Is Coup de Grace an evil act?

[Pielorinho]

As far as the barghest and what not. This falls under my "usually evil or always evil" category. In this case, it happens to be true. They are evil, and you know why they are evil (they are working with cultist). You've given very good background. Now these sleeping fire giants. There are just too many questions unanswered to go up to them and CdG them.

First, I appreciate the change in tone, and will accept you at your word that you didn't mean it to be insulting when you called some of us "narrow-minded."

Second, I'm sorry if I've not been clear on this: I've been stipulating since the beginning of this conversation that the CdG is done on a party that the PC KNOWS is evil. In some campaigns (e.g., ones based on middle-English folk tales), all giants are going to be evil. In other campaigns, all giants in war parties are going to be evil. In other campaigns still, there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for two fire giants, four ogres, and two dire wolves to be traveling around together.

We cannot know the details of the example Tom offered us way back when. My original objection was to your assumption that in Tom's campaign, the PCs hadn't ascertained the evils of the giants before attacking them, and your comment about how you hoped he enjoyed running evil PCs. Because we don't know the details of the campaign, that comment was unfounded and inappropriate.

However, if it turns out that in Tom's campaign world the PCs didn't have good information that the giants were worthy of a CdG (see above for the criteria I'd use for making that judgement), then sure, I'd agree with you that they'd acted in an evil fashion -- not because they'd killed the giants in their sleep, but because they'd killed the giants at all.

Once again: in my eyes (and, I think, the rules), "Evil" is not determined by the method of killing; it's determined by the motive for killing.

Daniel

 

[RigaMortus2]

lets ask Beowulf (the character not a board persona) this question.

he sneaks into the monster's lair and slays the beast.

the angry mother does the same to Beowulf's people.

which is evil?

if you believe that Beowulf is the Hero. then what he did was not. and what the Mother did was.

if you think the Mother was right in her vengence. then Beowulf is evil.

the victor always writes what is right.

Keep in mind that in DnD there are no abstracts. There is (or at least should be) a clear definition of what constitutes Evil and what constitutes Good. Beowulf is the Hero because the story as written as so w/o taking DnD alignments into consideration. If it were DnD, then I'd say he is no more a hero than it's mother. At least, his actions weren't heroic and he also acted evily. Forgive me, it's been awhile since I read Beowulf, so what I might say next could become invalid. We must also consider (still sticking with Beowulf in DnD land) how he determined this beast was evil. How he realized it couldn't be reasoned with or redeem itself. And so on...

 

[Pielorinho]

Forgive me, it's been awhile since I read Beowulf, so what I might say next could become invalid. We must also consider (still sticking with Beowulf in DnD land) how he determined this beast was evil. How he realized it couldn't be reasoned with or redeem itself. And so on...

Grendel was EATING PEOPLE.

Even in Grendel's Autobiography (written with the assistance of John Gardner), he admits to being an evil monster.

He's not the best example of a sympathetic villain.

Daniel

 

[RigaMortus2]

Well folks, go ahead and color me a genius. I've solved this little debate with a simple, elegant solution that should make parties on all sides happy. In just a few moments I will be firing this idea off to WotC in the hopes that it can be included in the 3.5E books. If not, hopefully it will make it into 3.75E. The following is the text that will be included. (Remember that you saw it here first.):

*To be included in the 3.5 version of the PHB in Section 6, which details Alignment.*

"In addition to the above alignments (LG, NG, CG, LN, N, CN, LE, NE, CE) two new alignment designations have been added. These are called EVIL and eVil. They are detailed as follows:

SNIP a bunch of other stuff

Ok, that was pretty funny. Actually, this brings up a house rule we use that is very similiar to this, though not specifically related to the Good/Evil discussion here.

When we abbreviate our alignments, we use upper-case letters to denote which alignment we lean more towards. For example, Lg means we are Lawful Good, with an emphasis on the Lawful part (they do more lawful things than good basically). cG means Chaotic Good, but they do more Good acts than Chaotic ones. And are more apt to do a Lawful act if it had Good intentions.

 

[RigaMortus2]

"Just collecting slaves" is minding your own business?

