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

[RC Hagy]

At this point, given how often the "child" arguement keeps comming up, I'm going to echo the sentiments of other posters:

If the "children" showed their true age, instead of physically looking like children, this wouldn't be an issue now.

But they did not show their true age. Which is why so many
horses have been gone through...

What is the point of having an encounter like that, just to make it 'easy' on
the participants?

ForceUser, apparently, wanted a moral quandry (hope I used that correctly)...
and he sure as heck got one.

Hagy

 

[Voadam]

Originally Posted by RC Hagy

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



Ah, yet even the portion of my post you quote does not imply half measures.



The more unknowns the more knowledge one should gain to more
effectively combat a threat. The party knew to little and got taken out.
ForceUser was quite nice, I would have had the dominated party wake up
after they had 'helped' the rats. From what many have written domination
is not even an excuse... the Paladin would be in even more doo-doo by that
standard.



Children being dooped do to a child's impulsivness and shortsightedness?
They became cultists... they did not start out that way. A fine
distinction which the decades of evil invalidated... still something one
should have considered... if there was time, which there turned out
not to be.



I think the children were used... at the beginning... the repeated killings
are why what happened, in the end, is tolerable. Evil must be vanquished.



All the more reason to regroup and formulate a good plan... hells even a
bad one, especially since a plan breaks down after the first five seconds. Not
having a plan means one must rely on luck when the 'expletive' hits the
blade barrier.



Standing around to get repeatedly tagged, and most likely ending up used
for what you are trying to prevent from happening again, is not a good way to find out.



I seem to remember a 'blasted' door and a companion lying unconcious'
being mentioned...
Always assume something is behind the next door, paranoia is ones friend.



Again, I never advocated half measures.
Subduing (not subdual) is not a half measure.
Waiting is not a half measure.
Killing is not usually a half measure... here it was.

A threat is now, probably, able to return due to a lack of information
gathered. As I have stated in a couple other posts things happened fast,

Subdue, Wait or Kill were the only options. The paladin was alone he made
a choice... it is between him and his god... which happens to be the DM.


Hagy

Are you saying he should have stepped back, not engaged the escaping evil so he could gather more information to better handle the threats when he did confront them?

My understanding was the paladin had some information they were evil, dangerous, a threat to innocents, and they were escaping right then. Stepping in to try to stop them cold, even though he doesn't have full information about them, seems an iconic paladin action.

 

[Numion]

But they did not show their true age. Which is why so many
horses have been gone through...

What is the point of having an encounter like that, just to make it 'easy' on
the participants?

ForceUser, apparently, wanted a moral quandry (hope I used that correctly)...
and he sure as heck got one.

Hmph. Back to the 'cute = good, ugly = evil' argument?

I can't see how that's a moral quandry. That's just naive.

The paladin didn't take the easy way out - he took the only way out. Which proved to be dead end, because the encounter really had no ways out.

Or would someone really suggest that polymorphing into children was a protection against all paladins? Sounds like lawful stupid to me ..

 

[takyris]

Hey, all,

We've been doing a good job of keeping this civil. Let's keep it up.

A lot of the argument/disagreement comes from two main points:

1) Are decades-old immortal children still children? This is a question only the DM can answer. If they are physically young but mentally have advanced into twisted cultist-adults, then they should be treated like adults, just like a 40-year-old who polymorphed himself into a kid. If the demon's gift bestowed them with eternal childishness, then they are no more mature than they were when they were originally tempted, and were arguably misled, like a child used by his parents as a naive accomplice in some horrific crime. I don't think there are absolutes here one way or the other -- as a Player, I could imagine a situation where my PC would still feel compelled to try to redeem the "child-looking adults" or still feel it necessary to try to kill the "child-minded cultists". But in general terms, I'd be more inclined to kill the children if they were 40-year-olds mentally, only spoiled and immature, than I would if they were still mentally 8-year-olds who had been stopped from mental growth by the demon's gift.

2) How much freedom of choice did the children have after accepting the original bargain? If they continued to have free will, then the fact that they were children when originally making the bargain ceases to be exculpatory unless, as noted in 1), they were stuck with childlike minds -- you are fine in prosecuting a 40-year-old murderer, even if he says that he learned to do it as a child. If they lost their free will, then they are only responsible for their original choice, which was morally wrong, yes, but only a single ethical slip, made by someone who arguably was capable of being tricked or fooled into making that choice. This raises a different question: If you make an ethical mistake as a child but are now an adult, how should you be punished? If there were no statue of limitations on theft, and I stole $1000 as an eight-year-old, and the crime was discovered when I was 25, would I be charged as the eight-year-old (who would get community service hours) or the adult (who might well spend time in jail)?

Rather than knowingly evil cultists, the picture that I'm seeing painted is of children who made one mistake and who were then taught, via positive reinforcement and conscious education, to value a different set of ethics. The demon crafted these spoiled-but-not-murderous children into horrific cultists in much the same way that an evil animal handler could, over a period of several months, turn an aggressive-but-not-mean dog into a vicious killer trained to go for the throat upon command.

