The "orc baby" paladin problem

[Hypersmurf]

In which case they'd show up as Neutral.

Well, that's a whole 'nother debate.

Is alignment a record of past deeds, or an indication of inclination and disposition?

Let's take a vicious Warrior Princess, who has led her armies rampaging across a continent spreading slaughter and misery, and delighting in every minute of it. Either way - record or inclination - she's Evil.

And then she has a revelation - meets someone who provides a good example, perhaps - and realises she has wasted her talents fighting for the wrong side. She resolves to atone for her past and become a champion of goodness... to make up for all the pain she caused by fighting evil and righting wrongs.

What is her alignment at this moment? You'll see people give three different answers.

1. Evil. She's been a bad girl, and she hasn't actually accomplished anything to balance that, despite her new resolution.

2. Neutral. She's sworn off evil, so she isn't one of the bad guys any more, but she's yet to prove that she can cut it on Team Good.

3. Good. If you gave her the choice right now between a bag of gold or saving the life of a peasant, she'd save the peasant... and that's the Good choice, not the Evil choice. Her past deeds were the acts of an Evil person, but she wouldn't commit those same acts any more.

Now, I personally favour the Inclination reading, so I'd say that having made her resolution sincerely, she is now good-aligned. (The Helm of Opposite Alignment, for example, describes the character as having a 'new outlook'. If alignment were simply a record of past deeds, it would have no effect on one's outlook...)

But what this means is that a troll baby, despite never having done anything evil in its life, could still be an evil creature... as long as its inclination would be to make an evil choice over a good one when such a situation might arise in the future.

Others disagree, though, and consider alignment a record... so the troll baby who hasn't done anything wrong yet is neutral, even if it's currently plotting how to escape its playpen and devour all the peasants in the nearby village.

-Hyp.

 

[painandgreed]

I disagree with the premise you can kill something simply because it's evil. Being good means respecting the lives of even evil things.

Correct, that's why paladins must also be lawful, to guide them in their decisions on when to kill evil or not. Guy walking down the street in a major city, probably not. Monsters in the wilderness that will not ever follow societies rules, probably.

 

[takyris]

True. I consider it a big messy mix, frankly. I'd put our Warrior Princess at Neutral, given that your line instantly hit my "Yes" button. You can instantly stop being Evil and climb to Neutral, but you have to EARN your way to Good. (Ideally with the help of a cute little strawberry-blond bard who's so good that it hurts.)

That's likely my Catholic background coming back to haunt me, though. I've got little interest in gods who aren't interested in forgiveness, and declaring that you're still smite-worthy even after a professed moment of clarity and atonement doesn't seem forgiving.

 

[Vanuslux]

A very convenient analogy...and the one used throughout history to justify genocide. X aren't people they are [insert your favorite reason why they are inferior creatures needing destruction]. Or if we don't kill the children of X they will just grow up to kill us.

Unless a sapient creature has no free will, and hence will invariably without fail grow up to follow the alignment listed in the monster manual, such analogies to animals are false ones. Although, that certainly has never stopped people in the real world from making them, believing them and acting on them.

That's not a very valid argument in this situation. This isn't a situation of simply ignoring the good of a people and focusing (and often wholly manufacturing) the evil of them to justify their destruction. These creatures aren't just culturally different...if they radiate Evil under Detect Evil from birth then they are monsters, not people. By RAW, Scrags aren't born evil but apparently in this DMs campaign they are so it's not just a weak excuse for genocide.

A creature being born radiating evil indicates to me that the potential for for good in the creature is so limited by its nature that it is extremely improbable under the best of circumstances that it would ever become good and it's unlikely that you'll ever find one that won't rend the flesh off the bone of any small child it finds and won't enjoy their screams of pain. I'm fairly sure that any society that's every promoted genocide could have easily found good and decent members of those people they wished destroyed. These scrags aren't just different from humans, they are factually ravening flesh-eating monsters by nature based on the fact that they radiate evil from birth.

 

[Whimsical]

Before I game with a DM that I don't know, one of the questions I ask is: Are orcs and other evil humanoids people or monsters?

If they are monsters, then it's like destroying undead and evil outsiders. Always a good act.

If they are people, then killing orc babies are murder.

When in doubt, cast augury. Your god will tell you.

 

[Hypersmurf]

You can instantly stop being Evil and climb to Neutral, but you have to EARN your way to Good.

Now, how about the other direction?

