Whats the "expected" reaction of a Chaotic Good Astral Deva to a Succubus? [Archive]

Sims

2011-05-27, 04:20 PM

Apparently, my mind set is not a good one, as I figured a chaotic Good Astral Deva would attack a Succubus on sight.

What was the succubus doing? she was stealing from a merchant out of pure spite. so I struck her down. My DM got pissed and said it was unjustified.
(Well maybe a little, but had I not beaten her, what do you think she woulda done to me?)

I didn't "Fall from Grace" but I'm in Neutral Limbo (cracked halo and grey wings) til I atone. (Why the ef should I?)

What do you guys think I should have done? Besides yelling "Halt!" or "stop!" cuz thats exactly how it played out, til I busted out the Evil Outsider Bane AK-47! >:D (Okay, it was a Shortbow lol)

EDIT: (The actual story)

Well, I should be a little clearer on the story, since I was in a bit of a rush when I first typed this.

The Succubus was stealing the few gold of an already poor merchant AND his medallion. From the way my DM described it, she did it for sheer delight in seeing if he would wager or bargain with demons in order for his family to survive.

My character had been watching her for a while. When he spotted her attempted thef, he called it out. She took the wallet and ran. He (the Angel) told her to stop, but she kept going, so he pulled out his bow. (Then my DM made me roll initiative) If she got away (or teleported) she might even try it again later.

So I fired, and rolled a 19, then confirmed a critical. The second shot wasn't a crit. I don't know how low her HP was, but it was enough to kill her.

Then I said "whoops." But thats the same as shooting someones head off and saying whoops. I think she was one of my DM's characters.

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-27, 04:22 PM

What your DM says, goes. His world, his rules.

Kansaschaser

2011-05-27, 04:33 PM

In the Book of Exalted Deeds, there are many ways of handeling evil.

One of my favorite ways of dealing with evil people is to capture them (usually with doing subdual damage) and using the Diplomacy skill to turn them good. You don't always have to KILL everything that you think is evil.

Batman uses subdual damage all the time. That's why he doesn't use guns. He beats the snot out of the bad guys, and then hauls them to jail or hands them over to the cops.

So, you could have taken the Succubus alive and questioned her. Maybe she was stealing because she had to. What if her loved ones were held captive and she was stealing because it was the only way to ensure her loved ones safety. Not only did you just become the Jury, Judge, and Executioner for the Succubus, you may have endangered the lives of other in the process.

Talentless

2011-05-27, 04:35 PM

What your DM says, goes. His world, his rules.

While that is true... I don't see the GM's justification for that reaction honestly.

I mean, that sounds about as stupid as forcing a Paladin to fall for smiting a Succubus on sight... and we all know how ridiculous THAT would be.

/edit, I mean, the OP didn't have to go with an attack on sight personality, but I still don't see how what the OP did is wrong enough to result in what he is describing.

Amnestic

2011-05-27, 04:37 PM

What was the succubus doing? she was stealing from a merchant out of pure spite. so I struck her down.

1) How did you know it was "out of pure spite"?
2) Does thievery justify an instant death penalty?

Z3ro

2011-05-27, 04:38 PM

Didn't lose any powers or abilities? I'd reveal in my now less restrictive alignment. Alternatively, simply atone for your actions, probably side-quest style. Suck it up and take your rail-roading like a man.

Siosilvar

2011-05-27, 04:40 PM

So... an Always Good Outsider, whose sole purpose is to further the cause of Good (with no method of "falling", though the DM implementing one is allowable) attacks a succubus caught in a potentially evil act (depends on the DM's call). With no evidence to the contrary, this succubus is an Always Evil Outsider, whose sole purpose is to further the cause of Evil. The Always Good Outsider mentioned before is the sworn enemy of Always Evil Outsiders (see the Evil Outsider Bane shortbow).

Always Good Outsider falls.

:smallconfused:

EDIT:
Batman uses subdual damage all the time. That's why he doesn't use guns. He beats the snot out of the bad guys, and then hauls them to jail or hands them over to the cops.

2) Does thievery justify an instant death penalty?
To be clear, the Astral Deva is chaotic good, not lawful. You should be asking "Does the Deva think thievery justifies an instant death penalty (unlikely), does the Deva think a succubus deserves instant death (very likely), and does the Deva trust the local law enforcement with a teleporting, ethereally-traveling, incarnation of seduction and evil? (most definitely not)"

Eldariel

2011-05-27, 04:43 PM

If it was an evil humanoid, it might be different but you:
1) Meet Succubus, a personification of evil (that is, no, it can't be atoned)
2) Catch it in an evil act
3) You gave her a fair warning. This is stretching it a bit; you're the very personification of CG (not bound by any concept of honor) dealing with an unatonable creature of pure evil. Why wouldn't you attack on sight? A personification of good does not deal with the personification of evil.

This isn't a matter of humanoid judgment, this is the matter of your very essence clashing with its anti-thesis. While what your DM says goes, you might wanna ask him if he doesn't think he's being a bit unreasonable or at least ask for grounds based on which he makes this judgment so you can avoid getting screwed over in the future (work out what you can and can't do so you're in an understanding in future on what is, or isn't, ok; because that's knowledge you would have IC, you should have it OOC too).

At least ask your DM to allow you to meet Fallen Evil Outsiders constantly who fell for attacking a Good Outsider on sight if nothing else, if that's how this world works.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 04:44 PM

Boci

2011-05-27, 04:44 PM

There are two options:

1. You're DM is screwing with you

2. The DM is running things differently to what you expect. Maybe demons are not inherantly evil. Maybe good characters are not supose to use violence against non-violent crimes (assuming the robbery was such).

In either case you need to talk to you DM. Be polite and say you are confused on how your character is supose to act in accordance with their aligment and ask for some pointers as well as requesting some specifics examples, and see how reasonable his response is.

CodeRed

2011-05-27, 04:46 PM

She's a succubus. That's exactly why she deserves the death penalty. (Not that it's a real death penalty unless she was on the Material Plane in her actual, physical, non-summoned self.) D&D is not like the real world where you have shades of grey in the whole Good-Evil axis. A succubus, as a demon, is a physical manifestation of Evil itself born out of existence from the Abyss.

It honestly just sounds like your DM's being kind of a pain in the ass for you derailing some game possibilities he wanted to introduce. Your not expected to convert demons, these are souls so far gone that it takes beyond extraordinary circumstances to turn around. Being trigger-happy may not be the best idea all the time but when your faced with a demon? To do anything less would be stupid as its inviting death.

Kansaschaser

2011-05-27, 04:47 PM

Was the Succubus another player or an NPC? Where did this happen, on someplace like Sigil where you would expect lots of different people and have to play nice because of the neutral guards, or a typical D&D village where you would expect demons to be looked upon in fear and have people running to the nearest cleric? I'd say context is important.

A celestial like a deva would be pretty in-bounds in most cases to smite a demon on sight as they pretty much embody evil. They are always evil unless your DM is running with an "everybody is redeemable" mindset. If this were paladin vs. thief I would question it, but this is embodiment of good vs. embodiment of evil. They are supposed to be opposed by their very nature.

I would have questioned it too, but I'm in a campaign right now where we are traveling with a Succubus that is Good. I don't know how she became good, but she is. There is the "Sanctify" spell from the Book of Exalted Deeds and the use of Diplomacy to change someone to Good.

Maybe the Succubus was a test to see if the Astral Deva could do more than just kill the Succubus. Maybe she was supposed to be redeemed.

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-27, 04:47 PM

2. The DM is running things differently to what you expect. Maybe demons are not inherantly evil.

This guy gets a cookie. Great answer.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 04:49 PM

Geigan

2011-05-27, 04:49 PM

Your not expected to convert demons, these are souls so far gone that it takes beyond extraordinary circumstances to turn around.
They are outsiders actually. They don't even have souls, and are kind of like elementals except made of chaos and evil, not fire/water/earth/air.

Amnestic

2011-05-27, 04:52 PM

To be clear, the Astral Deva is chaotic good, not lawful. You should be asking "Does the Deva think thievery justifies an instant death penalty (unlikely), does the Deva think a succubus deserves instant death (very likely), and does the Deva trust the local law enforcement with a teleporting, ethereally-traveling, incarnation of seduction and evil? (most definitely not)"

So perhaps, since he is so adept at dealing with Evil Outsiders as you yourself admitted, he should contain her himself. Perhaps work to turn her to the forces of good as she is able to do so. Instead you slaughter someone who by all accounts simply stole something from a merchant. Would you have the same response to a humanoid doing the same?

Being good means being held to a higher standard, not just "Detect Evil First, Smite Second, Ask Questions Later."

Talentless

2011-05-27, 04:57 PM

So perhaps, since he is so adept at dealing with Evil Outsiders as you yourself admitted, he should contain her himself. Perhaps work to turn her to the forces of good as she is able to do so. Instead you slaughter someone who by all accounts simply stole something from a merchant. Would you have the same response to a humanoid doing the same?

Being good means being held to a higher standard, not just "Detect Evil First, Smite Second, Ask Questions Later."

How does the player know that a Demon can be turned unless the DM has explicitly stated at the start of the game when the player first started that such an act was even possible?

IF the DM did do this, then yeah, what happened to the OP falls a bit more under the "Justified due to DM caveat". However, if the DM never mentioned that bit before, then no, it doesn't matter.

1) They may not even be using Book of Exalted Deeds and the rules for turning demons(sounds a bit unlikely, but possible)

2) Even though it is possible by RAW, how prevalent, and how often it happens should be far tougher than the rules for it actually are. It is supposed to be incredibly rare. Otherwise all paladins/clerics should be getting in trouble every time they take out a demon, and that frankly seems bloody stupid to me.

SlashRunner

2011-05-27, 05:00 PM

Geigan

2011-05-27, 05:01 PM

So perhaps, since he is so adept at dealing with Evil Outsiders as you yourself admitted, he should contain her himself. Perhaps work to turn her to the forces of good as she is able to do so. Instead you slaughter someone who by all accounts simply stole something from a merchant. Would you have the same response to a humanoid doing the same?

Being good means being held to a higher standard, not just "Detect Evil First, Smite Second, Ask Questions Later."

Well yes that's certainly a possible response, but what would you expect to happen to a demon placed before an angel doing theft that as the OP put it was purely out of spite. Not meant to feed himself, feed orphans, or just help themselves. It was purely for evil intent on the merchant who owned the stolen items. Most angelic reactions are benevolent to humanoids, but a demon is essentially the physical embodiment of everything they stand against. I would expect them to try and erase the existence of such a thing that was created with the express purpose to be their antithesis. If a deva had the time and inclination he might try and turn it in spite of the inherent evil, but the "expected response" for the demon in the midst of an evil act is a smite evil at the first opportunity.

Siosilvar

2011-05-27, 05:02 PM

2. The DM is running things differently to what you expect. Maybe demons are not inherantly evil. Maybe good characters are not supose to use violence against non-violent crimes (assuming the robbery was such).

In many some campaign settings, being an incarnation of seduction and evil is a violence-justifying crime. Now, if the DM allows demons to not be inherently evil...

The OP is playing an inherently good Outsider. A primary function of combat-capable inherently good Outsiders is to fight inherently evil Outsiders. Finding the one that isn't evil and "killing" it (banish back to home plane) does not merit an alignment change.

So perhaps, since he is so adept at dealing with Evil Outsiders as you yourself admitted, he should contain her himself.I never said anything of the sort. Killing things is a lot easier than containing them. Containing is preferable, but it's very hard to keep things contained when they can teleport anywhere, unerringly without you getting a chance to respond effectively. Especially so without access to dimensional anchor or dimension lock.

Instead you slaughter someone who by all accounts simply stole something from a merchant. Would you have the same response to a humanoid doing the same?That depends. Is the humanoid a literal incarnation of evil? Doubtful.

Perhaps work to turn her to the forces of good as she is able to do so.

Being good means being held to a higher standard, not just "Detect Evil First, Smite Second, Ask Questions Later."True. But incarnations of evil, which might or might not be redeemable (again, depends on DM: OP assumed irredeemable), and against which you are the most easily accessible means of doing anything? One would think you'd be obligated to do something.

Not to mention that "killing" it on the material plane doesn't end its existence, only keeps it from doing evil for another hundred and one years (IIRC).

Amnestic

2011-05-27, 05:03 PM

Actually, smite-happy, "PURGE THE HERETICS!" type characters are quite interesting to play, and still manage to bring up plenty of interesting philosophical and moral questions.

Sure they can; I don't disagree. Just don't be surprised when you end up Falling because that Succubus who you Detected as Evil and proceeded to smite turns out to be a reformed Lawful Good demon who only detected as Evil because of her subtype.

Alaris

2011-05-27, 05:04 PM

Maybe the Succubus was a test to see if the Astral Deva could do more than just kill the Succubus. Maybe she was supposed to be redeemed.

I like this. This makes some semblance of sense. At least in my game, nothing is "unredeemable." It might be hard as all hell to redeem a Succubus, but it can be done. This could be what the higher powers were doing. Testing your Astral Deva to see if it could be more reasonable then (see Evil, kill Evil).

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 05:05 PM

So you, a Good character, attacked someone who was not currently being obviously violent toward anyone and expected not to have any consequences for that? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty screwed up.

Would you have done the same to another Good creature doing the same action? A Neutral character? An Evil creature which wasn't an Outsider? If not, why not and why doesn't the same apply to this particular intelligent being capable of moral understanding and alignment change?

You may not have killed it but you still caused it grievous injury for thievery (possibly petty thievery). That is very much not Good, no matter who you do it to.

If you were a Paladin I'd have you Fall so fast your new (more accurate) alignment hit you in the face on your way down, I'd say going to the iffy pile as a Deva is perfectly justified.

Boci

2011-05-27, 05:05 PM

In many some campaign settings, being an incarnation of seduction and evil is a violence-justifying crime. Now, if the DM allows demons to not be inherently evil...

The OP is playing an inherently good Outsider. A primary function of combat-capable inherently good Outsiders is to fight inherently evil Outsiders. Finding the one that isn't evil and "killing" it (banish back to home plane) does not merit an alignment change.

If demons are inherantly CN, which is some refluffing but not within the bounds of impossibility, and still not all the different from the standard fluff, then killing sentient members of that race on sight is not the primary function of a good outsider.

Talya

2011-05-27, 05:06 PM

What SHOULD happen is that your deity should call you into his office and tell you that you're a loose cannon, and pair you up with a by-the-book partner.

But yeah, if you weren't on the lower planes, shouldn't death just result in getting returned to the Abyss? Deportation's not that extreme in this case.

I like both of these statements.

Anyway, i think the expected reaction to any non-gay male (or non-straight female) to seeing a succubus is *drool.*

CodeRed

2011-05-27, 05:06 PM

Sure they can; I don't disagree. Just don't be surprised when you end up Falling because that Succubus who you Detected as Evil and proceeded to smite turns out to be a reformed Lawful Good demon who only detected as Evil because of her subtype.

Which if the DM pulled without first saying that redemption for Demons was possible or that not all Demons were automatically evil, would require a DMG to the face.

Boci

2011-05-27, 05:08 PM

Which if the DM pulled without first saying that redemption for Demons was possible or that not all Demons were automatically evil, would require a DMG to the face.

Or arguable it is the players job to inquire about what their character's would know reguarding such issues.

Talentless

2011-05-27, 05:11 PM

Sure they can; I don't disagree. Just don't be surprised when you end up Falling because that Succubus who you Detected as Evil and proceeded to smite turns out to be a reformed Lawful Good demon who only detected as Evil because of her subtype.

Unless I missed something... wouldn't the conversion by magical help remove the detecting as Evil thing? Or have I been running a house rule on this all this time?

As for if it still detects as evil because of sub-type even if reformed... Wouldn't catching it in the act of doing Evil mean that that wasn't the case here?

Amnestic

2011-05-27, 05:11 PM

Which if the DM pulled without first saying that redemption for Demons was possible or that not all Demons were automatically evil, would require a DMG to the face.

Evil Subtype (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm)

A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were evil-aligned (see Damage Reduction, above).

Can't find it on the SRD, but feel free to check your Monster Manual for the description of what 'Always X' means with regards to alignment.

Succubi, as intelligent creatures (Int>3) are freely allowed to choose their own moral path, be it good, neutral or evil. This isn't DM Fiat or refluffing or changing the rules. This is explicit RAW right here.

As for if it still detects as evil because of sub-type even if reformed... Wouldn't catching it in the act of doing Evil mean that that wasn't the case here?

Theft in and of itself is more on the Lawful/Chaotic scale than Good/Evil. It's the intentions behind the theft which determine its good/evil-ness. And, as established, even Good characters perform evil deeds every now and again. One need look no further than the Atonement spell for that.

*.*.*.*

2011-05-27, 05:20 PM

What SHOULD happen is that your deity should call you into his office and tell you that you're a loose cannon, and pair you up with a by-the-book partner.

You, grand sir, deserve a cookienet.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 05:20 PM

Unless I missed something... wouldn't the conversion by magical help remove the detecting as Evil thing? Or have I been running a house rule on this all this time?

As for if it still detects as evil because of sub-type even if reformed... Wouldn't catching it in the act of doing Evil mean that that wasn't the case here?

You don't lose the subtype by changing alignment (AFAIK, not even with magical assitance, since keeping it is the default to be overruled), and the subtype counts for pretty much any case where you need to know something's alignment. Which leads to the infamous Succubus Paladin counting as Lawful, Evil, Chaotic and Good all at the same time. There's a ritual in Savage Species which can remove them, but there's a save against death involved.

Stealing is not what I would call Evil, though it is far from the respectable end of Neutral. Really it doesn't have an alignment unless it is really drastically affecting someone's life, at least IMO. Opinions differ widely.

Siosilvar

2011-05-27, 05:33 PM

Can't find it on the SRD, but feel free to check your Monster Manual for the description of what 'Always X' means with regards to alignment.

Succubi, as intelligent creatures (Int>3) are freely allowed to choose their own moral path, be it good, neutral or evil. This isn't DM Fiat or refluffing or changing the rules. This is explicit RAW right here.

The MM says "The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to that alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions."

Assuming "rare" is up to 10%, even, I'd say that smite-on-sight is what you should be doing to evil outsiders. If you take the time to ask, well, 17 of 25 evil outsiders have at-will greater teleport abilities with which they can use to go somewhere else to do their evil (or neutral, I suppose. No great loss in that case).

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 05:35 PM

Would you have the same response to a humanoid doing the same?

There's the million-dollar question. I'm guessing not. That would be filed easily under "Psychopathic Knight Templar." The kind of thing players who gamed with bad paladin players discuss in hushed tones around trash-can fires at night.

Being good means being held to a higher standard, not just "Detect Evil First, Smite Second, Ask Questions Later."

Excellent point. If good sinks to evil's methods, they cease to be good, and become "Thing that kills demons."

How does the player know that a Demon can be turned unless the DM has explicitly stated at the start of the game when the player first started that such an act was even possible?

IF the DM did do this, then yeah, what happened to the OP falls a bit more under the "Justified due to DM caveat". However, if the DM never mentioned that bit before, then no, it doesn't matter.

1) They may not even be using Book of Exalted Deeds and the rules for turning demons(sounds a bit unlikely, but possible)

2) Even though it is possible by RAW, how prevalent, and how often it happens should be far tougher than the rules for it actually are. It is supposed to be incredibly rare. Otherwise all paladins/clerics should be getting in trouble every time they take out a demon, and that frankly seems bloody stupid to me.

I like this. This makes some semblance of sense. At least in my game, nothing is "unredeemable." It might be hard as all hell to redeem a Succubus, but it can be done. This could be what the higher powers were doing. Testing your Astral Deva to see if it could be more reasonable then (see Evil, kill Evil).

That sounds good. I'm very much the same way: In the setting I'm writing right now, the herald of my universe's version of Heironius is an ascended Balor who happens to be one of the most powerful non-deities in the setting.

Succubi, as intelligent creatures (Int>3) are freely allowed to choose their own moral path, be it good, neutral or evil. This isn't DM Fiat or refluffing or changing the rules. This is explicit RAW right here.

I was going to say that, but you beat me to it. Good show. But yeah, you can tell just by glancing at a creature's Int score if they could change their alignment if they so chose. If a sentient creature cannot make their own moral decisions they cease to be sentient at all.

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 05:35 PM

Um, sorry, but no. Succubi can totally be Neutral Good or whatever. But the basic reaction of a Deva when he sees an Evil Thing That His Plane Is At War With is going to be *smite*.

Adding to that, Succubi (and Incubi) feed on the life force of living creatures, like a vampire does. While they can, say, pay people for the occasional negative level, they aren't likely to, and it's another black mark against them (alongside the whole MADE OF PURE EVIL part).

Oh, and this Deva just witnessed the Succubi steal from a shopkeeper... it's not defined, but i'm assuming there was some reason for the 'out of spite' part of the description. Either an item the succubus didn't need, or clearly as revenge. If the Succubus was a good-hearted Chaotic Good Rogue playing a prank on the shop-keeper as a kind of 'take it, The Man!' kind of thing, well, she picked a poor damn time. This is circumstantial evidence of her being Unlikely To Be The Drizzt Do'Urden Of Succubi.

