Another *sigh* alignment debate.

[Morithias]

Alright, so let's say you have a good-aligned character. Healer,cleric whatever, who can raise the dead, who generally avoids killing...with one exception.

They will kill enemies who can afford to be brought back.

The reason behind the character's logic is that the punishment must be severe enough to the person it's being given to. To a commoner, 5000 gp is unaffordable, to a noble, or rich merchant, or hell an adventurer? 5000 gp is pocket change.

It's the same reason why the courts will assign extremely high fines to corporations in the real world. A punishment is meaningless if it's so minor that they barely notice it.

It would be like giving Bill Gates a $100 parking ticket. That's seconds worth of income for him.

No if Bill Gates ever got fined they would up it, A LOT to make sure it actually felt painful, or they would charge him with something that he couldn't use money to buy off.

That's her logic.

So is this character good-aligned?

[Namfuak]

Do you mean that as punishment, they kill people for some crimes? Or do you mean they just don't have a problem killing people who can afford to resurrect themselves? In your parking ticket example, they would not charge Bill Gates more for illegal parking (pretending for a moment he actually drives himself anywhere) because that would not be fair. When you talk about fines, they are in relation to the damages, not to the ability of the culprit to pay them.

[Reynard]

If resurrection is either so widespread, or if the killer KNOWS that the character in question has the resources in question to shrug off the rez-cost like it's nothing, then yeah, there's not really much Evil about it.

It's a fact of life and death and taxes, at that point.

[Morithias]

If resurrection is either so widespread, or if the killer KNOWS that the character in question has the resources in question to shrug off the rez-cost like it's nothing, then yeah, there's not really much Evil about it.

It's a fact of life and death and taxes, at that point.

Exactly.

The healer in the campaign, where the debate came up. Can cast Raise dead 23 times a day. And is 4 levels away from getting her 1/week free true res.

Death is meaningless to her, it's just another thing to cure.

It's like in Dragonball Z abridged when Tien points out to Yamcha that they have two sets of dragonballs now. They're literally just waiting to come back.

[Spore]

Alright, so let's say you have a good-aligned character. Healer,cleric whatever, who can raise the dead, who generally avoids killing...with one exception.

They will kill enemies who can afford to be brought back.


Flawed argument here. Getting killed is hurting someone (and I am sure ressurrection isn't a pleasant experience either, with all that negative level stuff). Why not just "catch" them and fine them for 5 grand. That way you do not have to destroy 5k worth of diamonds just to prove a point.

I'd say good (LG, G or CG).

[Morithias]

Flawed argument here. Getting killed is hurting someone (and I am sure ressurrection isn't a pleasant experience either, with all that negative level stuff). Why not just "catch" them and fine them for 5 grand. That way you do not have to destroy 5k worth of diamonds just to prove a point.

I'd say neutral (LN, N or CN) with a tendency to good.

Because if someone has something like a million gold pieces or something like that, 5 grand is nothing.

It's no punishment to them.

Imagine someone murdered your wife/husband, and the police say "you're charged $5000"

So they pay it, then they hand them another 5 grand, and then shoot you in the face as well.

Because they're a millionaire where that kind of money is pocket change.

[Naomi Li]

... why not just steal their wealth as punishment instead? Then the wealth could be given to people who can use it to better their lives, instead of it being wasted. Deliberately spreading entropy is often associated with evil (like with Rovagug) and at the very least it doesn't help anyone.

(Or do it legally and force them to resurrect everyone they ever killed, pay for any regenerations/restorations/whatever needed, compensate everyone they emotionally damaged, and possibly force them to give money to those they have economically exploited to get as much money as they have had. Problem solved.)

[Morithias]

... why not just steal their wealth as punishment instead? Then the wealth could be given to people who can use it to better their lives, instead of it being wasted. Deliberately spreading entropy is often associated with evil (like with Rovagug) and at the very least it doesn't help anyone.

Because in Urban situations you rarely get to do that. It's easy to steal all the wealth in a necromancer's tower or dragon's cave, but often the wealth of a merchant isn't in convent magical items or gold pieces, it's tied up in businesses and investments, and in terms of nobles the wealth is often tied to the family rather than just the criminal.

In the wild, perfectly legit option.

Urban area? Problem there.

Of course she wouldn't mind locking them up and forcing them to talk to her daily for a few months.

[Zweisteine]

That is no more or evil than the type of killing a standard adventuring party frequently does, but and considerably more evil than those who do not kill at all.

Actually, if they kill only those who can afford to return, it might even make the killing slightly more evil, as the enemy could simply be immobilized and the money taken. It could be seen as indulging a desire to kill, in fact, or to make the enemy suffer.

If the goal is to impose the level penalty of resurrection, then you can also use level drain spells to impose that punishment.

Unless immobilizing then enemy without killing is considerably more difficult than outright killing (which I do not believe should be the case), it is more evil to kill than steal if you will release the enemy either way.


In particular, if the enemy is alone, killing them is considerably more evil than capturing, unless you know who will bring them back.

If the character is planning on performing the resurrections personally, that's just a huge waste of party resources (think of all the lost loot...).

Mind you, all of this ignores the fact that almost every good adventurer has gotten away with killing people with their goodness entirely intact.


TL;DR: It's not technically any more evil than being a standard adventurer, but it's a very, very weird habit.


What I want to know is how you have 23 Raise Deads per day, and still have 4 levels that aren't epic. A Cleric can cast 21 at 18th level and 24 at 19th...
(Also, saying you can cast 23 per day is a bit misleading, I would think. You can't just afford that much diamond.)



