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As a GM: NPCs will attempt to identify the spell being cast but probably fail and take attacks of opportunity to disrupt the Paladins concentration, then either run away from the scary person who casts spells at them without their permission or get violent.
Paladin commits murder, Paladin falls, if they fail to hide the body local law enforcement will use Blood Biography, and possibly Red Hand of the Killer, to hunt down the murderous ex-Paladin.
As a player: I react IC to my party member committing murder in front of me. This may involve revoking their weapon privileges, possibly their freedom privileges. If for some reason the Paladin has been able to get away with this repeatedly while still maintaining a lawful good alignment and powers my character will either lose faith in the gods or assume something has gone terribly wrong in the upper planes.
I detect evil at it! When those are the words that kick off every social interaction with, the world becomes a very black and white place. There's no room for questionable alliances or deals with the devil when evil = smite on sight. As a GM, how can you build around this play style? Should you try and break players out of the habit, or incorporate it into your adventure design? How do you play it at your table?
I throw out alignment. This is one of the primary reasons why.
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A non-evil person who is greeted thusly refuses to assist the party.
Paladin walks into a tavern, scans the room with Detect Evil, tavern keeper asks him to leave and refuses to serve the party food/drink/place to sleep.
Paladin walks into a saddle shop to buy better barding, scans the shop owner with Detect Evil. Shop owner tells him to leave and refuses to sell him anything.
Druid in the woods who knows where the evil green dragon's lair is, gets scanned by the Paladin, is offended and refuses to help the party.
Rinse and repeat until the player Detects Pattern.
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Killing a being for how they think is murder and evil, even if what they THINK is evil or believe is evil.
Quite right. Murder is bad.
In order to kill things and take their stuff without it being murder, you need an excuse. So what you do is break into their home (ideally a dungeon, since the loot there is better). This gives them a reason to attack you. Since your life is now in danger because they are probably going to attack you, you can now use lethal force in self-defence. (Under no circumstances should you use nonlethal force, because taking prisoners causes moral dilemmas and inconvenience. Plus, looting them while they're alive is theft.) Killing in self-defence is not-murder, and therefore it is just and heroic.
{. . .}
Also atonement is a thing, so if he kills someone who keeps a society running, have him fall, if he complains tell him to deal, he's a paladin not a moron.
Paladin guides do often recommend dumping Intelligence . . . .
{. . .}
(Edit: I originally went into this thread expecting something like, "A player wants to portray their character as addicted to casting this spell, and wants mechanical withdrawl for not doing it daily! How do I figure this out?")
That's what I thought too . . . .
Killing a being for how they think is murder and evil, even if what they THINK is evil or believe is evil.Quite right. Murder is bad.
In order to kill things and take their stuff without it being murder, you need an excuse. So what you do is break into their home (ideally a dungeon, since the loot there is better). This gives them a reason to attack you. Since your life is now in danger because they are probably going to attack you, you can now use lethal force in self-defence. (Under no circumstances should you use nonlethal force, because taking prisoners causes moral dilemmas and inconvenience. Plus, looting them while they're alive is theft.) Killing in self-defence is not-murder, and therefore it is just and heroic.
This sounds disturbingly familiar . . . .
This sounds disturbingly familiar . . . .
It's the moral code encouraged by a lot of published adventures. The only way to get to the next place you're supposed to go is to pass through the yeti caves. The yeti will attack you if you try. Don't worry, killing them isn't evil, because self-defence or whatever!
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This sounds disturbingly familiar . . . .It's the moral code encouraged by a lot of published adventures. The only way to get to the next place you're supposed to go is to pass through the yeti caves. The yeti will attack you if you try. Don't worry, killing them isn't evil, because self-defence or whatever!
If you live in an open cave that serves as passage from place A to place B and your first reaction is to attack anyone for walking in, then yeah, those people can kill you no problem as long as you continue actively attacking them.
I'm really not sure how you can argue that this is morally bad. It's about on the same level as arguing that if I stumble into a mountain lion den while mountain climbing and it attacks me, that it's morally wrong for me to kill it.
If you live in an open cave that serves as passage from place A to place B and your first reaction is to attack anyone for walking in, then yeah, those people can kill you no problem as long as you continue actively attacking them.