So instead of capturing her and then embarking on an unlikely, some would say heart-touching romantic comedical attempt to 'turn her good', he shot her down, like a dog, in the street, and sent her soul screaming back to her plane of darkness and fire and evil.

Was this the only thing he could have done? Surely not. Was it the best thing he could have done? Dunno.

But was it a reasonable thing to do? Yes. Devils can teleport, and 99.99999999999% of them are Evil. As a servant of Good, he made a judgement call to put down a devil he saw in the material plane before it could escape (potentially to kill dozens or hundreds of innocents, or even machinate to open a gateway to this reality that would destroy thousands of worlds). Was that the right thing to do? We don't know, as we don't know if the Devil was evil or good or exalted or a fish who had cast shapechange. But it was a judgement call, he made it, and it was, from his point of view, a reasonable call to make.

The DM limboing him for doing that is because either the DM changed some parts of this world (Good devils being a common thing, for example), or the Good Gods are ***** who tie the hands of their servants in ways not outlined in the Planar Handbook, PHB, CDivine, Planescape, DMG, or BoED, or because that succubus was a PC or NPC that the party was supposed to interact with/not kill and the DM is being picqued.

Again, if you don't want players to kill on sight a creature that is known to be dangerous and evil... find a way to introduce it where the players can't or are less likely to attack it. If you don't, it's your own damn fault.

Siosilvar

2011-05-27, 05:40 PM

Excellent point. If good sinks to evil's methods, they cease to be good, and become "Thing that kills demons."

Some ostensibly Good Outsiders have that as their job descriptions: see Hound Archons and Planetars.

Talya

2011-05-27, 05:47 PM

Some ostensibly Good Outsiders have that as their job descriptions: see Hound Archons and Planetars.

According to D&D planar lore, some originally lawful good outsiders had that as their job description. This was how the blood war started. Over time, the focus on destroying the infinite denizens of evil and chaos corrupted even them, and so the devils and the nine hells came to be.

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

MarkusWolfe

2011-05-27, 05:51 PM

The interaction between them goes like so:

"Slut."
"Goody-two-shoes."

And then the smiting begins.

Sims

2011-05-27, 05:53 PM

Well, I should be a little clearer on the story, since I was in a bit of a rush when I first typed this.

The Succubus was stealing the few gold of an already poor merchant AND his medallion. From the way my DM described it, she did it for sheer delight in seeing if he would wager or bargain with demons in order for his family to survive.

My character had been watching her for a while. When he spotted her attempted thef, he called it out. She took the wallet and ran. He (the Angel) told her to stop, but she kept going, so he pulled out his bow. (Then my DM made me roll initiative) If she got away (or teleported) she might even try it again later.

So I fired, and rolled a 19, then confirmed a critical. The second shot wasn't a crit. I don't know how low her HP was, but it was enough to kill her.

Then I said "whoops." But thats the same as shooting someones head off and saying whoops. I think she was one of my DM's characters.

EDIT: I'm adding this to the front.

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 05:56 PM

According to D&D planar lore, some originally lawful good outsiders had that as their job description. This was how the blood war started. Over time, the focus on destroying the infinite denizens of evil and chaos corrupted even them, and so the devils and the nine hells came to be.

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

And then the Blood War, so for the Good Gods, it was basically a Just As Planned kind of moment. *take off sunglasses* "It would take some kind of Tactical Genius to create a new force of evil to keep the old one occup... CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED"

That said, if a rabid dog got into a kindergarten, i'd shoot it before I let it savage a bunch of kids 'just in case it was secretly not rabid'.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 06:01 PM

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:03 PM

Sims

2011-05-27, 06:05 PM

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:08 PM

(stuff)
Then I said "whoops." But thats the same as shooting someones head off and saying whoops. I think she was one of my DM's characters.

Well, it's not really, she's not dead. He might just be sour because she was supposed to get away, but I'm no expert.

Uh...hm. Well, it's obvious the DM thinks it's excessive force either way, so. Maybe pick up some scrolls of Dimensional Anchor for the next time something like this happens?

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:09 PM

Again, if you don't want players to kill on sight a creature that is known to be dangerous and evil... find a way to introduce it where the players can't or are less likely to attack it. If you don't, it's your own damn fault.

While I disagree with your position as a whole, I think you have a point here. The DM kinda stacked the deck against you, here. Your response may have indeed been wrong, but he didn't give you the proper tools to determine that beforehand.

Well, I should be a little clearer on the story, since I was in a bit of a rush when I first typed this.

The Succubus was stealing the few gold of an already poor merchant AND his medallion. From the way my DM described it, she did it for sheer delight in seeing if he would wager or bargain with demons in order for his family to survive.

My character had been watching her for a while. When he spotted her attempted thef, he called it out. She took the wallet and ran. He (the Angel) told her to stop, but she kept going, so he pulled out his bow. (Then my DM made me roll initiative) If she got away (or teleported) she might even try it again later.

So I fired, and rolled a 19, then confirmed a critical. The second shot wasn't a crit. I don't know how low her HP was, but it was enough to kill her.

Then I said "whoops." But thats the same as shooting someones head off and saying whoops. I think she was one of my DM's characters.

Well that makes it a bit clearer. What I'm not sure of, though, was how you ascertained this information about the nature of her crime? Did the DM tell you (he shouldn't have; no way your character could have known that that I'm aware of)? Did she say so? Did you overhear her cackling to herself about her evil plan? Did she carry a big neon sign that said "I'm going to extort someone for their immortal soul" while singing "When You're Evil" by Voltaire hideously off-key? There are still some holes in this story is what I'm saying.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:10 PM

Oooh, his medallion. :smalltongue:

Seriously, anyone willing to shoot a lethal weapon for petty thievery is not Good in my book, I'd think it was weird if the DM didn't mention it. My rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't be Good for doing it to a True Neutral Human street urchin, you won't be Good for doing it to anything else with Int 3+ (Int 1 or 2 and mindless things aren't as simple).

Edit: @^ That's not nearly the same situation and you know it. A rabid dog is obviously going to cause massive physical injury to small children and can't be reasoned with, and even then the Good option would be knocking it out and securing it, with killing it being iffy to Neutral. A Succubus stealing from an old man? It could be much worse, and if the thing flees when you try to talk to it you let it go and offer to protect the old man or maybe get out a non-lethal weapon if you're feeling particularly cruel. You don't murder the Succubus on the spot, not if you want to be Good.

A Succubus stealing from an old man and a Succubus stealing an old man's livelihood are two different things. She is ruining an innocent's life, purely for schadenfreude. This, coupled with the minor matters of her being literally made of evil, and being a member of an infinite army of darkness that you are tasked with keeping at bay, makes killing her infinitely justifiable. Even the Book of Exalted Deeds allows that redeeming devils and demons is functionally a non-option, and killing them is no worse than destroying the undead.

This, of course, sets aside the fact that Outsiders that are killed in the Prime Material are just sent back to their homes, rather than actually destroyed.

Sims, I have to agree with your course of action, and call shenanigans on your DM.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:12 PM

So he should have let her teleport away and then what, recompensated the merchant? I can see an argument for that.

That seems acceptable as well. While I can't see killing her on the spot as being morally justified, if you do choose to let her go, compensating the old man seems fair.

Saph

2011-05-27, 06:12 PM

Oooh, his medallion. :smalltongue:

Seriously, anyone willing to shoot a lethal weapon for petty thievery is not Good in my book.

It's a demon. They are, quite literally, embodiments of evil. They're the mortal enemies of all Good outsiders and pretty much every other living and unliving creature in the D&D multiverse, including other demons.

Based on what the OP's said so far, it sounds like the DM either:

a) Expects all Good outsiders to play as Stupid Good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StupidGood),
b) Has changed the definition of 'demon' without telling the players, or
c) Has a serious case of DMPC-itis.

Regarding the OP's question, if I was in that game and was making any kind of attempt to roleplay a Deva, I probably would have shot the succubus on sight. Evil outsiders are the absolute antithesis of everything your character is supposed to stand for.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 06:13 PM

And let her get away with making an already less than fortunate man MORE unfortunate? I'd never play in *your* games. >___>

It wasn't just petty theivery. she had intentions.

You could take her down non-lethally, but really as a Good character you should worry more about helping the old man than murdering or harming a fleeing thief.

I doubt I'd like a smite-on-sight player, really, and I wouldn't enjoy playing in a game where that attitude was expected or encouraged.

Intentions to do what, exactly? Take an old man over to the already infinite forces of the demons? Yeah, really going to matter. Kill an old man? She could have done that easily, but didn't (which makes her less likely to use lethal force than you, not setting a good example for Good, here). What is she going to do that's so important?

Edit: @^ Made of Evil or not, lethal force is not something Good does. Good protects life and makes it as comfortable as possible. That is what being Good in D&D means. If your character goes to lethal force as a first response to anything but the same being used by others they are not Good. If you really think that destroying an Evil creature is more important than helping the man they just finished stealing from then you are not a Good character. You go to non-lethal means which still take them out of action? That's fine. But as soon as you draw a weapon on an unarmed (and in this case fleeing) opponent you are not acting Good, much less so if you do so before helping someone in need.

Sims

2011-05-27, 06:15 PM

While I disagree with your position as a whole, I think you have a point here. The DM kinda stacked the deck against you, here. Your response may have indeed been wrong, but he didn't give you the proper tools to determine that beforehand.

Well that makes it a bit clearer. What I'm not sure of, though, was how you ascertained this information about the nature of her crime? Did the DM tell you (he shouldn't have; no way your character could have known that that I'm aware of)? Did she say so? Did you overhear her cackling to herself about her evil plan? Did she carry a big neon sign that said "I'm going to extort someone for their immortal soul" while singing "When You're Evil" by Voltaire hideously off-key? There are still some holes in this story is what I'm saying.

I had used Detect Evil earlier and found her. then I sort of snuck around to see what she was up to, but didn't confront her directly.

My character had in fact overheard her speaking with what appeared to be an evil aligned halfling earlier on about the next victim. thats why when he saw her on the street, I was gonna bust her right then, but I needed to wait for a crime.

Even after she had gotten the wallet, I stilled had the Angel yell "Stop!" but she did not. My DM should have had her teleport away right then. I guess it slipped his mind as he was quite flustered when she didn't survive.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:16 PM

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:16 PM

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:17 PM

b) Has changed the definition of 'demon' without telling the players, or

Why should he? The character's have not read the rule books, and unless demons have become the embodiment of good, local mythology will probably still claim they are evil even if they are CN.

c) Has a serious case of DMPC-itis.

Yeah, that story does has the foul stench of such an abomination.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:18 PM

I had used Detect Evil earlier and found her. then I sort of snuck around to see what she was up to, but didn't confront her directly.

My character had in fact overheard her speaking with what appeared to be an evil aligned halfling earlier on about the next victim. thats why when he saw her on the street, I was gonna bust her right then, but I needed to wait for a crime.

Even after she had gotten the wallet, I stilled had the Angel yell "Stop!" but she did not. My DM should have had her teleport away right then. I guess it slipped his mind as he was quite flustered when she didn't survive.

Okay, that makes a bit more sense.

Eldariel

2011-05-27, 06:19 PM

Why should he? The character's have not read the rule books, and unless demons have become the embodiment of good, local mythology will probably still claim they are evil even if they are CN.

Chances are a Deva knows what Outsiders are given he is, you know, one himself. It's friggin' IC knowledge; DM should tell PCs what IC knowledge their character is aware of but they are not.

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:21 PM

Chances are a Deva knows what Outsiders are given he is, you know, one himself. It's friggin' IC knowledge; DM should tell PCs what IC knowledge their character is aware of but they are not.

I don't much about the French, and my nation has a long history of being at war with them. (Also, don't mention it happened a long time ago, I don't want to mention a more recent example for fear of breaking the forume rules) Unless he has knowledge (the plains), he's not going to know anything in particular about other outsiders. A demon would know that they are CN, but to outside observers a CN race with some non-sentient members could quite easily appear evil.

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 06:21 PM

Man... attacking a demon, who was stealing something, after shouting several warnings... is not only a fall-able evil act, but it's something angels and good outsiders in general simply do not do?

Yigads. I'd love to be a demon in that setting, you'd get away with murder and nobody would interfere with you until you actually murdered someone, then you could greater teleport. Easiest setting ever to be an evil murderer in.

Anyway, though... more relevant than whether or not it seems reasonable to punish you for doing this, which is apparantly debatable... it's this DM's world, so you're going to have to live wtih that. Perhaps you could ask if a phylactery of faithfulness would work for Astral Devas? That way you can ask the DM in-character to tell you when you're doing something fallable, so at least you know the way the universe works. Secondly, use nonlethal force against literally everything - killing people makes you fall, so accept this as fact unless at some point not killing an evil demon makes you fall too, upon which you just can't win really.

I mean, if the DM decrees that singing at sunrise makes an astral deva fall, then that's pretty stupid... but also just a fact of how the world works, so you have to either work with it or not play astral devas.

Granted, I know I'd have a lot of trouble playing an astral deva (or really, anyone good) in most of the circumstances that seem listed here, as I'd frequently have to bite my lip instead of helping people, but hey.

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:23 PM

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:26 PM

I dunno much about the French, and my nation has a long history of being at war with them. Unless he has knowledge (the plains), he's not going to know anything in particular about other outsiders.

*nitpick... planes

Good point. And anything the celestials would know about the fiends would be biases at best, and straight-up propaganda at worst. Something tells me little angels don't grow up hearing about how the pit fiend just needs a hug and some anger management.

Eldariel

2011-05-27, 06:27 PM

I dunno much about the French, and my nation has a long history of being at war with them. Unless he has knowledge (the plains), he's not going to know anything in particular about other outsiders.

Are you a human? You probably know that humans have things like heart, legs, hands, etc. And that blood flows inside you and that you're made of flesh. And that other humans are made of same stuff. Outsider probably knows that he's made of the essence of good. And by logic can infer that other Outsiders are made of essence of whatever they are.

YOu fail to see the point. Murder if violent.

That's only true if destroying pure evil is wrong. Honestly, if every good outsider doubts to destroy an evil outsider when they encounter one while evil ones do not, good would've already been wiped out of the multiverse. Since that's not the case, we can reasonably infer that good outsiders don't react benevolently to their anti-thesis.

Talya

2011-05-27, 06:28 PM

*nitpick... planes

What, we're not discussing celestial or fiendish bison?

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:28 PM

Are you a human? You probably know that humans have things like heart, legs, hands, etc. And that blood flows inside you and that you're made of flesh. And that other humans are made of same stuff. Outsider probably knows that he's made of the essence of good. And by logic can infer that other Outsiders are made of essence of whatever they are.

Yeah, so how does he know what a completly different race of outsiders are made of?

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:28 PM

Are you a human? You probably know that humans have things like heart, legs, hands, etc. And that blood flows inside you and that you're made of flesh. And that other humans are made of same stuff. Outsider probably knows that he's made of the essence of good. And by logic can infer that other Outsiders are made of essence of whatever they are.

Physiological knowledge is different. It is observable and scientifically verifiable. The question of being made of the "essence" of one thing or another are more philosophical, difficult to answer definitively, and generally a poor basis for moral decision-making.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:28 PM

*nitpick... planes

Good point. And anything the celestials would know about the fiends would be biases at best, and straight-up propaganda at worst. Something tells me little angels don't grow up hearing about how the pit fiend just needs a hug and some anger management.

But then why would one fall for attacking a demon, if this sort of behavior is encouraged?

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:29 PM

But then why would one fall for attacking a demon, if this sort of behavior is encouraged?

Because being taught that it is all right doesn't mean it is all right? Sure, a DM deciding that a character has been raised to be a homicidal maniac without telling them is problomatic, but a good DM who knows his players should be able to pull it off.

Viktyr Gehrig

2011-05-27, 06:30 PM

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:30 PM

Because being taught that it is all right doesn't mean it is all right?

No, I mean, if your deity tells you that fiends are evil, and then you act on the assumption that fiends are evil, why would your deity be pissed at you?

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 06:31 PM

YOu fail to see the point. Murder if violent.

But I said:

Yigads. I'd love to be a demon in that setting, you'd get away with murder and nobody would interfere with you until you actually murdered someone, then you could greater teleport. Easiest setting ever to be an evil murderer in.

So yeah, this setting lets you get away with murder.

Which is actually more okay when you're not an incarnation of evil, but the presumption that about half the people in this topic seem to have is that a succubus can be good, so you shouldn't act on the fact that she's a succubus the way you wouldn't for an evil non-outsider.

Since outsiders have the 'always evil' tag, this results in well over 90% of demons being permitted to murder an orphan before astral devas are supposed to shoot them with arrows. If I was a demon of that 90%, that'd be freaking awesome.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:31 PM

Edit: @^ Made of Evil or not, lethal force is not something Good does. Good protects life and makes it as comfortable as possible. That is what being Good in D&D means. If your character goes to lethal force as a first response to anything but the same being used by others they are not Good. If you really think that destroying an Evil creature is more important than helping the man they just finished stealing from then you are not a Good character. You go to non-lethal means which still take them out of action? That's fine. But as soon as you draw a weapon on an unarmed (and in this case fleeing) opponent you are not acting Good, much less so if you do so before helping someone in need.

Solars are issued Greatswords for a reason. Lethal force is the default in the battle between Good and Evil.

Good implies respect for life, but also concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Given that
1.) Nonlethal attacks would be far less effective than lethal attacks,
2.) Even if killed, a Succubus just regenerates in the Abyss,
and
3.) This Succubus is making a conscious effort to condemn an innocent to infinite suffering, which is a rather extensive attack on both his life and his dignity,

Lethal force is fully justified against such a monster. He can help this man in due time. He cannot prevent the demon from committing further evil unless he does so right now.

Eldariel

2011-05-27, 06:32 PM

Yeah, so how does he know what a completly different race of outsiders are made of?

Does he know they're Outsiders? If so, he probably knows they are what they stand for by extension of him and all other Outsiders he knows being those. Such level of knowledge is also kinda needed for an outsider to perform what they exist to do so I posit such knowledge is inherent to such creatures.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 06:32 PM

What, we're not discussing celestial or fiendish bison?

Okay, that's worth a cookie. *gives cookie*

But then why would one fall for attacking a demon, if this sort of behavior is encouraged?

Perhaps the gods are wiser than the celestial mentors who raised them? Mind you, I'm only speculating...

Talya

2011-05-27, 06:34 PM

but...but....maybe she was a reformed succubus! A Good succubus still registers with Detect Evil due to her evil subtype! maybe the old man was part of a Mephistopheles cult and the succubus had levels of Holy Liberator...or...

I got nothin'.

Talentless

2011-05-27, 06:34 PM

YOu fail to see the point. Murder if violent.

I think it is you who are failing to see the point.

If killing was something that the ultimate forces of Good are not allowed to do then that would make them the biggest hypocritical farce in the universe. Preach to others about doing good, constantly letting evil doers do what they want and go free because the forces of Good do not have any methods whatsoever to stop the Evil in question... Really, that right there is recipe for a crapsack world.

Some people just cannot be fixed, they will always be evil. You must put them down or they will go on to cause more suffering, and do yet more evil.

Murder is bad just doesn't fly in situations involving the LIVING EMBODIMENT of EVIL! Not to mention he did warn the Sucubus in question, he did not have access to dimensional anchor or the equivalent, so performing an action that would put her at negative HP is a perfectly reasonable method of stopping them... especially in a world with HEALING SPELLS! He might of gone overboard and banished her by sending her too far negative... but as methods of stopping an at will teleporter without dimensional anchor... it was perfectly acceptable.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:34 PM

Perhaps the gods are wiser than the celestial mentors who raised them? Mind you, I'm only speculating...

If the gods are wiser, then they would correct the mentors, and such heresy would not continue. Gods in D&D aren't the ineffable beings of modern religions: they speak directly to their followers, through spells that higher-tier angels have by default.

ryu

2011-05-27, 06:34 PM

You could take her down non-lethally, but really as a Good character you should worry more about helping the old man than murdering or harming a fleeing thief.

I doubt I'd like a smite-on-sight player, really, and I wouldn't enjoy playing in a game where that attitude was expected or encouraged.

Intentions to do what, exactly? Take an old man over to the already infinite forces of the demons? Yeah, really going to matter. Kill an old man? She could have done that easily, but didn't (which makes her less likely to use lethal force than you, not setting a good example for Good, here). What is she going to do that's so important?

Edit: @^ Made of Evil or not, lethal force is not something Good does. Good protects life and makes it as comfortable as possible. That is what being Good in D&D means. If your character goes to lethal force as a first response to anything but the same being used by others they are not Good. If you really think that destroying an Evil creature is more important than helping the man they just finished stealing from then you are not a Good character. You go to non-lethal means which still take them out of action? That's fine. But as soon as you draw a weapon on an unarmed (and in this case fleeing) opponent you are not acting Good, much less so if you do so before helping someone in need.

