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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 1518183" data-attributes="member: 18280">Depends upon what information you need, and why you need it, in my book.  I would say, "As a condition of your surrender, you must tell us....No?....Then prepare yourself, for we your surrender is one we cannot accept!"Whether or not a lawful character has the right to mete justice is a campaign world thing, not an alignment thing.  In a not-so-distant session, the PCs had a bit of a killing-amongst-party while traveling downriver on a ship.  The Ship's Captain demanded surrender, tried the killer, found him guilty, and hung him off a tree.  When they reached civilization, he turned himself in to the authorities, who then determined whether or not he had followed the right course (there was no contest).  This was an NPC, btw, stringing up a PC.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> A follower of Mardan (Bringer of Civilization, God of Law) would probably try and convict the evildoer, or demand some recompense for wrongs done.  A follower of Mellador (Goddess of Mercy) would not kill the miscreant, and might have a harder time dealing with a rag-tag group of captured goblins.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> IMO, it isn't necessarily evil to slay a creature who surrenders.  Ie, the Ship's Captain said "Surrender to the King's Justice," which is certainly no promise that the PC would be pardoned for his crime.  "You will not escape, so why needlessly waste the lives of your followers?" is certainly fair.Imagine, though, that the villain throws down his sword and begs for mercy.  If you have no intent to offer it, "Pick up your sword, for I shall show you none," is probably the right thing to do.Of course, as a DM, I am pretty likely to allow characters to gain information from captives.  Only the vilest creatures don't recognize the benefits of being granted mercy, and those probably won't surrender anyway.  Another way of looking at it is this:  the goblin who surrenders is a low-level grunt who doesn't know a whole lot, and is probably not so enthused about his evil overlord that he's willing to die for him.  So, why not talk?  By designating what creatures are likely to do, you are giving your PCs ideas about what is reasonable for them to do.  If hobgoblins are willing to surrender a position, and parley terms under a flag of truce, it becomes feasable for the PCs to do the same when there's just too darn many hobgoblins.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /> Wandering away from camp so that your friends can torture/kill the prisoners is not only an evil deed, in my book it is also an un-lawful one.Hope something in there is useful,Daniel</blockquote>

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