Let me start with the character background. Loosely we have a ranger who rocks at melee, a cleric/paladin, a rogue-shadowdancer- soon to be caster and a warlock of some sort. All the warlock does is eldritch blast things and fly away. I am the cleric paladin. All characters are a form of good except the rogue who is neutral.
Now the issue. We have stopped at this island on our way to a new continent for supplies and whatnot. While there we have bartered services and item with locals. On one such excursion we messed up an indigenous tribes plan to catch a creature to sacrifice to an efreet (sp?) When they confronted us the warlock wouldn't translate for us and decided to threaten them with his blast to scare them off. Later that night they kidnap a farmers daughter for the sacrifice and before the indigenous holy man stabs her the warlock eldritch blasts the poor guy and kills him. Driving us into combat with the efreet and these NEUTRAL people.
My question is this. Being a paladin/cleric of sarenrae, how should my character handle the warlock? He's definitely pissed about the disregard to innocent life. The villagers only do the sacrifice once a year to keep the efreet from ravaging the island. Any advice would be helpful!
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It might be the chaotic in me but I'd hardly call a dude who commits human sacrifice innocent. "Only" sacrificing an innocent person once a year is hardly Lawful Good; it's Lawful Neutral at best, and your Paladin would just as likely be unhappy about the situation that calls for that as the warlock who blew up someone that tried to kill her.
It's not an easy moral situation in any way, of course. But it's certainly not a friendship ruined 5ever scenario with your Warlock.
While I am not entirely familiar with the Pathfinder deities (A recent convert from 3.5 D&D!), Sarenrae is the goddess of peace and compassion, correct?
Although your cleric should certainly be upset with the 'lock about this, it seems like the Warlock performed an act without thinking in an attempt to save a life. Yes, he took a life in the process, but if he is truly repentant of his sin I feel like your cleric should give him a chance to atone for his reckless action.
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So you messed up a plan to sacrifice a living creature to an efreeti (a Lawful Evil being).
Later these people kidnap an innocent woman to sacrifice to this efreeti (who is still Lawful Evil, by the way)
And mid sacrifice the warlock saves this innocent girl's life by killing the guy about to murder her (and thus totally not innocent himself).
And you wonder how you should handle the Warlock???
Buy him a beer for doing good work!
Since you mention "warlock" and "eldritch blast" I assume this is the 3.5 Warlock class that must be Chaotic or Evil. You also said everyone but the Rogue is Good. His actions seem perfectly in line with Chaotic Good to me.
Oh yeah let me be clear this is not a relationship ender between the 2 characters. But im trying to figure out where to go from here. We just leveled up to level 8 and we only finished the fight with no time to rp after. When net we meet that will take place and I want to be ready. OOC he is very clearly not repentant. He thinks what he did was ok even though the dm said there was a peaceful solution that he botched at every turn. Which the party was about to pursue before he fried the shaman.
And normally I'd agree about the villagers not being innocent but they are like primitive commoners. Normally they sacrifice goats and tigers. We messed that up accidently though.
Im sorry let me clarify: the efreeti kidnapped her. They wanted a tiger.
His soul is forever tainted and there is no hope for him. You must purge him as Saranrae, goddess of redemption and mercy, has no room for mercy or redemption! CdG while he naps, hand him the blank character sheet himself with a long speech about how he was a dirty monster for trying to save the life of another person!
More seriously, you should probably be more forgiving about the murder of a guy who was about to kill someone.
Im sorry let me clarify: the efreeti kidnapped her. They wanted a tiger.
Right, and then they were about to stab someone and he saved that person's life right? The alternative, letting him stab the village girl, isn't exactly regard for innocent life either is it?
Killing begets more killing! Which in this case is probably a good thing. Time to put that Smite Evil to use and go Genie hunting.
Regardless of what your DM said after the fact, it isn't unreasonable to see the primitive, Efreeti-worshiping priest prepared to perform human sacrifice and think that diplomacy has ceased being an option. I probably would have approached the situation in the same way, but then again I'm a true chaotic and I couldn't expect a Paladin to agree.
Well from what you said yourself, "All the warlock does is eldritch blast things and fly away." I am guessing the player isn't interested in diplomacy or peaceful solutions and wants to fight.
Fair enough thanks for the advice
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Do note that if the party is attacked by the primitive folk, it is perfectly within the party's right to retaliate with lethal force, so don't feel bad about getting that scimitar dirty if it comes down to it.
In all honesty, for future action I think that your paladin would probably urge the party to go after the efreet first and foremost; it seems like the tribesfolk are only performing these actions in an effort to stay safe from the genie, and perhaps with the death of the monster the tribesfolk can live peacefully.
Sarenrae likes temperance (blurgh), I don't think seduction is much her thing. You're probably thinking of Calistria.
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Human sacrifice is generally considered an evil act in d20 fantasy (where moral absolutism is a mechanic). It may not have been the optimal solution, but an innocent was saved as the cost of the life of her would-be murderer.
The way I read Sarenrae is that she's kind of like the David Tennant's Doctor. You get one chance to redeem yourself/stand down, then the sonic screwdriver comes out and BOOM! With that understanding, I think your character might lament the lost opportunity to save the soul of the sacrificer and might lightly chide the warlock for his failure to find a nonlethal solution, but should still celebrate the innocent lives saved and stand by her companion.
@GruesomeGoo the townsfolk never attacked us. They were killed by the efreeti though and used as pawns against us.
