Ack! An alignment thread!

[Brian Chalian]

Anything that gets in their way must be evil? If it were a relativistic game, they'd be right. Luckily D&D has absolutes. I imagine they'll be surprised when they start taking damage from holy effects.

How does one define innocence? Are you saying that killing to gain loot is evil?

The PH doesn't give a definition.
Yes.

I usually define "innocence" as "someone who doesn't deserve what you're about to do to them," but my group doesn't feel the desire to torture imaginary people, so it works okay. They want to be the good guys, and act like superheroes, so I don't have any difficulties.

Nifft, don't forget the feat in OA that lets you consult a virtual phylactery of faithfulness as a free action. A must have feat when playing a paladin with a new DM.
If the paladin didn't kill the Jews, he would be violating the laws, meaning he couldn't be LG anymore and lose his powers that way. That's why I'm so grateful they changed it in 3e.

 

[Halivar]

As an example, the Crusades of the middle ages were, IMO, chaotic neutral at best. Utterly opportunistic, and genocidal in many ways. They do NOT get to call it a good act because they were killing evil (i.e. pagan) people. Indiscriminate slaughter is evil, whether the target is good or bad. That's why murder is a capital offense, even if it's in prison.

BTW, I'm not quite sure what's up with the Lammasu's description. Sounds more LN than LG. But, that's just me.

 

[Camarath]

Anything that gets in their way must be evil? If it were a relativistic game, they'd be right. Luckily D&D has absolutes. I imagine they'll be surprised when they start taking damage from holy effects.

Indeed, they usally are the only thing I find suprising about it is how often they forget my policy on unjustified killings being evil.

 

[apsuman]

I really need to put all of my alignment thoughts in a single thread, but here goes.

Alignment only works if we players know what is right and wrong inside the character's world. This requires agreement between players.

I think that reasonable people can take different Law/Chaos Good/Evil sides of the killing the kobold babies question. The same reason holds for killing people that commit "big" crimes in a D&D world. Sure, in the modern Western world we have all the instruments of jurisprudence and would turn over the evildoers. In the absence of those instruments, in a FANTASY world no less, killing the ogres for pillaging the village is fair as long as your players believe it to be.

Bottom line, if you as a player know that all kobolds are evil then it would be ok for your Good charaters to kill them.

I think if you were to ask players how they apply Law/Chaos Good/Evil to your cleric's actions they would say that his/her actions are evil. BUT, it depends upon your players interpretation of the Good/Evil.


g!