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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tallow" data-source="post: 243273" data-attributes="member: 4962">That's assuming that the killing of a helpless person, is of itself, an evil act.  If it is, then no matter the circumstances or reasons, the act is evil.  Therefore a Paladin committing coup de grace on the blackguard is an evil act, despite mitigating circumstances.  Paladin loses paladinhood.If the act itself can be mitigated into a variety of alignments depending on circumstances and intentions, then you have to play with shades of gray.1. Paladin's act is good, because of intentions, circumstances, and the fact the Blackguard represents a continuing evil threat on all that is good and holy.2. A Blackguard killing a helpless child because it gets in the way of his rape of the mother, is certainly evil.  Boiled down to the bare bones though, its still killing a helpless person.  In black and white, its no different than the Paladin's act.  However I don't know a single person who would see it that way, including myself.3.  Fighter gets pissed at a mage who steals from them, defrauds them, endangers his friends, and lies to them to get out of trouble.  Fighter is tired of the mage and his lies, and so kills mage.   His intention is akin to swatting an irritating fly.  Because the mage is sentient, is this an evil act?  In some cases, I'd say yes.  The blackguard did this to the child.  In other cases, the Mage is more than a fly, and has caused real danger and irritation of the fighter himself.  Forget about the other PC's in this right now.  His act was done out of the passion of anger, and he was justified in his anger towards the mage.  Therefore the act itself is not evil, because his intentions were not evil.  His intentions had no motivation other than to assauge his anger and sate his passion, which he was justified in having.  Was it a borderline act?  Certainly.  Was it bonifide evil?  certainly not. I would say the fighter did not commit the act for the wrong reasons if you use the definition of Chaotic Neutral as your guideline.Andy Christian</blockquote>

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