Hugo the Magnificent, Archmage Extraordinaire, has devoted his entire life to the service of others. With his natural affinity for magic, he could have ruled the world... but instead, he turned his talents to ensuring peace and prosperity for the common folk of the kingdom. He is wracked with assorted pains and ailments - the results of sacrificing his own life energies on numerous occasions when protecting the kingdom from Dark Forces - but he'd do it again in an instant, because With Great Power Comes etc etc.

Then one day he's having a quiet drink in a tavern, and he overhears a conversation at the next table - a man has lost his entire savings in a card game, playing beyond his means in an effort to impress his mistress. "What'll you tell your wife?" someone else asks. "I won't," the man says. "I'll go see old Hugo - spin him some line about needing money to cure some orphans of a horrible disease, or something. He's supposed to be a pushover, from what I hear."

Hugo reviews his life, and realises that people take him for granted. He's sacrificed everything for them, and they look on him as a piggy-bank. Well, no more! He took a scroll off that mad warlock last year - it's safely sealed in the vault in his tower, but he can use it to suck the life energy out of the entire population of the city to rejuvenate himself. And then he can go about grabbing the power that should always have been his, and the hell with anyone who stands in his way!

On his way to the tower, he passes a paladin who happens to be Detecting Evil at the time. Does he ping?

-Hyp.

 

[takyris]

Got me.

Personally, I'd drop him to Neutral when he made the decision to do it, and Evil when he carried it out. The easiest self-justification is that if ol' Hugo wanted to take a level in Blackguard, for which he qualified in every respect except alignment (having summoned an evil outsider while defending the world from mind flayer ninjas or something), I wouldn't let him take the class until he'd actually done the deed.

In my book, for what it's worth, sincere intent can move you to Neutral, but only action can move you to Good or Evil.

And everyone critiquing that should note the number of "but that's just me" caveats in there.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

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?

There are really only two questions that matter:

What do YOU, the DM, think the correct resolution is for a paladin - or IS there a correct resolution at all?
Do the players KNOW what your position is on this?


The rest is roleplaying and doesn't particularly matter. No paladin is going to be ignorant of what is good and right in virtually any situation. If such a situation comes up and the PLAYER does not know immediately the correct resolution for a paladin in THIS campaign then he should only need to ask the DM OOC to learn it. Should the player choose to have his character then do the WRONG thing, or do not just what is acceptible but what is exceptionally good in the situation then the DM will apply the appropriate consequences and reactions. But I do NOT accept that a paladin, who eats, drinks, and sleeps lawfulness and good would be at a loss for what is right and proper in such situations.

Moral dilemmas should exist for paladins when the PLAYER is considering doing what's not right - they should NOT occur as a result of the CHARACTER not KNOWING what's right.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The rest is roleplaying and doesn't particularly matter. No paladin is going to be ignorant of what is good and right in virtually any situation. If such a situation comes up and the PLAYER does not know immediately the correct resolution for a paladin in THIS campaign then he should only need to ask the DM OOC to learn it. Should the player choose to have his character then do the WRONG thing, or do not just what is acceptible but what is exceptionally good in the situation then the DM will apply the appropriate consequences and reactions. But I do NOT accept that a paladin, who eats, drinks, and sleeps lawfulness and good would be at a loss for what is right and proper in such situations.

So what's the purpose of the Phylactery of Faithfulness?

-Hyp.

 

[Seeten]

Arr same here. I know a lot of people just play with black and white alignments and the RAW, but I find them lacking in the extreme. It isn't honourable in the slightest to go killing people you don't know (or know the exploits of, evil or good), simply because some magic claims they're evil. And even so, the paladin would technically need to give the target a fair fight, which by definition babies are not capable of.

Even if you do think "evil" alignment gives the paladin the RIGHT to go killing anyone they want, they could easily be murdering someone that was "evil" through most of their lives and is slowly shifting away from that path, or any number of similar scenarios. I find this type of justification for committing what are essentially evil acts really hollow and dissatisfying (basically, paladin = good and therefore there are no consequences to murdering anyone paladin wants, as long as he can claim they're "evil" before hand). I mean, it's essentially saying that evil characters are held to a higher standard than paladins (i.e., don't do evil things or you become evil and will be targeted by paladins, but then the paladins themselves are not subject to this). Bleh. Could just be that I dislike paladins and the way they are commonly played.

This whole viewpoint is funny to me. Somehow, it suggests a Paladin who comes across Troll tadpoles ought to bring them home and raise them as his own. Or else, he's breaking his code, and now is a Bad Man(tm). If I played in a game like this, I'd do exactly what you want, right down to opening the Orphanage for baby monsters, and playing Nurse Nanny to the whole lot of em. Pretty boring adventure for the rest of the group, what with all of us managing a nursery, but I guess the DM gets what he wanted?