Alignment Situations III

[Sarcoth]

Thank you for the previous posts, I appreciate all the responses. The next situation is similiar to the thief one, but more in depth and I plan to build on to this one.

A party of six adventurers (all level 6) is made up of a Paladin (LG), Fighter (NG), Ranger (CG), Wizard (LG), Rogue (NG), Cleric (CG). They have been together for a few months now. None of the party members have any subduing weapons, only slashing or piercing. The wizard is armed with only damage spells. The cleric only took damaging or divination spells plus healing for the day. No sleeping or subdueing type spells.

The following is a completely different situation. How do you think each of these alignments (LG, NG, CG) would react in the following situation(s):

You and your party come across a city in your travels. You have never been to this city so you decide to scout out the local people and maybe do a little shopping. You make a visit to the docks and notice many great ships in the harbor.

Situation A: While down by the docks, your party is attacked by a group of (15) rough looking sailors whom appear to be armed with clubs.

Question 1: If the only weapons you have are swords and damage magic, how do you deal with them.
LG:
NG:
CG:

Situation B: Your party wins the battle, but in the midst of the battle, a dagger was drawn by a sailor and your ranger is bleeding to death. The rogue and wizard are unconscious from subdue blows. 4 sailors died in the attack, 5 appear to be bleeding to death, 4 are unconscious, and the other 2 have surrendered.

During the battle, the sailors are using those clubs as weapons and only change to subdual damage when someone is on bended knee with a bad beating. The wizard and rogue took a bad beating before knocked unconscious with subdual damage.

One of the sailors just didn't like how the Ranger sliced him with a sword and decided to do some lethal damage instead of subdual when the Ranger went down to the ground.

Question 1: How would the following alignments proceed?
LG:
NG:
CG:

Question 2: The sailor that pulled the blade is one of the two that surrendered. How is he handled?
CG:
NG:
LG:

Question 3: The sailor that pulled the blade is one of five that are bleeding to death. How is that handled?
CG:
NG:
LG:

(best to go in reverse on this one.)

I'll follow-up on a continued situation of this one after some replies.
Thanks in advance!

Alignment Situations I: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46181
Alignment Situations II: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46316

 

[Sarcoth]

Okay, I'll reply so I can get this started. I'm more interested in the next situation that builds from this.

Situation A: While down by the docks, your party is attacked by a group of (15) rough looking sailors whom appear to be armed with clubs.

Question 1: If the only weapons you have are swords and damage magic, how do you deal with them.
LG: "Did we do something wrong? Where are the guards? GUARDS! Defend!"
NG: "Stay back or I will use force to defend myself!"
CG: "Bring it on!"

Situation B: Your party wins the battle, but in the midst of the battle, a dagger was drawn by a sailor and your ranger is bleeding to death. The rogue and wizard are unconscious from subdue blows. 4 sailors died in the attack, 5 appear to be bleeding to death, 4 are unconscious, and the other 2 have surrendered.

Question 1: How would the following alignments proceed?
LG: "I tried to hold my swings, but I was caught up in the battle. GUARDS, we need assistance here!" (tends to the wounds of friends first and then the hurt sailors). "Lets find the guards and turn these thugs over!"
NG: "I warned you. (tends to the wounds of friends and then the sailors). "I agree, I don't want these thugs to be a problem again."
CG: "Ahhh, the rush. (tends to the wounds of friends and then the sailors). "Do what you wish. But, I will remember each one. Next time I see them on the opposite side of my blade, I will not be so kind. I'll be at the tavern."

 

[RigaMortus]

A party of six adventurers (all level 6) is made up of a Paladin (LG), Fighter (NG), Ranger (CG), Wizard (LG), Rogue (NG), Cleric (CG). They have been together for a few months now. None of the party members have any subduing weapons, only slashing or piercing. The wizard is armed with only damage spells. The cleric only took damaging or divination spells plus healing for the day. No sleeping or subdueing type spells.

The following is a completely different situation. How do you think each of these alignments (LG, NG, CG) would react in the following situation(s):

You and your party come across a city in your travels. You have never been to this city so you decide to scout out the local people and maybe do a little shopping. You make a visit to the docks and notice many great ships in the harbor.

Situation A: While down by the docks, your party is attacked by a group of (15) rough looking sailors whom appear to be armed with clubs.

Question 1: If the only weapons you have are swords and damage magic, how do you deal with them.
LG:
NG:
CG:

There are a couple ways I could deal with this. All of which are what I see a "Good" person doing (regardless of the Law/Chaos aspect).

