How many times...?

[JohnSnow]

The reason I said action A was "saintly good" was to make the point that there are degrees of good too. Turning the other cheek is better than risking injury to someone else, if it's a viable option. The point is that if there's an option that didn't hurt anyone, a good character should take it, even if it's inconvenient.

Lawful maintains order. I capitalized it to make that point because all of your examples were about what you have to do to maintain order. And yes, the PC accepts the lawful nature of his assignment when he takes it. If he's lawful, he'll make carrying out all the points a priority. However, a Good but not Lawful PC could choose to ignore an act of unlawful behavior. He doesn't have to jail or arrest someone for spitting in his face. He could wipe off the spittle and walk away.

In this case a Lawful Good character would probably conclude that the old lady is "causing a disturbance and may incite the mob again, so we should restrain her: CAREFULLY."

The Neutral character says "restrain her, and don't hurt her (if you can avoid it). Hitting her is fine, trying to kill her with a sword (or burning her face off) isn't."

Evil says "Stop her. Harming or killing her is okay (maybe even preferred)."

 

[Felix]

Perhaps they saw the PCs as an occupying force.

Oh sure, I've no problem with that. But implicit in their stopping because of Diplomacy checks made by the PCs is an understanding that their attitude towards them had changed.

If they became friendly or helpful, surely they wouldn't have stood for a old lady to throw trash at them?

Which is why I don't like the situation the DM put them in, and were the DM to respond with the mob getting angry and revenging her, I'd cry foul. If the DM fudges the mob's actions regarding their reaction to the old lady in a way that frustrates the party, punishing the PCs (in a large degree because of that fudging) isn't cool. But having done that, he can just as easily fudge the other way, and not have the mob hire a PC killer.

 

[Shoel Sweeny]

As far as I've seen alignement works best when its kept secret from the players and the characters. When one has to ask if their action changed their alignment, it seems much more like metagamaing one of the most important aspects of the game, what your character does.

Morality based on society and "the times" is a ridiculously far fetched notion. Sure, it wasn't excusable for cultures to set up the laws they did (such as the Romans orphan knife fights, or the slave that you don't participate in but don't actively try to stop) but these were the times, and it's an unfortunate habit of people not to question the morals apparent in their time.

However neither you nor your character are living in those times. D&D is rather a mishmash of pseudo medieval romanticized cultrue with modern moralities, and this is the way its been presented to us in the Players Handbook. Additionally you are born and raised in a moraly enlightened time, the fact that you recognize rape, murder, slavery etc as evil shows you knowing better, so how can you justify your actions by a time period to which you don't even belong?

A six hundred years ago (give or take, numerical history isn't my strong suite), people believed the world was flat. In fact, nearly all of Euorope believed this was so. Today however, we know this is untrue. The fact that nearly everyone believed differint doesn't change the fact that they were so very wrong, so why is it so hard to believe we've grown in our moral knowledge* as well as our geographic (etc) knowledge?

*A disclamer: I'm not saying people are any more intristically good today then they were some odd hundreds of years (or even one hundred years) ago, just that we have a better idea of what is good and what isn't in this time period. Sure, some people murder, and some still kidnap people to lock them in their basements and use them for their own nefarious purposes, but at least know we know it's wrong.*end disclaimer*

But I digress. My first point is that despite what other people have done (which is really no defense at all) you and your character know right from wrong. Unless of course your character is insane (not chaotic neutral, that's not insane).

Anyway, my second point, this time proto argument is it hurts to have one's face burned off. In fact, it hurts alot. Were I to choose between getting my face burned off, and pretty much anything else, I'm pretty sure I'd pick not getting my face burned off. You'd need second degree burns at least for facial disfigurement. That's like taking a hot clothes iron to someones head and pressing down real hard, for at least a couple minuets. There'll be sizzles and pops and ichor and blood curdleing screeches of pain. Lots and lots of pain. She threw garbadge at you? Suck it up. Only a heinously evil individual, or an individual who has severe mental problems would murder to retaliate for insult. The HP system makes the horrors of combat much less real and gritty then they are. Saying, "I cast whome evers fire" and deal eighteen points of damage is alot less then taking a flame thrower to someone and playing make-over Jeffery Dahmer style. In a game sense, you've commitied a nonsensical act against a very low threat individual. In the story sense of the game, you've greviously murdered another human being. In my book that's either textbook sociopath, comic book evil.

 

[Felix]

However, a Good but not Lawful PC could choose to ignore an act of unlawful behavior. He doesn't have to jail or arrest someone for spitting in his face. He could wipe off the spittle and walk away.

At which point he has lost his authority. If he's there to set up order (because of the job, not alignment), and publicly demonstrates that he is unwilling to use his authority to stop this episode then nobody is going to listen to him. At which point he has completely failed to re-establish order.

