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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Slander" data-source="post: 4024564" data-attributes="member: 1593">Modern expectations of fair treatment of prisoners only goes back about 200-300 years. Prior to that, death or slavery was the norm. The Greeks allowed other Greek prisoners to live to avoid the collective weakening of the Greek city-states. But Greeks had no qualms about killing foreign prisoners. At various times in the middle ages, prisoners of war could expect to be ransomed back to their homelands at the end of the war. [<a href="http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1970/mar-apr/krone.html" target="_blank">citation</a>]However, when prisoners weren't executed, they were being held by the state/kingdom ... in a jail ... away from the battle lines, and more importantly, away from allies. Prisoners weren't held by a small band of soldiers actively infiltrating enemy territory.As others (and yourself) have said, the circumstances that the PC were in was far more dangerous, and the tolerance for prisoner disobedience was next to nothing. Whether the lizardman was physically armed or not, as long as the group remained in the midst of an enemy encampment, he was an active threat to the PCs. In those circumstances, calling for help was just as dangerous to the PCs as if he swung a sword at them, and just as much a violation of the terms under which his life was spared.Honestly, I would chastise the scout for ungagging the prisoner as much as I would if he gave the lizardman a sword. An armed prisoner has two choices: continue to be passive or attempt to fight for his life. By ungagging the prisoner, the scout basically forced a situation where the lizardman fought for his life (by proxy through his nearby allies). An honest mistake, but it triggered the warlock to react to a threat.And in a world where a lizardman with one hitpoint is just as dangerous as a lizardman with 30, with help on the way that unconscious lizardman was still a threat. One heal spell, one heal potion, and there is another combatant fighting you.</blockquote>

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