Is selling poison an evil act?


Rules Questions

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I find that, as in most alignment questions, context is key. Selling poison isn't evil unless said poison is used for nefarious purposes.

As a GM I'd offer them some options:

They can sell the poison to the local friendly cleric, who will distill it and use it to make antivenom in case the creatures return. Moderate to low profit, Good-aligned action.

They can sell it to crazy if harmless witch who will use it to experiment on her crossbred giant space hamster. Moderate profit, Neutral (and very likely chaotic) action.

Finally, they can sell it to the local thieves guild, who will surely not use it for inappropriate purposes. High profit, neutral (or evil) action.

Silver Crusade

To further clarify the issue: Centipede poison only does Dex damage.


Mikaze wrote:
To further clarify the issue: Centipede poison only does Dex damage.

So you can't actually kill someone with centipede poison...so it is less evil than a greatsword!

Silver Crusade

You could actually save someone's life with it in a number of situations, provided the means of delivery isn't fatal.


Poison is a mundane substance, therefore Neutral or even non-aligned.

Selling poison may be Chaotic in a land where such an act is illegal, even as a non-noble carrying a katana was Chaotic (against the law) in feudal Japan.

To make selling itself Evil, you'd have to go into exotic merchandise such as slaves, souls, etc. Something that goes beyond the mundane. And in these cases it's the merchandise that makes the act Evil, rather than the act of selling itself.


awp832 wrote:
tectorman: you don't understand what premeditated means. deciding to do something literally ~3 seconds before you do it does not count as being premeditated.

Okay, then Captain Picard would like to know how long one can decide to do something before doing it before it becomes wrong?

Also, you're buying poison. You have no idea who you'll use it against or the reasons why. Likewise, a Monk can choose to learn Quivering Palm and he doesn't know when he'll be using it or why. He might go out on a mission to blackmail someone into doing something through no other means than by hitting the guy with a quivering palm and threatening to trigger it unless the hapless victim agrees to do the Monk's bidding. In fact, isn't there a Pathfinder novel where that happens?

The Exchange

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Gauss wrote:

So, ANY combat is evil? Because by your definition any combat qualifies as hurting or killing. I guess that Lawful Good Paladin should never raise a weapon because if he hurts anyone or kills anyone he is committing an evil act. Sure does make being a Paladin difficult. Heck, how can any warrior be Good?

Funny part? Many poisons don't do ANY of those things. Strength and Dexterity poisons cannot kill. Heck, they don't even cause Hitpoint damage so it can be said they don't hurt.

What about knockout poisons? They dont hurt and surely don't kill.

- Gauss

Again, you can make it simple or complicated. I prefer simple. Poison is evil, combat is not, using poison in combat is evil. If I'm wrong, show me the rule that says poison is good (or neutral, or simply not evil). If you disagree with my interpretation of the rules, then don't use it.

Show me a rule that a sword is not evil? Show me a rule that sicking an AC on an enemy is not evil? Show me a rule that breathing is not indeed evil. I bet you cannot.


The guardian naga is a lawful good intelligent creature in the Bestiary I — a core rulebook. Not only is their bite poisonous, but they can spit poison at range. And it's a poison that does Con damage, so it can kill.

If poison is inherently evil, then how does the guardian naga maintain its alignment? It's an intelligent creature, so it can make moral choices unlike a scorpion.

It seems more likely that the naga tries to avoid combat whenever practical, but when it does deem combat necessary, it uses every weapon at its disposal. It's not morally required to put stoppers in its fangs. :)


RickSummon wrote:
If poison is inherently evil...

Thanks for using that phrase RickSummon! :) My old Philosophy and ethics teachers would scream at that concept.

Coming from that point of view, inanimate objects cannot be inherently evil (with a massive GAME exeption of things that are tagged with an evil aura, evil subtype or specifically enchanted evil or unholy, since in the GAME there are physical personification of ethical concepts).

A stick is not good or evil. It simply is. Chemicals are not good or evil. They simply are. Weapons are not good or evil, they simply exist.

Good or evil is the construct of a sentient mind. The purpose and motivation of the being using the items determines the nature of the act the items are used in. Beings who know right from wrong determine/create the concepts of good and evil.

In almost nearly all cases of alignment questions there will never be a situation that will not be impacted by motive, intent and circumstance.

There is not one flat answer to 'is selling poison evil' since the base question is asked in a vaccum of circumstance. Going ONLY by that 4 word question the answer will most likely be 'no'. It is no more evil than selling excrement or a rock or acid or food or a load of lumber. It is a thing and it is not itself morally aligned. The purpose to which you put it makes a lot of difference though, as does the prevailing societies general social view of it.


