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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galfridus" data-source="post: 2708079" data-attributes="member: 119">Yikes, quite a few responses since lunch. I've kept some details vague because this is a continuing adventure, and some because it's a long-running game and providing full context is pretty much impossible. That said, here's some more grist for the mill:The paladin is awakened (by a servant) and told someone has a message for him. He summons another PC to watch over his wife and heads downstairs, where he meets the halfling who begins delaying him.At the same time, someone sneaks in to his wife's bedroom (yes, past the PC who is watching) and "does something" to her. At the time, what it was is not clear, but she was alive and not obviously harmed. The PC drives the "attacker" off (in essence, they teleport away). Another PC, a cleric, roused by the struggle, bursts into the room, sees that the wife is alive but confused, and gets a quick summary of what happened. He runs downstairs.Meanwhile, the paladin has grown suspicious and begins questioning the halfling, then grabs him. When the halfling refuses to give answers (who sent you, what are you doing here), he gets a little rough. The halfling tells some obvious lies, and the paladin gets a little rougher. Then the PC cleric arrives and announces that someone has assaulted the paladin's wife. After a few more questions and non-answers, the player says "I break his neck." I verify that his intent is to kill. Since the halfling is a) pinned and b) already at low HP, I say he is negative HP and dying. (I had foregone rolling damage for the various attacks during the interrogation in order to maintain the flow of the scene.) That's where the session ended.Game time elapsed between the assault and the end of the session was a minute or so.(Of course, since there is a cleric standing right there with a Heal spell prepared, the halfling is likely to live.)===I didn't intend to have the halfling die and was not trying to bait the paladin into anything. It's hard to describe how a particular campaign uses alignments; I would say that this one falls more toward Good and Evil as moral absolutes, but that means different things to different people. To simplify things rather a lot: the Paladin was not legally justified to execute the halfling, as no lives were in danger; he did not (and does not) know if the halfling is evil; he has good and sufficient reason to presume that the halfling was involved; he knew his wife was attacked but still alive.I consider this chaotic as the paladin disregarded laws he had sworn to uphold for no reason other than personal vengeance. The evil part depends a bit more on the nature of the person involved, and the paladin's failure to discover further details about that nature. That does seem a bit weaker than the chaotic bit, on further reflection.</blockquote>

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