I just got around to reading the paladin preview, and I saw the prohibition against murder. But is murder ever defined in game? Because it seems that's an incredibly grey area, especially in a game like this.
The first problem scenario that comes to mind is neutral creatures doing shenanigans. Like, if the paladin sees a bunch of neutral guys robbing a temple, would he be forced to use non-lethal damage to capture them, lest he be murdering them?
Once lethal force is used against (or threatened towards) the Paladin, it's no longer murder to use lethal force as a response.
I'd argue that the Paladin shouldn't initiate lethal force in that situation. Unless the local laws prescribe the use of lethal force against thieves.
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Its a tough nut to crack since a major portion of the game is built around how to kill things right? It wouldnt hurt to make some more scenarios around non-lethal combat. In your example, you are just trying to stop some thieves. Its incredibly difficult to do without going to the sword.
Before the designers go and define murder, I think it would help to create an expectation that not every violation is a death sentence.
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Your definition is just one definition of murder though. I mean if the rulebook itself defines murder, then fine, but otherwise the word murder is pretty vague.
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I don't think we need special in-game definitions of real world terms, like "murder"
I think we do, when there's no single interpretation of that word.
Definition of murder
1 : the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice
So, who's laws do you even need to reference? What if it's legal by my laws to kill someone, but not under the victim's laws?
What if it's legal by my laws to kill someone, but not under the victim's laws?
Already covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet of their code.
What's the law in effect at the place where this killing is happening? That's what will define if it's murder or not.
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Clearly we have to make paladins avoid concentrations of crows.
Lol. I thought about making a joke about that, or about how the Paladin can't do anything very difficult or dangerous. But I was afraid someone would think I was serious, so I edited it.
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What if it's legal by my laws to kill someone, but not under the victim's laws?Already covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet of their code
Actually, it's not covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet, because the murder prohibition is higher on the list.
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A specific definition of murder would be very nice.
However, in terms of existing definitions, murder tends to be killing with malice aforethought. Killing someone in a fight can count if you started the fight with the intent of killing them, but if they happen to die in a fight where that wasn't the goal, that's usually manslaughter rather than murder. Self defense is also pretty universally not murder.
Where it gets tricky is things like battles or raids in a war. Those usually aren't considered murder, but some people certainly consider them so.
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What if it's legal by my laws to kill someone, but not under the victim's laws?Already covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet of their code.
What's the law in effect at the place where this killing is happening? That's what will define if it's murder or not.
That only works if you're in civilization, and they have clear rules on the matter. Since half the time you'll be out in the wild, try again.
Also, is it a violation to try to bait the Thieves into attacking you so you can kill them in a place where killing is only legal in self defense? If they outnumber you and aren't willing to fight you, you basically can't stop them.
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I feel it really shouldn't have a specific rules definition. Some games consider killing intelligent undead without further cause to be murder, while others don't. Ditto for monstrous races/ancestries/creature types.
Paladin's prohibition is against evil acts, including murder, torture, etc. If the GM isn't counting it as an evil act on other characters, then it probably shouldn't count for the Paladin. What the GM allows for exceptions- killing people without it being murder or an evil act- is variable.
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Actually, it's not covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet, because the murder prohibition is higher on the list.What if it's legal by my laws to kill someone, but not under the victim's laws?Already covered by the "must follow local laws" tenet of their code
Okay, so we find ourselves in one of the four following scenarios:
A: Paladin believes the act is murder. Local law does not allow it.
B: Paladin believes the act is murder. Local law allows it.
C: Paladin believes the act is not murder. Local law does not allow it.
D: Paladin believes the act is not murder. Local law allows it.
In A: Paladin and the law agree. Both the "don't murder" tenet and the "follow local laws" tenet are against the act. Paladin can't do it because it would break both tenets.
In B: Paladin and the law disagree. The "don't murder" tenet doesn't allow it and the "follow local laws" allow (even incentivizes) it. But "don't murder" can't be violated to upheld a lower priority tenet, so Paladin can't do it.
In C: Paladin and the law disagree. The "don't murder" tenet would allow it since in the Paladin's eyes he's not commiting murder, but the "follow local laws" tenet doesn't allow it. Doing it would violate a tenet and not doing it would violate no tenets, so Paladin can't do it.
