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View Full Version : At what point does "disciplining an unruly child" go from Nonevil to Evil?



hamishspence
2014-01-21, 03:11 AM
Based on these posts:


Here's the situation in which Pyro McBurninator decided to torch a kid.

Pyro McBurninator is a temperamental Sorcerer with strong fire powers.
He's a cat person, and dislikes dogs to the point that if they get too close, he kicks them away to teach them to fear and keep their distance from them (Yes, he kicks puppies).

One day, Pyro The Burninator is kicking back in a tavern after a day of adventuring (Saving the baroness' daughter from the evil Ogre Mage, and declining the reward)

He hears the orphanage is on fire! He wastes no time leaping to his feet to go save the day - but though he's a Fire mage, and his spell will allow him to endure the heat, he's not yet able to actually be fire-resistant yet. He's also at risk of asphyxiation.
By the time he gets to the Orphanage (Despite his incredible speed), it's engulfed in a blazing inferno, with many kids still trapped inside.
He rescues the kids as swiftly as he can, suffering severe burns and nearly asphyxiating in the blaze. He puts up with a lot of hassle trying to find the kids and talk them into coming with him - he doesn't hold their fear against them. But Richard instead taunts Pyro for taking so long, and laughs at the sorcerer for claiming to be a fire mage but not immune to the fire. Pyro tells him to shut up, and argues to get the little twerp to get out.

Although he's severely injured, he manages to get all the kids to safety - but Susie Pigtails is distraught because her young puppy is still trapped in the blaze, and too young to have a chance of escaping on his own. Richard, on the other hand, mocks Little Timmy Crippled for needing Pyro to save him because he can't walk on his own, and griping at Pyro for taking the effort to save Little Timmy instead of letting him burn to death. Pyro cusses out Richard and conjures fire as a warning, then storms back into the fire (At severe risk to himself) to find Susie's puppy, despite his own aversion to the animal.

Unfortunately, he's a bit too late, and while the animal's alive when he rescues it, it asphyxiates in Suzie's arms, leaving her to be terribly distraught. Richard then torments her for being such a sissy about being bent out of shape over the death of her beloved pet, then mocks and cusses out Pyro the Burninator for bothering to go save the puppy.

Pyro gets sick of Richard's (behaviour), sets him on fire (To the rejoicing of the other kids sick of Richard's constant bullying, needling, tormenting, and abusing his protections whenever someone tried to do anything about it), with his only regret being not letting the Orphanage fire do the job for him.

He uses "Minor ignition" on mere nuisance kids, but when it comes to people who are outright malevolent (But not violent about it), it's Immolation, no matter how old or young they are (But young people get more warnings - Richard was warned 3 times. Also, after nearly suffocating and suffering severe burns himself, our Antihero isn't in a tolerant mood). Also, another mitigating/karmic factor is that Pyro revoked the salvation he'd offered the kid for continuing to be a bullying menace after being warned off.

Had Pyro merely given him a "Minor Ignition", he'd be Good, not Neutral, because he wouldn't have committed an evil act (Disciplining an unruly child is not Evil.)

It doesn't hurt the child for any significant amount of time, but does leave a lasting (But not traumatic) impression. Unless the person was immolated, which is strictly reserved for people who prove to be monsters (Regardless of age)

I find myself wondering - where do other people draw the line between Nonevil and Evil, when it comes to this?

AuraTwilight
2014-01-21, 03:22 AM
The second it becomes abusive.

This includes all possible implications of applying GODDAMN FIRE to them.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 03:24 AM
That's kind of how I figure it. Medieval times may have had different definitions- but D&D social mores default much more closely to modern, than to medieval.

OldTrees1
2014-01-21, 03:41 AM
Abuse: To use wrongly or improperly.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 03:52 AM
When it is done for reasons that are selfish and damaging to the child. What exactly that constitutes is going to vary a lot depending on who you ask. But in 3.5 at least the fundamental truth is that good is non-selfish, and is not harmful to innocents, whereas evil is. So the point it becomes evil is when it is now selfish or harmful, and that's a really debatable point when that would be.

Kid Jake
2014-01-21, 03:59 AM
I'd say discipline becomes nongood as soon as the punishment stops being for the child's benefit (No Sally! Do not touch the stove!*smack*) and starts being for your own gratification (Oh yeah, you think I'm the bad guy here? Fine, how does this feel?*sizzle*)

The second fire is brought into anything though I'd say it drops a notch on the alignment chart.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 04:10 AM
I'd say discipline becomes nongood as soon as the punishment stops being for the child's benefit (No Sally! Do not touch the stove!*smack*) and starts being for your own gratification (Oh yeah, you think I'm the bad guy here? Fine, how does this feel?*sizzle*)

The second fire is brought into anything though I'd say it drops a notch on the alignment chart.

Well if fire can be used for the child's benefit then I can see no reason why it's worse than spanking, as long as the effects aren't dramatically worse, physically or psychologically. I can't see why making it fire as opposed to a switch makes that much of a difference in the provided example the pyromancer has some control over fire and can keep it from getting out of control, which is the problem with using that as a disciplinary method in a non-magical scenario.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 04:28 AM
Being burned is, I've read, vastly more painful than almost anything else.

Which is why cigarette butts are a common tool of torturers.

Rhynn
2014-01-21, 04:34 AM
Well, "when you use fire in any way" is definitely a good milestone. That's not discipline, that's terrorizing, and the two are not the same.

Discipline is making your child stand in time-out (nose to the wall if you're particularly hard). Terrorizing is, you know, stuff like applying fire to a child, or even threatening to do it...

AMFV
2014-01-21, 04:37 AM
Being burned is, I've read, vastly more painful than almost anything else.

Which is why cigarette butts are a common tool of torturers.

Not necessarily, it has a lot to do with the degree of burning. When I was younger I and some of my friends used to burn arms with cigarettes as a way to show tolerance for pain. If it's something a person might do voluntarily then it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.

As far as torture goes, being beaten is almost the same as being burned, and as far as a disciplinary method goes if you have magical control over the degree and severity of the burning I can't see why it would be any different than exerting your control over the spanking.

And again in strict D&D alignment terms it could still be good even if it was more painful, since it might still be in the best interests of the child to be disciplined more harshly so that they would learn to behave appropriately. There are certainly LG cultures that would cling to that sort of mantra. It's only Evil if it's harmful to the child (or somebody else), since that's our yardstick getting caught up on the actual methodology is probably not a productive exercise, since you could have the same outcome using fire.


