Is this an evil act, or not?

[Buttercup]

In yesterday's session, the players were investigating a plague of unnatural origin, trying to find the lair of the kobalds who had been attacking the village, and also looking for the miners who had not come back home for a month. They killed a bunch of kobalds, only to find, farther back in the lair, several infant kobalds who were delirious with plague. The party had just killed all the adult kobalds in that band, and had no way to cure the infants. The chaotic good rogue decided to put the kobaldlings out of their misery, but the cleric (a new convert) was totally against this action. She asked him, "so your god would rather that they lay here and slowly die of the plague? Or that they starve to death?" Then she slit the throats of the babies, as gently as she could. I ruled that this was not an evil act, because their deaths were inevitible, and she was actually showing mercy. The cleric's player isn't so sure he agrees. Now, this isn't a huge problem for us or anything. I mean, no one is angry or making a big deal of it. But I wanted to hear your take.

 

[Thebalor]

You were right. That was an act of mercy, not evil.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

(love the sig)

Killing defenseless creatures (be they evil) is always an iffy situation. Here, the rogue's intent was clearly non-malevolent AND, like you said, they would have died anyways. No evil detected.

TS

 

[Kyramus]

Let's see. This sounds like a rehash about orc babies.... but... here's my view.

1) They have no adults to supervise.
2) they are infected with the plague and is possibly contagious

The actions taken by the rogue are ...
1) confine the plague to the locale of the kobolds so it is for the greater good.
2) the suffering would have eventually kill the infants as they have no cure and have no immediate way to cure them. mercy killing IE euthenasia isn't evil.


Just for an analogy. Think Resident Evil the movie for a sec. If you are one of the marines in the group that went into the Hive. One of your members is infected and is following you to the outside. You don't have a cure. Do you let him come out with you? Or do you end his misery and give him the peace of death? If you let him come out, he will infect the locale and it may spread further.

Greater good. Not evil.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[diaglo]

is this one of those free adventures from WotC?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/oa/oa20000801b

 

[Grishnak]

Had a similiar scenario myself recently about good and evil vs killing a defenseless creature. And I bet they will come up again.

 

[johnsemlak]

Well, the answer is "No, it's not evil" because the DM said it wasn't

Personally speaking, it's a tough one, but I would say not ALL good characters would find it an evil act. It's one of those things where two inherently good people can have opposed views on a moral issue.

So the cleric certainly has the right to object, and the Rogue has the right to do the act within the bounds of her (or his?) alignment. IMHO.

 

[MarauderX]

I vote for good.

But then again I usually don't put infants into lairs as it's too much of a moral dilemma like you had. Disgruntled pre-teens who can and will throw rocks at the party, yes.

 

[Zogg]

not evil. not even close.

 

[Tsyr]

Giving Mercy is not an evil act, if there is no way to avoid it.