Andrew R wrote:
Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Gauss wrote:

So, ANY combat is evil? Because by your definition any combat qualifies as hurting or killing. I guess that Lawful Good Paladin should never raise a weapon because if he hurts anyone or kills anyone he is committing an evil act. Sure does make being a Paladin difficult. Heck, how can any warrior be Good?

Funny part? Many poisons don't do ANY of those things. Strength and Dexterity poisons cannot kill. Heck, they don't even cause Hitpoint damage so it can be said they don't hurt.

What about knockout poisons? They dont hurt and surely don't kill.

- Gauss

Again, you can make it simple or complicated. I prefer simple. Poison is evil, combat is not, using poison in combat is evil. If I'm wrong, show me the rule that says poison is good (or neutral, or simply not evil). If you disagree with my interpretation of the rules, then don't use it.
Show me a rule that a sword is not evil? Show me a rule that sicking an AC on an enemy is not evil? Show me a rule that breathing is not indeed evil. I bet you cannot.

That's because you can't prove a negative.


Zhayne wrote:
Andrew R wrote:
Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
Gauss wrote:

So, ANY combat is evil? Because by your definition any combat qualifies as hurting or killing. I guess that Lawful Good Paladin should never raise a weapon because if he hurts anyone or kills anyone he is committing an evil act. Sure does make being a Paladin difficult. Heck, how can any warrior be Good?

Funny part? Many poisons don't do ANY of those things. Strength and Dexterity poisons cannot kill. Heck, they don't even cause Hitpoint damage so it can be said they don't hurt.

What about knockout poisons? They dont hurt and surely don't kill.

- Gauss

Again, you can make it simple or complicated. I prefer simple. Poison is evil, combat is not, using poison in combat is evil. If I'm wrong, show me the rule that says poison is good (or neutral, or simply not evil). If you disagree with my interpretation of the rules, then don't use it.
Show me a rule that a sword is not evil? Show me a rule that sicking an AC on an enemy is not evil? Show me a rule that breathing is not indeed evil. I bet you cannot.
That's because you can't prove a negative.

Claim: There does not exist a highest prime integer. <--this is a negative statement.

Proof: Suppose a highest prime integer exists. Then there exist only finitely many primes. Call them p_1,p_2,...p_n. Now let M=1+p_1*p_2*...*p_n. Since M is a positive integer, it must have a prime factor. However, M is congruent to 1 mod p_1 (since M-1 is a multiple of p_1), and M is congruent to 1 mod p_2 (since M-1 is a multiple of p_2), and M is congruent to 1 mod p_i for all 1(less-than-or-equal-to)i(less-than-or-equal-to)n. Therefore M is not divisible by any p_i, so, there must exist a prime factor of M which is greater than p_n, a contradiction. (end proof).


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selling or using poison is completely unaligned. as said, it is a matter of intent,

there is nothing evil, nor chaotic about selling poison in a lawful territory

lawful doesn't necessarily mean you follow the local laws.

in fact, a character could be lawful by virtue of having a rigid code of conduct, (such as bushido),

and using poison to kill someone is no more evil nor dishonorable than using a sword to behead them in combat, using a bow to kill them without engaging them up close, or using a dagger to shank them in a vital area. hell, using poison, is no more evil than the blacksmith using the hammer and anvil to forge the sword the warrior uses to kill.

honor is but an illusion. for years, honor was a series of lies made up by wealthy and powerful individuals intended to retain their advantage in the battlefield by creating guidelines intended to prevent the use of cheaper, more readily available, and superior weaponry.

hell, even guerilla warfare, such as what most elves and assassins use, isn't dishonorable.

the Samurai, poster child for honor, were historically mounted skirmish archers who used ride by tactics to weaken their foes before they finished them off.


I gave up on this topic when people started arguing that poison was evil with the black and white logic of lawful stupid players. Selling poison is no more evil than selling a sword. End of subject.


Zhayne wrote:


wraithstrike wrote:


I think it was in 3.5. The logic was that it caused unneeded suffering, but I see it as just being a tool, and I dont think that logic is repeated in Pathfinder.

And that logic failed horribly, as not all poisons are painful.

This isn't about the RAW. Just a comment.

