D&D General Should Adventurers Behave More Like Bounty Hunters? What Would Be the Implications?

[Hexmage-EN]

As for the imprisonment idea. It depends on the amount of magic involved. For example, I'd potentially look into Geas and have the dragon's sentence commuted to 222.5 years of community service. That seems far more effective than locking them away in some dank hole. It might also reform them, depending on the settings assumptions about dragons.

Unfortunately, the 5E incarnation of Geas is pretty weak. Remove Curse ends it, and the target only takes 5d10 psychic damage once per day if they violate the Geas.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Somehow, I feel having a collar of geas doing 5d10 damage to the dragon each day it doesn't do community service for the next 225 years is a very Clockwork Orange take on rehabilitation.

 

[MarkB]

Do the laws apply to all creatures with above-animal intelligence? Because as a player, I would look at this and say "this is not workable". You point out a young dragon, but what if it was ancient? What if it was a balor or a beholder? How would you even go about constructing a prison?

But assume you spend the millions of gold it would require to construct such a prison. What purpose does it serve? I mean, sure it sucks for the dragon to spend a couple hundred years in prison, but this is a creature that could live to well over a thousand. Release them in two centuries and there's no reason to think it won't just start back on it's destructive path for another millennia.

There are simply some threats that can't be contained. Either you negotiate so they are no longer a problem or they are eliminated. Unlike real world individuals, fantasy individual creatures can rival small armies in power and capability.

So that would be my take. No super-max prison could hope to hold some of the monsters in the book. It goes back to another thread - at what point should Batman just kill the Joker? If the Joker escapes every single time and causes more death and chaos every time, what is the most moral thing to do in the long term?

If the goal is merely incarceration, it's impractical. But if the goal is rehabilitation, and there is some mechanism for having a reasonable chance of achieving that, it becomes more workable.

After all, a D&D setting has entire religions devoted to redemption, mind-affecting magic, and actual divine intervention. There might be a way to establish a regimen that could rehabilitate even powerful creatures, and if the result is dragons, beholders etc. who are productive members of society, that might be worth a large investment in the containment facilities.

 

[Oofta]

If the goal is merely incarceration, it's impractical. But if the goal is rehabilitation, and there is some mechanism for having a reasonable chance of achieving that, it becomes more workable.

After all, a D&D setting has entire religions devoted to redemption, mind-affecting magic, and actual divine intervention. There might be a way to establish a regimen that could rehabilitate even powerful creatures, and if the result is dragons, beholders etc. who are productive members of society, that might be worth a large investment in the containment facilities.

Possibly, but at what point does wiping out someone's identity the same as murder?

I mean the body is still there, but is the mind? What is an individual but their mind and spirit?

 

[Kurotowa]

To spice up this mix, let me remind people of the concept of outlaws in the original literal sense.

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is one declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system.

This is how historical societies handled people they didn't want brought in alive. So there's lots of precedent for having clearly defined statuses between citizens who enjoy legal protections and have to be brought in alive and outlaws who are officially and specifically on a Kill On Sight list. And if some busy body does go to the trouble of dragging them back intact, the city guard can just execute them on the spot, no need for trial or imprisonment.

I'm not trying to threadcrap here, but point out that if you want to run a campaign where adventurers are part of a more complex legal system, it's very important to know that not every defeated foe can expect the full legal protections of the court.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Unfortunately, the 5E incarnation of Geas is pretty weak. Remove Curse ends it, and the target only takes 5d10 psychic damage once per day if they violate the Geas.

True, but I also would have no issue figuring out homebrew for this sort of setting solution. A ritual version of the spell done by a circle of judicial wizards?

It is definitely not a PC ability, so it doesn't really matter.

Possibly, but at what point does wiping out someone's identity the same as murder?

I mean the body is still there, but is the mind? What is an individual but their mind and spirit?

