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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jester47" data-source="post: 602210" data-attributes="member: 2238">The only thing I get from these conversations is the overwhelming impression that many people can never see the evil in themselves.  But this gets into all sorts of Thomist thought. It is not the nature of evil to be obvious.  Evil hides behind things like "just following orders."  Evil runs on people being too scared to do the right thing.  Evil is moral weakness.   I cannot think of anything more morally weak than a HIRED KILLER.  1. Killer does not ask questions meaning he is someone who for some reason has bypassed his conscience.  2. Killer is willing to allow himself to be used no quesitons asked as a tool for a fee.  While it is not sexual, it is prostitution.3. Killer is doing somthing wrong that someone else does not have the guts to do themselves.  But that is in the real world where everything is mixed up.   Where objects cant be evil and all people are evil in some way but good in many others.----------------------------------------D&D is completely different.  In D&D you can bottle evil and sell it.  A bowl can be bad.  A bowl can be intelligent.   Now there is the issue of killing.  Wow.  Everyone in D&D kills.  Well ok, most player characters kill.  Why is this?  I think this is the real problem with the assassin.  He kills too but he is just better at it.  When comparing the actions of your average PC and the actions of this character class, there really is not much difference.  I have been thinking about this off and on over the years and it occured to me that GOOD characters would go out of their way to not kill.  Some would say that the characters are often in a Kill or Be Killed situation and if they are killed the evildoers super scheme will come to fruition spoiling the party for everyone.  But it seems to me that the situation is very rarely kill or be killed.  It is more Subdue or be killed.  There are numerous occaions where I have thought that all they have to do is knock the bad guys out and that would suffice.  What does it mean to look "down the barrel" of a kobolds crossbow?  He won't think twice of killing you.  Should you return the favor?  I think this is what separates good from evil.  It is assumed that Good characters have weighed the moral risks and will act according to a manner of factors including upbringing, life experience, belief, philosophies etc.  So it would not be out of character for our character to hack down the kobold before he can get his shot off.  Now, what if the kobold asked them politely "what are you doingin my home?  Could you please leave?" what would a good character do then?  But using the definition above we assume that the kobold being evil has not weighed the moral risks and probably will open fire.  And I think that is what alignment is all about.  It is not somthing that states what a character can and cannot do.  It is somthing that essesntially talks about the character's reasoning for thier actions.  Re-reading the alignment section in the PHB, I think it is good to keep in mind that the descriptions of the alignments found in the section "The Nine Alignmnets" are actually descriptions that depict "a typical character for that alignment."  The actual "definitions of the elements of the alignment are under the "Good vs. Evil" and the "Law vs. Chaos" sections.  Aaron.</blockquote>

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