Well, "when you use fire in any way" is definitely a good milestone. That's not discipline, that's terrorizing, and the two are not the same.

Discipline is making your child stand in time-out (nose to the wall if you're particularly hard). Terrorizing is, you know, stuff like applying fire to a child, or even threatening to do it...


Why is fire any worse than spanking, I mean in a real world scenario as we've postulated the lack of control becomes an issue, but in this scenario there is magic and control is maintained. Now if you think all corporal punishment is wrong, and I suspect you may, then it becomes a different issue.

But as far as D&D morality goes, the yardstick is "is it harmful to the child" and "is it out of self-interest."

Furthermore for some children isolation would be far more damaging than a quite jolt of pain, so there is that, what may be terrorizing to one person may not be to another.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-21, 04:42 AM
Why is fire any worse than spanking

Because one can leave permanent damage.

And if your spanking does permanent damage, it's categorically not even spanking anymore.

Look, if nothing else, fire is EXCESSIVE. If you can conjure up frickin' fire magic against a child, you can just smack them. There is absolutely no reason to be resorting to fire at all. It's unnecessary and therefore abusive.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 04:44 AM
Because one can leave permanent damage.

And if your spanking does permanent damage, it's categorically not even spanking anymore.

Look, if nothing else, fire is EXCESSIVE. If you can conjure up frickin' fire magic against a child, you can just smack them. There is absolutely no reason to be resorting to fire at all. It's unnecessary and therefore abusive.

If you can conjure magical fire and control it, then it may even be superior to spanking in many respects. I mean you could accidentally spank a child more harshly than you intend to, maybe you have better control over your magical fire powers. I mean in the scenario we are discussing magical abilities and it's possible that you have more control over your magical methods (since you practice them more often) than you do over your physical methods, so why would the one be superior?

As I've stated, in the real world it's different since fire is not easy to control, but we're not talking a real world scenario, in this scenario fire can be controlled and should therefore be the same as anything else.

Edit: Also excessiveness isn't really important as far as how Good or Evil something is. It's only if its intended to benefit or is for selfish reasons.

Rhynn
2014-01-21, 04:48 AM
Why is fire any worse than spanking

If you don't find being threatened or injured with fire more viscerally terrifying than an open hand or belt, you're probably not in the majority.

And FWIW, I think spanking is borderline, and pretty much Evil if done in anything but the calmest, most deliberate, and very carefully prefaced way. (Not to mention there's research to suggest its only potentially beneficial for children in very specific circumstances.)

Using violence instead of better, non-violent methods is at the very least questionable, if not Evil.

Setting children on fire, or threatening children with fire, is just Evil.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 04:54 AM
If you don't find being threatened or injured with fire more viscerally terrifying than an open hand or belt, you're probably not in the majority.

I don't find fire more threatening to be honest, not even a little bit. And we can't use a real world analog here, since in the real world fire is not controllable, whereas in the scenario it is. So our real world perspective is doing us a disservice in this case.



And FWIW, I think spanking is borderline, and pretty much Evil if done in anything but the calmest, most deliberate, and very carefully prefaced way. (Not to mention there's research to suggest its only potentially beneficial for children in very specific circumstances.)

But this is not true of D&D morality, and not even all real world morality systems. In D&D again the yardstick has nothing to do with violence only with harm in the end and in the intention and selfishness.



Using violence instead of better, non-violent methods is at the very least questionable, if not Evil.

Certainly not true in D&D, non-violence is commendable, but it isn't a fundamental trait of good. Secondly we have no real way to tell which methods are not effective, and certain non-violent methods, isolation, requiring long periods of nonactivity, are in many cases as damaging as the violent methods.



Setting children on fire, or threatening children with fire, is just Evil.

Not really if you can control fire, we are not in the real world in this example, in the real world, fire can't be controlled, in this scenario for our pyromancer, he has as much control over fire as he has over his own arm, maybe even more as I stated, we can't use a real-world analog, because it breaks down in the scenario as presented.

Berenger
2014-01-21, 04:58 AM
I'd say discipline becomes nongood as soon as the punishment stops being for the child's benefit (No Sally! Do not touch the stove!*smack*)

Corporal punishment is completely unlawful in my country. Learning not to touch hot stoves by reasoning seems to work out just fine.

Rhynn
2014-01-21, 04:59 AM
Certainly not true in D&D, non-violence is commendable, but it isn't a fundamental trait of good. Secondly we have no real way to tell which methods are not effective, and certain non-violent methods, isolation, requiring long periods of nonactivity, are in many cases as damaging as the violent methods.

Pretty sure BoED disagrees, actually; not only is non-violence good, it's super-good.


Not really if you can control fire, we are not in the real world in this example, in the real world, fire can't be controlled, in this scenario for our pyromancer, he has as much control over fire as he has over his own arm, maybe even more as I stated, we can't use a real-world analog, because it breaks down in the scenario as presented.

No kind of control is implied in the original scenario, so you're just making up nonsense that's not relevant. A kid is "set on fire" and "immolated", obviously fatally (the sorcerer "revoked the salvation he'd offered").

AMFV
2014-01-21, 05:00 AM
Corporal punishment is completely unlawful in my country. Learning not to touch hot stoves by reasoning seems to work out just fine.

It doesn't work for all children though. I know a woman who cared for a deaf autistic child, there was no way, other than putting his hand on the stove to teach him not to touch it, no other way, and he had lowered sensory perceptions, so you had to make sure it was there for a good minute, otherwise he might really have been hurt.

Again, real world analogs aren't important in a D&D morality discussion, the philosophy is separate, and I suspect that not all good people would be for corporal punishment, in fact many evil people might also be against it. It's the reasons and the execution that matters here.


Pretty sure BoED disagrees, actually; not only is non-violence good, it's super-good.

No, it's super good if you have a vow to that effect. I mean compare Gwynharwyf (who is a living embodiment of Good) and her many consorts with the Vow of Chastity. The Vows are never presented as being super good because they are good inherently but because they are vows towards certain good ideals. Otherwise Chastity would be supergood, and it's clearly not in all scenarios. Furthermore we have Violent good dieties (such as Heironious) who are embodiments of good. So we must suppose that the virtue is not good all the time, but that in fact following the vows is.



No kind of control is implied in the original scenario, so you're just making up nonsense that's not relevant. A kid is "set on fire" and "immolated", obviously fatally (the sorcerer "revoked the salvation he'd offered").