Poison used to be considered evil in D&D, because, in the judgment of western civilization, it is. If you hadn't noticed poisoning is looked down on in our society. It has been for, oh, the last few millennia. Being a poisoner was ranked with being a witch in medieval society. Currently, in every state that has the death penalty poison is an enhancement to a murder charge getting you the needle. So we distinguish between bullets, knives etc. and poison. It is illegal under the laws of war btw. We can shoot them, bayonet them, blow them up, run them over with tanks, under the rules of war, but no poison. The "redline" for U.S. action in Syria was the use of nerve gas. Poison. We were, and apparently are, not bothered enough if they shoot civilians, beat them to death, blow them up, napalm them etc. But we draw the line at poison. Some people say "it's cause nerve gas is indiscriminant". More indiscriminant than napalm, cluster bombs, missiles or artillery? No. It's poison.

It may be "just a tool" for some people, you know murderers, assassins, terrorists and brutal dictators, irl but in general we frown on its use on intelligent beings. You can poison vermin, but it's illegal to poison pets.

Having said this, it is a cultural matter. I suppose you could have a culture which thinks it's hunky dory. There have been a few. But for the most part "dishonorable" is the least ordinary people say about it in most cultures. In Pathfinder they have, apparently (unless someone comes up with a quote saying poison use is lovely and all good characters should do it), left it up to the GM.

Now, can good characters use poison? Yes. Whether it's good, evil or neutral is up to the GM and his read on the cultures in his game. If it is considered evil, there is nothing preventing good characters from performing an evil act. Hopefully a "necessary evil" and not a routine act.

Anyway, try to "unpile" off Durngrun. He is allowed to disagree with you. Some people have been getting really close to the "don't be a jerk line" over this. He may be "wrong" or "right", it doesn't matter. Your inability to convince him that he's wrong isn't an excuse. Just ignore it. I pretty much ignored this thread for a while because I knew what would happen. Too much time on my hands during summer break. Then I noticed the post count, read a lot and became pretty irritated. Not by the arguments, just by the attitudes.


Spells that are not even evil can be worse than poisons. I consider them to be tool, that just happens to favor assassins in fantasy settings, but I dont see how they are worse than any other debuff in the game since they don't actually cause suffering that a spell would not cause.


137ben wrote:
Zhayne wrote:


That's because you can't prove a negative.

Claim: There does not exist a highest prime integer. <--this is a negative statement.

Proof: Suppose a highest prime integer exists. Then there exist only finitely many primes. Call them p_1,p_2,...p_n. Now let M=1+p_1*p_2*...*p_n. Since M is a positive integer, it must have a prime factor. However, M is congruent to 1 mod p_1 (since M-1 is a multiple of p_1), and M is congruent to 1 mod p_2 (since M-1 is a multiple of p_2), and M is congruent to 1 mod p_i for all 1(less-than-or-equal-to)i(less-than-or-equal-to)n. Therefore M is not divisible by any p_i, so, there must exist a prime factor of M which is greater than p_n, a contradiction. (end proof).

Wow. I just saw a formal discrete mathematics proof on the Paizo rules forum. Today was a good day!


R_Chance wrote:

This isn't about the RAW. Just a comment.

Poison used to be considered evil in D&D, because, in the judgment of western civilization, it is. If you hadn't noticed poisoning is looked down on in our society. It has been for, oh, the last few millennia. Being a poisoner was ranked with being a witch in medieval society. Currently, in every state that has the death penalty poison is an enhancement to a murder charge getting you the needle. So we distinguish between bullets, knives etc. and poison. It is illegal under the laws of war btw. We can shoot them, bayonet them, blow them up, run them over with tanks, under the rules of war, but no poison. The "redline" for U.S. action in Syria was the use of nerve gas. Poison. We were, and apparently are, not bothered enough if they shoot civilians, beat them to death, blow them up, napalm them etc. But we draw the line at poison. Some people say "it's cause nerve gas is indiscriminant". More indiscriminant than napalm, cluster bombs, missiles or artillery? No. It's poison.

It may be "just a tool" for some people, you know murderers, assassins, terrorists and brutal dictators, irl but in general we frown on its use on intelligent beings. You can poison vermin, but it's illegal to poison pets.

Having said this, it is a cultural matter. I suppose you could have a culture which thinks it's hunky dory. There have been a few. But for the most part "dishonorable" is the least ordinary people say about it in most cultures. In Pathfinder they have, apparently (unless someone comes up with a quote saying poison use is lovely and all good characters should do it), left it up to the GM.

Now, can good characters use poison? Yes. Whether it's good, evil or neutral is up to the GM and his read on the cultures in his game. If it is considered evil, there is nothing preventing good characters from performing an evil act. Hopefully a "necessary evil" and not a routine act.