I'm really not sure how you can argue that this is morally bad. It's about on the same level as arguing that if I stumble into a mountain lion den while mountain climbing and it attacks me, that it's morally wrong for me to kill it.
OK, let's turn it around. A horde of orcs wants you to open the city gates. They say they just want to pass through your town, because that's where the bridge over the river is. If you don't let them through, do they have the right to force their way in and slaughter anyone who gets in their way?
Smiting evil is always good in this game. But the paladin falls at the GM's whims. The code is vague and any violation of it removes the paladin's class features.
As a GM, you dictate the paladin's actions. If she is disrupting the campaign, that's your fault. She's playing the one class you have complete intended control over.
I'm really not sure how you can argue that this is morally bad. It's about on the same level as arguing that if I stumble into a mountain lion den while mountain climbing and it attacks me, that it's morally wrong for me to kill it.Except that yeti aren't animals. They're about as smart as the average human, and generally passive and solitary creatures. Wanting to travel through someone's home doesn't give you the right to slaughter them when they try to keep you out.
Correct, Yeti aren't animals and they can actually talk (even if it's aklo). If they don't even bother to try to communicate with you and just try to kill you on sight, that's pretty solid grounds in D&D/Pathfinderland to kill them right back.
If they don't even bother to try to communicate with you and just try to kill you on sight, that's pretty solid grounds in D&D/Pathfinderland to kill them right back.
That is... one interpretation of what is OK, yes.
But knowingly causing unnecessary harm is pretty much the definition of evil.
So how many of the following would you try before resorting to killing intelligent non-evil creatures who are just protecting their home from foreign invaders who didn't even bother to learn their language?
Throwing down your weapons to indicate non-hostile intent.
Retreating and looking for another route.
Turning invisible and sneaking past.
Using nonlethal damage.
Show players that "Smite on Sight" wont go well for them.
Player detects evil on merchant, discovers this unusually high level merchant (characters below level 5 don't have an aura) is evil and proceeds to kill them. This is followed by the paladin's arrest for unlawful murder, and probably also a loss of powers. The paladin has no idea why the merchant is evil, or what they've done. This theoretical merchant in my example could be evil because he overcharges everyone, or maybe because he does things like sell food by weight but adds weights to the scale where the customer can't see.
Yeah, you don't fall unless the DM wants you to there.
If overcharging is evil than killing him is fine.Really, DMs should stop equating evil with jerk.
So you can't fall unless he is evil for no reasonable rationale.
Basically, rule of thumb should be is he evil than killing him doesn't cause a fall.
If he isn't evil, the DM now has to figure out why he detects as such.
The only thing the DM should do is arrest him since evil isn't illegal.
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It's the moral code encouraged by a lot of published adventures. The only way to get to the next place you're supposed to go is to pass through the yeti caves. The yeti will attack you if you try. Don't worry, killing them isn't evil, because self-defence or whatever!
And the yeti did abandon the fight when their ghost-possessed chief died and the non-yeti ghost rose from his corpse to continue the fight on her own.
A lot of published adventuers have the theme of looting an abandoned stronghold inhabited by only so-called uncivilized monsters, such as a kobold tribe. But Paizo's Adventure Paths are built on higher moral ground. For example, in Rise of the Runelords, the town is raided by goblins. The adventure path is largely about responding to raiders and kidnappers until the party learns of the final bad guy's big evil plans. The party raids the strongholds of known raiders.
OK, let's turn it around. A horde of orcs wants you to open the city gates. They say they just want to pass through your town, because that's where the bridge over the river is. If you don't let them through, do they have the right to force their way in and slaughter anyone who gets in their way?
That would make a good short adventure. The party is visiting a fortified town adjacent to orcish territory. The town is on alert due to rumors of a new orc warlord. The well-known peaceful orc merchant Grosh approaches town gates asking for his caravan to pass through. Usually Grosh has three wagons, but this time he has twelve and he has more than four times his usual number of guards. Grosh explains that other merchants joined his caravan for protection in these hostile times.
The mayor decides to let Grosh's caravan through town one wagon at a time, watched by armed escorts. He does not want to pull any town guards off the walls, so he hires the party to escort each wagon. Problem solved, right? Except that the extra orc caravan guards are a raiding party that forced Grosh to cooperate with them, and they are going to break down the gates and sound a warhorn while the party is leading a wagon through town. Note that Grosh and his usual employees in the front wagons are not evil, so Detect Evil on them will give no warning at the beginning.
