Is Coup de Grace an evil act?
- Thread starter Pielorinho
- Start date
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Numion said:
Noooooooooooooooooooooo thank you.
(Even though there's a good chance it's fake, I don't need to see this to know I don't want to see it).
Daniel
4 good reasons to kill unconscious bandits
Options for the Pally-and-Bandy scenario depends on the group, the ethics imposed on the games, and the actions taken:
If you are role-playing a group where you have imposed a modern sense of ethics on a group of primitivist warriors, then it is probably not a good act and may actually be enough of an ethical blight on his character to require some kind of atonement before advancing.
In a fantasy world with fantasy world ethics its probably not evil. Evil would be the palladin tying him to the horse and dragging him the rest of the way to town.
In an actual primitive society, a society based on martial law in the most literal sense, then the latter might not be considered evil either, given what we know about justice and retribution in primitive societies where the abrogation of law by one individual was far more likely to cause pain and suffering for the collective, thus penalty could be far more harsh; for instance, in our society we sneer at the backwards folk who would cut off a hand of a thief, or even execute an adulterer; but when we consider the effects that such crimes had in a primitive society (i.e., blood feuds, acts of revenge, splintering of collective populations, etc.) it becomes easier to understand how certain crimes had punishments we despise. Remember, we are talking about the types of societies where Menelaus and Agamemnon sacked troy because Helen was something of a tart, or where Tristan and Isolde were sentenced to death due to a violation of trust and oath.
A bit closer to home, consider how commonly the crime of horse theft was considered a capital crime in the american west. It wasn't just that the theft of the horse itself was a capital crime, but that stealing the horse of someone out in the middle of the american desert usually meant their own death or economic disenfranchisment.
Now lets think about the bandits on the road apart from our miranda-rights-handcuffs-and-fair-expedient-trials-system. A bandit on a road isn't just robbing people, or even killing a few pissant commoners. That action constitutes a threat to the society on several layers:
1. It constitutes a political threat to the powers that be. The powers that be have a vested interest in remaining in power. This is important because even in a monarchy the people have no vested interest in obeying a ruler who cannot protect them from common thugs (for a historical example, consider the campaign against the pirates waged by the Roman general Pompey trying to curry favor with the populace). Further more once the offending parties know that the ruling powers are impotent to stop them they can accelerate their crimes, hastening the break down of the system. The break down between a ruler and its subjects constitutes a threat to the very fabric of the rather fragile systems of ancient and medieval society. A threat to commoners on one road by a group of brigands is a threat to all members of the realm.
2. Tangential to this issue of trust between members of the body of commoners and the ruling party is the idea that the threat posed by the brigand usually constitues a threat to the rules and mores of honorable and stable society. DnD is somewhat unrealistic in the idea that any rube who wants can go to the locak smith and plunk down something like 15 coin for a decent blade. No, in actuality an individual who had a sword and armor was likely at some point in the service of a lord or other political entity who failed to retain that individual in his or her provision and control.
3. It constitutes an economic threat by which an individual is robbed not only of his money and mechandise but also of his time, his ability to make his livelyhood during such a time, and a robbery of all the time and investment that individual spent in whatever is stolen. Further more, a primitive agrarian based economy is far more suceptible to disturbances in the economic system than a modern system fully equipped with provisions against such disasters (afterall, one has to assume that the poor schmoe being held up by the bandits for his cps hasn't taken out a bandit-insurance-policy with the local office of Allstate.). Because the damage is more severe to the local economy (that is if the farmer robbed goes hungry, so likely do the merchants who depended on his patronage in a subsistence economy,i.e., say the local pottery maker, or the farm hands) then the crime is more severe.
4. It constitutes a psychic threat to the mind of many to trust in civilization and society itself. Afterall, if two or three men armed with weapons can rob me of my goods and my ability to exist in a meaningfully fulfiling way in this society, what point is there to participating in this society to begin with. Pardon the patronism, but we aren't dealing with sophisticated people here. If the society can't do anything for me, then why support it would have been a reasonable conclusion for an illiterate pre-modern farmer to take.
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Now any of that simply relates to the issue of bandits on the road waylaying travelers, and the bandits are simply out to do something like provide food for their hungry children or something. Neutral to Chaotic Neutral at best. Take any of those reasons and sumperimose them and the effects on say, the ubiquitous evil cult poisoning the water supply and offering virgins to demons and you get a whole other level of threats themselves:
Threats to the order of the cosmos, perversions to the essense of humanity, etc. Its the sort of thing that makes the LG law-abiding Lord disgusted enough to round up a posse of so-called do-gooders and put everyone in the lovecraftian subterranean temple complex to the sword no questions asked.