About the urban bits: Killing people in a city is usually against the law, unless you have a permit/warrant of some sort.

Also, standard D&D campaigns don't have much in the way of investment, as we see them now. A medieval merchant's wealth (and, by extension, a D&D merchant's wealth) is going to be in the form of gold and items (house, furnishings, etc.). Except maybe in Eberron, nobody in D&D gets rich on the stock market.

As for wealthy families, if a member has gone criminal, you can not guarantee that they will pay for a resurrection. Also, a criminal noble is likely to have set aside some money for personal use.


I'd write more, but I'm out of time...

[Morithias]

What I want to know is how you have 23 Raise Deads per day, and still have 4 levels that aren't epic. A Cleric can cast 21 at 18th level and 24 at 19th...
(Also, saying you can cast 23 per day is a bit misleading, I would think. You can't just afford that much diamond.)



Bonus spells. Also she's level 16. Her starting WBL is 260,000 gp. 23 raise deads is 115,000 gp.

Technically she could.

She's banking on the idea a. The level lose is an unavoidable punishment, and b. maybe seeing Baator in person will get them to change their minds, and c. Due to her knowledge of the planes, she knows that you'll end up in an afterlife that is fitting to the life you lead.

Of course I could request the DM to let her talk to the big bad for months on end. I've got enough diplomacy ranks to "redeem" almost anyone.

[AgentofHellfire]

If you don't mind someone in that game talking about it?

I would say that the fact of death, itself, should still be pretty meaningful and therefore being Raised shouldn't completely undo that.

But, on the other hand, adventurers kill people all the time, including Good ones, so you're really only stepping into territory as evil as them.

[Morithias]

I would say that the fact of death, itself, should still be pretty meaningful and therefore being Raised shouldn't completely undo that.

But do you only say that because we live in a world where death is (as far as we know) irreversible?

If we DID have the ability to raise the dead in the real world, where curing it was just a really expensive cold pill...

Would we treat it as the same?

[Angelalex242]

Flawed idea. Killing just cause they can be rezzed is...evil. Besides, it doesn't ALWAYS work...

The soul may be unwilling or unable to return, then what?

Never make death a 'parking ticket' for the wealth. That's class warfare, and therefore, unjust.

[Zweisteine]

Diplomacy doesn't let you redeem people who performed evil acts. They usually have to perform actual good acts first, and a fallen Cleric needs Atonement to get his power back.


More notably, as I said: This is no more evil than what most adventurers do, unless you're killing innocent people.

In an urban setting, it is very chaotic, and almost certainly illegal.


Not to mention that it is probably very, very bad for roleplaying, unless the killer is performing the resurrections personally after a fixed amount of time. (i.e. "you have served your time in Helljail, now you are free to live again")

[Icewraith]

Steven Brust has a fairly high-magic fantasy setting where this is sort of a thing. Resurrection is so common that the magistrates only take notice when someone is permanently killed- usually with a soul eating weapon, but occasionally the spinal cord in the neck or brain is too badly damaged or the body is unrecoverable for a week or so.

So if you tick off a mafia guy, he will order a hit on you. You'll wake up to some spellcaster and an anxious family member or friend who ponied up the cash for a rez, and you'll have gotten the message that not only have you ticked a mafia guy off, you're too unimportant to bother with the time and money required to make it permanent.

If death is really a minor inconveniance, the character should probably focus on damaging or destroying the target's real world assets or relations- you know, the stuff they would actually miss while they're here. Killing people just because they can afford to be rezzed is more of an assasin's tactic.

[GlorinSteampike]

The flaw here is also who says he's gonna get resurrected? Maybe you off the guy and it turns out everyone hates him or now a sinister plot to overthrow him is conveniently avoided and they seize everything. Then you have to pay out of pocket to ressurect him,(combined with all the nastyness of res sickness and life shattering revelations of another plane of existence) and he has nothing. You'll have to think about what the laws in your land are. If rich guy dies, his son inherits everything and manages to sell it off as soon as he hears the news but that guy was brought back he now has nothing.

I'd say its definitely not good. Not entirely evil via D&D party's normal slaughtering all things inconveniently placed but not good at all.

[Morithias]

Diplomacy doesn't let you redeem people who performed evil acts. They usually have to perform actual good acts first, and a fallen Cleric needs Atonement to get his power back.



Book of Exalted Deeds.

There's a rule, that if you have a guy locked up you can do daily diplomacy checks versus will saves. If they fail it 7 times in a row, their alignment shifts 1 towards good.

[Zweisteine]

That... That... Needs to be fixed.

Actually, it goes along with an idea I considered not too long ago, that past actions have less weight on your alignment (thus, Belkar can become neutral in weeks, despite having been evil for years).

But still... That's a bit powerful. If your DM is any good, they'll deal with diplomacy differently than the RAW.

[Grinner]

Two points need to be made.

First,


That... That... Needs to be fixed.

I wholeheartedly agree. The whole "brainwashing-with-smiles" thing, in addition to a number of other techniques, strikes me as being distinctly not good. I guess it's just my particular values speaking, but inspiring certain feelings without allowing them to be...authentic...is just dangerous. You're likely not to demonstrate the value of your ethics and instead create senseless, uncomprehending fanaticism.

Second,

If Sir Slaughters-a-lot, Paladin 10, can be Good whilst enacting genocide on goblinkind, I think a few dead bodies here and there won't be too much of a problem for our cleric.

