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

[nimisgod]

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Originally Posted by nimisgod
Some people get stuck on the holy warrior part and forget the rest of the package. It's not all shiny sword and smiting (unless you want your game to be like that. In that case, it's all about the shiny sword and smiting )
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We could go around and around with this one.

No, really? You're the one who brought back mention of the Holy Warrior. In fact, you seem especially fixated by it. Of course, that's how you view paladins so we can just agree to disagree shall we?

 

[Tsyr]

Strawman. They lost not because they tried subdual damage. They lost because of sheer numbers. Not even a paladin could take 24 will saves.

I said earlier that this could've been handled better (then again, I wasn't there to say that). When facing that many children, there are many tactics one could try.

Remember. Hacking them down didn't save him either. Even if their companions did the same, without some kind of tactics vs. their superior numbers, the PCs would've been overpowered anyway.

We don't know it wouldn't have saved them. And everyone that fell was one less someone else would be killed by or posessed later. Sometimes all you can do is make a dent. It sucks if you get pushed into that position, but it happens. Whereas bopping them with the flat of your blade if your doomed does nothing.

Agreed the tactics sucked, and the whole situation was less than ideal. But you have to do what you have with what you got. The paladin tried to make a difference, even if he couldn't win. The companions made no lasting difference.

 

[takyris]

Cannot risk attempting what? A simple -4 to strike for subdual against creatures with an AC of 10-11 and 2-4 hp (assuming that they are indeed just physically children)? Just using your bare fists would knock the buggers out.

While you make a convincing point, remember that:

a) This is a 2nd-level paladin. He can easily miss AC 10 or 11 if he's taking a -4
b) The paladin did not initially know that these were actual physical children. Their rites and rituals could have given them grotesque demony armor.
c) If these creatures have magical abilities, such magical abilities could include healing. Using subdual damage opens up the possibility that the evil little punks start healing each other, and that the now-again-conscious people unload yet more Dominaton spells.
d) As it actually occured, the party was TPC'd (Total Party Captured). So the
paladin's thought of "they are a serious threat" turned out to be accurate.

RE: My analogy of the kid with the gun:

False analogy. You aren't a holy warrior commited to compassion, altruism, righteousness, whatever. We're talking about (supposedly) a holy warrior that is supposed to be the paragon of goodness and righteousness. Larger than life, even.

Actually, as a martial artist who meditates, donates money to charities even when he's short on money himself, participates in volunteer community services, and practices Reiki... I am a holy warrior commited to compassion, altruism, and righteousness. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Knife-wielding cultists do not necessarily have the physique of a child (and thus easily disabled).

Good point. On the other hand, the D&D-world difference between an AC11 adult with 5 hit points and an AC11 child with 4 hit points is... 1 hit point. And the cultist can have his knife taken away by a disable attempt, which probably evens it out.

You're right, of course -- I was oversimplifying to make my point. But I still stand by that point.

But I do see all of your points. Ultimately, I think the scenario wasn't handled too well by both parties. The GM should've made clear the Paladin's code in his game. The players could've (or maybe not) used a less direct approach on subduing/defeating the evil children.

Ditto. The DM could have thought of the issues a bit more and bent to see the player's point of view. The player, upon being told the way the world worked, could have adjusted -- or asked, "Does my paladin know that, having been trained by the church? Are you telling me what all paladins should know?", in order to clarify the issue. This is what I would do if, as a druid, I sat down to start munching on some roast venison and was told by the DM that I'd just lost my spells for the day for violating my oath to protect nature -- if, as a druid, I'm supposed to be vegetarian, but the DM never told me (the player) that, then the DM is equally at fault. And if, as the player, I disagreed with the DM about whether protecting nature means being vegetarian (which, for the record, I don't -- the food chain is a part of nature, after all, and I only brought it up as a random hypothetical point (although I, Takyris, am vegetarian)), I would wait until a break between sessions to argue my point -- and at the time, I would go along with the DM's ruling. It is, after all, his world. I'm just one person in it. If I have a real complaint, he might edit it to make me happy (by saying, "Okay, good point, you can be a druid and still eat meat, provided it was wild game that was caught, not domesticated animals that lived in captivity", for example), or he might at least make his point clear.

 

[Tsyr]

No, really? You're the one who brought back mention of the Holy Warrior. In fact, you seem especially fixated by it. Of course, that's how you view paladins so we can just agree to disagree shall we?

I'm not so much fixated with it as I am dismayed by how many people seem to forget it entierly, but that's another arguement.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Wow, everyone seems to be on the "They're not children, they're evil cultists" bandwagon.

Is a child held responsible for its acts? Can a child be expected to resist the temptations of a demonic power?

Here's a quote from the original post for you...

In truth, the children had long ago made a deal with a fiend - in exchange for periodic sacrifices, the fiend granted them immortal childhood and certain unholy powers, including the ability to dominate the minds of adults. Using these powers, they would then insinuate themselves into a community, make the adults meet their every demand, and then upon bleeding their benefactors dry, sacrifice them to their dark patron

Right.