Emphasis in bold. So let me get this straight. Deporting an embodiment of evil makes you not good but getting an old man to sell his SOUL via extortion doesn't matter? Causing an injury to the thing that's normally in your job description to fight is morally gray or worse but condemning the soul of a defenseless old man DOESN'T MATTER? I'm sorry but are you kidding me?!

Edit: Ninjaed but my point still stands.

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:36 PM

So yeah, this setting lets you get away with murder.

Murder + teleport works in any setting.

No, I mean, if your deity tells you that fiends are evil, and then you act on the assumption that fiends are evil, why would your deity be pissed at you?

Maybe the fall/teachings isn't connected to the diety. There are 10001 ways a DM can change his world.

I think it is you who are failing to see the point.

If killing was something that the ultimate forces of Good are not allowed to do then that would make them the biggest hypocritical farce in the universe. Preach to others about doing good, constantly letting evil doers do what they want and go free because the forces of Good do not have any methods whatsoever to stop the Evil in question... Really, that right there is recipe for a crapsack world.

How did you get that from "Don't murder thieves"?

Does he know they're Outsiders? If so, he probably knows they are what they stand for by extension of him and all other Outsiders he knows being those. Such level of knowledge is also kinda needed for an outsider to perform what they exist to do so I posit such knowledge is inherent to such creatures.

Demons stand for chaos. That's true in either setting.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 06:37 PM

...What. Forcing a man to sell his own immortal soul to be able to hold onto his livelihood, and provide for his family, doesn't matter, in your view? It is not a massive shift on the elemental balance of good versus evil, but it is still consigning an innocent to the Abyss, where the vast majority of souls live in constant torment, and only a relative few particularly cruel entities rise beyond life as a Dretch.

That is a just kinda a big deal.

Sorry, my views slipped into my D&D alignment discussion there (I really don't care about people's lives, but D&D Good does, mixing the two was creating a double standard). Yes, a Good character should care and want to stop it. No, they should not do it by attempting to kill someone. Have the man and his family come with you in a hotel for a while so the Succubus doesn't come back, give them some money or something.

Demons should just be allowed to do whatever they want because their victory is inevitable anyway? Saving a human soul isn't a worthwhile use of a Good Guy's time? That's kinda shady. Just because she isn't killing anyone right now doesn't mean she's on the level.

And this isn't a case of smite-on-sight, I don't think. The guy said he was watching her for a while, and only moved in once it looked like something was going down.

Again, sorry for the slip, see above. But no, they shouldn't be allowed to do as they wish. They also shouldn't be subjected to lethal force unless they start to use it. Non-lethal force or just helping the victim instead of getting vengeance on the perpetrator should be Good's preferred methods. If a Good person is regularly using lethal force they either have really violent opponents or someone's alignment has been misrecorded.

And while it wasn't smite-on-sight I wasn't responding to the OP when I used that term, I don't think, and it still cuts it damn close. Thievery and some kind of demonic extortion are not worthy of a death penalty, and even if they were it is almost definitely a) not a law which meshes well with Good, who would prefer no death penalty for anyone but violent criminals and b) not a Good characters place to be judge, jury and executioner for anything less than violent crimes (and serious, actually intending to kill people violent crimes, not barroom brawls and the like).

Saph

2011-05-27, 06:38 PM

Edit: @^ Made of Evil or not, lethal force is not something Good does.

What exactly do you think all those lethal weapons on Good outsider statblocks are there for? Those longbows Solars carry that create those slaying arrows when drawn - what do you think they use them for, archery contests? The standard relationship between Good and Evil outsiders is "kill on sight".

I thought I ran "grey" games, but this is ridiculous.

Ditto. I've heard of "Stupid Good", but I didn't think anyone seriously expected you to play Good outsiders that way.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 06:39 PM

What, we're not discussing celestial or fiendish bison?
fiendish bison:
O give me a home where the buffalo roam,
and the deer and the antelope flaaaaay;
Where always is heard a discouraging word,
and the skyyyyyy is fiery all day.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:40 PM

Maybe the fall/teachings isn't connected to the diety. There are 10001 ways a DM can change his world.

I just don't think this specific angel can be held accountable; if Special Angel Gabriel York Morgan here was cleared for field work, as it were, you'd think top brass would at least mention that they have really strict rules on when you can kill demons. It's either schizophrenic or neglectful on the deity's part.

Thievery and some kind of demonic extortion are not worthy of a death penalty
Morality argument of being cheated out of your soul aside, it's not even a death penalty. They respawn.

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:40 PM

What exactly do you think all those lethal weapons on Good outsider statblocks are there for? Those longbows Solars carry that create those slaying arrows when drawn - what do you think they use them for, archery contests? The standard relationship between Good and Evil outsiders is "kill on sight".

According to the standard rules. A DM is free to decide that in his setting, outsiders of opposing aligments do not kill eachother on sight, just like humanoids of opposing alighment don't.

I just don't think this specific angel can be held accountable; if Special Angel Gabriel York Morgan here was cleared for field work, as it were, you'd think top brass would at least mention that they have really strict rules on when you can kill demons. It's either schizophrenic or neglectful on the deity's part.

So if my character has been taught from birth that killing elves on sight is good I can do so without being evil?

Morality argument of being cheated out of your soul aside, it's not even a death penalty. They respawn.

So what if I kill someone and then raise them?

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:43 PM

Sorry, my views slipped into my D&D alignment discussion there (I really don't care about people's lives, but D&D Good does, mixing the two was creating a double standard). Yes, a Good character should care and want to stop it. No, they should not do it by attempting to kill someone. Have the man and his family come with you in a hotel for a while so the Succubus doesn't come back, give them some money or something.

Again, sorry for the slip, see above. But no, they shouldn't be allowed to do as they wish. They also shouldn't be subjected to lethal force unless they start to use it. Non-lethal force or just helping the victim instead of getting vengeance on the perpetrator should be Good's preferred methods. If a Good person is regularly using lethal force they either have really violent opponents or someone's alignment has been misrecorded.

And while it wasn't smite-on-sight I wasn't responding to the OP when I used that term, I don't think, and it still cuts it damn close. Thievery and some kind of demonic extortion are not worthy of a death penalty, and even if they were it is almost definitely a) not a law which meshes well with Good, who would prefer no death penalty for anyone but violent criminals and b) not a Good characters place to be judge, jury and executioner for anything less than violent crimes (and serious, actually intending to kill people violent crimes, not barroom brawls and the like).

Nonlethal force was not available to him in any way that would work. The Succubus would get away, and while you help her latest victim, she carries out the same monstrosity on another innocent. Good does not mean that you only pull out the stops when your own life is threatened. Good means that you use the least damaging effective means at your disposal to protect people. In the case of demons, they are a sufficient danger that lethal force is justified. And, again, she isn't even frakking dead. She was just deported!

Edit: Secondarily, soul extortion is a violent crime. Far more violent than a mere attempted murder, because that one at least stops hurting after the death.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 06:48 PM

So if my character has been taught from birth that killing elves on sight is good I can do so without being evil?

No, see, we're not talking about the same thing. If Pelor or whoever tells you elves are a blight on the face of the planes, and you're a paladin of Pelor, and you kill an elf, do you Fall for it?

So what if I kill someone and then raise them?

Then did you really kill him, if he didn't stay dead? Now we're arguing semantics, and it might just be easier to sue for the loss of a level's worth of XP. *shrug*

erikun

2011-05-27, 06:48 PM

Intentions to do what, exactly? Take an old man over to the already infinite forces of the demons? Yeah, really going to matter.
So allowing an innocent soul to suffer eternal torment in hell is the Good option here, while attacking a known-evil character performing an unlawful act that would completely destroy an old man's survival and doom them to starvation is the Evil option?

WHAT?!

For the OP: In retrospect, this looked to be a 1st level DMPC who was unable to teleport (probably due to to being CR 1) and so you're being punished for killing them. First, I'd check with your DM to see if there are any important setting details you've missed (such as the demon-redemption-being-common angle).

Outside that, you have some excellent discovery-and-absolution roleplay material sitting in your lap. I'd suggest making use of it, cursing the heavens for their "unfair" act and going into research as to why it happened. If your DM decides to go along with it, you could end up with an interesting campaign about redeeming hell. If not, you'll probably have some murderers teleport away when you try to talk to them in the exact same situations. Well, if your DM drops you to evil for that, I guess you could always run an evil campaign.

Regardless of the DM's plans. :smallamused:

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 06:48 PM

You're an Astral Deva.
You're Chaotic Good.

You see a Succubus.
Succubi are evil.
The Succubi steals.

You smite.
Succubi dies.
DM goes "Hurf durf dats not 'Good'".
DM is huttburt and autismal over his loss of a character.

Those are all the facts I really need to ask myself "Wth is that DM thinking?". You should reach across the table and slap him.

No, see, we're not talking about the same thing. If Pelor or whoever tells you elves are a blight on the face of the planes, and you're a paladin of Pelor, and you kill an elf, do you Fall for it?I'd totally fall for it. :smallbiggrin:

ALL HAIL PELOR, THE BURNING HATE!

Talya

2011-05-27, 06:49 PM

she isn't even frakking dead.

Unlike Kara Thrace, who fracked several times while dead.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 06:51 PM

Solars are issued Greatswords for a reason. Lethal force is the default in the battle between Good and Evil.

Good implies respect for life, but also concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Given that
1.) Nonlethal attacks would be far less effective than lethal attacks,
2.) Even if killed, a Succubus just regenerates in the Abyss,
and
3.) This Succubus is making a conscious effort to condemn an innocent to infinite suffering, which is a rather extensive attack on both his life and his dignity,

Lethal force is fully justified against such a monster. He can help this man in due time. He cannot prevent the demon from committing further evil unless he does so right now.

Is it now? In all settings as a blanket statement?

1.) A -4 to attack rolls is worth betraying the central pillar of your alignment for, then? Really? If you're that bothered by it buy a freaking Merciful weapon, they are in fact more effective than alternatives like Flaming.
2.) Exactly, keep it unconcious and it can't do anything. "Kill" it and it's basically letting it get away, exactly what you were getting on my back about.
3.) You drove it off before it could finish the deal. Give the man some money to get on his feet and keep his family under your care while you're in town to make sure she doesn't come back (heck, if she does you can capture her then), don't go leaving him just as vulnerable to any other tempter that comes along so you can go and send a demon back to the Abyss only for it to come back later.

Using non-lethal force, coincidentally the best tool against a creature which reforms when killed and can teleport at will when concious.

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 06:52 PM

Murder + teleport works in any setting.

Oh, indeed. ^_^

I suppose, a question then. Presuming the default of succubi in fact being evil murderers, let's say you follow that succubi for a few weeks. During those weeks, she continues the unimportant sequence of robbing and plundering for awhile, and then in fact kills someone.

Is it okay to stop her then? I mean... sure, she just killed someone, but nothing says she's gonna do it again.

According to the standard rules. A DM is free to decide that in his setting, outsiders of opposing aligments do not kill eachother on sight, just like humanoids of opposing alighment don't.

I think the only problem people have with that is that this Astral Deva was not informed about this, and then was punished heavily for assuming it's the default.

It's singing at dawn again. If astral devas can fall for singing at dawn or holding siver coins (but not gold ones), but the DM doesn't mention those little tidbits, then odds are the player will be a little annoyed when his character is punished for doing something that doesn't logically cause problems anywhere (Wait, I'm not allowed to hold silver? Since when? But I can hold gold and copper? O-o Why?)

The DM can totally, however, institute those rules. He can, in fact, change the rules on the fly - "Oh that NPC astral deva is allowed to sing at dawn. Also, now you're a pretzel." He's the DM, he can do whatever he wants to.

But if he doesn't explain these things, uh, people are gonna want to stop playing with him. Especially if it's 'Killing a creature of pure evil makes you fall', which is totally something I'd want to know about.

Interestingly, if the NPCs in the setting follow this rule as well, then I think one of the most good (in an objective sense) character is an 'evil' assassin who's only evil because he kills evil outsiders who he sees doing bad things. Since hey, that evil assassin doesn't have to worry about good people killing him, as good people don't do that, and while he has to worry about evil people killing him, he had to worry about that anyway.

Boci

2011-05-27, 06:53 PM

No, see, we're not talking about the same thing. If Pelor or whoever tells you elves are a blight on the face of the planes, and you're a paladin of Pelor, and you kill an elf, do you Fall for it?

No, since you are clearly an evil paladin, following an evil God. The point, a DM may change things, like removing the diety's hand from the teachings of the outsiders then they loose their immunity. I understands it hard on the player, but if that knowledge isn't commonly known then there isn't much he can do.

I'm not saying that is the case here, it doesn't appear to be at all. I'm just saying it can happen, and the DM doesn't need to tell the players.

Oh, indeed. ^_^

I suppose, a question then. Presuming the default of succubi in fact being evil murderers, let's say you follow that succubi for a few weeks. During those weeks, she continues the unimportant sequence of robbing and plundering for awhile, and then in fact kills someone.

Is it okay to stop her then? I mean... sure, she just killed someone, but nothing says she's gonna do it again.

Of course, she just murdered someone. Capital punishment for that is apropriate, and even if the local law disagrees, an exception can be made for such a tricky being.

I think the only problem people have with that is that this Astral Deva was not informed about this, and then was punished heavily for assuming it's the default.

But if in game the astral deva's do not know they are being decieved?

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 06:54 PM

Unlike Kara Thrace, who fracked several times while dead.Augh, that series was so horrible.

MAI BAYBEE DON'T HURT MAI BAYBEE

Geigan

2011-05-27, 06:57 PM

Is it now? In all settings as a blanket statement?
No that is what is expected, unless the DM says otherwise. And what is expected is what the OP asked for. You can argue that a demon can certainly be good, but it is expected to be evil, and considering that most good outsiders have lethal weapons I expect them to resort to violence against demons, not nonlethal damage.

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 06:57 PM

According to the standard rules. A DM is free to decide that in his setting, outsiders of opposing aligments do not kill eachother on sight, just like humanoids of opposing alighment don'tI think the only problem people have with that is that this Astral Deva was not informed about this, and then was punished heavily for assuming it's the default.It does sorta sound like the thing an Astral Deva would be aware of, yes, doesn't it? :smallamused:

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 06:58 PM

Is it now? In all settings as a blanket statement?

1.) A -4 to attack rolls is worth betraying the central pillar of your alignment for, then? Really? If you're that bothered by it buy a freaking Merciful weapon, they are in fact more effective than alternatives like Flaming.
2.) Exactly, keep it unconcious and it can't do anything. "Kill" it and it's basically letting it get away, exactly what you were getting on my back about.
3.) You drove it off before it could finish the deal. Give the man some money to get on his feet and keep his family under your care while you're in town to make sure she doesn't come back (heck, if she does you can capture her then), don't go leaving him just as vulnerable to any other tempter that comes along so you can go and send a demon back to the Abyss only for it to come back later.

Using non-lethal force, coincidentally the best tool against a creature which reforms when killed and can teleport at will when concious.

1.) It is not betraying the principles of Good alignment to kill. Only to murder. I would in fact argue that taking the penalty for an entity that has just proven a willingness to cause infinite suffering and is getting away is betraying the Good alignment, because if you fail to defeat it here, then it will cause far more suffering.
2.) It is generally held that they are unable to return to the Prime Material for several years after being banished once. Consider it a prison sentence. Teleportation does not permit movement between planes.
3.) Who on Earth said anything about leaving after having vanquished the demon? Killing it does not in any way prevent one from turning around and helping the shopkeeper.

Edit: And as for the first question, maybe not for all settings, but it is the default for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, because it is the default in Greyhawk, and all celestials in the Monster Manual have lethal weaponry.

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 06:58 PM

Edit: @^ That's not nearly the same situation and you know it. A rabid dog is obviously going to cause massive physical injury to small children and can't be reasoned with, and even then the Good option would be knocking it out and securing it, with killing it being iffy to Neutral. A Succubus stealing from an old man? It could be much worse, and if the thing flees when you try to talk to it you let it go and offer to protect the old man or maybe get out a non-lethal weapon if you're feeling particularly cruel. You don't murder the Succubus on the spot, not if you want to be Good.

A rabid dog is going to attack anything and anyone near it.

Most (read: all but like 2) succubi are going to drain the life force from mortals, corrupt mortals, kill mortals, drive mortals to despair, and engage in any other act which could be defined as 'Evil' as long as it doesn't require rule-following or excessive planning(being, as they are, innately chaotic creatures - albeit there's some fluff support for them being more Lawful than most Demons).

Mortals have about as much defence against a succubi (unless they're high level characters) as kids do against a rabid dog.

In fact, if you DON'T murder a demon on the spot, in a mortal world, you're probably NOT Good.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:00 PM

It does sorta sound like the thing an Astral Deva would be aware of, yes, doesn't it? :smallamused:

Oh by the way there is a grand conspiracy orchestrated by the highest members of your society who are trying to cover up the fact that the gods have left you and demons are no longer inherantly evil. Naturally this is common knowledge.

tyckspoon

2011-05-27, 07:00 PM

No, see, we're not talking about the same thing. If Pelor or whoever tells you elves are a blight on the face of the planes, and you're a paladin of Pelor, and you kill an elf, do you Fall for it?

Then did you really kill him, if he didn't stay dead? Now we're arguing semantics, and it might just be easier to sue for the loss of a level's worth of XP. *shrug*

If you are in a setting where Paladins are specifically sponsored by gods, then I would say no, you don't fall (in the default rules, you can follow a god, but your Paladin Code is the default 'Do no evil' one, and rules regardless of your god's dogma. In that case, if killing that elf was an evil act, then yes, you fall.)

Personally, if the legal code was to be adjusted for the possibility of raising the dead.. yes, you did commit a murder. But the associated penalties are changed- if you're in an area where Raise Dead is available, the victim is raised (the state/king/benevolent church pays for this service initially.) The murderer is then sentenced to work off the cost of the spell (people who have no talent good enough to do that in a reasonable time may instead be used to draw XP from for item creation, depending on the pragmatism level of the sentencing culture.) If the offending person is sufficiently rich, he will also be levied a fine to go to the victim to compensate for the lost level/Con points, in order to prevent wealthy jerkasses from just killing people who annoy them and casually paying off the charges (there is a level of wealth and jerkassness against this won't help, but that's true of pretty much any legal system.)

/tangent

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 07:01 PM

-snip-

So I see you skipped the post where I explained I slipped from impartially looking at what the book says to just lacking empathy as I usually do. Might want to go and read that one. It was, to be fair, easy to miss whilst you were writing your response but I'd like to see your response to that post.

Also, to the person suggesting slapping the DM because you think Good characters should be allowed to murder, this is the level of stupidity I look for before thinking physical violence against another player is okay:

Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.

ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*

Disagreeing over alignment does not seem anywhere close to that line to me.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-27, 07:01 PM

Is it now? In all settings as a blanket statement?

1.) A -4 to attack rolls is worth betraying the central pillar of your alignment for, then? Really? If you're that bothered by it buy a freaking Merciful weapon, they are in fact more effective than alternatives like Flaming.
2.) Exactly, keep it unconcious and it can't do anything. "Kill" it and it's basically letting it get away, exactly what you were getting on my back about.
3.) You drove it off before it could finish the deal. Give the man some money to get on his feet and keep his family under your care while you're in town to make sure she doesn't come back (heck, if she does you can capture her then), don't go leaving him just as vulnerable to any other tempter that comes along so you can go and send a demon back to the Abyss only for it to come back later.

Using non-lethal force, coincidentally the best tool against a creature which reforms when killed and can teleport at will when concious.

1.) It's outside of the pillar of your alignment to kill a being of pure evil?
2.) Then why did you never mention that before? It sounds like you didn't think of it and are just using it as a bargaining chip. And besides, unless the succubus is summoned, it's extremely hard for it to get back onto the material plane.
3.) The succubus will try to do this on other people, that is assured. Just because she can't do it in that single town any more isn't going to help that, aside from inconveniencing her for a few days in her infinite life.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 07:02 PM

But if in game the astral deva's do not know they are being decieved?

Well, if it's on purpose, then we're playing a different ball game. I don't know if that applies here, though, given that the DM in question was displeased with it.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 07:02 PM

A Succubus is not an evil Humanoid. It is the living embodiment of Chaotic Evil. It is not subject to any of the legal and moral protections that would apply to persons of any type, nor to any code of honor that would be recognized by any human or celestial authority.

What is it with all of these monsters' rights groups? I can understand this attitude when dealing with goblins, but this was a demon.

So the living embodiments of Goodness in the multiverse are murderous genocidal racists who don't know their right from wrong?

I thought I ran "grey" games, but this is ridiculous.

As I said before, a succubus has an Int score above 2, and as such is sentient. A sentient creature is capable of moral decision making. Sure, a creature can be more disposed toward a given alignment, perhaps even dramatically so depending on the culture in which they grew up, but all you need for moral flexibility by RAW is Int 2+1.

