Under what circumstances is Dalenydra fine with/approving of violence?
Hunting animals for food?
Hurting/killing an attacker to protect self or a non-combatant?
Destroying (non-sapient) undead?
Laying a haunt to rest?
As an unavoidable side-effect of combat training?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Player at my CotCT game had the same question, so I made for him a small code of conduit for his merciful healer cleric:
1. Any wounded living creature may benefit from faithful's healing skills and abilities, if it asks and doesn't harbor (or harbored/done) any evil acts against him directly. - guideline
2. Faithful cannot harm any living creature with his healing skills and abilities. - oath
3. Faithful cannot deal any lethal damage or effects to any living creature that doesn't continuously (2 times and more in a row) attack him directly.- oath
4. Faithful should preach against war and violence. - guideline
Guidelines are, well, guidelines, but oaths shouldn't be consciously overstepped. Or divine power will be cut for a period of time until faithful atones.
Haunts, constructs and undead (sapient or not) are not subject of restrictions, because they aren't "living". Animals... Only if it’s absolutely necessary, I think. Insects being mindless, and compared to a force of nature, like storm, aren't subject of restrictions too. And protecting non-combatants - I'd say faithful of Dalenydra should be concerned more on their healing, if foe tries to aggressively stop him (dealing any kind of damage) from doing this, then he has green light.
The Healer's Handbook entry mentions that Dalenydra's faithful are allowed to defend themselves while performing their duties on the battle field. It doesn't elaborate as to the full scope of what that means, though.
I imagine they would probably be inclined to resort to non-lethal damage at first and only result to lethal damage if that penalty is keeping them from effectively hitting the target.
Likewise I'd imagine that if they won initiative they'd spend their first round turtling in full defense rather than striking preemptively and presuming the attacker's intent, however clear it is.
That's just how I'd play it, though.
I don't imagine any good aligned faith being so anti-violence that mindless undead are off limits. If there is one I'm unaware of then I would question the motivations of whichever developer was behind that bit of fluff.
Dalenydra's entry also doesn't mention anything about vegetarianism so I imagine hunting for food is allowed. Various animal parts are used in many pre-modern/non-western medicine techniques that may be employed by a character making use of the heal skill instead of just cure spells, as well. If one of dalenydra's faithful is alright using such products, I'd imagine they'd need to be alright with collecting the materials themselves.