Punishment for Crimes

[Mihiale]

Greetings gentle people of the board,
In the 3.5 dnd campaign I am in there seems to be a fair amount of transgressions against the law that are going unpunished.

What I seek from you is a possible list of crimes and their punishments so that I may better smack down the other players for their stupidity.

Sincerely,
Mihiale

[Seffbasilisk]

To get extremely traditional, and also reinforced in real-world Arabic cultures, and in-game fluff in Dwarven cultures, they cut off thieves' hands.

[Mihiale]

To get extremely traditional, and also reinforced in real-world Arabic cultures, and in-game fluff in Dwarven cultures, they cut off thieves' hands.

Thank you for the response, I was leaning towards more breaking and entering, vandalism, assault, those sorts of things.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Fireballing a crowd=the entire town watch and any casters in the town using lethal force.

[Seffbasilisk]

Well, in a typical D&D culture, I'd assume it'd be a parallel to our own 'Castle Laws'.

So if someone breaks into your house, you'd be legally allowed to shoot them dead.

Vandalism...maybe the stocks? A public whipping? Side-quest (Geas'd or not.)

Assault, would likely be jail-time, a stiff fine, for nobles, probably having to duel their 'champions'...


I suppose, to get traditional: Stocks, public beating, humiliation, shunning (including the merchants), jail-time, banishment from town, fines (probably exponentially increased when they find out it's tomb-raiding, monster-slaying adventurers), and quite likely they'll get side-quested.

For a more nitty-gritty feel, there are fantasy stories where criminals get X's tattoo'd on the webs of their hands (between forefinger and thumb) for the three-strikes policy, and if they get a third strike, are either sold as slaves, or set to work for the government (usually as slaves, until they die.)

Thee are brandings.

Limbs may be cut off. (Which, normal healing doesn't touch. You need regeneration (either the feat or the ability) or some wacky class like a Warshaper to deal with.)

DM's usually go with the option of corralling the players into a side-quest by this, and hitting them with a Geas spell, so they actually do it.

Maybe the character in question's family takes the punishment, if they skip out on it.

Maybe you just sell off their most valuable items to pay the 'fine'.

[Coidzor]

Well, I like the idea of geasing/mark of justicing/mineralize warrioring/dominate personing people to do positive things to counterbalance the negative that they did.

With larger crimes resulting, progressively, in programmed amnesia or mindrape or holy mindrape.

[Katana_Geldar]

I would just like to say this about hanging: the 'long drop, short stop' method was started in the 19th century. Middle Ages had it simpler: slow strangulation which takes between 15 and 20 minutes until they stop kicking. They can put you up there with a ladder, or have you on a cart and take away the cart.

Either way, PLENTY of time to shoot the rope.

[big teej]

Greetings gentle people of the board,
In the 3.5 dnd campaign I am in there seems to be a fair amount of transgressions against the law that are going unpunished.

What I seek from you is a possible list of crimes and their punishments so that I may better smack down the other players for their stupidity.

Sincerely,
Mihiale

let the punishment fit the crime for starters, much as the hand choppy offer person suggested earlier.

also, take a look at execution/torture methods often used in the medieval-ages/colonial period.

see also: draconic type law.

see also: the dmg II .... or maybe cityscape, I forget.

anywho

Trial by Fire type stuff, "if you die, you're innocent, if you live, you're guilty" or something like that....
wait, I have that backwards I think.

anywho.
if one steals/cheats, not only should their hand be removed, they must also pay back the stolen goods 10 fold.

murder of kin is repaid by murder of kin. etc.

[Coidzor]

Anyone remember anything about trial by combat as a device/if it ever existed and if so how and under what circumstances?

[Flame of Anor]

Trial by Fire type stuff, "if you die, you're innocent, if you live, you're guilty" or something like that....

You're thinking of the ordeal by water.

[Coidzor]

You're thinking of the ordeal by water.

That reminds me of an SMBC comic. Don't knock the test, Todd!

[Hiro Protagonest]

You're thinking of the ordeal by water.

Actually, both are correct. For water it's "if she escapes, she is clearly a witch. If she drowns, she is clearly innocent". For the fire it's the same, except "burns" instead of "drowns". It's kind of counterintuitive that you die if you were innocent.

[KingofMadCows]

Postmortem indentured servitude. Basically, if someone commits a crime or owes a debt that they cannot pay back during their lifetime then they are obligated to serve a sentence as an undead. A fairly reasonable punishment for any society that tolerates necromancy.

[SuperFerret]

Actually, both are correct. For water it's "if she escapes, she is clearly a witch. If she drowns, she is clearly innocent". For the fire it's the same, except "burns" instead of "drowns". It's kind of counterintuitive that you die if you were innocent.

It's only counterintuitive if you're looking at life being something desirable. If they die, they die as a good Christian and thus go to heaven for their eternal reward. If they survive, they're a witch and will be killed. It makes sense from that perspective.

[Zonugal]

Inevitable?

[Flame of Anor]

It's only counterintuitive if you're looking at life being something desirable. If they die, they die as a good Christian and thus go to heaven for their eternal reward. If they survive, they're a witch and will be killed. It makes sense from that perspective.

That's why it makes sense from a moral perspective; from a logical perspective, the idea is that witches would have more powers to save their lives (in addition to being more desperate to keep those lives, since they wouldn't have an eternal reward).

[Coidzor]

Well, if you're trying to be logical, then the witch wouldn't have let him or herself get caught in the first place.