Since outsiders have the 'always evil' tag, this results in well over 90% of demons being permitted to murder an orphan before astral devas are supposed to shoot them with arrows. If I was a demon of that 90%, that'd be freaking awesome.

In my opinion, anything having an "Always Anything" tag is a failure on the part of the writer.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:04 PM

Well, if it's on purpose, then we're playing a different ball game. I don't know if that applies here, though, given that the DM in question was displeased with it.

As I said earlier (active thread, points can be missed) I'm not arguing about this peticular game, just the idea in general that the DM must inform players about changes to the standard setting.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 07:06 PM

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 07:09 PM

Oh by the way there is a grand conspiracy orchestrated by the highest members of your society who are trying to cover up the fact that the gods have left you and demons are no longer inherantly evil. Naturally this is common knowledge.

A DM can indeed do that!

A DM can also decree: "Oh, by the way, you're now a pretzel and your name is Nancy and anyone wearing the color red is irredeemably evil and volcanoes will spout beneath your feet for doing so."

It would, however, make people upset (And quite reasonably so).

In my opinion, anything having an "Always Anything" tag is a failure on the part of the writer.

Why? They're demons. They're creatures of evil composed of evil that are evil. They're not people, they're [concept of evil] the creature.

I mean, if you don't like your demons being evil that's cool too, just be rather up front with this fact. When I see a demon I expect it to be tormenting souls or torturing people, because it's a demon. That way we can save the moral ambiguity for the orcs and goblins and orphans.

ryu

2011-05-27, 07:10 PM

Failure on the part of the writer or not I tend to think a being made from the tortured soul juice of the abyss who has been caught not only stealing from a defenseless old man but from what the op said ''talking to a seemingly evil halfling about the next victim.'' is evil. So sue me for closed minded sarcastic bigotry.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 07:13 PM

You can't argue based on the RAW, and then spit on the RAW when you don't like its result, Mr. Zolrane. The 'Always Evil' tag and the 'Int>2=culpable for actions' rules have the same amount of basis in the rules.

Not really. I stated that Int>2=sentient. That is an argument from RAW. I went on to argue that sentience denotes free moral agency. That is an argument from philosophy, apart from DnD. DnD has rules for determining sentience, and I made judgement based on my definition of sentience. I then went on to argue that RAW was in conflict with itself by giving a being that was, by its own definition, sentient a designation that is in direct conflict with my, and I believe most people's, definition of sentience.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:13 PM

A DM can indeed do that!

A DM can also decree: "Oh, by the way, you're now a pretzel and your name is Nancy and anyone wearing the color red is irredeemably evil and volcanoes will spout beneath your feet for doing so."

Rewritting setting info =! making random spur of the moment rulings that screw with your character.

It would, however, make people upset (And quite reasonably so).

I'm sorry, what? A player who doesn't like what I have made for the backstory to my game is "quite reasonably upset"?

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 07:14 PM

[...]

In my opinion, anything having an "Always Anything" tag is a failure on the part of the writer.Why? The way I see it, planar outsiders that are inextricably connected to their plane or alignment. They're like Modrons or Inevitables.

In my mind, they shouldn't even be considered free beings. Of course, this isn't always true and depend on setting, but to me it's an "all or nothing" situation. Either they should be considered "normal" beings with a wide variety of alignments depending on a wide variety of factors, which may or may not include "genetics" or upbringing.

Or, they are slaves to their nature, virtually incapable of deviating from that nature any more than a cog or gear can become a verdant flower. In the exceedingly unlikely event of a fall (or rise), it's a divine or celestial event, as inescapable and inevitable as the sunrise in the morning or the starlit skies in the night.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the way it absolutely has to be, I'm just saying that just because someone isn't free or because something is "Always X", doesn't mean that it's bad writing.

[...]

I'm sorry, what? A player who doesn't like what I have made for the backstory to my game is "quite reasonably upset"?If it deviates from the expected norm in such a fashion that it randomly or unreasonably cripples him without prior understanding of the underlying ruleset of this backstory... Yes!

I would be upset.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 07:14 PM

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 07:16 PM

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 07:17 PM

Why? They're demons. They're creatures of evil composed of evil that are evil. They're not people, they're [concept of evil] the creature.

I mean, if you don't like your demons being evil that's cool too, just be rather up front with this fact. When I see a demon I expect it to be tormenting souls or torturing people, because it's a demon. That way we can save the moral ambiguity for the orcs and goblins and orphans.

And how precisely is any free-willed being inherently different from the orcs and goblins and orphans? "Usually" labels are acceptable (if generally distasteful) for a sentient being. In fact, I think a demon is a perfect candidate for a "Usually Evil" label: their society doesn't take kindly to anyone who veers away from an evil path, and thus, such individuals surviving for long should be rare, but not unheard of... i.e. "Usually Evil."

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 07:17 PM

As I said before, a succubus has an Int score above 2, and as such is sentient. A sentient creature is capable of moral decision making. Sure, a creature can be more disposed toward a given alignment, perhaps even dramatically so depending on the culture in which they grew up, but all you need for moral flexibility by RAW is Int 2+1.

Actually, the actual text explaining 'always X', you know, the actual RAW, states that -

Always: The creature was born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a inherited or hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that determines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions.

So, the vast majority (either all but one, none (again, 'plane determines their alignment' could quite easily superceed 'it is possible for individuals to change alignment'), or very, very few succubi are anything other than Chaotic Evil) of Succubi are Chaotic Evil. They innately crave the life force of all living beings, as a food source, and usually kill those they 'feed' from(keep in mind, a negative level is enough to kill most people, who only have one HD - worse, they turn into a wight and could kill many others before being put down). They create undead wherever they go. They seek to make good people evil through temptation, coercion, seduction, and threats. Average people have absolutely no chance to stand against them, and even town guards or local wizards would have trouble with their SLAs, SR, toughness, and even claw attacks. Worse, they can teleport, even multiport, in order to evade detection - it would require a quite high level mage in order to track down and finish them for good if they managed to escape.

One succubi is capable of causing massive, massive chaos and death. Even an unimaginative and unchaotic one will need to kill people regularly just to 'feed' and will seek to turn people evil at every opportunity.

So.. exactly how many children's deaths does letting it escape need to be worth before shooting it from behind, to kill, is the best course of action?

Keep in mind, this guy is good, not Exalted. He hasn't taken a Vow Of Nonviolence, and one of the purposes of his race is to safeguard the innocent from creatures of evil, and to combat the creatures of evil wherever they may occur.

So.. please. Explain to me exactly why saving innocents is a bad thing.

In my opinion, anything having an "Always Anything" tag is a failure on the part of the writer.

'If your world is different, tell the players before the paladin falls cause he smited a demon that was doing evil things and trying to steal someone's soul'

'oh oops did I forget to tell you, demons are more like kender than evil soulless abominations oh and undead are actually good guys as well in my world' doesn't actually fix the fact you just made the paladin fall, on information he didn't have, unless you retcon it.

In other words, DM's bad. Not the player's bad.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:20 PM

If it deviates from the expected norm in such a fashion that it randomly or unreasonably cripples him without prior understanding of the underlying ruleset of this backstory.. Yes.

You have been chosen. Your falling was a mark of the corruption of your race and your calling to put an end to it. I'm sorry you had to suffer to realize it, but man up and save your kind or go mope in the corner about how unfair life is.

I would be upset.

Then given my reputation for changing stuff you should avoid my games.

I think the idea everyone is trying to reach from two different directions is something along the lines of "If you wanna change something like the nature of demons, you either have to let your players know beforehand so they don't do anything stupid(or at least do it on purpose), or make it a plot point to be discovered so they can be appropriately shocked and intrigued, instead of confused".

And semi-falling for killing a demon doesn't hint at it?

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 07:23 PM

I think the idea everyone is trying to reach from two different directions is something along the lines of "If you wanna change something like the nature of demons, you either have to let your players know beforehand so they don't do anything stupid(or at least do it on purpose), or make it a plot point to be discovered so they can be appropriately shocked and intrigued, instead of confused".

Yeah, I can agree with that. I'm not really defending this DM, just raging against the Always labels as I'm wont to do.

But yeah, you're right, Rejakor I overlooked the MM Glossary's words on this. My bad. That just makes it an even worse label, because "Always" now means something other than "Always."

erikun

2011-05-27, 07:23 PM

So I see you skipped the post where I explained I slipped from impartially looking at what the book says to just lacking empathy as I usually do. Might want to go and read that one.
I did, and sorry about that. I tend to take some time typing up my posts.

I agree with you that when equal opportunities offer themselves, the good character should use non-lethal force against an opponent. A grapple-focused character who was standing next to the thief would be far better (morally) trying to grab them rather than pulling out a longsword. Hold Person would be far preferable against a cutpurse than Lightning Bolt. Even in the case where the non-lethal option is slightly less practical, Good has a responsibility for standing up and taking the less travelled route, so to speak, even if it is more difficult.

On the other hand, there did not seem to be many more options. That -4 penality for non-lethal damage, even if possible with a longbow, can reduce your chances of hitting by as much as half. It didn't sound like running after the succubus and catching her in a grapple was an option, and the -6 (or higher) penality for doing so basically guarantees failure. There was also the teleport problem, where nothing besides Dimensional Anchor or 0 HP will keep her from escaping.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 07:23 PM

Then given my reputation for changing stuff you should avoid my games.
Well that's not the same thing. You are known for changing things and if you are up front about this the PC has no right to be outraged at you for doing exactly what you said you'd do before hand.

The complaint here is that things are changed without informing the players that you would make changes. It's really annoying when you think you're playing a game that turns out to be completely different.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 07:25 PM

Not really. I stated that Int>2=sentient. That is an argument from RAW. I went on to argue that sentience denotes free moral agency. That is an argument from philosophy, apart from DnD. DnD has rules for determining sentience, and I made judgement based on my definition of sentience. I then went on to argue that RAW was in conflict with itself by giving a being that was, by its own definition, sentient a designation that is in direct conflict with my, and I believe most people's, definition of sentience.

Sentience only implies one's understanding that one's self is alive. It does not necessarily require any degree of moral understanding. Take the archetypal sociopath: he sees people around him as objects that he can interact with in ways that please him. He might learn to behave in the way that people accept, but that would only be so that objects around him do not interact with him in displeasing ways. He still has nothing you could call a conscience.

He is disordered, and unable to make moral judgements (though he could determine whether X conflicts with the rules that he knows), but unquestionably sentient.

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 07:25 PM

Rewritting setting info =! making random spur of the moment rulings that screw with your character.

In my setting, there is a group called the dawncallers. They are a series of extremely powerful druids that are trying to cause nature to recapture the world that they see as corrupted by the denizens thereof. They have a series of potent rituals to do so, and have discovered a potential flaw in their plan - during the rising of the sun, a beautiful song by a humanoid can reach out to the lord of the sun, potentially wrecking their entire plan.

However, they have very potent magic and thus set about fixing this. The solution they came up with involved a synthesis of their own druidic wild shaping and their baleful polymorph spells - a potent curse put on the world. Anyone who ever sang at or near dawn, before their song could be heard, would be effected by the potent curse. The curse would also effect anyone around them who was allied to them.

And finally, they completed this curse, and returned to their ploy of destroying the world.

~~~

A possible right response could be to have the group find clues about this event, discover something unpleasant about singing, or find the effects of someone who'd sung at dawn.

Buuut:

Cleric of a musical diety: I wake up at dawn as usual! Hello sunrise! Hello morning birds! I sing a happy song to the rising of the dawn!
DM: You and all of your party members turn into gophers with the minds of gophers. TPK, nice try guys.
Cleric: O-o What?
DM: Singing at dawn turns you into gophers.
Paladin/Monk/PrestigePaladin/Hexblade: Is that... a save? I can make whatever save it is.
DM: No save.
Cleric: o_O Since when? I sing every morning?
DM: It just happened.
Cleric: O_o Did you just make that up?
DM: Well I didn't see the need to explain it, but <explains druid bit above>

...so I dunno, that sounds pretty silly to me.

And there, it's 'Rewriting setting info', as the statement 'Demons usually work this way, you are punished randomly by your diety, don't be upset since the DM can do what he wants to' is apparantly blanket okay. :P

kardar233

2011-05-27, 07:26 PM

Rewritting setting info =! making random spur of the moment rulings that screw with your character.

Your DM's setting specifies that all elves are homicidal, kill-you-on-sight berserkers.

You, not knowing this, go and talk to a caravan of elves on the road. You and your party are promptly slaughtered and your entrails used for soup.

Do you have a reason to be annoyed or angry? Hell yes.

Heatwizard

2011-05-27, 07:26 PM

You have been chosen. Your falling was a mark of the corruption of your race and your calling to put an end to it. I'm sorry you had to suffer to realize it, but man up and save your kind or go mope in the corner about how unfair life is.

You could modify blackguard and let him become an equally strong anti-paladin; conserves the theme without the punishment. This is just small-talk, though.

And semi-falling for killing a demon doesn't hint at it?

I'm unconvinced that's what's going on, though.

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 07:27 PM

Then given my reputation for changing stuff you should avoid my games.Given your penchant for writing in riddles, it's probably better I do.

If you randomly, frivolously or arbitrarily change your cosmology or the nature of alignments to the point where players, let alone agents of those specific alignments or planes, aren't even informed of these changes so that they can react to them in a reasonable fashion, you're a horrible, horrible DM.

Unless informed otherwise, the player will possibly likely perhaps make the arguably erroneous assumption that the Astral Deva he is playing is a regular Astral Deva, reacting like a regular Astral Deva to a regular Succubus. The horror!

NNescio

2011-05-27, 07:27 PM

Not really. I stated that Int>2=sentient. That is an argument from RAW. I went on to argue that sentience denotes free moral agency. That is an argument from philosophy, apart from DnD. DnD has rules for determining sentience, and I made judgement based on my definition of sentience. I then went on to argue that RAW was in conflict with itself by giving a being that was, by its own definition, sentient a designation that is in direct conflict with my, and I believe most people's, definition of sentience.
Sentience does not imply moral agency. It merely implies consciousness and the capacity to feel. Your definition of sentience is flawed, as counterexamples can be easily found. Insane people, for example, are usually regarded as being sentient but incapable of moral agency, and this forms the basis of many laws in various countries.

Fiction, however, usually have a slightly different meaning of "sentience". "Sentient" beings are creatures that have 'human-like' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sentient) intelligence. D&D likely follows the same convention due to the INT requirement. Again, this does not necessarily imply moral agency.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 07:29 PM

And semi-falling for killing a demon doesn't hint at it?

If it's a fact of life in your setting, then an embodiment of good should know that all demons are really just mischievous scamps, and Hell is full of lollipops and ice cream. If you don't let him know when his actions are about to make it clear that he doesn't understand, then you should clarify things for him. Otherwise, it's like letting someone make a crit-fisher, then announcing that everything in the world has been replaced by constructs. In other words, a **** move.

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 07:30 PM

And how precisely is any free-willed being inherently different from the orcs and goblins and orphans?

They're physically composed of evil and are always evi? They're demons.

Again, I can totally accept 'I don't like that demons and devils are always evil or that angels are always good, so I'm changing that in my world'.

But me personally? I like 'demons and devils are always evil', and 'angels are always good'. It makes those exceptionally rare exceptions to the rule neat and memorable.

Although even in games where demons and devils are almost always evil, it should seem exceptionally reasonable to kill one when you meet it, especially if it's doing something wrong. :P

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 07:30 PM

You have been chosen. Your falling was a mark of the corruption of your race and your calling to put an end to it. I'm sorry you had to suffer to realize it, but man up and save your kind or go mope in the corner about how unfair life is.

Then given my reputation for changing stuff you should avoid my games.

And semi-falling for killing a demon doesn't hint at it?

1. That's not what the DM said, or, as far as I can tell, intended. He was 'YOU KILLED MY NPC WAHHHH'.

2. Here's the deal. Changing stuff? That's perfectly fine. Not telling players whose characters would really know that? And then making them fall based on it? Not fine. Not fine at all. That is officially gygaxian. 'Oh lol, didn't tell you, but sphere of annihilation in the statue's mouth! lolololololololol' 'don't worry though, it's okay, I changed that at the start of the game... what do you mean I didn't tell you? You never asked! lolololololololololollooloolololol'

3. No actually, it hints at 'your DM is being an ass'. If a Chaotic Neutral bard disguise self's himself as an orc raider and runs into a shop and starts swinging an axe around with the intention of later going 'lol j/k guyzy', and he grabs the shopkeep and pretends to be ready to execute him, and a paladin runs in and sees the orc about to kill the shopkeep and goes 'FOR HEIRONEOUS' and crits, instakilling the bard... does he fall? Nope. Because he acted for the greater good. He had no way of knowing that that was a disguised idiot bard. In the same way, if the DM has super secretly changed the world and then doesn't tell anyone, and then gets angry when people still act as if the world is the same (i.e. demons still = evil), that's his own damn fault.

It is not the player's fault if the DM is an ass. Demon creature - doing an evil thing (forcing the shopkeep to choose between family starving and giving his soul to devils or something) - can escape if he doesn't strike it down right now = for ANY Good person or creature -> attack and hope you finish it in one blow so it can't escape to do more evil.

He even shouted at it first, perhaps dumbly, giving it a warning. To be honest he should have shot first warning'd later/if ever. Good would be served best by assuredly stopping that thing from preying on more innocents, rather than giving it a chance to surrender or protest innocence, that could have given it the perfect opportunity to escape.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:30 PM

In my setting, there is a group called the dawncallers. They are a series of extremely powerful druids that are trying to cause nature to recapture the world that they see as corrupted by the denizens thereof. They have a series of potent rituals to do so, and have discovered a potential flaw in their plan - during the rising of the sun, a beautiful song by a humanoid can reach out to the lord of the sun, potentially wrecking their entire plan.

However, they have very potent magic and thus set about fixing this. The solution they came up with involved a synthesis of their own druidic wild shaping and their baleful polymorph spells - a potent curse put on the world. Anyone who ever sang at or near dawn, before their song could be heard, would be effected by the potent curse. The curse would also effect anyone around them who was allied to them.

And finally, they completed this curse, and returned to their ploy of destroying the world.

~~~

A possible right response could be to have the group find clues about this event, discover something unpleasant about singing, or find the effects of someone who'd sung at dawn.

Buuut:

Cleric of a musical diety: I wake up at dawn as usual! Hello sunrise! Hello morning birds! I sing a happy song to the rising of the dawn!
DM: You and all of your party members turn into gophers with the minds of gophers. TPK, nice try guys.
Cleric: O-o What?
DM: Singing at dawn turns you into gophers.
Paladin/Monk/PrestigePaladin/Hexblade: Is that... a save? I can make whatever save it is.
DM: No save.
Cleric: o_O Since when? I sing every morning?
DM: It just happened.
Cleric: O_o Did you just make that up?
DM: Well I didn't see the need to explain it, but <explains druid bit above>

...so I dunno, that sounds pretty silly to me.

Now if only my scenario resulted in a TPK as well and maybe it would be a valid comparison.

And there, it's 'Rewriting setting info', as the statement 'Demons usually work this way, you are punished randomly by your diety, don't be upset since the DM can do what he wants to' is apparantly blanket okay. :P

Its more like: "Your race is being decieved and is in danger of corrupting itself beyond redemstion without even realizing so. You have been chosen to correct this, but the path is filled not only with peril, but injustice, as you suffer for wrongs that were not of your doing."

I'm sorry if that doesn't suit you, but I am not simply screwing with your character.

1. That's not what the DM said, or, as far as I can tell, intended. He was 'YOU KILLED MY NPC WAHHHH'.

I know. I already said I'm not talking about this particular example.

2. Here's the deal. Changing stuff? That's perfectly fine. Not telling players whose characters would really know that?

Conspiracy? They wouldn't know it.

3. No actually, it hints at 'your DM is being an ass'.

My gaming world isn't a fair place.

Given your penchant for writing in riddles, it's probably better I do.

I wrote a riddle? Dam, I can never do that when I try.

If you randomly, frivolously or arbitrarily change your cosmology or the nature of alignments to the point where players, let alone agents of those specific alignments or planes, aren't even informed of these changes so that they can react to them in a reasonable fashion, you're a horrible, horrible DM.

I don't do it "randomly, frivolously or arbitrarily". I do it because it fits with the campaign themes I am aiming for.

Unless informed otherwise, the player will possibly likely perhaps make the arguably erroneous assumption that the Astral Deva he is playing is a regular Astral Deva, reacting like a regular Astral Deva to a regular Succubus. The horror!

Yes, and a third party caused an artificial fall to hint at him that all is not right. As I said, I'm not arguing about the OP's game.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 07:32 PM

Sentience only implies one's understanding that one's self is alive. It does not necessarily require any degree of moral understanding. Take the archetypal sociopath: he sees people around him as objects that he can interact with in ways that please him. He might learn to behave in the way that people accept, but that would only be so that objects around him do not interact with him in displeasing ways. He still has nothing you could call a conscience.