That was actually a separate scenario, and you'd have to read the rest of the chunks of the post in the other thread to really get the gist of it. Furthermore we have no real idea about his degree of control, and making assumptions that he can't control fire (when he clearly can) is a problem. Secondly the question was asked in the context of general disciplining of a child and I'm stating that fire could be used in the magical circumstances, since we have no real world analog.

Rift_Wolf
2014-01-21, 05:40 AM
In one game I was in, we were given the task of escorting a bunch of problem kids (with important families) from one city to another. There was an obnoxious, violent bully among them who terrorised the others and demanded his own way. No-one at the table even considered knocking him out with a sleep spell for the duration of the journey (how the DM was expecting us to go). We didn't even consider retribution when he stole our horses to sell at the next city. And when he turned up face down in an alley, we felt we'd failed him, even though there's not much else we could've done.

Now, maybe your characters aren't as patient as we were. And if you're playing an antihero, maybe you're not always going to play nice. But violence towards children, or anyone else who can't defend themselves, is evil. The example given in the OP wasn't about discipline, it was about one-upping someone with a smart mouth.

My personal antihero response? 'I hope the cleric prepared 'Speak with Dead' today, so I can ask your parents how I'm doing!'

AMFV
2014-01-21, 05:50 AM
In one game I was in, we were given the task of escorting a bunch of problem kids (with important families) from one city to another. There was an obnoxious, violent bully among them who terrorised the others and demanded his own way. No-one at the table even considered knocking him out with a sleep spell for the duration of the journey (how the DM was expecting us to go). We didn't even consider retribution when he stole our horses to sell at the next city. And when he turned up face down in an alley, we felt we'd failed him, even though there's not much else we could've done.

Now, maybe your characters aren't as patient as we were. And if you're playing an antihero, maybe you're not always going to play nice. But violence towards children, or anyone else who can't defend themselves, is evil. The example given in the OP wasn't about discipline, it was about one-upping someone with a smart mouth.

My personal antihero response? 'I hope the cleric prepared 'Speak with Dead' today, so I can ask your parents how I'm doing!'

Again violence against those who can't defend themselves may or may not be evil, depending on it's purpose, it's scope, how harmful it is to them in the long run. There are too many factors to simply rule one way or the other, we can discuss what affects the yardstick and maybe get some points on it. But outside of "If it is harmful with no benefit" it's evil there isn't much one can do as far as D&D morality goes. Furthermore corporal punishment is not exactly tantamount to violence.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 05:59 AM
For a more rules-centric measure, if it's doing lethal damage it's excessive. Yes, this includes all uses of fire. Spanking or even whipping with a switch are applications of non-lethal damage, they have no chance of accidently killing the little bugger if the dice roll higher than expected.

@AMFV:

I'm, frankly, stunned that you could actually suggest -burning- someone is somehow on equal footing with being struck or even a time-out. I'm very much a pro-corporal punishment type of fellow but that strikes even me as well beyond excessive. The presumption of control over the flames is a -very- bold one. There's exactly -one- thing in 3.5, that I'm aware of, that offers -any- control over natural flames beyond simply starting them or putting them out; the psionic power control flames.

Even a devil's advocate should know when he's pushing beyond the boundaries of reasonably acceptable.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-21, 06:01 AM
If you can conjure magical fire and control it, then it may even be superior to spanking in many respects. I mean you could accidentally spank a child more harshly than you intend to, maybe you have better control over your magical fire powers.

Spell mishaps are a thing. Not gonna fly, bro.



Edit: Also excessiveness isn't really important as far as how Good or Evil something is. It's only if its intended to benefit or is for selfish reasons.

YES IT IS. Literally most crimes and taboos in the world can be described as being separated from acceptable conduct by degrees of severity. Spanking a child and BEATING THEM are two degrees of the same basic forms of actions, to give the most relevant example. Monogamy is more socially acceptable than wanton polygamous orgies, for a non-violent one.

ENTIRE ETHICAL SYSTEMS base themselves on finding balance between excess of vice and virtue. Aristole's school of philosophy was one of them.



Not really if you can control fire, we are not in the real world in this example, in the real world, fire can't be controlled, in this scenario for our pyromancer, he has as much control over fire as he has over his own arm, maybe even more as I stated, we can't use a real-world analog, because it breaks down in the scenario as presented.

Alright, you know what? I have shock collars. They will never malfunction, ever. I have absolute control. Let's put one on a kid and keep juicing them for like...15 minutes. They'll never misbehave again, and there's no permanent harm done. This is totally acceptable, right?


It doesn't work for all children though. I know a woman who cared for a deaf autistic child, there was no way, other than putting his hand on the stove to teach him not to touch it, no other way, and he had lowered sensory perceptions, so you had to make sure it was there for a good minute, otherwise he might really have been hurt.

Even if this were true, the child in your example is not deaf or autistic, and there's a difference between what you're describing and BURNING A KID FOR BEING PETULANT.


Furthermore we have Violent good dieties (such as Heironious) who are embodiments of good. So we must suppose that the virtue is not good all the time, but that in fact following the vows is.


Heironious doesn't advocate violence against the innocent. They are specifically and expressly against that. Violence for these deities is intended for evil creatures.

You know. Like people who harm innocent children.


Again violence against those who can't defend themselves may or may not be evil, depending on it's purpose, it's scope, how harmful it is to them in the long run. There are too many factors to simply rule one way or the other, we can discuss what affects the yardstick and maybe get some points on it. But outside of "If it is harmful with no benefit" it's evil there isn't much one can do as far as D&D morality goes. Furthermore corporal punishment is not exactly tantamount to violence.

Do you actually have a point to this thread besides shooting down everything everyone says with "well, that doesn't apply" and trying to morally justify burning children who annoy you?

AMFV
2014-01-21, 06:06 AM
For a more rules-centric measure, if it's doing lethal damage it's excessive. Yes, this includes all uses of fire. Spanking or even whipping with a switch are applications of non-lethal damage, they have no chance of accidently killing the little bugger if the dice roll higher than expected.

@AMFV:

I'm, frankly, stunned that you could actually suggest -burning- someone is somehow on equal footing with being struck or even a time-out. I'm very much a pro-corporal punishment type of fellow but that strikes even me as well beyond excessive. The presumption of control over the flames is a -very- bold one. There's exactly -one- thing in 3.5, that I'm aware of, that offers -any- control over natural flames beyond simply starting them or putting them out; the psionic power control flames.

Even a devil's advocate should know when he's pushing beyond the boundaries of reasonably acceptable.

