Characters who don't kill.

[Kahuna Burger]

Interesting idea, but it may be hard to implement.

Think of your average party of adventurers as a group of special forces operatives. How many spec ops teams include a pacifist?

GI Joe did.

and, guys, this is not pacifism, its Code Against Killing. Totally different thing. The palidan will be kicking ass along with everyone else, he'll just have a different opinion of mop up.

You're likely to see a scene like this fairly early on:

Paladin: Aha! The giant is unconscious! I quickly lay on hands for one point to stop his bleeding, then begin to tie him up.
Other PC: Screw that! This giant is wearing the skulls of half a dozen people, and he nearly got my skull to add to his necklace. No way I'm letting him go. While the paladin stops the bleeding, I slit the giant's throat.
Paladin: What?! Nooooo!

Second Other PC who isn't a dork: I stop him! The palidan was the one who brought this guy down, and saved your worthless skull doing it. We aren't leaving him to clutter our exit, but if Officer Friendly here has a plan to make him not a problem, he's got the say on how to do it, not you.

In a mature party, you will get that sort of scene, it will set the tone, and the pacifist palidan will pull his weight and have his mercy held to standards.

Adventurers can travel together even if they have different philosophies, as long as their goals are compatible. But most adventurers put "killing bad guys" near the top of their list of goals, and that's highly incompatible with the goal of "not killing bad guys."

you know I honestly can't think of a single adventurer I ran who had "kill bad guys" anywhere on her list of goals. Defeat certainly, but this palidan won't be sitting by twiddling his thumbs.

I'm reminded of XenaWP, and the cute blond who came along, helped, and never killed anyone. Xena did, but if someone wasn't dead at the end of a fight, there never seemed to be any need to CDG them for fun and profit. And yet somehow this made for a long running fantasy adventure storyline.

If the party in question is as bloodthirsty as some of these respondants seem to be, there would be a problem. If the party is having fights which often end in death but don't need to leave a swathe of bodies and the palidan restrains his compunctions to those he is fighting and prisoners left after the danger is past, I would just see it as a challenge to the DM to think a little more in depth about how his world works.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Pielorinho]

Kahuna, I see what you're saying, and I think I somewhat agree with you. But many games involve battles against dedicated, powerful creatures. And if you don't kill these folks, they're not likely to repent their wicked ways and become productive members of society. And many campaign worlds don't have prison facilities capable of containing dragons, demons, fire giants, or even powerful wizards.

If the DM has established such a world, then it's perfectly appropriate for characters to decide that the only way to prevent evil is to kill the evildoers. And if they've decided to take that course of action, and if a new character tries to prevent them from doing so without offering a reasonable alternative, then I'd expect those characters to ditch the new guy.

We're playing through RttToEE now, and we've had in-depth discussions about this issue. Eventually we decided this: if people surrender, we'll take them prisoner. And we'll talk with them. If they seem like mercenary types who aren't in it for a fanatic belief system, then we'll strip them of their weapons, give them a few coins, and let them go with a warning that if we ever encounter them in battle again, they'll not be able to surrender. If they seem like fanatics, then we'll kill them. Our campaign world doesn't make allowances for prisons for powerful beings, and we can't risk their killing of more innocent beings.

I know that we wouldn't accept someone in our group who tried to overrule this decision we'd made. We'd wish them luck in their nonlethal approach to vanquishing evil and send them on their way.

Unless, as I noted before, they offered an effective alternative.

Daniel

 

[hong]

Batman and Spider-Man both wrestle with this issue extensively. Other superheroes seem not to think about it, I guess.

The question is, if they can't be kept imprisoned, and they won't reform, is it worth it to keep stopping them, over and over again?

D00d, it's just more XP!


Hong "camping near the respawn point" Ooi

 

[Steverooo]

I don't really think this idea would work. For one thing, it would draw a whole lot of attention away from the other characters, after all Kenshin is the main character. I have also played with peace loving characters, and they tend to become very annoying, even to the people playing them. Unless your players are excellent role-players this probably woudn't work.

I have played Pacifists in several games, and had few problems with it. Of course, he always allowed other PCs to do what they wanted, and he did the same. In Sci-Fi, especially, it forced him to be wonderfully creative...

 

[Anabstercorian]

Don't forget a few things about Rurouni Tenshin:

He may not kill, but he's NOT a pacifist. He's willing to break peoples bones, bludgeon foes in to bloody unconsciousness, and cripple evil foes for life. Now, in the world he's in, there's no magical healing, or even any magic.

So you need to work out game-mechanic ways to totally and utterly defeat someone for good, without killing them.

I recommend you allow him to take a custom feat that lets him cripple an opponent reduced to -1 or less HP instead of drop them.