Alignment

[Anditch]

Ill set the scene. A party of 5 are adventuring. 1 dwarf, 3 humans and an elf. In the distance a party of 20 orks spots us and runs down the hill and attacks from above by dropping down up on us from around 10 foot up. We are fighting these when more turn up another 15 from a different position. they are places in an entangle, then a Steppe Troll turns up from above us and jumps over our party and attacks the orks that are in the entangle. He then stands there for the next 8-10 rounds picking off the orks. Not once coming towards us in anyway. Our mage decides to cast fire spells on the troll. It goes down but is regenerating. We then as a party finish off the 8 or so orks, the cleric then casts on the troll detect evil. Finds no evil. So the others in the party start to pour oil over it and burn the troll even though the troll is neutral at worse. Would a party who are not evil themselves do this or not. And would a Lawful Good Cleric like this idea or not. So over all killing a neutral troll that has shown nothing against the party had an alignment spell casts on it found it out to be non evil. Is that a good.neutral or evil act to kill it in cold blood when it was out cold on the floor. Can anyone clear up this for me please.

 

[Dandu]

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

 

[bobhayes]

Evil, flat out. The troll didn't attack you, it attacked your enemies. The detect alignment was icing on the cake.

Dandu's breakdown is spot-on. Your mage's attack in the heat of battle could conceivably be neutral - maybe he was just worried that the troll was going to attack, and went on a policy of self-defense. Killing the creature in cold blood (and hot oil), however, is straight-up evil. Your paladins are fighters now, and your lawful good cleric has some 'splainin to do.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Clearly evil. The troll is a living creature, and obviously not an imminent threat to you. Needlessly destroying a living creature is on the Evil side of the Good-Evil axis.

Note that this single act does not necessarily make the troll-killers Evil. But the act itself is an evil one.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Would a party who are not evil themselves do this or not. And would a Lawful Good Cleric like this idea or not. So over all killing a neutral troll that has shown nothing against the party had an alignment spell casts on it found it out to be non evil. Is that a good.neutral or evil act to kill it in cold blood when it was out cold on the floor. Can anyone clear up this for me please.

Let's look at the actions of the party again...

20 orks spots us and runs down the hill and attacks from above by dropping down up on us from around 10 foot up.

20 orcs ambush you.

We are fighting these when more turn up another 15 from a different position.

15 more orcs join in. You're now being ambushed by 35 orcs, as far as I can tell.

they are placed in an entangle, then a Steppe Troll turns up from above us and jumps over our party and attacks the orks that are in the entangle. He then stands there for the next 8-10 rounds picking off the orks. Not once coming towards us in anyway.

The troll that showed up protects your party. His motivations are unknown, but he is killing orcs and making no moves to attack the party. He seems like an unlikely ally, thus far.

Our mage decides to cast fire spells on the troll. It goes down but is regenerating.

Your mage just sporadically attacked an apparent ally. I have no idea why he would do this, but it could justifiably make sense. If the mage had been attacked by trolls, or had some very bad experiences, I could see it making sense, at least to some degree. If not, then what he did is perplexing, and probably metagaming.

We then as a party finish off the 8 or so orks, the cleric then casts on the troll detect evil. Finds no evil. So the others in the party start to pour oil over it and burn the troll even though the troll is neutral at worse.

If after they find out that the creature defending them wasn't evil (or otherwise against them), and they still killed in cold blood, then they committed murder. I can't think of a Lawful Good cleric accepting this situation most of the time, especially if he has a healer mindset.

I'd say the act of murder, if there was no agenda against them, is pretty clearly an evil act. It wouldn't change the PCs to evil alone, but if this is part of a trend, it might be the tipping point.

 

[frankthedm]

Some people come to the table to kill monsters. If you don't look like a member of the LOTR fellowship, your dead. If the GM presents situations like this in game, then their characters will turn evil.

 

[Dross]

Some people come to the table to kill monsters. If you don't look like a member of the LOTR fellowship, your dead. If the GM presents situations like this in game, then their characters will turn evil.

This, if the DM & players are not on the same page then anything the DM tries that is not obviously a trap is a trap regardless and must be dealt with accordingly.

I do consider the actions of the party not good.

To me:
This is evil action territory.
Attacking something "known" not to be evil*, is not harming the PCs or innocents, and is happily guarding one flank against known enemies, is not a Good deed. You could class the troll as innocent (at least in this case) as used in Dandu's neutral quote.
The LG cleric needs to seriously think about such actions. At the least I would want him to question the mage and try to prevent the killing of an unconscious potential ally (there used to be only one way to be a good Drow at one time ).

Be wary of the troll and ready to BBQ it is fine. Doing so after talking to it is also fine if you find a reason to believe that it means you harm.
The mage believing that the only good (steppe) troll is a dead troll and burning it is fine (there is at least a reasonable explanation for his actions), but not the deep frying.


* There are ways around alignment detections after all.

 

[Celebrim]

Murder in cold blood is evil, even if the victim is green and ugly. In fact, in my opinion, lacking evidence of a crime and having no reasonable self-defense motive, killing the Troll would have still been murder (and thus evil) even if the troll had detected as evil.

Party has clearly demonstrated that they are neutral at best. Lawful Good cleric participating in the event has just lost all clerical powers pending an atonement spell.

Lawful Good deity to cleric: "Why did you murder the polymorphed Prince I had sent you to rescue?"

Cleric to Lawful Good deity, "Well, he was ugly so he had to die."

Lawful Good deity to cleric, "You fail goodness 101. Let your outward appearance match the monster within you. I'm now polymorphing you into a pigfaced orc so horrifying to look on that you'll even scare orcs until you learn some compassion. Don't expect the curse to break until you manage to find someone that doesn't judge you by your appearance."

 

[Alexander123]

I agree, this was clearly an evil act.

I consider your mages behavior to be evil also.

Just because the troll is a monster does not mean that you can attack him when he has not attacked you.

Now as far as the definition of good, I do not think that good means altruism and self-sacrifice. I subscribe to the Objectivist view of good which is the rational pursuit of one's self-interest and not altruism and self-sacrifice.

Nevertheless, what the PCs did was violate the trolls individual rights when he had not initiated force against you.

One question to you, if instead of a troll, a human knight had come to attack the orcs would your mage have been as likely to attack the knight?

Just because a troll is ugly doesn't make it evil.

Edit: This is one of the reasons why I like Eberron. In Eberron troll does not equal evil whereas in traditional fanstasy settings it does.

 

[Dandu]

Now as far as the definition of good, I do not think that good means altruism and self-sacrifice. I subscribe to the Objectivist view of good which is the rational pursuit of one's self-interest and not altruism and self-sacrifice.

The game defines it differently.