We can't use a real-world analog... That's the problem is that burning somebody in D&D where it can be controlled and not necessarily cause permanent is not tantamount to burning somebody in a real world scenario. Again the point here is that the severity of the punishment is not the important point for it's alignment component, but rather its degree of benefit proportional its harm. D&D morality is not real world morality, and our examples can't hinge simply on our understanding of real world morality, we must instead temper them based on our understanding of D&D morality.

If this were a real-world discussion, I might even agree with you on the "possibly too far" but frankly it's not. And furthermore there are real world scenarios where burning somebody is an acceptable thing, I've even pointed one such scenario out (the autistic child that can barely see, is deaf, and has trouble feeling things and needs to be taught that the stove is dangerous). The problem with claiming moral outrage is that you limit all scenarios to those you personally find not to be outrage-inducing, and that's not exactly useful for a discussion of ethics, particularly ethics to which no real world analog truly exists.


Spell mishaps are a thing. Not gonna fly, bro.


Not in D&D which is the alignment axis we are discussing and therefore the system which must be applied. If we were discussing a separate alignment axis (such as WoDs) I would modify my assumptions to fit those present in that axis. But since we are discussing D&D (to include all editions) none of which really have a spell mishap mechanic, it's not really a problem.




YES IT IS. Literally most crimes and taboos in the world can be described as being separated from acceptable conduct by degrees of severity. Spanking a child and BEATING THEM are two degrees of the same basic forms of actions, to give the most relevant example. Monogamy is more socially acceptable than wanton polygamous orgies, for a non-violent one.

And I'm saying that if the ability to burn somebody in such a way that it was painful and did not cause permanent harm that would be of a degree of less severity in the same way that hitting somebody without crushing their skull would be. THERE IS NO REAL WORLD ANALOG, so we can't use real world examples.



ENTIRE ETHICAL SYSTEMS base themselves on finding balance between excess of vice and virtue. Aristole's school of philosophy was one of them.


And that's real world morality, which isn't particularly relevant to the discussion of a specific game system's system of morality.



Alright, you know what? I have shock collars. They will never malfunction, ever. I have absolute control. Let's put one on a kid and keep juicing them for like...15 minutes. They'll never misbehave again, and there's no permanent harm done. This is totally acceptable, right?


Maybe, again it depends on the degree of harm (I've not excluded emotional harm, you'll notice) Harm includes emotional harm.



Even if this were true, the child in your example is not deaf or autistic, and there's a difference between what you're describing and BURNING A KID FOR BEING PETULANT.

Yes, which doesn't change the yardstick in my example. If the violence is for the benefit of those whom it is against, and it does not cause permanent harm in such a degree that it would not be justified, it's good. If I push somebody out of the way of a train and break their arm, in D&D it's a net good. Probably even in most real world moral systems, the same could be said for corporal punishment in this context. The OP example, might be classed as evil, but we simply don't have the information required to examine that without knowing better the intentions and the end results.



Heironious doesn't advocate violence against the innocent. They are specifically and expressly against that. Violence for these deities is intended for evil creatures.

You know. Like people who harm innocent children.



Do you actually have a point to this thread besides shooting down everything everyone says with "well, that doesn't apply" and trying to morally justify burning children who annoy you?

I haven't tried to morally justify that, I've merely pointed out that many people are attempting to use a real world standard that doesn't work in this example. D&D morality is very different and using real world morality is a terrible yardstick for it. I've pointed out where the guidelines would fall, if it causes permanent harm, if it's done in the child's best interests, and if it's not done for selfish pleasure. Those are the D&D definitions, and burning somebody could potentially in certain circumstances be in line with those, since we have no real world analog we can't really say.

OldTrees1
2014-01-21, 06:16 AM
Not necessarily, it has a lot to do with the degree of burning. When I was younger I and some of my friends used to burn arms with cigarettes as a way to show tolerance for pain. If it's something a person might do voluntarily then it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.

Pain tolerance varies from individual to individual. There are people that are willing to torment their bodies in ways that would make most masochists vomit in disgust. I would consider such as Vile torture if inflicted on an involuntary individual.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 06:19 AM
Pain tolerance varies from individual to individual. There are people that are willing to torment their bodies in ways that would make most masochists vomit in disgust. I would consider such as Vile torture if inflicted on an involuntary individual.

Yes, and again since we're dealing with a standard as it applies to the individual we have to weigh the benefit for that particular individual against the harm to that individual, that's what really makes the good or evil part as far as D&D morality is concerned. I'm not advocating burning children, I'm saying that as far as D&D is concerned it's not necessarily any more evil than spanking, particularly if it's done in a way that is constructive, since we have no real world analog we can't speak to how constructive or non-constructive it actually is.

OldTrees1
2014-01-21, 06:35 AM
Yes, and again since we're dealing with a standard as it applies to the individual we have to weigh the benefit for that particular individual against the harm to that individual, that's what really makes the good or evil part as far as D&D morality is concerned. I'm not advocating burning children, I'm saying that as far as D&D is concerned it's not necessarily any more evil than spanking, particularly if it's done in a way that is constructive, since we have no real world analog we can't speak to how constructive or non-constructive it actually is.

I can agree with this general principle. The harm and benefit is relevant data for this moral decision. A sufficiently mature ogre child could survive a turn on fire. Since other less harmful forms of discipline are sufficiently effective, I would question using fire as a form of discipline. However the judgement came from evaluating the benefit/harm ratio of fire and the alternatives.

I would like to remind you that D&D imports real world assumptions to cover areas not covered by the rules. Regeneration can restore severed fingers and scarred faces. However there are no rules to cause these injuries. Rather the game assumes fire will eventually leave burns and scars. So burning is more dangerous than spanking for the average child in D&D.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 06:40 AM
I can agree with this general principle. The harm and benefit is relevant data for this moral decision. A sufficiently mature ogre child could survive a turn on fire. Since other less harmful forms of discipline are sufficiently effective, I would question using fire as a form of discipline. However the judgement came from evaluating the benefit/harm ratio of fire and the alternatives.

I would like to remind you that D&D imports real world assumptions to cover areas not covered by the rules. Regeneration can restore severed fingers and scarred faces. However there are no rules to cause these injuries. Rather the game assumes fire will eventually leave burns and scars. So burning is more dangerous than spanking for the average child in D&D.

Actually D&D has specific rules for scarring (Maiming Strike in 3.5), which leads us to believe that scarring or maiming causes Charisma damage, since that doesn't occur from burning then it doesn't scar you or have any other effect than anything else would. It's hard to separate out real world assumptions from this sort of discussion but for it to be productive they do need be in the most part discarded.