1) Paladin Detects Evil and reports back what he finds to the group. If they are NOT evil, then try to subdue them (ie take a -4 to attack to turn normal damage into subdual). If they are evil, use lethal force (ie attack normally). The casters can use their damage spells to help in the fight. Once they are unconcious, bind any wounds (for those that are bleeding to death). Try to bring one back to conciousness and question him.

2) Paladin Detects Evil and reports back what he finds to the group. Assess the situation, and see if there is a leader amongst them. If there is, concentrate on the leader. Try to grapple him. Put a blade to his neck and tell him to call off his men. If he refuses, you will be forced to kill him (make this an Intimidation check... Also, Ready an action to attack him if he does not call off his men). At this point, he will either call off his men, in which case you can let the questioning begin. If he calls off his men, but some of them do not listen, keep him grappled and tell him if he moves, you will be forced to kill him. Then proceed to lay the smack down on the thugs that are not cooperating. If he flat-out refuses to cooperate, kcock him out (even though you said you'd kill him, it was an Intimidation factor).

Now if there is no leader, you can still do the same thing, but the sailors will just be less likely to give into your demands. They might not care if you kill one of their own. They were sent to do a job and knew the risks. It depends on their alignment too. However, by doing this to their leader, they should be more willing to throw down their weapons. They won't want to see their leader hurt. Again, it depends on their alignments.

Situation B: Your party wins the battle, but in the midst of the battle, a dagger was drawn by a sailor and your ranger is bleeding to death. The rogue and wizard are unconscious from subdue blows. 4 sailors died in the attack, 5 appear to be bleeding to death, 4 are unconscious, and the other 2 have surrendered.

Question 1: How would the following alignments proceed?
LG:
NG:
CG:

Well you have a whole group's worth of resources here, so this is what I think the group should do.

Paladin Lays on Hands on the bleeding Ranger, and stabalizes him.
The Fighter covers the surrendering sailors. I'll assume they dropped their weapons when they surrendered. The Fighter will start to tie them up if rope is available. If not, a simple blade to the throat should do the job. "Any sudden moves and you can kiss your arse goodbye".
The Cleric can bind the sailors wounds that are bleeding to death (with the Heal skill) or use healing magic if necessary. It's not necessary to get them back to conciousness, just stabalize them.
The Paladin and/or Cleric can then revive their allies into conciousness.

I will assume that the Cleric knows that his companions that are unconcious are not bleeding to death. If he does not know, then I think he would first check them out before healing the bleeding sailors.

Start to question the concious sailors. The LG Paladin might want to say something like, "You see this chaos you created", pointing to their dead comrads. "This all could have been avoided had you surrendered to begin with. Now their blood is on YOUR hands. I hope you learn a valuable lesson from this..." and so forth and so on...

 

[RigaMortus]

Double Double Post Post

Edit - Slow boards today

 

[Murrdox]

Situation 1)

LG: Will generally yell for the guards, and aid the guards in subduing the gang. If the gang attacks with only subdual damage weapons, will take the penalties to deal subdual damage unless the gang starts inflicting lethal damage.

Paladin: Yell for guards, most likely target the leader of the gang - will only attack using non-lethal means.

Wizard: Will try to refrain from combat spells except as a last resort. Will attempt to use his magic to support the guards and party members. If he cannot take an active roll in the fighting because of his limited spells, he may run to bring more guards to help in the fight, rather than resorting to using his poor melee skills.

NG: Will try to get out of the fight, but will aid party members if its necessary. As long as the fight is non-lethal, will most likely let it stay that way, and take the penalties for dealing subdual damage.

Fighter: Will go with the flow of the fight. If everyone is doing subdual damage, he'll follow suit, but as soon as someone pulls a blade on him, he'll protect himself. He won't go to the town guard for protection unless the party can't handle the gang on their own.

Rogue: Will view the fight similar to the fighter, and attempt to do subdual sneak attacks to end the fight quickly, possibly by targeting a leader.

CG: Will fight for survival. If the fight is going bad, or if the character is particularly angered at being attacked without provokation, may start dealing lethal damage to scare some of the gang members away.

Cleric: Will be somewhat resentful of calling the guards to help them on a fight that the party can handle. If he sees any of the gang pull out blades, or if they even LOOK like they're going to pull out blades, he'll do similarly. He may even sneak in a combat spell, or if he gets impatient, start dealing lethal damage. Even so, he'll be very careful not to kill, unless its obvious the gang is Evil in nature. He'll heal party members first, then stabalize the wounded gang members.

