Alignment - just how evil is hiring an assassin?
- Thread starter Dr Midnight
- Start date
Mal Malenkirk said:Hiring assassins is a sign of civilisation.
If we still had to do the deed ourself, we'd be running in pack where the alpha male leads until defeated in a challenge for supremacy.
Old joke:
Two sailors in the 18th century survive when their ship sinks in a storm. They make a raft out of bits of wood, but they don't have any means of navigating. So for weeks on end, they drift, surviving only on fish and rain water.
Finally, they sight an island on the horizon. They're really happy, but then one sailor says to the other, "hang on, you don't know who's living on that island. It could be filled with savage cannibals!"
The other sailor says, "you're right. But we don't have any choice, we'll surely die if we keep drifting like this."
So they paddle their way closer to the island, trying to keep a low profile. Finally, they get close enough to see what's on the shore. What they see is a group of men building a gallows.
"Yes!!" shout the sailors. "Civilisation!!!"
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I guess it does largely depend on how you define assassination.
If you're hiring an Assassin of the PrC, from the DMG, it's pretty evil. One of the requirements for being an assassin basically mandates an evil alignment -- to kill someone for no other reason than to join the club.
Killing somebody for your own selfish gain (for money, for power, for membership) is evil. Thus, by default, all Assassins (of the PrC) are evil.
Hiring anybody to perform a death that is beneficial to you in a material, selfish way, disregarding the benefit of that person's life to others, is evil.
It could be justifiable, yeah. But it wouldn't be any less evil. You're hiring somebody you know to be evil (and who would undoubtedly use wicked means) to accomplish a deed.
It would be similar to hiring an evil henchman. They may get the job done, but letting them get the job done their way means that evil in the world will be advanced.
Hiring an assassin is no less evil than summoning a fiendish hawk or using an innocent to do your dirty work (like using a dominated NPC would be). You can get away with doing it without an alignment shift for the right reasons...
Say, for instance, you hire an Assassin because you don't have much of a choice, and you know he will be the only one able to destroy the Dark King. It's evil to do that -- to wish that sort of torture and dishonor onto even the worst of your enemies. That would be kind of similar to finding the Dark King's children and builing them alive in molten iron in front of him, to show him how you have him in control. Or even paying sombody else to do it.
So even if the one to be assassinated is a diabolical criminal of the worst sort, hiring an Assassin to kill them is evil. Hiring a mercenary or rogue to kill them might not be evil -- provided the mercenary or rogue is not evil themselves.
Doing such a thing wouldn't exactly be grounds for an alignment change, if they were somehow forced into it, but willingly persuing such a method should give the DM pause, and she should pay attention to how the character behaves...a few little notches in the Evil direction, and you should make a little note that tells you how the character views things -- any means for his own satisfaction.
Doing such a thing would be grounds for revoking a Paladin of their powers -- a willful violation of their code. Even if forced into it, a Paladin is forbidden from doing it by anything but coersion of a magical nature. And even then, that only opens up the venue for possible eventual Atonement.
A CN character? Hiring an Assassin (a member of the organization, with the PrC) to kill another PC? For his own gain? Definately Evil. Maybe not changing their alignment to Evil, but definately something to alert the DM to possibilities of that. And definately an avenue a curious demon could explore...
Maybe that doesn't explain it very well.
If you're hiring an Assassin of the PrC, from the DMG, it's pretty evil. One of the requirements for being an assassin basically mandates an evil alignment -- to kill someone for no other reason than to join the club.
Killing somebody for your own selfish gain (for money, for power, for membership) is evil. Thus, by default, all Assassins (of the PrC) are evil.
Hiring anybody to perform a death that is beneficial to you in a material, selfish way, disregarding the benefit of that person's life to others, is evil.
It could be justifiable, yeah. But it wouldn't be any less evil. You're hiring somebody you know to be evil (and who would undoubtedly use wicked means) to accomplish a deed.
It would be similar to hiring an evil henchman. They may get the job done, but letting them get the job done their way means that evil in the world will be advanced.
Hiring an assassin is no less evil than summoning a fiendish hawk or using an innocent to do your dirty work (like using a dominated NPC would be). You can get away with doing it without an alignment shift for the right reasons...
Say, for instance, you hire an Assassin because you don't have much of a choice, and you know he will be the only one able to destroy the Dark King. It's evil to do that -- to wish that sort of torture and dishonor onto even the worst of your enemies. That would be kind of similar to finding the Dark King's children and builing them alive in molten iron in front of him, to show him how you have him in control. Or even paying sombody else to do it.
So even if the one to be assassinated is a diabolical criminal of the worst sort, hiring an Assassin to kill them is evil. Hiring a mercenary or rogue to kill them might not be evil -- provided the mercenary or rogue is not evil themselves.
Doing such a thing wouldn't exactly be grounds for an alignment change, if they were somehow forced into it, but willingly persuing such a method should give the DM pause, and she should pay attention to how the character behaves...a few little notches in the Evil direction, and you should make a little note that tells you how the character views things -- any means for his own satisfaction.
Doing such a thing would be grounds for revoking a Paladin of their powers -- a willful violation of their code. Even if forced into it, a Paladin is forbidden from doing it by anything but coersion of a magical nature. And even then, that only opens up the venue for possible eventual Atonement.
A CN character? Hiring an Assassin (a member of the organization, with the PrC) to kill another PC? For his own gain? Definately Evil. Maybe not changing their alignment to Evil, but definately something to alert the DM to possibilities of that. And definately an avenue a curious demon could explore...
Maybe that doesn't explain it very well.
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
What's the difference between hiring someone to pull the trigger and pulling it yourself? Seriously.Numion said:
Black Omega said:
So, would teleporting into the foozle's lair, causing massive property damage in a series of spectacular battles (killing the foozle along the way), and teleporting back out, count as assassination?
Heck, that's the plot of 1001 high-level adventures right there....
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Numion said:
OK. That's not what I thought your last post was implying.
Hong- thanks for pointing out legitimate follicular concerns, but I was aiming for the moral distinction.
Of course, with all the negative reinforcement you receive via whacking with sticks, I'm not surprised that your ability to distinguish moral fiber from keratin fibers has suffered.
DM with a vengence
First Post
I don't about the evil part, but you shouldn't hire an assassin on your comrades. If you want the character dead, then just stick a sword in him, or more realistically Timestop, and hit him with a half-dozen Save-or-Die spells.
D&D characters should do the deed themselves.
D&D characters should do the deed themselves.
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