Roleplay Question: Did I do a BAD Thing?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

1 to 50 of 88 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

5 people marked this as a favorite.

In my current Emerald Spires campaign I'm playing a gnome bard, chaotic good. He's got the Archivist archetype, and I use Perform: Comedy and generally play him as a prankster, trickster ass.

I want to know if what I did in this session was something you'd call "evil," "not really on the moral spectrum," or "well the guy probably deserved it," just out of curiosity. My DM hasn't changed my alignment or anything - I just started thinking about this after the session and wanted to see what the forum thought.

I also kind of just want to tell this story because it was funny to me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------

There's this Hell Knight town called Fort Inevitable. In it there's an Asmodean cleric. This is where our story begins.

Early on my gnome was short on cash and so fake-signed a contract to Asmodeus to get a discount on some services, blah blah blah, generally hatching a plot to make a mockery of the Asmodean church at some point. He "befriended" the cleric, joined him in a couple private evil laugh sessions, and through some lucky Bluff roles he convinced him he was more than happy to join the congregation, and would even make a sacrifice to Asmodeus! Namely, he'd sacrifice his totally life-long best friend, a pet teddy bear, at the next service.

So, my gnome bought a teddy bear (which he claimed was totally a teddy bear he'd had since a child), shoved the only copy of Asmodeus's unholy book in town into it, then shoved in dung for good measure and used prestidigitation to make himself look and smell bad. He also used prestidigitation to make the teddy bear look more believably worn and old. After having made a few more preparations (like get a potion of expeditious retreat just in case), he decided to attend the service the next morning and do his best to get kicked out of the church.

During the service my gnome was introduced to everyone else (and they tried to sit far away from him because he smelled). The gnome explained (with a good Bluff check) that he wanted to express his newfound devotion to Asmodeus with a song. The priest agreed to let him sing, confused but curious.

The gnome started a bardic performance. He used Fascinate during it to make the priest not interrupt him as he sang a song of praise for Asmodeus (which was actually just a raunchy love song converted into a really questionable song of "praise" - I have points in Sing and Comedy). Then, the gnome "sacrificed" the teddy bear (totally a prized possession) in the bonfire. As the smell of burning poop spread around the area and the congregation began to scatter to get away from it, the priest realized he had been made a fool of AND that his most prized possession was torched.

This pretty much sent the priest into a berserk rage as he was being cajoled by those of his followers who were only intimidated into serving him, he was publicly humiliated, his unholy text was destroyed, and all of this because the damned gnome went out of his way to destroy the church he had worked so hard to get started. So, the Asmodean cleric attacked the gnome.

The gnome lived. Guards intervened and arrested the cleric, who struck at them lethally and so earned himself a hanging. The gnome was sent to jail, but he got away because reasons.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------

So: my gnome publicly humiliated a priest of Asmodeus in an attempt to get booted out of the Asmodean church he pretended to join, partly as a prank and partly to undermine his authority (after all, as a chaotic good bard he HATES the idea of a church based around getting people's souls sent to Hell). He wound up destroying the cleric's most prized possession and getting the guy hung because the cleric started attacking the Hell Knights that tried to restrain him. How would you judge this series of actions on the alignment scale? Would it be a grievous enough deed to change his alignment if you think he did evil?

Again, there's nothing happening in-game that prompts me to ask this. There's no alignment shift being enforced, there's no warning about... well, anything. The GM even went so far as to say that the guy was known for, well, not exactly being of good character and unironically enjoying the prospect of being called "master" by the gnome. The gnome is suffering legal repercussions (and he broke out of jail and can't enter the town without being arrested again), but that's basically it so far.

I'm just curious as to what you guys think of this alignment-wise and such. What would you make of this, either as a player, bystander, or GM?

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Isn't this almost a textbook example of what a CG trickster gnome should be doing? Seems legit to me, especially if your character is a follower of Cayden Cailean or Milani. Desna might be too dignified for this kind of thing, but I would think either the Drunken Hero or the goddess of revolutionary freedom would be 100% supportive of something like this if you pulled it off without any innocents getting seriously hurt.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd say that your character performed a chaotic amazing act, personally.


