Alignment shift for intra-party murder?

[aboyd]

I have 6 characters. I need to know how to shift alignments after a huge, successful intra-party assassination.

The party barbarian didn't get off the sinking boat quickly enough, causing the other players to have to linger in the rescue boat. When they reached shore, the party cleric (a halfling with a tower shield, probably need to look at the rules on that one) was upset. He used his shield to bump the barbarian in the knees (no damage, not an actual attack, but meant to be tough & annoying) and say, "When we say abandon ship, you abandon ship!"

The barbarian was infuriated at getting knocked in the knees, and actually spiked-chain attacked the cleric, and critical hit, and the cleric crumpled to the ground.

Two other players ignored the whole fight, wandering down the beach, looking for some allies still in the water.

Two other other players flanked the barbarian, stunned him, and stabbed him until he died. One of those characters shouted, "You killed our healer!" The healer wasn't dead, but was unconscious.

After the barbarian died, the two attackers ran down the shore, got the other two players, and had one of them (a druid) heal the fallen cleric. The fallen cleric tried to heal the barbarian, but he was well & truly dead.

At this point, the group as a whole decides that they will not resurrect the barbarian. They loot his corpse.

The two characters that were not participating much (the druid & her friend) head back to the lighthouse and go to sleep. The cleric follows. The two other characters who had killed the barbarian decide to flush the barbarian down the lighthouse toilet. He won't fit, I tell them. So they chop him into pieces and flush him away.

I have opinions on whether this is evil, chaotic, justified, reasonable, etc. But what do you think about their actions? Remember, we're using the standard 3.5 edition alignment grid. Do you think this one scene is controversial enough to move alignments? On which axis? Do you think there are mitigating circumstances that diminish the severity of the consequences? Do you think that all party members are equal participants?

 

[Jack Simth]

Cleric: No shift necessary, possibly a step towards good, if anything.

Barbarian: Immaterial, as he isn't coming back. Possibly a shift towards either Chaotic or Evil (but not both).

Those who hacked the corpse to flushable pieces: Possible shift towards Chaotic (shift towards evil if they continued pounding on the barbarian after he fell unconscious - if the barbarian went straight from "alive and kicking" to "dead" with no transitional sate, no evil shift here)

Others: No particular shift. They were away when things turned sour.

 

[aboyd]

They did in fact keep attacking after the barbarian went unconscious. I assume you're calling that evil because their intent was not a simple beat-down?

 

[roguerouge]

He used his shield to bump the barbarian in the knees (no damage, not an actual attack, but meant to be tough & annoying) and say, "When we say abandon ship, you abandon ship!"

The barbarian was infuriated at getting knocked in the knees, and actually spiked-chain attacked the cleric, and critical hit, and the cleric crumpled to the ground.

Modern equivalent: cleric kicks you in the shin, you pull out your Colt .45 and blast him in the chest. After surgery, the cleric comes out with no permanent damage. Barbarian = evil, player gets the boot. Disrespect is an excuse for lethal violence only for psychopaths and sociopaths.

Two other players ignored the whole fight, wandering down the beach, looking for some allies still in the water.

Cleric should be peeved at these two idiots, who abandoned him when he needed them most. They acted neutral evil in game, passive aggressive out of game.

Two other other players flanked the barbarian, stunned him, and stabbed him until he died. One of those characters shouted, "You killed our healer!" The healer wasn't dead, but was unconscious.

So they chop him into pieces and flush him away.

Panicked reaction that's pretty much justified by the idiot barbarian and idiot barbarian player. And, unless they make heal checks, they don't know the difference between -1, -9 and -10. By modern terms, their actions could have been prosecuted, as the use of lethal force is more heavily-state-controlled; why they bothered in a medieval setting, I'll never know. It's certainly not particularly lawful or good, so I'd label it at neutral act in such a setting.

Cleric should be grateful to them for defending him when he was down.

At the end of the day, the player of the barbarian had the choice to declare a nonlethal strike (-4 attack penalty) or to pull his punch. I've had my character punch a fellow PC and I always pulled my punches. He did neither and acted like a spoiled brat. Boot him from your table. Give the two idiots on the beach a nudge towards evil in your super-secret DM's notebook. Let the other two players keep their alignments the same.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Cleric: No shift necessary, possibly a step towards good, if anything.

Agreed. No shift needed. The cleric may want to find better friends to hang with, as the rest of my opinion is no favorable to the party at all.

Barbarian: Immaterial, as he isn't coming back. Possibly a shift towards either Chaotic or Evil (but not both).

Agreed again. Character's dead, player might be advised to pull punches, nonlethal strike, etc. If the cleric did no damage, there's no reason to full-out attack in response. Period. It's just childish.

Those who hacked the corpse to flushable pieces: Possible shift towards Chaotic (shift towards evil if they continued pounding on the barbarian after he fell unconscious - if the barbarian went straight from "alive and kicking" to "dead" with no transitional sate, no evil shift here)

Here I disagree. This is a pathological behavoior. Cleaving someone into two pieces (even a deda body) could be a gut reaction and thus chaotic. Chopping an already dead being into small enough pieces to go down a toilet shows pattern, motive, and conscious repetitive thought. This is no reaction, it is pathological. Definate shift towards evil for any involved in this act (Including the cleric if that character participated. In which case, ignore comments above regarding the cleric.)

Unless, of course, you as the DM encourage these kind of antics at your table. In other words, if you've never done anything to discourage the pathological nature of the hacking into bits and stuff likethis happens from time to time, then I fault the DM just as much if not more than the players. But if this is the first time this kind of behavior happens, I'd make sure it's the last. It's one thing to have a player accidentally kill another. It's another thing to hack a dead body into bits to flush them down a toilet. To be fair - and this is just my opinion - I'm more bothered by the players who hackened the body into pieces just to flush it down a toilet than I am by the barbarian starting an intra-party conflict.

