Killing the Party Cleric

[CWheezy]

Fighting a cleruc straight up seems like a horrible idea especially because he has friends.
Haven't you seen the lion king, betray him at the worst possible time for him

[CWheezy]

Zhayne wrote:

NecroMageDroid wrote:

Too late for that, I just need to kill him now

No, you need to retire your character and play one that isn't an anal orifice.

What the actual f*&~ dude.

You come into these threads and trash talk the players by name calling them.

Who gives a single shit how he plays, hr asked for in game advice not proselytizing on the proper way to play pathfinder

[Cavall]

Chweezy, he isn't judging how he's playing pathfinder. He's judging how he interacts with his fellow players.

And it's ok to say "you're being a jerk" when you you are. Fact is he's taking something a player said and thinking "ok better kill your character then." Nothing to do with the plot or his character and entirely how he interacts with other people.

The whole of this story is, if I can sum up, players character burns down a church, another player (playing a holy man) says there is still a chance to make amends, player a now plots player b death for the audacity of not just whacking him there.

I'm actually shocked this church hasn't sent Inquisitors after you, OP. Literally the job they are made for. Few divining spells and you're hunted for ever.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

GM Tribute wrote:

I think you have a greater problem than killing a cleric.

I think your group has missed the point of cooperative roleplaying. I recommend playing a game where character conflict is encouraged.

It's not a solution when the OP himself has missed the point of being cooperative.

[Raynulf]

Andrew Harasty wrote:

GM Hands of Fate wrote:

never never never ever play good and evil characters in the same party. It never works out.

It can work if you do the following:

* Paladin has Int 7, and no ranks in sense motive
* Evil player has non-dectable alignment
* Campaign has lots of "evil" infections as par for the course (Carrion Crown)
* Evil player's goal is still the same as the Paladin
* Evil player never does anything against Paladin's code known by the Paladin

Actually, it can work in any campaign where being 'evil' doesn't mandate cartoon-villain behavior, and being 'good' doesn't mean you have divine sanction to murder people and claim it justified because they detected as 'evil'.

Balor = Chaotic Evil.
Chaotic Evil =/= Acting like a Balor

That said, it appears his group prefers the more 'dramatic' interpretation of alignment.

A long standing argument:

The topic of 'what is good and evil' has come up many times among the groups I game with, and the default for D&D derivatives is... well... unique.

In other gaming systems people play characters who, usually, act like believable people. In D&D there is this trend among many groups that alignment mandates more over-the-top and unbelievable behaviors: like the "Evil" guy is clearly going to rob people and burn down the orphanage because "they're evil" or the good aligned guy is trustworthy because "they're good". But I've only seen this kind of attitude in D&D. The "Because I/He/She is Evil" argument is a strange quirk of the D&D alignment system coupled with extreme oversimplification of characters, in my opinion.

Something I've long argued is that Alignment describes a character's behavior, it doesn't determine it. Good vs Evil is (as a very simplified description) a measure of whether they give a damn about others or only themselves, Law vs Chaos is a measure (to a degree) of Individualism vs Society. Nowhere in the alignment descriptions do they say "all evil people are totally cool with murder, yo!"... because most aren't - the evil innkeep might water down ale, skimp on food, take all the tips for himself and occasionally ensure wealthy guests might 'lose' the odd bit of jewelry... but that doesn't mean he'll turn into Sweeny Todd and start murdering people and turn them into pies.

I've been in games with a mix of good, neutral and evil games, and GMed for such parties... and it's usually been fine. Intercharacter drama can happen, but usually not open conflict, as most of my players understand that burning down an orphanage "Because they're evil" isn't playing an evil character, it's playing a caricature of evil, and that's not something that will fly at my table. So evil characters don't run around committing atrocities, and good characters don't feel vindicated to murder people just for being a jerk.

But I'm digressing....

... in spoilers. So while my coffee is brewing, an example I once pitched at a new player:

A guy is walking through a parking lot, and sees a woman pushing a stroller and wrangling two other young children head across and towards the mall. When the guy reaches where the woman's car he sees a purse lying on the ground, as it probably dropped out of her handbag while she was wrangling toddlers and babies. By this time, she's passing through the doors into the mall.

• A good aligned person would take effort that is to the benefit of others. Calling out to her, trying to catch up to take her the purse, or even just taking it in to the mall's lost and found.
  
• A neutral aligned person would see it as being of no concern of theirs, and either ignore it, or possibly move it under the car so it's harder to see without searching. But no effort gets expended, as it's not their purse.
  
• An evil aligned person would know that someone's going to take the purse anyway - so it may as well be them that profits and so would either take the purse, or give it a quick search for cash/valuables before dropping it and moving on.
  
• A psychopathic lunatic might take the purse, chase down the woman, murder her and her children, rob the nearby store and laugh in the face of the cops before they shoot him.

The complete psycho is Evil, but Evil does not mean being a complete psycho. Complete psychos may exist from time to time, but will typically be extremely rare on account of having very short life expediencies. Selfish jerk characters are sadly all too common.