Is poison use evil?

[Talon5]

In a non role playing line of thought I am not looking forward to my Deep Wood sniper (Grayson- CG) getting poison use, and the reaction the paladin (Amilor- LG- Heironian) is going to have to it.

Amilor is a long estiblished NPC and is well liked, while Grayson is a loner ranger/fighter/deep wood sniper, post tramatic (sp) stressed out soldier that people don't really like to much (to head strong I suppose). Grayson might just use the poison to piss the paladin off. I look forward to reading this thread to figure out how I should handle this later.

 

[dead]

Lawful good couatls never had any problem with using their own natural poison.

Is a couatls poison lethal? Those gaudy, feathered reptiles are going straight to the Nine Hells!!!

 

[dead]

In a non role playing line of thought I am not looking forward to my Deep Wood sniper (Grayson- CG) getting poison use, and the reaction the paladin (Amilor- LG- Heironian) is going to have to it.

Amilor is a long estiblished NPC and is well liked, while Grayson is a loner ranger/fighter/deep wood sniper, post tramatic (sp) stressed out soldier that people don't really like to much (to head strong I suppose). Grayson might just use the poison to piss the paladin off. I look forward to reading this thread to figure out how I should handle this later.

Yeah, the pesky paladin in my group of PCs won't have a bar of any poison! Poison = Evil to him. Even if it's a non-lethal poison!

Just tell your paladin friend that your using Lawful Good couatl venom!

 

[Dogbrain]

Poison is often considered evil specifically because it has a tradition of being antithetical to honorable fights. Poison is the ultimate weapon of stealth and of dishonor. But is honor necessarily good? The Irish would sometimes refer to honor as a "damnable thing"--it had good men kill each other over matters that were not worth death. But who can trust an honorless man?

And then we must ask what are the circumstances of the poison use? Was it used by someone otherwise helpless against a ruthless and black-hearted oppressor or was it merely used as a convenience? Do the circumstances matter?

 

[Talon5]

Yeah, the pesky paladin in my group of PCs won't have a bar of any poison! Poison = Evil to him. Even if it's a non-lethal poison!

Just tell your paladin friend that your using Lawful Good couatl venom!

Ya, its part of some code or other that he has to follow. The two characters have been at odds sense day 2, but Amilor isn't the angry type and Grayson could care less what others think.

I do like the idea os using Couatl poison thou, but I must ask- how do you get the poison from the Coualt? Because harvesting it from their corpses would be wrong.

 

[billd91]

I wouldn't consider the use of poison evil. Dishonorable, yes. But that doesn't mean evil either. It might just mean you don't subscribe to a system of conflict that only sanctions tactics that support the status quo by favoring the guy who is already the strongest and best armored. Quite frankly, if that guy isn't you, subscribing to honorability in combat is a fool's game whether you're good or evil. Sometimes when you're fighting the good fight, you'll come across a situation in which the fight is too important to risk losing because of worries about honor. Paladins might disagree, but a whole host of CG characters could certainly choose to agree.

 

[dead]

I do like the idea os using Couatl poison thou, but I must ask- how do you get the poison from the Coualt? Because harvesting it from their corpses would be wrong.

If you do a good quest for it, it may let you milk its fangs.

 

[Tatsukun]

If the argument is that poison is unfair, or not honorable than I would say it's not lawful to use. Good / Evil would depend on use.

I would consider poisoning a bandit king so you don't have to slice your way through all his (perhaps neutral or innocent) guards a chaotic good act.

On the other hand, poisoning the king to start a revolution so you can sell more armor is chaotic evil.

-T

 

[Jeff Wilder]

This is one of those areas of D&D morality that simply isn't logical, and trying to work it out logically is kinda silly.

Poison use is evil.

Why is poison use evil?

"Because the Good religions say so."

But that doesn't make sense. Why ...

"Because God says so."

You just can't argue with religion ... it's fundamentally irrational. In the real world, that's a problem. In D&D, it's only a problem if players choose to make it a problem.

 

[rbingham2000]

Poisoning of arrows is by far the least treacherous of poison's uses (and I believe Hercules uses the blood of the Hydra to poison his arrows at one point in his story), but poisoning of melee weapons tends to bring to mind Claudius from Hamlet and his evil plans for the final act.

Poison is considered evil in fantasy because the thought of life-giving food and drink being somehow tainted and deadly was absolutely horrifying to the ancients from whose myths and legends we draw our stories. It's the main reason snakes were considered evil (apart from that story about Adam and Eve). It is a weapon of subtle murder, a tool of blackest treachery. In short, poison is the province of a villain.