Prickly moral situation for a Paladin - did I judge it correctly?

[RC Hagy]

[/i]Imagine a powerful fiend, in the furtherance of spreading evil, capitalizing on this by offering the children immortal playtime - to never grow up, to never want for anything - if they'd but do one small thing for him in return.

Even a child can kill, once properly tempted and corrupted. From there the brood grew. Fast forward a few generations and here we are. The party noticed early on how quaintly archaic many of the names of the children were...

Sounds to me like they got what they deserved then... the children were not possessed or consistently goaded. They could have chosen not do be little nasties.

In the above scenario subduing, killing or waiting were all valid options... if the information the DM just stated is what the PCs knew at the time.

Which brings me, slightly, back to my original point wwwaaayyy back on page two.

The more ambiguous the original situation the more carefully one should proceed in their solution.
If those children had been possessed... then an effort should have been made to try and save them.

Hagy

 

[takyris]

Actually, just to randomly steal ideas, combining Barsoomcore's with Force-User's -- this brings up a really interesting point of morality in a D&D universe.

I agree, Barsoomcore, that in the real world, children get leeway. A child who kills, even if it is premeditated, is sent to prison until he is an adult, but no longer (except in rare instances where an older child is tried as an adult). (Note: U.S. Legal system, not speaking for whole world.) This is because children in the real world don't have access to nuclear weapons. They can potentially kill somebody in horrifically unlikely and rare instances, but by and large, a child who does something morally wrong doesn't accomplish much.

But a child in a D&D world has the potential to, as demonstrated here, make a deal with fiendish powers in order to gain the D&D-world equivalent of a rocket launcher. Not a nuclear weapon, no, but definitely worse than a handgun.

In a world that exists like this -- where demons can hunt around the dreams of children, find the ones who seem corruptible, and then make them a tempting offer to wreak some havoc -- would children still get the leeway that they get in the real world?

Obviously, by asking the question, I am implying that there may be a difference between that world and our real world. But I am by no means certain.

In any event, I consider it an interesting question. The paladin's player obviously (if subconsciously) feels that the scope of power available to the children is such that ignorance cannot, at that point, equal innocence. Though the child did not have the benefit of more years of moral education, they still should have known better, and must now reap the karmic result of what they have sown. ForceUser, by his determination that the paladin got power-whacked, seems to feel that the increase in Damage Potential that the children get does not necessitate an increase in accountability and responsibility and judgement against them. That is to say, even though the children can, in this D&D world, do things that are just as powerful as many adults can do, with results worse than most adults could accomplish, they should still be treated with more leeway, not because the crime was any less horrific, but because they were not able to truly understand the choices that they were making, even though they did choose these actions freely and without magical compulsion.

Not sure there's a right answer. Definitely sure that we won't find an answer that'll satisfy everyone. If I ever ran an adventure designed to explore this (and I'll tell you right now that I most certainly will do so at some point), I'd try hard to make it a world-ambiguous scenario -- some NPCs would feel one way, some NPCs would feel the other way, and the gods would be quiet or contradictory on the subject.

Dang. I showed up in this thread for a flamewar about paladins and game balance, and I ended up getting a rather interesting philsophical and moral argument. Don't be sneakin' that jazz into my power-fantasy wish-fulfillment steam-blowing hobby, man!

 

[Carnifex]

False Analogy. These kids were not innately evil. If they were innately evil, then they wouldn't need to be corrupted in the first place.

Sheesh, kill a few villages and they call you innately evil already. Flirt!

If they were innocent children once, then there might be a part of them that remained so. Or maybe not. But innately evil? Nope

They've been doing this whole parasitic slaughtering of villages for decades now. *If* a tiny sliver of possibility of redemption does remain, it's so small that it's frankly an evil act for the paladin to take that risk and thus put the lives of even more *real* innocents at risk.

Furthermore, this is the medieval church. By their standards, those kids are innately evil and doomed to hellfire.

 

[Tsyr]

Ya know, maybe I'm a freak or something, but I don't get this whole "Children don't know what's right and wrong".

I knew what was right and what was wrong by the time I was I was in kidergarden. I knew stealing was wrong, I knew killing a person was wrong, I knew lying was wrong, etc. And moreover, I knew why it was wrong... I knew why murder was so terrible, etc. Oh sure, I still played with GI Joes and Hot Wheels like a kid, but I wasn't stupid.