In D: Paladin and the law agree. Nobody thinks it's murder. Go ahead and shank that guy.
That only works if you're in civilization, and they have clear rules on the matter. Since half the time you'll be out in the wild, try again.
If there's indeed no "local law" in the wild, then it all comes down to whether you are killing someone for the hell of it or if you could avoid it, pretty much. Is that guy trying to kill you and won't stop? Then there's really no other option. Can you incapacitate them in a way that doesn't spell "long, drawn-out, painful death" and won't cause more problems down the line? Then avoid killing.
I mean, yeah, it's fuzzy. That's kinda the point of moral dilemmas.
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I think I have to ask though, why have moral dilemmas? I mean, they're kind of fun sometimes, but when you have a whole character class based around it, it's problematic. And why create a problematic character class?
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I really don't think we need to start defining every term like this. The main thing is, people need to stop conflating real life morality and 21st century, 1st world country, laws onto a fantasy world that is at best an analogue of late medieval or early renaissance times.
1st and foremost, murder has to be unlawful. If you are in a lawless area, then in general, killing would not be considered unlawful.
The Player and GM should come to an understanding of what would break their strictures and what would not. But a general rule of thumb would be that if you have to use word gymnastics to make it ok, then its probably not ok.
I, personally, would much rather the idea be based on sort of a point system (in theory at least, if not codified). I'd argue that all killing is technically evil, as is any forced removal of free will. However, the act itself is not just the killing, but also the motivation, reason, and outcome of that killing. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the act of homocide may be a good act, if it merits a net positive result - the advantage of this is that a paladin CAN kill if warranted, but is even more correct in finding a way to meet that good outcome WITHOUT the evil component.
by using offsetting actions and motivations, there no longer needs to be a hard-fast rule on what IS or IS NOT murder - homocide is homocide - saving someone is saving someone - preventing assault is preventing assault, etc.
This sort of ofsetting idea does work better if there is true numeric alignment system in place. Or at least points for or against a given oath tenet.
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"Sure, officer, they were coming RIGHT AT ME WITH THEIR KNIVES AND I HAD TO DEFEND MYSELF"
"How did you know they were going to come at you with their knives? Did you announce who you were and order them to drop their weapons?"
EDIT:
"Wait... what?"
"Did you even call for the City Guard?"
"But... robbers, thieves, knives!"
"I'm afraid we'll have to take you into custody for manslaughter. Vigilantism is forbidden in this city, and taking the law into one's own hands is forbidden. Please hand over all of your armaments now."
WUT JUS HAPPEN?
"Sure, officer, they were coming RIGHT AT ME WITH THEIR KNIVES AND I HAD TO DEFEND MYSELF""How did you know they were going to come at you with their knives? Did you announce who you were and order them to drop their weapons?"
Considering that most paladins are in heavy armor and most thieves travel light, all thieves will know to immediately just run away from paladins, since they'll never be able to chase after them or shoot them in the back.
Considering that most paladins are in heavy armor and most thieves travel light, all thieves will know to immediately just run away from paladins, since they'll never be able to chase after them or shoot them in the back.
"Sure, officer, they were coming RIGHT AT ME WITH THEIR KNIVES AND I HAD TO DEFEND MYSELF""How did you know they were going to come at you with their knives? Did you announce who you were and order them to drop their weapons?"
Sure - if 'Paladin' is a real in-game thing - which it absolutely shouldn't be. He's a heavily armed guy in armor - how does said rogue know he has pledged an oath to some specific order, deity, or ideal?
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Until we can all agree on a definition of "is", then this entire discussion is moot.
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Seriously, though, do we really need to hard code the definition of murder into the core rule book? Is this really something the players and GM can't reasonably work out among themselves?
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At the sake of bringing up a tired comment... organized play is hamstrung by what is in the book.
'Table Variation' is a thing, but I'd rather not spend two hours discussing the morality of the justified self-defense of fellow PCs.
Sure - if 'Paladin' is a real in-game thing - which it absolutely shouldn't be. He's a heavily armed guy in armor - how does said rogue know he has pledged an oath to some specific order, deity, or ideal?Considering that most paladins are in heavy armor and most thieves travel light, all thieves will know to immediately just run away from paladins, since they'll never be able to chase after them or shoot them in the back.
