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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 8021846" data-attributes="member: 79428">First, let me do some quoting from the Wikipedia article on bounty hunters:"A bounty hunter is a professional person who captures fugitives or criminals for a commission or bounty. Bounty hunters enjoy significant legal privileges, such as forcibly entering a defendant's home without probable cause or a search warrant; however, bounty hunters are legally exposed to liabilities that normally exempt agents of the state."Let's say a young green dragon has been getting his sycophantic kobold followers, enslaved lizardfolk and ogre minions, and a mysterious nothic ally to raid settlements and caravans for treasure and people to eat. An adventuring party was tasked to take care of the threat by representatives of the nearby city, assuming that this band of vigilantes would slay all these monsters and bring back the dragon's severed head as proof.Weeks later, the Lawful Good party returns to the city with a caravan of bound monsters they suspect are the culprits. Said suspects had attacked the party on sight, despite the party requesting that the suspects peacefully turn themselves in for questioning. Now the city has to figure out how to securely detain and feed a large, poison breathing dragon, two ogres, a nothic with dangerous gaze abilities, and dozens of other suspects. Evidence has to be collected, witnesses found, defense attorneys have to be assigned to the dragon and other creatures, trials have to be held, etc.Going by the laws of the Clovis Concord detailed in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (laws which do not include capital punishment even for murder, in contrast to its neighboring nations), let's say the young green dragon stands accused of:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">theft in the amount of 85,000 gp</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">15 counts of slave ownership</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">failure to pay taxes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">10 counts of damage to private property</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">5 counts of assault with intent to kill</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">22 counts of murder</li> </ul>If judged guilty on all counts, the young green dragon faces:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">200,170 gp in fines</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">repossession of wealth equal to unpaid taxes to the Clovis Concord</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">222 years, 195 days imprisonment</li> </ul>Even assuming that this young green dragon is six years old, the beginning point of its age category, by the time its sentence is over it will be 228 years old and in the adult category. At this point the now adult green dragon will possess lair actions while in his prison lair (summoning grasping roots, thorny bushes, fog that inflicts a short term charm affect). In addition, the region within a mile around the prison lair will spawn thicket mazes, and the adult green dragon will be able to see and hear through the eyes and ears of rodents and birds.So if the Clovis Concord is really serious about applying the law equally to a captured dragon, they'll need to construct a special prison in anticipation of the abilities their prisoner will eventually develop. Then they'll need to pay to keep the dragon fed for over two centuries. Even if the dragon doesn't escape on its own and isn't broken out by dragon-worshiping cultists or whatever during that entire time, what happens when the now adult green dragon's sentence is up and by law is free to go? Is it going to be a reformed Lawful Good adult green dragon, is it going to relish the newfound freedom to exercise the power it has gained as its grown to immediately go on a rampage, is it going to go off somewhere and amass an army to raze the countryside while it searches for its captors' descendants to systematically slaughter them?Realistically, I imagine that dragon is going to be mysteriously assassinated in its prison before it reaches the adult age category. Frankly, considering how much money and space keeping a single dragon imprisoned and fed would require (not to mention the martial and magical power needed to stop an escape attempt), I can't imagine it happens often at all, even in a place like the Clovis Concord where there is no such thing as capital punishment. Imprisoning hill giants and other such creatures would have their own challenges. Perhaps the Clovis Concord has an agreement with a legal authority comprised of good Metallic Dragons to extradite draconic criminals to? Similarly, does a legal authority of Storm Giants occassionally show up to take custody of criminal giants?Regardless, if the laws of the Clovis Concord do not use capital punishment for murder, should Lawful characters refrain from killing in self-defense? Should Good characters in general do so? What do these adventurers do with subdued opponents? Do they let them go, or should a Good adventuring party always prepare for the possibility that once they've defeated a villain that they'll be carting said villain and all their intelligent minions back to the local authorities? Will they need to expend resources buying sufficient means of transportation for the detained creatures, hirelings to help keep an eye on the detained creatures, and enough food and water for the party, their hirelings, and all the detained creatures, no matter how big the latter are and how much nourishment they require?D&D 5E, by RAW, allows a character who reduces an opponent to 0 HP with a melee attack to declare the attack was non-lethal. This can have an impact on a party looking to subdue rather than kill, as a ranger attacking with a bow or a wizard hurling a fireball is not allowed by RAW to say enemies reduced to 0 HP by these attack methods were nonlethal. A wizard, for example, would need to refrain from using damaging spells unless they knew the damage would not kill the target.Personally, I'm considering adjustments to the nonlethal damage rule. Rather than just letting a power attacking fighter with a greatsword deal a crit and say "it's okay, I attacked nonlethally", I think it would make more sense for an enemy reduced to 0 HP by such an attack have to make a Constitution save whose DC is 10 or the damage taken, whichever is higher, or die. Alternatively, I could say that downed enemies are considered to be making death saves that they normally always fail, giving the party a limited chance to stabilize creatures reduced to 0 HP by even arrows and fireballs. Just brainstorming here.I imagine there would be very few adventuring parties who would act this way. At best they'd subdue the villain they were hired to deal with and kill anyone who got in their way.Anyway, enough out of me for now. Feel free to weigh in on what I've written, alternatives I didn't consider, and whether or not you as a DM or as a player would bother with such things in the first place.</blockquote>

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