In general I was never going to end the warlocks life or hate him forever. Just was wondering what I should be planning on doing. Try to make him atone for what he's done? What to do should he absolutely not repent what he's done? As a cleric and paladin of sarenrae I know that I need to try and redeem him. It's just a matter of how. Most of you had very constructive points and were quite helpful. Thank you.
In all honesty, for future action I think that your paladin would probably urge the party to go after the efreet first and foremost;
Besides, efreeti are LE outsiders. Bonus damage for smite! not like you can smite the neutral dudes anyway.
I mean err... yeah! He was the culprit. Totally go for him for that reason... yeah.
Another question actually, why didn't the warlock translate? That's not exactly team work and that can lead to some rough grounds. Really hard to be diplomatic if you don't know what the other guy's saying, among other problems. I know one of the worst experiences I've had is with a GM chastising the party for not reacting like he thought we would with a group who didn't talk to us, but pulled out poisoned weapons the moment they saw us.
@GruesomeGoo the townsfolk never attacked us. They were killed by the efreeti though and used as pawns against us.
I know, I was just saying that butchery when used for self-defense is fine.
...ok, to be fair, I was just trying to give you an excuse to butcher them. YOUR SWORD ARM WON'T TRAIN ITSELF, YOU KNOW.
Besides, efreeti are LE outsiders. Bonus damage for smite! not like you can smite the neutral dudes anyway.
Oh yeah, duh. I hear that smiting evil outsiders who are enslaving people is a good thing to do. Just a rumor, though.
I have no idea. We asked what was said and he gave us a loose understanding that made his character seem justified. But ooc we all know what was said. In character we gave him gruff for not being more diplomatic to which he responded "yeah I guess I.could.use my intimidate more"
I have no idea. We asked what was said and he gave us a loose understanding that made his character seem justified. But ooc we all know what was said. In character we gave him gruff for not being more diplomatic to which he responded "yeah I guess I.could.use my intimidate more"
It sounds like the player isn't interested in the roleplay aspect of the game, which is a separate issue from the moral quandary presented in the OP. I think it's more important to talk over with him, though.
It sounds like the player isn't interested in the roleplay aspect of the game, which is a separate issue from the moral quandary presented in the OP. I think it's more important to talk over with him, though.
Well, even if he is really interested in the roleplay thing, the reason I asked was because that sort of behavior tends to tick off the party and might be something to have a quick non-confrontational chat about. Approaching that sort of thing can be a mess though, and its entirely personal if someone wants to pursue it.
Oh gosh, we're going to be overrun by blue things...
They wanted a tiger? Well, that explains everything. It was just a big misunderstanding.
Why not handle it in the way that you feel about the situation yourself. Next time you play your cleric takes the warlock aside and says something along the lines of "Dude, I'm pretty upset about the thing with the sacrifice. Taking that guy's life and all. I know you meant well, I seriously don't know what I would have done but it deeply strikes me as wrong to save a human life by taking another human's life..." Something like that. To my mind you don't need the perfectly scripted speech. I would rather voice my character's feelings.
I would do it similary to White Direwolf, but say, Chap, explain to me what happened here.
This was some serious mojo that happened here, and I am glad that you saved the girls life. But I feel you should have given us a bit more infos.
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This title is misleading.
"Help! Good character killed a murderer! How do I congratulate him?" would have been a better fit.
Help post-modern amoral role-players have no concept of heroic virtue!
Help post-modern amoral role-players have no concept of heroic virtue!
Who are you referring to, just so we're clear?
The group the OP games with...
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The biggest issue isn't that the Warlock killed a guy trying to sacrifice an innocent. I don't see how any good character could have a big problem with that. The issue is the lack of communication and a shared approach within the party.
The Warlock shot first to disrupt the locals and refused to translate, despite there obviously being people who wanted to talk it out. This probably needs to be resolved - possibly in character, possibly out of character. You have a clear issue: He refused to talk, leading to the attempted sacrifice and the rest of the party feel a bit iffy about it.
As for this Efreeti, you're probably going to end up at odds with it anyway. You could offer to make amends to the villagers by getting rid of it.
I keep looking for the bit where the paladin says "no, take me instead" and offers himself to the natives and can't find it amongst the hand-wringing over the warlock's actions. Kind of weird.
Speaking as a GM, the most I would expect from a paladin in this situation is something along the lines of "well, that could have been handled differently..."
And I do mean most.
I'll admit I'm not all up on my knowledge of Sarenrae's dogma, but paladins are warriors. They are expected to kick butt in the name of right and good and puppies and children. It's part of the job description to defend those unable to defend themselves.
Maybe he should have waited till after the sacrifice that way he was killing a murderer instead of an attempted murderer...
If the warlock is CG (which I assume he is) then I wouldn't have been surprised at his actions. What he did in preventing the sacrifices to a LE outsider is hard to couch in any terms other than Good, and the way he went about it was certainly Chaotic.
As a (presumably Lawful) paladin, I would suggest you concentrate - in character - on the Chaos/Law conflict far more than any Good/Bad. Maybe berate him for not sticking to an approved plan or something along those lines.
Out of character I'd say it deserves a high-five and a celebratory whoop, or whatever you young people do nowadays.
It does sound to me like the GM might be annoyed that you didn't stick to his script, but that's RPGs for you. If you don't want your scenario to take unexpected turns, don't let players loose on it.