D&D 5E Killing a Teammate

[Jefe Bergenstein]

First, an afterlife is irrelevant. Murder is still evil regardless.

Why? Because you say? You're from an entirely different world, and thus have different values. The goalposts would logically change in a D&D world. Instead of one life mattering, it would be the impact of the prime material plane as a whole, since that seems to be the forging ground for the afterlife.

Second, raise dead is not guaranteed. If they can't get to town for 3 months, a 10 day time limit is well gone by the time they get there.

Gentle repose says hi.

The soul also has to be willing and able to return. Something the murderer can't guarantee, so raise dead is also irrelevant to whether the life is valuable and the murder evil.

Well, I would think if your companion is having such a great time hanging out in the afterlife they don't want to come back, it really should be "no hard feelings". Life and death in D&D should be weird from our perspective.

 

[Maxperson]

Why? Because you say? You're from an entirely different world, and thus have different values.

There's an afterlife here and it makes no difference. Why would D&D be any different?

Instead of one life mattering, it would be the impact of the prime material plane as a whole, since that seems to be the forging ground for the afterlife.

Billions of people on Earth believe in an afterlife and yet murder is still murder. If what you claim is true, then there wouldn't be laws and punishments here on Earth for sending people to the afterlife.

Well, I would think if your companion is having such a great time hanging out in the afterlife they don't want to come back, it really should be "no hard feelings". Life and death in D&D should be weird from our perspective.

LOL No. First, just because the afterlife might be something they don't want to leave, doesn't mean they wanted to go there in the first place. Second, they might be prevented from leaving. The murderer can't guarantee that the soul can get back.

 

[kalil]

Surgeons today in the real world can keep a patient sedated in such a way that his breathing is shut off. They can even stop his hearth and keep him on entirely artificial life support until then. Mercy kill->gentle repose->resurrection is just the fantasy equivalent. Yes, things can go wrong, in both cases the patient has a risk on ending up dead. No, in neither case does drastic measures to attempt to save a wounded friend constitute murder.

 

[Maxperson]

Surgeons today in the real world can keep a patient sedated in such a way that his breathing is shut off. They can even stop his hearth and keep him on entirely artificial life support until then. Mercy kill->gentle repose->resurrection is just the fantasy equivalent.

First, murder and raising (which can't be guaranteed) is not the same as not murder and not raising. Sorry. Second, any doctor who did what you suggest without a medically necessary reason would be jailed. It isn't even remotely necessary to murder the PC in question.

Yes, things can go wrong, in both cases the patient has a risk on ending up dead. No, in neither case does drastic measures to attempt to save a wounded friend constitute murder.

False Equivalence is false. Those are not equivalent situations. In one the person always ends up dead, because you murdered him. Possibly being able to bring someone back later doesn't mitigate that. If it did, then you wouldn't be in trouble for theft since you might possibly repay the person later on. In the other the person doesn't end up dead unless something goes wrong.

 

[kalil]

There is no guarantee you will wake up from anesthetics either. Hence the analogy holds, provided the group genuinely believes they can resurrect and that they genuinely do not believe they can get their friend out in the vegetative state. Motives are important. Also: he doesnt "end up" dead, that is the entire point.

 

[Maxperson]

There is no guarantee you will wake up from anesthetics either.

Apparently you don't know the odds of something going wrong with that.

Hence the analogy holds, provided the group genuinely believes they can resurrect and that they genuinely do not believe they can get their friend out in the vegetative state. Motives are important. Also: he doesnt "end up" dead, that is the entire point.

So if a murderer shoots 10 people in the head because he genuinely believes that they will be alright, everything is good right. The families won't be upset. The authorities won't be upset. Nobody will be upset and he gets a pat on the back for doing the right thing.

P.S. Yes he does end up dead. You can't bring someone back who is alive, so he's dead. Your analogy is horrible.

 

[Maxperson]

Gentle Repose does't work, by the way. It requires a pinch of salt and a copper piece placed on each eye (not tied down, glued on or any other manner of affixment), and which has to stay on for the duration. Travel will quickly cause these gently placed coins to fall off of the eyes and end the spell. Gentle Repose is intended for places like funeral homes and the like where the bodies will just sit there undisturbed.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Gentle Repose does't work, by the way. It requires a pinch of salt and a copper piece placed on each eye (not tied down, glued on or any other manner of affixment), and which has to stay on for the duration. Travel will quickly cause these gently placed coins to fall off of the eyes and end the spell. Gentle Repose is intended for places like funeral homes and the like where the bodies will just sit there undisturbed.

It most definitely IS for that purpose. Nowhere in the spell does it say that they have to remain there.

 

[Shendorion]

There's an afterlife here and it makes no difference. Why would D&D be any different?

Assuming we agree with your profession of faith, there's no magic spells to bring people back from their alleged real world afterlife.

In the game, death is a curable condition. The remedy for it is no more rare or uncertain than the one for the character's brain death.

This whole line of discussion raises some humanoids rights arguments most people aren't going to want in their game. If it's evil to deactivate a body with a soul but no mind, is it similarly evil to deactivate a body with a mind but no soul? What about a soul with a mind but no body? It starts to make the LG clergy's stance regarding the undead seem arbitrary and logically inconsistent.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I don't understand why it is automatically evil. If they are in dire straits, they are not morally obligated to sacrifice their whole team to attempt to spare an overly burdensome comrade. 9 sessions is a long time, in terms of obstacles and danger. That fighter might be as good as dead, depending on the tone and difficulty of the game. In survival/war situations this stuff comes up a lot, it is why people who come out of those don't like to talk about it. They had to make hard choices.

This is a combination of the classic "lifeboat" dilemma and "Of Mice and Men". Both of those scenarios make an argument for a moral mercy killing.