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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 2214509" data-attributes="member: 9249">The killing of enemy combatants is an inherently Neutral act-- which is why the Blood War is never responsible for the redemption of fiends. By your spoilerish example, Good Outsiders are enemies of those who would preserve the Material Plane, and are active combatants by nature of their very existence. (This is a slippery slope waiting to happen-- I would only allow this reasoning in a world where this is a demonstrable facet of the cosmology.) Killing them is a Neutral act-- though I'm stuck on whether or not Paladins can do it; do they not gain their powers by service to Good Outsiders (with Divine Rank)? However, even if Paladins would lose their status through this act, I do not think they would become Evil. On the other hand, a Neutral Good Druid could snuff them out by the thousands and never suffer an alignment ding. Of course, by their own inclinations, they should prefer to wipe out fiends-- and if they make a habit of targetting angels when fiends are valid, viable targets, they might start suffering. I don't allow Exalted or Vile characters, since I disagree vehemently with their view of alignment, but I would allow an Exalted defender of the Material to kill Good Outsiders, as long as they had tried every non-violent means at their disposal to get them to go home and stay there. This interpretation allows for even trickier moral dilemmas than you're offering here, though: a through-and-through Good character, a bastion of moral purity, is sworn to defend the Material Plane against intrusion by Outsiders. Whether or not to kill a Deva seems an obvious choice, here... the question is, will they ally with an ancient red dragon to do so? An army of celestials is on the march, determined to subdue, occupy, and eventually abscond with the territory of a Good kingdom. At the same time, a cabal of necromancers and assassins has decided they have to destroy the kingdom to save it. Obviously, a Good, Materially-allied character must oppose both... but which takes priority? Which do they attack first? Will they ally temporarily with the other side? What if they can't oppose both-- thwarting one faction will guarantee the other's success. Which side do they choose? Even better... an army of fiends has the exact same plan in regard to the kingdom of the worst tyrant your world has ever known. What are your Good characters going to do about it? What can they do about it?</blockquote>

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