Yeah, nobody innocent got hurt (well, a Hell Knight got smacked with a mace but he got better). But the reason I asked is because there is some serious mindscrewing going on here, or as another player put it the cleric got "bumble-f+~&ed." It's one thing to mock someone publicly - does accidentally getting the evil cleric hanged because the gnome literally set his most prized possession on fire move it from "Chaotic Good" to "Chaotic Questionable?" Especially as he earned his trust and friendship to do it?


Agreed. You broke a few laws, but that's a Chaotic thing. You humiliated an evil priest, and he snapped, and attacked. That's on him. If anything, this is more of the pinnacle of CG- the trickster pulling pranks in the name of good.


Switch the evil church to a good or even a neutral church and ask yourself the same question.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yeah I kinda agree with Tusk Everyone (ninja'd). You found a cleric of a LE god & you publicly embarrassed him. This is less evil than the standard PC tactic (murder) and was also a much more effective tool in undermining his evil church. Seems to be pretty much right up there on the goodness scale.

On a side note, alignment isn't meant to be a sudden shift kinda thing. Let's say you did all this to a Cleric of a Neutral/Good god:
What you did becomes more morally questionable, but it's only a single act. If your character realises he did something wrong and learns from it (read: doesn't do it again) then obviously his alignment hasn't changed. He did something bad & felt bad for it.
If your character enjoyed embarrassing an innocent clergyman & tricking him into death, and decides to do this all the time then it stops being "a single act" and starts becoming a pattern. This is what alignment represents, and over time it would change.

Also personally I think alignment changes should be story-based and discussed between player and GM rather than just handed down as punishment from GM to player (although I realise this will vary between tables).


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would, however, caution against repeating that particular trick in that particular town.

Once is an unfortunate incident, twice is the signs of a possible pattern forming...


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.


Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.

So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?


I'm somewhat in the questionable camp personally. I wouldn't change your alignment or anything considering your target, but I would tend to lump maliciousness into the evil camp far more than good. That being said, props on pulling off what appears to be a fairly well done trickster plot.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?

Pretty much.


Beating up evil people is generally considered to be okay, yes.

Also, I will note that someone did get hurt—the high priest was hung. That's probably the most questionable aspect, just because he doesn't seem to have been trying to kill anyone before now. But it's still pretty much fine.


I know my character won't be performing an act quite like this for some time - not simply because of the same town issue, but because...

Quote:
What you did becomes more morally questionable, but it's only a single act. If your character realises he did something wrong and learns from it (read: doesn't do it again) then obviously his alignment hasn't changed. He did something bad & felt bad for it.

My gnome definitely feels bad that the evil cleric is being outright killed - he only wanted to be booted from the church and potentially get the cleric arrested for whatever he did to him (and simultaneously humiliate him); the cleric attacking a guard outright to get at the gnome was something he didn't expect, especially from a cleric of a Lawful Evil deity in the middle of a town.

So I suppose under this definition that my gnome feels regret for the way it ended, and he's going to try more carefully not to get people killed. He favors humiliating and redeeming villains over killing them.

Quote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.

I guess that's a firmly good point. It's a BIT different, as the cleric is a mortal and thus isn't necessarily doomed to be evil, but he's a cleric that's trying to get people's souls sent to the Hells. So... Hm.

Alright, thanks for the input folks. This is good to keep in mind for the future. The gnome will eventually conduct more antics, but that particular trick won't get a repeat.


Leitner wrote:
That being said, props on pulling off what appears to be a fairly well done trickster plot.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised with how things turned out. I carefully planned it (and had a potion ready in case I needed to make an escape), but I had a backup character ready in case my gnome was executed for something.

I had my gnome use his ranks in Profession: Barrister to research the laws of the town and learn what he could and couldn't get away with, so I knew what buttons he couldn't push and which ones he could. That might be a Lawful thing, but he thinks the laws of the town are stupid and sincerely believes a new sort of rulership / code of laws is needed. But then again, this is a Hell Knight town, so that's predictable.

Liberty's Edge

No problem with your gnome's actions insofar as his alignment is concerned. The only part that i'm surprised about is that your gnome wasn't executed for heresy and defiling an Asmodean church by the local hellknights.


Just to be clear, I don't think the act is alignment changing but you did destroy a church and (indirectly) got a man killed.


MrCharisma wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
Pretty much.

So if a paladin walked through town with detect evil active and killed everyone who pinged on his radar, that's ok?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Beating up evil people is generally considered to be okay, yes.