"Sure, officer, they were coming RIGHT AT ME WITH THEIR KNIVES AND I HAD TO DEFEND MYSELF""How did you know they were going to come at you with their knives? Did you announce who you were and order them to drop their weapons?"
Because of the text I quoted. The paladin announced who they were.
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Seriously, though, do we really need to hard code the definition of murder into the core rule book? Is this really something the players and GM can't reasonably work out among themselves?
On the other hand, why not fix it on the front end and be done with it. Clearly, there is room for argument and disagreement on this point. Why shouldn't we take the opportunity to make part of the game run smoother?
I think I have to ask though, why have moral dilemmas? I mean, they're kind of fun sometimes, but when you have a whole character class based around it, it's problematic. And why create a problematic character class?
I mean, not having prepared the spell you want to cast is kind of fun sometimes, but when you have a whole character class based around it, it's problematic.
It's a game mechanic (alignment/spell slots) creating design space and it's a class playing into that design space (paladin/wizard). Is all. If you don't want to micromanage spell slots you don't play Wizard. If you don't want to worry about murder you don't play Paladin.
But, seriously now, I can't really see a situation coming up where someone, knowing they're playing a Paladin, would unintentionally make their character willingly commit murder.
And if you're intentionally making your character willingly commit murder then you're responsible for the consequences.
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I think I have to ask though, why have moral dilemmas? I mean, they're kind of fun sometimes, but when you have a whole character class based around it, it's problematic. And why create a problematic character class?I mean, not having prepared the spell you want to cast is kind of fun sometimes, but when you have a whole character class based around it, it's problematic.
It's a game mechanic creating design space and it's a class playing into that design space. Is all. If you don't want to micromanage spell slots you don't play Wizard. If you don't want to worry about murder you don't play Paladin.
The difference is that the wizard's mechanics don't bog down the game for the other players. Meanwhile, the paladin's teammates have to put up with the paladin randomly not being able to participate in encounters.
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Considering that most paladins are in heavy armor and most thieves travel light, all thieves will know to immediately just run away from paladins, since they'll never be able to chase after them or shoot them in the back.
Why would they run? They know the person in heavy armor is slower than them, so hit and run or ranged works well and heavy armor is EXPENSIVE. If you can knock them out, that's a LOT of loot to sell.
Secondly, ANYONE can yell 'I'm a paladin, lay down your arms...' In fact, that makes a VERY good way to rob people of their weapons if people just trust unknown people about their class. ;) It's NOT like paladins have union cards.
EDIT: to answer the starting question, YES it's too vague.
The difference is that the wizard's mechanics don't bog down the game for the other players. Meanwhile, the paladin's teammates have to put up with the paladin randomly not being able to participate in encounters.
I mean, I've seen people take their time choosing spells for the day and it comes up fairly more often than someone not being able to participate in encounters because they're a Paladin.
What exactly is causing this hypothetical Paladin not participate in this hypothetical encounter?
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I, personally, would much rather the idea be based on sort of a point system (in theory at least, if not codified). I'd argue that all killing is technically evil, as is any forced removal of free will. However, the act itself is not just the killing, but also the motivation, reason, and outcome of that killing. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the act of homocide may be a good act, if it merits a net positive result - the advantage of this is that a paladin CAN kill if warranted, but is even more correct in finding a way to meet that good outcome WITHOUT the evil component.
yeah, I really don't want to get that granular with things. And, I really have a major problem with applying modern day, 21st century morality onto a fantasy roleplaying game where killing is matter of course for almost every single encounter. In this context, killing is not evil.
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"Hey guys, you ready to kick in the baron's door and slaughter his family because he said my shoes didn't match my cloak? Perry the Paladin, you want to go pray at the temple for a few hours while we're gone?"
Evidently such encounters are more common than you think or something. Darn code.
I know (hope) that's hyperbole, but if that's the kind of party the Paladin travels with, he's gonna have more problems in their hands than skipping an encounter, to be fair.
Considering that most paladins are in heavy armor and most thieves travel light, all thieves will know to immediately just run away from paladins, since they'll never be able to chase after them or shoot them in the back.Why would they run? They know the person in heavy armor is slower than them, so hit and run or ranged works well and heavy armor is EXPENSIVE.
Because as soon as you attack the paladin or even his party, then he can just claim self defense and kill you with a bow or something. As long as you keep your back to him, he's pretty limited.