It would be a different story if we were trying to make sense.

[awa]

see if i recall correctly it's not a straight diplomacy check it has modifiers also you have to be kind and just and all that stuff. The fluff is you are showing them that your way of life is the superior one by not brain washing them.

Thats actually the logic behind a lot of the stupid exalted alignment changers. sanctify the wicked is not good mind rape its sit in a corner and think about what you've done and then you will realize that hurting people is wrong.


The problem is it has an incredibly simplistic view of evil and why people do bad things and i hate the mechanic.

[Brookshw]

What on Oerth makes you think killing would be be good just because "they might get better"?

[Cirrylius]

Provided you're certain that either you or some other spellcaster will resurrect the victim, and provided that the victim did something genuinely awful, something reprehensible enough that experiencing their own death would be an appropriate punishment, I don't see it being a big alignment ping.
(For evil, anyway; personally deciding that an evildoer deserved to get waxed and rezzed strikes me as pretty chaotic, unless you're in a position of authority yourself.)

Whether it would work as deterrence for someone rich enough to afford it, however... that's something else.

[Kyberwulf]

Your good cleric is reducing life to a monetary value.... mull that over.

Also, there is no guarantee that murdered person would be willing to come back after he is killed. So if that happens, your cleric becomes a murder...er?

[TuggyNE]

For the reasons given so far, I'd peg this as CN. They have very little respect for the life of their enemies, which is pretty non-good, and take the law into their own hands with the specific philosophy of "every case is different, and punishments must fit not the crime but the criminal", which is pretty chaotic.

[hamishspence]

I wholeheartedly agree. The whole "brainwashing-with-smiles" thing, in addition to a number of other techniques, strikes me as being distinctly not good. I guess it's just my particular values speaking, but inspiring certain feelings without allowing them to be...authentic...is just dangerous. You're likely not to demonstrate the value of your ethics and instead create senseless, uncomprehending fanaticism.

I thought of it as more "counselling" than "brainwashing" - with the Will saves being for the convenience of the players and the DM- allowing them to keep track.

I also would point out that in Fiendish Codex 2, removing corruption (which, when high enough, determines afterlife destination) requires apologies to the victims of one's acts, restitution, and so forth.

So a person who has "been redeemed through Diplomacy" still has a lot of work before them if they are to remove their Corruption.

[Der_DWSage]

Hm. It's an interesting debate, that's for certain. And it can be taken a few ways...granted, all of these are provided that there's a guaranteed Raise Dead coming their way, and not just a vague 'They have 5 grand, they can afford it.'

1)This is Lawful Good at the purest. You kill, not just to remove a threat from society, but to better your ability to redeem them. The Fires Below are a sincere threat, and anyone wanting to be taken out of them had better accept the revival. Those you kill aren't likely to be rehabilitated unless shown proof of where they'll end up if they don't change their ways.

2)This is Neutral Good, or as I prefer to think of it, 'Not Quite Reasoned Out Good.' You're removing a threat from society, and satisfying your own hatred of people like them at the same time. They get brought back, no lasting harm besides a negative level, and perhaps the shock will be enough to mull it over for a while.

3)This is Lawful Neutral. You're the Law. They're breaking it. Bringing them back is a fine and a shock to the system, and hopefully they won't break the law again.

4)Er mah gerdz, murdeeeeeer. Chaotic eeeeevil. Gotta beeeee.

In all honesty, it sounds more like LG than anything else. So long as it's a guaranteed resurrection, they're likely to leap onto a Raise Dead no matter who it comes from, so I don't think 'unwilling to come back' will pop up too often. The intent isn't the character's pleasure, but to show them what awaits their foes after death.

I know that the books (Especially BoED) say that 'Killing is always evil,' but frankly, the books are inconsistent at the best of times. I'd say it's more that if she ever starts taking pleasure in these killings she'll start a rather rapid slide towards evil, but until then, she's LG. For now, she's on a very precarious ledge between LG and LN, and that's the ledge where intent matters as much as actions do.

[Mystral]

Alright, so let's say you have a good-aligned character. Healer,cleric whatever, who can raise the dead, who generally avoids killing...with one exception.

They will kill enemies who can afford to be brought back.

The reason behind the character's logic is that the punishment must be severe enough to the person it's being given to. To a commoner, 5000 gp is unaffordable, to a noble, or rich merchant, or hell an adventurer? 5000 gp is pocket change.

It's the same reason why the courts will assign extremely high fines to corporations in the real world. A punishment is meaningless if it's so minor that they barely notice it.

It would be like giving Bill Gates a $100 parking ticket. That's seconds worth of income for him.

No if Bill Gates ever got fined they would up it, A LOT to make sure it actually felt painful, or they would charge him with something that he couldn't use money to buy off.

That's her logic.

So is this character good-aligned?

From what I gather, being raised is not something that happens regularly. Most people who die choose to stay in their afterlife, because they feel they belong there. It would propably be smarter to just take the money.

That said, this doesn't strike me as so bad it warrants an alignment change, good adventurers kill evil people all the time, and most often don't go out of their way to check if they can afford being brought back to life, first.

[hamishspence]

I know that the books (Especially BoED) say that 'Killing is always evil,' but frankly, the books are inconsistent at the best of times.

Actually, BoED makes it crystal clear that The Forces of Good expect, and indeed sometimes demand, preparedness to do violence against the Forces of Evil.