Also, I will note that someone did get hurt—the high priest was hung. That's probably the most questionable aspect, just because he doesn't seem to have been trying to kill anyone before now. But it's still pretty much fine.

It is worth noting that the Cleric got hanged because he tried to smite the Hell-Knight, not for attacking the Gnome Bard who did all this. Most cultures take a pretty dim view of people attacking their law enforcement officers. Also Hell-Knights are probably not the kind of group to take half-measures.

I would also like to point out that "Lawful Stupid" isn't just relegated to Paladins. This Cleric definitely hit that nail square on the head. It's one thing to go to town on a single 3/4 BAB gnome, but it's quite another to take on a squad of Hell-Knights single-handed. Just because you're evil doesn't mean you're a suicidal idiot. You have to earn that yourself.

Inlaa wrote:
My gnome definitely feels bad

Yup, no alignment shift needed then. We've all done things we regret. If anything this kind of act will make you MORE good - Not because you killed an evil cleric which must be a goood act because reasons etc etc ... but because you regret the actions you took that resulted in an innocent (well somewhat innocent) person's death. You'll take greater pains from now on to avoid such mistakes.

Actually if anything this might shift slightly toward Lawful ...? (Again only if you see a pattern emerging)


Martin Kauffman 530 wrote:
No problem with your gnome's actions insofar as his alignment is concerned. The only part that i'm surprised about is that your gnome wasn't executed for heresy and defiling an Asmodean church by the local hellknights.

Weird story there.

Fort Inevitable has Hell Knights, BUT those Hell Knights aren't connected to Cheliax. Their laws resemble Cheliax's and the like, but the chief deity worshiped in Fort Inevitable is actually Abadar. (At least, that's how our DM presented the situation.) Ergo, the Hell Knights (who are associated with the Order of the... Nail, was it? Some Order) actually mostly worship Abadar here. In fact, the Asmodean church is a minority.

It might be even more of a minority now.

EDIT: Oh, my gnome DID have a dream about devils dragging him into Hell. And he speaks Infernal (he's an archivist that wants to know the language of his enemies), so he understood this dream. He's going to have a cleric cast Atonement on him ASAP.


Yet we have no problem when adventurers desecrate a church of an evil god and ruthlessly slaughter its occupants. Alignment is absolute in Golarion, not shades of gray like on Earth, and while it's a philosophical debate as to whether an Evil alignment is a crime on its own, most adventurers aren't particularly philosophical. And the man brought it on himself. Yes, he was provoked, but ultimately it was his choice to attack the guards when they came in to defuse the situation.


Inlaa wrote:

In my current Emerald Spires campaign I'm playing a gnome bard, chaotic good. He's got the Archivist archetype, and I use Perform: Comedy and generally play him as a prankster, trickster ass.

I want to know if what I did in this session was something you'd call "evil," "not really on the moral spectrum," or "well the guy probably deserved it," just out of curiosity. My DM hasn't changed my alignment or anything - I just started thinking about this after the session and wanted to see what the forum thought.

I also kind of just want to tell this story because it was funny to me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------

There's this Hell Knight town called Fort Inevitable. In it there's an Asmodean cleric. This is where our story begins.

Early on my gnome was short on cash and so fake-signed a contract to Asmodeus to get a discount on some services, blah blah blah, generally hatching a plot to make a mockery of the Asmodean church at some point. He "befriended" the cleric, joined him in a couple private evil laugh sessions, and through some lucky Bluff roles he convinced him he was more than happy to join the congregation, and would even make a sacrifice to Asmodeus! Namely, he'd sacrifice his totally life-long best friend, a pet teddy bear, at the next service.

So, my gnome bought a teddy bear (which he claimed was totally a teddy bear he'd had since a child), shoved the only copy of Asmodeus's unholy book in town into it, then shoved in dung for good measure and used prestidigitation to make himself look and smell bad. He also used prestidigitation to make the teddy bear look more believably worn and old. After having made a few more preparations (like get a potion of expeditious retreat just in case), he decided to attend the service the next morning and do his best to get kicked out of the church.

During the service my gnome was introduced to everyone else (and they tried to sit far away from him because he smelled). The gnome...

First of all I approve of you dear gnomes use of clever thinking and it is, as first laid out, a very good prank.

That being said there is stuff to worry about here, especially in the aftermath of the prank.

