Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmichels" data-source="post: 2149933" data-attributes="member: 28795">Very interesting thread.  I read to this point but I'm still not quite sure what would have been the right thing to do in your eyes.  It seems you backed the players into a corner where they had no other choice but to go the execute route.  It seems like a no-right answer situation for them to me.   I think it may have been tying them up in the shack and leaving them there.  But, I'm not sure.  That would have made them a helpless if some Ettercap wandered by and slowly ate them bit by bit.  Or if their friends didn't find them they get to die of hunger/thirst instead.  Either way they would probably suffer much more then if their throats were slit.   If the party executed them more humanely (choked them to death, or stabbed them in the heart) would you have reacted differently?  I think mental image of your friends (they said they would do it in real life if in the same situation IIRC) slitting the throat of a career military man (in the army of Evil though) was too much for you to take.  Releasing them would have arguably been worse.  If the party left them unarmed they had a pretty good chance (15% survival rate) of dying in the forest.  So that meant getting stuck in a web and slowly exsanguinaded by some terrible spider.  Or getting lost and then starving to death.   I would rule that letting the mage go would be a worse offense then executing him.  Every gnome slowly cooked by his magic or tortured for fun is on the heads of the PCs.  I guess they could have blinded the mage or cut out his tongue or something but that is surely worse then a quick death. The party could have marched them back to the authorities.  That meant putting the gnomes into direct danger and possibly getting Randal Morn killed.  So this meant that *many* innocents would have died for 3 evil men.  I don't think their lord (or the dead gnomes) would have made that trade.  Too bad they were too low level to teleport or the PCs didn't have a portable hole. Finally, they could have tied them up and took them with along with the party.  This makes it so that they will try to escape and cause mayhem at the first opportunity.  This would have endangered the mission and possibly got alot of gnomes killed.  I think the PCs need to buy a portable hole (and you need to rule that air enters the thing when folded) if you are going to let other NPCs surrender to them in the future. About the only thing I could think of to do if I was in the clerics position is humanely execute the mage (who seems evil and unredeemable) and ask questions of his dead body.  Then cast a Zone of Truth and asked each soldier if they would attack them if they were let go with their full equipment.  If they lie they die.  If they tell the truth then let them go and at least give them a better then 15% chance of saving their lives. The problem with this course of action though is that if they are alive they will probably kill innocents again (they were evil right?)  These innocent deaths would be a direct result of your inability to carry out a field execution.  My PC would have a hard time dealing with the fact that I potentially let a murderer go free and allowed him to murder again.   As a DM you would almost have to have the escaped men thank the PCs after they changed their lives (or die in the forest.)  If you had the NPCs escape and then tell the Zhents where the party was so they can go right after the gnome village (knowing the PCs are out traipsing in the forest) the PCs would know that they indirectly caused the extermination of an entire people.  They would be even more upset at being put into a box like this.           </blockquote>

Verification