He is disordered, and unable to make moral judgements (though he could determine whether X conflicts with the rules that he knows), but unquestionably sentient.

Sociopathy is not the norm, but a deviation, and can't be used as a general rule, unless demons are normally sociopathic, and I see nothing indicating as much in the rules.

Sentience does not imply moral agency. It merely implies consciousness and the capacity to feel. Your definition of sentience is flawed, as counterexamples can be easily found. Insane people, for example, are usually regarded as being sentient but incapable of moral agency, and this forms the basis of many laws in various countries.

Fiction, however, usually have a slightly different meaning of "sentience". "Sentient" beings are creatures that have 'human-like' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sentient) intelligence. D&D likely follows the same convention due to the INT requirement.

RAW, as I read it (prepared to be wrong on this if you can't offer me a counterexample) states that WIS is the stat that allows for self-awareness and perception. Even mindless creatures who could hardly be held responsible for their actions have it.

You could modify blackguard and let him become an equally strong anti-paladin; conserves the theme without the punishment. This is just small-talk, though.

I'm unconvinced that's what's going on, though.

Well if that's what he wants, Pathfinder's already done the work for him.

EDIT: And... I'm taking a break from this thread. Nothing against you guys, I just have some stuff to do.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 07:35 PM

1.) It is not betraying the principles of Good alignment to kill. Only to murder. I would in fact argue that taking the penalty for an entity that has just proven a willingness to cause infinite suffering and is getting away is betraying the Good alignment, because if you fail to defeat it here, then it will cause far more suffering.
2.) It is generally held that they are unable to return to the Prime Material for several years after being banished once. Consider it a prison sentence. Teleportation does not permit movement between planes.
3.) Who on Earth said anything about leaving after having vanquished the demon? Killing it does not in any way prevent one from turning around and helping the shopkeeper.

Edit: And as for the first question, maybe not for all settings, but it is the default for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, because it is the default in Greyhawk, and all celestials in the Monster Manual have lethal weaponry.

It is against Good to kill. Good protects life, no exceptions. Good killing things should be very rare unless they specifically go to find things definitely worthy of death (and many Paladins will have fallen because they made a mistake or took too much pleasure in the act even then).

Maybe, but an unconcious demon is definitely not causing any harm as long as it is unconcious, and can be put into an actual prison (in a maximum security ward, of course) indefinitely - rather than for a rumored and unspecified amount of time. And of course, that could just be a rumor spread by the more wise demons to encourage their "deaths" and immediate return (any demon stupid enough to not see the benefit in this rumor wouldn't care enough to disprove it, after all).

No, but that a Good character puts a higher priority on killing than on helping people is troubling. Actually, that would be troubling in a Neutral character.

There are things immune to non-lethal damage (e.g. undead, which are Evil by default) which need to be taken care of, and I'm sure a paragon of Good is either willing to take a -4 for the sake of their morals or is fighting paragons of Evil, who tend to skip straight from "extant" to "commiting genocide" and will usually have started using lethal force by the time the Good guys arrive.

1.) It's outside of the pillar of your alignment to kill a being of pure evil?
2.) Then why did you never mention that before? It sounds like you didn't think of it and are just using it as a bargaining chip. And besides, unless the succubus is summoned, it's extremely hard for it to get back onto the material plane.
3.) The succubus will try to do this on other people, that is assured. Just because she can't do it in that single town any more isn't going to help that, aside from inconveniencing her for a few days in her infinite life.

It's outside the pillar of your alignment to kill, regardless of who you are killing.

Because I did just think of that? I don't tend to think about the specific effectivenesses of certain strategies against the forces of Evil in D&D because as a DM I don't tend to use demons and devils and as a player I tend to be a force of Evil in the first place, so noticing an interesting tactic and using as part of my argument is rather to be expected. Even if I had thought of it before it's past one in the morning, I'm not at the height of my ability to form a coherent argument right now. Also, if it isn't on the material plane it's adding to the Blood War, which brings in a fair few "unwilling mercenaries" a Succubus would be all too suited to gather, so sending it home is not such a great idea either.

And unfortunately, you can't help those people except by taking the Succubus down. Except if you take it down lethally it'll just go and torment planar travellers. So your best hope of helping those people is using non-lethal means.

A rabid dog is going to attack anything and anyone near it.

Most (read: all but like 2) succubi are going to drain the life force from mortals, corrupt mortals, kill mortals, drive mortals to despair, and engage in any other act which could be defined as 'Evil' as long as it doesn't require rule-following or excessive planning(being, as they are, innately chaotic creatures - albeit there's some fluff support for them being more Lawful than most Demons).

Mortals have about as much defence against a succubi (unless they're high level characters) as kids do against a rabid dog.

In fact, if you DON'T murder a demon on the spot, in a mortal world, you're probably NOT Good.

"Evil" does not mean "automatic death penalty". That it is commiting Evil acts is not an excuse to kill it, nor is sending it home with information about an easily-tempted-to-violence "Good" being helpful if it were. If it's commiting crimes then you can knock it unconcious and take it to the appropriate authorities (who your character thinks of as the appropriate authorities will obviously vary), as a Good character would do with any other criminal (and in fact even that would be targetting demons unfairly if they were not able to flee miles in an instant).

A rabid dog will commit violence against the kids. A Succubus is about as likely to murder or commit violence as any Evil human, if that, instead commiting crimes like extortion - despicable, but not actually smite-worthy.

According to you, whilst I would say if you do anything that could be called "murder" you are probably not Good.

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 07:36 PM

Now if only my scenario resulted in a TPK as well and maybe it would be a valid comparison.

Sigh!

Really, the point is that if the DM does anything he wants to to the setting, this does not justify people being upset when they get screwed for assuming things are normal.

And why is there even a difference? Take your massive conspiracy, have it instead of making the astral deva evil suddenly, just blow up the astral deva. The point is that it's being a rather massive jerk, which is going to upset people.

~

But okay, not a TPK then. Take the same story, remove the 'TPK' aspect, and:

DM: Now you guys are just all gophers! Cleric, Paladin, you both lose all of your powers as part of this effect, wizard you can't cast spells with components, fighter you can't pick up a sword. But don't worry, this is all part of the druidic conspiracy and was all in my story beforehand, I didn't make it up on the spot nor TPK you guys with it.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 07:38 PM

Sociopathy is not the norm, but a deviation, and can't be used as a general rule, unless demons are normally sociopathic, and I see nothing indicating as much in the rules.

I'd say that the [Evil] subtype, and the Always Evil racial alignment, just might hint that there may possibly be an infinitesimal possibility that things aren't quite right in a race that created a society based entirely on cruelty, torture, murder, and manipulation.

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 07:41 PM

Conspiracy? They wouldn't know it.

My gaming world isn't a fair place.

You're describing a story reason for what looks like, feels like, and tastes like, a 'DM being an ass'. If I was doing something like this to a character, I would out of game, tell them that there was a reason for all of this, and it was story related, hang in there.

Because there are so many ******* DMs who totally pull crap like this out of their asses, because they are massive *****.

If you pull stuff that specifically screws specific characters, out of nowhere on a regular basis, then I wouldn't want to play in your games. I don't like getting screwed for no reason other than that the DM has decided that it's him vs players and that he can totally do ******* things to the players 'just cause'.

Luckmann

2011-05-27, 07:42 PM

They're physically composed of evil and are always evi? They're demons.

Again, I can totally accept 'I don't like that demons and devils are always evil or that angels are always good, so I'm changing that in my world'.

But me personally? I like 'demons and devils are always evil', and 'angels are always good'. It makes those exceptionally rare exceptions to the rule neat and memorable.

Although even in games where demons and devils are almost always evil, it should seem exceptionally reasonable to kill one when you meet it, especially if it's doing something wrong. :PEmphasis mine.

It's one thing changing a world to conform to a concept of "Planar Outsiders aren't bound by their respective planar alignments". It's a whole 'nothing thing to do so and not tell the player of such a race of planar outsiders that this is the case!

:smalltongue:

Geigan

2011-05-27, 07:42 PM

Sentience does not imply moral agency. It merely implies consciousness and the capacity to feel. Your definition of sentience is flawed, as counterexamples can be easily found. Insane people, for example, are usually regarded as being sentient but incapable of moral agency, and this forms the basis of many laws in various countries.

Fiction, however, usually have a slightly different meaning of "sentience". "Sentient" beings are creatures that have 'human-like' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sentient) intelligence. D&D likely follows the same convention due to the INT requirement. Again, this does not necessarily imply moral agency.
Note that the site you linked specifies the usage of that definition primarily in sci-fi. Dictionary.com says

Sentient
–adjective
1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. characterized by sensation and consciousness.
–noun
3. a person or thing that is sentient.
4. Archaic . the conscious mind.
I believe that the official definition of sentient does not imply that a person is necessarily of human like intelligence. Most animals are sentient in that they have senses of smell, sight, touch, etc. Science Fiction has brought sentience into the colloquial usage of meaning those with the ability to make moral choices, human like intelligence, and several other things. This is of course all semantics and I do not think arguing any further on the definition of sentience has anything to add to the discussion. And of course colloquial usage could change the official definition, as English does evolve.

I'd say that the [Evil] subtype, and the Always Evil racial alignment, just might hint that there may possibly be an infinitesimal possibility that things aren't quite right in a race that created a society based entirely on cruelty, torture, murder, and manipulation. Sociopathy does not mean evil. Demons can probably have emotions and understand them and I imagine succubi would be more effective tricksters for being able to understand emotions and manipulate them.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:45 PM

Sigh!

Really, the point is that if the DM does anything he wants to to the setting, this does not justify people being upset when they get screwed for assuming things are normal.

If anything resally would happen I will warn you against certain options. I won't let you play a wizard in my Paken game for example, even though it would demonstrate one of the themes pretty well to have you lynched as soon as people realize what you are.

And why is there even a difference? Take your massive conspiracy, have it instead of making the astral deva evil suddenly, just blow up the astral deva. The point is that it's being a rather massive jerk, which is going to upset people.

That's a different feeling though.

DM: Now you guys are just all gophers! Cleric, Paladin, you both lose all of your powers as part of this effect, wizard you can't cast spells with components, fighter you can't pick up a sword. But don't worry, this is all part of the druidic conspiracy and was all in my story beforehand, I didn't make it up on the spot nor TPK you guys with it.

Still not a valid comparison to semi falling.

NNescio

2011-05-27, 07:47 PM

RAW, as I read it (prepared to be wrong on this if you can't offer me a counterexample) states that WIS is the stat that allows for self-awareness and perception. Even mindless creatures who could hardly be held responsible for their actions have it.

Under the definition of "sentience" used by most philosophy textbooks (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/), sentience should be judged by Wisdom instead of Intelligence. 18th century philosophers coined the term just so they could distinguish "the ability to feel" from "reason".

Now, this is not RAW, but you were the one who deviated from RAW and attempted an "argument from philosophy" earlier.

Or to rephrase it in a similar manner to what Sucrose said earlier:
You can't argue based on philosophy, and then spit on philosophy when you don't like its result,

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:49 PM

You're describing a story reason for what looks like, feels like, and tastes like, a 'DM being an ass'. If I was doing something like this to a character, I would out of game, tell them that there was a reason for all of this, and it was story related, hang in there.

Because there are so many ******* DMs who totally pull crap like this out of their asses, because they are massive *****.

I don't have a reputation for doing that.

If you pull stuff that specifically screws specific characters, out of nowhere on a regular basis, then I wouldn't want to play in your games. I don't like getting screwed for no reason other than that the DM has decided that it's him vs players and that he can totally do ******* things to the players 'just cause'.

I wouldn't do it reguarly, and they would have a benefactor who would give them advice, foreshadowing and maybe some shiny gear.

Your DM's setting specifies that all elves are homicidal, kill-you-on-sight berserkers.

You, not knowing this, go and talk to a caravan of elves on the road. You and your party are promptly slaughtered and your entrails used for soup.

Do you have a reason to be annoyed or angry? Hell yes.

Of course, a DM shouldn't through lethal encounters at you. Lets say elves are homicidal, but they take a pill to supress this. You catch one without it and it tries to kill you, but you overpower it, thus recieving the first hint that all is not well. Still annoyed?

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-27, 07:49 PM

Geigan

2011-05-27, 07:52 PM

If anything really would happen I will warn you against certain options. I won't let you play a wizard in my Paken game for example, even though it would demonstrate one of the themes pretty well to have you lynched as soon as people realize what you are.

And that is all we ask. You can change your setting all you want, we as players though would like to be warned away from things that would not be fun choices in your setting. We won't complain if you tell us ahead of time, instead of springing it on us at random.

NNescio

2011-05-27, 07:52 PM

Sentience does not imply moral agency. It merely implies consciousness and the capacity to feel. Your definition of sentience is flawed, as counterexamples can be easily found. Insane people, for example, are usually regarded as being sentient but incapable of moral agency, and this forms the basis of many laws in various countries.

Fiction, however, usually have a slightly different meaning of "sentience". "Sentient" beings are creatures that have 'human-like' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sentient) intelligence. D&D likely follows the same convention due to the INT requirement. Again, this does not necessarily imply moral agency.

Note that the site you linked specifies the usage of that definition primarily in sci-fi. Dictionary.com says

Sentient
–adjective
1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.
2. characterized by sensation and consciousness.
–noun
3. a person or thing that is sentient.
4. Archaic . the conscious mind.

I believe that the official definition of sentient does not imply that a person is necessarily of human like intelligence. Most animals are sentient in that they have senses of smell, sight, touch, etc. Science Fiction has brought sentience into the colloquial usage of meaning those with the ability to make moral choices, human like intelligence, and several other things. This is of course all semantics and I do not think arguing any further on the definition of sentience has anything to add to the discussion. And of course colloquial usage could change the official definition, as English does evolve.

Sociopathy does not mean evil. Demons can probably have emotions and understand them and I imagine succubi would be more effective tricksters for being able to understand emotions and manipulate them.

Reread what you've quoted. I specifically mentioned that my linked example is limited to fiction, and I provided a different, 'official' definition earlier which agrees with the passage you quoted from Dictionary.com.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 07:53 PM

It's one thing changing a world to conform to a concept of "Planar Outsiders aren't bound by their respective planar alignments". It's a whole 'nothing thing to do so and not tell the player of such a race of planar outsiders that this is the case!

:smalltongue:

Maybe it's just the Lower Planes outsiders who are not bound to their planes so strictly, in which case Good outsiders are going to see any such claims by the demons (and devils) as just more of the same trickery and continue thinking that they are, by vast majority, Evil.

Or it could be a bad DM.

Or the DM could just see alignment differently and not really see how one could draw the conclusion that killing is a go-to weapon for Good creatures (like me) and think that the way they see it is obvious enough to be the default (unlike me).

Or probably lots of other things. In any case, I'll come back to this thread later this morning. 'Night!

Edit: Okay, one more quote.

So, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka's not good? What about his father? Iroh? Jeong Jeong the deserter? Swordmaster Piandao?

I haven't seen all of that series, so I'm not familiar with more than half of those characters. But from what I remember of Sokka and Iroh, no, not really. They could be, but they could also easily be Neutral.

Who said he was more focused on killing than helping? And if it's like that, then all adventurers are evil hobos.

There is a Succubus fleeing down the alley and an old man who has just been robbed. The people who choose to shoot the demon, giving it it's automatic "get out of jail free card" instead of immediately helping the old man and checking he hasn't been hurt or level-drained. Also, the ones who didn't have a decent non-lethal weapon despite being Good. And I thought the second sentence was common knowledge.

Demons aren't people. They're made from the stuff of pure evil.

Umm... Yes, they are. They have Cha and Wis scores and and Int above three, that makes them people, no matter what they're made of.

Planar travelers know the risks, and are typically high enough level to take down a succubus.

Not always, there are probably numerous parties that have gone off to face a dragon too big for them that have been Planeshifted for fun or profit. And that's not counting the natural planar travellers, particularly the likes of the Githyanki, who may not notice a portal until it's too late.

Extortion is worth than death. "death" lasts a few moments "soul torturing" lasts for an eternity.

Personally, maybe. Legally, it could be settled either way, particularly with shapeshifting fiends able to take positions of power and make the laws (celestial beings would obviously try to limit this by bringing in their own, more honest representatives). In any case, the Good character almost certainly isn't allowed to act as judge and jury, much less executioner, simply because the crime is not so clear-cut as to justify it.

[quote]And a rabid dog can't choose, it's in it's instinct. Sure, sentient beings have instinct too, but it's second wheel to conscious thought.

What does this have to do with anything? That just means killing the dog is probably Evil or even further on the grubby end of Neutral, the Succubus is still doing things which are not clear-cut "definite smite" cases and therefore not the kind of thing Good beings should deal with lethally.

Boci

2011-05-27, 07:56 PM

And that is all we ask. You can change your setting all you want, we as players though would like to be warned away from things that would not be fun choices in your setting. We won't complain if you tell us ahead of time, instead of springing it on us at random.

But I don't think a false fall is worthy of a warning, especially since the reasons are secret. Why you cannot play a wizard in Paken is obvious (they caused the last magical apocalypse).

You could modify blackguard and let him become an equally strong anti-paladin; conserves the theme without the punishment. This is just small-talk, though.

So a false fall from which he returns is bad, but forcing him to polarize his aligment isn't?

I'm unconvinced that's what's going on, though.

I'm not talking about the OP's game though.

If it's a fact of life in your setting, then an embodiment of good should know that all demons are really just mischievous scamps, and Hell is full of lollipops and ice cream.

Its a fact of life, just not a well known one.

tyckspoon

2011-05-27, 07:56 PM

So, in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka's not good? What about his father? Iroh? Jeong Jeong the deserter? Swordmaster Piandao?

He didn't actually say "you can't kill and still be Good." He said killing is not a Good act, and he's right. A paragon of Good should not take joy in killing- it is sometimes and even often a regretful necessity, but it is not something to be sought. Unless you're killing Always Evil creatures. Those are necessarily a source of Evil in the world, and thus removing them is an unqualified Good act. So go take out your righteous bloodlust on the hordes of the Abyss, it's ok (at least according to Exalted Deeds, which says killing is at best neutral, but makes an exception for the justified destruction of evil outsiders, chromatic dragons, and IIRC some kinds of undead.)

Kantolin

2011-05-27, 07:56 PM

[QUOTE=Boci;11083181]If anything resally would happen I will warn you against certain options

This! This is exactly what I am looking for. That would make things (relatively) fine!

If someone says, "I want to be an elf." And you say, "Elves in my game are actually rabid monkeys and are attacked on sight by ninjas wherever they go.", then they can see that and decide if they want to really be an elf or not in this setting (Or possibly, if they had their hearts set on being an elf, if they want to play or not).

If someone says, "I want to be an elf." and you say, "Sure." And then they are violently murdered before they get a chance to do anything and also notified that they're actually rabid monkeys... then it's your fault as a DM for being a douche, and you can't just say, "Well I wanted to make it a surprise! SURPRISE!"

Surprise!

Boci

2011-05-27, 08:00 PM

This! This is exactly what I am looking for. That would make things (relatively) fine!

If someone says, "I want to be an elf." And you say, "Elves in my game are actually rabid monkeys and are attacked on sight by ninjas wherever they go.", then they can see that and decide if they want to really be an elf or not in this setting (Or possibly, if they had their hearts set on being an elf, if they want to play or not).

If someone says, "I want to be an elf." and you say, "Sure." And then they are violently murdered before they get a chance to do anything and also notified that they're actually rabid monkeys... then it's your fault as a DM for being a douche, and you can't just say, "Well I wanted to make it a surprise! SURPRISE!"

Surprise!

Yes, but that example clearly isn't secret. If all elves are in fact undead, but infused with a magic that causes them to function perfectly, only the magic is now waining as the goddess behind this ploy turns her attention to world domination, it would be a tough call but I wouldn't tell them. I would give them options to fight it, (or allow them to embrace it), but telling them even "don't play an elf" would reveal too much.

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 08:01 PM

true_shinken

2011-05-27, 08:01 PM

It's obviously a case of butthurt DM over the death of a DMPC.

I would say I'm surprised this has turned into such a long argument, but the playground loves alignment threads. :smallcool:

Rejakor

2011-05-27, 08:01 PM

It is against Good to kill. Good protects life, no exceptions. Good killing things should be very rare unless they specifically go to find things definitely worthy of death (and many Paladins will have fallen because they made a mistake or took too much pleasure in the act even then).

Maybe, but an unconcious demon is definitely not causing any harm as long as it is unconcious, and can be put into an actual prison (in a maximum security ward, of course) indefinitely - rather than for a rumored and unspecified amount of time. And of course, that could just be a rumor spread by the more wise demons to encourage their "deaths" and immediate return (any demon stupid enough to not see the benefit in this rumor wouldn't care enough to disprove it, after all).

No, but that a Good character puts a higher priority on killing than on helping people is troubling. Actually, that would be troubling in a Neutral character.

