Is Coup de Grace an evil act?

[Hypersmurf]

1) The third level party knows that they are out matched and out class with
these fire giants. Instead of doing something evil (killing them in their
sleep) or stupid (waking them up, and challening them to a dual), they try
and track down people who CAN deal with these things. That would be, higher
level adventurers (NPCs most likely). Since I have no further background
information, I will assume level 20 NPCs do exist in this campaign world.

Heh.

"... and so that's why we came to you, sir, the world's foremost giant-killer!"
"Always happy to help."
"So what's your secret... if you don't mind me asking, Mr Giant-Killer, sir?"
"Trick with giants, son, is don't give them the chance to hit you back. They're bigger, stronger, tougher than you. I find the safest way is to catch 'em when they're asleep..."
"But isn't that evil?"
"Son, that's just good sense."

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

1) The third level party knows that they are out matched and out class with these fire giants. Instead of doing something evil (killing them in their sleep) or stupid (waking them up, and challening them to a dual), they try and track down people who CAN deal with these things. That would be, higher level adventurers (NPCs most likely). Since I have no further background information, I will assume level 20 NPCs do exist in this campaign world.

Interesting. And are those 20th-level NPCs hanging out at the local tavern, just waiting for the PCs to come up to them and give them a quest? You can assume they are, but IMC, most leveled NPCs are engaged in their own personal quests and adventures, and are difficult to locate. In the time it takes to track down a high-level NPC who's willing and able to confront the giants, the giants can wreak all sorts of havoc. This plan fails on the "sound, likely to work" front.

2) They could watch them, take notes, and then warn the surrounding villages of the dangers so that they can make preparations for a possible fire giant invasion. Since I have no other background information, I will assume there is a local populance to warn.

Sure, assume there's a local populace. And what's the local populace going to do -- get ready to give tribute to the giants? Challenge them to a game of dominoes, winner takes all? Or do you think they're going to prepare by figuring out a way to kill the giants?

Best case scenario, the villagers kill the giants, failing my "nonlethal" criterion. Worst case, the villagers get massacred by the giants because they are, after all, villagers, who had hoped that the adventurers would protect them from the menace.

3) If they are feeling extremely brave, they could try and create a diversion and lead the fire giants AWAY from the local populance.

Interesting. What sort of diversion are you imagining that would stand a very good chance of leading the giants away permanently from any populace that they might pillage? Leading them into somebody else's village is hardly a Good solution, and leading them astray for a week doesn't exactly solve the problem. And if you lead them into a trap (e.g., to the doorstep of a cranky dragon), you run right up against the "nonlethal" criterion.

4) If they are confident in their negotations abilities, they can try to reason with them or barter with them. Of course, if your DM is the kind of person who plays evil NPCs as "kill first, ask questions later" then this might not be viable. If, on the other hand, they play that even the most vile person will give you a chance to speak before they cut your throat, you might be able to get away with this. Only you know your DMs play style when
it comes to these things.

And what, pray tell, might a fire giant get from a 3rd-level party through negotiation that she couldn't equally gain through force? Were I the DM, I'd certainly have the giants listen to offers of parlay -- but if that 3rd-level party was just blowing smoke up the giants' massive butts, the giants would eat them like french fries.

You might promise them great treasure, in which case the giants will probably tote the PCs along as surety. You might promise them tribute, in which case the giants are almost certain to get greedy and ask for more and more. You might promise them all your own magic items, in which case the giants will eat you and take the magic items for themselves.

Or you might threaten them in your parley, which will have one of several possible outcomes -- 1) The giants are fooled into thinking you're way tough, and leave, never to bother innocent people again (fantastically unlikely); 2) The giants fight and die (fantastically unlikely, and failing the "nonlethal" criterion); 3) The giants fight, and you die (highly likely, and failing the "effective" criterion).

I hope 4 ideas will suffice for now, especialliy given the severe lack of "background" information one needs to make such decisions. So, do you have the other players "think" for you during game sessions also? If you detect a pompus attitude, it is only because I am returning it back to you.

Oh, honey, you are SO not in a position to play the "You started it!" card. Don't even go there.

