Killing innocents - a paladin thread in disguise ;-)

[Thanee]

...the Code would force the Paladin to likely arrest Thanee...

I wouldn't even be too sure about that. I think there's a valid claim to count this action as self-defense and while I clearly broke the captain's order, I had two orders, one from the kingdom and one from the captain, which were in conflict, so I chose the higher power and followed those orders.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

My understanding of what Thanee is saying (without conferring with the other two players or the DM) is that she was, AFASWC, utterly out of options. It was kill or be screwed.

Yep. All other options would only delay the problem and make it worse.

I could have fled, but I could not leave the ship. Eventually they would have found me and then it would be the same situation (or worse) - fight or die. Just that then the casualities would likely have been higher.

The Fireball was IMHO the option, that preserved the most lives (and that was the point of it, too), how ironic this might sound.

In fact, I had hoped not to kill the three, but to stabilize and immobilize them afterwards, but that was screwed by my godly damage roll and their lousy saves.

This is not meant as an excuse, just as an explanation. I certainly did take the risk to kill them over the risk to have much worse things happen.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Endur]

whether it is acceptable - given the right circumstances - to kill innocents in order to preserve the greater good, essentially. The question, when you have to choose between few deaths and many deaths, and there is (or at least appears to be) no way around it.

Our party (a paladin of Heironeous, her squire, another paladin of Heironeous (NPC), an exalted druid (no, he does not have VoP), and my sorceress) ...

When the time ran out, I kicked back the chair I was seated on, made a step backwards and placed a Fireball right in their midst, sparing only the two guards at the door. Three failed saves and a roll of 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 3 (LOL, can't you roll like this when you don't shoot at low-level NPCs!?) later, we had three smoldering corpses and two panicked guards in the room.

After some more thought about this, I think you have to analyze the action from each of the axis, lawful-chaotic and good-evil. Good is the easy one to analyze... sacrificing innocents because they are in your way does not qualify as good, but neither does it qualify as evil since you think you exhausted other alternatives first ... it seems like a neutral action to me; it would only be an evil action if you had not exhausted other alternatives and actually wanted to blast the captain. On Lawful-Chaotic, this seems like a chaotic action. A Lawful solution would be to find some way of satisfying both authorities, vaporizing the captain is the opposite of being lawful; and it is such an extreme response (not charming or holding or fleeing) that it justifies Chaotic instead of just neutral. So I would assess the action as Chaotic Neutral ... one step away from Chaotic Evil.

That doesn't mean your sorceress's alignment should shift, this would just be one action in a sea of actions taken by your character.

I'm curious as to how the exalted member of the party and the two paladins reacted to your scorching of the Captain? If one of those three had done the fireballing, I would have rated it as an evil act, with all of the consequences that follow from an exalted or paladin committing an evil act. My reasoning would be the greater external vows that Paladins and Exalted have, should make it obvious that they should always look for an alternative to killing an innocent. ("Do or Do Not, There is No Try")

 

[Particle_Man]

Too bad the Exalted Druid did not have the Nimbus of Light feat. That one explicitly states that when "lit up" everyone KNOWS you are a goodie servant of the outsider good guys. Thus any NPC character that sees that and still says "I still think you could be evil" MUST be lying.

 

[Thanee]

Endur, I basically agree with your assessment of the alignment, but here's a question you did not answer... what do you think could have been done to actually satisfy both authorities, the captain and the kingdom.

As for the Nimbus of Light... the druid has a celestial wolf companion, the paladin has the aura of good... not that something like this could convince them (note: I do not know, whether the other two have mentioned that, but I know the paladin tried to convince them of her paladinhood... without success), that it means, they are no evil mass-murderers. The captain did act rather unreasonable IMHO and there was a distinct possibility, that the captain actually was involved, at least there were some hints at that point, which could be read like this.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Endur]

Endur, I basically agree with your assessment of the alignment, but here's a question you did not answer... what do you think could have been done to actually satisfy both authorities, the captain and the kingdom.

In a game where you are sitting around a table and have to make a decision in thirty seconds, fireball might have seemed like the only option.

With 20/20 hindsight and lots of time, other options have appeared to the commentators on this bulletin board. Most of the options have already been mentioned, but the best way to satisfy the captain would have been persuasive negotiations of some sort.

"I'm sorry I can't yield to your request. I swore an oath to the Kingdom that I would protect these stones with my life and not yield them to anyone except the King. If you attempt to bind me by force, the King has given me the authority to take command of ship and execute you for treason. I will appoint your second in command of this ship if I must."