D&D 5E Next session a character might die. Am I being a jerk?

[Tonguez]

Sure, it's murder. Did the PC have the legal right to execute someone in this situation? Was it self defense? If those are no, then it's murder - certainly from a legal sense. Was it just from a moral standpoint is another question.

Except that opens up the how conumdrum of adventurers killing goblins and orcs to take their stuff. If a chaotic good character sees slavers as monstrous and his act of freeing slaves to be a greater good, then does the law matter? If the Law allows for slavery then does he have duty to oppose the law by any means necessary?

and yes it was self defence - he was defending the slaves

 

[Flamestrike]

As a point of history, either a US Navy Corpman or Navy Seal executed a young prisoner of the battlefield of Afghanistan. Large swaths of the US population, including some notable leaders, had no moral qualms, about this.

Seeing as the overriding population of most Commoners is 'Neutral' I'm not shocked.

Evil people would almost unanimously support it, as would a large number of neutral people (with some being undecided, or seeing both sides of the argument, and some being repulsed. Good people would be almost unanimously opposed.

Except, in their view they are not LE.

For sure. Very few evil people think they're evil. They're almost always working towards a 'greater good' or rationalising their actions away somehow. Very few morally repugnant people actually see themselves as morally repugnant.

To be fair Frank Castle is under no illusions that he is evil. He's literally met the Devil in one comic and was totally unsurprised to hear that he's on a one way ticket to Hell when he dies.

Beside..
.....Outside, Once Upon a Time in the West, Charles Bronson characters strike me
as Chaotic Evil. .
No regard for the law, never forswears vengeance, and is often sadistic.

That depends. Do they follow a code? Lawful people have respect for family, tradition and honor. They follow a code that (to them) places them above 'ordinary' villains.

The Punisher follows just such a code. He thinks that as long as he only murders, tortures and so forth criminals, he's different from them. He values honor, family and tradition (his primary motivation is the murder of his own family). He doesnt kill those he sees as innocent, but criminals on the other hand get no mercy, pity or remorse. He's intensely driven, predictable, and focussed.

Compare to say.. Anakin Skywalker (Jedi, not Sith!) who is CG. Unreliable, unpredictable, headstrong, hard to control, individualist, reckless, but with a strong moral code. He doesnt go around killing and torturing people (yet!).

 

[Flamestrike]

Except that opens up the how conumdrum of adventurers killing goblins and orcs to take their stuff.

If adventurers are storming into a dungeon simply to slaughter the goblin or orc inhabitants and steal their things, they're evil.

If the goblins have captured someone, and they resist the adventurers trying to rescue them, killing them (with reasonable force, when its necessary) is not evil. If the goblins are raiding the nearby town, stopping them (using lethal force if necessary) is not evil. If the PCs are exploring an abandoned ruin, and some goblins leap out and attack them with swords and bows, responding with lethal force is not evil. And so forth.

 

[Tonguez]

If adventurers are storming into a dungeon simply to slaughter the goblin or orc inhabitants and steal their things, they're evil.

If the goblins have captured someone, and they resist the adventurers trying to rescue them, killing them (with reasonable force, when its necessary) is not evil. If the goblins are raiding the nearby town, stopping them (using lethal force if necessary) is not evil. If the PCs are exploring an abandoned ruin, and some goblins leap out and attack them with swords and bows, responding with lethal force is not evil. And so forth.

And if their holding slaves from the local town whilst enjoying a nice meal of roast leg of human?

 

[Lanefan]

In this case, the victim was lying on the ground badly wounded and unconscious. Hitting them with vampiric touch, shooting them in the head with a gun, or bashing their skull in with a hammer was clearly evil, regardless of the alignment of the victim.

Depends a bit on the context.

If you're deep in a dungeon somewhere and thus far every moving thing you've met has tried to bend your nose into your face, it'd be mighty hard to blame you for taking a self-preservational "kill it before it moves" attitude.

Also, did the party have any way of knowing these were Lathander* people from a distance? Were they clad in Lathander colours or bearing or wearing any other clearly identifyable marks?

* - who, though in theory I know a bit about D&D lore, is completely foreign to me.

 

[Lanefan]

If adventurers are storming into a dungeon simply to slaughter the goblin or orc inhabitants and steal their things, they're evil.

Were I to follow that definition every PC in my game would be Evil.

And all my own PCs - even the ones I play as Goodly - would be right there with them.

I mean, why ELSE do you storm into a dungeon if not to kill the nasty occupants and take their stuff?

 

[akr71]

I talked with the player and she was cool with the character leaving the party for a while. However, the other players wanted her to stick around as 'camp mage' meaning they'd setup camp & she'd watch over camp while they go off exploring & adventuring. She'll progress like the rest of the party - I think they like the thought of a camp NPC with Identify and a few other spells.

I'll keep the revenant scenario until the player is back. I can justify it that the acolyte's soul was lost in the Grey Wastes before being sent back to exact his revenge (by whatever nefarious entity tricked him into casting aside Lathander's teachings).

 

[jgsugden]

In reality, a Revenant fails to be what it is intended to be because it can be slain and buried deep in the ground. You need players to either be horror movie foolish, or restrict the use of it to going after NPCs, or for the Revenant to be very smart and indirect in hunting the PC, or for it to upped in power so that it is something the PCs must flee.

When I build a revenant to go after a PC, I think about what tells a good story. Sometimes merely having a monster want vengeance on the PCs tells the story I want to tell. It lets them know they've done something "wrong" and that message is all I wanted to deliver.

Other times, the Revenant will be a slow burn. The creature will not be in a rush to confront the PCs, but will instead study them and figure out how to most hurt them. It will consider the new abilities it has and use those to hurt the PCs. For example, it may murder a friend of the PCs, drag the body off to an isolated place and then kill itself so that it can rise in the body of the former friend. Then it will hire someone to keep the corpse looking fresh as it infiltrates the world of the PCs - avoiding them as they would recognize it for what it is instantly while others will not. It will then try to twist the world against the PCs, ruining everything they care about before amassing a force capable of presenting the PCs with a deadly encounter. However, that encounter will not occur until it has brought pain in a way that tells a mystery tale.

However, I often put a Revanent in the world to fight with the PCs, not against them. The Revenant is something slain by the BBEG the PCs face and will be something the PCs can ally with against their foes - although it will be a wild card as the ultimate goal of the Revenant is vengeance, not the goals of the PCs.

 

[Flamestrike]

Were I to follow that definition every PC in my game would be Evil.

Yeah. I got that already.

 

[Flamestrike]

And if their holding slaves from the local town whilst enjoying a nice meal of roast leg of human?

Fair game. Use of force (including lethal force) in self defence or the defence of others (the captured slaves).