Seriously, catching a wizard just doesn't work out well for anyone.

[Ravens_cry]

Fireballing a crowd=the entire town watch and any casters in the town using lethal force.
Maybe even more. After all, in most D&D games, you can be resurrected, so the death penalty lacks a certain punch.

[hamishspence]

The DMG2 points out that a truly authentic "medieval style" punishment system for Good aligned states, may offend the players' sensibilities- which is why D&D states are not so harsh.

It mentions ordeals- and suggests that, since the gods have real power to intervene in a D&D setting, they may be able to do so to protect the innocent- and this can be taken as evidence of innocence.

It also suggests this will be more common in Chaotic states, and that Lawful ones are less likely to use these means.

[hydroplatypus]

If the players consistently commit crimes sending a paladin or 3 after them might work.

[hamishspence]

That's more for arresting- though if there's enough evidence, they might be tried in their absence and the paladin/s dispatched to carry out sentence on them.

[BlueInc]

If you want to go WAY back, in ancient Babylon, if you murdered someone, they tied the corpse's wrists and ankles to yours, with the dead man's face in front of yours. How long the corpse was kept there I can't remember, but the punishment for removing the corpse was death.

If you need to scare them into submission, have the death penalty include cremation and scattering of ashes into the wind, as well as imprisonment of the soul to prevent resurrection. Soul imprisonment is a pretty nice penalty for magical societies on its own.

[Edit]: If you're just looking for a list of crimes and punishments, you might want to look at Paizo's Guide to Korvosa, which has a list of common infractions. In that setting there are varying levels of punishment for commoners and nobility.

[Ernir]

Lots of wonderfully realistic suggestions here that I can't imagine being fun to play out in-game. :smallconfused:

Really, I suggest you punish the characters, but do so in a way that does something for the players.
Ideas, from the top of my head: Being forced to take on some quest as community service. This quest is likely to be absurdly dangerous, and not in the least profitable. Exile. You are banished from the kingdom, and must live out the rest of your days in a monster-infested wilderness far from civilization. (Wheee!) Blatant Song of Ice and Fire ripoff - send them to serve in the Night's Watch (http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Night%27s_Watch).

If you're pissed off at the players for going off the rails and being chaotic dumbasses, well, that's a whooole separate issue.

[Flame of Anor]

Blatant Song of Ice and Fire ripoff - send them to serve in the Night's Watch (http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Night%27s_Watch).

YES. This could be really cool. Make sure the officers are high enough level to keep the PCs in line.

[Mihiale]

Jesus this thread took off. Glad to see people are still willing to help on the internet.

The sad part is that I was looking for more of a wotc designated list of crimes and punishments, purely for the fact that my DM probably will not take anything but that. Though I wish we could go right to the hand choppy.

[Seffbasilisk]

So take the law into your own hands!

I've a sorcerer who just took Disintegration Finesse. I'm debating what part to disintegrate off the Rogue in his party if he threatens to slit my throat once more, or tries to openly blow my cover again.


Edit: Races of Stone, the fluff on Dwarves mentions a closet, with a shelf just for the severed hands of thieves.

[hamishspence]

Jesus this thread took off. Glad to see people are still willing to help on the internet.

The sad part is that I was looking for more of a wotc designated list of crimes and punishments, purely for the fact that my DM probably will not take anything but that. Though I wish we could go right to the hand choppy.

Waterdeep: City of Splendors has a big list of crime categories, and a general idea of scale, as well as listing various punishments.

An issue of Dragon Magazine, covering the Caravan City of Scornubel, has more specific lists.

[Randel]

If someone really is a problem then make them pay off the damage by producing Liquid Pain (from book of Vile Darkness). Liquid Pain is a narcotic produced by extracting the pain from a person who is in incredible agony over the course of 24 hours, it sells for 200 gp (to anyone dumb enough to use it) or can provide 3 xp for crafting.

Basically, place the person under a permanent symbol of pain and then hook the person up to a Pain Extractor. Feed them enough to keep them alive and just have them serve their sentence until they pay off their debt. Note that being under constant agony would mess up a persons mind pretty bad even after 24 hours, if they are in there for ten days or so (which generates 2,000 gp of liquid pain or 30 xp for crafting) then expect it to be even worse. Also, anyone willing to set up such a device would know that its a really expensive setup and would take a lot of pain and gold to pay off the cost of the equipment.



Or the government might us ability draining effects to make a person incapable of causing problems. Like using Level Drain to turn a powerful and obnoxious hero into a low level one. Or stat damage to drain their strength or intelligence.

You can imagine a wizard or sorcerer deciding to have some laughs before law enforcement comes by with an anti-magic field and ties them up. Then, they are dragged off to a dungeon somewhere where they are tied down and a surgeon starts shaving their head and hooks up magical wires on the specific parts of the head that need to be effected.

A few applications of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma damage and the offender is now too stupid to cast spells or even function in society. The other party members stop by the prison and see their wizard friend learning how to scrub toilets and pick up litter. There may be some extra magical effects on him to keep him in line (just because he has 3 Int doesn't mean he can't get into trouble) after this, the Wizard must make due without magic or a decent int score until he pays his debt to society and its decided that he's learned his lesson. Then they might repair some of the damage.

[Flame of Anor]

Then they might repair some of the damage.

Because you're definitely going to return Tier 1 power and freedom to someone whose undying hatred you've just earned.