Mastikator
2014-01-21, 06:48 AM
When it is done for reasons that are selfish and damaging to the child. What exactly that constitutes is going to vary a lot depending on who you ask. But in 3.5 at least the fundamental truth is that good is non-selfish, and is not harmful to innocents, whereas evil is. So the point it becomes evil is when it is now selfish or harmful, and that's a really debatable point when that would be.

Technically no, even mild spanking causes permanent damage to the developing brain because of the stress. There are mountains of evidence to support this. If causing damage = evil, then mere spanking is evil by D&D standards.

Still, you can be neutral and do evil things. You can even be good and do some evil things. There's going to be plenty of non-evil people doing evil things anyway.

OldTrees1
2014-01-21, 06:53 AM
Actually D&D has specific rules for scarring (Maiming Strike in 3.5), which leads us to believe that scarring or maiming causes Charisma damage, since that doesn't occur from burning then it doesn't scar you or have any other effect than anything else would. It's hard to separate out real world assumptions from this sort of discussion but for it to be productive they do need be in the most part discarded.

Good point D&D does have rules for Fire creating scars (the quoted section is later referred to as searing the stumps)

To prevent a severed head from growing back into two heads, at least 5 points of fire or acid damage must be dealt to the stump (a touch attack to hit) before the new heads appear.

Discarding something the rules assume exists would only result in a discussion about a nonexistent game. To talk about D&D in a productive manner we need to accept that D&D does import some real world assumptions as default and modifies/replaces the rest with rules.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 06:53 AM
Technically no, even mild spanking causes permanent damage to the developing brain because of the stress. There are mountains of evidence to support this. If causing damage = evil, then mere spanking is evil by D&D standards.

Still, you can be neutral and do evil things. You can even be good and do some evil things. There's going to be plenty of non-evil people doing evil things anyway.

I'm not sure if that's actually true, regardless it's outside of the scope of this discussion since it is a real world politics point, and an unsubstantiated one I might add. There is no mechanic for causing brain damage due to stress in D&D, as such it works differently, and we can't assume it works the same, you can't simply transplant real world morality into this discussion, the fundamental parameters of the world are vastly removed and very different.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-21, 06:57 AM
We can't use a real-world analog... That's the problem is that burning somebody in D&D where it can be controlled and not necessarily cause permanent is not tantamount to burning somebody in a real world scenario. Again the point here is that the severity of the punishment is not the important point for it's alignment component, but rather its degree of benefit proportional its harm. D&D morality is not real world morality, and our examples can't hinge simply on our understanding of real world morality, we must instead temper them based on our understanding of D&D morality.

If this were a real-world discussion, I might even agree with you on the "possibly too far" but frankly it's not. And furthermore there are real world scenarios where burning somebody is an acceptable thing, I've even pointed one such scenario out (the autistic child that can barely see, is deaf, and has trouble feeling things and needs to be taught that the stove is dangerous). The problem with claiming moral outrage is that you limit all scenarios to those you personally find not to be outrage-inducing, and that's not exactly useful for a discussion of ethics, particularly ethics to which no real world analog truly exists.


I liked how you ignored Kelb's point that there's only one power in the game that actually lets someone control the fire, and it's a psionic power, not a magical one. And it doesn't generate fire.

You're not arguing a D&D world. You're creating a house of cards scenario and you keep changing the conditions to keep the other person's points from being valid.

Your contributions to the discussion are uselessly obtuse and dodgy, then, because they're not being made in good faith.


Not in D&D which is the alignment axis we are discussing and therefore the system which must be applied. If we were discussing a separate alignment axis (such as WoDs) I would modify my assumptions to fit those present in that axis. But since we are discussing D&D (to include all editions) none of which really have a spell mishap mechanic, it's not really a problem.

Actually, yes, D&D does have a spell mishap mechanic. Scrolls have it. Wild Magic has it. Concentration as a skill exists to prevent it. Rolling too high on a damage roll when you're trying not to murder a child would constitute it.

You literally just sidestepped the issue. Again. Because your hypothetical sorcerer doesn't have the ability to telekinetically control fire. Only shoot it out of his fingertips. And even if he did, you need to demonstrate that it's necessary to be morally justifiable.

Even in D&D, things like force, violence, or magical solutions to problems such as charming, needs to be in some way necessary to be morally justified. The Book of Exalted Deeds dedicated multiple pages to this.

Why is burning the child necessary?


And I'm saying that if the ability to burn somebody in such a way that it was painful and did not cause permanent harm that would be of a degree of less severity in the same way that hitting somebody without crushing their skull would be. THERE IS NO REAL WORLD ANALOG, so we can't use real world examples.

You realize you're actually making a real world analog right now? You're comparing controlled burning to smacking a child in the head non-lethally. That's an analog.

And as Kelb already covered, all fire in D&D constitutes lethal damage. Spanking is non-lethal. MOST unarmed strikes are non-lethal in D&D, even if you're TRYING to hurt someone. There is little to no chance you're going to try to open-palm smack a child and CRUSH THEIR SKULL.

Please explain why our sorcerer should ever need to be dealing HP damage to a child in order to discipline them. Because even if the fire is perfectly controlled, it's going to cause atleast one damage on a successful hit. If you're going to talk D&D-world, let's talk D&D-world and not your made-up ad hoc scenario.


And that's real world morality, which isn't particularly relevant to the discussion of a specific game system's system of morality.

It does when that morality system literally references real world morality in the two sourcebooks specifically discussing D&D morality. The only difference between D&D morality and real-world morality is that one is supernaturally subjective.

People have already explained to you how D&D allows the construction of an argument for burning a child being evil. Your only response has been "There's no real analog." This is not a sufficient argument.


Maybe, again it depends on the degree of harm (I've not excluded emotional harm, you'll notice) Harm includes emotional harm.


Yes, well, threatening little Susie and BURNING HER for wanting her puppy saved constitutes emotional harm. Prove it doesn't.


Yes, which doesn't change the yardstick in my example. If the violence is for the benefit of those whom it is against, and it does not cause permanent harm in such a degree that it would not be justified, it's good. If I push somebody out of the way of a train and break their arm, in D&D it's a net good. Probably even in most real world moral systems, the same could be said for corporal punishment in this context. The OP example, might be classed as evil, but we simply don't have the information required to examine that without knowing better the intentions and the end results.

The OP example is a textbook example of harming the child for personal benefit. The child didn't benefit in any way; they would've been rescued regardless, as the child wasn't resisting aside from voicing protest about leaving their pet behind. They had no physical ability to prevent their rescue.