This story also reminds me of history, the conquest in 1763 of Fort Michilimackinac in northern Michigan. The Ojibwe and Sauk Indians rigged a ruse involving a game of lacrosse to enter the fort.
A lot of that hinges on on whether the intelligent non-evil creatures made any attempt to communicate or to otherwise warn us off (and hell, someone in the party probably knows Aklo) - and whether we're actually approaching their dwelling or if we've just entered the edge of their territory.
Like, if they're trying as hard as possible to kill us simply for entering the cave system or mountain pass they happen to live in/by, then it's fair to respond in kind. That'd be like a town sending out an armed posse to kill everyone using the nearby highway just because, and that's messed up.
We might look for another route simply because we don't want to fight psycho yetis every step of the way, but if they're taking advantage of their position near some passageway to try to kill all travelers, they're pretty much bandits.
Now, if they've actually left some sort of clear sign that they control the area -- even if that's just a sentry who's there to open communications -- then we'd have a duty to try to negotiate passage.
And if by freak accident we'd actually missed the patrols and stumbled right into the yeti settlement, we'd have a duty to try to not hurt anyone until we got things sorted out (unless, again, they immediately open with lethal force instead of trying to warn us away).
Though determining that there's a yeti settlement, and going out of your way to destroy it just for being there, would certainly be evil.
Also, yetis have a paralysis gaze - if they're trying to use that then you fight for your g&!#*!n life, because you are one bad roll away from getting coup de graced at any time.
Like, if they're trying as hard as possible to kill us simply for entering the cave system or mountain pass they happen to live in/by, then it's fair to respond in kind. That'd be like a town sending out an armed posse to kill everyone using the nearby highway just because, and that's messed up.
Imagine if a mob of yeti wandered into a human town. What are the chances the town guard would start firing arrows at them?
Out of curiosity...
Have any DMs here actually informed players of the story tone and resultant moral expectations from the beginning, or do you expect them to "discover" it during play? If the latter, do your NPCs set an example for a moral [good] ("The goblins keep raiding! We can't kill them because they're sentient beings, but something needs to be done!"), or do you play them straight? Do your NPCs react like kill-crazy murderhomeowners when they think the PCs are acting like kill-crazy murderhobos, or do they have a calm conversation about redemption?
I ask because in fiction, morality is very implementation-specific. In one story, the heroes might giggle wildly while tossing around an axe to cut down the town guard mooks. In another, the hero might refuse to fight anyone under the belief that everyone is redeemable (until (s)he meets the big bad guy...).
Like, if they're trying as hard as possible to kill us simply for entering the cave system or mountain pass they happen to live in/by, then it's fair to respond in kind. That'd be like a town sending out an armed posse to kill everyone using the nearby highway just because, and that's messed up.Imagine if a mob of yeti wandered into a human town. What are the chances the town guard would start firing arrows at them?
Uh, that's a deliberately different situation. I'm talking about passing in the vicinity of the settlement, you're talking about storming the settlement.
Entering the cave system they're living in is more like breaking into someone's home than passing by the vicinity of their settlement.
Smiting evil is always good in this game.
???
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Smiting evil is always good in this game.???
Well, casting Holy Smite on an evil person is objectively [good], at least.
Entering the cave system they're living in is more like breaking into someone's home than passing by the vicinity of their settlement.
The point was made that the cave system could only count as their home if the highway within X miles of a city were considered that city as well, and so they had "the right" to kill anyone using that road. Their "home" would need to be the size of a home for them, a nice dead end to a tunnel or something, they can't be claiming the entire system is their home.
Also, if this cave system is the main way from getting from A to B then these intelligent creatures should realize that when setting up home. Signs of travel and likely people passing through semi-regularly. Meaning that they shouldn't be attacking people on sight.
Well, casting Holy Smite on an evil person is objectively [good], at least.Smiting evil is always good in this game.???
The casting of the spell is a good act, what you do with it can be different. So casting it on an evil person is a good act to cast the spell and an evil act if the evil person is innocent.
