Is Coup de Grace an evil act?

[RigaMortus2]

I hope you don't mind if I answer the converse of this question: why would I not imprison him? Otherwise, my answer is, I didn't let him go free: I killed his skanky butt.

Now: why didn't I imprison him?

You are limiting your options here. By doing it your way, you are killing him and this "punishment" is absolute. The only thing death leads to is death.

By letting the person live, you have so many more options other than just "imprisioning" him. When dealing with badies, it isn't a simple matter of "Kill him or imprision him..." 1) If there are no prisions around, kill him. 2) If there are prisions around, imprision him."

When you capture someone, you could take them to a prision. You could also try and teach him the error of his ways yourself, assuming you are dealing with a redeemable creature here (This would be the Paladin LG thing to do). You could use him against his allies (Bluff: If you do not surrender, your friend here gets it...). Maybe bribe him to work for you (How much are they paying you? Work for us and we'll double that).

There, I put some non-good options in there as well (I don't think a Good person would try and bribe someone to work for them).

 

[Storm Raven]

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.

If there is a modern authority, run by a modern style government these things might be true. In pre-modern societies this was far less true.

I don't know if "I help others in any way I can" and "death to all evil doers" fit in the same alignment.

Alignments are quite broad. They attempt to classify the thousands of human viewpoints into nine categories.

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"

I don't know, I could easily see a Lawful Good deity that was intolerant of criminals and sanctioned their execution at all points, so long as it was done by a proper agent of his authority, such as his chosen holy warrior. A lawful person is obedient to authority, but he is not necessarily obedient to all authority. If a lawful individual were required to do that, he would quickly go insane as he was conflicted between competing irreconcilable mandates from conflicting sources of authority.

 

[LokiDR]

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.

Acting rightously is not a difference between mortals and gods.

You are attempting to put words in my mouth. You should read more carefully. I never said that because Evil characters can kill, that means good characters can. I have always maintained the difference is why you kill. The simple act of killing is not nearly enough know the moral implications.

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?

Does killing him fit his crime? There is a difference between killing while in a fight and killing a person who is not defending themselves. Modern law calls the former manslaughter. My brother may not be a murderer, just a killer. If he did intend to kill the other man, and death is a fitting punishment (as I assume it is in a fantasy setting) then killing him would not be evil, it would be justice.

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.

The difference between good and neutral is based on sacrificing for others. A good person might try to redeem the person, if they could. A good person will give their own life to stop some greater calamity. Those are things a neutral person won't do.

 

[Storm Raven]

You are limiting your options here. By doing it your way, you are killing him and this "punishment" is absolute. The only thing death leads to is death.

Not in most fantasy worlds. In most fantasy worlds, death leads to a well-defined afterlife, with appropriate rewards and punishments for the good and the wicked.

By letting the person live, you have so many more options other than just "imprisioning" him. When dealing with badies, it isn't a simple matter of "Kill him or imprision him..." 1) If there are no prisions around, kill him. 2) If there are prisions around, imprision him."

Imprisoning someone as punishment would be a ludicrous idea in a pre-modern society.

 

[RigaMortus2]

In a D&D world, why would killing be considered any worse than any other form of punishment?

When you kill an enemy, you haven't ended their existence, you've just moved it to a different place. It's inconvenient surely, but no more so than prison or exile. A death sentence might even be considered less serious than, say, Siberian exile, since a wrongly-executed innocent will find himself in a better place than he left.

Consider these two possible fates for an evil, plundering giant:
1) Wake up bound hand and foot, captive to an adventuring party. Get convicted at trial, and sentenced to life in prison. Sit in a jail cell for decades, living on bread and water, until finally dying of old age.
2) Wake up dead. Find yourself in the Feast Hall of the Giant Gods, where you are hailed as a mighty warrior. Immediately start drinking mead and partying with your evil, plundering, dead giant buddies.

Which of these is worse punishment? Remember, the characters know for a fact that an afterlife exists; many of them will even have visited it.

If this is how your world works, then obviously number 2 sounds better.

What about number 3?

3) Wake up dead. Find yourself in the frozen tundra of the 9 Hells, you are bound with indestructable ice shackels. It is so cold to the touch, now you too know how it feels to burn. Strange sensation for being a fire giant, and very excrutiating. The god of death has deemed your crimes worth of eternal torment in the frozen tundra, where you will be alone and in pain forever. Bet that jail cell on the prime plane looks nice to you right about now.