There are things immune to non-lethal damage (e.g. undead, which are Evil by default) which need to be taken care of, and I'm sure a paragon of Good is either willing to take a -4 for the sake of their morals or is fighting paragons of Evil, who tend to skip straight from "extant" to "commiting genocide" and will usually have started using lethal force by the time the Good guys arrive.

Saving life is what good is about, especially innocent life. If you have to kill someone to do that, well, that's part of being Good. Stepping up to do the right thing. Otherwise you'd be Neutral. If killing one person who isn't innocent will save an innocent life, and there's no other reasonable option, then the Good thing to do is to kill that person.

Essentially the Astral Deva was faced with a choice. Risk dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands, of lives, by going for the nonlethal takedown, or go for the lethal 'banish' option. He chose the only option he could choose. The Good one.

If you think risking hundreds or thousands of innocents for the sake of not inconveniencing (banishing) a being made of literal evil is Good, then you're not exactly on the same page as me or the alignment system on that.

You seem to be mixing up 'Morals' with Good. You can have a personal moral code that forbids killing, but that isn't Good, that's Lawful. Not the same thing, at all. You'll also note that the Astral Deva is Chaotic, so he will break any rule as long as the outcome is Good.

It's outside the pillar of your alignment to kill, regardless of who you are killing.

Because I did just think of that? I don't tend to think about the specific effectivenesses of certain strategies against the forces of Evil in D&D because as a DM I don't tend to use demons and devils and as a player I tend to be a force of Evil in the first place, so noticing an interesting tactic and using as part of my argument is rather to be expected. Even if I had thought of it before it's past one in the morning, I'm not at the height of my ability to form a coherent argument right now. Also, if it isn't on the material plane it's adding to the Blood War, which brings in a fair few "unwilling mercenaries" a Succubus would be all too suited to gather, so sending it home is not such a great idea either.

And unfortunately, you can't help those people except by taking the Succubus down. Except if you take it down lethally it'll just go and torment planar travellers. So your best hope of helping those people is using non-lethal means.

Beep. Wrong. If you kill to save innocent life, that is a Good act. You can say that only counts when someone evil is about to cut downwards on the head of an innocent man.. I say it counts when you have a choice of letting an insane man who believes killing young girls and drinking their blood will make him into a god go, or killing him on the spot. You know he's going to go out and serially murder, you know this without a doubt. Which is the Good option? Killing him where he stands, or letting him roam free?

Also keep in mind that this is DnD. Killing sends people to an afterlife, it doesn't oblivionate them.

Also consider that planar travellers = high level wizards and clerics. Not exactly the same as 1HD Commoners. One can defend themselves. The other can't.

Also, there's already demons in the abyss and devils in hell. It's a known danger. In the Prime Material? Much frickin' less so. If some incautious wizard gets drained cause he got lured in by a succubus.. well.. bad luck, guy. If Bob the Astral Deva lets 500 commoners get eaten by a succubus? Well.. that's a whole different kettle of fish.

"Evil" does not mean "automatic death penalty". That it is commiting Evil acts is not an excuse to kill it, nor is sending it home with information about an easily-tempted-to-violence "Good" being helpful if it were. If it's commiting crimes then you can knock it unconcious and take it to the appropriate authorities (who your character thinks of as the appropriate authorities will obviously vary), as a Good character would do with any other criminal (and in fact even that would be targetting demons unfairly if they were not able to flee miles in an instant).

A rabid dog will commit violence against the kids. A Succubus is about as likely to murder or commit violence as any Evil human, if that, instead commiting crimes like extortion - despicable, but not actually smite-worthy.

According to you, whilst I would say if you do anything that could be called "murder" you are probably not Good.

You do not understand the cosmology of DnD. Or, apparently, have read the succubus entry in the MM.

Succubi are not 'Evil Humans'. They are inherently evil, and at the same time suffer a compulsion to drink life force. The worst parts of the worst undead, along with being formed of literal evil, not negative energy, which is just death-charged... Literal. Evil. The moral force of pure non-good.

As the arrow-wielding Astral Deva in the street that day, you have literally two choices.

1. Attempt to capture the succubus. Firing for non-lethal damage is a -4 to hit. Grappling = Negative Levels (oh, and succubi have a good grapple mod, from memory).

2. Banish succubus to it's home plane by killing it.

If you fail at either, dozens, or potentially hundreds or thousands, would die.

Why do I say dozens for sure? Because the Succubus needs to feed. Even if by some stroke of chance it fails to corrupt anyone it being evil, even if it doesn't open gateways for other demons, even if it's not here on some malign purpose, it will seduce and kill for their life essence dozens of individuals in the reasonable amount of time, even with the help of some high level clerics, it would take to find it again, given it's skill checks and teleportation abilities.

So... in order not to inconvenience (send to it's home plane again) a succubus, you would allow for the possibility of at best dozens, at worst, hundreds, of innocent people to die? I'm sorry, but where I come from, allowing innocents to die is not a Good act. Neutral at best.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 08:11 PM

Reread what you've quoted. I specifically mentioned that my linked example is limited to fiction, and I provided a different, 'official' definition earlier which agrees with the passage you quoted from Dictionary.com.

My bad, I don't know how I missed the "limited to fiction" part.

I would say I'm surprised this has turned into such a long argument, but the playground loves alignment threads. :smallcool:
We do love us some banal arguments. :smallbiggrin:

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 08:24 PM

Responses in bold. That said, I doubt that it'll change your mind, as all the evidence of D&D's basic format has failed to do so. I'm willing to just agree to disagree, on one condition: can you at least promise that you will make it explicit that killing is only permitted in response to lethal force (and not even in response to actions that many would regard as more evil than actual killing), should you ever DM a game?

That makes it very hard to reply, so be glad I only intended to reply to this (very last one now!). I am perfectly happy to agree to disagree, I'm just making my reasoning as clear as possible, I didn't think I'd convince anyone out of their position on the matter. And I recognise well that not everyone sees alignment as I do, so when I run a game I make it clear that Good characters avoid killing as much as possible. Always have, always will (I'd add something about running games where it doesn't apply, but I don't think alignment is important enough to run differently for the sake of it - particularly when I loosen alignment restrictions anyway).

Jolly good debate, kept me on my toes well enough! See you (well, not really but you get what I mean) later in the morning!

Sucrose

2011-05-27, 08:32 PM

That makes it very hard to reply, so be glad I only intended to reply to this (very last one now!). I am perfectly happy to agree to disagree, I'm just making my reasoning as clear as possible, I didn't think I'd convince anyone out of their position on the matter. And I recognise well that not everyone sees alignment as I do, so when I run a game I make it clear that Good characters avoid killing as much as possible. Always have, always will (I'd add something about running games where it doesn't apply, but I don't think alignment is important enough to run differently for the sake of it - particularly when I loosen alignment restrictions anyway).

Jolly good debate, kept me on my toes well enough! See you (well, not really but you get what I mean) later in the morning!

I'm sorry if I was rude at the end. I'm glad that you enjoyed the debate.

Geigan

2011-05-27, 08:49 PM

Jolly good debate, kept me on my toes well enough! See you (well, not really but you get what I mean) later in the morning!

I'm sorry if I was rude at the end. I'm glad that you enjoyed the debate.
Yay for reasonable discussion! :D

true_shinken

2011-05-27, 09:27 PM

Yay for reasonable discussion! :D

That's one of the reasons I love the playground, actually.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-27, 09:31 PM

That's one of the reasons I love the playground, actually.

The reason I prefer posting to in person talking is that it gives you more time to think of an answer.

ScionoftheVoid

2011-05-27, 09:45 PM

The reason I prefer posting to in person talking is that it gives you more time to think of an answer.

Though you wouldn't know it to read this thread, eh!

Sucrose, I didn't think you were rude, but then I'm oblivious. In any case, don't worry about it.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 10:19 PM

The reason I prefer posting to in person talking is that it gives you more time to think of an answer.

Indeed. Frankly, I think that's the reason that by and large, written mediums are superior to audible ones.

Amnestic

2011-05-27, 10:39 PM

Indeed. Frankly, I think that's the reason that by and large, written mediums are superior to audible ones.

Lack of body language, facial expressions and tone don't help though. Things can sound sarcastic/more harsh/more patronising than they might otherwise do so if it was oral communications.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-27, 11:23 PM

Lack of body language, facial expressions and tone don't help though. Things can sound sarcastic/more harsh/more patronising than they might otherwise do so if it was oral communications.

Fair point. There are ways around those things, however, albeit to a limited degree. That's why God invented emoticons. As for body language, yeah, that's a limitation, but given the fact that written communication tends to be a lot more information dense than verbal communication, and you can communicate in a more measured manor, the problem is balanced out. Sarcasm? Yeah, that's a tough one, you got me there... that was not sarcasm btw...

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-27, 11:44 PM

Sarcasm? Yeah, that's a tough one, you got me there... that was not sarcasm btw...

It's called sarcasm tags. Like this: [/sarcasm]

OracleofWuffing

2011-05-28, 12:02 AM

Yeah, like that'll catch on...:smallbiggrin:

Randel

2011-05-28, 12:16 AM

See, this is why I never play good aligned characters. I just play neutral or chaotic evil characters and have them act like good people... or like rational decent people who have the power to kill monstrous creatures and are willing to do so.

I've never 'fallen' in a pbp game, but I once had a Neverwinter Nights 2 game where I was a human druid who went through the game being nice to people. My alignment gradually shifted to Neutral Good and around level 12 went to Lawful Good after I spared a murderous thug who burned down a whole village of people to frame me.

So yeah, I started out as a true neutral awesome spellcaster melee guy with a dinosaur animal companion and healing power... but when I acted Lawful Good I lost the ability to progress in that class (fortunately the game didn't take away all my spells and stuff).

Thus it was that learned that having any principles whatsoever (even principles about neutrality) was a total suckers game. If you want to play a good person then play a chaotic evil one and then argue that all your good deeds are due to you randomly deciding to be nice for your own sinister reasons.

Luckmann

2011-05-28, 02:59 AM

Indeed. Frankly, I think that's the reason that by and large, written mediums are superior to audible ones.

Not true. You cannot possibly appreciate the size of my lungs by a written medium.

It's just not the same. :smallfrown:

(Also, there's always this (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p13s01-stct.html))

You'd think that in writing, you have the opportunity to be more precise and, properly worded, more articulate. This means nothing if people can't understand the words you use and then feel offended. I cannot even describe the amount of times I've quoted someone in a thread somewhere, written a long post to support their stance (which I agreed with), only to have them turn around against me, because they somehow got the idea that I disagreed with them. :smallbiggrin:

Murdim

2011-05-28, 03:51 AM

My alignment gradually shifted to Neutral Good and around level 12 went to Lawful Good after I spared a murderous thug who burned down a whole village of people to frame me.
*sneaks in*

Wait... how's that Lawful ? Last time I checked, mercy was just Good and nothing else, Lawful Good wasn't supposed to be Better Good, and Chaotic didn't mean petty.

*sneaks out*

Luckmann

2011-05-28, 03:58 AM

*sneaks in*

Wait... how's that Lawful ? Last time I checked, mercy was just Good and nothing else, Lawful Good wasn't supposed to be Better Good, and Chaotic didn't mean petty.

*sneaks out*Because alignment shifts in PC/Video games ranges from "tolerable" to "oh god make this stop it is fgdsfg useless".

Neverwinter Nights 2 only had 2 good things in it; Sand & Bishop.

Sims

2011-05-28, 05:23 PM

LOL My DM got impeached yesterday. We all could see he was simply too immature. Its always kinda sad when that sorta thing happens, but he was truly acting ridulous.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-28, 05:25 PM

LOL My DM got impeached yesterday. We all could see he was simply too immature. Its always kinda sad when that sorta thing happens, but he was truly acting ridulous.

What happened?

Geigan

2011-05-28, 05:27 PM

What happened?

seconded^ context please

faceroll

2011-05-28, 05:28 PM

The hot outsider babes should totally make out and stuff.

Sims

2011-05-28, 05:45 PM

What happened?

He tried to pit our group against a team of demons he created (with actual character sheets.)

The fight commenced, and in like 2 turns, they were almost completely wiped out. Our team Paladin scored a critical during a smite with a SCYTHE. This took out one of his main BBEGs.

Earlier on when we purchased Evil Outsider bane equipment, I guess he didn't read what it did. (Since I only used one once, but we bought alot after.)

Since it was "unfair" that we killed one of his characters, he started making up stuff like during an attack roll, he'd say "You go through him!" or "You miss." even on a natural 20. (well we only had 2 that game, but still. One was the scythe crit)

After he started to wear us done through "Almighty DM powahs" our Wizard used a plane shift scroll. We all WATCHED with delight haha as he rolled a 2 on the Vrocks save, and got plane shifted to a plane full of good outsiders.

Then he rerolled and just flipped it to a 20. Then he kiled the Wizard by saying "Your magic goes back to you, and you explode. No save."

Then (I say "then" alot XD) he had the remaining demons summon a "Black Tarrasque"

Since we realized we were clearly more sane, the rest of the group and I let him have it.

Randel

2011-05-28, 05:52 PM

*sneaks in*

Wait... how's that Lawful ? Last time I checked, mercy was just Good and nothing else, Lawful Good wasn't supposed to be Better Good, and Chaotic didn't mean petty.

*sneaks out*

*sort of spoilers*

Well, to be honest it was kind of unintentional. He burned down a villiage while disguised as me, I then got a bunch of evidence to prove my innocence at which point his lawyer/partner dug up some old rules regarding a trial by combat thing where I would have to beat a champion of the accuser to prove my innocence. The guy who framed me was the champion.

I beat him (using lots of entanglement spells, summoned animals, my dinosaur companion, lighting spells, and my ability to trasform into a treant) and had him on his knees. Then at the cutscene I was given the choice of saying stuff like "killing you won't bring them back" "As long as my name is cleared, that's all that matters" and some other options.

I knew I was getting "dangerously" close to falling as a druid due to my shift to neutral good and was trying to think of some way to rack up evil points without being a huge jerk for no reason. So I chose the "as long as my name is cleared" option because it sounded selfish and badass or whatnot.

Turns out thats the option to let him go and it earned me a bunch of Lawful points due to the whole "clearing my name" bit or something, thus causing me to fall. Since at that point in the game I was a squire for someone I decided to go on as a paladin. It had better BAB, wisdom caster, and I figured I'd paradoxically be less likely to fall with that given my playstyle (even though I was constantly trying to stay on good terms with a hot tiefling chick for most of the game... she was chaotic neutral by the way and constantly stole stuff. I think I even let her sabotage my opponent for that very battle for me).

So yeah, it was basically a mistake in choosing one poorly defined response in a video game. The battle was a real pain and I didn't want to redo it (I figured I'd just suck up the falling bit and roleplay a transformation into a noble squire or whatnot). Though my opponent was later shown in a cutscene begging for mercy with his master, at which point he was killed for his failure.

The thing is that since at that time I was a recently appointed squire for a knight in service to the king, and had a promise of land and rewards should I prove my opponent was in the wrong (he was an accuser form an enemy country) I was basically trying to suck up to the crown and put on a show for the crowd. So if there was a DM I could have argued that I was secretly confident that the guys master would kill him anyway and I was just putting on a show for the crowd, turning my supposedly lawful acion into an evil or chaotic one and getting me back into the safe zone of neutrality.

Basically, any roleplaying action you take can be interpreted in many ways regarding the whole morality alighnment table. I would rather play a character who isn't dependant on such things... but all the healing spells are divine spells. So if you want to be a healer than you have to put up with all sorts of stupid and arbitrary restrictions that can be interpreted in different ways.

And someone posted above, you'd think that your deity would call you up and tell you about your actions and why you were punished. Its not like you gain power from the alignment, you should be getting power from a deity or nature spirit or something. Argue with them about your actions and get a chance to explain yourself.

Though... to be honest I was a druid and swearing my fielty to a king could have angered the nature spirit I worked for. But I wasn't given any clue how that worked so my falling was a result of crummy diolog options as opposed to the cooler idea that my nature spitit thought I was getting too attached to human civilization. Its weird because I was kind of roleplaying the nature guy aspect during the trial, I even did some work for a driad who had provided the magical disguise powder to the guy who framed me.

See, she was a dryad protecting a forest and was angered by the villagers constantly overharvesting her trees for wood. And some goblins had a glowing magic rock underground that was slowly poisoning the forest (so much in fact that magic didn't work right there and you could see glowing sparks coming out of the trees!).

She had made a deal with the bad guy where she would give him the disguise powder to frame me while he would give her the rock the goblins used. That would be an evil act to humans, but a good act to nature (both protecting the trees from the woodcutting village and by getting rid of the toxic rock).

I was a druid and a bit ticked at being framed, but I knew the forrest was being poisoned and could see her point on the overharvesting (didn't like her helping kill the people as a human but could see her argument as someone who preserved nature). So I got her testimony for her help in the attack (didn't bring it to the attention of the court though) and proceeded to take the glowing stone from the goblins. I got some of the powder from her as evidence.

Net result is that I helped further nature while letting an accomplice to village burning go free (oh, and the goblins were kind of nice to people but would now die becuause that rock was giving them power to defend themselves from attackers... heck, they killed the guy the villain sent to take the rock before). While helping out a dryad because she hels protect nature. I don't think I got any evil or chaotic points from doing that... heck, I didn't even get evil or choatic points for breaking into a guys house and stealing his collection of stuff so my tiefling girlfriend could prove she's the best thief and simultaniously kill her rival.

So I fell for being lawful good by accident while I didn't get any chaotic or evil points for doing stuff like working for an evil dryad, taking defenses from a tribe of friendly goblins, or helping a thief rob someone and kill her rival.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 05:59 PM

Arguing that a demon can be anything but evil is kind of like arguing that a water elemental can be anything but water.

The only difference is that it's easier to change alignment than it is to change what you are made of, but given that any demons changing alignment still retain the Evil subtype, perhaps not so much.

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:01 PM

Arguing that a demon can be anything but evil is kind of like arguing that a water elemental can be anything but water.

Not really, demons as a CN race works pretty easily. Still quite a big bit of re-fluffing, but I doubt the players would struggle to accept the beings as evil.

Eldariel

2011-05-28, 06:01 PM

*snip*

Well, actually, Druid doesn't fall for becoming good. Neutral Good is still a legal Druid alignment, as is Lawful Neutral. You can become however Good you want with no problem of falling; the game maxes out at 100 Good. Lawful Good, of course, does cause you to fall.

Oh, I played a Lawful Neutral character through NWN2 once. That's the only time in my recent 10 years of gaming when I actually used cheats; I cheated to keep my alignment from shifting since the alignment shifting in that game is so stupidly implemented it's not even funny (neutral alignments are the worst since instead of being neutral, you gotta do a split of good and evil/law and chaos to stay there - and much of what counts as evil could count as chaos and the other way around in this game; and the whole point-system is retarded).

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:03 PM

Well, actually, Druid doesn't fall for becoming good. Neutral Good is still a legal Druid alignment, as is Lawful Neutral. You can become however Good you want with no problem of falling; the game maxes out at 100 Good. Lawful Good, of course, does cause you to fall.

So the asnwer is to slaughter a load of commoners and knock yourself down to lawful neutral and regain your powers.

Eldariel

2011-05-28, 06:04 PM

So the asnwer is to slaughter a load of commoners and knock yourself down to lawful neutral and regain your powers.

Yeah. That's how Neutral works.

EDIT: Apparently, the tags are necessary.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 06:04 PM

Not really, demons as a CN race works pretty easily. Still quite a big bit of re-fluffing, but I doubt the players would struggle to accept the beings as evil.

Demons are made of Evil the same way a water elemental is made of water.

If you change that in your game, all the more power to you, but you need to inform the player that his anti-thesis is not actually his anti-thesis.

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:09 PM

Demons are made of Evil the same way a water elemental is made of water.

I wouldn't say its the same. As long as they come from the abyss, have a "genetic" ladder they can climb and are being of chaos you've got demons. Removing the evil component from them is a big change, but not the same as removing the water part of a water elemental.

If you change that in your game, all the more power to you, but you need to inform the player that his anti-thesis is not actually his anti-thesis.

The point I said earlier in this thread is that players do not always know changes made to the fluff.

Marnath

2011-05-28, 06:13 PM

Seriously, 6 pages of this? This discussion seems a little ludicrous to me. Before I came to The Playground I never dreamed I'd see six pages of discussion over whether it was evil for an angel to kill a demon. Lol.:smallamused:

Responses in bold. That said, I doubt that it'll change your mind, as all the evidence of D&D's basic format has failed to do so. I'm willing to just agree to disagree, on one condition: can you at least promise that you will make it explicit that killing is only permitted in response to lethal force (and not even in response to actions that many would regard as more evil than actual killing), should you ever DM a game?

I agree with your points.

He tried to pit our group against a team of demons he created (with actual character sheets.)

The fight commenced, and in like 2 turns, they were almost completely wiped out. Our team Paladin scored a critical during a smite with a SCYTHE. This took out one of his main BBEGs.

