hell, one serial killer wound up a nascent demon lord almost immediately.Do you have a book reference or internet link for this, Deadmanwalking?
I do not doubt you -- I simply want to read more.
Sorry, missed this for a while. Examples can be found here or here.
Neither are quite as clear as I might like, but I'm not finding better at the moment. My actual understanding is based on having read a whole lot of different post in total.
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Not according to James Jacobs, whose opinion is, in fact, controlling on these matters. In Golarion, Pharasma judges all souls and sends them where she sees fit. This is based on how well they live up to their own ideals and intentions...which caqn result in souls going to Planes other than the one their Alignment says (a Paladin of Sarenrae or Shelyn might easily wind up with their deity despite the Alignment diffference, for example...as might an Antipaladin of Gorum or Calistria), and can also wind up as something more than a mere petitioner sometimes. Hell, one serial killer wound up a nascent demon lord almost immediately.Do you have a book reference or internet link for this, Deadmanwalking?
I do not doubt you -- I simply want to read more.
Sorry, missed this for a while. Examples can be found here or here.
Neither are quite as clear as I might like, but I'm not finding better at the moment. My actual understanding is based on having read a whole lot of different post in total.
And here.
Going up and down from that post you should see a lot of discussion about the afterlife and Pharasma judgement.
Thanks for those links!
Faith and belief are powerful things. If the majority of society "believe" and/or have "faith" that what they are doing is considerd "righteous" by their god then who or what deems their actions as evil or wrong?
In our world? People who are slightly smarter. In Pathfinder? The good gods, angels, archons, agathions and azata.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Faith and belief are powerful things. If the majority of society "believe" and/or have "faith" that what they are doing is considerd "righteous" by their god then who or what deems their actions as evil or wrong?In our world? People who are slightly smarter. In Pathfinder? The good gods, angels, archons, agathions and azata.
And this is one of the key differences between 'our world' and Pathfinder.
In Our World, good is a matter of faith and consensus. In Golarion, it's a matter of detect evil and other divination spells.
If I understand Brinymon, he is arguing that Good is 'what I say it is.' As he's gone from "I've never heard of anyone doing X for the greater good" to "Who's to say that wasn't the greater good?"
Which is more amusing in a way, since torture is deemed "righteous" by Zon Kuthon, rape by Lamashtu, lying by Norberger, etc. According to Brinymon, they should all be pinging as 'good'.
It's also sad in another way.
it's no more evil than the church of the silver flame. my ebberron books say that they were Lawful Good and they did this kind of stuff too.PRD uses the conjunction "and", seems you've got an old copy.
Also, Shuriken's proposed god sounds kind of evil, what with the demand for suffering. Administering pain in retribution for sins is a devil's job.
Eberron SPECIFICALLY changed the alignment rules to do that, it's one of the core assumptions of Eberron.