Is a coup de grace an evil act?

[Felon]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why you can't CdG an opponent who falls to a spell, but you can allow opponents downed by violence (now "prisoners," by your logic) to bleed to death until they hit -10 HP.

This is one of those grey areas that's even more complicated in D&D than it is in RL. In RL, a gun is a pretty lethal weapon and the only way to defend yourself against it is with another gun. In D&D, a hero has a little more latitude in how he responds to a threat. Also, in RL, humans enjoy the distinction of being the singular highly-intelligent sentient lifeform on the planet (as far as we can tell), while in D&D sentience comes in different forms and sizes. Is a kobold's life every bit as precious as a human's? How about an otyugh; they possess rudimentary Intelligence, and some can even speak Common.

Situations like this are covered by books like the BoED. Slitting a sleeping kobold's throat could be deemed cruel, but so could blowing him up with a fireball.

Here's my take on it:

If an opponent poses an immediate threat to your life, responding with lethal force is pretty justifiable, morally and logically. In the heat of battle, no quarter may be expected or given. Even if your foe winds up dying on the ground, the mortally-wounding blow was delivered as an act of self-defense.

When people speak of "killing in cold blood", they are referring to the act of taking the life of someone who poses no immediate threat to you. You take that life purely out of a deliberate desire to slay, not because circumstances forced your hand. Cold-blooded murder can be logical, but if your morals happen to incorporate a fundamental respect for life--as the morals of good people tend to--then killing is an act of last resort.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

ymmv, it sounds more to me like playing yourself (and a tactical gamepeice).

I don't know-- I can be a real son of a bitch sometimes, but it would take a little more than trying to rob me and dealing me a minor injury to get me to slit someone's throat in his sleep, magically-induced or otherwise.

Unless, of course, I'm still fighting his friends.

PCs are generally far more willing to do this, even ones that are supposedly more Good-aligned than I've ever claimed to be.

 

[Hejdun]

If an opponent poses an immediate threat to your life, responding with lethal force is pretty justifiable, morally and logically. In the heat of battle, no quarter may be expected or given. Even if your foe winds up dying on the ground, the mortally-wounding blow was delivered as an act of self-defense.

When people speak of "killing in cold blood", they are referring to the act of taking the life of someone who poses no immediate threat to you. You take that life purely out of a deliberate desire to slay, not because circumstances forced your hand. Cold-blooded murder can be logical, but if your morals happen to incorporate a fundamental respect for life--as the morals of good people tend to--then killing is an act of last resort.

Here's a hypothetical situation for you. A red dragon is terrorizing the area around a large town. Lucky ones just get their money and stuff taken from them, the unlucky ones end up bheing a smear on the ground. The townsfolk commission the party to kill the dragon.

Through cunning and luck, the party makes it into the dragon's lair and come upon the dragon sleeping. The party is Good aligned, and want to keep their Good alignment. Should they:

1. CdG the dragon in his sleep with the biggest weapon your party has.
2. Kindly tap the dragon on the head, tell him "Your evil days are done, foul monster," and procede to fight him.
3. Um, bribe the dragon so that he leaves the area and terrorizes some other town?

In those cases, #3 is probably chaotic evil. #2 is probably lawful neutral, with a leaning towards evil. #1 I would say is chaotic good.

Justification:
1. You've swiftly and efficiently ended the threat to the town and everyone else the dragon would've killed/mugged in the future. Congrats, you're the hero of the town. I labeled it chaotic only if you believe that characters should act with "honor".
2. You followed the code of "honor," and thus are lawful, but unless you are 100% sure you can kill the dragon in a straight up fight, you're risking the lives of not only your fellow party members, but if you lose, the dragon is going to be able to kill/maim even more people because of your foolishness.
3. You're just shirking your responsibilty and letting the dragon kill/maim other people and not yourself or this particular town. You just shifted the burden of evil onto someone else, which you could have very easily eliminated the threat to everyone.

