When I ran this adventure the half-orc inquisitor of Sarenrae refused to let the children be killed. He figured they deserved a chance at redemption and pulled from his character's life experience in his reasoning. As a half-orc he was part "monster" but because he was raise din human culture he turned out to be fairly civilized, but his brother (also half-orc) was raised in the orc holds Belkzen and ended up being pretty violent and vicious. He offered to raise the children as his own bought a house in town and had Ameiko's younger sister (my own character from Jade Regent with a soft spot for monsters that I added in)watch over them while he was out adventuring. This led to some wonderful roleplaying moments with Ameiko, Shalelu, various townsfolk, and the party paladin who wanted to kill them. We talked about the moral quandaries that come with murdering children, even if they are children predisposed to evil. Pulling some information from Goblins of Golarion and various other sources we determined it was most likely that goblins have strong evil tendencies but they can be overcome being raised in a community with strong morals and strong good influences would do a great deal to aid that. A while back wizards created a succubus paladin NPC for 3.5 that serves as an excellent example of creatures being redeemable.
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Yes i get that part, i feel and i think i have gotten my gm to feel the same way that there is a fine line there and if i do it correctly it wont be considered evil.
First part of evil is convincing yourself that what you are doing is not evil. You seem to be on the proper path there.
Welcome to the deep end of the alignment pool :-))
Next step is learning the subtle evil.
Just wait till the goblins do something evil or dangerous to other people and then kill them openly, reminding everyone that you told them so.
Even better, convince your goblin-hating crowd to do this themselves. It will give you plausible deniability.
I think you've got a great and successful career in your future as a BBEG for some future goody two-shoes PC party.
BTW, you might want to help the Paladin "see the light" and fall to antipaladin. Alternately, kill him in his sleep, preferably after making him fall temporarily (to get rid of these pesky bonuses to saves).
Punch the GM.(actually don't its a bad idea but her deserves it)
There are no Goblin babies in the scenario as written precisely because this sort of Moral problem is no fun.
It brings clearly the conflict between modern sensibilities and the morality of the characters and adds to that the faling Paladin syndrome, GM's who do this are making a mistake. Worse it brings the argument and conflicting morality into the real world and causes real and serious arguments between players which can cause bad feelings and can be avoided by not being a bad GM, simple.
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killing any babies, goblin or not is evil, children by their very nature are highly mutable, by that i mean, they are who you raise them to be:) if you rescue them and show them kindness and compassion who knows what good they'd be capable of:)
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I think the biggest hang-up here is people continue to use the misnomer "Babies" to describe these Goblins. A better term would be "Immature Goblins", "Goblin Juveniles", "Goblin Young", or perhaps, "Goblin Spawn". It's important to bear in mind that Goblins are Monsters, not People.
Could a Goblin Spawn be redeemed? Sure, *possibly*, but the full grown Goblin who's attempting to filet you with a Dogslicer could also be redeemed, *possibly*. Doesn't make it wrong to kill it.
Remember, from the viewpoint of the Goblins, the PCs are invading their home and murdering their friends and families. Nobody thinks twice about that. Why? Because Goblins are Monsters. It's okay to kill monsters, it's why fantasy RPGs have monstrous races: for PCs to kill.
Edit: Also, kudos on the necromancy, Well done. There's just not enough alignment threads anymore.
good catch Quantum Steve! i did not notice it was necro'd i just thought it blew up in the last day:) i do agree that people (myself included) over think it a bit:)
personally i blame James Jacobs for making Goblins so f*&#ing cool:)
If you kill the babies it just justifies goblins killing human babies. It makes you the goblin.
You're acting like goblins count as people.
They don't, they're vermin. Killing a goblin baby is like disposing of a plague rat's brood. Something that's uncomfortable but necessary.
If a paladin falls in an alignment thread, does he qualify for redemption?
Thats for The Suits in Washington to figure out, i'm more of a big picture kind of guy:D
I'm still pretty proud of how I handled it in my game. I got to have my cake and eat it too.
I got together recently with one of the players who had been in the game at the time but later moved out of town. She brought up the "goblin babies incident" in conversation and told me it was one of her favorite gaming encounters ever!
good job Haladir:)
Ma-ma!
There's a reason that goblin is a playable race in Pathfinder and you are not forced to be evil. Killing goblin babies would be an evil act...period and end of discussion. This is all rather silly...it's called common sense.
Will you be my new mommy?
His old mommy was killed by an ex-paladin, you see.
[Opens his razor-teeth lined maw wide and caterwauls]
I want my mommy!!!!
Yes i get that part, i feel and i think i have gotten my gm to feel the same way that there is a fine line there and if i do it correctly it wont be considered evil.The fine line is: if you kill, or arrange for the killing of, innocents in cold blood, you are evil.
The core issue is that some players and GMs consider goblins monsters, hence their babies are NOT innocent by their very nature, while other players and GMs agree with you (they are).
And that's just not an argument I'm going to step into...
(Steps over Baby Doodlebug so as not to crush him, while simultaneously avoiding the snapping teeth trying to reach his groin...)