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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1555163" data-attributes="member: 3146">I'll grant that nobody on "your side" of the discussion has said anything like "scenery-chewing evil." However, you yourself use capital Evil to express the idea that one needs to be worse than ordinary non-capitalized evil in order to merit evil alignment. Typically, that is used to designate something like the evil subtype (something that has been mentioned several times in this discussion--mostly by people suggesting that only really truly evil people should detect as evil at all).Perhaps, more to the point, your post (and a number of others) seem to take the position that it is always just and justified to smite someone for simply having an evil alignment. Your post went on to say that having an evil alignment means that the person in question has done very evil things in the past and will do evil things in the future and that his relationship to society at large is that of a wolf among sheep. I don't think it requires any leap of logic to say that, if every evilly aligned person can be justifiably killed on that basis, then you only get to be evil if you've done something worthy of death.Actually, I don't think they are a separate topic. The behavior of children--particularly adolescents--I think, often demonstrates a degree of evil that is clearly recognizable as evil but is routinely tolerated and is almost universally acknowledged not to be worthy of smiting. Generally, this is because their actions, while indisputably evil, do not result in a level of harm that the actions of adults do and because, in many circles, it is expected that children will act evilly until they are taught through a combination of punishment and encouragement to behave well. All of those factors are present in society and paladins' treatment of adult evil as well. Generally, adult evil is treated with a seriousness proportional to the harm caused, and is treated less severely when it is thought to be controllable through a system of punishments and rewards.Furthermore, the behavior of children is quite germane to the topic of D&D alignments. Unless one assumes that all children are neutral until some set arbitrary point (13, 18, 21, whatever, it's just an artifact of our reaction to the dominant culture and laws) when they suddenly become responsible for their actions and get an alignment corresponding to their deeds and tendencies, the 21 year old initiate into the cult of ravagers was probably the 10 year old misfit who was mercilessly mocked by his peers, the late-developing 13 year-old who was bullied and beaten and enjoyed taking out his hostility by torturing small animals, and then the hostile 16 year old who finally grew strong enough to fight back and wasn't ever going to let anyone push him around again. He's been chaotic evil since he was 13, not since he joined the cult. (Maybe if someone had noticed his evil tendencies as they developed, he might never have joined the cult; or maybe he would have rejected their help--we'll never know because if anyone noticed, they assumed he'd grow out of it or found another excuse not to care). Similarly, the paladin who discovers and annihilates the cult might have been the 10 year-old misfit who was mercilessly mocked and the 13 year old who enjoyed torturing puppies but who was found by an old priest as an evil 13 year old, disciplined, shown love, and, at 16 had grown up to be the strong misfit who turned out to be kind and good if anyone took the time to get to know him, and by 21 had joined the Order of the Holy Sword and rooted out the cult.And finally, it's hardly off topic for the discussion of who a paladin should smite. Fagan-like gang leaders using ten year olds as pickpockets and window-men in the theives guild are a common feature in D&D games. The plucky 14 year old theives' guild member who guides the hero through the sewers to the cathedral of the corrupt archbishop (or guides him through the sewers into a trap set by the corrupt archbishop) is a common fantasy character. All of them have alignments and a paladin might well want to know if he ought to smite them--and if he does, whether or not the smite will work. (Especially the 14 year old who betrays him to the corrupt archbishop).I think that really depends. PCs aren't the only characters in any given world who change alignments. It's quite possible that the "phase" is actually a time when the NPC's alignment is evil and that he only comes out of the "phase" when his alignment changes so as to no longer be evil. I have no trouble imagining a slave trader like Isaac Watts starting as neutral, signing onto a slave ship, becoming evil as he becomes inured to and participates in the practices of slave trading, and then becoming a Christian and changing alignment again when he abandons and begins to work against the slave trade (and writes Amazing Grace). It seems to me that the Isaac Watts did indeed go through a "phase" of slave trading but that, while he was involved in it, he was well and truly evil.This model seems to fit in with your concern that a foolish or ill-conceived (and later regretted) action or a childhood cruelty not give a person the evil alignment for perpetuity.One might also think that, if they don't justify summary execution in the city of Context, they don't justify summary execution in the forest of no context either.I don't think that necessarily follows. For the record, my contention is that they all have evil alignments, that a paladin's smite would work on all of them, that a Holy Word spell would probably kill all of them, but that it would be wrong for the paladin to smite them or the cleric to cast Holy Word and kill them.And this is where my so-called straw man comes up. If the examples of the cruel bully, the manipulating and debasing brothel owner, and the abusive professor do not qualify as evil, then what does? Having eliminated the commonplace kinds of evil that don't deserve smiting, you're left with mass murderers, hit men, and child-molesters as the people with evil alignments.I'll agree that the above situation seems wrong. However, I think you are misinterpreting it in several ways.First, the paladin is not being punished for acting upon his perception of the NPC's alignment. He is being punished for acting inappropriately on his perception of the NPC's alignment. The paladin might see that the NPC is evil and realize that a stern lecture on the morality of theft will be insufficient and consequently pull out a whip, give the NPC five lashes to demonstrate the consequences of theft. Then give a stern lecture followed by "and, if you had done the right thing and simply asked, you could have had bread without a whipping." (Depending upon the campaign and the setting, that might or might not be appropriate). That would still be acting upon the basis of the paladin's (magical) perception of the theif's alignment but would not be smiting the theif.Second, the DM in the hypothetical case is wrong to assign an evil alignment simply on the basis of "he was starving so he decided to steal food." An evil person who was starving and decided to steal food would radiate evil. A neutral person shouldn't suddenly become evil because, in desperation, he decides to steal food.I'd say that paladins who think that smite is the only appropriate reaction to seeing an evil alignment are as much a problem as DMs who think an evil alignment should be assigned because a hungry man decided to steal bread (or who think that the prison warden in Shawshank redemption shouldn't have an evil alignment until he kills someone).Too bad, it's an interesting discussion.</blockquote>

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