So a couple of questions - was the point of the prank to humiliate the asmodean in front of his congregation to take him down a peg? or was it to humiliate him to the point of breaking him and sending him into a murderous rage, were he might do something he might regret? (as actually happened).
Because if you intended the first to happen, then what happen was a terrible accident and you would, in my opinion, be in the clear, especially if your character expresses some form of regret over the incident.
If you intended for the second to happen then you are, in my opinion, skating on very thin ice since your character is actually baiting people into doing thing that might hurt themselves or even worse, hurt others.


Oh the gnome definitely didn't intend to send him into a murderous rage. It was to "fight" the Asmodean faith by making a total mockery of the guy. He expected to have hired thugs come try and maul him in the night, not to be attacked on the spot by the cleric.


Inlaa wrote:
Oh the gnome definitely didn't intend to send him into a murderous rage. It was to "fight" the Asmodean faith by making a total mockery of the guy. He expected to have hired thugs come try and maul him in the night, not to be attacked on the spot by the cleric.

Most people take their religion pretty seriously. Especially if they're the head of that religion.


Knight who says Meh wrote:
Inlaa wrote:
Oh the gnome definitely didn't intend to send him into a murderous rage. It was to "fight" the Asmodean faith by making a total mockery of the guy. He expected to have hired thugs come try and maul him in the night, not to be attacked on the spot by the cleric.
Most people take their religion pretty seriously. Especially if they're the head of that religion.

Oh, definitely. I figured it could escalate to SOMETHING - but the idea of the Hell Knights being attacked by the cleric didn't occur to my gnome.

I personally figured that the cleric might take legal action, send thugs in the night to kill him, or try to incite his followers to chase him down (and be unsuccessful because he was publicly humiliated). Instead the cleric (who apparently was never the sanest of people) decided it was time to pull out ye olde mace and get a-whacking.

...Which, well, fair enough.

My bard has a WIS of 10, so despite his 14 INT and 17 CHA, he's not known for making the smartest decisions. This is the same gnome that decided it was a good idea to jump into a pit with spikes to squish a spider with his body because the pit was closed and he couldn't cast spells into it or shoot into it. Brash, poorly-thought out decisions that somehow prove to be effective are sort of his trademark.


I would say that the action was "bad" in the sense that it was reckless, there were thousands of ways for it to go horribly wrong, and there was very little mitigation done regarding all of those risks.

Was it an evil-aligned act? I wouldn't say so, even if it is unpleasant and that cleric's afterlife is probably going to really suck for however long it takes to become a lemure.

I'd give that poor gnome a hug and teach methods to better evaluate such plans in the future. (Such as knowing who to ask to provide assistance with contingency planning while the gnome provides the brilliantly-insane ideas)

Liberty's Edge

I think your actions where borderline good, but right on the "ok" side.

But I would be worry for repercussions. The Asmodean Church, and the god himself, can look to take revenge for the character actions. He did sign a contract, right? Even if "falsely" so.


Corsario wrote:

I think your actions where borderline good, but right on the "ok" side.

But I would be worry for repercussions. The Asmodean Church, and the god himself, can look to take revenge for the character actions. He did sign a contract, right? Even if "falsely" so.

Yeah. He stole his contract when he borrowed the cleric's book (for research, you see; he convinced the cleric he needed to immerse himself in the faith to better understand his new god) and promptly fed it to his pet dire rat. Yes, he fed his dire rat his contract with Hell.

But I am definitely having my character consult a friendly cleric that isn't evil-aligned and ask if there's any soul-related issues he might have now. And I'll get some spells cast to preserve his soul if necessary.

Basically I have to make sure he doesn't die before I get Atonement cast, just in case. I reckon that should counteract any voodoo affecting him by signing that contract. I hope.

Quote:
I'd give that poor gnome a hug and teach methods to better evaluate such plans in the future. (Such as knowing who to ask to provide assistance with contingency planning while the gnome provides the brilliantly-insane ideas)

Oh, God yeah. His contingency plan was "cast Expeditious Retreat and RUUUUUUN" which isn't exactly a well thought out escape. I tried buying Invisibility or Vanish as a scroll, but none of the mages in town actually owned it. And the local alchemist was charging my gnome an arm and a leg for potions, so my gnome wouldn't have any of that.