Just a few notes. First, what is legal is not necessarily moral. The converse, what is moral is not always legal, applies here as well. Examples: state recognition of same-sex relationships in the US today. Or interracial relationships 50-60 years ago in some states. Or look at the Spanish Inquisition (you didn't expect that!), perfectly legal and absolutely horrible. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to go by lethal injection versus the ways they might kill me. Since morality is a somewhat more defined force in Pathfinder, with the gods portfolios and aligned outer planes becoming directly relevant forces on the players, good versus evil becomes a bit more clear.

Also, it's not just that nerve gas is indiscriminate, it's indiscriminate to the point of potentially killing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. That's why it's labelled a schedule 1 controlled substance and forbidden from use on the battlefield under the Geneva Accords concerning weapons of mass destruction. If Serbia had been nuking or infecting Albanians with some kind of lab-grown virus targeted to that racial sub-set, we would have had the same, if not more drastic, response. Simply poisoning countless water-wells with high quantities of arsenic probably wouldn't have had such a drastic effect on the international stage.

Lastly, I think it was Gauss that stated it better than me earlier, if you come to the rules forum and aren't expecting to argue your point with rational, example-based give and take, you're gonna have a bad time. That's why we're here, isn't it? To discuss the rules and hammer out a better understanding for all people involved. If all you do is just keep saying the same thing over and over without any supporting logic and completely discard whatever anyone else tells you simply because it doesn't align with what YOU believe, you're no longer discussing rules, you're preaching dogma. Maybe there's a board for that kind of thing but it certainly isn't here.


It depends upon who you are selling it to. Selling it to the Assassins guild so they can poison Good King Joe, that would be evil. Selling it to Ralph the exterminator so he can kill the rats bringing the fleas that are carrying the plague ravaging the city, that would be a good act.

Poison like anything else that doesn't think isn't good or evil, only the use it is put to determines that.


Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:


Page 166
Good versus Evil
Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for others.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.

Which one better describes poison?

Where would you put a man hacking another man to death with an axe on that spectrum? I see good guys doing that quite often while being revered as heroes.


There are many good reasons why a society would want to limit the availability and use of poison.

"Evil" is a nebulous religious concept anyway, and a society can label use of poison to kill other people evil if this protects social harmony and prevents a lot of needless slaughter.

One of the big problems with poison in society is that it is so deadly and hard to protect against - with poison anyone can kill entire families with very little effort, just bribe the scullery maid to drop some poison in their stew. Its somewhat harder to bring poisoners to justice, as its an insidious, indirect form of murder.


Philosophically:
In a world where "good" characters regularly go out in search of the homes of sentient beings, break in, kill everyone inside, and then take their stuff...no. Selling poison is not evil.

By RAW:
From a rules standpoint the answer is also no. Unless the rules state "selling poison is an evil act" or "poison is an [Evil] substance" then it is not.


If that's how your people play, Democratus, I wager they're not playing up to their alignment.


If that's how my people play, then they are playing the game as has been played for 30+ years. Find the lair of the evil wizard, kobold clan, bandit raiders, beholder, litch, dragon, etc. then butcher the inhabitants and take all their stuff.

Our ideas of good and evil work in this world. But they don't fit well into the rules or settings of D&D/Pathfinder.

Casting a spell with the [Evil] descriptor in PF is an evil act - no matter the end result or the intention of the caster. A good god will never grant the ability to cast an [Evil] spell to its clerics - even if casting such a spell could save thousands of lives.


So, apparently Home Hardware and Home Depot are havens of evil akin to a satanic baby-sacrificing cult. Who knew. I'm guessing we don't even want to get started on all those nefarious purveyors of poisons such as bleach, nail polish remover, or liquid plumber.

Realistically, poisons have a variety of uses and even things like giant caterpillar venom is likely going to have uses other than combat.


R_Chance wrote:
The "redline" for U.S. action in Syria was the use of nerve gas. Poison. We were, and apparently are, not bothered enough if they shoot civilians, beat them to death, blow them up, napalm them etc. But we draw the line at poison. Some people say "it's cause nerve gas is indiscriminant". More indiscriminant than napalm, cluster bombs, missiles or artillery? No. It's poison.

Well, when it comes to WMD in D&D, we don't have N, but we do have B and C!

But seriously, the cloudkill spell sounds a lot like nerve gas to me, since it specifically states holding your breath doesn't help against it. Yet, the spell doesn't have the evil subtype. Even the poison spell doesn't have the evil subtype, and it's a cleric spell. Now, some deities might not grant this spell to their followers, but that depends on the deity; it's not generally prohibited for all good-aligned clerics.

Of course, I'm not saying that casting cloudkill on a playground full of schoolkids isn't an evil act. I'm just saying that, like fireball, it's a combat tool that good-aligned combatants can use.

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