Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

[Anubis]

Not this debate again . . . Ugh . . .

Look, by the rules, Coup de Grace is NOT an evil act in ANY way. Coup de Grace is the natural ending of a battle.

IMC, I usually pronounce most enemies finished after hitting 0 hit points, unless there is some way they could still cause trouble after that, such as with Fast Healing or a Headband of Ferocity.

Pretty much, most of the time we ignore this issue because it simply adds unnecessary elements to the game. If my players WANT to save the enemy and question him, then I allow it, but it's not the standard, it's the exception.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

But this isn't necessarily true either. What if one of those Orcs turns their life around later in life. what if that Orc you let died was destined to become an ambassador for his people and make a long lasting peace treaty between the Orcs and Humans? Are all Drow evil too? What about Drizzt?

There are extreme cases.

"Many who live deserve death, and some who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends..." - Gandalf the Grey.

Nice Gandalf quote. Of course, Gandalf later slays masses of Orcs in Moria and Helm's Deep. Ah well.

 

[Rel]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

I'm just trying to make the point that you can't assume anything or take anything for granted. Killing an orc because an orc is evil isn't (IMHO) justification enough to kill him.

That is not true in a great many campaigns. The reason that this has devolved into a general alignment debate is that ALIGNMENT EXISTS in the game as written. Not only that, but it is strongly implied that it is largely inherent in the racial stock of the individual.

Therefore, in many campaigns (if not most), orcs are EVIL and there is very little that will change that. Imprisonment isn't going to do any good because they are not going to see the error of their ways because they are EVIL. If a baby orc is allowed to survive, it will in all probability grow up to be EVIL and, given the bellicose nature of orcs in general, it will probably do harm to the innocent because that is the nature of EVIL.

And in those campaigns, killing the sleeping baby orc because he is evil is justification enough.

 

[Anubis]

Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

I am fully aware that all you need to do is "defeat" your opponent in combat to get XP. I was just making a statement that killing is rampant in DnD and that you ARE in fact rewarded by the death of an opponent. What if, for example, a Paladin gets no experience for the encounter if he coup de graces a foe or allows one of his "allies" to do so? It would be an interesting house rule at the very least. Or, give the Paladin MORE exp for preventing such an act.

Great, make people never want to play Paladins because they get more XP for NOT killing enemies. That's smart . . .

Paladins are human, and killing your enemies is the standard. You must remember that D&D generally does NOT take place in the United States or even in the modern world. Modern standards and laws do not apply in the game, ever.

The moral standards back in medieval times were such that the bad guys were killed, plain and simple. They try to kill me, I'll kill them. See?

Oh, and not every case of "running your foes off" would or should give you exp either. What if the party runs into their arch-nemesis? A battle ensues and the arch-nemesis gets away. They have several more encounters where they battle arch-nemesis and his minions and he continues to get away each time. Should the party get experience for this enemy after every encounter they run him off at?

Wrong. If you run your foes off, you always gain XP. In your example, the determining factor would be whether the battles were close together or not. If so, then it's all actually one battle, a game of cat and mouse, catch me if you can. If, however, the enemy was defeated once, got away, came back several adventures later, was defeated and got away, came back next adventure, was finally killed, then yes, you would earn XP three times, once for each time you defeated the enemy. Read the rules, they work wonders.

Another example I can take from my own campaign. The party of level 4 - 6 characters just had a run-in with a legendary evil level 20 Wizard. The party had something the Wizard wanted, the two Paladin's in the party (me and my friend) didn't think we should give it up, at first. Well my Paladin friend was about to hand it to him because he felt that it would be wiser to give him this item rather then have this evil wizard mad at us and leveling the whole town while he tried to kill us. Before we could give it up to him, he grew impatient and Power Word Stunned my friend. His henchman grabbed the staff (the object he was after). As he did so, I thought to myself "I really don't want this evil guy to get the staff. He will only use it against innocent people later on. If we can't have it, neither shall he." With this thought I went to Sunder it but failed in doing so. The evil Wizard got a bit more peeved at us and cast Weird which affected almost the entire party (some were actually smart enough to run away earlier in the ecounter). Well, luckily for our Aura of Courage because that was the deciding factor in most of our survival rates. We did have one party member die however. Anyway, after the spell was cast the henchman teleported them both away. Now should we get exp for a level 20 encounter? After all, we did drive him off. We defeated the ecounter. True, the DM threw us a bone. Be could have had the wizard stand there all day until we all died. But the point is still there. Oh, and I am aware that techncially according to the Exp table you do not get exp for such high encounters. But lets say the CR of the encounter was still within range for us to get exp. It seems kind of cheesy to me to get exp for something like this.

Ok, that last paragraph was less about "getting exp for a fleeing foe" and more about "I can't wait to tell you what happened last session". =)

This example is utter nonsense, and is a completely moot point. The characters DID NOT "drive off the enemy" . . . The enemy got what he wanted and left! You gotta use common sense! The enemy leaving the battle does not make it a win . . . If the enemy retreats as a direct result of your about to kill him, then you gain XP, but if he got what he came for and leaves, you don't!

It's a matter of who won. The wizard's goal was to get the staff, the party's goal was to defeat the wizard and stop him. The party failed and does not get XP.