Your 4 ideas hardly suffice, and if your DM lets you get away with tricks like this, why, you play a different style from what I play. I can certainly see the pleasure in playing in a world in which such child-storybook tricks work, but that's not the style we play.

No, we play in a world in which evil creatures engage in evil.

The consequences of not stopping a band of marauding giants will be orphaned children. Peasants will watch their house burn down with grandmother trapped inside -- perhaps her son will rush in to save her, dying in the inferno as well. A Villager will sob as she describes watching the giant tear her betrothed in half and eat him in two bites. Maimed and broken peasants rallied by the PCs to fight the giants will now turn away, refusing to speak to those who, in their eyes, betrayed them for the sake of their honor.

And PCs who decided to lead the giants on a whimsical wild-goose chase the first time around -- who decided to see if St. Agnes the Almighty was available for giantkilling -- who decided to rally the villagers into a ragtag and hopelessly outmatched army -- will decide what they want to do before the giants reach the next village.

Daniel

 

[niteshade6]

One thing that bothers me a little bit in some lines of this discussion is when people refer to killing giants without knowing for sure what their motives are as being racist. In the current use, racism refers to discriminating against other human beings based on their race. It is not racism to discriminate aganst say a tiger, a chimpanzee, or any other form of life that is not human, no matter how smart they might actualy be. If somebody says all tigers are violent, unpredictable and dangerous, they are not being racist. You could however say they are being species-ist.

Using the term racist seems like an attempt to manipulative peoples perceptions by using an incorrect term. Everyone knows racism is evil so by calling it that you make your argument seem stronger. But these are not humans of a different race we are talking about. These are creatures of an entirely different species and with an mindset alien to humans, even if they do resemble larger humans. You could argue that the situation is similar, but you could just as easily argue that it's not.

I'm not saying the point itself is wrong (although I don't entirely agree with it), just that I think it's sort of unfair to refer to it as racism.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But these are not humans of a different race we are talking about. These are creatures of an entirely different species and with an mindset alien to humans, even if they do resemble larger humans.

Now look at your character sheet, and read out the label beside the bit where you write "I'm a fire giant".

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

Now look at your character sheet, and read out the label beside the bit where you write "I'm a fire giant".
-Hyp.

So, what're you saying -- someone that doesn't like Assassins is engaging in classism?

Daniel

 

[Hypersmurf]

So, what're you saying -- someone that doesn't like Assassins is engaging in classism?

I prefer "Classical Discrimination". (Pronounced 'clãssical', naturally.)

-Hyp.

 

[RigaMortus]

Don't be silly. The authorities in this case were acting in a rightful, legal manner. The are NOT analogous to bandits jumping out of the bushes and attacking you without provocation or warning in an attempt to rob you.

I was only making a silly point to your silly logic.

If the authorities managed to knock out the Thief during the scuffle and THEY CdG'd HIM then I think you could make a good case that they were acting in an Evil (or at least unlawful) manner.

Yup, they would be doing something evil as well.

Nobody is suggesting that there aren't other factors to consider. Yes, contrived though it may be, your Geased slaveowner is perhaps entitled to a lesser punishment than death. So what. In general, depriving an innocent person of thier freedom for your own profit and benefit is Evil. Those who kill such slaveowners are NOT.

Well it certain doesn't make them Good. And Neutrality also displays a respect for life, just not when it puts ones self at risk.

Good -> Respect for life, even sacrificing themselves if it comes to it.

Neutral -> Respect for life, but not if they are going to have to sacrifice themselves to do so.

Evil -> No respect for life. Will kill anything, anything they feel like it, with no remorse.

Dandy. In the standard D&D game (the one that the Rules are built to support) the vast majority of creatures with the "always evil" descriptor in their alignment are of that alignment. Ergo, if you are on the 8th level of Hell and you "CdG first and ask questions later" you are probably not at risk of losing your Good alignment.

You are probably correct here. Not 100% correct. Because once you kill that "demon" who is trying to do the right thing against all odds, you're screwed (especially if you are a Paladin). But that could NEVER happen in DnD. It "goes against the rules", right?

Nice backhanded insult about us not being original and creative though. Appreciate that.