And I didn't even grow up in a religous household that shoved the ten commandments down my throat. These concepts aren't hard to grasp.

And in a medieval (or even quasi medieval) setting, it's likely that children would be given much less leeway than we do.

And to be blunt, it's just not an excuse for some things, no matter how much you would like it to be. If demons say "If you kill your parents, I'll give you toys", and you kill your parents for toys, tough. You made your bed, you have to sleep in it. Only so much can be excused away as "childish stupidity".

 

[Carnifex]

It would be nice if for once people could discuss the specifics of a paladin situation, keeping in mind the specifics of the campaign rather than always telling people that they are WRONG!!! paladins should be like I like them etc.

This really does sound like a failure in comunication between DM and player about the paladins role.

Okay, after earlier having been told off in this thread for referring too much to the real-life church, we're now being asked to swing back towards that tack. Fair enough, because that makes the argument for killing the 'children' even stronger.

When it came to satanic evils, heresies, traitors to the faith etc, the medieval church was *not* forgiving, it really wasn't. Any ecclesiastic would certify that these devil-children were well and truly damned, had sold their souls to hell and were going to burn in hellfire for their afterlife, with no real chance of redemption. They were evil abominations to be slain; perhaps once human, but now twisted into a mockery of that. Just because they look like children still, means nothing. There would be nothing, in the eyes of the church, that would justify keeping the children alive.

 

[The Kender]

Nice post, Tsyr. My mom runs a daycare, with little kids from ages 2 up to about 5. The little cultist kids were what, 8? when they struck the deal?

The four and five year olds here even know that killing is wrong... And the ones from more religious families would tell you that assoiating with the devil is flat out wrong.

I'm not going to buy into the thought that the kids had know idea what they were doing. They knew killing is wrong and (assuming a religious area, as it kinda sounded,) that dealing with demons/devils is bad. If they can't figure out that sacrificing Aunt Gertrude to a dark power is wrong....

 

[Silverglass]

Did I say they were nice? Did I say they didn't choose?

I said do we hold children to the same moral standards we hold adults? Of course we don't. We don't send a child to prison for striking his mother. We don't cut off a child's hands for stealing cookies. All cultures, to some degree, allow children a degree of latitude in their behaviour. You have to. They're just kids and they don't know any better, they don't understand (and aren't expected to understand) the implications of their actions.

That doesn't make them untouchable. That doesn't mean that killing them isn't the best course. Or perhaps the only course.

But all this nonsense about how they're NOT children is plain old make-yourself-feel-better justification. They ARE children. They've never had a chance to grow up and learn. They were taken by forces of darkness and corrupted and tempted and yeah, they've been around for a long time, but it's been under the influence of this evil. They never grew up.

<snip>

Your error here is in thinking that we don't hold children to the same moral standards as adults, we do. Stealing, lying, killing, racism etc etc are held as being just as morally wrong for children as they are for adults.

(edit) Managed to cut out my section on legal responsibility - which is primarily where we differentiate between children and adults. Legal responsibility is what defines what criminal charges can be brought and what punishments are fitting for a crime committed by children as against the same act committed by an adult (end edit)

The latitude that is given is not on the grounds of moral responsibility it is on the grounds that children lack the full knowledge and experience to understand all the complexities of societal interaction and the possible consequences of morally incorrect actions. Therefore society tries to educate rather than directly punish, the action remains morally wrong but the punishment given is mitigated by the youth of the offender (i.e. society shows mercy in the hope of instilling responsibility). However if the offences are repeated the severity of the punishment increases within the norms of the society and this principle is applies to children just as it is to adults even if the form of punishment is denial of playstation time (3 days and running) rather than a prison sentence.

If a child was a serial killer (ignoring the fact that in our world this would be physically unlikely) would you object to a sentence of life without parole. And child killers have been sent to prison in many societies as they are adjudged to be morally responsible for their actions, especially when it involves premeditation, but again the emphasis is placed more on re-education than punishment.

And you are also incorrect by stating that they are children. Mental and therefore moral maturity is far more a product of life experience rather than of the relatively minor physiological changes that happen to the brain as the body matures. These beings had lived for many years and committed many evil acts, this seperates them from true children who might commit a single evil act.

As to the killing or subduing question if you start with the presumption that the Paladin did not have the metagame knowledge of exactly how their domination power worked and its DC's (although he DID know that it was a single domination effect rather than 24 separate effects) then the decision to kill rather than subdue made the best tactical sense.