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I think I can safely say the following:
- Paizo isn’t going to provide a formal definition for every listed example of an evil act. Doing so is too limiting for GMs and players, and wouldn’t substantially reduce the amount of Paladin argument threads.
- Paizo isn’t going to remove the Paladin. They’ve already said they’re including it.
- Paizo is not going to scrap the code. That’s one of the key parts of what makes the class the class.
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I think I can safely say the following:
- Paizo isn’t going to provide a formal definition for every listed example of an evil act. Doing so is too limiting for GMs and players, and wouldn’t substantially reduce the amount of Paladin argument threads.
- Paizo isn’t going to remove the Paladin. They’ve already said they’re including it.
- Paizo is not going to scrap the code. That’s one of the key parts of what makes the class the class.
You wouldn't need to scrap the whole code. Just remove or replace "murder".
Let's look at the current code:
*You must never willingly commit an evil act, such as murder, torture, or casting an evil spell.
*You must not take actions that you know will harm an innocent, or through inaction cause an innocent to come to immediate harm when you knew your action could reasonably prevent it. This tenet doesn't force you to take action against possible harm to innocents or to sacrifice your life and future potential in an attempt to protect an innocent.
*You must act with honor, never cheating, lying, or taking advantage of others.
*You must respect the lawful authority of the legitimate ruler or leadership in whichever land you may be, following their laws unless they violate a higher tenet.
So, you already can't harm an innocent, which protects most potential murder victims. You must respect local laws, which probably also cover murder. You must act with honor, which makes murder pretty difficult.
So, by just dropping the word "murder", almost nothing about the paladin changes, and you lose a whole bunch of potential silliness in the future.
So, by just dropping the word "murder", almost nothing about the paladin changes, and you lose a whole bunch of potential silliness in the future.
If it's mostly redundant and changes pretty much nothing, what problem is it exactly causing?
And that's a honest question. Because I don't see the problem with "murder" being there or a scenario where it would cause any problems.
By the way:
Also, is it a violation to try to bait the Thieves into attacking you so you can kill them in a place where killing is only legal in self defense? If they outnumber you and aren't willing to fight you, you basically can't stop them.
Paladins can't trick others or take advantage of them. Even if that wasn't the case, you're literally trying to game your Code, which is still not allowed. And even if that didn't apply, you're plotting in order to kill someone, which is literally the definition of murder, which is not allowed.
Unless I read something wrong in your post, that thought process just looks like someone looking for an excuse to kill someone, I see no reason why it wouldn't be a violation.
There's ways to stop people without killing them, why would a Paladin just go all out at the sight of thieves?
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At the sake of bringing up a tired comment... organized play is hamstrung by what is in the book.
'Table Variation' is a thing, but I'd rather not spend two hours discussing the morality of the justified self-defense of fellow PCs.
I'm not sure hard coding "What is murder vs killing vs manslaughter vs. negligent homicide vs self-defense" etc in the core book is going to stop discussions or hair-splitting or loophole-/exploit-seekers from being disruptive.
I think a better approach would be for rules, guidelines, and techniques for the GM and players to lay out their expectations on alignment, morality, and acceptable/non-acceptable killing up front. If the GM expects to run a shades of grey morality or a gotcha/GM vs. players environment, then the players have a reasonable need to know this up front. Likewise, if the players want to play non-heroic, murderhobo-y, outright evil. or Chaotic Random/Chaotic Disruptive PCs, then the other players and GM have a reasonable need to know this up front too.
If organized play needs to clearly delineate and codify between the different types of killing, then I'd much rather it be spelled out in the organized play rules instead.
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So, by just dropping the word "murder", almost nothing about the paladin changes, and you lose a whole bunch of potential silliness in the future.If it's mostly redundant and changes pretty much nothing, what problem is it exactly causing?
And that's a honest question. Because I don't see the problem with "murder" being there or a scenario where it would cause any problems.
Well, it's taking up space for one. But it also defines murder as evil, when there could be fairly "good" reasons for murder. "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another". So, what about assisted suicide in a place where that's against the law?
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So, by just dropping the word "murder", almost nothing about the paladin changes, and you lose a whole bunch of potential silliness in the future.If it's mostly redundant and changes pretty much nothing, what problem is it exactly causing?
And that's a honest question. Because I don't see the problem with "murder" being there or a scenario where it would cause any problems.