If Goodman Palladin had the ethical foresight for his time to tie the bandits up and take them to a local authority, he probably would have been scolded for taking time out of the busy rulers schedule and the bandits would have been executed anyway. Think of CdG in this case as a labor-saving action for everyone involved. The Palladin gets to the city on time. The Lord can continue overseeing the rulership of his domain without having to oversee the execution of someone Sir Numbskull should have killed anyway. The bandits don't have to stumble behind the palladins horse for two odd days wondering what its going to be like to dance on the gallows tree.
fwiw
guacamole - who hasn't commited a CdG in at least 24 hours...
Options for the Pally-and-Bandy scenario depends on the group, the ethics imposed on the games, and the actions taken:
If you are role-playing a group where you have imposed a modern sense of ethics on a group of primitivist warriors, then it is probably not a good act and may actually be enough of an ethical blight on his character to require some kind of atonement before advancing.
In a fantasy world with fantasy world ethics its probably not evil. Evil would be the palladin tying him to the horse and dragging him the rest of the way to town.
In an actual primitive society, a society based on martial law in the most literal sense, then the latter might not be considered evil either, given what we know about justice and retribution in primitive societies where the abrogation of law by one individual was far more likely to cause pain and suffering for the collective, thus penalty could be far more harsh; for instance, in our society we sneer at the backwards folk who would cut off a hand of a thief, or even execute an adulterer; but when we consider the effects that such crimes had in a primitive society (i.e., blood feuds, acts of revenge, splintering of collective populations, etc.) it becomes easier to understand how certain crimes had punishments we despise. Remember, we are talking about the types of societies where Menelaus and Agamemnon sacked troy because Helen was something of a tart, or where Tristan and Isolde were sentenced to death due to a violation of trust and oath.
A bit closer to home, consider how commonly the crime of horse theft was considered a capital crime in the american west. It wasn't just that the theft of the horse itself was a capital crime, but that stealing the horse of someone out in the middle of the american desert usually meant their own death or economic disenfranchisment.
Now lets think about the bandits on the road apart from our miranda-rights-handcuffs-and-fair-expedient-trials-system. A bandit on a road isn't just robbing people, or even killing a few pissant commoners. That action constitutes a threat to the society on several layers:
1. It constitutes a political threat to the powers that be. The powers that be have a vested interest in remaining in power. This is important because even in a monarchy the people have no vested interest in obeying a ruler who cannot protect them from common thugs (for a historical example, consider the campaign against the pirates waged by the Roman general Pompey trying to curry favor with the populace). Further more once the offending parties know that the ruling powers are impotent to stop them they can accelerate their crimes, hastening the break down of the system. The break down between a ruler and its subjects constitutes a threat to the very fabric of the rather fragile systems of ancient and medieval society. A threat to commoners on one road by a group of brigands is a threat to all members of the realm.
2. Tangential to this issue of trust between members of the body of commoners and the ruling party is the idea that the threat posed by the brigand usually constitues a threat to the rules and mores of honorable and stable society. DnD is somewhat unrealistic in the idea that any rube who wants can go to the locak smith and plunk down something like 15 coin for a decent blade. No, in actuality an individual who had a sword and armor was likely at some point in the service of a lord or other political entity who failed to retain that individual in his or her provision and control.
3. It constitutes an economic threat by which an individual is robbed not only of his money and mechandise but also of his time, his ability to make his livelyhood during such a time, and a robbery of all the time and investment that individual spent in whatever is stolen. Further more, a primitive agrarian based economy is far more suceptible to disturbances in the economic system than a modern system fully equipped with provisions against such disasters (afterall, one has to assume that the poor schmoe being held up by the bandits for his cps hasn't taken out a bandit-insurance-policy with the local office of Allstate.). Because the damage is more severe to the local economy (that is if the farmer robbed goes hungry, so likely do the merchants who depended on his patronage in a subsistence economy,i.e., say the local pottery maker, or the farm hands) then the crime is more severe.
4. It constitutes a psychic threat to the mind of many to trust in civilization and society itself. Afterall, if two or three men armed with weapons can rob me of my goods and my ability to exist in a meaningfully fulfiling way in this society, what point is there to participating in this society to begin with. Pardon the patronism, but we aren't dealing with sophisticated people here. If the society can't do anything for me, then why support it would have been a reasonable conclusion for an illiterate pre-modern farmer to take.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now any of that simply relates to the issue of bandits on the road waylaying travelers, and the bandits are simply out to do something like provide food for their hungry children or something. Neutral to Chaotic Neutral at best. Take any of those reasons and sumperimose them and the effects on say, the ubiquitous evil cult poisoning the water supply and offering virgins to demons and you get a whole other level of threats themselves:
Threats to the order of the cosmos, perversions to the essense of humanity, etc. Its the sort of thing that makes the LG law-abiding Lord disgusted enough to round up a posse of so-called do-gooders and put everyone in the lovecraftian subterranean temple complex to the sword no questions asked.