Lessening the number of opponents would obviously reduce the risk of successful domination of the entire party and if one is expecting multiple attacks then the faster you eliminate the enemy the fewer attacks you have to resist, striking to subdue reduces the speed at which the enemies numbers are reduced, as common sense would tell the paladin (mathematically 3 PCs with a average melee attack of +5 vs AC 11 would take 11 rounds dealing lethal damage and 15 rounds dealing nonlethal damage, and that is assuming all saves are made).

Most low level characters would realise that 3 against 24 is a very risky proposition and that there would be a reasonable chance that this fight would not be won so striking to kill is the far better tactic as it leaves fewer enemies for the next group to deal with. Subduing them would in all probability mean that the party loses, the children recover and then next group face 24 demonic children plus the party, killing them means maybe a dozen demonic children plus the party to be dealt with.

Now if there had been 3 or 4 children then subdual would be the best tactic, but against 24 lethal attacks are the only justifiable course.

 

[RigaMortus]

Hack, hack, hack... Don't people use Diplomacy checks anymore? Of all people, I would think the Paladin could have talked his way out of this bad-situation before relying on brute force. Was Diplomacy even attempted?

Seems to me that the Paladin took the easy route, which was to kill first and ask questions later. Isn't the Paladin supposed to be held to a higher standard?

 

[Voadam]

The more ambiguous the original situation the more carefully one should proceed in their solution.
If those children had been possessed... then an effort should have been made to try and save them.

Hagy

Conversely, the more dangerous the situation appears involving evil threats, the more need for immediate, unhesitating action.

Unknowns increase the potential threat here, not decrease it, calling for immediate use of overwhelming force to stop the evil.

I think the party knew the cultists had made pacts with infernal beings for powers including mind control.

I think the paladin knew they had killed innocents before in a repeating pattern after dominating and using innocents.

They did not know if this power was like a spell that needed line of sight, casting, etc.

They did not know if it was permanent.

They did not know if these cultists had other powers to draw upon and make things worse.

Proceeding slowly with half measures seems foolish in this situation and not required to be good or follow the code.

 

[Chasmodai]

Higher standard, higher schmandard. I'm not trying to be insulting here (I do agree that they have to hold themselves to a higher standard), but can't Paladins make mistakes? They are human after all (Aasimar in this case, but you get my drift).

How do you Diplomacy a group of kids who just took mental control of Friar Tuck and would do the same to you in, oh about 12 seconds? Oh wait, they did try. Should I still Diplomacy them, knowing that they would try again in another 12 seconds?

Or should I take a more direct action? Should he have killed them? Maybe. The fact of the matter is that he did. He made a decision based on the situation and he acted. Okay, he made the wrong decision, is that his fault?

Yes, to a certain extent. A Paladin might be a man blessed by God(s), but he is not omnipotent. He can still make mistakes, choose the wrong road. I get the feeling that a lot of you are unable to accept this fact. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Is he evil? If the answer to this question is yes, then I we're all Chaotic Evil people, with little to no hope of redemption.

The Paladin is a Holy Warrior, a Servant of the Gods!

The Barbarian is a Raging Whirlwind of Death!

Both of these people can, if they choose to, kill those children or subdue them by using the flat of their blades (or their fists, or whatever).

Its a matter of choice, a matter of roleplaying your character the way you see it. Wasn't it written down somewhere that there is no right or wrong way to roleplay? After all, it is your character; no one knows him/her better than you do.

Barsoomcore: Children though they may be, remember Isaac Newton - Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This does not only apply to Physics.

The children made their move, the Paladin made his. He chose to punish them (for it his right to do so), and he punished them by chopping them down. Alright, so its harsh - however, the Paladin had no evil intent here. He wanted to remove the threat he saw before him, simple as that. The only thing can might have been clouding his judgement is anger.

And wasn't it also said that anger is the human's first emotion? (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm fishing here...)

And do not give me that Yoda BS. The green muppet himself made mistakes, as did Obi-Wan Kenobi, and they're sorta like Paladins too. Heck, the Boy Scout 20/Paladin 20 himself (and I'm talking about Superman here) is not infallible.

That's my 2 copper pieces worth. I'm not trying to say 'I'm right, you're wrong' , I'm simply trying to point out something that everyone seems to blissfully ignore.

Have fun moral debating.