The Neutral Good Thief (yes, he's a Rogue)

[Jolly Giant]

You don't care if your brother lives or dies? You stand idly by as your friends fight for their lives against an evil druid? You steal from shopowners and from whoever you happen to bump into? You shoot at a woman you don't want to fight because she happens to run past you?

DS, you're chaotic evil!

 

[Terraism]

Third thing; back in the sewers, the party comes across an alcove where a female druidess is hanging out. She apparantly lives there. I was talking to her at the time, and then the Paladin steps up and Detects Evil, and she is. So, now we're in combat, but I was still trying to talk to the woman, and she hadn't done anything to us to deserve being attacked. The party attacked, I readied my bow and waited until she actually did something to me to jump in. My PC's brother was disabled and groggy, I tossed a potion at him (not really caring whether he would catch it, or if it actually hit him and knocked him out. The potion was both stolen, and regardless of his being my brother, he had no business being there.) He withdrew from combat the next round, and to shorten the rest of the story the rest of the party nearly died but the Druidess ran away. When she ran past me (I never entered combat) I did take one shot at her, because she spooked me running right past like that.

If I was running your NG rogue, I probably would've attacked the druid the moment anyone in the party attacked the druid. Even if she was in the middle of giving me a recipe for Bumblebee Soup. My thinking is, Good alignment means you like/love/respect your fellow party members and want to kill their opponents, even if they were a little sword-happy about starting a battle.

So, if you're walking around with your friends, and one of 'em says, "hey, that guys bad! Let's get him!" you'd jump in and start beating on someone who hadn't done anything hostile? Because you like/love/respect your friends?

1. You know how "never split the party" is the first rule of Dungeon Club? The second rule of Dungeon Club is "all for one, one for all". Being able to play nice with the other PCs is a prime consideration for many groups, and part of that means jumping in when the fighting starts. Never mind your alignment, you can sort that out after dealing with whoever is trying to kill you.

You stand idly by as your friends fight for their lives against an evil druid?... You shoot at a woman you don't want to fight because she happens to run past you?

DS, you're Chaotic Evil!

So, I'm reading that DS is involved in peacefully talking to the druid, and the paladin says, "whoops, evil, kill!" and charges. DS's character tries to keep talking, until the druid is forced to defend herself from the rabid paladin, and DS is suddenly at fault for not joining in? C'mon, folks - I seem to remember (from numerous paladin threads) that most people tend to side on "detect evil" is not a license to kill. Am I the only one that thinks she did the right thing here?

(Now, this is with the interpretation - as I did - that the crossbow bolt she fired she rationalized, in game, as "startled and accidently pulled the trigger on someone that lunged at her." Since she's low-level, it makes perfect sense to me - it's how I read it the first time, anyway. DS, care to elaborate?)

 

[tonym]

So, if you're walking around with your friends, and one of 'em says, "hey, that guys bad! Let's get him!" you'd jump in and start beating on someone who hadn't done anything hostile? Because you like/love/respect your friends?...

Yes. In D&D, of course. That's what swell PCs do. Like Hong said.

If you mean would I do something like that in real-life....then, no.

Tony

 

[Sidekick]

Well, I don't know if I'd say that you're character is NG, sounds more like TN to me. But hey, it's your character not mine.

I also think that once the party had started to be wailed on by the druid, I would have jumped in. After all, I may not agree with their actions, but I don't want any of them to die, they're my friends.

Afterwards, I would respectfully point out to the Paladin that the next time they mindlessly detect evil on a random stranger & then p[rceed to put the party in a life threatening situation for no good reason you will get mightily agry with them. Try and get them to see that discretion (to a point) is the better part of valor.

Oh, and while I don't see stealing as necesarily bad (seeing as you are a rogue after all). too much of it and I'd be getting a bit suspicious as a DM.

 

[fnork de sporg]

Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. He's chaotic good. You rob from people you don't know to give to people you do know, and yourself. Mostly yourself it sounds like.



However this does not reflect upon your paladin's lack of social graces. For all he knew she was possesed, or carrying a powerful evil artifact to keep ti hidden, or suffering under an evil curse, or all kinds of things.
Detect Evil cannot be presented as evidence in court.

 

[Liquidsabre]

The paladin just committed an unlawful act (attacking without cause an unarmed foe) and if continues such a trend is in danger of losing said paladinship (either through making a bad mistake or being tricked lol). The rogue is playing CN "free spirit", not NG "Benefactor".

 

[Thanee]

Sorry, Thanee. I just removed your quote from my earlier post. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, but I see how it could look that way.

No harm done.

I just meant the response of the paladin by getting the 'evil' reading (charge and kill), not that he actually used his ability (which you seemed to have taken from my post, I have no real problem with the use of the ability and it certainly makes sense in that situation). It's just what he did based on this knowledge, after using the detect evil ability. And that would have consequences for him IMC.

About the charging in with your friends: As a NG character it would have been appropriate to stop them, not join in! Of course not by fighting them, but there are less violent ways... like talking to them.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Quasqueton]

Regarding the paladin's detect -> kill action:

We only have the rogue Player's very short description of what happened. And since he has shown a heavy bias and a twisted sense of morals, I don't think we can base a conclusion on the paladin based solely on this poster's comments.

The paladin may have had other reasons for attacking, and my not have done it solely because he detected evil.

Quasqueton

 

[Thanee]

Sure, I'm just stating what would happen IMC based on that description, taking it as what actually happened (detect evil with combat as a direct result).

If it was completely different... that's a different matter altogether.

Bye
Thanee

 

[drunkmoogle]

Just thought you Ennies would like the GM's perspective on this. I am reserving my opinions, but am attempting to clarify some events.

To be fair, the person who plays our Paladin was out; she was being controlled by another player. Although I'm pretty sure the response would have been the same.

Okie, here's the situation. The party went down into the sewers rat-hunting (hehe... 1st level) for alchemical ingredients. On their first run, they enountered a deadly Rat Swarm which got the surprise round on them. Clearing out the swarm, killing 75+ rats, they managed to gather enough rats to head back and heal up.

It was on their second run they encountered the Druidess, who introduced herself as Steph the Rat Queen and pronounced the entire sewers as her kingdom. It was a tense situation, but she never drew a weapon or raised her hands to cast a spell. Once the paladin detected evil, it was the person who won initiative (ironically, that was DS's IC brother) who lunged at the druidess.

Hint to other players: just because the GM asks for Init does not mean that combat starts and is unavoidable.

Turned out she was a lycanthrope after a round of battle. She went into her hybrid form and proceeded to kick mucho-butt. Her bite attack hit once on the monk (and in retrospect I should've rolled his fort save secretly) and almost hit the party's Barb. She fled not as a deus-ex dealie, but because she had 1HP left.

The party may have been thinking to launch a pre-emptive attack, because:
1) she's evil
2) she introduced herself as the rat queen, which means that she could possibly know about the party's genocide of her "kingdom"
3) she's utterly insane (I hope the players picked up on that)

but... she was not in an offensive stance (flat-footed) or casting spells. She was just very angry at the party.

As for DS's not joining in on the battle, he didn't necessarily attempt to persuade the characters out of battle either. In that case, it probably would've been useless, as the druidess was already in her lycanthropic form before his second action (he readied an ation to fire his Xbow if the druidess became offensive towards him).

So that was the general gist of it. The party aborted their mission, trying to stay away from the rat queen. They brought what few rats they got out of the second run and brought it to the alchemist (the same one DS stole from) and got paid half and they kept their leftover supplies (tanglefoot bag, some flasks of acid/alch fire).