And all the child LEARNED is that they shouldn't backtalk the pyro-mage or he burns them. This is entirely selfish and morally unjustifiable. In D&D terms as determined by the Book of Exalted Deeds, this is Evil. Hell, Vile Darkness might even constitute it as brief torture. It's creating PAIN without dealing HARM (according to you), and is thus eligible to be performed theoretically indefinitely.


I haven't tried to morally justify that, I've merely pointed out that many people are attempting to use a real world standard that doesn't work in this example. D&D morality is very different and using real world morality is a terrible yardstick for it. I've pointed out where the guidelines would fall, if it causes permanent harm, if it's done in the child's best interests, and if it's not done for selfish pleasure. Those are the D&D definitions, and burning somebody could potentially in certain circumstances be in line with those, since we have no real world analog we can't really say.

See above. D&D morality is not that different. It's not like there's only one, unified real-world morality system in the first place; D&D morality is literally just lifting Deontology and adding a buttload of magic to it.


Actually D&D has specific rules for scarring (Maiming Strike in 3.5), which leads us to believe that scarring or maiming causes Charisma damage, since that doesn't occur from burning then it doesn't scar you or have any other effect than anything else would. It's hard to separate out real world assumptions from this sort of discussion but for it to be productive they do need be in the most part discarded.

Anything involving Charisma is probably the worst idea to use rules-based world-building off of. Writers can't seem to agree on whether it's force of personality or physical attractiveness. It's as much a can of worms as whether or not negative energy or mindless undead are intrinsically evil or not.

And there have been plenty of NPCs with visible, grotesque scars that didn't take a Charisma penalty of any kind. The Maiming Strike thing isn't broad enough at all.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 07:18 AM
Now that I've noticed it, I'm also going to point out a false claim you've made here, AMFV.

While there is generally a comparison of harm vs gain for alignment some things are considered excessive regardless of the gain to be had.

For example, there is a rule that torture, regardless of cause, is always evil. There are also rules that state that torture's only mechanical effect is behaviour modification in the form of a circumstance bonus on intimidate checks. Gaining that benefit is a result of dealing HP damage to the helpless victim.

In the face of a sorcerer of any level a child can't really be described as anything but helpless, especially if he's being restrained in some way to prevent him from fleeing (I've never seen a child hold still for a spanking). You're also unquestionably doing lethal damage. What you're suggesting as a corporal punishment is torture and unquestionably an evil act.

The only case you've pointed to as a possible exception, a real world analogue, a thing which you claim we shouldn't be using, is an extraordinary one with more than one exigent circumstance. Even then, it's questionable if the benefit outweighed the cost and any such child in a normal D&D world would almost certainly be taken to the nearest church of a good deity to either be rid of such maladies or made a ward of the church in a world that's much too hard for an average family to be able to realistically deal with such issues as soon as it was noticed.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 07:19 AM
I liked how you ignored Kelb's point that there's only one power in the game that actually lets someone control the fire, and it's a psionic power, not a magical one. And it doesn't generate fire.

You're not arguing a D&D world. You're creating a house of cards scenario and you keep changing the conditions to keep the other person's points from being valid.

Your contributions to the discussion are uselessly obtuse and dodgy, then, because they're not being made in good faith.

Because it's not really possible to make a discussion given these circumstances without a much clearer definition of things. There's also a feat that lets you do nonlethal damage with spells. There's also the ability to voluntarily lower your caster level, those are other analogues that work for this.



Actually, yes, D&D does have a spell mishap mechanic. Scrolls have it. Wild Magic has it. Concentration as a skill exists to prevent it. Rolling too high on a damage roll when you're trying not to murder a child would constitute it.


None of them apply to the scenario as discussed, punishing a child by UMDing a scroll is clearly bad, also it would be very hard to bring a child to -10 under almost any circumstances if you lower your caster level to 1. Now that would be a VERY harsh punishment so we'd need to know more about what circumstances required it, but, saying that there is no circumstance where it wouldn't be torture is pretty ridiculous.



You literally just sidestepped the issue. Again. Because your hypothetical sorcerer doesn't have the ability to telekinetically control fire. Only shoot it out of his fingertips. And even if he did, you need to demonstrate that it's necessary to be morally justifiable.

No I'd need to demonstrate that it was better for the child than not, there's no overkill as a factor here, if it's good for the child it's good, even if there is a more good option around the corner.



Even in D&D, things like force, violence, or magical solutions to problems such as charming, needs to be in some way necessary to be morally justified. The Book of Exalted Deeds dedicated multiple pages to this.

Why is burning the child necessary?

I have no idea, we don't have a clear circumstance where it's good, but ruling that it isn't because of the methodology rather than by any other reason is kind of not in line with the moral system we're discussing.



You realize you're actually making a real world analog right now? You're comparing controlled burning to smacking a child in the head non-lethally. That's an analog.

It's an analog to a D&D equivalent, not a real world one.



And as Kelb already covered, all fire in D&D constitutes lethal damage. Spanking is non-lethal. MOST unarmed strikes are non-lethal in D&D, even if you're TRYING to hurt someone. There is little to no chance you're going to try to open-palm smack a child and CRUSH THEIR SKULL.

Certainly it's unlikely, but stranger things have happened and it's possible that the scenario could have those sort of things as present, look the question asked was when does it constitute an evil act, and the answer by definition is when it is selfish or it's harm exceeds its good. Neither of which has been definitively proven for fire.



Please explain why our sorcerer should ever need to be dealing HP damage to a child in order to discipline them. Because even if the fire is perfectly controlled, it's going to cause atleast one damage on a successful hit. If you're going to talk D&D-world, let's talk D&D-world and not your made-up ad hoc scenario.

The Sorcerer is injured and the child is in a violent fight where he might injure another child. The child is attempting to UMD a gate spell, the Child is playing around with demon summoning and needs to be brought to a stop immediately in a way that only pain can manage. Those are all scenarios where those discipline methods might be necessary.



It does when that morality system literally references real world morality in the two sourcebooks specifically discussing D&D morality. The only difference between D&D morality and real-world morality is that one is supernaturally subjective.

People have already explained to you how D&D allows the construction of an argument for burning a child being evil. Your only response has been "There's no real analog." This is not a sufficient argument.

Because there is no real world analog, there are scenarios where burning a child is evil, but not all of them



Yes, well, threatening little Susie and BURNING HER for wanting her puppy saved constitutes emotional harm. Prove it doesn't.

Prove it does... Look at how this goes now? Emotional harm is difficult to measure, I was certainly threatened with spanking as a child, and I think I had no significant emotional harm from it.