But it also expects a degree of caution- and an acceptance that mercy and redemption of enemies is an ideal to strive for, even if it's not always achievable.

(It also says that "execution for serious crimes is widely practiced and does not qualify as evil")

It's "Murder" not "Killing" that BoED, BoVD, and Fiendish Codex 2 portray as one of the viler acts.

[Berenger]

If the (dangerous, as opposed to "commoner level 0" or "prisoner" or the like) enemy does choose to fight and happens to be killed as a result, it is a neutral or, under certain circumstances, even good deed. Killing an helpless enemy "because they deserve it" to be put through the traumatic ordeal of death and resurrection is torture and, of course, plain evil.

It is like burning your victim and shredding his flesh with white-hot pincers because, hey, he can pay any cleric to dump a cheap cure or restoration spell to be as good as new afterward. If "some minmaxed cleric can heal it" can justify every imaginable cruelty, there is no need for a moral code at all.

[Yogibear41]

My vote is for Lawful Neutral, but really Its hard to make an alignment decision based on just the limited amount of information presented. It probably depends on who shes goes around killing honestly, if they are evil, do evil things, and you kill them your good who cares how much money they have, note that your common thief and other things of this nature are not evil.


Scratch all of that, a neutral or even evil person could just as easily do all of that.

There is alot more to good/evil that just I kill bad guys, do you actively help other people for often times no personal gain? if yes you are probably good. You can be a killing machine and go around dealing death like a boss paladin and still be a good guy if you do it for the right reasons. While on the same side their are plenty of neutral types who go around killing bad guys because well they are bad and do bad stuffs so yeah, alignment is to complicated to be summed up in a few sentences honestly.


Everything is setting specific of course, in the game I play in things like drow are just evil and are pretty much kill on sight if your a Paladin type, there is this no sorry I'm a good drow, Paladins just like well sorry my god is LG and he says to wipe you out so have a nice day.


On another note, why kill them if your only goal is to charge them 5000 gold, why not just take the money/lock them up in jail? What if your god doesn't want them to come back to life? or he/she is sick of you slaping the cycle of life and death in the face constantly killing people just to bring them back? What if you wake up one day and your spells don't work anymore because your god feels like you are just abusing them? There are no actual rules written consequences for these kinds of things but sometimes you have to take a step back and actually think about the consequences of using magic.

[erikun]

If killing the person would be a good act/would not be an evil act under normal circumstances, then killing them if they have money but letting them go if they don't would be just as good/not evil. Heck, if anything, letting the evil person go might be considered a minorly evil act if you aren't doing anything to prevent them from continuing to be evil.

If killing the person would be evil/would be questionably evil, then the "But they can afford to be resurrected!" is not an excuse that makes it non-evil. At the very least, the character is doing the equivalent of torture, putting the person through a lot of pain before "letting them go". Heck, if the character truly thinks the person is evil, then they've basically sending the person to the Nine Hells/Abyss for a period of days to make a point. Somehow, I don't think "Send Person to Abyss for 24 Hours" is the kind of spell you'd expect to see on most Good-aligned spellcaster lists.

[Der_DWSage]

Have you seen the spell list from Book of Exalted Deeds? For all its talk, it has a lot of debatable spells that might ping evil on the common sense-dar. Have a look at this beaut. (http://dndtools.eu/spells/book-of-exalted-deeds--52/wages-of-sin--56/)

Anyway, a lot of people seem to keep getting caught up over the fact of 'You might as well just fine them 5000 GP!' rather than making them go through the stress of being killed. Consider this, then.

Remove the 5000 GP from the equation. She only kills those that have a Cleric on retainer, or that she is personally going to revive, using her own money. The point is not to fine them, but to give them a temporary punishment and shock sufficient enough to make them want to change their ways. How does this affect your opinion? (On the good/evil/lawful/chaotic scale, not the actual effectiveness scale.)

[Berenger]

The point is not to fine them, but to give them a temporary punishment and shock sufficient enough to make them want to change their ways. How does this affect your opinion? (On the good/evil/lawful/chaotic scale, not the actual effectiveness scale.)

Not at all. This is not the Ghost of Christmas Past, it is the attempt to "reeducate" them via physical and mental torture. It is neither good nor going to work. Besides, it is much more likely that an evil man has an evil cleric as his retainer and accordingly a huge obligation to an evil faith when he comes back from death.

[Yogibear41]

If they are evil enough to deserve killing, you don't want them coming back.

[ArcturusV]

Not only that, but in DnD terms being dead may not be much of a "punishment" for your villains. I mean I doubt Gornak, Scourge of the Elves, Plague upon the Land, Bringer of Death, is going to get pitchforked when he's dead and goes to hell. They'll probably buy him a drink and make him a demon.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Other than a mechanical failing, I don't see much problem with wages of sin. It's duration is too short for an out of combat spell and its effect is to turn evil creatures against each other. It's the classic divide-and-conquer strategem in spell form.

Mechanically it fails utterly in that it doesn't grant the targets any ability to discern who amongst those present are actually evil leaving them unable to act on the compulsion it instills.

[Morithias]

On another note, why kill them if your only goal is to charge them 5000 gold, why not just take the money/lock them up in jail? What if your god doesn't want them to come back to life? or he/she is sick of you slaping the cycle of life and death in the face constantly killing people just to bring them back? What if you wake up one day and your spells don't work anymore because your god feels like you are just abusing them? There are no actual rules written consequences for these kinds of things but sometimes you have to take a step back and actually think about the consequences of using magic.