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The casting of the spell is a good act, what you do with it can be different. So casting it on an evil person is a good act to cast the spell and an evil act if the evil person is innocent.Well, casting Holy Smite on an evil person is objectively [good], at least.Smiting evil is always good in this game.???
If the person was an innocent, wouldn't his actions have made him good or neutral?
Though it's a decent way to test for good and neutral aligned beings. >.>
The detect or the smite? Tad confused due to the last few posts.
@ Matthew Downie - Uh, no, no it's not.
Cave systems are often pretty big (especially if it's one that goes all the way through a friggin' mountain), and yeti tribes are pretty small.
Odds are extremely good that while the yetis might patrol the entire system as their hunting range, only a tiny portion of it is their actual living space* - and you can probably tell what portion is the actual living space and stay clear of it. Just as a group of yetis descending into a valley with a town in it could easily stay clear of the actual town. (And if some patrolling guard at the edge of the valley just starts shooting a group of yetis on sight, he may well deserve to be lunch.)
(Heh. Though the yeti entry calls out the lone marauder yetis that humanoid communities are most likely to encounter are usually in fact exiled yeti criminals. I.e., bandits that happen to be yetis.)
And yeah, if your party YOLO'd and stormed the actual yeti den, they
should get a hostile reception.
But if you meet the yetis out in their hunting range and they attack immediately with no attempt to parlay, then the consequences are on them.
(Unless, of course, the yetis have actually done something to make a clear claim to the hunting range, that would actually put travelers on notice that they need to be getting permission to pass through. But I'm under impression that you're arguing for travelers being at fault for getting attacked on sight by yetis for unknowingly entering their territory.)
*
I think at this point I'm completely unclear on the scenario you're actually trying to argue.
If the person was an innocent, wouldn't his actions have made him good or neutral?The casting of the spell is a good act, what you do with it can be different. So casting it on an evil person is a good act to cast the spell and an evil act if the evil person is innocent.Well, casting Holy Smite on an evil person is objectively [good], at least.Smiting evil is always good in this game.???
Innocent is relative - he might be a bad person, but dropping a Holy Smite spell on him amounts to meeting out the death penalty just for existing. If he hasn't done anything that would warrant death as a punishment, you've probably just committed an evil act.
Sort of like how if you dropped Holy Word (a [Good] spell) in a town square, you'd kill every neutral civilian within range.
Holy Smite.Though it's a decent way to test for good and neutral aligned beings. >.>The detect or the smite? Tad confused due to the last few posts.
Which leads back to "This random person is acting weird" result from detect evil.
If the person was an innocent, wouldn't his actions have made him good or neutral?The casting of the spell is a good act, what you do with it can be different. So casting it on an evil person is a good act to cast the spell and an evil act if the evil person is innocent.Well, casting Holy Smite on an evil person is objectively [good], at least.Smiting evil is always good in this game.???Innocent is relative - he might be a bad person, but dropping a Holy Smite spell on him amounts to meeting out the death penalty just for existing. If he hasn't done anything that would warrant death as a punishment, you've probably just committed an evil act.
Sort of like how if you dropped Holy Word (a [Good] spell) in a town square, you'd kill every neutral civilian within range.
We're not talking about neutral people; we're talking about evil people. Dropping that Holy Smite on an evil person would be chaotic, but it wouldn't necessarily be evil.
...unless you're suggesting that evil people can stay evil while not being evil?
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Evil doesn't mean that you aren't following the laws. Evil doesn't mean that you aren't a working member of society. Being selfish, cheating others, not caring how your action impact others, all of these are evil things that don't warrant death nor even need to warrant punishment.
Being evil isn't a punishable offense.
@ Kitty Catoblepas - Petty evil is absolutely a thing. There's plenty of non-violent ways to still make life hell for individual people or classes of people you don't like. Like a loan shark who always makes a point to go after poor people of a certain ethnicity, or a guy running a gambling den that actively tries to cause life ruining addiction, or the dude who endlessly harasses his neighbors because he's trying to force them to sell their home.
There's plenty of stuff you can do that's bad that you wouldn't actually deserve to die for.
Well if good people can be jerks I don't see why evil can't be not-jerks.
Being evil means that you're hurting people, so you're being a jerk to someone at least part of the time.
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Out of curiosity...