Ranger: Guards? We don't need no stinking guards! He will most likely get into the thick of things with the paladin and the fighter, but if a chance to end the combat quickly by eliminating the leader shows up, he may call off the subdual attack and take things seriously. Also, if he's not faring too well in the fight, he'll stop dealing subdual damage to prevent himself from getting knocked out. If he notices an ally that is in poor shape, he may switch to lethal damage to protect them.

 

[Murrdox]

Let me ALSO say that alignment alone doesn't dictate how your character reacts to things. My previous examples are SWEEPINGLY generic examples.

Even good people are capable of doing evil acts and vis-versa. Characters' personalities are not only defined by their alignment. If the rogue in the party used to be a member of a street gang, and had since thrown off that role, and grown hateful of street gangs because of his youthful experiences, then I don't care what his alignment is... he can go ahead and do lethal damage to them and try to kill them all. If it doesn't fit in with his alignment... that means he's going to feel a bit uneasy about it afterwards, and maybe change his perspective on things.

Similarly, the fighter might just be in a BAD MOOD, and decide that if any of the gang members die in the fight... well, too bad for them. He'll try to only wound them, but he won't go out of his way to not harm them.

I advocate playing your characters by their personality. Alignment doesn't dictate everything.

 

[RigaMortus]

Remember, in situation A the sailors are using Clubs. Clubs don't do subdual damage normally. So the party should attack them with the same force they are being attacked with. Of course, just because you are doing normal damage doesn't mean you are out to kill someone. If it happens, it happens, that is the chance the opponent took when facing you. They knew the risks.

Now if they are using the Clubs subdually, then the party should probably also go subdual.

 

[Sarcoth]

Situation B:

During the battle, the sailors are using those clubs as weapons and only change to subdual damage when someone is on bended knee with a bad beating. The wizard and rogue took a bad beating before knocked unconscious with subdual damage.

One of the sailors just didn't like how the Ranger sliced him with a sword and decided to do some lethal damage instead of subdual when the Ranger went down to the ground.

Question 2: The sailor that pulled the blade is one of the two that surrendered. How is he handled?
CG:
NG:
LG:

(best to go in reverse on this one.)

 

[Victim]

Like RigaMortus said, clubs do normal damage too. A short sword is only somewhat better than a club, and the club is probably more effective than a knife. So both parties were probably attacking for lethal damage, thus things are even.

If the group is level 6, they can probably afford to take the -4 penalty and strike with the flat of the blade. I've used this trick before. If the sailors switch to subdual to KO characters, then characters should do the same.

This situation seems pretty personality dependent though. The sailors must be pretty stupid to attack 6 people that have fairly heavy armaments. They brought it on themselves after all.

 

[RigaMortus]

Situation B:

During the battle, the sailors are using those clubs as weapons and only change to subdual damage when someone is on bended knee with a bad beating. The wizard and rogue took a bad beating before knocked unconscious with subdual damage.

One of the sailors just didn't like how the Ranger sliced him with a sword and decided to do some lethal damage instead of subdual when the Ranger went down to the ground.

Question 2: The sailor that pulled the blade is one of the two that surrendered. How is he handled?
CG:
NG:
LG:

(best to go in reverse on this one.)

I don't follow this... The sailors change to subdual when WHO is on bended knee with a bad beating? When one of the party members is on bended knee, or when one of their fellow sailors is on bended knee?

Also, are you saying that the sailor uses lethal damage AFTER the Ranger is down on the ground (and unconcious?) OR are you saying, as a result of the lethal damage the Ranger is down on the ground (and unconcious?)?

It probably doesn't matter, so I'll give it a shot anyway...

CG: Since the only concious CG person left is the Cleric, I'd say he would first tend to the wounded. Heal the Ranger to conciousness first, then any other person bleeding to death (party members before sailors). Then he would walk over to the sailor that stabbed his friend and hit him in the face (subdually) and say, "That's for Bob the Ranger you bastard." And then bind him with rope.
NG: Since the NG fighter is the only NG concious person, and he probably doesn't have any healing skills, he's probably hit the surrendering sailor. Of course, initiative is important here, I don't think he would hit the sailor if the Cleric did so first. And the Cleric would not hit the surrendering sailor if the Fighter hit him first. It's like a slap on the hand for his misdeeds.
LG: Since the only LG person is the Paladin, he would first tend to the wounds of the Ranger, brining him back to conciousness if he had the healing to do so. Then any other person bleeding to death (bleeding party members would have first healing rights before bleeding sailors). Then help bind the sailors who surrendered, and question them.