Note that, in the United States, the fact that the dog is not responsible for being trained into what it eventually became does not mean that we don't kill the animal. Tragic as it is that someone would train an animal in such a way, it is now an obvious threat to health and human safety and must be eliminated.

Of course, in the United States, we don't have access to the Atonement spell.

 

[Carnifex]

This raises a different question: If you make an ethical mistake as a child but are now an adult, how should you be punished? If there were no statue of limitations on theft, and I stole $1000 as an eight-year-old, and the crime was discovered when I was 25, would I be charged as the eight-year-old (who would get community service hours) or the adult (who might well spend time in jail)?

Remember that in a medieval setting, the punishments are going to be considerably more brutal. Death is not that hard to get condemned to, especially considering a situation in which you're committing demonic evils.

A thief might have his hand cut off or otherwise mutilated so he wont steal again. An individual with mental powers? The best way to nullify that threat and inflict punishment is execution.

 

[Olive]

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.

I'm not sure why you're quoting me here. I have no desire to discuss the real church, I have a desire to discuss the set up of ForceUser's game world.

 

[Tzarevitch]

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

So you are implying the more dangerous the situation the less you need to think about the best way to handle it?

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

That statement doesn't make sense. You don't automatically react to an unknown threat with overwhelming force. That is tactically stupid and leaves you vulerable to traps and feints. You react to an unknown threat by determining the extend of the threat. Then you determine the extend of the response needed.

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.

Again, failure to determine the extent of the danger is not an excuse. A 1st level protection from evil would protect you from mind control then you could disable them at your leisure. And very few abilities do not require at least a line of effect (if not line of sight). If you think about it, if they were that powerful then the party was doomed the minute they entered range.

It sounds to me that there were probably better ways to deal with the children that would both have allowed them to be taken (mostly) alive and would have been safer for the PCs. If you are dealing with them inside then it may be possible to use the passageways and doors to contain them and limit their ability to move about or get at you or anyone else. Outside, missile weapons at long-ish ranges are your friend. A bow, or a crossbow should be able to drop them into negatives with a hit without killing them so long as you don't crit and get a good roll.

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

That makes no sense. "I had to kill him because I didn't know what he could do."

It is possible that the party or the players had some idea that the children had other powers but that has not come out that I have seen. Barring that, you can't argue that killing them is justified simply because it is POSSIBLE that they may be able to do something else.

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

Again the implication that taking your time and generating a plan is somehow a bad idea. Now, bear in mind I am not necessarily criticising the decision the paladin made to kill the evildoers. I am criticising this particular argument on why they charged in and did it. It may be that cutting them down really was the only way to deal with them but it doesn't sound to me like anything else was really tried beyond "kill them all and let the gods sort them out" and THAT is not paladin-ly. The paladin code is not a document that requires only adherence to the letter without regard to the circumstances. If that was the case, paladins would be LN not LG.

20+ kids with dominate abilities statistically will clean that party's clock if they charge in there and try to hack them down without a good plan. Barring very good saves they are going to loose. My objection isn't so much with killing the Children of the Corn but with the lack of plan that led up to it. The party seems to have plowed headfirst into a fight with the odds stacked against it then realized the only way out was to kill the children to stop them and save themselves (and finally have the DM come to their rescue). That is not noble, that was simply a poor plan and not just on the paladin's part.

Tzarevitch

 

[Dragonblade]

Good post snipped for brevity.

Nice post!

It would have been nice if the paladin could have stopped time, analyzed the situation completely from every possible angle, communed with his deity, and had an extended ecclesiastic tribunal to determine the proper course of action.

But alas, he had to make a decision in about 10 seconds of time.

Even if the children had been possessed and not willing parties to fiendish agents, the paladin made the best decision he could given the time and information he had.

To continually second guess his decision, or even punish him based on some lengthy ecclesiastical proceeding that has infinite time to pore over all the facts and angles of the situation, would be grossly unfair and unjust.

Like someone posted earlier, even a paladin who inadvertantly kills innocents based on the best available information he has and the immediate situation at the time, is not evil. Just tragically mistaken. The paladin's own remorse and regret is the only punishment needed.

No deity or church could possibly hold a paladin accountable for information he has no way of knowing or acting on. Or hold him accountable for split-second decisions that in hind-sight may not have been the best option. Higher standard, yes. Impossible standard, no.

 

[drnuncheon]

The punishment must fit the crime.

Exactly right!

And the punishment for selling your soul to evil powers, mentally enslaving multiple villages, and sacrificing their inhabitants should be...what? A stern talking-to?

J

 

[Nail]

Paladin gets my vote.

Funny how as the thread goes on, and more of the story comes out from both sides, that the paladin's side gets more and more acceptable.

Forceuser: good for you for taking this monster thread with such good humor. Game on, man.