Alignment and a Prisoner...

[iwatt]

Take away her Symbol, her weapons, and armor, and send her on her way.

Anyways, I'v always had trouble with paladins. IMC campaign, only 2 gods have an order of holy warriors. The codes are pretty different.

God of family and Good: The god is NG, but has a loyal following of LG holy warriors. The most important aspect of their faith is mercy.

God of Law and retribution: The God is LN, but also has a following of LG paladins. The most important aspect is following the Law.

Both Paladins are identical rule-wise, but I judge what calls for Atonement in a completely different manner for each one.

I follow your story hour, so I'm quite interested in seeing what's gonna happen.

What you should do is define what Myrtrim's (the half-drow aasimar paladin) code is. I see different options:

A) Must he show mercy towards other drow, leading by example, in hopes of redeeming every drow?

B) Slay the evil oppressors (matriarchal theocracies make me shudder in fear )

C) Case by Case.

This should be stated clearly, so that both you and your player are styraight on what his attitudes should be.

I guess you've made a point in your story that not all drow are evil (Naria), but Lloth priestesses probably ping completely of evil on Myrtims radar.

Your safest bet is to have Naria (the paladins cohort) recomend leaving the priestes with the Archmage. If not this, then maybe have a mock trial, were the priestess is questioned and coudl be found guilty of crimes (capital punishement does exist).

The trial by combat seems like a good idea as well. It should be Myrtrim fighting though. You could give him some divine intervention in the way of an Insight bonus to AC or attacks to even out the odds, if you're worried he can't hack it in a toe to toe. Maybe if he shows mercy the priest can be redeemed?

 

[Wraithdrit]

Well, Paladins striking down defenseless priestess of evil gods is a no fly in my campaign. I TRY to run my game very similar to modern morals. Wars happen. Some people sit on the fence as far as alignment, some are good some are evil.

A lawful evil bad guy will probably not kill a surrending good guy in my world. There is no gain in it, especially if they can get gain from ransoming said person back to their order or what not.

Earlier in the campaign they captured a Priestess of Bane. After questioning her, they decided to ransom her back to the Zhentarim. They sent her back to town with an NPC guard contingent. The guards were attacked 'off screen' and the Zhentarim priestess helped by healing some of the guards. In exchange she demanded an immediate release. The NPC in charge agreed, thinking that the lives of her men were more important than the ransom of one priestess.

That priestess turned around and later led a raid on the party's home turf while the party was away. The Zhentarim now are in control of the mines once again, and the party blames the priestess.

Unfortunately it mattered not whether the priestess was alive or dead, because the Zhentarim would have eventually used the portal to send troops to the mines, it just would have taken more time if the priestess had not survived to tell the tale. She was also instrumental in perfectly describing the PCs so that they could have prices put on their heads.

So anyways, a precedant has been set in my world that killing someone in combat is one thing, but when the fighting is over, people would rather ransom or imprison people if they are from civilised society. Orks just eat you.

I guess that is how I define lawful, be it good or evil, as somewhat civilized. A lawful person just is not going to lop off the head of a helpless prisoner unless they know that prisoner to be guilty of specific crimes and going to die for her deads regardless.

This priestess, as far as the party knows, is in chains because she was in the temple of Lolth with the Cult of Kiaransalee swooped in and took over. She has not been a part of raids on the surface (the Death cult is responsible for them).

 

[Thresher]

If you can spare the time under a Zone of Truth to see if she'd honestly repent then, yeah maybe save a soul.

But, it is an evil cleric and they are more or less the representatives of their god for good or evil. Dont think for a minute that just because some gimps let her go that she wont be out being a bad bastard the next day or cut them a break later on (or anyone else for that matter) so, if theres a threat later on, sure, kill her. You arent going to do the forces of good any justice by being face down in your own blood with hostiles in front of you and an enemy at your back now are you.
Thats the realistic and abit pragmatic view.

A slightly more heroic and rigorously played good alignment would probably cut her loose with a slap on the bum and send her on her way.


I think I found myself in a similar situation many years ago playing through the last parts of Queen of Spiders, as a good aligned drow and somehow we'd managed to capture Eclavdra with a temporal stasis, after she toasted most of the party.
Well, I rummage through the various crap we had in a portable hole, dug out the cursed item, helm of opposite alignment (it was a nastier curse back then in 2E!) and yep, bunged it on her and we've got Eclavdra the LG...
(I think the DM was a cross of being both impressed and a bit pissed with that stunt )
Threw her and her new hat into a portable hole and kept going, later on the hole got ruptured and she went spinning off into the void.

