How would you classify "Good by any means neccessary"

[Asmor]

I was thinking about something I read in Sandstorm about how Paladin Ashworm Dragoons would go through a ritual to remove the Ashworm's poison glands, since Paladins are generally against using poison... So that got me thinking about whether there could be a Paladin hood that would allow such tactics, and ultimately it lead me to this quandary...

How would you classify a god, religion, and paladin-hood whose basic tenet was "Do good, by any means neccessary." They would resort to whatever dirty tactics were needed to ensure that the greater good prevailed.

For example, let's say some evil dude is poisoning a large town's water supply, dozens have already died and hundreds are sick. Time is of the essence, and the source of the posion as well as an antidote must be found. They know who's behind it, but don't know where he is. So said "morally-ambiguous" paladins capture the villain's mother/girlfriend/children and torture them into revealing the villain's secret hide out, with the full blessing of their church and god.

Now, obviously this would be quite fascist in nature and realistically I imagine that there would be an unusually high amount of corruption within said organization, but just for the sake of argument assume that they always had good intentions and good results, and only their means were dubious.

Would you lean towards calling them good, neutral or evil? My personal opinion is neutral, with a very thin line between it and evil.

 

[Sejs]

Look at the Shadowbane Inquisitor in Complete Adventurer.

Basically the same idea.

They start off as Lawful Good, but have an ability called Absolute Conviction at first level that essentially says even if they stop being LG they keep their class features (though they can't progress in the class until they're again LG)

 

[Harmon]

Paladins (to my thought) consider poison to be dishonorable, a trick that does not show the best fighter, the most noble, but they see it as a low down dirty trick. This is my view of their "no poison" code thing (whatever you want to call it).

As far as "do good by any means" I don't think that you can be good and follow that rule.

Good people have rules they follow, they set within themselves and they do not waiver from those rules (rules is not the right word I am thinking of, its something else, but I hope you all are smart enough to understand what I am trying to convay) in the pursuit of good over shadowing evil.

If you want to play someone that pursues good by any means necassary then play a TN FIghter that believes he's a Paladin. His god just has not seen the wisdom of his pursuit for good.

Using evil means to get a good outcome is not true good. It is good built on a foundation of evil actions.

 

[justinsluder]

I would say Neutral at best. More likely Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil. They started as a good group hundreds of years ago but have since grown lax in their code and are willing to do anything and everything necessary to ensure the greater good prevails.

You could also have them be a splinter group who's been deceived by an evil deity.

There are many ways in which the above mentioned situation could be explained.

Just my 2 cp.

 

[Nifft]

"By any means necessary" implies "including Evil means".
Thus, "Good by any means" is meaningless.

You can't do good by evil means in D&D, where effects have explicit alignment descriptors.

IMHO, -- N

 

[iwatt]

Lawful neutral with good tendencies.

 

[WayneLigon]

My personal opinion is neutral, with a very thin line between it and evil.

I'd say that fits.

 

[ValhallaGH]

How would you classify a god, religion, and paladin-hood whose basic tenet was "Do good, by any means neccessary." They would resort to whatever dirty tactics were needed to ensure that the greater good prevailed.

For example, let's say some evil dude is poisoning a large town's water supply, dozens have already died and hundreds are sick. Time is of the essence, and the source of the posion as well as an antidote must be found. They know who's behind it, but don't know where he is. So said "morally-ambiguous" paladins capture the villain's mother/girlfriend/children and torture them into revealing the villain's secret hide out, with the full blessing of their church and god.

Now, obviously this would be quite fascist in nature and realistically I imagine that there would be an unusually high amount of corruption within said organization, but just for the sake of argument assume that they always had good intentions and good results, and only their means were dubious.

Lawful Evil if they use the torture, Lawful Neutral at best.

They have a code, and they follow it without deviation. That code is to do the most good, regardless of the means.

The problem is that the ends never, ever, justify the means because means are beyond your control. The only good is in the means because means are the only things an individual ever controls. Ends are a guess, an estimate, and they rarely go according to plan; means are a choice and the choice of means is where the difference between good and evil truly lays.

Choosing to use evil means, such as torture, assassination and harming innocent bystanders with the hope of affecting the guilty, is the choice of evil people. No matter what goals they have, their means are evil and a person that consistently chooses evil means is an evil person.

As the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

 

[iwatt]

Lawful Evil if they use the torture, Lawful Neutral at best.

I wouldn't switch them over to Evil if they only use "evil" some of the time. Been Neutral doesn't mean avoiding doing good and evil, but actually balancing from one way to the other. If he's doing mostly good action and every once in a while he uses evil tactics, I would peg him as LN.

In any case that might be my bias since to me LN=zealot.

 

[GreatLemur]

Paladins (to my thought) consider poison to be dishonorable, a trick that does not show the best fighter, the most noble, but they see it as a low down dirty trick. This is my view of their "no poison" code thing (whatever you want to call it).

Yeah, I can understand objections to poison on the basis of a code of honor that is strongly concerned with martial ability or openness of intention. But I've never been able to see the logic in considering poison morally wrong. Unless maybe it's an unreasonably painful or perhaps disfiguring poison, I don't see how it could be any more evil than, say, surprise rounds, sneak attacks, and flanking.