The OP example is a textbook example of harming the child for personal benefit. The child didn't benefit in any way; they would've been rescued regardless, as the child wasn't resisting aside from voicing protest about leaving their pet behind. They had no physical ability to prevent their rescue.

And all the child LEARNED is that they shouldn't backtalk the pyro-mage or he burns them. This is entirely selfish and morally unjustifiable. In D&D terms as determined by the Book of Exalted Deeds, this is Evil. Hell, Vile Darkness might even constitute it as brief torture. It's creating PAIN without dealing HARM (according to you), and is thus eligible to be performed theoretically indefinitely.

Yes, I would agree, I wasn't arguing that the Pyro in the OP was justified, merely that saying that fire isn't an acceptable punishment isn't really logical in the D&D world.



See above. D&D morality is not that different. It's not like there's only one, unified real-world morality system in the first place; D&D morality is literally just lifting Deontology and adding a buttload of magic to it.


Well the morality is fairly different from real world morality. And while there may be similarities injecting them into a discussion where first off real world morality is banned is a slightly improper course of action, secondly it's irrelevant, I'm not saying that burning a child in the real world is appropriate, only that in D&D the rules are not exactly the same.



Anything involving Charisma is probably the worst idea to use rules-based world-building off of. Writers can't seem to agree on whether it's force of personality or physical attractiveness. It's as much a can of worms as whether or not negative energy or mindless undead are intrinsically evil or not.

And there have been plenty of NPCs with visible, grotesque scars that didn't take a Charisma penalty of any kind. The Maiming Strike thing isn't broad enough at all.

But it's a rule, rather than just making stuff up and claiming that it should work because it's a real world rule. My example is as far as I know the only rule, if you are not going to argue using the rules of the system, I don't know how I can help you.


Now that I've noticed it, I'm also going to point out a false claim you've made here, AMFV.

While there is generally a comparison of harm vs gain for alignment some things are considered excessive regardless of the gain to be had.

For example, there is a rule that torture, regardless of cause, is always evil. There are also rules that state that torture's only mechanical effect is behaviour modification in the form of a circumstance bonus on intimidate checks. Gaining that benefit is a result of dealing HP damage to the helpless victim.

In the face of a sorcerer of any level a child can't really be described as anything but helpless, especially if he's being restrained in some way to prevent him from fleeing (I've never seen a child hold still for a spanking). You're also unquestionably doing lethal damage. What you're suggesting as a corporal punishment is torture and unquestionably an evil act.

Well the question is would it qualify as torture, if you're using the punishment to intimidate then certainly, as I've stated that would probably be selfish and at least a little abusive, but punishments can be used for other reasons than this.



The only case you've pointed to as a possible exception, a real world analogue, a thing which you claim we shouldn't be using, is an extraordinary one with more than one exigent circumstance. Even then, it's questionable if the benefit outweighed the cost and any such child in a normal D&D world would almost certainly be taken to the nearest church of a good deity to either be rid of such maladies or made a ward of the church in a world that's much too hard for an average family to be able to realistically deal with such issues as soon as it was noticed.

You can again lower your caster level, also I provided other examples as well. Secondly, you can use nonlethal spell, then it can never kill a child, is it still evil then? The problem is that the morality system in D&D completely falls apart under close examination, which is I think what we're now seeing.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 07:41 AM
While I wholeheartedly agree that the D&D alignment (not morality but alignment, the two are not the same) system was -never- meant to apply to such things, that really doesn't matter.

All punishments are intended to intimidate. That's their entire purpose. They associate a consequence that invokes fear with an undesirable action. To -ever- use lethal damage to that end constitutes torture.

Using a nonlethal substitutioned fire effect -may- be acceptable but simply lowering the caster level isn't, even then the chance of rendering the child unconscious is high and doing so goes beyond the scope of corporal punishment. You don't beat a child unconscious to teach them a lesson.

Children will, necessarily, have minimal hit points; 1 or 2 at most. Using almost any damaging effect with variable damage will put them to zero or a negative total which will, in turn, put them in the stabilize or die downward spiral. Using an unmodified fire spell is akin to striking the child with a bludgeon, only a bit more horrific because of the visceral response all animals have to fire. Compare it to these: would you ever stab a child as punishment? How about shooting them with a low-caliber gun or an arrow? Drown them? Force them to jam a kitchen utensil into an electrical socket or old-fashioned toaster?

Ultimately, I'd be willing to bet that even what most pro corporal punishment folks consider acceptable wouldn't even constitute a nonlethal attack. Even vigorously spanking a child's bottom has almost no chance of rendering them unconscious.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 07:42 AM
Yes, well, threatening little Susie and BURNING HER for wanting her puppy saved constitutes emotional harm. Prove it doesn't.

Strictly, the only person he threatens (and burns) is "Richard". He does try and save the puppy - but fails.

Richard may come across as a monster- but a person that young, who berates their rescuer and bullies the other kids in the middle of a fire situation - is probably somewhat mad.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 07:48 AM
While I wholeheartedly agree that the D&D alignment (not morality but alignment, the two are not the same) system was -never- meant to apply to such things, that really doesn't matter.

All punishments are intended to intimidate. That's their entire purpose. They associate a consequence that invokes fear with an undesirable action. To -ever- use lethal damage to that end constitutes torture.

I don't think that's exactly true, punishments are intended to discourage a particular behavior, typically by invoking a specific response, I disagree that all such things are intimidation, the same way that all paychecks don't constitute extortion.



Using a nonlethal substitutioned fire effect -may- be acceptable but simply lowering the caster level isn't, even then the chance of rendering the child unconscious is high and doing so goes beyond the scope of corporal punishment. You don't beat a child unconscious to teach them a lesson.

Again, we don't know the end result, and we're applying a real world scope to it. In many cultures in many time periods, beating a child to that degree was considered acceptable, in some modern cultures caning a teenager is considered acceptable, we're looking at this through a very very small lens which is distorted at best.



Children will, necessarily, have minimal hit points; 1 or 2 at most. Using almost any damaging effect with variable damage will put them to zero or a negative total which will, in turn, put them in the stabilize or die downward spiral. Using an unmodified fire spell is akin to striking the child with a bludgeon, only a bit more horrific because of the visceral response all animals have to fire. Compare it to these: would you ever stab a child as punishment? How about shooting them with a low-caliber gun or an arrow? Drown them? Force them to jam a kitchen utensil into an electrical socket or old-fashioned toaster?

