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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5728492" data-attributes="member: 32740">As you have described it there ISN'T a "right" thing to do, no moral certitude because you have left that question open to any resolution the CHARACTERS choose to come up with. Without specific definitions or explanations from you (the DM) as to what the acceptible moral/ethical range of responses would be for any given PC alignment you leave it up to the players to decide for themselves for each of their individual characters. You have created a Kobayashi Maru scenario: there is no correct resolution - it is strictly a test of character. It shouldn't.Unequivically, yes it matters.THAT is a matter for you, as DM, to decide because it's your campaign. For my own campaign this would not even be a debate. The monster is evil. Its young are therefore evil. It would not matter if it can put on a pitiable face and plead for its life and its young. Alignment in MY campaigns is an absolute and I do not play morality traps against my players even if they're trying to create one where none exists. It is illogical to me for a character to NOT KNOW what his own alignment suggests or requires he do/not do in matters of morality and ethics. No PC in my games will ever be left grasping for the correct moral resolution as HE is expected to see it - there is only the question of whether the PC chooses to act contrary to that. If they are somehow left without firm knowledge of "the right thing to do" then I will never blame them for a good-faith effort to come to their own conclusions (no matter the consequences) in the absence of proper instruction/explanation from me in the first place. Certainly anyone good-aligned in my games requires no more moral justification to rid the world of the lot. That doesn't mean they MUST do so, only that they need no greater justification. The paladin should have every motivation to see these beasts killed. It does not matter if the monster is even CAPABLE of changing its alignment. The fact that it is Chaotic Evil NOW is in and of itself proof certain of past vile deeds and/or inevitable vile deeds in the future and the paladin should indeed slaughter them all. Even characters who hold a profound respect for life due to alignment, class, or other reasons would feel badly about doing it - but would ultimately have to admit that the CE creatures DISrespect for life argues convincingly that it ought to be done. But that's just me; that's MY game.</blockquote>

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