Yep, it is a very dangerous and slippery slope. I find stuff like magical compulsions on actions to be lower on the bar. Sure, the dragon is being forced to say, clean the streets, but he definitely doesn't have to be nice about it

 

[CapnZapp]

Unfortunately, the 5E incarnation of Geas is pretty weak. Remove Curse ends it, and the target only takes 5d10 psychic damage once per day if they violate the Geas.

Yes, in an edition where you easily heal up all damage given a short rest the implementation falls short.

As soon as you're out of the lowest levels (where 50 damage might kill you through the instant/massive damage rule), the spell simply fails to be more than a minor annoyance, given how generous the healing options in 5E are.

You don't even have to have 51 hp.

Even when at 35 hp, say, the spell can't do more than down you. Getting downed to 0 hp is not a big deal in 5E. Having a buddy stand by with a cheap healing potion or spell makes that a trivial speed bump.

So the implementation is clearly inept, in that it simply doesn't handle how the game has changed since AD&D.

Contrast the following and you'll easily see this:

Let's say the spell instead lowered your maximum hit points by your level each day (where you disobey the geas). Furthermore, while under it's influence, you cannot restore maximum hit points (but you can still heal regular damage up to this lower ceiling).

Instantly the spell works as intended, in that it actually discourages you from breaking the geas without killing you outright, and does so regardless of level.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'll admit that part of my motivation for making this thread is the increasing scrutiny on D&D's potentially problematic elements, such as use of fatal violence, who or what it is used on, and how lawful and or good characters should behave.

Looking at the various sets of laws by nation in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount I noticed that the Clovis Concord of the Menagerie Coast was alone in not utilizing capital punishment, despite the fact that a vast organization of pirates called the Revelry is a major enemy of theirs and obviously poses a great threat to the business interests of their multiple ports. There's also nothing in the book clarifying who in the Clovis Concord is protected by these laws. The player races, obviously, but what about other intelligent creatures, like the sahuagin that attack a town in one of the book's sample adventures? Ignoring PCs for a second, would guards employed by the Clovis Concord be obligated to subdue the sahuagin nonlethally and take them to jail? Killing them outright in self-defense makes more sense, realistically, but by RAW it is trivial to knock someone unconscious and in stable condition with a greatsword.

Say you just knock the bad guys unconscious and go on your way, scare them off, or even negotiate with them to let you go by safely; how is that doing anything other than leaving them to be someone else's problem?

 

[Umbran]

Possibly, but at what point does wiping out someone's identity the same as murder?

I mean the body is still there, but is the mind? What is an individual but their mind and spirit?

That probably depends on the metaphysics of the system/setting. If the soul/spirit has a metaphysical presence and reality, and is the thing that actually lasts for eternity (or some significant fraction thereof), then maybe the mind is, on the scale of things, perhaps only as relevant as the flesh, which we know will decay eventually.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'll admit that part of my motivation for making this thread is the increasing scrutiny on D&D's potentially problematic elements, such as use of fatal violence, who or what it is used on, and how lawful and or good characters should behave.

Looking at the various sets of laws by nation in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount I noticed that the Clovis Concord of the Menagerie Coast was alone in not utilizing capital punishment, despite the fact that a vast organization of pirates called the Revelry is a major enemy of theirs and obviously poses a great threat to the business interests of their multiple ports. There's also nothing in the book clarifying who in the Clovis Concord is protected by these laws. The player races, obviously, but what about other intelligent creatures, like the sahuagin that attack a town in one of the book's sample adventures? Ignoring PCs for a second, would guards employed by the Clovis Concord be obligated to subdue the sahuagin nonlethally and take them to jail? Killing them outright in self-defense makes more sense, realistically, but by RAW it is trivial to knock someone unconscious and in stable condition with a greatsword.

Say you just knock the bad guys unconscious and go on your way, scare them off, or even negotiate with them to let you go by safely; how is that doing anything other than leaving them to be someone else's problem?

This is very DM dependent, and about the type of game you want to play.

I get the point you are trying to make on one hand, but taking that extreme the other way is murder-hoboism. And no one wants murder-hoboism.