How would you classify "Good by any means neccessary"

[Stone Dog]

A good character might use an evil means to a good end as a last desperate "My god, what have I done" measure.

A neutral character might use an evil means to a good end when other options are ruled out and think "but at what cost, this victory?"

An evil character aligned with a good goal would use an evil means when convinient with no more than "this act was done for the greater good."

Shoot the hostage? Good guy hesitates trying to find another way, neutral guy says "maybe in the leg" and the evil guy just might have already fired.

Of course, these are all gross simplifications, but the general idea is there.

 

[Klaus]

Paladins don't use poison because, according to their code, they must "act with honor", and using poison is specifically mentioned as being dishonorable.

The closest you can come to "do Good by any means necessary" and still be Good is to say "do Good by any Good means necessary" and be a NG characterm unconcerned with honor or rules. NG follows the rules when possible, and promptly breaks them when needed, balancing out Law and Chaos.

The epitome of that behaviour would be the Guardinals of Elysium.

 

[Umbran]

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

This is like "The Operative" from the movie Serenity. He knows (and explicitly states) that he is a monster, but he does it because he believes in a day when his kind won't be necessary. I'd call him neutral, at best, quite possibly evil.

 

[Umbran]

Not all Paladins have an overdeveloped sense of "honor." Some might be quite pragmatic. Honorable ≠ Good, Dishonorable ≠ Evil.

Um, paladins aren't just good. They are Lawful Good, even more strictly so than most LG people, having to follow a particular Code. Honorable = Lawful.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Shoot the hostage? Good guy hesitates trying to find another way, neutral guy says "maybe in the leg" and the evil guy just might have already fired.

Depends on your view of things, if you take the 4-color superheroish view of things. I and my players tend more toward a more classical view of heroism. You kill the enemy, and if he uses bystanders as a shield too bad, if they wanted to live they shouldn't have let him hide behind them. Basically does Achilles care about the poor worthless villagers he slaughters by the hundred so that he the glorious warrior can take their stuff? Of course not, he's important and they're just extras of course they don't matter.

 

[Mystery Man]

IMHO, Poison is like any other tool or weapon- whether its use is evil or good depends upon the circumstances surrounding the use.

Examples:

Evil use: Poisoning a village well.

Good use: Poisoning a BBEG who can only be truly defeated by use of a particular poison (IOW, the BBEG has a Tarrasque-like constitution and vulnerability); poisoning the food of an Army of Evil with an emetic or soporific in order to escape or to facilitate surveilance/infiltration without killing someone.

Evil use: using a poison that's sole effect is causing debilitating pain. Platypus poison, for example, isn't inherently life threatening, but it is long lasting and has 2 primary effects: it causes intense pain and it increases the ability of the afflicted to feel pain. The result is someone writhing in pain and screaming...for days.

Good use: using a non-lethal poison to defend oneself- a skunk (or Trog's) repellent scent is a form of poison; an inflammatory, sleeping or paralytic poison (that affects voluntary, not involuntary, muscle contractions) may be used to facilitate escape, or the live capture of a fugitive.


Not all Paladins have an overdeveloped sense of "honor." Some might be quite pragmatic. Honorable ≠ Good, Dishonorable ≠ Evil.

For instance, is it for the greater good to confont the BBEG after raising an army to offset the BBEG's, thus fighting the epic War to end Evil, but resulting in the deaths of thousands of combatants and noncombatants on both sides...

or to infiltrate the BBEG's camp (never doing an overtly evil act, nor omitting a potential good one) and dose the BBEG insensate, carrying him off, and presenting him bound & gagged to the priests of the Church of Tyr (or St. Cuthbert, or whomever...)?

++rep

On a different message board anyway.

 

[FireLance]

This seems to be the classic clash between deontological (duty-based) and consequentialist (outcome-based) ethics. Essentially, deont ethics states that you should not take an evil action, even if the consequences are good, while conseq ethics states that you should take an evil action if the consequences are good. "Good by any means necessary" would fall squarely within the domain of conseq ethics.

D&D morality (especially for paladins and exalted characters) generally appears to follow deont ethics, although there one or two elements that seem to have a conseq slant, such as the previously-mentioned Shadowbane Inquisitor.

Bear in mind, though, that a single evil act generally does not change a character's alignment, so it is possible to have Good characters who are prepared to take evil actions for the greater good, provided they only do them regretfully and as a last resort, not as a matter of expediency, and provided they do not do them often. Paladins would probably still have to lose their powers until they atone, though.

 

[Klaus]

Depends on your view of things, if you take the 4-color superheroish view of things. I and my players tend more toward a more classical view of heroism. You kill the enemy, and if he uses bystanders as a shield too bad, if they wanted to live they shouldn't have let him hide behind them. Basically does Achilles care about the poor worthless villagers he slaughters by the hundred so that he the glorious warrior can take their stuff? Of course not, he's important and they're just extras of course they don't matter.

Err... Achilles was hardly a "hero" in the modern sense of the word (as opposed to "important dude people talk about in legends"). He was pretty much a monster, dragging Hector's body around Troy for days and nights.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Err... Achilles was hardly a "hero" in the modern sense of the word (as opposed to "important dude people talk about in legends"). He was pretty much a monster, dragging Hector's body around Troy for days and nights.

And that's exactly the problem myself and my group have, it is with the modern definition of the word "hero" itself. They simply aren't heroic, this is IMHO but generally agreed with by my group that the modern definition of "hero" reeks of pointless guilt. That the primary definition of "hero" is someone great. And as everyone knows great and terrible are divided by a fine line indeed. One so very easy to step across, but that doing so does not make one any less great.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

The problem is that the ends never, ever, justify the means because ends 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.

Yeah, I can agree with this.

As such "good by any means necessary" is nonsensical - good can't be by any means necessary. It has limits. However I do think a range of non-good alignments could represent this statement.

As for the poison debate I think the indiscriminate manner of it can be pretty important. Poisoning foods and wells might kill someone else other than the mark.

Also poison can accidentily kill the user during the application or in combat. Killing yourself, i.e. suicide is pretty bad thing to do - protecting life includes your own. Reckless disregard crosses into suicide land at some point. That said, the paladin code saying 'no - bad paladin' probably also reflects the more clean cut, upfront and big chinned mindset.