The children made the deal with a devil LONG AGO. This means that they've been doing this for a long time.

So, what makes them children? Their physique? Does this mean, conversely, that children with progeria (to give a RL example) should be considered adults? Obviously the answer is "no," as it should be with the first question. A demon with the appearance of a child is still a demon.

These murdering little bastards are decades old. Unless you truly believe that physical form denotes maturity, there is really no way to think of them as 'children' in any sense of the word.

So, smite away!

-F

 

[Tsyr]

Stupid double post thingy.

 

[Tsyr]

Wow, everyone seems to be on the "They're not children, they're evil cultists" bandwagon.

Is a child held responsible for its acts? Can a child be expected to resist the temptations of a demonic power?

In the eyes of some? No. Children are stupid little lumps of flesh that can't think for themselves and can never be responsible for their own actions no matter what.

I don't see it that way.

Evil sucks. Evil can be found everwhere. Evil can posess children. Children can do evil things. And sometimes you might have to do something you find distasteful because of that. It's not pleasant, but it happens.

Guess what?

Too bad.

Evil doesn't play fair.

And *yes*, you do have to hold children responsible for their actions at some point. And besides, these WEREN'T children really anymore. They just looked like children.

It seems the forces of darkness need only travel about, possessing or otherwise corrupting young'uns, and pretty soon (since said young'uns are to be exterminated when found by the Good Guys) there'll be no more young'uns left. If paladins are not here to protect children from evil, who is?

On the flip side, it seems all the forces of darkness need do is posess or take the form of little kiddies and they become untouchable.

 

[Carnifex]

If they had been fighting a band of dretch with mind-controlling powers, there'd be no question about the paladin killing the enemy, would they? Yet because they're fighting old, fiendishly minded beings of significant and entirely evil-sourced power, who have spent decades perfecting their parasitic destruction of communities from within and are at least, if not more, intelligently evil than a stupid dretch, but *they look like children*, there seems to be a great deal more eagerness to spare them.

Again I say - there was nothing to be gained from sparing them, and everything to be gained in terms of protecting the innocent by killing as many as possible of them.

 

[nimisgod]

Agreed the tactics sucked, and the whole situation was less than ideal. But you have to do what you have with what you got. The paladin tried to make a difference, even if he couldn't win. The companions made no lasting difference.

Pray tell, what evidence do you have?

Subdual damage pretty much knocks out a character below 0.

I'm not so much fixated with it as I am dismayed by how many people seem to forget it entierly, but that's another arguement.

No need to keep mentioning it then. I'm sure I got it well after the first time.

Unless, of course, you assume that most people are stupid. But that would be insulting, wouldn't it?

While you make a convincing point, remember that:

a) This is a 2nd-level paladin. He can easily miss AC 10 or 11 if he's taking a -4
b) The paladin did not initially know that these were actual physical children. Their rites and rituals could have given them grotesque demony armor.
c) If these creatures have magical abilities, such magical abilities could include healing. Using subdual damage opens up the possibility that the evil little punks start healing each other, and that the now-again-conscious people unload yet more Dominaton spells.
d) As it actually occured, the party was TPC'd (Total Party Captured). So the
paladin's thought of "they are a serious threat" turned out to be accurate.

a) Noted and Conceeded.
b) Well, it goes both ways. The demony armor would've probably been visible but I know what you mean. I think though that after the first child he hacked, he would've known that they're pretty much physically children.
c) Well, if we assume that, can we also assume that they have the power to raise their own dead? They were supposedly immortal after all... perhaps this should've warranted some more caution from the PCs.
d) Once again, it was more because of numbers than anything else. Short of a Feytouched, its hard to imagine anyone dealing with 24 will saves and succeeding.

 

[ForceUser]

Kids will be kids.

Let's see if I can clarify some things. First off, their powers were interdependant. The lot of them - all 24 - had to cooperate to issue telekinesis once per day, dominate person once every other round, and detect good at will. Individually, they were AC 11 and at 1 hit point each. For every two children slain or subdued, the DC of their supernatural attacks went down by 1. The original DC for the dominate effect was 14. The wizard, in fact, later killed half of them with a single burning hands before he was dominated by the remainder. The party suffered some very bad die rolls for their Will saves, unfortunately. I had not anticipated how greatly the dice would turn against them.

The design goal of the encounter had been to create a tense situation wherein the party had to fight off one or two of their own while dealing with the children. In retrospect, this would have worked much better if I had limited the Children of Ostwertz to only being able to do one or two dominates per day. I really wanted the party to have a fighting chance, while keeping the encounter tough, so I acknowledge that it was pretty bone-headed of me to give them a dominate attempt every other round. After all, they usually spent weeks insinuating themselves into a community. When the paladin mentioned he was going to strike down a devil-child, the barbarian had already subdued one of them. Perhaps that influenced my reaction, for it just felt wrong to me at that moment. Five minutes of heated discussion later, I relented, mostly because I was not as sure of my reaction as Blaine was of his correctness. Adjudicating morality is tougher than I thought. If they want to keep playing I'll keep trying, though.