If you've dealt someone a mortal injury, you've already "killed" him-- all that's left is to determine whether or not you're willing to stabilize and/or heal him. You can choose to do so, and it might be more Good than letting him bleed out, but you're under no moral obligation to do so, any more than you're morally obligated to resurrect him if you dropped him with a clean cut.

If you get someone into dying, you haven't killed him. You've temporarily disabled him, and if you do nothing he'll almost certainly die. In the case of a sleep spell, you've temporarily disabled him, but if you do nothing he'll wake up. It's just a manner of, instead of callously watching the dying guy bleed to death (which you could EASILY remedy if you felt so inclined), you're actually finishing the sleeping guy off. There's no difference; in both cases you caused the death, and in both cases you could have refrained from killing him. Unless we deem that watching evil dead guys bleed to death is evil, there's absolutely no basis for saying that CdGing sleeping opponents is similarly evil.

 

[nharwell]

ymmv, it sounds more to me like playing yourself (and a tactical gamepeice).

Possibly, but at least I'm more interesting than a two-dimensional stereotype.

 

[Lamoni]

if the group has agreed to play a good/mostly good party, the consequence is that you are breaking with the guidelines the group has agreed to for all of your mutual enjoyment.

Also, if you are trying to play a good character, and let a tactical consideration rule the moment, a reminder of the moral/ethical consequences of those tactics is completely reasonable. saying "so what, now I'm nuetral" isn't playing your character the way you want, its not playing a character at all.

Good points... let me respond

First, I have never played in a group where anyone would get upset if anoter PC committed an evil act. It is true that you need to play so that others can have fun too, but I wasn't recommending becoming evil. I was merely suggesting that you should play your good character the way you think good character should be played. Surely others may disagree at times, but it is your character. If you start stabbing your friends in the back or try to poison the good villages water supply then I can see how that would impede on others enjoyment.

Second, what I think you missed from my post is that I choose to play a character, decide how I want to play them and then assign an alignment that fits with how I want to play him. I could decide to play a character that doesn't trust the law, and feels like anyone who has threatened someone with their life deserves death. The character could also go out of his way to protect the innocent, etc. etc. I would assign a good alignment to this character and at the same time I would coup de grace any evil person I came across. In fact, I would actually prefer to kill the guards when they fell asleep rather than wake them up first. Also, just letting them run free wouldn't work for me... and I probably wouldn't like to keep any prisoners.

The DM may think I am committing an evil act, but I would still know that I am trying to play my character how I first thought of him... and that happens to be good in my mind. If the DM tried to slide him over to evil, I would argue to slide him right back to good whenever I did a good act. Good people aren't disallowed from committing evil. They just do good acts far more often and actually care for people and try to protect them.

 

[Plane Sailing]

To introduce a bit of startling historical perspective (it certainly startled me, at least), I present some judicial rulings from only, what 160-200 years ago?

6th March 1840 - Richard TAYLOR, 32, and James KNOWLES, 26, charged with having, on the 3rd of March, inst., at Bradford, in the West-Riding, feloniously stolen twenty pairs of clogs, eighteen pairs of pattens, seven pairs of shoes and other articles, the property of one Henry HARDAKER. And the said Richard TAYLOR is further charged with having, on the 4th of March, inst., at Bradford aforesaid, feloniously stolen, taken and carried away, twenty-two pieces of worsted stuff, the property of one Charles TETLEY. Richard TAYLOR, 32, Guilty of shop breaking. To be transported beyond the seas for the term of ten years. James KNOWLES ? Guilty of the like ? To be imprisoned and kept to hard labour in the said House of Correction at Wakefield for one year.

5 March 1785, JOHN FORTUNE, guilty of stealing Linen from a Bleaching-Croft above the value of ten Shillings. To be Hanged on Saturday the second day of April next.

John HUTCHINSON alias John SOWLEY aged 50 years Received 1st June 1826 Brought before the Court 8th July 1826 "Charged upon the oath of Charles HORNBY of Osmertherly (sic) in the North Riding Innkeeper with having on the 12th day of May last, feloniously stolen, taken and carried away from and out of the dwelling house of him the said Charles HORNBY aforesaid sundry articles to wit ten yards of blue cloth and two brass candlesticks of the value of ten shillings the property of the said Charles HORNBY" verdict: Guilty. Judgement of death entered on record.