She's not charging them. She doesn't raise them, she just knows that they can and will come back.

Also as Iron Man once put it.

"don't you realize that if you lock up your opponent in jail they just vow revenge and come back after you?"

She's good, not stupid. She'll spare those who are desperate and forced into evil, but if you're just some corrupt bastard who could easily choose not to be evil? No you're dead.

Most people don't go into a life of crime because they just randomly woke up one day and decided to be evil, no, circumstance pushes them into it often.

The fact that there's been a 300-year war going on in the setting also puts a lot of question into the DM's logic in my opinion.

A pragmatic healer, and a dragon feel it's okay to kill? Keep in mind that to a dragon, a human might as well be a dog in terms of intelligence, and lifespan. Not good aligned!

Two races go to war and keep murdering each other for 300 years while the nobles no doubt profit endlessly from the war sipping their wine and laugh as the commoners go to die? Not-evil...apparently.

She doesn't even seek people out to kill them, she only kills those that are causing extreme amounts of trouble. She's not a knight templar.

The simple fact is she's not some stupid good love freak, who's going to spare the Joker, just to watch him break out of jail and murder more people.

[TuggyNE]

Also as Iron Man once put it.

"don't you realize that if you lock up your opponent in jail they just vow revenge and come back after you?"

Iron Man, to my mind, is mostly CN.

For what that's worth.

[Berenger]

Also as Iron Man once put it.

"don't you realize that if you lock up your opponent in jail they just vow revenge and come back after you?"

I won't challenge the evident moral and intellectual superiority of some Marvel hero dude, but did it occur to you that a villain "sitting in jail vowing revenge" may be preferrable compared to a villain that is killed, resurrected by the follwers of an evil god and afterwards perfectly free to resume his evil deeds while still vowing revenge?




The simple fact is she's not some stupid good love freak, who's going to spare the Joker, just to watch him break out of jail and murder more people.

So she skips the prison and kills the Joker, fully expecting him to break out of death at his own terms? :smallconfused:

[FearlessGnome]

When you talk about fines, they are in relation to the damages, not to the ability of the culprit to pay them.
This varies a lot from place to place. In reality land, plenty of countries have scaling fines. I'm not sure what the correct English term would be, but in Scandinavian countries we have 'day fines' for some crimes that cost you what you would earn in X Days/weeks. We also have some fines that do not scale, but... *shrugs*

[Talderas]

So is this character good-aligned?

The character is neutral at best and evil most likely.

[Firest Kathon]

In your parking ticket example, they would not charge Bill Gates more for illegal parking (pretending for a moment he actually drives himself anywhere) because that would not be fair. When you talk about fines, they are in relation to the damages, not to the ability of the culprit to pay them.

Actually, this may be incorrect depending on your legislation. I don't know how it is in your country, but in Germany (and according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine) also in Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Croatia, and Macao) some fines are based on "Day-Fines" (Tagessätze).

So for e.g. speeding, you would be fined 10 day-fines (just an example, I don't know the exact amount). How much a day-fine is depends on your income, usually 1/30th of your monthly income. The highest allowed day-fine is 30.000 EUR.

The idea is that, like the OP suggested, a fine is as "painful" for someone with a high income as it is for someone with a low income.

[PersonMan]

So she skips the prison and kills the Joker, fully expecting him to break out of death at his own terms? :smallconfused:

It costs him more and avoids the whole 'yeah let's put this ultra powerful Evil dude in a prison full of level 1 Warriors, that's totally safe!' issue.

You kill him, he gets Rez'd = he spent 5k
You jail him, he gets out = he spend 0k, and probably killed/injured several people and damaged/destroyed the prison

[Captnq]

As the original statement given?

Lawful Evil.

Oh, you can talk about how there's other reasons why they are killed, but you did not give those reasons.

Did you know it's illegal to spit on the sidewalk in NYC?

I'm gonna kill you and make you come back from the dead.

THAT is what you posted. Now, if you wish to change what you posted, sure, I'll change my answer too.

Look at it this way. Death may be a revolving door for her, but how many times has the PC died? Not many I suspect.

1. Trama of Death - I doubt this is a painless lethal injection. I suspect this is mace upside the head, chopping a tree, hacking at someone until his hit points are gone sort of death. That's horrible.

2. You don't always make it to the afterlife - Every once in a while something intercepts a soul and... well. We often don't find out. Eberron has the traveler. Forgotten realms has spoken of demons that do the same thing. Dying isn't perfectly safe, you know.

3. You assume the target wants to come back - Remember, you don't have to come back if you don't want to. You don't always go to Hell if you are evil. You can worship a god within one step of your alignment. I could be NE and follow The god of commerce for example. Maybe I like her version of heaven. I died with millions of Gold (since you only kill the rich). I'm one of the winners in Waukeen's realm. I get to lounge around and enjoy the afterlife I worked so hard to achieve. Why the HELL would I come back?

4. You assume someone will cast the spell - What if nobody else of high enough level is available? What if they are out of town? Now you are talking ressurection. 10,000 gp might be harder to come by

5. You are assuming someone will spend the money - I'm a greedy jerk. Chances are my family is greedy too. When I get killed are they going to:
A) Show great loyalty and spend 5,000 gp to bring me back from the dead.
B) Sell my corpse to a necromancer and stab each other in the back trying to gain control of my vast fortune.
Let us not forget estate taxes. Governments LOVE estate taxes. Can't collect your taxes unless someone stays dead.

