Collateral damage

[klofft]

My players are generally very good players, in both senses of the word "good." They roleplay well, and it is very easy to motivate them for heroic, rather than mercenary, reasons.

However, when it comes to combat situations (and occasionally searching for treasure, but that's another story), they sometimes fall victim to the "it's Friday night, I've had a long week, and combat in D&D is as much a wargame as an RPG and so I want to kill efficiently, story and alignment be damned" syndrome.

Case in point. The party was facing a skilled harpy archer (the one from the MM, FWIW) in a woods setting. While they were holding their own, the harpy was able to keep them at a distance where their greatest ability to deal damage was severely limited.

The CG elven evoker, who has just recently acquired fireball, decides he wants to launch a fireball at her. I remind him that she is sitting in a tree, in the middle of a forest, a forest that is no less than part of his own ancestral homeland.

He grumblingly relents, after making a very lame argument about being chaotic. One of his fellow players, our wargamer player, makes a bit of a stink about what's the point of fireball if you can't use it. In the end, they admitted that alignment and common sense should prevail, but they were frustrated nonetheless.

By the RAW, fireball and lightning bolt, arguably the two most common "utility-destruction" spells in the game, set flammable objects on fire. In your game as DM, how strictly do you concern yourself with the collateral damage of these spells (especially in a situation like a forest vs. a stone dungeon corridor)?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

IMCs the spell hits the target and nothing else, therby only making collateral damage happen if the spell is supposed to strike a structural target.

 

[Gold Roger]

In the heat of battle, even the goodiest of the good might make foolish mistakes.

Let him throw the fireball. I mean, he doesn't even kill another person. Yes a few trees will catch fire, but the whole forest propably won't burn down. Let his people scorn him for doing something foolish and culturally unacceptible.

Bottom line is, characters have "I've had a long week" moments as well.

 

[shilsen]

In the end, they admitted that alignment and common sense should prevail, but they were frustrated nonetheless.

Common sense isn't that common and what makes sense to one person often doesn't to another. And alignment should never prevail. Choices and actions should. Alignment simply reflects choices/actions, not the other way around.

By the RAW, fireball and lightning bolt, arguably the two most common "utility-destruction" spells in the game, set flammable objects on fire. In your game as DM, how strictly do you concern yourself with the collateral damage of these spells (especially in a situation like a forest vs. a stone dungeon corridor)?

Not that much, unless the PCs are in a situation where there are very flammable things around. A fireball in a forest which isn't specifically tinder-dry due to fall? Not a problem.

 

[Scribble]

In the heat of battle, even the goodiest of the good might make foolish mistakes.

Let him throw the fireball. I mean, he doesn't even kill another person. Yes a few trees will catch fire, but the whole forest propably won't burn down. Let his people scorn him for doing something foolish and culturally unacceptible.

Bottom line is, characters have "I've had a long week" moments as well.

Yeah, I agree with this. People do a lot of things they later regret.

I'd warn him as you did, but ultimately the choice is his.

I think that would be a great roleplaying moment too when after the battle the character realizes the price he/she has just paid...

 

[delericho]

However, when it comes to combat situations (and occasionally searching for treasure, but that's another story), they sometimes fall victim to the "it's Friday night, I've had a long week, and combat in D&D is as much a wargame as an RPG and so I want to kill efficiently, story and alignment be damned" syndrome.

That sounds fair enough to me. This is a game, and it's not unreasonable to treat it as such. (Ideally, though, the DM and the players should all be playing the same game - it's no fun if one player wants to just unwind and hit things, while the rest want the full 'life in a fantasy world' experience.)

In the end, they admitted that alignment and common sense should prevail, but they were frustrated nonetheless.

I agree with shilsen. Alignment is derived from actions, not the other way around.

By the RAW, fireball and lightning bolt, arguably the two most common "utility-destruction" spells in the game, set flammable objects on fire. In your game as DM, how strictly do you concern yourself with the collateral damage of these spells (especially in a situation like a forest vs. a stone dungeon corridor)?

Generally, I don't. If I remember, if it's important, or if I'm really working to set the scene, I'll narrate the consequences of combat, both good and bad, to help with player immersion. But it should be noted that my players are also fairly careful to not do something stupidly destructive, like launch a fireball in a forest, a library, or a crowded street.

 

[Scribble]

I agree with shilsen. Alignment is derived from actions, not the other way around.

I'd say it's a bit of both personally. While overall alignment is determined by actions, alignment also gives you an idea on how a character acts...

In real life I'm not lawful good, but if I'm playing a character who IS lawful good, I can use the concept of lawful good to make descisions I might not make in real life.

In the heat of the moment, as a player my first instinct might be to send off a fireball, but a character whose grown up with the concept of protecting the forrest above all else, might not even consider that.

 

[klofft]

If I may threadjack my own thread for a moment, I agree that ideally actions define alignment, not the other way around. However, alignment is on the sheet as an aid to play, not as a constantly modified in-game personality test. As DM, with all I have to do in game and outside of the game for the campaign, I don't want to be evaluating the character's alignments after every adventure/session/whatever. So in our group, we do something many groups would find utterly abhorrent: alignment is used to broadly define what a character simply will and will not do.

I can think of a couple exceptions to this. The first is if a player WANTS to change alignments. One of our characters wanted to go from CN to CG. I told him to start acting good. He did, and eventually his alignment changed. But there, both the player and I knew what was happening; he didn't make me sift through his role-playing and guess his motives.

The second is when certain very specific actions are taken. As we use the BoVD and BoED, casting a Summon Monster to summon a fiendish creature makes the spell have the evil descriptor, and using such a spell is an evil action. As such, our NG conjurer is not outright evil when casting such a spell, but it is an evil action and it might indicate an otherwise unspoken desire to change alignment if he did it over and over again (which he has not). Again, easy to spot, easy to evaluate.

But that's just the way we prefer to do things. YMMV.
OK. End self-threadjack.
C

 

[Scribble]

Yeah that sounds reasonable to me... Personally I pretty much never pay attention to a PC's Alignment as a DM, except in cases like you mentioned above with spells, or if Alignment is used as somewhat of a balancer... Like a paladin constantly acting CE...

 

[IceFractal]

Actually, the reason I don't worry about the collateral damage of spells is that they have very little. The rules for material hardness and hp make it pretty much impossible to destroy stuff without a concerted effort.

For instance, Fireball, used outdoors, makes a crater only 1 inch deep. It won't even blast through most walls - and even if they're flamable, they'll take hours to burn down. Even Meteor Swarm makes a fairly small dent. The only way to make a real dent on a wall is use a duration spell like Ball Lightning and keep it in one spot - but that'd hardly be accidental.

It's not just spellcasters who fear walls either - I recently saw two Epic-level warriors take a number of rounds to bust through a non-magical wall between them.

For this reason, my next BBEG will be an animated structure.