Earlier on when we purchased Evil Outsider bane equipment, I guess he didn't read what it did. (Since I only used one once, but we bought alot after.)

Since it was "unfair" that we killed one of his characters, he started making up stuff like during an attack roll, he'd say "You go through him!" or "You miss." even on a natural 20. (well we only had 2 that game, but still. One was the scythe crit)

After he started to wear us done through "Almighty DM powahs" our Wizard used a plane shift scroll. We all WATCHED with delight haha as he rolled a 2 on the Vrocks save, and got plane shifted to a plane full of good outsiders.

Then he rerolled and just flipped it to a 20. Then he kiled the Wizard by saying "Your magic goes back to you, and you explode. No save."

Then (I say "then" alot XD) he had the remaining demons summon a "Black Tarrasque"

Since we realized we were clearly more sane, the rest of the group and I let him have it.

Umm..... wow. O.o
That's all I have to say about that.

*edit:

Yeah. That's how Neutral works.

In video games, maybe. Not in real D&D.

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-28, 06:16 PM

That was sarcasm, I believe.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 06:16 PM

I wouldn't say its the same. As long as they come from the abyss, have a "genetic" ladder they can climb and are being of chaos you've got demons. Removing the evil component from them is a big change, but not the same as removing the water part of a water elemental.
It is not just a 'big change'. It is every bit as big a change as the water elemental. Demons are beings of pure Evil every bit as much as devils are. In fact, their conflict, the Blood War? It is fought over which version of Evil is better. Chaos and Law are integral parts of what they are, but by far the greater part is Evil.

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-28, 06:18 PM

Chaos and Law are integral parts of what they are, but by far the greater part is Evil.

In your campaign setting, sure.

Maybe in this DMs, the campaign setting has them as being made of cupcakes and rainbows. His call, not yours.

Eldariel

2011-05-28, 06:18 PM

In video games, maybe. Not in real D&D.

I thought that was obvious enough not to require sarcasm-tags. Brb.

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:22 PM

It is not just a 'big change'. It is every bit as big a change as the water elemental. Demons are beings of pure Evil every bit as much as devils are. In fact, their conflict, the Blood War? It is fought over which version of Evil is better. Chaos and Law are integral parts of what they are, but by far the greater part is Evil.

I disagree. Evil demons without the chaos are just monsters. Chatoic demons without the evil are still demons, they just aren't a great threat to the celestial planes anymore.

Marnath

2011-05-28, 06:22 PM

In your campaign setting, sure.

Maybe in this DMs, the campaign setting has them as being made of cupcakes and rainbows. His call, not yours.

Or maybe his DM is an immature nit-wit:

He tried to pit our group against a team of demons he created (with actual character sheets.)

The fight commenced, and in like 2 turns, they were almost completely wiped out. Our team Paladin scored a critical during a smite with a SCYTHE. This took out one of his main BBEGs.

Earlier on when we purchased Evil Outsider bane equipment, I guess he didn't read what it did. (Since I only used one once, but we bought alot after.)

Since it was "unfair" that we killed one of his characters, he started making up stuff like during an attack roll, he'd say "You go through him!" or "You miss." even on a natural 20. (well we only had 2 that game, but still. One was the scythe crit)

After he started to wear us done through "Almighty DM powahs" our Wizard used a plane shift scroll. We all WATCHED with delight haha as he rolled a 2 on the Vrocks save, and got plane shifted to a plane full of good outsiders.

Then he rerolled and just flipped it to a 20. Then he kiled the Wizard by saying "Your magic goes back to you, and you explode. No save."

Then (I say "then" alot XD) he had the remaining demons summon a "Black Tarrasque"

Since we realized we were clearly more sane, the rest of the group and I let him have it.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-28, 06:23 PM

I thought that was obvious enough not to require sarcasm-tags. Brb.

I didn't think it was sarcastic either. You always should put sarcasm tags for sarcastic things.

Ursus the Grim

2011-05-28, 06:23 PM

Demons are made of Evil the same way a water elemental is made of water.

If you change that in your game, all the more power to you, but you need to inform the player that his anti-thesis is not actually his anti-thesis.

My response to this is in the spoiler tags, as I think its a big wall of text repeated points I feel you've overlooked.

Then how is that a player has any choice over his Archon character? In the same way that you claim a Demon cannot NOT be evil, an Archon has no capacity for Evil. Therefore a player actually does not have control over his character. And yet he conducted himself in a xenophobic fashion with little reason.

Nothing in Core D&D explicitly says Demons are made of evil, by the way. Sure, Outsiders are made of, in part, some portion of their native plane, but that doesn't make them physically that material. For instance, an Arrowhawk should not have a physical form, being from the Elemental Plane of Air. The Gith, likewise, should be nothing but pure Astral material. See how silly that sounds?

"But the alignment says Always Chaotic Evil."

Alignment:
Always: The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions.

Thus, it is entirely possible for an Always Chaotic Evil creature to be Chaotic Neutral.

"But EVIL is their SUBTYPE!"

Evil Subtype
A subtype usually applied only to outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields were evil-aligned (see Damage Reduction, above).

I believe these points were already raised as early as page one. Now, back onto the current topic.

Though I did agree the Archon acted slightly ungood in the OP, the shenanigans the DM pulled in this most recent anecdote are unforgivable. I'd like to hear more about it, to be honest. I'd never have the mizonks to chew out a player and literally kick them out of the group.

Eldariel

2011-05-28, 06:24 PM

I didn't think it was sarcastic either. You always should put sarcasm tags for sarcastic things.

Bloody hell.

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-28, 06:29 PM

Bloody hell.

This.

Does anybody else think it a bit strange that an Astral Deva is just wandering along and happens to spot a Succubus, one of the more advanced denizens of the Abyss, stealing from a merchant?

This smells like an adventure hook.

Which would mean that the GM, immature nit-wit that he is, overreacted. However, the players should have spotted this obvious hook and played along instead of hiding behind their alignments and getting all slaughter happy.

NNescio

2011-05-28, 06:34 PM

Wait, acting in character is bad, metagaming is good?

TroubleBrewing

2011-05-28, 06:35 PM

Wait, acting in character is bad, metagaming is good?

Here, scroll down to the part where it says "Decide to React Differently." (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html) I think Rich said this one better than I ever could.

Geigan

2011-05-28, 06:37 PM

This.

Does anybody else think it a bit strange that an Astral Deva is just wandering along and happens to spot a Succubus, one of the more advanced denizens of the Abyss, stealing from a merchant?

This smells like an adventure hook.

Which would mean that the GM, immature nit-wit that he is, overreacted. However, the players should have spotted this obvious hook and played along instead of hiding behind their alignments and getting all slaughter happy.
Well if it was an adventure hook I think it could have best been handled by a second hand account rather than catching it in the act. Hearing about a Succubus resorting to petty thievery is odd. Seeing one do it is still odd, and they're probably going to stop them. If the succubus itself was plot crucial he shouldn't have put it out so early. More a mark of inexperience I suppose. If it wasn't he could also have run with the slaughter and informed them that said same succubus had also been reported making other petty thefts all over the city, and then could have had a lead(read:other plot hook) in the form of some object on the demon's person.My point is that if it was a plot hook it was a very poorly constructed one and the player doing exactly what you would expect them to do(smite-on-sight) really shouldn't have been enough to derail the plot, and force punishment on the offending player.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 06:37 PM

In your campaign setting, sure.

Maybe in this DMs, the campaign setting has them as being made of cupcakes and rainbows. His call, not yours.
Arguing from RAW, here, not subjective campaign settings.

My response to this is in the spoiler tags, as I think its a big wall of text repeated points I feel you've overlooked.
No, I'm pretty sure I haven't.

Then how is that a player has any choice over his Archon character? In the same way that you claim a Demon cannot NOT be evil, an Archon has no capacity for Evil. Therefore a player actually does not have control over his character. And yet he conducted himself in a xenophobic fashion with little reason.
PCs are by definition exceptions.

Also, xenophobic? They are polar opposites. The succubus is literally the opposite of everything the deva is. Light and dark. Up and down. Demon and deva. They should attack one another on sight.

Nothing in Core D&D explicitly says Demons are made of evil, by the way. Sure, Outsiders are made of, in part, some portion of their native plane, but that doesn't make them physically that material. For instance, an Arrowhawk should not have a physical form, being from the Elemental Plane of Air. The Gith, likewise, should be nothing but pure Astral material. See how silly that sounds?
No, Evil is not their actual physical form. It is an alignment. But it is as integral to their being as water is to that water elemental.

"But the alignment says Always Chaotic Evil."

Thus, it is entirely possible for an Always Chaotic Evil creature to be Chaotic Neutral.
I think you missed the second part of that quote, there. Rare. Possibly unique (as in, only one). Could it be that specific succubus? Of course! Given its actions, probably not, but yes, it's possible. But given the qualifier of 'possibly unique'...

"But EVIL is their SUBTYPE!"

I believe these points were already raised as early as page one. Now, back onto the current topic.
Hence why I said they were made of Evil.

Though I did agree the Archon acted slightly ungood in the OP, the shenanigans the DM pulled in this most recent anecdote are unforgivable. I'd like to hear more about it, to be honest. I'd never have the mizonks to chew out a player and literally kick them out of the group.
There is nothing 'ungood' about killing an Evil Outsider.

I disagree. Evil demons without the chaos are just monsters. Chatoic demons without the evil are still demons, they just aren't a great threat to the celestial planes anymore.
... okay, no.

A non-Evil demon would not do things that define demons. If you want your demons to be non-Evil, you either need to change the definition of 'demon', or you need to change the definition of Evil.

What defines a demon? It is a creature which exists to defile life in all its forms, to break tradition in the vilest manners possible, to kill and slaughter for nothing but pleasure. They suck the life out of you, and if they can do it while making you break your wedding vows, they're all the happier.

A non-Evil creature does not do any of those things.

Eldariel

2011-05-28, 06:38 PM

This.

I didn't particularly mean that as anything but a general act of raising my hands and going "Gah". I seem inept enough at communication that I better just call it quits on that front altogether, especially since I haven't had anything to add to the main discussion for like 5 pages now.

Thanks for all the fish; have a good time in your thread.

Ursus the Grim

2011-05-28, 06:38 PM

Wait, acting in character is bad, metagaming is good?

There is a difference between good metagaming and bad metagaming. Good metagaming is playing nice. For instance, there is often nothing wrong with completely ignoring plot hooks if your DM sucks at storytelling. But that's not being very nice.

Bad metagaming is knowing your DM wouldn't throw a Demon at you because you'd immediately smite him.

Regardless, the primary question that I think was up for grabs was if it was indeed in character to kill a creature for theft (when, as a Demon, she probably would have "gently caressed" the merchant and then killed him. Seriously? How did the Archon not find it unusual that it was a great demon of the Abyss, cloaked in seductive power. . . practicing petty theft.

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:40 PM

... okay, no.

A non-Evil demon would not do things that define demons. If you want your demons to be non-Evil, you either need to change the definition of 'demon', or you need to change the definition of Evil.

What defines a demon? It is a creature which exists to defile life in all its forms, to break tradition in the vilest manners possible, to kill and slaughter for nothing but pleasure. They suck the life out of you, and if they can do it while making you break your wedding vows, they're all the happier.

A non-Evil creature does not do any of those things.

For you maybe. There's already so many creatures that do that in D&D that those actions do not mean much to a DM compared to their homeland and creator of the Abyss and their chaotic nature.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 06:45 PM

For you maybe. There's already so many creatures that do that in D&D that those actions do not mean much to a DM compared to their homeland and creator of the Abyss and their chaotic nature.

No, not just for me. This is the RAW. Change what you wish, but you cannot argue that they are different merely because you want them to be.

Doug Lampert

2011-05-28, 06:46 PM

This.

Does anybody else think it a bit strange that an Astral Deva is just wandering along and happens to spot a Succubus, one of the more advanced denizens of the Abyss, stealing from a merchant?

This smells like an adventure hook.

Which would mean that the GM, immature nit-wit that he is, overreacted. However, the players should have spotted this obvious hook and played along instead of hiding behind their alignments and getting all slaughter happy.
So, it's an adventure hook. I EXPECT the DM to have designed his adventure hook to work with any of the various OBVIOUS in character actions I might take.

Killing the succubus is the over the top 99% most likely response to the situation, if this is a plot hook then the plot hook is ACTIVATED when I kill the succubus and find the McGuffin on her corpse. That's what the DM WANTS me to do. Seriously, if I'm metagaming that's got to be it and I attack her EVEN SOONER.

Hooks are meant to be taken, not ignored. So if I assume hook I kill the succubus, if I assume evil outsider I kill the succubus, and if I assume fleeing felon from someone reasonably engaged in criminal enforcement and clearly a risk to kill then I kill the succubus.

Not killing her would be bizzare.

Boci

2011-05-28, 06:48 PM

No, not just for me. This is the RAW.

I know, although technically I could argue that by RAW there was origionally no good or evil, just law and choas. (FC II).

Change what you wish, but you cannot argue that they are different merely because you want them to be.

Wait, what? My point was that the chaos vector is more important to the identity of demons than evil, and that the latter is not as vital to demons as water is to water elementals.

On a completly unrelated sidenote, you don't speak Hungarian do oyu?

Ursus the Grim

2011-05-28, 06:50 PM

PCs are by definition exceptions.

No decent player should assume that no other character in the world can be like him. Otherwise metagaming is an inevitable problem. 'They can't do that, they're not a PC!' is terrible justification for in character actions. Pretty sure there's a sidebar in the DMG about keeping players from indulging in power trips. Nothing in RAW states that an NPC can't make choices like a PC.

Also, xenophobic? They are polar opposites. The succubus is literally the opposite of everything the deva is. Light and dark. Up and down. Demon and deva. They should attack one another on sight.

Perhaps they should. Yet the 'Chaotic, Evil' demon, did not. That would have been the first cue that something was different.

No, Evil is not their actual physical form. It is an alignment. But it is as integral to their being as water is to that water elemental.

I thought you said you were working from RAW, not opinionated hyperbole?

I think you missed the second part of that quote, there. Rare. Possibly unique (as in, only one). Could it be that specific succubus? Of course! Given its actions, probably not, but yes, it's possible. But given the qualifier of 'possibly unique'...

Regardless, the possibility exists. A good character shouldn't just kill based on assumptions. That shifts you into Neutral territory.

Hence why I said they were made of Evil.

Having a subtype does not make you "made" out of that subtype. A red dragon is not made out of fire, it just has an affinity for it.

There is nothing 'ungood' about killing an Evil Outsider.

Correct, for the most part. But this particular outsider was not evil, at least not from the given indications. Do I think one transgression should cause an Archon to fall? No, but it was not a "good" act to kill a creature for commiting theft when it showed no sign of aggression towards the Archon.

What defines a demon? It is a creature which exists to defile life in all its forms, to break tradition in the vilest manners possible, to kill and slaughter for nothing but pleasure. They suck the life out of you, and if they can do it while making you break your wedding vows, they're all the happier.

What had this particular "evil" creature done? Steal from a merchant. She had not, as far as the player could know, commited any act along the lines you describe. Heck, next time I see Aladdin, I'm going to let everyone know how evil he is.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-28, 06:54 PM

Perhaps they should. Yet the 'Chaotic, Evil' demon, did not. That would have been the first cue that something was different.That was the other option, fleeing. The succubus had nothing, the deva had weapons and armor, and her life-draining tactics probably wouldn't work.
What had this particular "evil" creature done? Steal from a merchant. She had not, as far as the player could know, commited any act along the lines you describe. Heck, next time I see Aladdin, I'm going to let everyone know how evil he is.

She was stealing from a poor merchant, and was trying to force him to accept eternal damnation just to feed his family.

Ursus the Grim

2011-05-28, 07:01 PM

That was the other option, fleeing. The succubus had nothing, the deva had weapons and armor, and her life-draining tactics probably wouldn't work.

So it was okay to kill a fleeing enemy because she was unarmed?

She was stealing from a poor merchant, and was trying to force him to accept eternal damnation just to feed his family.

Rich or poor shouldn't matter for sake of neutral vs evil. And OP was kinda vague on the details. I suspect more an issue of poor dming than a moral quandary.

You guys are confusing. Personally, I like a shades of grey campaign. But I'm going to give up this argument before I get in over my head.

kardar233

2011-05-28, 07:04 PM

To clarify the "Demons are made of evil" point:

Demons of the Tanar'ri subtype are made from the exposure of a Chaotic Evil soul to the Abyss, thus forming a mane, who gains power and progresses onwards through the demonic levels. See Orcus.

Devils are the fallen angels.

Asheram

2011-05-28, 07:08 PM

... Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but I'd suggest The Forgotten Realms book "The Gossamer Plain" in which a group of angels attempts to convert a succubus for the sake of her half-breed child.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 07:09 PM

I know, although technically I could argue that by RAW there was origionally no good or evil, just law and choas. (FC II).
Earlier editions really have no say on this.

Wait, what? My point was that the chaos vector is more important to the identity of demons than evil, and that the latter is not as vital to demons as water is to water elementals.
It is important in that it is what separates them from devils, but that is almost as far as it goes.

On a completly unrelated sidenote, you don't speak Hungarian do oyu?
If I did, I would never have come up with the name. Yes, I have been informed what it means, and no, I do not care -- I didn't know it when I came up with it and I'm going to just ignore it. Hungarians (and other people who speak the language) can laugh if they wish.

No decent player should assume that no other character in the world can be like him. Otherwise metagaming is an inevitable problem. 'They can't do that, they're not a PC!' is terrible justification for in character actions. Pretty sure there's a sidebar in the DMG about keeping players from indulging in power trips. Nothing in RAW states that an NPC can't make choices like a PC.
No, of course not. But the null assumption is that the choices they make is what is in the books. Exceptions are fine; nothing wrong with it -- villains are just as much an exception as PCs are. But the PCs should not be punished simply because you turned the tables on them. Assumptions are what makes us able to play the game. If you force the placers to examine every situation with a fine-tooth comb, you stifle roleplay completely.

Perhaps they should. Yet the 'Chaotic, Evil' demon, did not. That would have been the first cue that something was different.
What, that it fled a superior armed foe? Hardly.

I thought you said you were working from RAW, not opinionated hyperbole?
I believe I am.

Regardless, the possibility exists. A good character shouldn't just kill based on assumptions. That shifts you into Neutral territory.
No, it doesn't. The original poster had followed the succubus for a while. He had reasons for his actions.

Having a subtype does not make you "made" out of that subtype. A red dragon is not made out of fire, it just has an affinity for it.
Those are two different forms of subtypes. One is an alignment subtype. The other is an immunity.

Correct, for the most part. But this particular outsider was not evil, at least not from the given indications.
...

Perhaps you haven't actually read the updated post. The succubus was attempting to make the merchant sell his soul to save his family by stealing his money (the player watched her for a while). The succubus was definitely Evil.

Do I think one transgression should cause an Archon to fall? No, but it was not a "good" act to kill a creature for commiting theft when it showed no sign of aggression towards the Archon.
It was not simply theft. While the player could have been wrong in his conclusions, it doesn't sound to me as if he were.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-28, 07:12 PM

...

Perhaps you haven't actually read the updated post. The succubus was attempting to make the merchant sell his soul to save his family by stealing his money (the player watched her for a while). The succubus was definitely Evil.

The ninja swordsage strikes again! I already said that. :smallcool:

Boci

2011-05-28, 07:17 PM

Earlier editions really have no say on this.

Fiendish Codex II is 3.5.

It is important in that it is what separates them from devils, but that is almost as far as it goes.

ISn't that like saying devils being evil is important for distinguishing them from astral deva but not for anything else?

If I did, I would never have come up with the name.

Figured. I just suprised me because "Lak" is root for the word live, and "ol" is a word ending for certain vowels (although lak is not one of them).

Yes, I have been informed what it means, and no, I do not care -- I didn't know it when I came up with it and I'm going to just ignore it.

No need to get so defensive. I wasn't expecting you to care that much.

Geigan

2011-05-28, 07:20 PM

... Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but I'd suggest The Forgotten Realms book "The Gossamer Plain" in which a group of angels attempts to convert a succubus for the sake of her half-breed child.

I liked that trilogy if only because: Shar killed Mystra in it, not Cyric.

Also it was interesting because the whole turning thing was portrayed as atypical. A lot of the angels pretty much objected to the whole thing and thought she should just be executed and such. An exception to the rule so it was interesting for seeing how it might go down if such a thing were attempted.

At least I think that's how it went, I'll have to see if I can find it.

Taelas

2011-05-28, 07:23 PM

Fiendish Codex II is 3.5.
Ah. Haven't read everything published yet. I'll look into it.

ISn't that like saying devils being evil is important for distinguishing them from astral deva but not for anything else?
No. Devils and demons are grouped together under 'fiends', but nothing groups astral devas and devils together.