6. You are assuming there are no claims - If I was faithless in Forgotten Realms I'm now stuck in The Wall. They aren't very clear if you can bring someone back from the dead if they are stuck in the wall. If I'm evil, maybe I sold my soul. Well, now my demon lord gets that soul and maybe he's not giving it up.

7. You are assuming the person is rich - How do YOU KNOW they have the money? The Monk in the PC group I run for is forever borrowing money. She's nearly maxed out her WBL. Her equipment is off the charts, but cash? She has no cash. So you kill this bad guy and the only thing he has to pay with is a 100,000 gp magic item. Well, you only got so many days to sell it. Who's got 100,000 gp? Now he's taking a HUGE loss liquidating his assets. That's gonna cost him far more then 5,000 gp. And how does the PC KNOW the target is rich? Does she use Sense wealth? Does she have the spell Contact Mechanus Credit Bureau? Someone can LOOK rich. Someone can CLAIM to be rich. As a Bill Collector, I can assure you, that doesn't mean people aren't in debt up to their eyeballs.

8. Level Loss - No amount of gold can buy back that level lost for raise dead.


I'm sorry, but it's the actions of a sociopath who's become completely disconnected from reality by simply assuming death is "No big deal" No matter how easy it is to fix, you can't ALWAYS fix death. It is a big deal.

The first time someone doesn't come back, does she check to see if the person just didn't WANT to come back, or never made it to the afterlife?
Did she then make sure that the person's family and dependents were safe and taken care of? Did she help them through the grieving process? Find a new father for the son?

If he just went missing, did she start searching the afterlife for the missing soul?

I don't think ANY of that happened, will happen.

EVIL. Just. Plain. EVIL.

Lawful, but evil

[hamishspence]

Have you seen the spell list from Book of Exalted Deeds? For all its talk, it has a lot of debatable spells that might ping evil on the common sense-dar. Have a look at this beaut. (http://dndtools.eu/spells/book-of-exalted-deeds--52/wages-of-sin--56/)

That's because BoED somehow has to encompass both "Destroy or punish the wicked" and "redeem the wicked".

Not an easy task.

[Grinner]

That's because BoED somehow has to encompass both "Destroy or punish the wicked" and "redeem the wicked".

Not an easy task.

But it ends up doing it in ways that would make the BoVD proud.

I recall one spell which imprisons an creature into a crystal and "purifies" them, forcing alignment shifts towards Good.

It's a bit like locking your child in the basement.

[Captnq]

She's not charging them. She doesn't raise them, she just knows that they can and will come back.


See my previous post for the many reasons someone won't come back.



Also as Iron Man once put it.
"don't you realize that if you lock up your opponent in jail they just vow revenge and come back after you?"


No.
What often happens is you wind up sitting in prison and 99% of prisoners become broken. Most prisoners find day after day of hopeless, squalid, painful conditions usually just wears you down until you give up. If ever prisoner who went to jail vowed revenge, I suspect the system would have completely broken down by now. I suspect you have never been in a prison. EVER. Go check out a program called scared straight. That's a nice MODERN prison. I fear the squalid conditions of a D&D prison.



She's good, not stupid. She'll spare those who are desperate and forced into evil, but if you're just some corrupt bastard who could easily choose not to be evil? No you're dead.


I actually had to invent a power to do this for one of my players. it's called "Sense Suffering." You can sense the suffering someone has suffered, or inflicted upon another. however, by RAW, it does not exist. So, I KNOW she does not have the ability to know who was forced into evil and who wasn't. Do you know who can make those choices? It's called a court of law. You arrest them and let the law handle it and decide who's guilty and who's innocent.



Most people don't go into a life of crime because they just randomly woke up one day and decided to be evil, no, circumstance pushes them into it often.


WHAT???
No. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOO.

I've had it with crap like this. "Not my fault. Someone made me. Circumstances made me. I had no choice. BLAH BLAH BLAH."

Did someone put a gun to the head of your wife and say, "Commit a crime or I'll kill your wife?" Okay, that's a Sadistic Choice. Both options suck. One sucks less, there might be a third option you can create, but ya know what, I'm commiting a crime.

Somewhere someone's wife left a man. She left him for a woman. She got the kids and they moved in down the street. A week ago he waited until the kids were at school, stole a car, drove over, and actually chopped them up. The cops told me if we used a different stretcher for each part we'd be here all day. Then the man drove the car to the lake and tried to hide in it.

Yes. He tried to hide IN a lake.

He was quoted as saying, "She made me do this. I HAD to."

Most criminals know they are criminals. They justify being criminals by blaming everyone else around them. SHE made me do it. or I REALLY needed the money. No. You don't really need the money. Yes, there are EXCEPTIONS, but the EXCEPTIONS are EXCEPTIONS. Most criminals know what they were doing, they just lied to themselves. They commited a crime because it was EASY. Being evil is EASY. That's why it's Evil.

Most people become evil when they make the choice to take the easy path, not when circumstances "force" them.



The fact that there's been a 300-year war going on in the setting also puts a lot of question into the DM's logic in my opinion.
A pragmatic healer, and a dragon feel it's okay to kill? Keep in mind that to a dragon, a human might as well be a dog in terms of intelligence, and lifespan. Not good aligned!


Uh, plenty of real world examples of prolonged conflicts. The 100 year war, for example. I don't understand why a 300 year war doesn't make sense.

