Alignment

[Celebrim]

Torching an LG city to kill one or two Evil commoners does not serve the greater Good. Torturing one Good soldier to root out and stop an Evil organisation that threatens to destroy that Good city DOES serve the greater Good.

You seem to have confused the motivation of law with the motivation of good, which is ironic, because lawful good generally isn't known for giving exemptions on its moral code. And once against you seem to have defined good and evil tribally. If you strip your statement of the tribal identifiers, it's underlying meaning is even made more clear:

"Torching an [allied] city to kill one or two [enemy] commoners does not serve the greater Good. Torturing one [allied] soldier to root out and stop an [enemy] organisation that threatens to destroy that [allied] city DOES serve the greater Good."

Written that way it is clear that in your conception there is no moral difference here between Lawful Evil and Lawful Good. Greater good is defined in terms of strengthening your tribe. Everything in your conception seems to be just a tribe fighting for its cut, differing only in superficial trappings.

Just as it is the duty of all Demons to fight Devils and vice-versa...

Demons have duties? Once again, you're defining everything lawful terms. Demons have no duties. No one imposes on them nor do they impose on themselves a burden to fulfill some external and reviewable moral code. They have no obligations, no responcibilities, no loyalties and those things are so alien to them that they don't believe that they exist nor do they even have words for those things. If someone were to tell a being of pure chaos that they had 'a duty', they could only understand that some clever individual fooled them into enslaving themselves for some nefarious purpose and all the explanation for what a duty is would strike them as so much utter and detestable nonsense.

 

[Celebrim]

...and better defines it than the PHB or DMG.

That is a matter of opinion.

 

[Vegepygmy]

(snipped)

If I could give you XP for this post, I would.

 

[Anditch]

The Lawful good Cleric was played by me and I was totally against the troll slaying ( Hence why I am here writing this) also dont know where the lawful good paladin came from, Never mentioned this. No Pally in group.

 

[TanisFrey]

The Lawful good Cleric was played by me and I was totally against the troll slaying ( Hence why I am here writing this) also dont know where the lawful good paladin came from, Never mentioned this. No Pally in group.

What god does you character worship??

 

[Dross]

I haven't been able to find the *Steppe Troll in a MM (World of Warcraft references only). My previous search had them labeled as Neutral but I'm having a google-weak day.

Do we KNOW that the Steppe Troll is "usually CE" and not something else? MMIII Crystalline Trolls are usually CN and the War Troll usually LN.
If they aren't labeled as "usually ## evil" then all the "usually Evil" arguments need to be addressed.


* I am assuming that "Steppe Troll" is the actual critter under discussion rather than a regular troll.

 

[Dross]

This troll slaying was Lawful.

Maybe, but I'm thinking not. One of the traits of Lawful is honour, and striking down someone from behind that is helping you does not strike me as honourable. If "Usually CE" allows for Good trolls, then it becomes beholden on Good people to find out why the troll is apparently helping them (and THEN you can burn it! ).

Whether it was Good or Evil is secondary, and therefor does not merit divine punishment.

I would question that on at least one level. Paladins performing an Evil act loose their paladin status but don't if they perform a Chaotic act. A Neutral Good PC, especially a Cleric, would need to consider Good v Evil above Law v Chaos.

Regional laws have no bearing on a Lawful character. Alignment is not regional.
A purely Lawful person will never go against their beliefs, no matter what they are presented with. A Lawful person does not necessarily care about Good or Evil, and does not necessarily care about the Good or Evil outcome of an event, only the Lawful outcome.

Which to me would make them Lawful Neutral, Not LG or LE. For me, those mentioned as having a Good/Evil alignment need to have Good/Evil as part of their decision making process (and in a typical D&D game Good/Evil are not supposed to be regional either).

As for Lawful never going against Lawful beliefs, the last paragraph of PHB pg103 state that no one is completely consistent and someone may "take something or hoard something he has even if that’s not lawful or good" so while unlikely "never" is too strong a term for me.

Law/Chaos and Good/Evil are independent of eachother for a reason, and sometimes it is impossible to do the Lawful AND Good thing, just like it is sometimes impossible to do the Lawful AND Evil thing. Even Gygax admitted that. That's why Paladins are so hard to play correctly.

While I disagree with Law/Chaos and Good/Evil being independent of each other (because you have to exclude those aspects in favour of neutrality), I agree that you cannot always do the LG, CG, LE, CG, etc thing. You just have to chose where to place your priority.

The PHB has Good/Evil as an "attitude that one recognizes but does not choose" and Law/Chaos is "but more often it is a personality trait that is recognized rather than being chosen". One way I look at this is that Law/Chaos is how you go about being Good/Evil.

 

[Rakusia]

no one else addressed this but if the mage casted fire spells how did the troll begin regenerating? fire stops that ability. while i wouldnt accept it into the party it is an evil act to kill it outright as the party did. as to the cleric poster. how hard did you attempt to keep them from killing it?

as for the torture. one of the expanded books speaking on a good alignment states that torture no matter who or why is a clearly evil act. torturing saten himself to find out his plans to destroy heaven and stop it is still an evil act.

 

[TanisFrey]

no one else addressed this but if the mage casted fire spells how did the troll begin regenerating? fire stops that ability. while i wouldnt accept it into the party it is an evil act to kill it outright as the party did. as to the cleric poster. how hard did you attempt to keep them from killing it?

as for the torture. one of the expanded books speaking on a good alignment states that torture no matter who or why is a clearly evil act. torturing saten himself to find out his plans to destroy heaven and stop it is still an evil act.

If the mage was hitting the orcs also with the fireball, getting the troll could be interpreted as incidental. It less clear of an act to catch an apparent in a area of effect spell. Not very evil act in and of itself, only a little evil and very chaotic.

 

[Rakusia]

wasnt talking about the moral quandry just if it was hit with a fireball how would the wounds regenerate?