Figured. I just suprised me because "Lak" is root for the word live, and "ol" is a word ending for certain vowels (although lak is not one of them).
Ah. I didn't know the latter word was Hungarian-like also. Both are simply sounds I liked.

No need to get so defensive. I wasn't expecting you to care that much.
I'm sorry if I seemed snappish; I have been told the meaning of 'Szar' often enough that it has become somewhat tiring. I honestly do not care much, which is why I ignore the Hungarian meaning.

Knaight

2011-05-28, 07:26 PM

Rich or poor shouldn't matter for sake of neutral vs evil. And OP was kinda vague on the details. I suspect more an issue of poor dming than a moral quandary.

In regards to theft, rich or poor has a lot to do with the actual harm done to the person, and the person who minimizes harm to others should probably be looked at in a more favorable light than the person who maximizes harm to others.

Take the idea of the thief who must steal to survive. If this thief takes a loaf of bread from an extravagant feast created by an immensely rich noble who probably wouldn't notice, there are moral arguments against the thief, but they are relatively low intensity. Certainly, the thief that instead waits until a crippled beggar is given food by someone, who then robs said beggar is acting in a worse way, and even if only the theft is looked at the succubus is firmly in the latter category. Of course, given that what the succubus was actually trying to do, the theft is pretty much an incidental detail.

Asheram

2011-05-28, 07:28 PM

I liked that trilogy if only because: Shar killed Mystra in it, not Cyric.

Also it was interesting because the whole turning thing was portrayed as atypical. A lot of the angels pretty much objected to the whole thing and thought she should just be executed and such. An exception to the rule so it was interesting for seeing how it might go down if such a thing were attempted.

At least I think that's how it went, I'll have to see if I can find it.

I must confess to that it was a long time since I read it as well. (You must love airport bookstores) But I liked the thought of the forces of good taking some restraint and actually trying to convert into good instead of the classical "Purge all evil."

Boci

2011-05-28, 07:37 PM

Ah. Haven't read everything published yet. I'll look into it.

Basically there was no good or evil so the gods could find no ground on which to object to Asdmedeus because he was clearly a being of Law, not Chaos like the demons. It was only later that such concepts developed, but by then Asmedeus had a signed agreement to allow him to corrupt souls and harvest their enegy. Some think its a sign of his awseomeness, others think the gods were real idiots, take from it what you will. Its certainly not conclusive, but it does show an example of law and chaos mattering much more than good and evil.

No. Devils and demons are grouped together under 'fiends', but nothing groups astral devas and devils together.

I guess, although I'm not sure the existence of the word "fiend" means much aside from convenience.

I'm sorry if I seemed snappish; I have been told the meaning of 'Szar' often enough that it has become somewhat tiring. I honestly do not care much, which is why I ignore the Hungarian meaning.

There's only 10 million of us and its not the most popular language to learn, so I figured there was a chance you hadn't been told. I suprised its happened so much. Do you use the username on other sights?

Taelas

2011-05-28, 07:43 PM

I guess, although I'm not sure the existence of the word "fiend" means much aside from convenience.
It means as much as 'elementals' does, more or less.

There's only 10 million of us and its not the most popular language to learn, so I figured there was a chance you hadn't been told. I suprised its happened so much. Do you use the username on other sights?
I play WoW on a European server where I have a mage with the name.

Boci

2011-05-28, 07:46 PM

It means as much as 'elementals' does, more or less.

Can you name anything mechanically linked to fiendish, as oppose to lawful/chaotic evil outsider?
Elemental describes an entire creature type, fiend clumps the three biggest evil outsider races together, possible out of simple convinience for when you do not know which one the creature is.

I play WoW on a European server where I have a mage with the name.

Okay, makes sense.

Marnath

2011-05-28, 07:51 PM

Can you name anything mechanically linked to fiendish, as oppose to lawful/chaotic evil outsider?
Elemental describes an entire creature type, fiend clumps the three biggest evil outsider races together, possible out of simple convinience for when you do not know which one the creature is.

Tanar'ri, Baatezu and Yugoloth are the terms you want, I think.

Boci

2011-05-28, 07:52 PM

Tanar'ri, Baatezu and Yugoloth are the terms you want, I think.

I know. I'm debating the importance of the fact that the word "fiend" exists, and can refer to either. Plus there are more races than just the Tana'ri in the Abyss.

Geigan

2011-05-28, 07:57 PM

I must confess to that it was a long time since I read it as well. (You must love airport bookstores) But I liked the thought of the forces of good taking some restraint and actually trying to convert into good instead of the classical "Purge all evil."

Nah I just find em in my local bookstore. I liked the connection it had with the War of the Spider Queen series through that wizard guy(I think he was Phaeraun, I think?).

NineThePuma

2011-05-28, 09:29 PM

Fun fact: Allowing an evil outsider to live is considered an evil act, by RAW. it's in BoED or BoVD. can't remember which.

As an aside.. What were the stats for the Black Tarrasque?

Marnath

2011-05-28, 11:07 PM

Fun fact: Allowing an evil outsider to live is considered an evil act, by RAW. it's in BoED or BoVD. can't remember which.

As an aside.. What were the stats for the Black Tarrasque?

I'm guessing it's stats went something like "it kills you, no save."

Boci

2011-05-28, 11:22 PM

I'm guessing it's stats went something like "it kills you, no save."

Nah, doesn't sounds like rock falls. More "It screws with you in multiple ways, no save. Also as a free action no more 100 times per round it can decide that any attempt to harm or inconviniance it fails automatically"

If the DM had any sense of style it would have been the regular terrasque with the dark template and psychic reformation to give it max ranks in hide.

wuwuwu

2011-05-29, 12:03 AM

Basically there was no good or evil so the gods could find no ground on which to object to Asdmedeus because he was clearly a being of Law, not Chaos like the demons. It was only later that such concepts developed, but by then Asmedeus had a signed agreement to allow him to corrupt souls and harvest their enegy. Some think its a sign of his awseomeness, others think the gods were real idiots, take from it what you will. Its certainly not conclusive, but it does show an example of law and chaos mattering much more than good and evil.

So, because Law and Chaos were not enough to classify whether a person was a "good guy" or "bad guy", causing an entire 2nd dimension of alignment to be added so they could accurately classify where he stood, Law and Chaos matter more?
That seems more like an anecdote why Good and Evil are more important to me?

Boci

2011-05-29, 12:10 AM

So, because Law and Chaos were not enough to classify whether a person was a "good guy" or "bad guy", causing an entire 2nd dimension of alignment to be added so they could accurately classify where he stood, Law and Chaos matter more?
That seems more like an anecdote why Good and Evil are more important to me?

The universe started with Law and Chaos. They are the origional aligments, which shaped the world today. I guess different people take different things from the same thing story. To me, good and evil were just created due to in fighting.
In fact, I'll need to check my books, but I think the Abyss may not be evil, just chaotic. Not sure about that one though.

Gurgeh

2011-05-29, 12:38 AM

Wow, this thread.

Obviously, the DM in question seems to be inexperienced - setting up encounters that get romped over by the players, failing to give the players incentives to keep a plot-critical NPC alive, etc. Doesn't sound like a fun game.

As far as the alignment debate goes... I'm on the fence.

I don't believe unprovoked lethal force is ever a good action. I also don't believe that good characters necessarily need to be good all the time in order to qualify as good; if nothing else, people make mistakes.

Alignment always gets messy when you deal with alignment-based planes, too. Part of the problem is that our OP was playing as an alignment-restricted race already. If you subscribe to the idea that outsiders from aligned planes have little or no say in their alignment (which the Fiendish Codices and the MM both support, although not 100%) then you really shouldn't be allowing players to use a creature from one of those planes as a PC; an Astral Deva has no more freedom of moral agency in this universe than the Succubus or a Pit Fiend. The fact that someone was allowed to play as a literal incarnation of cosmic Good might be taken to imply that the alignment rules aren't quite as hard and fast as might be expected. This isn't to defend the DM's actions, by the way - but I could nevertheless quite easily imagine many situations where killing something - even an evil outsider - without provocation would not be a good act.

The ultimate thing that distinguishes good from neutral is that good takes the moral high ground. A neutral character may well choose to visit evil unto evil, and I doubt any bystanders would take much issue with the act, but a good character needs to be better than that. If you accept evil outsiders as being fundamentally and irreversibly evil - literally made out of evil - then that's a less cut-and-dried issue, but I still wouldn't encourage players of good-aligned characters to think that unprovoked lethal force is the best answer to a problem.

When it comes to the question of "would it be an evil act to kill this person", I'd say that the alignment of whoever you're killing is actually irrelevant. Good does not exist to oppose evil except by example; the important distinction to make when a good character is using lethal force isn't whether or not their target might "deserve" to die, but whether or not their target is capable of defending itself and whether or not the target would harm innocents (also arguably the good character) if not killed.

Consider a battlefield scenario; if your character kills enemy soldiers engaged in battle with them, that is not necessarily an evil act, even if those enemy soldiers are good-aligned. They're coming at you with an intent to kill, and any character powerful enough to be utterly unthreatened by them should have trivial access to non-lethal methods of taking them down.

Equally, if you summarily execute those soldiers after taking them prisoner, I would consider that an evil act, even if they were evil themselves. Team Good doesn't do that sort of thing, full stop.

---

...and this is why I usually avoid alignment debates: they get me rambling! Apologies for the wall of text.

I think the best part of this, though, is that it's dealing with questions that don't tend to have simple, straightforward answers. Debates about ethics and morality still continue in the real world, after all, and one of the hallmarks of good roleplaying is that it gives you something to think about even when you're no longer playing the game. Any group of players will naturally have different perspectives on what may or may not be good or evil, and a good DM will seek to use those divergent points of view as a way to drive the story instead of simple-mindedly telling players to fall in line and follow the One True Path Of Goodness.

Same deal with the debate surrounding alignment (and morality in general): meta-ethics thrives on people actually thinking about what they consider to be right and wrong, rather than just blindly asserting it. That's what makes it so fun! This thread's been an awesome read so far - I hope nobody I disagree with takes it to mean that I think they're stupid or whatever. Seeing all these perspectives together is great.

EDIT: According to "standard" 3.5 cosmology, the Abyss is both Chaotic and Evil, with an equal balance of the two metaphysical elements. It has neighbours that trend in either direction (Pandemonium is Chaotic and Evil, tending towards Chaos, and Carceri is Chaotic and Evil, tending towards Evil).

So not inherently evil demons wouldn't be standard fare, although I'd enjoy any game that took that approach.

hamishspence

2011-05-29, 06:41 AM

They are outsiders actually. They don't even have souls, and are kind of like elementals except made of chaos and evil, not fire/water/earth/air.

Strictly, according to Complete Divine, outsiders do have souls- however, these souls dissolve rapidly into the plane after the body dies, that's why they're harder to resurrect. But it's not impossible.

In the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles, it mentions that the core of most demons, is basically a mortal soul- one condemned to the Abyss for CE behaviour.

On the alignment issue- on the WOTC pages, there was a statblock for a redeemed succubus, that retained the Chaotic and Evil subtypes. And was Lawful Good enough to take paladin levels:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20050824a

However- a demon that hasn't changed alignment, could be argued as a "clear and present danger" to everyone around it.

In some areas, killing a demon might be considered murder- in cities like Sigil, for example- full of outsiders of various alignments- who are expected to behave themselves around each other, and not start fights. There, you might see fiends and celestials haggling or having philosophical debates.

Eric Tolle

2011-05-29, 01:27 PM

Huh. Cop sees gangster committing a crime, cop yells stop, gangster runs, cop shoots. I'm not seeing the big deal here. There'll be an internal affairs inquiry, but around here that probably wouldn't even make Page 1.

More importantly, what the hell has happened to my D&D when you can't even kill demons without getting slapped down? That's what demons are for- to kill and take their treasure without even the hint of guilt!

The GM must think he's running That Other Game, the one with the angsty vampires and amateur thespians. Time to tell the GM that your character is now chaotic evil, and toss the game table on it's side.

Amnestic

2011-05-29, 01:40 PM

Doug Lampert

2011-05-29, 07:19 PM

{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}

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Luckmann

2011-05-29, 07:25 PM

{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}I'm not seeing the bad shoot in that scenario.

Amnestic

2011-05-29, 07:42 PM

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Sucrose

2011-05-29, 07:50 PM

{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}

The thread is focused on theft with the intent to cause damnation or multiple homicide.

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Edit: From a page or two back: glad it wasn't bothersome to you, Scion.

Amnestic

2011-05-29, 07:52 PM

The thread is focused on theft with the intent to cause damnation.

{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}

Edit: From a page or two back: glad it wasn't bothersome to you, Scion.

Gangsters can't cause eternal damnation via stealing; thus that issue can't be deemed exactly relevant to police and bad shoots.

Sucrose

2011-05-29, 07:53 PM

Gangsters can't cause eternal damnation via stealing; thus that issue can't be deemed exactly relevant to police and bad shoots.

It is when you're using the police as an analogy to astral devas and succubi.

Gurgeh

2011-05-29, 07:54 PM

{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}
...and this is why I'm glad I don't live in the USA.

Amnestic

2011-05-29, 07:59 PM

It is when you're using the police as an analogy to astral devas and succubi.

You still have to cause that the danger the succubus caused is imminent, a case you cannot make with the knowledge you have. We know now that she was attempting to get the man to sell his soul, to make him give up everything. Such an event would not be done lightly and would certainly not occur on the spur of the moment. The Succubus did not pose any immediate danger to those affected; thus, still a 'bad shoot' even with the threat of eternal damnation.

NNescio

2011-05-29, 08:08 PM

You still have to cause that the danger the succubus caused is imminent, a case you cannot make with the knowledge you have. We know now that she was attempting to get the man to sell his soul, to make him give up everything. Such an event would not be done lightly and would certainly not occur on the spur of the moment. The Succubus did not pose any immediate danger to those affected; thus, still a 'bad shoot' even with the threat of eternal damnation.

{Scrubbed}

And Eternal Damnation is far, far, worse than loss of life. In a world where souls are tangible and one can take tours to the afterlife through a revolving door, depriving someone of their right to their soul is far more grievous than depriving them of their right to life.

Premeditation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premeditated) also tends to make crimes worse, not 'better'.

Sucrose

2011-05-29, 08:10 PM

You still have to cause that the danger the succubus caused is imminent, a case you cannot make with the knowledge you have. We know now that she was attempting to get the man to sell his soul, to make him give up everything. Such an event would not be done lightly and would certainly not occur on the spur of the moment. The Succubus did not pose any immediate danger to those affected; thus, still a 'bad shoot' even with the threat of eternal damnation.

The Succubus is an immediate danger to anyone without class levels; she can kill them instantly with, say, a kiss. The immediate danger matter seems to be a matter of whether the known felon is armed. Succubi are never not armed. It's just that her natural weapons were like a pistol against a tank when confronted by a deva.

And she was trying to force him to do it on the spur of the moment, by virtue of already having taken his livelihood.

Boci

2011-05-29, 08:21 PM

The Succubus is an immediate danger to anyone without class levels; she can kill them instantly with, say, a kiss. The immediate danger matter seems to be a matter of whether the known felon is armed. Succubi are never not armed. It's just that her natural weapons were like a pistol against a tank when confronted by a deva.

And she was trying to force him to do it on the spur of the moment, by virtue of already having taken his livelihood.

So if you have black belt in MMA and flee the scene of a robbery you can be shot?

Sucrose

2011-05-29, 08:22 PM

So if you have black belt in MMA and flee the scene of a robbery you can be shot?

A black belt can't kill as easily as a succubus. This would be more if you were born with guns for hands, and were fleeing an attempted murder. Then, yes, you could be shot.

Boci

2011-05-29, 08:26 PM

A black belt can't kill as easily as a succubus.

Succubus has to grapple to use their kiss, thats at least two rounds. Black belt takes less time.

Mr. Zolrane

2011-05-29, 08:31 PM

He tried to pit our group against a team of demons he created (with actual character sheets.)

The fight commenced, and in like 2 turns, they were almost completely wiped out. Our team Paladin scored a critical during a smite with a SCYTHE. This took out one of his main BBEGs.

Earlier on when we purchased Evil Outsider bane equipment, I guess he didn't read what it did. (Since I only used one once, but we bought alot after.)

Since it was "unfair" that we killed one of his characters, he started making up stuff like during an attack roll, he'd say "You go through him!" or "You miss." even on a natural 20. (well we only had 2 that game, but still. One was the scythe crit)

After he started to wear us done through "Almighty DM powahs" our Wizard used a plane shift scroll. We all WATCHED with delight haha as he rolled a 2 on the Vrocks save, and got plane shifted to a plane full of good outsiders.

Then he rerolled and just flipped it to a 20. Then he kiled the Wizard by saying "Your magic goes back to you, and you explode. No save."

Then (I say "then" alot XD) he had the remaining demons summon a "Black Tarrasque"

Since we realized we were clearly more sane, the rest of the group and I let him have it.

Ever have one of those moments, where you hear a story and think for a moment that it's not a real thing, but rather an extreme example to demonstrate an example of the worst possible DMing imaginable. I'm a-havin' one of those moments right now.

NineThePuma

2011-05-29, 08:36 PM

That's -in combat- that she needs it. If she walks up and kisses someone...

Sucrose

2011-05-29, 08:38 PM

Succubus has to grapple to use their kiss, thats at least two rounds. Black belt takes less time.

That's if the target is unwilling. And in that case, the Succubus can attack for the same damage as the martial artist, at considerably higher to-hit (black belt is pretty much Monk 1), and is functionally immune to most weapons not being wielded by hyper-competent supermen.

Edit: And yeah, Mr. Zolrane, I find that almost unbelievable as well

Geigan

2011-05-29, 08:39 PM

Well you can't tell a black belt is a black belt on sight. Also you wouldn't know what type of black belt they are. There's a big difference in their degree, style of fighting, etc that you can't get in a glance. You know by looking at a succubus that they are deadly by virtue of their race. Law enforcement would certainly treat a man capable of killing with their bare hands differently from your average citizen, but they wouldn't know that unless they had seen them kill with their bare hands before, or seen them training in those techniques.

Hecuba

2011-05-29, 09:24 PM

Although even in games where demons and devils are almost always evil, it should seem exceptionally reasonable to kill one when you meet it, especially if it's doing something wrong. :P

I'm a bit late coming in here. But anyhow, I would personally hold that it should never be reasonable for a good creature to kill something unless there is imminent danger and no other reasonable option they can see.

To me, respect for life includes respect for evil life. Kill them if you have to, but only if you have to.

I generally try not to impose that idea on other people though, as many people want their violent murderous hobo to be NG. Furthermore, it's an outsider: it''s not even actually dead.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-05-29, 09:29 PM

I'm a bit late coming in here. But anyhow, I would personally hold that it should never be reasonable for a good creature to kill something unless there is imminent danger and no other reasonable option they can see.

To me, respect for life includes respect for evil life. Kill them if you have to, but only if you have to.

I generally try not to impose that idea on other people though, as many people want their violent murderous hobo to be NG. Furthermore, it's an outsider: it''s not even actually dead.

Yes, but if there is no good option, good chooses the lesser evil. If he didn't kill the succubus, it would've gone to condemn that man and many others to eternal torture, which is far worse than death and should always mean a death penalty, even if it didn't succeed.

Zeb The Troll

2011-05-30, 02:02 AM

Troll Patrol: Locked for review.

EDIT: Here's your thread back. Please refrain from discussion of real world politics. This most assuredly includes using Supreme Court decisions and other examples of legal precedent to support your position.

KnightDisciple

2011-05-30, 08:50 AM

What SHOULD happen is that your deity should call you into his office and tell you that you're a loose cannon, and pair you up with a by-the-book partner. Still the best answer/post in this thread.

Canarr

2011-05-30, 10:04 AM

But... it's an Astral Deva. The embodiment of CHAOS and GOOD - that's basically the DEFINITION of loose cannon. It's any stereotypical, ball-busting, rules-breaking, door-smashing, widow-consoling, hard-nosed P.I. or cop that you've seen on TV. Okay, maybe aside from the deliberately grey or noir kinda type. But it's what Chaotic Good does - break the rules if they have to, in order to reach a good outcome. And, yeah: killing or banishing that succubus definitely counts as Good in my book.

It's been said before, but I'll happily weigh in as well: demons are Evil. Capital "E". There's nothing redeeming about them, nothing questionable - they must be destroyed, for the good of all. There are lots of humanoid races one can play with in order to create a moral dilemma for good characters, but demons shouldn't be. At least, not in my book. They should be inherently, incurably, inevitably, Evil. It's like the scorpion stinging the dog, when it makes them both drown: can't help it, it's what it does.

And thus, destroying the creature before it can flee is definitely the only way. What's the alternative? Sedate it? It's immune to poison! Lock it up? It hasTeleport, Charm Monster and Suggestion at will! Unless there's a high security magical prison somewhere in reach, downright impossible. Okay, keeping a succubus under control on the trip to the prison might provide for some interesting play...

So, to answer the original question: I don't think the Deva should fall for killing the succubus.