Feeling it's okay to kill, and feeling it's okay to kill as a FINE are two different things.

And no. A dragon is intelligent enough to know a DOG is as intelligent as a DOG. and a HUMAN is as intelligent as a HUMAN and he is smart enough not to get the two mixed up. And what does intelligence have to do with alignment?



Two races go to war and keep murdering each other for 300 years while the nobles no doubt profit endlessly from the war sipping their wine and laugh as the commoners go to die? Not-evil...apparently.
She doesn't even seek people out to kill them, she only kills those that are causing extreme amounts of trouble. She's not a knight templar.


Great. Wonderful. WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH ALIGNMENT???

*sigh*

Sorry about that. I've been dealing with many real world criminals and evil people lately and it's these child-like statements are ticking me off. You distract from the issue and think that you have a point.

Alignment isn't what you do, it's WHY and HOW. Example:

1. Ed is a murderer. I kill Ed. Am I evil?

Dunno. I don't know why or how.

2. Ed is a murderer. He killed my father who was a cannibal who liked to eat children. I killed Ed out of revenge.

Yup. Fairly sure that's evil.

3. Ed is a murderer. He is a cannibal who eats children. I'm killing him for this. I choose to cover him in honey and have him eaten alive by ants.

Well, the WHY isn't evil. I'm justified in WHY I'm killing him. Now, the HOW? Feeding the guy to ANTS? That's evil. That's sadistic. Sorry. He might "have it coming." It might feel good. It's still evil. Given a choice between slitting his throat or a slow painful death, if I choose the slow painful death, I'm evil. Slitting a throat, IN THIS CASE, is merciful. An act by a good person.

See? As given, the WHY and the HOW are... weird. Very strange. Why she's killing them seems to be for a matter of the law. How she's punishing them seems to be... well... horrific.

Just get Sanctified Spells and show people A glimpse of their afterlife. Skip this whole actually sending them there crap.



The simple fact is she's not some stupid good love freak, who's going to spare the Joker, just to watch him break out of jail and murder more people.

Do you know why Batman spared the joker? Because Batman never gave up hope that maybe the Joker could be saved. That even the joker could be saved. If the joker could be saved, then anyone could be saved. Conversely, the joker would never kill the batman. Because if the joker could corrupt the Batman, he could corrupt anyone. The moment Batman Kills the joker, in any timeline, he retires. Why? Because he failed.


This PC we're talking about? She's given up hope. She's begun the slide towards evil, if she isn't already. She's fallen. She's done. She's making excuses and whining about circumstances. Neutral at best, but moving towards evil with every MURDER she commits.

[Brookshw]

Excellent posts captnq. You've put succinctly what is too troublesome to type from my phone.

The corruption bit is interesting, there's no explanation of WHAT level of corruption we're talking about. This could easily be a slippery slope to punishments not fitting the crime. In and of itself that could still be lawful but is moving away from good.

I don't think I understand the op's group, last thread we saw on alignment from them was a society where criminals were killed and their souls used to power repeating create food traps and that the entire forces of good would be okay with this.

[Berenger]

It costs him more and avoids the whole 'yeah let's put this ultra powerful Evil dude in a prison full of level 1 Warriors, that's totally safe!' issue.

You kill him, he gets Rez'd = he spent 5k
You jail him, he gets out = he spend 0k, and probably killed/injured several people and damaged/destroyed the prison

No, no, no. Just no. Any world where every proper noble or merchant can be expected to have a high enough mercenary cleric at hand to raise him from the dead is obviously high-powered enough to have prisons staffed by something more adequate that level-1-warriors.





Excellent posts captnq. You've put succinctly what is too troublesome to type from my phone.

+1

[Oko and Qailee]

Because if someone has something like a million gold pieces or something like that, 5 grand is nothing.

It's no punishment to them.


Level loss is a HUGE punishment though. It severely cripples someone. Keep in mind the vast majority of NPC's in a D&D setting are below level 5 and that each level is obscenely difficult to receive (you need to be in multiple lethal situations just to go up one level!)

I remember reading an article that, based of D&D DC's and stuff, Einstein would be a 5 level expert thats specialized in knowledge (physics). Thats talking about someone who spent nearly their entire life doing physics and was one of the absolute best in his field.... and he was only level 5.

Killing people and making them resurrected is, at the very least, them losing YEARS of hard work.

And thats not talking about secondary effects.
-Having a King raised means he lost points in social skills that might be needed later for guarding his kingdom
-Raising the captain of a guard means he cant defend the city as well


I'm sorry, but unless necessary, I don't think you can justify "killing someone" as a punishment. It's literally the same as physically/mentally crippling someone in real life as a punishment, because levels come with increased physical and metal prowess.

Edit: This isn't to say good people don't kill. But they dont kill as a "oh its a fine" they kill when its a "this person is evil and theres no other way to stop them"

[Zweisteine]

Simply imprisoning a foe able to afford resurrection may not work just because he can afford resurrection (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney).


Oko, also consider that gaining levels in D&D may be far easier than in real life, especially depending on how non-combat Exp gain works under the DM. Failing that, someone with allies willing to resurrect could just go on a week-long adventure to level up again.

[Oko and Qailee]

Oko, also consider that gaining levels in D&D may be far easier than in real life, especially depending on how non-combat Exp gain works under the DM. Failing that, someone with allies willing to resurrect could just go on a week-long adventure to level up again.

