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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 281287" data-attributes="member: 2011">Alignment is one of the toughest concepts to both understand, and to agree upon with others.Let's take a different example:1) PCs raid the lair of a bunch of evil Orcs.2) PCs kill Orcs.3) PCs loot bodies.What did they just do here?They murdered and robbed.Happens all of the time in DND.Is it evil to do this? Yes, typically.Can the PCs justify doing it by saying that they are protecting a community or something? Yes, typically.However, without conflict, the game would be boring and nobody would play it.Hence, it is easier to justify killing and theft by using evil vs. good alignment differences than it is to sit down and attempt to rationalize every single combat:1) They attacked first, so it was self defense.2) They were raiding nearby settlements and caravans, so it was Outlaw Justice.3) They were minding their own business in a dungeon 500 miles from the closest settlement and we had a quest to get a magical gem from there, and we broke in, and ah, err, well you see, ah... THEY ATTACKED FIRST. Yeah, that's it!I once played one session as an NPC Paladin in a campaign of very high level characters. We entered this pyramid-like structure and captured the powerful neutral dragon that lived there. The other "good PCs" then proceeded to loot the place. I spoke up and said that doing that was not right since the dragon was not evil and was an intelligent creature. Looting the place was tantamount to theft.The other players got incensed and started shouting that the Paladin wouldn't ever say that. The DM settled it by saying that the "good characters" could atone later, but that the quest they were on was to save the world and the ends justified the means.Needless to say, that was the only time I played with those people.With regard to your original question, I would agree with you. Typically, it is evil to slit the throats of sleeping opponents with a few basic exceptions.1) If the creatures are convicted outlaws (i.e. already convicted of crimes and sentenced to death already, or marauding monsters in a given area where the local authorities have a shoot on sight type of order outstanding), then it is permissible, although not necessarily preferable, to execute them in the field. 2) In times of war when dealing with enemies, again, it is preferable to capture, but not necessarily required.3) The creature(s) is generally viewed as mindless or exceptionally violent or an exceptional threat. This covers a wide range of possibilities, but typically the threat has to be sufficient such that no other option exists (assuming we are not talking about case #2 or #3). So, killing a bunch of helpless Orcs 500 miles from civilization would generally be considered murder, at least by any enlightened society not plagued by Orcs on a re-occurring basis (Dwarves might think differently for example). Killing a powerful evil necromancer who is planning on attacking some cities with his minions, even if the cities are 500 miles away, would generally be considered justice and not murder.Typically, most societies would view it as murder or vigilantism if you kill intelligent creatures without following the laws of the society with respect to how it is done. I would tend to doubt that there would be many societies that would view killing a creature "because it is evil" or "because it might seek revenge on us" as sufficient justification, although some such groups or societies might exist in a given campaign world.The actions of characters, though, should be judged based on the type of society the individual characters come from.</blockquote>

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