would this be evil?

[Janos Audron]

I've followed this thread from the beginning, and mostly agree with Bonedagger, but here's my take on it:

The kidnapping is not evil, though it is unlawful. To this everyone agrees (I mean the unlawful part, not the evil part ). The killing of the girl, yes that is evil, HOWEVER, it can have no effect on the game, other than role playing. The DM should not change their alignments (on the Good - Evil axis). The players (or the one with the sword at least), was under the assumption that when you hit someone with a sword, you can never kill a person. When the DM suddenly changes that fact, he, let's face it, screwed the player. The players now have a lot more trouble than they deserve (well, that of course depends on how you look at the kidnapping), and getting away from that town suddenly has become quite a challenge for 1st level characters...

If the DM decides to change your alignments, he does so for an action HE caused, not for something the players did. Effectively, he screws you again. And that, I think, is not fun for the players, who suddenly might be tracked by Paladins, good clerics etc...

So: Kidnapping - Unlawful, Killing - Evil, Alignmentshift - Lawful to Chaotic, not Good to Evil.

 

[S'mon]

As far of the rules question of killing the hostage with subdual damage, it's not outside the rules to have a subdual strike kill someone on a critical. If you think about it, all subdual damage above the character's hp total gets converted to actual damage, so a 2 hp commoner can be killed outright by 14 points of subdual damage, which is a far from unreasonable damage for a critical from a sword. If something like this happened, then it's unlucky for the players, but it is how the rules read.

EXACTLY.

 

[Al]

Again, I'd like to disagree that the actions are *necessarily* evil. We simply don't have enough information to make that call.

Now, in all likelihood, they were. Chances are, given that it is a first level party, that they were trying to rescue the rogue because she was a friend, and this method is quick, easy and dirty. Kidnapping someone just to bust your friend out of jail is most certainly an evil act.

However, it might have been one of those 'good-in-the-long-run' moral dilemmas. If the PCs had a quest of vital importance (QOVI) and the thief was absolutely imperative to that quest (though, given the levels involved, a hireling would probably have been feasible), then the action was not evil. The rationale is straightforward. If they could not break the thief out of jail, then they would fail the QOVI. Since failing the QOVI would lead to more innocent death etc. than the possible death of the kidnapped child, then it would have been callous not to have attempted to free the thief. It has already been established that they did not realise that they should parley, though this is clearly stupidity and not evil.

They, to their minds, may have had this choice.
Kidnap child. One innocent harmed (not killed, as this was unexpected, undesirable and IMO, a bad call.)
Fail QOVI. Many innocents killed.
Now, given that choice, any *good* PC would do the former. Indeed, the evil PC would likely choose the latter, as from a selfish point-of-view, failing the QOVI has no negative impact to him, but risking his neck to kidnap the child and succeed in the QOVI has a potential risk to his personal safety.

I am not saying that this is necessarily the case- in all likelihood it is not - but until we have further details, we simply cannot decry the act as definitely evil.

 

[bensei]

Rhialto wrote:
Because this "guideline" is based on actions, either good or evil. Thus if one does actions which are evil, then it changes your alignment. This is how the alignment system works. End of story.

If this is already the end of the end of the stroy for you, you cannot be role-playing. A character's alignment is no switch with 9 positions, which changes position, as soon as the character does something which is (from the DM's view) not exactly according to the current position. This is not how the alignment system is though to be like.

Especially actions where there is a discussion (like this one), it can clearly not be enough to cause an alignment shift in the sense of the core rules. As an example from the other side, think of a Mephisto (LE) showing Faust all nice things of a commoner's world (a nice thing) for the trade of Faust's soul. Is that good? Is that chaotic? What if he does not take Faust's soul then?
Oh no, me Mephisto has done something which someone thinks of being good. I becomes NE. I cannot be the Devil anymore. Noooooooooooooo!

Here's the important point: If the characters in the given example did things like this before, it's okay. If, however, before they behaved totally different, then the players did a really bad role-playing. And now it seems as if an alignment shift is the way to punish them. Is an alignment shift a construction to punish players for bad role-playing? IMHO no.

And even if you play with alignment shifts in a totally technical way (like the switch), there are other things influenced by actions against alignment, e.g. if a deity grants spells to the cleric. These things may not be affected equally by actions, so it is very important to ask the question: Why do you ask if this action was evil?

 

[Numion]

IMO the PCs shouldn't be punished for their evil actions, but for their stupidness.

It's amazing how people can argue that getting a defenceless child killed through your own disregard and disrespect for human life isn't evil. All good arguments, and all that, but c'mon.