It's easier but its still not easy. Most NPC's dont just "go on a week-long adventure" and when they do they run the risk of dying again.

How is that level 5 Aristocrat ever going to fight CR appropriate challenges to gain more levels? Considering how crappy aristocrat is.

You're talking as though NPC's are the same thing as PC's, they're not. They usually have crappy NPC classes, they don't adventure, they're ridiculously uncommon if they're above 5th level, etc.

To give you an idea, a 5th level NPC needs to fight 4 CR5 encounters by himself to get to level 6. Good luck with that. Unless the NPC is a major villian it will never happen.

"But PC's beat equivalent CR encounters all the time"
The entire thing about PC's is that they're a rarity, they are what the story is about and they are the heroes. That's why, at the end of the story, they pass hundreds of encounters that they should have died in.

Doing what the OP is saying is condemning someone to waste years of work, unless they're an uber plot heavy character. But for the OP's character to know and make decisions based off that is meta-gaming and simply evil in a Tarquin-esque way.

[hamishspence]

I lean to the view that most NPCs gain XP for things other than combat.

Shojo, for example:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0289.html

I doubt he got his 14 levels via combat alone. Indeed combat may have played only a small part.

[Brookshw]

maybe its the wine but for some reason I have to wonder why spells like imprisonment don't seem like viable alternatives, especially when you can destroy the location of said casting leaving it to only gods to ne able to restore them.

[Slipperychicken]

Because if someone has something like a million gold pieces or something like that, 5 grand is nothing.

It's no punishment to them.


Why not fine them in terms of portion of assets (or however you feel like determining material wealth)? Determine what percent* of one's assets one deserves to lose for each crime (whatever portion would "mean something" to the perpetrator), and enforce that. It could even serve as a wealth-redistribution scheme if you swing that way.


*It doesn't have to be a flat percent. You could use a progressive scale, much like how tax brackets are calculated. Just increase the percentage with income (ex. A murderer with 50k is fined 30k, one with 100-130k is fined 90k, one with a million loses 950k, and so on), and any other factors you feel are relevant to making the amount "mean something".

[NichG]

The answer to this must be related to the morality of your campaign, as well as the threshold your character has for 'okay, death penalty time'.

Consider a 'hard liner' campaign where you can kill goblins at will because they're monstrous and 'always evil' and still maintain a Good alignment. In this sort of situation, as long as you kill things as evil as those goblins, the cosmos approves of it as good aligned, even if you feel like it shouldn't. At that point, it doesn't matter if you're being selective or not - that selectivity isn't about alignment anymore, its about personal ethics, which is going to be more complex than 'is it good or evil?' in general.

On the other hand, you could have a middle of the road campaign - its okay to kill anyone who initiates hostilities against you ('self defense'), but if you go out of your way to kill things because they ping as evil, thats an evil act. In this case, it probably doesn't matter whether or not 'they could come back', because the standard of morality in the campaign is basically 'don't start nuthin' - it matters more whether or not you had a specific reason to kill than the overall consequences.

You could also have a 'stringent/exacting standards' kind of campaign where killing anyone, whether it was in self defense or not, whether they can get better or not, is generally evil, and it is the duty of people who wish to be good to put themselves at risk in order to hold to that standard even if it would mean their lives.

Or a campaign where the ends justify the means always. If killing one person saves two, its a good act. If you kill someone and they get better, its like it never happened.

So without knowing what kind of campaign it is, there's not really a solid way to answer the question.

Personally, though, I take a dim view of things that could be seen as 'torture'. Whether someone gets better or not, waterboarding them or shocking them or doing severe sleep deprivation or, in this case, killing them, sending them to hell, and then bringing them back, the problem is that you're willfully inflicting suffering, not what the end results might be. However, thats a personal take - D&D alignment is completely inconsistent on the matter, approving of it in some cases (ravages), disapproving in others.

[SassyQuatch]

They can easily afford resurrections so killing them is fine. But it really has to be horrible enough a death to dissuade from further actions otherwise it becomes "OK, fade to black time. See you tomorrow." and nothing still has to change.

But why stop there? They can easily afford healing so torturing and horribly mutilating them is fine. Or making them watch as you torture, rape, and murder all their loved ones. Seems more vile, yet it is still strangely similar to what is being suggested, because the punishment has to be painful to make an impression.

Either the death is clean and painless and thus serves no purpose, or you have to go out of your way to cause pain and suffering. And that is indeed evil.

[Coidzor]

Alright, so let's say you have a good-aligned character. Healer,cleric whatever, who can raise the dead, who generally avoids killing...with one exception.

They will kill enemies who can afford to be brought back.

The reason behind the character's logic is that the punishment must be severe enough to the person it's being given to. To a commoner, 5000 gp is unaffordable, to a noble, or rich merchant, or hell an adventurer? 5000 gp is pocket change.

It's the same reason why the courts will assign extremely high fines to corporations in the real world. A punishment is meaningless if it's so minor that they barely notice it.

It would be like giving Bill Gates a $100 parking ticket. That's seconds worth of income for him.

No if Bill Gates ever got fined they would up it, A LOT to make sure it actually felt painful, or they would charge him with something that he couldn't use money to buy off.

That's her logic.

So is this character good-aligned?

Is killing incompatible with a good alignment to you?

There's your answer.

If the setting reflects the character's view, then, hey, they're right. If not they're at least deluded, in which case you go on to the question of whether being deluded is incompatible with a good alignment.

As always, context is key, and this OP does not deliver enough of it.