 

[LokiDR]

You are limiting your options here. By doing it your way, you are killing him and this "punishment" is absolute. The only thing death leads to is death.

By letting the person live, you have so many more options other than just "imprisioning" him. When dealing with badies, it isn't a simple matter of "Kill him or imprision him..." 1) If there are no prisions around, kill him. 2) If there are prisions around, imprision him."

When you capture someone, you could take them to a prision. You could also try and teach him the error of his ways yourself, assuming you are dealing with a redeemable creature here (This would be the Paladin LG thing to do). You could use him against his allies (Bluff: If you do not surrender, your friend here gets it...). Maybe bribe him to work for you (How much are they paying you? Work for us and we'll double that).

There, I put some non-good options in there as well (I don't think a Good person would try and bribe someone to work for them).

A good character would try to do what is best for the most people, including the criminal. Obviously, rehabilitation is best for all concerned. A neutral person will act in accordance to their own beliefs. He tried to kill me and my friends, death is fitting. Evil would enjoy his suffering, humiliation, and, ultimately, death then look for more people to do this to.

 

[Caliban]

First rule of CdG:

1) You don't talk about the morality of CdG.

 

[Storm Raven]

3) Wake up dead. Find yourself in the frozen tundra of the 9 Hells, you are bound with indestructable ice shackels. It is so cold to the touch, now you too know how it feels to burn. Strange sensation for being a fire giant, and very excrutiating. The god of death has deemed your crimes worth of eternal torment in the frozen tundra, where you will be alone and in pain forever. Bet that jail cell on the prime plane looks nice to you right about now.

Then it was a just and good act to kill the perpetrator. The God of Death, a presumably much more knowledgeable being than myself, concurred with my judgment concerning the fire giant's character. More to the point, he has decided that his vileness deserves eternal punishment and suffering. My use of coup de grace has now been vindicated as a morally justified, good act.

 

[LokiDR]

If there is a modern authority, run by a modern style government these things might be true. In pre-modern societies this was far less true.

Any sort of strong athority. Kings tend to be annoyed at vigilanties. If no one respects the law there will be anarchy, a complete chaotic society. Non-modern governments tended to have more chaos, that doesn't make chaos lawful.

Alignments are quite broad. They attempt to classify the thousands of human viewpoints into nine categories.

That's true, but these seem to be fairly opposed viewpoints.

I don't know, I could easily see a Lawful Good deity that was intolerant of criminals and sanctioned their execution at all points, so long as it was done by a proper agent of his authority, such as his chosen holy warrior. A lawful person is obedient to authority, but he is not necessarily obedient to all authority. If a lawful individual were required to do that, he would quickly go insane as he was conflicted between competing irreconcilable mandates from conflicting sources of authority.

I'm not saying all authority, just ligitimate ones. If the government recognizes Pally's church to be a rightfull arm of the police, it is lawful. I don't see that in most games. Instead, the church is respected, but not so much the government itself. The evil churches wouldn't allow it

 

[Pielorinho]

You are limiting your options here. By doing it your way, you are killing him and this "punishment" is absolute. The only thing death leads to is death.

Incorrect -- death also leads to a lack of death, as my list of possible reasons for not imprisoning him shows. By killing him, I can potentially save innocent people.

"Why not imprison him?" Because that's not absolute. He may escape prison. He's not likely to escape being killed, decapitated, cremated, and scattered.

I gave you a long list of reasons for not imprisoning him. They're good reasons, I think.

You've listed some alternatives to imprisoning him, including keeping him alive as a hostage to use against his allies (far more evil than killing him, IMO), or paying him to work for me (dangerous and unreliable: anyone who doublecrosses his old friends will just as easily doublecross me).

I can try to redeem him, and that's a fine thing to do -- but if I'm unselfish, I need to look at whether it's the best use of my talents and time. I may need to choose between redeeming this cold-blooded killer, or I may stop his (still free) buddies from carrying out their fiendish plot against the city.

Redeeming one killer may make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But saving the city from his on-the-loose allies puts me much further along on the "protecting innocent life" spectrum.

Daniel