I just love how you can take other peoples words and twist them around. Are you in politics by chance? Don't worry, you are not alone. There are others that post here as well which practice the philosophy of taking something someone says the wrong way to make that person look like he is deliberately being an instigator or insulting.

Please quote to me where I said "YOU, Rel, lack creativity and originality". Anyway...

As you were so quick to point out earlier, the vast prevalence of healing magic in the standard D&D world makes the "Blow of Mercy" a rather moot concept. It also means that if you put a dangerous foe out of the fight that it is relatively easy for one of his comerades to heal him enough to rejoin the fight in fairly short order. How would you feel if you forewent an opportunity to CdG a foe who was down who later got healed back up and killed a fellow party member or, worse yet, an innocent bystander?

Not as bad as I would feel when his friend runs past me and kills an ally as I take the full round action to CdG the person, who is no longer a threat, instead of attacking those who are concious and still pose a threat.

All of this makes me wonder: Do you require that PC's be Good in your campaigns? Or are you just as happy if they make Neutral or even Evil characters. Because it seems that your standard for Good is almost impossibly high. If most of the characters are good, I can only imagine that they spend a great deal of time and resources healing their enemies and then debating on the proper punishment for them and ultimately dragging them off to some authorities who are hopefully not too distant.

I am glad you asked. I am not normally the DM. Our current DM originally requested that we play any alignment except "Evil" or "Chaotic Neutral". As I was the newbie to this group, I complied. The DM likes to run Heroic types of campaigns. He feels that a lot of people who play DnD (people who he's played with in the past) put a lot of emphasis on killing, and have no regard for anothers life, no matter what alignment they are playing. I tend to agree with him. He didn't want to play such a campaign. He wanted the heroes to really be heroes and for the campaign to be challenging in that way. He throws the occassional moral dilemna at us, and this is the kind of thing we enjoy. Others may not.

Let me set up a typical scenario and how it usually plays out. Bear in mind we have 9 players in the group, 4 of which are Paladins of different gods. And if you must ask, I do play one of the Paladins. Also bear in mind, there are varying alignments in the group, just no Evil or CN.

Group of us are jumped by a gang of seedy looking sailors. They first tell us to drop our weapons and come along quitely. They want to "press" us into being sailors. We give them a warning. They ignore it and attack us (using lethal force, real damage not subdual). We retalitiate in kind. Some sailors drop during the fight (maybe they are dead, maybe they are bleeding to death). At this points, we do a variety of things, not all the time mind you. It varies given the situation.

1) We might tell the remaining ones to surrender or leave and they will be spared.
2) We might continue fighting until they decide to leave on their own (which does actualy happen, not all encounters end with a fight to the death).
3) We might try and stablize the fallen enemies in the midst of battle, hoping that they other sailors will see our mercy and think twice. Leave us alone.
4) We might fight to the death, and once all enemies are gone or lying on the ground unconcious, we will heal any of them that are not "dead". At least stabilzie them, and maybe bring one or two back to question.

As you see, we don't have any problems with attacking or killing (even the Paladins) provided there is still a threat. We first try and talk our ways out of it. We give them a chance to surrender when they start to lose. We give them every opportunity to "give up". We don't kill first and ask questions later just because "Well, they attacked us first so they deserve to die". Oh, and as a roleplay aspect, sometimes the Paladins or Clerics will say a prayer for their fallen enemies (we don't roleplay this out all the time as it gets repeatative, so we just assume that is part of the after-battle stuff, such as "looting the corpses", well the Paladins don't loot, but the Rogues do =)

In closing, I'll just say that if my various suppositions in the previous paragraph are true then I have absolutely no problem with it. Your game, your rules. But you seem determined to argue everybody else into agreeing with your version when the rules simply don't support it. I don't think that's going to work.

Back to the original question. All I was saying from the beginning is that CdG is an evil act. Which I later gave in some and restated that it is inherently "neutral" (only because the RULES don't specifically say it is an evil act) but more often used for evil purposes, given that there is healing in DnD there is no other reason to CdG someone/thing except to ends it's life. And ending another creatures life, to me, is evil BECAUSE Good people (according to the rules) have a "respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings".

 

[RigaMortus]

Please quote rules to support this definition of evil,

At the risk of sounding redundant:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good beings make personal sacrifices to help others.

