PCs who kill everyone that attacks them

[takyris]

Well, if you're a mercenary working for evil people, you probably have this great internal system set up in your head of how the world works. Calling people jerks for taking your stuff when you were trying to kill them isn't much of a stretch.

I remember a great episode of Homicide (although saying "great episode of Homicide" is kind of redundant) where a kid got killed by another kid. The murderer was positive that the courts wouldn't do anything to him, because it was an accident. Not that the kid didn't mean to commit murder -- he did. But he thought that the guy was somebody else.

In this kid's warped little mind, the fact that he killed an innocent guy, while thinking that he was sneaking up on and killing a rival gang member, meant that, in his warped little mind, he should only be tried for it as an accident, like involuntary manslaughter.

Most people don't want to think of themselves as despicable human beings, and can find really convoluted ways to look at the world to avoid doing so. A good DM can make this work for NPCs. They rarely just think 'Yay, evil, we're evil, woohoo!' They think, "These guys are weak, they deserve it," or "These guys killed my buddy the cultist-leader a few weeks back" or something like that.

They should still be willing to run or surrender, though, unless their dark god eats anybody who doesn't fight to the death.

 

[Desdichado]

We generally like to keep someone around to ask questions. But we don't go out of our way to keep enemies alive. I suppose we're relatively bloodthirsty after all.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

occasionally big nasties like hill giants whom we think we can intimidate into retreating into the wilderness.
Daniel

Intimidating a hill giant?

"You see this? This is a repeating crossbow of giant slaying. You gotta ask yourself, did I fire off 5 crossbow bolts or 6? Feel lucky? Well, do ya, PUNK!?"

 

[Agback]

Getting mediaeval

G'day

We have remembered the mediaeval custom of taking captives in battle or in kidnapping raids, and holding them to ransom. Now let's think about some other mediaeval customs.

The original legal distinction between a felony and a misdemeanour was that the punishment for a felony was death and forfeiture of all property. For misdemeanours, the punishment was still death, but the culprit's family got to inherit his property.

Attempted murder is a felony. Kings and lords often inflicted gruesome punishments such as flaying, drawing alive &c. on people who tried to kill them.

Now let's think in modern term terms. If we punish mercenaries who attack us really harshly, the villains will have trouble hiring anyone to attack us (which is good), but anyone who does attack us will fight to the death and never surrender(which is bad). If we don't punish them at all, the villains will find it easy to hire people who are prepared to have a go at attacking us.

What we want is to make mercenaries afraid to attack us in the first place, but still willing to flee and surrender if they start. Anyone who attacks us has to get condign punishment. The important thing is to do something worse to people who don't surrender. Destroying their corpses so that they can't be Raised is a good start.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Pielorinho]

Intimidating a hill giant?

"You see this? This is a repeating crossbow of giant slaying. You gotta ask yourself, did I fire off 5 crossbow bolts or 6? Feel lucky? Well, do ya, PUNK!?"

The technique we used was something like this:

"Hello, Mr. Hill Giant! Any sudden moves, and we'll scatter your entrails about these halls with our scary death-magic. Here's a cartful of watermelons for you to eat -- we hear you like them. We'll talk while you eat.

"Remember all that commotion yesterday, when the alarm was raised, and by the time you got to the compound entrance, two-thirds of the miliia was gorily dead, including your ogre mage captain, the wizards riding dinosaurs, the two ettins, and a host of puny mortals? Remember how by the time you got there, the killers were already gone?

"You're looking at those killers now. But we're not bad folk. Yesterday we didn't get a chance to ask folks to surrender, but today we've got the chance.

"So here's the deal. You finish off those watermelons, and then you show us around the compound. You'll want to move real slow while you do this, unless you want us to burn you alive like we did the ettin. You'll show us the treasure, you'll show us any traps you know about. And you'll tell any other mercenaries in the compound that it's time to leave.

"You do all that, and we'll give you another cartload of melons, and we'll give you some shiny silver coins. And then you leave, and we never see you again, and we never hear about you hurting another human or dwarf or elf or halfling or gnome, or else we use our magics to find you and chop off your head and spill your blood, like we did the dinosaurs.

"What do you say? Do you want to live, or do you want to die right now?"

It worked pretty well .

Daniel

 

[Alejandro]

Yeah, 'cause I know that most good, decent folk who I try to kill will readily let me walk away with my weapons and armor and such. It's only sporting, after all, right? I mean, there's a mess of really violent peole out there, who might try to do me harm on the streets and all...