How about this, do you think that a DM saying, "You get a letter from your employer saying, 'You're fired. We got someone who isn't a Saint who can do the job and will restore order.' He must not have liked you turning the other cheek." is an overreaction? Because it's the inverse of what you supported. And you did say you like showing the consequences of actions.

Rethorical.

Of course it's overreacting. Saying the employer will replace someone who just got there and hasn't yet failed is as silly as saying that townsfolk who will suffer their government to be slain will hire PC killers when they put their foot wrong.

 

[ThirdWizard]

If they became friendly or helpful, surely they wouldn't have stood for a old lady to throw trash at them?

It depends. It goes Hostile, Unfriendly, Indifferent, Friendly, Helpful. Even assuming they were Unfriendly instead of Hostile, it would take a DC 25 check to make them Friendly. They were probably made Indifferent. Then he burned an old lady's face off...

So even if he did make them Friendly (Wishes you well - not necessarily high enough to make them restrain the old woman, that would be Helpful, a DC 40 roll), I think attacking one of their own is enough to lower them back to Unfriendly if not Hostile.

NPCs: "Booo!" *throw trash*
PC: We're here to help! (Diplomacy)
NPCs: "Well, if they're here to help... begin to dispurse..."
Woman: "Booo! *throws trash*
PC: "Come on old lady, we're here to help." (fails Diplomacy)
NPCs: Come on, old lady, he's here to help."
PC: "Stop or I burn your face off."
NPCs: "Dwah?"
Woman: "Booo! *throws trash*
PC: "Stop or I burn your face off."
NPCs: "Say, that might be a bit..."
Woman: "Booo! *throws trash*
PC: *burns face off*
NPC 1: "Hmmm he seems to have lied about his intentions."
NPC 2: "I think we're in trouble."

 

[Starglim]

Murdering a crazy person because she's crazy is an evil act.

Find another solution than making threats that the character doesn't intend to follow through.

 

[Hussar]

Going back a ways, the OP says that he didn't restrain her because he would likely fail a grapple check with the old woman.

Buh?

How about attacking for non-lethal damage? Knock her down with a little subdual damage. Would be pretty much in keeping with the setting, no fuss, no foul. She's an old lady flinging poo. I'm fairly sure that a little judicial application of the back of my hand and the problem is solved.

All without resorting to an evil act.

 

[Felix]

DC 25 check to make them Friendly.

It is not any kind of hard to make a DC 25 diplomacy check. And that's if they're Hostile.

So even if he did make them Friendly (Wishes you well - not necessarily high enough to make them restrain the old woman, that would be Helpful, a DC 40 roll), I think attacking one of their own is enough to lower them back to Unfriendly if not Hostile.

Sure. This is after the fact though, and doesn't affect how they should have acted when one of their own was out of line.

And once they're back to Unfriendly or Hostile, what then? Do they conviently forget that some evil folks have just killed off their law-enforcment and focus their energies soley on these guys? If they're willing and able to hire PC killers, then they should have already hired BBEG killers.

I've no problem with the townsfolk not liking what the PC did, only that they not react in the way some folks on this thread have suggested.

Woman: "Booo! *throws trash*
PC: "Come on old lady, we're here to help." (fails Diplomacy)

It was my understanding that the lady continued to act as she did regardless of the die rolls. It seems the DM wanted it to happen this way.

NPCs: Come on, old lady, he's here to help."

Did they do even this little to help them? Did anyone related to the old lady step in? Anybody know her? Or was she a just DM device to poke the PCs? And how friendly must you be to get in between a crazy old lady and your friend she's throwing trash at? Especially when you realize that it's wrong, and you just stopped doing it, and there's this crazy lady who's lived in your town and probably doesn't know what she's doing.

Even if you think it's overreacting for someone to burn the face off an old lady, once you hear that threat, you're going to stop the old lady from doing what she shouldn't have been doing in the first place so the PCs don't overreact.

If the townspeople's motivations and attitudes matter, then they should have stopped the old lady.

If the townspeople's motivations and attitudes don't matter, then why punish the PCs with them?

 

[Hussar]

It was my understanding that the lady continued to act as she did regardless of the die rolls. It seems the DM wanted it to happen this way.

Now this is a separate issue. No amount of rules or rules discussions will be able to fix piss poor DMing.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I didn't think it was such a big evil.

I mean...I burn people's faces off all the time, many of which don't really pose a serious threat to myself or the party, but they are enemy combatants, so flame on!

If I burn off a bad guys face off, is that automatically a good act? If so, I have a whole bucket full of credits I can use to kill little old ladies without fear of being evil...I don't necessarily want to be a good guy, but I don't really want to be evil either.

I don't know if this lady is evil, she could be an assassin trying to give me a disease, or a spy trying to turn the town against me by inciting me to violence...she was leading a small mob. (Also the character is a human teenager, so that's where a lot of this comes from.)

I don't see what the problem is. This philosphy seems to tend toward evil anyway, so what's the bg deal? You probgably should have been evil from the start. That's OK, just erase what's on the sheet and go on.