Have any DMs here actually informed players of the story tone and resultant moral expectations from the beginning, or do you expect them to "discover" it during play? If the latter, do your NPCs set an example for a moral [good] ("The goblins keep raiding! We can't kill them because they're sentient beings, but something needs to be done!"), or do you play them straight? Do your NPCs react like kill-crazy murderhomeowners when they think the PCs are acting like kill-crazy murderhobos, or do they have a calm conversation about redemption?
I ask because in fiction, morality is very implementation-specific. In one story, the heroes might giggle wildly while tossing around an axe to cut down the town guard mooks. In another, the hero might refuse to fight anyone under the belief that everyone is redeemable (until (s)he meets the big bad guy...).
My players set the tone. I have an informal rule that if they try to gather information, they will discover something useful. Thus, my regular players gather information and learn about the enemy before combat. If the potential conflict can be resolved peacefully, my regulars try that.
Some other players prefer combat. If the peacemakers prevail in a morally-ambiguous conflict, then I invent a morally-clear battle somewhere to keep the bloodthirsty PCs happy.
And a few other players are terrible at roleplaying consistent morals. In my Iron Gods campaign, I added an encounter where the players freed slaves of the evil Technic League. They killed the Technic League overseers in the battle, the low-level overseers dying as collateral damage in a distant fireball battle between spellcasters. The party captured one Technic League member who was not directly involved in slavekeeping and intimidated him into giving up useful information. One player of a True Neutral character demanded the death of the captive, regardless of the cooperation. I had hyped the fearsome reputation of the Technic League, so that stance was plausible. The other PCs instead exiled the captive by transporting him hundreds of miles away and abandoning him penniless.
Five game sessions later, the party entered Starfall, the capital city of Numeria and the home of Technic League headquarters. The True Neutral character wanted to leave the Technic League alone, since they weren't bothering him. Why the change of heart? I suspect cowardice.
So how many of the following would you try before resorting to killing intelligent non-evil creatures who are just protecting their home from foreign invaders who didn't even bother to learn their language?
Throwing down your weapons to indicate non-hostile intent.
Retreating and looking for another route.
Turning invisible and sneaking past.
Using nonlethal damage.
I have created scenes where the non-evil sentries of a beleaguered fortress attack the party on sight, because all previous strangers have been hostile. After a chance to overhear the senties' shouts to each other, such as "Protect the children from the undead," and "For Desna," I allow a Diplomacy check as a standard action for the party to try for a truce, "Wait! We aren't enemies. We worship Desna, too." My party is good about learning foreign languages.
Trying for a truce didn't work against the yeti in Jade Regent book 3.
Parties have never tried throwing down weapons (and what would the monk and sorcerer do?). They negotiate truces from strength, instead. They don't have to retreat to try another route, because their scouts report the armed force ahead when changing routes is easy. Turning invisible and sneaking is attempted only against known hostiles. Nonlethal damge is only when they want prisoners, and lethal damage with healing afterwards is as effective. (Seriously, one PC almost killed an innocent with non-lethal damage because one blow dealt twice her hit points, which converted half to lethal. Swing first and ask questions later means not distinguishing a low-level well-dresssed slave from her master.)
@ Kitty Catoblepas - Petty evil is absolutely a thing. There's plenty of non-violent ways to still make life hell for individual people or classes of people you don't like. Like a loan shark who always makes a point to go after poor people of a certain ethnicity, or a guy running a gambling den that actively tries to cause life ruining addiction, or the dude who endlessly harasses his neighbors because he's trying to force them to sell their home.
There's plenty of stuff you can do that's bad that you wouldn't actually deserve to die for.
Fiction is full of stories of heroes violently taking down people who ruin lives (especially those who hide behind the law to do so). Quite often, these villains who kill slowly and indirectly are portrayed as worse than petty thugs. If you want to enforce that people have to put a knife to someone to be evil enough, then that's something to be explicit about to your players.
Or maybe you're conflating innocence with lawfulness?
Well if good people can be jerks I don't see why evil can't be not-jerks.Being evil means that you're hurting people, so you're being a jerk to someone at least part of the time.
And does that suddenly make it GOOD for some random person to come an kill you?
NO.If I kick my dog every day thus making evil, do I deserve to die to some random person?
NO
Heck, littering and not caring about the consequences probably counts as an evil act. letting that be enough to turn one evil.