For those who don't know (I didn't know, so I looked it up), "altruism" is defined as, "Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness."

So we see that Good people:

A) Are unselfish when it comes to the welfare (as in health and happiness) of others (others, being ALL others, not just a select few -- not just "Good and Neutral" people, or "Only Humans, but not Half-Orcs).
B) Have a respect for life (again, ALL life, not just "Good/Neutral" life, but, dare I say, their enemeis lives as well?)
C) And a concern for the dignity (The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.) of sentient (those who have feelings) beings. In a nut shell, they want to see people make the right decisions, show their worth (dignity). But Evil has little dignity, doesn't it? That is why it is up to the Good person to show then the error of their ways, and not with a blade through the heart either.

Well now we all know what being "Good" is according to the Core RULES. But you didn't ask for the definition of Good did you? You asked for the defintion of Evil. Well, let's take a look shall we?

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convienient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Let's break this down (seems pretty cut and dry, doesn't it?):

A) Hurting, oppressing, and killing others (others, not just "Good" others, but ALL others).
B) They have no compassion (could care less) for others and kill without qualms (feeling of being distrubed about it, sickness, nausea) if doing so is convienient (Suited or favorable to one's comfort, purpose, or needs).
C) Others actively pursue evil (make a concious effort to do so), killing for sport (sick, ain't it?) or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Right away let me point at letter B and go back to our sleeping fire giant example. Did the heroes have any compassion for the fire giants? It didn't appear so. Their first plan (which they even took the necessary steps to prepare the correct spells for) was to CdG them when they were asleep. This to me shows no compassion to the fire giants. You don't have to be friends with them, and you don't even have to like them. But you should at least show pity on them, their lives were obviously at the parties disposal. No compassion... When they did kill the fire giants, did they have any qualms about doing so? Did they show sorrow that such a decision had to be made? Were they sickened by the thought that they just took a life? Did they lose any sleep over it? Doesn't appear so... Did they CdG them because it was "the only alternative" or was it because it was CONVIENIENT for them to do so? They sure seemed comfortable doing it. So comfortable in fact that they designed an elaborate plan to sneak past other enemies just to accomplish the task. It also suited their purposes and needs. Basically, to end their lives was their purpose. And they succeeded.

Now lets look at letter C because this does throw a little wrench into things slightly. Letter C suggest that while some people ACTIVELY seek to do evil, make a concious effort to do so (praying to evil gods and such), others do not. So while the party CdGed these sleeping fire giants, I don't think they did so because they were actively seeking to do evil. Their ACTIONS were Evil, but they (at least at that point in time) MAY not have necessarily been Evil. I say this because, who knows if this is the first time they did this or if they always deal with enemies this way. If this was the first time they CdG helpless foes, then I'd give them a slap on the wrist. Maybe have the DM describe they don't feel as "fulfilled" as they thought they would by killing them (those who wish to remain Good/Neutral anyway). Others who may be Evil in the group, or who have no problem with turning Evil may care less. Now if they have a history of killing off helpless enemies and show a lack of "compassion" for doing so, and they don't feel "disturbed" when doing so, or don't "lose any sleep" over it because it is "convienient" for them to do so, rather than seek other "alternatives" with their enemies... Well, I'd say they are Evil.

Daniel [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[RigaMortus]

If you get jumped by an assassin, Hold Person them, and CdG them the next round - it's not evil.

^_^

Yeah it is. Is this your ONLY alternative when they are held? What about disarming them? Binding them with rope? Knocking them out? Then brining them to the authorities? Nah, that isn't "convienient" enough, is it? Yeah, it's just easier to kill him in cold blood like he was trying to do to you, right? Because that would make you so much better than him, right?

Wow, I can't beleive how many people have such an askewed view of Good and Evil here. I'm glad I at least have some (or is it 1? I'll take 1) person that understands what I am saying.

 

[Geoff Watson]

We're playing a game now that involves fighting lots of evil cultists. It's become SOP for our party to decapitate all our fallen enemies, to prevent their being raised as zombies or skeletons;

Why don't the cultists cast Mending (or Make Whole) to stick the heads back on?

Geoff.