Now they buy pigs

[sword-dancer]

There aren't convenient alternatives to those. What are you going to do, ride a halfling into battle?

The pigs are taking the place of a) the party's rogue doing his job, b) a 10' pole or c) a wand of detect traps. All of which are available to players and are, frankly, a lot more convenient. Using noisy, smelly, terrified pigs isn't the best course of action, it's animal cruelty.

That isn`t the last difference to put an ati tank load at an anti tank dog and send him against an enemy tank and the blow the ordnance up. or use a dog to clear a mine field.
As long as you don`t use the sowjet Methods mines - first wave - no mines.

 

[ARandomGod]

Except that celestials, particularly Lawful Good ones, tend not to subscribe to the ends justifying the means. Sheep, as a herd animal, are almost certainly represented by Lawful sorts.

However it's also almost certain that sheep are allowed to be killed to enhance one's personal survival, as that's something that's often done to sheep.

The thing about raising pigs is that you can't do anything with a pig other than eat it. Pigs don't give milk or wool, or any equivalent. They just hang around until you kill them. In other words, they're a luxury, not a staple.

Telling your chosen people not to raise pigs probably benefits them economically in the long term, no matter how good the bacon might be.

But they're awesome garbage disposals. Pigs are almost always economically worth more than they cost to keep.

 

[ARandomGod]

You seem to be missing the point. There's a huge difference between a butcher slaughtering a sheep for mutton, and an adventuring party regularly zapping them with Chain Lightning, Cloudkill, Fireball, spike traps, crushing stone traps, etc. etc. Just because the slaughter of animals may be permissable in a society doesn't mean running them through minefields is. And that's exactly what the PCs are doing. Running the pigs through a minefield in order to find/clear a safe path.

Oh, I totally agree. I mean, if they're not at least attempting to save the meat then they're doing it wrong.

(Of course, I also agree with your "Guys, I don't like this" followed by Archons, but that's a different subject in my mind)

 

[AuraSeer]

This doesn't mean that all of Heaven is going to be up in arms over the cause of the poor sheep. But I can definitely see a particularly zealous demi-god or solar deciding that the PCs need to be stopped.

Okay. No celestials or deities are willing to fly down and directly oppose the plans of The Ultimate Evil, leaving the near-heroic mostly-good PCs as the kingdom's only hope. Yet these same PCs are interrupted in their important quest, because a demigod feels like persecuting them for their (relatively) minor sins?

That seems kind of silly, even for a thread about flaming pigs and minesweeper sheep.

If your party contains a rogue who regularly swindles merchants, would you have hiim struck down by an angry demigod of Trade?

 

[KainG]

While I agree that pigs are not docile and pretty stubborn, if your party of experienced adventurers can't handle one common pig, then how are they gonna handle whatever actually kills the pig?

 

[haakon1]

As opposed to Archons or blue bolts from heaven, how about the DM just telling the players to stop being wusses and play the game.

As a DM friend of my likes to say to his charges: "Play Dungeons and Dragons."

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Okay. No celestials or deities are willing to fly down and directly oppose the plans of The Ultimate Evil, leaving the near-heroic mostly-good PCs as the kingdom's only hope. Yet these same PCs are interrupted in their important quest, because a demigod feels like persecuting them for their (relatively) minor sins?

In your campaign, this kind of thinking might hold up. Usually in my campaigns, most of the forces of Heaven are already occupied with the Ultimate Evil, which is why the heroes need to fight the Slightly Less Ultimate Evil. In other words, the angels are holding back Morgoth while the heroes deal with Sauron. And even if they weren't, the Celestial Host are not always of one mind. Just like the Church of Pelor might have a loving, beneficial priesthood in general doesn't preclude that one crackpot inquisitor who sees the need to burn heretics in holy fire...even the most minor and sympathetic of heretics.

That seems kind of silly, even for a thread about flaming pigs and minesweeper sheep.

I definitely agree that it's silly, but I disagree that it's sillier than the stupidity of adventurers herding pigs down dungeon corridors to explode any traps they come across, or fishing with ropes tied around pigs to lure out monsters.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my first impulse is to say "guys, this is stupid, please cut out the ridiculous pig antics." But if that doesn't work, then I'm more than willing to match their silliness with silliness of my own to put a stop to it. Or play with celestials as bad guys, whichever the players prefer.

If your party contains a rogue who regularly swindles merchants, would you have hiim struck down by an angry demigod of Trade?

There are consequences for the rogue who swindles merchants (I've never had one in my campaign, actually, but I have a good idea what kind of consequences there'd be.) And there must be consequences for the pig herder too. Of course, I probably wouldn't use the God of Trade against that rogue, so perhaps you do have a point. Perhaps a group of crazy, Neutral-Evil druids is what's called for.

 

[just__al]

Maybe if pigs would have been domesticated stronger, it would have helped. But since the herding of pigs was never tried a lot because other animals weren´t as "dangerous" to eat, that never happens. Though I have no idea if that really makes sense - I guess it´s quite possible that some animals are just easier to domesticate than others (think of the difference between cats and dogs) ...

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It accomplishes nothing, and IT ANNOYS THE PIG

 

[Numion]

Be careful: If you put being realistic ahead of having fun too much, you end up playing Dirt Farmers & Dysentery.

Also, what's done by a few peasants in the name of a greater good for many people (like farming) is far different from people touched by fate to have a great impact on the world killing animals to, essentially, save on making a wand of detect traps. This is not a needful death for the pigs, this is a fairly callous bit of animal cruelty by people who know better and who are destined to reshape at least a small portion of the world.

Finally, why would you think that gods are rational?

This is hardly about realism, talking about god of sheep after all. It's about consistency. If a minor activity brings down the vengeance of gods, it will just seem like a DM grudge, having nothing to do with a few pigs getting killed. It's either that, or the gods would have to be really hands-on in the world.

I mean, if a few pigs used for adventuring are worthy of celestial intervention, how come several more heinous things aren't (or if they are, the DM has the game by the balls anyway, and the players better just ask what the DM wants them to do, instead of risking the ire of god of grass before stepping on some, when leaving the plot railroad)? Isn't the god of kobolds going to smack down the PCs for killing hundreds of them when PCs infiltrate their lair? Is the god of horses actively sending celestials to free slaved work horses (in cases where they are not used for greater good, but rather to advance the personal wealth of some bandit leader, for example)?

Just seems very arbitrary on the DMs part.

 

[Philthulhu]

Just seems very arbitrary on the DMs part.

Isn't that half the fun?

I'd be thinking about the Four Barnyard Animals of the Apocalypse, myself.
There are plenty of handy templates for just such an occasion. Could even bring on the race of Tauric Pigs!