ALSO remember that THINKING something makes you evil. Wanting to knife a boss you don't like makes you ping as evil. Enjoying when someone has an accident or misfortune. You don't need to DO anything bad to count as evil.
If you're killing people over white collar crime, you probably aren't good.
Edit: And if you're throwing Holy Smite at people just to see if they die from it, you definitely aren't.
Holy Smite easily does enough damage to kill a 1st level commoner who is neither good nor evil.
Holy Smite easily does enough damage to kill a 1st level commoner who is neither good nor evil.
Does it? I looked up Smight(because I know people like RAW) and don't see listed "If the target is Non-Evil, this happens". Now I am on ipod so the pages might not load right.
If a target is not Evil, what happens?
Holy Smite easily does enough damage to kill a 1st level commoner who is neither good nor evil.
Does it? I looked up Smight(because I know people like RAW) and don't see listed "If the target is Non-Evil, this happens". Now I am on ipod so the pages might not load right.
If a target is not Evil, what happens?
"The spell deals only half damage to creatures who are neither good nor evil, and they are not blinded. Such a creature can reduce that damage by half (down to one-quarter of the roll) with a successful Will save."
Holy Smite easily does enough damage to kill a 1st level commoner who is neither good nor evil.
Does it? I looked up Smight(because I know people like RAW) and don't see listed "If the target is Non-Evil, this happens". Now I am on ipod so the pages might not load right.
If a target is not Evil, what happens?
"The spell deals only half damage to creatures who are neither good nor evil, and they are not blinded. Such a creature can reduce that damage by half (down to one-quarter of the roll) with a successful Will save."
Thank you, the page keeps shifting on me.
Yes that would probably kill a commoner and causing damage to soon to be revealed non Evil would be grounds for warning or fall depending.
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And we're back to arguing first-grade moral philosophy again. Why am I not surprised....
Uh, that's a deliberately different situation. I'm talking about passing in the vicinity of the settlement, you're talking about storming the settlement.Like, if they're trying as hard as possible to kill us simply for entering the cave system or mountain pass they happen to live in/by, then it's fair to respond in kind. That'd be like a town sending out an armed posse to kill everyone using the nearby highway just because, and that's messed up.Imagine if a mob of yeti wandered into a human town. What are the chances the town guard would start firing arrows at them?
There is a substantial difference between storming and walking through the gates.
Not that most human settlements would make that distinction.
The real life equivalent would be the Treaty of Tordesillas, which spilt ownership of the non-Catholic world between Spain and Portugal. Obviously, the rest of the world's opinion was moot.
Well if good people can be jerks I don't see why evil can't be not-jerks.Being evil means that you're hurting people, so you're being a jerk to someone at least part of the time.And does that suddenly make it GOOD for some random person to come an kill you?
NO.
If I kick my dog every day thus making evil, do I deserve to die to some random person?
NO
Heck, littering and not caring about the consequences probably counts as an evil act. letting that be enough to turn one evil.ALSO remember that THINKING something makes you evil. Wanting to knife a boss you don't like makes you ping as evil. Enjoying when someone has an accident or misfortune. You don't need to DO anything bad to count as evil.
If you're killing people over white collar crime, you probably aren't good.
Littering is a chaotic act.
Dumping hazardous materials with intent to harm (or not caring whether you cause harm) is evil.
Also, THINKING about something doesn't make you ping evil; PLANNING or INTENDING to do something makes you ping evil. The spell detects INTENT, not DESIRE. Detecting someone who is about to commit an evil act who has the means of doing so (is 5HD or more) without preventing them from doing so is deciding to protect evildoers at the expense of the innocent.
Abusing an animal is an evil act and I wouldn't do it in front of a good Druid if I were you.
White collar crime is chaotic.
White collar crime where you're hurting people is evil (and shows up in fiction in shows like Arrow or Robin Hood).
In short, hurting people is evil. If you deal with people who are not directly hurting or killing people with violence, then you are most likely (in the world of fiction, at least) not doing an evil thing (although you're probably being chaotic or ham-fisted at the very least).
And we're back to arguing first-grade moral philosophy again. Why am I not surprised....
To the contrary, we're arguing about conflict in fiction and the role of morality in driving or restraining it.