 

[Tsyr]

Janos:

First of all, how is kidnapping not evil? I'd just like someone to answer this please. It seems to fit the definitions that the 3E references give for evil, and most of those are halfway reasonable... disregard for human life (check), debasing and ignoring the dignity of said life (check)... And it certainly doesn't match any description of good or neutral characters... altruism, respect for life and dignity of life, etc etc...

Second...

If the DM decides to change your alignments, he does so for an action HE caused, not for something the players did. Effectively, he screws you again. And that, I think, is not fun for the players, who suddenly might be tracked by Paladins, good clerics etc...

No, this was not something he caused. He did not make the party kidnap the child. He did not make the party attack the child with a sword. If the players had desplayed a moment of concern or even thought, neither of those situations would have happened, and thus the child wouldn't be dead. The DM is punishing the players for something the players did, not something the DM did. Furthermore, if this heinous act does not earn them the wrath of paladins and good-aligned clerics, a mere alignment shift will not.


Al:

Chances are, given that it is a first level party, that they were trying to rescue the rogue because she was a friend, and this method is quick, easy and dirty. Kidnapping someone just to bust your friend out of jail is most certainly an evil act.

Agreed.

However, it might have been one of those 'good-in-the-long-run' moral dilemmas. If the PCs had a quest of vital importance (QOVI) and the thief was absolutely imperative to that quest (though, given the levels involved, a hireling would probably have been feasible), then the action was not evil. The rationale is straightforward. If they could not break the thief out of jail, then they would fail the QOVI. Since failing the QOVI would lead to more innocent death etc. than the possible death of the kidnapped child, then it would have been callous not to have attempted to free the thief.

There is no indication that there was a "QOVI" involved here, and given that A) The party is low level and B) The party seems to be on the moraly uncertain side anyhow, I think it's unlikely. In any case, I won't assume there was unless I have been given some indication thereof.

It has already been established that they did not realise that they should parley, though this is clearly stupidity and not evil.

Now, see, here is where I disagree... It was stupid, yes, but I think that in stupidity one can often see a person's true nature. This group's first thought seemed to have been to kidnap an innocent to avenge the guilty. This, to me, speaks volumes for their character and morals, or lack thereof.

 

[Villano]

First, in slight defense of the DM and his crit decision, how long was this guy DMing? It might be an honest mistake.

Take, for example, the Judge Dredd d20. One of the bits of equipment that judges are issued is the daystick (a simple nightstick). It normally does subdual damage, but does real damage on crits.

I don't know if any other games use this system, but it's possible that the DM may own one and used that as his basis. It may have just been a case of inexperience with the mainstream D&D rules.

Now, as to the party. Yep. Evil.

I mean, it's not like they were trying to rescue her, stupidly fired at the hobgoblin holding her, and accidentally killed her.

It may have been really stupid, but, c'mon, they were trying to break their criminal friend out of jail so they resorted to kidnapping an innocent. I mean, this is exactly the sort of thing PCs are called in to stop.

Those that are defending this party's actions are falling prey to the "Designated Hero Rule", which states, in part, "...that those that a movie chooses as its heroes shall never be held responsible for any deaths caused by their actions."

I read about the rule on a movie review site, Jabootu.com, specifically his short take (normally, his reviews are very, very, very long) on The Lost World. You can check out the full review here: http://www.jabootu.com/lostworldnugget.htm

Here are a few bits I clipped out which illustrate the rule in effect:

"Sarah agrees to take the baby T-Rex with them, her biggest worry being that Malcolm won't like it. (This kind of falls into that "Sarah is a moron" thing.) Teddy, a member of their team who had nothing to do with bringing it into camp, is later horribly killed because of this. Again, no one casts any blame at Sarah or Earth First Guy, nor do they themselves ever indicate any guilt over getting this guy killed.

T-Rexes are not only smart, but they're polite. Therefore, they'll wait until the Designated Victim (here, the technology guy) saves the morally superior Malcolm (the 'Man should be humble in the face of Nature' guy), Earth First Guy, and Strong Woman Scientist. The last two, of course, are responsible for this predicament, including ultimately getting Technology Guy horribly slain, but the film will in no way acknowledge this.

Malcolm then righteously makes fun of Peter, The Evil Capitalist, for thinking that bringing mercenaries would keep him safe and enable him to complete his capture of the dinosaurs. Uh, actually, Peter's plan was working fine, thank you, until it was sabotaged by intentional human intervention. So much for the 'moral' here.