He's going to be more honest with his party members - I already decided that - because they proved in the same session that they would stick with him so long as he was honest with them. So maybe that will help.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would just like to say, the Core Rulebook mentions Good and Evil acts in the context of the innocent.

You're good. As for Chaos, that hits all the boxes.


Well, yes, it's Ok, alignment wise.

But where was the rest of the party? Doing a solo? Will this come back to bite the party in the rear?


DrDeth wrote:

Well, yes, it's Ok, alignment wise.

But where was the rest of the party? Doing a solo? Will this come back to bite the party in the rear?

The gnome was doing his own thing. We were having a downtime session (after we'd spent 3 sessions in the superdungeon nearby) so everyone was pursuing solo plots: the half-orc mage made preparations to purchase and free some slaves, the party brawler was busy setting up his brewery and generally founding a business, the magus was doing some shopping, and my gnome decided to enact his plan of mischief.

And then my gnome got thrown in jail but a friendly NPC sprang him out. Illegally, obviously.

The party only recently formed in-game (a week, maybe two), with the half-orc being the gnome's adventuring partner from before this campaign, so they're all just going to say "uhhhh the gnome disappeared we dunno where he is" and he won't enter town again until he has a hat of disguise and sleeves of many garments.

(After the party grouped up again, one of the party members cried out "GNOOOOOME!" out of character. I felt rewarded. But yeah, right now our plans are "let's avoid ticking off Hell Knights and the gnome bard just disappeared into the night, totally." I'm going to have my gnome instruct someone on how to lie properly when we level up.)


Something I'll note: Emotional manipulation is not mind control. People can very easily react unpredictably based off of hundreds of thousands of factors that are hard to know.

Also: How sure was your gnome that destroying the book would not itself trigger negative effects? I can think of a few things that'd make destroying it very unpleasant.

There's also "who will replace the Asmodean cleric? Are they worse?"

And "What will the congregation do in response to this affront?"

Oh, and people who make that specific book are now able to earn just a bit more money because the supply of those books has decreased by one, thus increasing Hell's coffers by a tiny smidgen. :P


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Switch the evil church to a good or even a neutral church and ask yourself the same question.

A lot of things look different without the Evil aspect of the equation.

Typical RPG adventure: A group of adventurers go to a tower where a group of evil wizards have been stealing innocent souls to feed to demons. The adventurers, at great risk to themselves, heroically slay the evil wizards.

RPG adventure without the evil: A group of adventurers go to a tower where a group of wizards have been hanging out. The adventurers kill the wizards and take their stuff.

Without the Evil, the adventurers are the bad guys.

And while in the real world it's sensible to not go around killing people just because you think they're bad guys, in an RPG that attitude tends to ruin the fun.


The gnome just knew that the book was a big bad text of Asmodean stuff. I got the impression afterwards that destroying it involves some bad juju since the GM said that my character heard a sound only he and the cleric could hear: what seemed like thousands of voices screaming very, very distantly. I rolled well on my knowledge checks (my knowledges range from +9 to +11), so I assume that just didn't come up before I burned it. (Oh, and again: he had a nightmare a few days later about devils dragging him to the Hells.)

The congregation seemed to be made up in good part of characters that were essentially bullied into worship - a lot of them were outright laughing at their cleric after he got angry and was just about to snap. They fled from the smell, but because the cleric had been fascinated and had done nothing when the gnome was singing about wanting to be "tooouuuched by Asmodeuuuusss!" they lost their respect in him. They only freaked once he tried mauling people with his mace.

Quote:
There's also "who will replace the Asmodean cleric? Are they worse?"

That's the part that worries me. But since story-wise there seems to be some trouble on the roads due to banditry and the like, hopefully that's a question that doesn't get answered immediately. I also wonder how many Asmodean clerics would be eager to go to a town where a cleric of the faith just got executed.

It'll come up eventually, I'm sure, but hopefully the party is high enough level by then that we can start meddling in politics properly like adventurers are wont to do.

Liberty's Edge

Knight who says Meh wrote:
MrCharisma wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
Pretty much.
So if a paladin walked through town with detect evil active and killed everyone who pinged on his radar, that's ok?

Well, it is not Lawful unless that is the due procedure in his culture (very doubtful) and it is not Good if he might inadvertently kill Good or Neutral people who do detect as Evil (it can happen in PFRPG).