Same if an enemy shows mercy and does not kill characters because they are obviously weaker than he or she is. No XP. Only if you actually do "drive them off" do you get those XP.

 

[Kibo]

Not this debate again . . . Ugh . . .

Look, by the rules, Coup de Grace is NOT an evil act in ANY way. Coup de Grace is the natural ending of a battle.

IMC, I usually pronounce most enemies finished after hitting 0 hit points, unless there is some way they could still cause trouble after that, such as with Fast Healing or a Headband of Ferocity.

Pretty much, most of the time we ignore this issue because it simply adds unnecessary elements to the game. If my players WANT to save the enemy and question him, then I allow it, but it's not the standard, it's the exception.

A coup d'Grace would probably only be an honorable act if used to end a foes pointless suffering. Once rendered helpless, the fight is essentially over. If the PC's kill a beaten foe laying prostrate at their mercy, they didn't kill the foe as a course of the battle, they murdered him in cold blood. (oddly enough even our legal system makes the same distinction). This might even be appropriate, a ranger for instance probably shouldn't leave a lot of his favored foes to fight another day. A character who includes a centeral concept of honor, should really have a moral dilema when hes beaten and all but killed an enemy, who should they survive, will certainly return and prove a threat to the PC(s). In general, unless the PC's went off on a fairly sadistic jag, I'd have them slowly switch from lawful to neutral or chaotic.

Even my lawful evil villians would shun the pointless slaughter of innocents, and treat a beaten foe with dignity on the field of battle. They wouldn't render much in the way of aid, but they wouldn't finish them off unless it was a conected to some prior dramatic event, to end pointless suffering, or letting the PC live conflicted with some other point of honor. (Again, there are some lawful evil concepts that don't really involve a highly developed sense of personal honor, lawyers for instance, and so this wouldn't apply universally.)

 

[Kibo]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

The moral standards back in medieval times were such that the bad guys were killed, plain and simple. They try to kill me, I'll kill them. See?

You might want to look into artherian ledgend, and older notions of chivalry.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

You might want to look into artherian ledgend, and older notions of chivalry.

It rather depended upon the situation. Medieval custom expected that knights mortally wounded on the field of battle would recieve a coup de grace to end their suffering. Knights who could live would be ransomed by their lord or commander. They would probably be imprisoned until they were ransomed.

The situation was different as it regarded brigands, outlaws, or pirates. To quote Victor Davis Hansen, "Sir Michael Howard, wrote in the October 2, 2001 edition of the Times of London, the Romans distinguished between bellum, war against legitimus hostis, a legitimate enemy, and guerra, war against latrunculi — pirates, robbers, brigands, and outlaws — "the common enemies of mankind." The former, bellum, became the standard for interstate conflict, and it is here that the Geneva Conventions were meant to apply. They do not apply to the latter, guerra — indeed, punishment for latrunculi traditionally has been summary execution."

Medieval and Roman law would probably hold roving orc tribes to be latrunculi and thus subject to summary execution.

 

[Kibo]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

It rather depended upon the situation. Medieval custom expected that knights mortally wounded on the field of battle would recieve a coup de grace to end their suffering. Knights who could live would be ransomed by their lord or commander. They would probably be imprisoned until they were ransomed.

By using "the bad guys" Anubis included, perhaps unintentionally, an all in there. You yourself said that there are different rules for different bad guys, again it all depends on context. As I indicated in the post prior to the one you responded to . A lawful good paladin and a lawful good ranger might not incure the same penalties for what is essentially cold blooded murder.

For what its worth, I've understood that captured knights were typically treated quite well, more like a guest who didn't have the option of refusing hospitality.

 

[RigaMortus]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Coup de grace... A moral stand point...

Great, make people never want to play Paladins because they get more XP for NOT killing enemies. That's smart . . .

If you read the entire post, I also suggested that instead of a penalty they get a bonus for NOT CDGing a helpless foe. This would actually be an incentive to play a Paladin, or any class with a LG alignment for that matter. But we only pick out the points in a post that we can easily be sarcastic towards, don't we?

Paladins are human, and killing your enemies is the standard. You must remember that D&D generally does NOT take place in the United States or even in the modern world. Modern standards and laws do not apply in the game, ever.

The moral standards back in medieval times were such that the bad guys were killed, plain and simple. They try to kill me, I'll kill them. See?

I suspect you wouldn't last too long in the medieval times if this were your stand point. I'm sure the authorities would have something to say about you killing a sleeping bandit that earlier in the day attacked you and killed your cohort. Especially when they find out you could have easily brought him into the authorities.

Wrong. If you run your foes off, you always gain XP. In your example, the determining factor would be whether the battles were close together or not. If so, then it's all actually one battle, a game of cat and mouse, catch me if you can. If, however, the enemy was defeated once, got away, came back several adventures later, was defeated and got away, came back next adventure, was finally killed, then yes, you would earn XP three times, once for each time you defeated the enemy. Read the rules, they work wonders.

Wow, is this how you play? You must be level 57 by now.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Stunned isn't helpless. This situation should not have happened.

Of course, the philosophical debate is fun.