 

[AdmiralSkippy]

I'd give the two who killed the Barbarian an alignment change. Or at the very least make a note of it and see if they continue with this behavior.
From the way you described what happened they didn't panic and knew exactly what they were doing. It almost seems like they thought it was a joke (in and out of character). Killing the Barbarian I can understand. He used lethal force on the cleric, nearly killing him, when the cleric only nudged his knee. Once the Barbarian is dead I see no problem with looting the corpse (he's not using that equipment anymore). But the problem arises when they decide to dispose of the body (especially the way they did). You killed your comrade, give him the decency to either be left alone on the beach, or to be buried. He's a barbarian, send him out to sea. It's not like anyone was going to find out they killed him, because they were stranded on the island.

 

[Shin Okada]

#Cleric.

No alignment change in good-evil axis. Or maybe shift in good axis as he tried to save even who have had killed the cleric himself.

Alignment change in law-good axis. If he happen to be a lawful character, his way of preaching (bashing one with a tower shield) may or may not cause an issue. But it will depend on the philosophy of his religion. And on local law and culture, possibly.

#Barbarian

No need to argue much as he is already dead and gone. But maybe no alignment change. Remaining in the ship too long was a foolish act but may not be an evil act.

His act of violence is, from modern standard, considered to be injust. But if the PC actually took the shield bash as an attack or challenge for a duel, fighting back could be justified.

Or maybe, as he was a barbarian, letting someone kneeling down was a serious enough insult in his tribe. It could have been a cultural misunderstanding, for example.

#Two other players ignored the whole fight

It may depend on if they were thinking it to be a serious fight or they were expecting it to be a not-to-death quarrel.

#Two who killed the barbarian

_Killing

Basically, their act will be justified in good-evil axis if they thought that barbarian acutely killed the cleric or at least was trying to kill the cleric.

But in lawful-chaotic axis, lynching a member of civilized race could be either perfectly lawful or considered non-lawful. It will depend on world setting, those PCs' religion an philosophy, etc.

_Chopping down the dead body and putting them into toilet

It will depend on why they wanted to do that. Maybe they needed to do that to make sure that no-one will resurrect the dead barbarian. My players sometimes burn or chop down BBEG's dead body and sprinkle the result into running water when I am using no-house rule.

Today, I am using the house rule that shorten the time-limit for spells which bring dead people back to life (even True Resurrection must be cast within hr/caster level). So they don't need to do that usually.


In over all, in addition to the acts them selves, each PC's reasoning and motivation for those acts should be counted in.

And also, you may better be note that the party may have been a cross-cultural group. Each PCs could have completely different takes on good-evil and law-chaos, because of their religion and their cultural background.

 

[SnowHeart]

I'm reluctant to change party alignment for a single act but this was actually a series of actions (attacking, killing, mutilating, flushing). It'd be nice to know what the current alignments are, because (by RAW) you can only shift alignment one step along one axis at a time. Personally, having just gone through an alignment issue with my own players, I think you need to talk with them about it first and tell them events during the last game were unusual and you'd like to talk with them about possible consequences for their alignment.

I wouldn't change the cleric's alignment. His actions were relatively minor and inconsequential.

As for the two party members who walked away down the beach, I would tell them that is a neutral action. Not changing their alignment now, but if it becomes a pattern you'll consider an alignment shift.

As for the two party members who hacked up the barbarian, given that they continued stabbing him after he was unconscious (and perhaps even using lethal force against a party member in the first place), I'd say that would possibly be evil but I wouldn't force a change just for that. On one hand, they were initially reacting to defend a party member, but then things completely devolved into a deadly form of adolescent beat-down. What follows, however, really does bother me: the mutilation of the corpse, particularly a corpse of someone who was supposed to be an ally. I'm not sure if that's chaotic or if it's evil, but it's sure something.

 

[green slime]

Why does it matter that the murder was inter-party?

 

[Jack Simth]

Why does it matter that the murder was inter-party?

Mostly because stuff happening inside the party is usually a lot more emotionally invested by the real-life players than is stuff happening between the party and NPC's. Additionally, people that have worked together through a lot of danger will have different reactions than relative strangers. Otherwise, not so much.

Here I disagree. This is a pathological behavoior. Cleaving someone into two pieces (even a deda body) could be a gut reaction and thus chaotic. Chopping an already dead being into small enough pieces to go down a toilet shows pattern, motive, and conscious repetitive thought. This is no reaction, it is pathological. Definate shift towards evil for any involved in this act (Including the cleric if that character participated. In which case, ignore comments above regarding the cleric.)

The murder is the evil action; the chaotic action is in attempting to evade the law by hiding the body. Per OP follow-up after I posted, they were doing more than just restraining the crazy guy (they kept hacking after he keeled over unconscious), which points to deliberate lethal intent. Between it all, it then becomes a rather CE act.

Do note, though, that a goodly chunk of this depends on whether you treat a dead body as having rights similar to what you'd assign to a living person (modern US law does, to a certain degree). If the corpse is thought of as simply so much meat, then there's no particular Good/Evil action in disposing of the body in a reasonably convenient manner (although there is the Law/Chaos issue of evading murder charges). If the corpse is thought of as the last remains of the deceased, worthy of respect in it's own right, then desecrating the body is an Evil act in and of itself (with a few classes of exceptions - necessity, such as making sure the body can't be animated as an evil undead - and following cultural protocol ... but the situation as painted includes neither of these, so that's neither here nor there).