Well, 8 years later real time and about 15 levels later. Who should turn up?
Her and not LG and beating on my characters arse when we really didnt need it (ie: in the middle of Doraka, in Iuz's mansion.)

Moral of the story.
Just kill the bitch!

 

[Wraithdrit]

I suppose as a DM that loves dangling plot hooks and reviving old characters I am obviously biased towards a nondeadly solution.

Players tend to think that I am 'screwing them' when I bring back an escaped villain or some such. Thing is, I would have just as nasty an opponent facing them in the same encounter, just now its personal and has more RP flavor!

 

[S'mon]

Healing her and then dueling her is a pointless waste of resources and risky.

I assume they expect to get XP for this...

 

[Mercule]

(P.S. No alignment issues in your campaign, Mercule.)

Quite right. Alignment is, of course, subject to interpretation. One factor in my case is that, while the character was without a doubt both Lawful and Good, I was trying very hard to give him a non-Western outlook.

Also, as a means of spurring us on, the DM had given us premonitions of our own failed assault on the Temple. We knew that the knowledge granted enabled us to change the outcome. Still, we were motivated to take a "No Quarter" stance toward the Temple. We'd decided that those who died were the lucky ones.

 

[Voadam]

They are argueing that they know she is evil and if the tables were turned she would just kill one of them. The plan has been floated that they heal her up and allow her to duel for her freedom with one of the party's 'warriors'. I've not made any judgement calls on it, but I did say that if she wins she is liable to KILL whomever she is fighting. Their response is that if she loses she dies, but if she wins she has to spare whomever she is fighting (yeah, right).

Alternately they can leave her in chains.

My thought is that they should release her, not aid her in any way and turn her over to the drow master of the outpost (an Archmage with no love of priestesses). But this thought has not really occured to them.

Thoughts?

- Wraith

If my group suggested that in my campaign I would laugh and tell them they can do whatever they like. "Heal her up to fight you, ho, ho, ho, that's a good one. No really, what do you plan on doing? Oh, I'm sorry, you were serious, OK, do you give her time to pray too?"

The only serious constraining issue I see is the paladin who can't do evil actions and can't grossly violate the paladin code of acting with honor or he loses his paladin powers.

You and he need to be clear on what will cross these lines, killing helpless supernatural agents of evil? Turning her over to other evil people who bear her ill will?

If you aren't on the same page as the player about what crosses the line there can be big potential for a bad situation to arise between the two of you.

 

[Wraithdrit]

That was my reaction. And still is. They can and will do what they want. They are players, not my playthings. They just know that actions have repurcussions. Personally I would advocate turning her over to the archmage.

The party monk (LN) has just chimed in (via messageboard for the game) that he has no interest in partaking in the fight. Period. He deems it a waste of resources and an unnecessary risk.

BTW, just FYI she can not pray for spells. Lolth ain't listenin' too well right now, being all cacooned up and all.

 

[PsykoLad]

First, regarding executions - Whether or not this is proper at all really depends on the laws of your campaign world. In my world, a paladin acts as an arm of the local authority figure, at the very bottom rank. (any knight does actually, paladins are knights by default in my world) So they are empowered to deliver "field justice" (this includes all types of things not just executions) on the understanding that they will have to report to the local authority figure and provide an explanation as to why they could not deliver the criminal to the authorities, and prove that justice was delivered appropriately. If the party had not agreed to deliver the outpost to the archmage they could possibly have gotten away with this, assuming that being a cleric of Lolth is an executable offense. But since they have agreed, they have accepted the archmage as the legitimate authority of the outpost, and the paladin must respect that authority in order to hold up his code.

If that rule does not exist in your campaign than any execution would be murder, and would also violate the "respect legitimate authority" portion of the paladin's code.



Second, the duel - This rests on the assumption that she will fight. What does the party do if she doesn't? She's not stupid.. having seen the moral problems the group has already had, what if she just waits until she is healed and armed and walks off?

 

[Wraithdrit]

Second, the duel - This rests on the assumption that she will fight. What does the party do if she doesn't? She's not stupid.. having seen the moral problems the group has already had, what if she just waits until she is healed and armed and walks off?

If she attempted this, other members of the party would initiate instant justice. She actually is a hot tempered type and I could see her taking the duel deal.