Surrender != death (Forked Thread: Intimidate in combat)

[Flipguarder]

So the party kills an orc chief who surrenders and is then supposed to feel bad for the orc's family? In a great many campaigns with clearly defined evil races this just isn't the case. The kill things and take thier stuff focus of the game sort of assumes a black and white type of morality.

I know individual campaigns will vary and moral dilemmas can make for great campaign drama so I think leaving such things to the DM is a good decision.

I never said orc, so please stop putting words in my mouth and then calling it ridiculous.

Obviously that option would be used in a more sympathetic situation. For instance a group of humans attack you and you later find out that a dragon convinced them you were evil and attempting to kill their children or something. Obviously if this were the kind of circumstance I was talking about earlier in which the pcs were not doing evil, but eliminating an evil being it wouldn't work out since feeling sorry for a devil or orc's family would prove difficult to impart upon a party.

And besides I'm just brainstorming, theres no reason to get so argumentative about it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I never said orc, so please stop putting words in my mouth and then calling it ridiculous.

Obviously that option would be used in a more sympathetic situation. For instance a group of humans attack you and you later find out that a dragon convinced them you were evil and attempting to kill their children or something. Obviously if this were the kind of circumstance I was talking about earlier in which the pcs were not doing evil, but eliminating an evil being it wouldn't work out since feeling sorry for a devil or orc's family would prove difficult to impart upon a party.

And besides I'm just brainstorming, theres no reason to get so argumentative about it.

I never said that you said orc, or called anything ridiculous, please point out evidence to the contrary. My point was that morality issues really are not part of the mechanical function of a skill.

 

[Flipguarder]

I never said that you said orc, or called anything ridiculous, please point out evidence to the contrary. My point was that morality issues really are not part of the mechanical function of a skill.

Being asked to make a list of possibilities for story lines involving a previously surrendered enemy, I provide the option you quoted.

Taking that option, you provide the example of orc, and then assume my plan should apply to it. Then you go on to say that that doesn't make sense for the pcs to feel bad for the family.

So no, you didn't say that I said orc or call me ridiculous. But you did use poor logic to make my idea seem worse.

Obviously none of those ideas will work in all campaigns, I was simply trying to brainstorm some possibilities for story options and it seemed to me that you were intent on unnecessarily invalidating them. That's the only reason I'm feeling defensive.

 

[Creamsteak]

One mans devils and drow are not another mans devils and drow. In some games, a very clear divide seperates the good guys from the bad guys, and killing bad guys might always be the right thing to do. And in another game, anyone can be redeemed, any action might have both good and evil components, and there are rough choices.

Nobody is going to win an argument where you're trying to convince the other guy that the way they deal with these issues is wrong. It's not a rules discussion at that point. There's nothing to be won on either side.

One thing I'm not understanding at this point is whether we are debating what the rules actually do, or what the rules should do? If it's what they actually do... then I think Nail has the right of it. If it's what they should do... that's going to vary from group to group, campaign to campaign, player to player.

 

[N0Man]

I say again in a world where devils, aberrations, demons and races that have wanted nothing more than the complete obliteration of eachother (drow and elves), your idea of chivalry and honor derived from this world may not be considered good.

See, this kind of stuff keeps getting brought up and twisting what I've been saying and clouding the subject.

Here are the points that I've been trying to make:

• Offering enemies a surrender, and then taking advantage of that surrender in order to attack them while they are defenseless is a Chaotic and dishonorable act (regardless of whether it is evil or not).
• Using this on opponents that wouldn't realistically surrender (such ruthless hate-filled creatures bent on destruction of everything) because you know by RAW it should work, regardless of whether it makes sense, is Metagaming.
• Using these tactics in situations where it is clearly evil but justifying them because there are no rules to dictate alignment is Metagaming.

The range of examples that keep coming up tend to chaotic, evil, metagaming, or a combination of 2 or more of those things, which means it's not in the spirit of heroic roleplay, which is really what I'm thinking.

 

[Flipguarder]

1. Pcs can be chaotic and dishonorable while still being heros.
2. You still haven't given me any good reason on why creatures completely bent towards destruction can't surrender. I'm not metagaming, Im role-playing. I don't even WANT to use this skill option as written, I just want to point out that your decision on this idea of evil creatures not surrendering is complete arbitrary opinion.
3. Not all D&D characters are good, this is ok.

I think the real question we should be asking here is:

Can evil people be heroes?

 

[Regicide]

I say again in a world where devils, aberrations, demons and races that have wanted nothing more than the complete obliteration of eachother (drow and elves), your idea of chivalry and honor derived from this world may not be considered good.

Obliterating each other, yeah, that doesn't describe France and England at all... noooo.... And lets not even mention the crusades, the mongol hordes. If you didn't believe in X god or be of Y race, you weren't even considered human. Women as property, can you murder property?

Letting someone live who is by their very nature evil could actually be considered an evil act in itself. Things are not as simple as they would be in 1200s england.

D&D Fight Club: The Succubus Paladin

 

[Flipguarder]

Obliterating each other, yeah, that doesn't describe France and England at all... noooo.... And lets not even mention the crusades, the mongol hordes. If you didn't believe in X god or be of Y race, you weren't even considered human. Women as property, can you murder property?

Are England and France two races that have been killing each other for hundreds of years or more since their creation? Have they hated each other almost without exception forever?
And at the end of the day, we all can change, aberrations, demons and devils cannot. Though yes elves/drow are the weak point of my previous statement.

D&D Fight Club: The Succubus Paladin

Honestly? I don't say this much but TL;DR. Maybe if you hinted at some sort of a point.

EDIT: read it, so what? it says itself

"Eludecia knows that she can never purge herself completely of her evil nature without magical aid, but for now, she shuns such help because she is determined to "make it on her own." Thus, she must fight each and every day to avoid slipping back into her evil ways. Thus far, she has succeeded admirably."

Does NOT change the fact that she is evil by nature.

 

[Regicide]

Does NOT change the fact that she is evil by nature.

So you're of the opinion that when you walk into town you do a detect evil and slay everything that pops up? Or do you think that a human who murders for pleasure should be allowed to live, but a demon, despite being a (lawful good) paladin, should be slain out of hand?

 

[Flipguarder]

Everybody has an unlimited hunting permit for creatures from the abyss and the nine hells. I kid... but seriously:


You act as though IM the one making the blanket statement and all you have to do is come up with one exception to prove I'm wrong. NOMan is attempting to say that killing someone who has surrendered to you can NEVER be accepted by PC's.
I'm willing to say that a creature born evil can through some twisted sense of love attempt to act in a "good" way. This does not change the fact that this is an aberration in an ocean of evil. And I'm attempting to say that there is at least ONE situation out there where a creature could surrender and would be evil enough to justify killing after the surrender and have it not be an evil act.