Just a useful reminder how distant our current mores may be from those of a fantasy medieval world, if a couple of hundred years can make such a difference to us!

Cheers

 

[Infiniti2000]

Stealing linen is a hanging offense?! Holy White Sale, Batman!

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Good points... let me respond

First, I have never played in a group where anyone would get upset if anoter PC committed an evil act. It is true that you need to play so that others can have fun too, but I wasn't recommending becoming evil. I was merely suggesting that you should play your good character the way you think good character should be played. Surely others may disagree at times, but it is your character. If you start stabbing your friends in the back or try to poison the good villages water supply then I can see how that would impede on others enjoyment.

Second, what I think you missed from my post is that I choose to play a character, decide how I want to play them and then assign an alignment that fits with how I want to play him. I could decide to play a character that doesn't trust the law, and feels like anyone who has threatened someone with their life deserves death. The character could also go out of his way to protect the innocent, etc. etc. I would assign a good alignment to this character and at the same time I would coup de grace any evil person I came across. In fact, I would actually prefer to kill the guards when they fell asleep rather than wake them up first. Also, just letting them run free wouldn't work for me... and I probably wouldn't like to keep any prisoners.

The DM may think I am committing an evil act, but I would still know that I am trying to play my character how I first thought of him... and that happens to be good in my mind. If the DM tried to slide him over to evil, I would argue to slide him right back to good whenever I did a good act. Good people aren't disallowed from committing evil. They just do good acts far more often and actually care for people and try to protect them.

I disagree with your last point in some ways - you are using a 'ballance' veiw of good and evil, but a 'purity/taint' veiw is just as valid. That is, goodness is pure of evil, and if you allow yourself to be tainted by evil, you are at best after that neutral. Add black paint to a bucket of white and you get grey. Even if you add back in twice or three times as much white as you did black, its still grey. To be good is to be disallowed from doing evil by such a veiw, and its one I find more 'logical' in situations with supernatural allignment.

but more to the point, you asked why it mattered, and I gave a couple of reasons why it might. Neither may be relevant to your group or your style of roleplay, but that wasn't what you asked.

 

[Felon]

Through cunning and luck, the party makes it into the dragon's lair and come upon the dragon sleeping. The party is Good aligned, and want to keep their Good alignment. Should they:

If they kill the dragon in its sleep like cowardly rats, then they diminish themselves. Good people are self-sacrificing, and one of the cute little paradoxes of being a good guy is that it often extends to sacrificing the moral high ground if it will save the lives of innocents. Superman would rob a bank if it would save a person's life.

If you get someone into dying, you haven't killed him. You've temporarily disabled him, and if you do nothing he'll almost certainly die. In the case of a sleep spell, you've temporarily disabled him, but if you do nothing he'll wake up. It's just a manner of, instead of callously watching the dying guy bleed to death (which you could EASILY remedy if you felt so inclined), you're actually finishing the sleeping guy off. There's no difference; in both cases you caused the death, and in both cases you could have refrained from killing him.

Oh, there's a big difference, you (and others) are just dismissing it, but that doesn't make it non-existent. Dropping a guy with the stroke of a sword in the heat of battle is much different than slitting the throat of a sleeping man. If the guy had a fair chance to block the deathblow and failed to, then there's no onus to provide him with succor afterwards.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

If the guy had a fair chance to block the deathblow and failed to, then there's no onus to provide him with succor afterwards.

This reasoning has never made sense to me. You're trying to kill a man. Why does a situation where you're less likely to succeed make the action more [Good]? You're still trying to kill him. If successful, he'll still be dead. Why is a greater chance of failure somehow inherently [Good]?

Do most of the folks in this discussion believe that Fair = Good? Certainly, it's less sporting of a PC to slit an enemy's throat, rather than face him in open combat. I suppose that if one's moral paradigm included the concept that Fair = Good, then it would make sense. But otherwise...