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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 194878" data-attributes="member: 1106">As of 2E or 1E, you would have been right on this point, but not any more - and your argument hinges on it a bit.They're "Usually Lawful Evil" which means over 50% of the race will be evil.  I'm pretty sure some good characters would be unable to justify the risk of killing a single hobgoblin baby of good alignment, even though his brothers and sisters were going to turn out evil.  Others would be outright unable to bring themselves to kill sentient innocents (which children pretty much are by default), regardless of what they might turn out to be and do.Odds are that the party possibly cut down some adult hobgoblins who were good or neutral in alignment in their attack on the lair - this is different moral territory to the children because they were probably opposing the PCs, and therefore a threat that needed to be dealt with.  The children are not an immediate threat, but possibly may be some time down the line - so different moral rules apply.  This may seem to be splitting hairs, but there's all the moral difference in the world between "immediate, definite threat" and "possibly a threat sometime in the future".Being "good" means that you have to make decisions on whether an individual's rights are outweighed by the "common good", or vice versa.  That's one of the choices which some good characters will find easy, and others will find hard, and that's the essence of a moral dilemma.  In this case, the "common good" is to kill the hobgoblins in case they become evil murderers as adults.  The principles of good alignment in opposition to this are an individual's rights, such as an innocent's right to live, and the possibility that not all of the hobgoblin children will turn out as predicted.Under such circumstances, I can envision good aligned characters who would justifiably have killed the children, or let them go - and as a DM I would err on the side of the former resolution being the more questionable.  However, I think that few good alignment characters who truly deserve the title would escape with a clear conscience, no matter what side of the decision they fell on.</blockquote>

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