Inherent in Douglas' Designated Hero/Villain rule is that positions won't be judged on their objective merit, but rather on who is advancing them. Peter's position that they have a right to 'exploit' the dinos (i.e., put them on display) because his company created them is hardly insane. However, the film dismisses the argument because it's being advanced by the Evil Capitalist. More to the point, it has the argument advanced by the Evil Capitalist so that it can be dismissed. Yet, because Earth First Guy is a hero, his causing the deaths of literally dozens of people is ignored. In other words, the film openly judges the caging of (artificially created) animals to be more of a crime than killing other humans."

So, the arguement that I'm trying to make here is that people seem to be defending the actions of the party solely due to the fact that they are the appointed "heroes", regarless of how "unheroic" their actions are.

I don't think an alignment shift is in order. I think they were pretty much evil to begin with. Your alignment doesn't detrmine your actions, your actions determine your alignment.

With that said, I'm not a big fan of the alignment system. My big sticking point is the labeling of races. Let's be honest, using this system, humans should be listed in the Monster Manual as Chaotic Evil.

Personally, I like the idea of honor in Rokugan. A good leader's most trusted samurai may be LE. As long as he's honorable, his alignment doesn't matter.

Of course, the whole theft, kidnapping, and murder thing would fall into the "dishonorable" category anyway.

Now, getting back to the original topic, what should the players do?

One option is to roll up new characters and have them hunt down their old PCs.

Another is to let the party play things out with their current characters.

Of course, with this group, I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to destroy the evidence by burning the body, accidendally starting a huge fire which burns down half the town, including the orphanage, killing a hundred more people.

 

[Ziggy]

As far of the rules question of killing the hostage with subdual damage, it's not outside the rules to have a subdual strike kill someone on a critical. If you think about it, all subdual damage above the character's hp total gets converted to actual damage, so a 2 hp commoner can be killed outright by 14 points of subdual damage, which is a far from unreasonable damage for a critical from a sword. If something like this happened, then it's unlucky for the players, but it is how the rules read.

Wrong, that is only true for environmental (subdual) damage. I made the same mistake myself as a DM, and had to retcon a bit to fix it.

I'm firmly in the camp with those who thing doing lethal damage on a crit is wrong. Rolling a 20 should always be the best possible result, and suddenly introducing a special house rule hosing the PC on a good roll is just plain silly.

On the good/evil question my opinion is that the kidnapping is evil. Not earthshaking, slobbering evil, but still evil. The killing is just unlucky, no evil intent there (note that they were actually trying to save her by using subdual damage, when just killing her would be the easiest option).

Of course her death is probably going to get them strung up, but that is another question....

.Ziggy

 

[Zappo]

Why is it important to know if this behaviour was evil?

This is the key question, since the D&D alignment system is a guideline, not an ultimate truth. Technically it is only important for the impact of some divine spells or for some PrCs. All the rest is role-playing.

Behaviour is just a little too complex to be able to classify into a 3x3 matrix,
so why are you trying to do it? Why is it important to classify?

Try to answer this question!

Classification is the procedure of associating to each item a class to which it belongs. The bigger or smaller number of classes doesn't make the thing any more or less difficult: it only has to be appropriate to the task. For the task of determining whether a holy sword will hurt, whether a detect evil will beep, whether a circle against law will block, a 3x3 matrix is sufficient. As you noted yourself, alignment isn't supposed to "describe" behaviour, but only to "classify" it

 

[Iron Sheep]

Wrong, that is only true for environmental (subdual) damage. I made the same mistake myself as a DM, and had to retcon a bit to fix it.

Yep, looks like you're right. I was thinking of the environmental damage rules, since that's where most of the subdual damage in my campaign has come from. I think I also had the VP/WP damage system in mind as well, as I understand it works that way as well.

Personally, I think I'm going to add the extra subdual damage is real damage to my campaign house rules, since in my opinion if you're hitting someone hard enough to knock them out you're doing some real damage as well. I may end up putting a buffer of a few hp between the point where you go unconscious and the point where you start taking real damage, though.

I'm firmly in the camp with those who thing doing lethal damage on a crit is wrong. Rolling a 20 should always be the best possible result, and suddenly introducing a special house rule hosing the PC on a good roll is just plain silly.

I agree that a crit should not cause real damage (unless it's overkill as in the house rule above). However it would have been fair enough as long as the GM had mentioned this as a house rule at some earlier point. It'd just be a difference of opinion about whether you see a crit as the best possible result or the strongest possible result.