Face it everyone, RigaMortus has ideas about good and evil that don't match up with the commonly accepted definitions used by anyone else here. He clearly doesn't understand D&D's concept of absolute morality, and certainly seems to have little idea what "good acts" and 'evil acts" are, at least insofar as most of the rest of the world defines them. Stop bothering to engage him in this conversation, it is as pointless as trying to teach a pig to talk.

Do you play with ANY HUMOR in your games what so ever? Yes, collecting slaves minding their own business. It was SUPPOSED to be a joke. I was poking fun at the situation. Gesh, nail me to a cross why don't ya?

And as a matter of fact, the giants may see nothing wrong with slavery. So to them, the were minding their business collecting slaves. They are Evil after all. They may not know the difference between right and wrong. Of course the "Good Guys" don't see it that way, and rightfully so.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Riga, I could be wrong here, but I think I see why you and I disagree. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to believe:

1) Killing is always an evil act if an alternative can be found;
2) An alternative can always be found if the victim is helpless.
Therefore, killing a helpless victim is always evil.

Is the above correct? I apologize if I'm misreading your stance.

Spider

Pretty much... I might edit it slightly...

1) Killing is always an evil act if a viable (reasonably sound) alternative can be found;
2) An alternative can always be found if the victim is helpless. Therefore, killing a helpless victim is always evil.

I wouldn't say "always". A Troll can be taken into negatives, making him helpless, but he will eventually bounce back up. If there is no reasoning with this beast, and he is just going to keep coming back up and continue fighting (or come back later to wreak havoc) then in a situation like this, it is plausable to kill it with fire/acid/magic/whatever.

I hope no one takes this out of context (unless you are making a funny) and tries to twist my words so that they say:

"CdG is an evil action, unless the enemy is evil and can regenerate."

I am not saying that. There are circumstances when death is the only option, which CdG accomplishes. It is situational, and not that common in my experiences. I don't often fight foes who are "invulnerable" by mortal standards (can regenerate, have higher level intervention to bring them back, etc.) At least not at a constant pace in the campaign.

 

[RigaMortus]

Some mentioned in a previous post that I am mixing up Evil with Neutrality or something of that nature. So I wanted to share with you my views on Neutrality.

I beleive a Neutral person would not go out of their way to kill someone if they could help it, just as they would not go out of their way to save someone if they could help it.

The battle is over and the heroes win. Some enemies lie slain, others are bleeding to death. The Neutral person would try and heal/stabalize them if he could. He isn't going out of his way to do so, he's right there. If, on the other hand, he is in the midst of battle, he won't stop defending himself to heal a fallen enemy. He may not even stop defending himself to heal a fallen ally.

By the same token. If the battle is over and the Evil Mage is unconcious but stabalized (say he made his 10% check on his own) the Neutral person wouldn't just go up to him and CdG him.

 

[RigaMortus]

Grendel was EATING PEOPLE.

Even in Grendel's Autobiography (written with the assistance of John Gardner), he admits to being an evil monster.

He's not the best example of a sympathetic villain.

Daniel

Tigers eat people too...

Ok, I get what you're saying. Again, this is a non-Dnd based story with no predefined alignments. As stories go, it was already predefined what was gonna happen. In other words, it's not like you had a person playing the part of Beowulf to make those sorts of decisions. The author did that for us. So in his non-DnD aligned universe, Beowulf was the hero. I should say, in any non-DnD aligned universe he was a hero, because even I could see that.

 

[RigaMortus]

I think we're gonna have to chalk up another Agree to Disagree, Riga. We're both being kinda intractable in our stances on the subject.


Enjoyed the discussion, though. See ya in another thread.

I concur

 

[LokiDR]

1) Killing is always an evil act if a viable (reasonably sound) alternative can be found;
2) An alternative can always be found if the victim is helpless. Therefore, killing a helpless victim is always evil.

*sigh*

You are defining the lack of Good.

Evil != lack of Good.

Giving a entity exactly what they deserve is not evil. If a god came down and smote the sleeping giant with holy fire, would you call it evil? This god could do any one of other things. Any divine retribution is evil? The God is the Israelites must be one of the most evil entities you have ever heard of.

A adventurer acting in exactly the same manor is also not evil. All the adventurer needs to do is ensure that their actions fit with the creatures they meet them out on. If they are not sure of that, they are acting evil.

One last time, learn what "neutral" means in D&D.