My opinion, is its pretty easy:
1) If you have a GM who consistently tries to put you in a no-win situation to sadistically, constantly, make you paladin fall and need to spend cash for an Atonement; and they use specious definitions or overly strict definitions of simple terms or try to lay real world morality onto a fantasy world without prior discussion and agreement that this is the world you are playing in, then don't play with that GM anymore.
2) If you have players who consistently try to word warp their way around the tenets to basically do evil things, and its pretty obvious that's what they are doing, then don't GM for that player anymore (or don't let them play a Paladin anymore.)
Life is too short to try and play this game when you keep getting into arguments over morality in a fantasy game. Just compromise, come up with an agreement, and then be consistent to that agreement. Its pretty simple.
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Life is too short to try and play this game when you keep getting into arguments over morality in a fantasy game. Just compromise, come up with an agreement, and then be consistent to that agreement. Its pretty simple.
But since we are here on the front end, wouldn't it be in the best interest to remove as many cases of this happening as possible?
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So, by just dropping the word "murder", almost nothing about the paladin changes, and you lose a whole bunch of potential silliness in the future.If it's mostly redundant and changes pretty much nothing, what problem is it exactly causing?
And that's a honest question. Because I don't see the problem with "murder" being there or a scenario where it would cause any problems.
By the way:
Also, is it a violation to try to bait the Thieves into attacking you so you can kill them in a place where killing is only legal in self defense? If they outnumber you and aren't willing to fight you, you basically can't stop them.Paladins can't trick others or take advantage of them. Even if that wasn't the case, you're literally trying to game your Code, which is still not allowed. And even if that didn't apply, you're plotting in order to kill someone, which is literally the definition of murder, which is not allowed.
Unless I read something wrong in your post, that thought process just looks like someone looking for an excuse to kill someone, I see no reason why it wouldn't be a violation.
There's ways to stop people without killing them, why would a Paladin just go all out at the sight of thieves?
I pretty much agree with this.
As long as a GM isn't overlaying his real world morality onto a fantasy world without agreement and buy-in from the players that this is the type of world they are adventuring in, and as long as players don't try to manipulate the words of the code to do things that would otherwise be explicitly against the code, then everything should be fine.
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Life is too short to try and play this game when you keep getting into arguments over morality in a fantasy game. Just compromise, come up with an agreement, and then be consistent to that agreement. Its pretty simple.But since we are here on the front end, wouldn't it be in the best interest to remove as many cases of this happening as possible?
I don't agree that the word "murder" is one of those cases. And once you start down the path of removing anything that requires any judgement whatsoever, you end up with a pretty generic set of bland, and then it just wouldn't be interesting to play.
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So, what about assisted suicide in a place where that's against the law?
I hardly can see a scenario where that would happen in a campaign. But if the person who wants to die has sufficient reason to do so and their life is worse than the prospect of afterlife (which exists in PF), and there's nothing else the Paladin can do to improve their condition (and let's remind that Lay on Hands is pretty much "I'm Jesus now"); not killing them would pretty much be either an act of torture or causing them harm through inaction, in which case the Paladin would be compelled to act.
If the person just says "omg I wanna die" because there's not enough pork in their soup then the Paladin should regard them with contempt and lecture them.
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not killing them would pretty much be either an act of torture or causing them harm through inaction, in which case the Paladin would be compelled to act.
That tenet is further down the list, and so the murder tenet wold supersede it. "Murder" sits right up there at the top, superseding most of the other paladin rules. That's part of why it's problematic. If murder were just at the bottom, it wouldn't be so bad.
That tenet is further down the list
First tenet is:
"Willingly commit an evil act, such as torture, murder or casting an evil spell".Torture and murder are equal in the hierarchy. I just picked parts of the lower tener to reinforce my point.
Also, at the point it becomes euthanasia it stops being murder. Granted, local laws disagree, but not doing it would still count as an evil act (because it would be torture under your pretenses) and not doing it would mean violating a higher priority tenet to uphold a lower priority one.
Still, "mercy killing" is a way older concept older than the laws that ban euthanasia and has been accepted forever even if it's illegal to do so nowadays, so trying to bring XXI century laws and definitions (that come from a moral starting point centered on specific religious beliefs that don't even exist in the same form in Pathfinder) into the game is a big stretch.