Not to mention that, at least at my table, you can be both Evil and innocent. Especially because I approve of the "innocent until proven guilty" principle. "Proven" being a keyword here for such a Lawful character as a Paladin

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?

If not, many paladins and LG Clerics are falling from grace for killing all those BBEG's they encounter!


@Knight who says meh

This is a game set in a world were evil is a tangible force and good is a tangible force and this cleric worships an incarnation of that force (evil) and spreads that force through his church a church that binds people's souls to hell with loopholes in contracts.

How do you expect good to exist in a world like this if it can't actually fight or kill evil?

Would anyone blink twice if an inquisitor of Milani infiltrated and brought down a church of Asmodeus? No of course not.
This gnome basically did the same thing and less violently than most opperatives from rival churches would.


I know I'm a little late to the party, but I wanna throw my two cents into the fountain here.

Knight who says Meh wrote:

Just to be clear, I don't think the act is alignment changing but you did destroy a church and (indirectly) got a man killed.

I disagree.

A church that was founded on the fears of those who weren't truly attached or valued said church is practically asking for any adventurer to burn it down. Breaking up that church freed a lot of people from lives of fright and indefinite servitude to something that they didn't like, an act of good that is far more important than the ideal of a church.

Also, that man got killed when he resisted arrest and defied the laws of the town (several of which were probably without the town guard's knowledge), all of which were actions on his part, and burdens that were on his conscience (or lack thereof). Quite frankly, he died because of the decisions he made, and by the laws of the town/land, his sentence was carried out. None of this is on the OP's conscience, because all he did was expose it for what it really was, even if the way he did it wasn't exactly honest or direct.

He's a Chaotic Good Trickster. That's precisely how a Chaotic Good Trickster would play out. Whether that's in accordance with the rest of the party, I don't know. But that's not what the OP was asking.


I think your gnome is fine, alignment-wise. I think in the context of the game the gnome potentially made some interesting new enemies, both on the material plane and in hell. You might even get an undead version of the priest after you, for bonus points. But aside from these minor issues, this is the kind of prank that bards will sing of.

Silver Crusade

My only question is why you're playing an archivist bard instead of going for the gnome only prankster bard archetype from Advanced Race Guide.


Fromper wrote:
My only question is why you're playing an archivist bard instead of going for the gnome only prankster bard archetype from Advanced Race Guide.

Archivist is better.

I like the fluff of the Prankster but the Archivist is really solid at what it does. We needed a lore-monkey - check. We needed a trap disabler - check. The Archivist can disable magical traps and is an amazing lore monkey. AC and AB instead of AB and Dam worked out as well.

The only trouble is by missing Inspire Courage I can't do much damage since I have 6 STR, so I lean heavily on my huge array of spells and spell-like abilities (Faerie Dragon Magic + Fey Magic) to make it through the low levels. Later on I should find a better means of helping out than simply using songs and spells and providing flanking bonuses and falling on spiders or dealing a whopping 1 damage by throwing a chair leg (club) at a skeleton.

The other players are an Eldritch Archer Magus, a Brawler, and a Wood Wizard. I offered to play whatever roles the others didn't fill, so that left me with both Support and Trap Monkey. They also were lacking some vital skill points, so I took 14 INT and went full-on brainiac bard. (Putting it this way: 2+Int for the wizard, 4+1 for the human brawler - he has 8 INT - and 2+1+INT for the Human Magus. I wound up scrambling to grab all the skill points I could. thankfully, we're using Background Skills, which has made my life considerably easier.)


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Inlaa wrote:
I had my gnome use his ranks in Profession: Barrister to research the laws of the town and learn what he could and couldn't get away with, so I knew what buttons he couldn't push and which ones he could. That might be a Lawful thing, but he thinks the laws of the town are stupid and sincerely believes a new sort of rulership / code of laws is needed. But then again, this is a Hell Knight town, so that's predictable.

This is not Lawful.

This is Genius. Using the law to get away with Chaos.

Stupid would be getting caught because you didn't understand the laws.

/cevah


Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
If not, many paladins and LG Clerics are falling from grace for killing all those BBEG's they encounter!

Are they killing those BBEGs because of who they are or because of what they do/did?


Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

@Knight who says meh

This is a game set in a world were evil is a tangible force and good is a tangible force and this cleric worships an incarnation of that force (evil) and spreads that force through his church a church that binds people's souls to hell with loopholes in contracts.

How do you expect good to exist in a world like this if it can't actually fight or kill evil?

Would anyone blink twice if an inquisitor of Milani infiltrated and brought down a church of Asmodeus? No of course not.
This gnome basically did the same thing and less violently than most opperatives from rival churches would.

I'm not saying you can't fight or kill evil. I'm saying evil (or in this case, mean) acts don't become good (or nice) acts because they are done to evil (or mean) people.

Are you saying anyone associated with an evil church is fair game?


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:


He's a Chaotic Good Trickster. That's precisely how a Chaotic Good Trickster would play out. Whether that's in accordance with the rest of the party, I don't know. But that's not what the OP was asking.

I agree. Based on the information provided, I would say the OP acted within character.

(And to reiterate, I don't think his actions (in this case) should affect his alignment.)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

@Knight who says meh

This is a game set in a world were evil is a tangible force and good is a tangible force and this cleric worships an incarnation of that force (evil) and spreads that force through his church a church that binds people's souls to hell with loopholes in contracts.

How do you expect good to exist in a world like this if it can't actually fight or kill evil?

Would anyone blink twice if an inquisitor of Milani infiltrated and brought down a church of Asmodeus? No of course not.
This gnome basically did the same thing and less violently than most opperatives from rival churches would.

I'm not saying you can't fight or kill evil. I'm saying evil (or in this case, mean) acts don't become good (or nice) acts because they are done to evil (or mean) people.

Are you saying anyone associated with an evil church is fair game?

This dude wasn't just anyone was he? No he was the priest of an evil church (as in, in charge of and answerable for the evil that church brings).

Fighting evil opprosseive forces in the world is not evil.

Pissing them off is definitely not evil. Pissing of an evil person who then looses their s@@@ and gets themselves killed is super not evil.

The Exchange

Knight who says Meh wrote:
Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
If not, many paladins and LG Clerics are falling from grace for killing all those BBEG's they encounter!
Are they killing those BBEGs because of who they are or because of what they do/did?

Both... aside from Character Creation. Alignment isn't a random value that is intrensic in the nature of a creature. It is the culmination of how it thinks and what it does. If a creature performs no evil actions they will not be evil.

So they are killed for being evil AND doing evil things.


Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Glorf Fei-Hung wrote:
Knight who says Meh wrote:
Daedalus the Dungeon Builder wrote:
Knight who says Meh- That's like asking if killing a demon is an evil act, and then someone saying "well, switch that to an angel and ask again." Mercilessly killing hundreds of evil creatures is usually accepted as a good act. Neutral or good? You've firmly changed both the parameters of the question.
So it's okay to bad things if you do them to bad people?
If not, many paladins and LG Clerics are falling from grace for killing all those BBEG's they encounter!
Are they killing those BBEGs because of who they are or because of what they do/did?

Both... aside from Character Creation. Alignment isn't a random value that is intrensic in the nature of a creature. It is the culmination of how it thinks and what it does. If a creature performs no evil actions they will not be evil.

So they are killed for being evil AND doing evil things.

Unless it's an Outsider. Then it will always be considered to have that alignment (and subtype) for effects related to alignment (such as Smite Evil on a Redeemed Succubus).


Whether it's evil really depends on the campaign. If your DM runs an "All Evils Twirl Their Mustaches and Kill Indiscriminately" world, then you're fine. Being an Asmodean cleric is a crime worthy of any such attacks.

But maybe the DM's running a different kind of world, less beer and pretzels kick down the door style, in which it's not necessarily evil to be a cleric that worships a legal faith and simply enables the bad decisions of foolish or evil people. Then, I think you're in moral difficulty.

Remember, you can be Lawful Neutral and worship Asmodeus. Are you sure that he's actually evil?

And there's this: "In countries not under Cheliax's yoke, priests are expected to abide by local laws and take sacrifices only from willing victims."


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Inlaa, and dont be discouraged by some of the answers you get here. Some confuse real life morality with game alignment.

Some would even argue that you cant attack unless attack first and since looking for trouble is instigating, you basically cant play D&D.

Those are their opinions, but consider what the game is designed for.

1 to 50 of 88 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Roleplay Question: Did I do a BAD Thing? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.