The "orc baby" paladin problem

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's finally come up in my Midwood campaign (OK, I finally made it come up ):

After dispatching a pair of murderous river trolls (scrags) in their underwater cave, the party discovered a series of water-filled barrels brought to the area by the trolls. Each contains a scrag tadpole. The paladin sees them registering as evil, but he also doesn't believe they will be a threat for quite some time.

The rest of the party wants to dispatch them. The paladin is aghast at killing helpless tadpoles. He's normally pretty practical, although he's also extremely idealistic (his fondness for Superman has served him well, IMO).

So, what would your paladins do in this situation? As a DM, what's your read on the spiritual burden on a paladin, depending on his actions?

 

[Crothian]

I like D&D to be heroic and I find placing the PCs in a situation they have to perhaps kill kids and babies is very not heroic.

My paladin would kill them since they do register as evil. As a DM I would have no issues with that take.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

When you find a nest of rattlesnakes in your house, you kill them all, including the babies.

 

[pawsplay]

Killing them is a neutral action. On the one hand, they are motivated by a reasonable fear of the suffering those creatures will bring. On the other hand, it's not a good act, since they are not respecting the lives of innocent creatures. The act, in itself, won't cause a fall from a state of Good, but repeated instances could eventually result in an alignment slide.

However, killing an innocent, even an evil one, who poses no threat, is a violation of the paladin Code of Conduct under all but the direst circumstances. For a paladin to slay a creature that poses no threat, the creature must at the very least be guilty of something and likely to do something evil again, and slaying must be one of the best alternatives available under the circumstances.

Loss of paladin powers until atonement. The paladin should strenuously prevent the act by others, even defending the creatures with force, but is not beholden to join in mortal combat on their behalf. In other words, he should wrestle the wizard, but he can back down with a clean conscience if the wizard warms up a fireball.

That's my take.

 

[painandgreed]

IMC, a paladin's job is to lawfully hunt down and cleanse evil. That's their job. Killing the tadpoles would be the norm (although as good, the paladin would take no pleasure in such work). If he thought they could be redeemed by either setting them free, taking them to other authorities, or raising them himself, it's his choice to make. He would be taking responsiblity for their further actions to some extent by such actions however.

 

[DMH]

That depends on you. Are troll, orcs and such inately (sp?) evil or is it just a cultural thing. If the former, the paladin should just walk away and let the butchers* deal with them. If the later, he should take them to somewhere they can be brought up "correctly". Heck, temples could be filled with all kinds of odd races as they wage the war against evil with words.

*My term for typical adventurers. Murdering and looting is not heroic. And I am not going to argue with anyone over it either.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like D&D to be heroic and I find placing the PCs in a situation they have to perhaps kill kids and babies is very not heroic.

The campaign's run a year now and this is the only serious paladin code issue that's come up. I don't want to make a player's life hell for playing a paladin -- I love that this group is doing the grand heroic stuff, which later chapters of the Midwood Story Hour will show -- but I also want to occasionally make it clear that it's a tough path for him to follow. Emmerson prays for guidance both before and after adventures quite regularly.

 

[Raloc]

As far as I'm concerned, if the creature in question isn't sentient, it can't (by definition) be evil. So, personally I wouldn't have had them register as evil, though killing them for no reason would be. I find the "paladins can be evil (kill babies and innocents as in the above example) as long as they're hypocrites" methodology of playing paladins to be absurd in the extreme.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Depends, depends, depends. This is one of those questions that should be worked out in advance by the DM and the players, specifically as follows:

1) Are "evil" humanoids like orcs and goblins (a) genetically *EEEEVIL* (like demons, or like JRRT's orcs), (b) generally predisposed to evil behavior, or (c) the product of evil cultures? IF the latter, or even the second, orc babies probably wouldn't register as evil to the smackdown radar.

2) Does Lawful Good and/or the paladin's CoC require him to preserve the life of all beings, even those who *might* be dangerous, if they pose no immediate danger to anyone?

3) If 1(b) or (c) above is true, then is refusing to save the babies a non-Good act?

I think one can answer all of those questions in advance. IMC, for instance (although I don't use the D&D alignment system, orcs, goblins, etc. are *not* necessarily evil by nature. Infants of those races certainly aren't. Orc babies could be brought back to civilization and raised in an orphanage or the like. But such is not true of all campaigns.

 

[Dragolen]

Nothing is born innately evil. It grows up and learns to be evil. So those tads should not have registered being evil.

Dragolen