If Goodman Palladin had the ethical foresight for his time to tie the bandits up and take them to a local authority, he probably would have been scolded for taking time out of the busy rulers schedule and the bandits would have been executed anyway. Think of CdG in this case as a labor-saving action for everyone involved. The Palladin gets to the city on time. The Lord can continue overseeing the rulership of his domain without having to oversee the execution of someone Sir Numbskull should have killed anyway. The bandits don't have to stumble behind the palladins horse for two odd days wondering what its going to be like to dance on the gallows tree.
fwiw
guacamole - who hasn't commited a CdG in at least 24 hours...
Storm Raven
First Post
LokiDR said:
I don't know about that. The reason that wealthy or respected figures in many pre-modern societies could get away with meteing out justice on an ad hoc on the spot basis was that they were merely enforcing the accepted social order. Since the local government existed as a result of that social order, supporting the social order was often seen as supporting the government. The idea that government has some sort of independent legitimacy outside of religious and social traditions is a very modern Western idea.
It depends on the paladin and his patron. Some paladins emphasize mercy and kindness, some paladins emphasize righteous retribution.
RigaMortus2
First Post
Storm Raven said:
It only takes a single round to CdG someone?
Remember, he casts Hold Person on him. He does actually have to MOVE up to him to CdG him. About as much time as it takes to take a rope out of a backpack.
Storm Raven
First Post
RigaMortus2 said:
So, you consider them to take an equivalent amount of time?
While you (1) pull out your rope, (2) move to the subject to be tied, and (3) spend five or six rounds to actually tie them up, for a total time of seven or eight rounds worth of time.
The other guy has (1) move into position, and (2) performed a coup de grace, for a total of two rounds of time.
RigaMortus2
First Post
Rel said:
Well he definately acted Chaotically, so no change there.
IMC goblins are not inherently evil, so they do have redeemability. I'd say the action was an evil one, neutral at best. I don't think this action alone would make the Wizard evil (or neutral). It depends on how he's conducted himself in the past.
There is also a passage in the PHB which states that it isn't unusual for a Good person to get angry or have a "bad day". I forget the exact quote, but that is the gist of it. So, for example, if this Wizard was taking revenge because these goblins killed and ate his family, I'd say it wasn't an evil act. More neutralish. He was consumed with rage (temporarily insane if you will). But that is all assuming he was avenging his family.
So I think it depends on the situation as well as past actions.
If the Wizard just came upon these goblins and fireballed them w/o knowing anything about them, I'd say it was definately an evil act on the Wizards part.
Now had he thrown a subdual damage fireball...
RigaMortus2
First Post
Artoomis said:
You put that very nicely, I agree...
The thing that gets me though, is when does CdG become a necessity? The only way you can perform a CdG is on a helpless opponent. If they are helpless, how could they "be a threat to an innocent life"?
It is true that the helpless state may be temporary, and be over in a matter of seconds. But I think there are usually other alternatives you can do in that short time span.
RigaMortus2
First Post
LokiDR said:
So not only do you not see a distinction between Good and Evil (It's fine for Evil people to take a life, so that means it's alright for Good people to take a life too) but you do not see a distinction between Gods and Mortals.
LokiDR said:
If your brother walked in on his girl and best friend "getting it on" and your brother, consumed with rage, murdered his "best friend" (either on purpose or accident), you would then feel it is alright to kill your brother?
LokiDR said:
Neutral means a little more than not caring about strangers.
So, if the difference between Neutral and Evil is that Neutral doesn't proactively seek to kill people, than what is the difference between Neutral and Good? I don't think it has much of anything to do with how you act towards strangers.
If every person acted of thier own accord, you wouldn't have a government or a structure. If there is an athority, all matters of great importance should be over seen by them to consider the society lawful. In the example, it was a lawful society and Pally ignored that.Storm Raven said:
I don't know if "I help others in any way I can" and "death to all evil doers" fit in the same alignment.Storm Raven said:
As for rules, the SRD says this about lawfulness:
and
Pally has judged another for falling short of thier duty as a member of the society. But I would call that CdG dishonorable, and lacking respect for athority. It may or may not follow the tradition, so lets assume there is no set tradition in this case. So, unless Pally has been told by an athority figure in the past "Kill all bandits on sight" I wouldn't call it whole lawful. I also would say any phrase that begins "Kill all" would not be in keeping with a Good alignment of "resect life"
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