I dunno about anyone else, but this struck me as a bit odd - where in the world does this NPC get the gall to call her intended victims jerks?

I guess I'll chime in at this point because I just joined this group of adventurers. We're playing AU, so no alignments. To my knowledge, this group has never given quarter (bandits in Ebonring Keep). Prior to this incident, they've killed a newborn and massacred two dozen unarmed cultists (Dungeon's Cradle of Madness adventure).

It has been pointed out that I seem to always play characters who are willing to give opponents the benefit of the doubt, from paladins to shadowrunners to mercenaries who believe in some form of professional courtesy.

This woman was a witch who had a wand of sentimental value (1st level spells), a bracelet of 11 healing scrolls (2nd level spells), a dozen gems (25 gp each), a spell-component pouch, and a horse. I was the one who wrestled her to the ground and occupied her until her companions were chased down and killed. I felt (Sense Motive) that this really wasn't personal (just biz), and believed that it would not have been worthwhile to turn her over to the authorities (especially since the group has looted her two companions).

She offered her bracelet as ransom, but the group refused. After being stripped of all valuables, she asked after her horse. The group asked her to point out her horse, then took that, too.

I admit it: my wizard threatened but released mercenaries hired by evil cultists in RttToEE because he didn't feel justified in executing them. My current character questioned the need to kill an infant and massacre two dozen unarmed cultists, then questioned the need to strip a prisoner of everything. I'm not trying to stir up trouble, but I really don't think violence and a bad attitude is always the answer.

 

[Ace]

I look at my game world through a "real world" sort of lense and let actions have consequences.

If the players take human/oid prisioners and word gets out than there is a good chance they will be given a surrender option themselves.

OTOH if the players get a reputation as ruthless man killersthan well-- Let the dice fall where they may

I figure everyone is afraid of a stone cold man killer -- even the bux bar maid, the mage, the constable -- everybody

This doesn't apply to demons baatezu and theat sort of thing just people (even Orcs)

 

[Elf Witch]

I guess I'll chime in at this point because I just joined this group of adventurers. We're playing AU, so no alignments. To my knowledge, this group has never given quarter (bandits in Ebonring Keep). Prior to this incident, they've killed a newborn and massacred two dozen unarmed cultists (Dungeon's Cradle of Madness adventure).

It has been pointed out that I seem to always play characters who are willing to give opponents the benefit of the doubt, from paladins to shadowrunners to mercenaries who believe in some form of professional courtesy.

This woman was a witch who had a wand of sentimental value (1st level spells), a bracelet of 11 healing scrolls (2nd level spells), a dozen gems (25 gp each), a spell-component pouch, and a horse. I was the one who wrestled her to the ground and occupied her until her companions were chased down and killed. I felt (Sense Motive) that this really wasn't personal (just biz), and believed that it would not have been worthwhile to turn her over to the authorities (especially since the group has looted her two companions).

She offered her bracelet as ransom, but the group refused. After being stripped of all valuables, she asked after her horse. The group asked her to point out her horse, then took that, too.

I admit it: my wizard threatened but released mercenaries hired by evil cultists in RttToEE because he didn't feel justified in executing them. My current character questioned the need to kill an infant and massacre two dozen unarmed cultists, then questioned the need to strip a prisoner of everything. I'm not trying to stir up trouble, but I really don't think violence and a bad attitude is always the answer.

They may not have an aligment in AU but this kind of behavior should have some kind of consequences people ahould be gunning for this party family of thier victims maybe the woman who they treated so badly. If I was the DM I would one day have all this come back and haunt them.

 

[ciaran00]

My experience has been that player mercy is a factor of npc usefulness as well as basic morality. If a bunch of useless guys jump them and it's a bad day, then probably a bloodbath ensues. Otherwise, there's always ransom for important enemies, and information to be extracted from the smaller ones (as well as the big ones).

Either way, I always try and make the players sweat a tpk situation as much as possible. Intimidation is great.

ciaran

 

[coyote6]

Prior to this incident, they've killed a newborn and massacred two dozen unarmed cultists (Dungeon's Cradle of Madness adventure).

Depending on your GM's choice, if your group had gone with your call (i.e., left the kid alive), y'all could have doomed the world to oblivion, IIR the adventure correctly.

The thing with the witch, OTOH -- that sounds to me like they gave in to greed.