The visceral response might even be good, because it will ensure that the punishment sticks and you don't have to repeat the punishment, which is the best thing to come out of a punishment. Would I ever stab a child as punishment? No... but there are cultures where caning and lashing is considered appropriate. If you'll read through Laura Ingalls Wilder's books you'll see that lashing was considered an appropriate punishment for some older children (although there was an element of self-defense to that, but it was nevertheless a punishment). Our ideas about corporal punishment are very much the product of a westernized culture and our time. Some cultures are perfectly fine with making sure that children learn, and I'm not willing to accept that it is torture, intimidation or evil, not when the child's best interests are at heart, which would certainly work with the D&D system.



Ultimately, I'd be willing to bet that even what most pro corporal punishment folks consider acceptable wouldn't even constitute a nonlethal attack. Even vigorously spanking a child's bottom has almost no chance of rendering them unconscious.

Again there are cultures that are fine with caning children, that's pretty close to a lethal attack, and may even draw blood in some circumstances, you're looking at the moral issue through a very western lens, and it's not exactly a good lens to be looking at medieval discipline through.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 07:49 AM
D&D isn't necessarily all that ""medieval" socially though - at least, not as portrayed in the splatbooks.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 08:00 AM
D&D isn't necessarily all that ""medieval" socially though - at least, not as portrayed in the splatbooks.

But there are modern societies that are fine with caning children. And there are societies where putting a child in isolation (time-out) would be considered cruel, what exactly constitutes cruelty to children varies too much to be exactly pinned down in any specific way.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 08:04 AM
Either way - in the context of D&D, it tends to be one of the marks of LE states - at least, if you go by Fiendish Codex 2.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 08:09 AM
I don't think that's exactly true, punishments are intended to discourage a particular behavior, typically by invoking a specific response, I disagree that all such things are intimidation, the same way that all paychecks don't constitute extortion.

False equivalence. If your employer doesn't want to pay you, you can choose to stop working for him or refuse the job in the first place. Employment is predicated upon suitable payment as an agreement between the employer and the employed.

A child has absolutely no say in who its parents are or how they choose to punish him or what they choose to punish him for. There's nothing resembling even a remote equivalence to any kind of agreement.

In any case, the specific response you're referring to, in the case of any and all corporal punishment, is fear. You don't do the bad thing because you fear the consequence; another punishment. It's generally expected that at some point the child will come to realize that there are other logical consequences to those actions but the initial response invoked by corporal punishment is, and always will be, fear. In the cases of many socialized behaviors the logical consequence never ceases to be more punishment and it is -always- fear that prevents that action; theft for example.


Again, we don't know the end result, and we're applying a real world scope to it. In many cultures in many time periods, beating a child to that degree was considered acceptable, in some modern cultures caning a teenager is considered acceptable, we're looking at this through a very very small lens which is distorted at best.

In most of those cases the age at which it becomes acceptable to cane a teenager is also the age at which their culture, if not necessarily their legal system, considers them an adult. In D&D mechanics, humans become adults at 15. I also have to question whether such extremes were considered acceptable or were merely tolerated as rare aberrations.


The visceral response might even be good, because it will ensure that the punishment sticks and you don't have to repeat the punishment, which is the best thing to come out of a punishment. Would I ever stab a child as punishment? No... but there are cultures where caning and lashing is considered appropriate. If you'll read through Laura Ingalls Wilder's books you'll see that lashing was considered an appropriate punishment for some older children (although there was an element of self-defense to that, but it was nevertheless a punishment). Our ideas about corporal punishment are very much the product of a westernized culture and our time. Some cultures are perfectly fine with making sure that children learn, and I'm not willing to accept that it is torture, intimidation or evil, not when the child's best interests are at heart, which would certainly work with the D&D system.

Caning and lashing are nonlethal damage. See the mechanics for a whip to confirm. There's also the question of whether "older children" would even be considered children in mechanical terms.

Once again, doing lethal damage of any kind is indistinguishable mechanically. There's effectively no difference between 1 point of fire damage caused by a spell and 1 point of slashing damage done by a dagger. All of those examples that I held up are mechanically equivalent; they're all forms of lethal damage.

D&D's alignment system plainly holds violence up as a method of last resort, even in the case of dealing with evil adults and is never a first response against anything that can be reasoned with unless it's so irrevocably evil as to be effectively impossible to reason with such as fiends and chromatic dragons. In this regard it's a very westernized system. Medieval Europe considered torturing the mentally ill by many and sundry means, ostensibly to cure their illness, perfectly acceptable. That doesn't change the fact that it's undeniably evil by the alignment system's rules.




Again there are cultures that are fine with caning children, that's pretty close to a lethal attack, and may even draw blood in some circumstances, you're looking at the moral issue through a very western lens, and it's not exactly a good lens to be looking at medieval discipline through.

Simply drawing blood doesn't constitute a lethal attack. A papercut can draw blood.

Mastikator
2014-01-21, 08:14 AM
I'm not sure if that's actually true, regardless it's outside of the scope of this discussion since it is a real world politics point, and an unsubstantiated one I might add. There is no mechanic for causing brain damage due to stress in D&D, as such it works differently, and we can't assume it works the same, you can't simply transplant real world morality into this discussion, the fundamental parameters of the world are vastly removed and very different.

Psychology isn't politics. And the game mechanics are irrelevant, they don't describe how the game world works, only how the game world plays.

I'm really not talking about real world morality (in fact, I don't think it exists). I'm stating a simple fact, prolonged stress damage brain cells, in developing brains of children this damage is sometimes permanent and directly causes them to have anti-social behavior, which always outweighs whatever "lessons" they learn from the violence.

If in D&D unnecessary damage is evil (it is).
And if spanking is unnecessary damage (it is).
Then spanking is evil by D&D morals.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 08:25 AM
Psychology isn't politics. And the game mechanics are irrelevant, they don't describe how the game world works, only how the game world plays.

I'm really not talking about real world morality (in fact, I don't think it exists). I'm stating a simple fact, prolonged stress damage brain cells, in developing brains of children this damage is sometimes permanent and directly causes them to have anti-social behavior, which always outweighs whatever "lessons" they learn from the violence.

If in D&D unnecessary damage is evil (it is).
And if spanking is unnecessary damage (it is).
Then spanking is evil by D&D morals.

Well then the question is is spanking unnecessary? Which is very very difficult to impossible to examine under most context. And the other question of is worth the same as other punishments. For example Time Outs involve removal of social stimulation, which can be nearly as bad. Furthermore it's not really clear that spanking causes "prolonged" stress, I would argue that it doesn't. But the case is that there is no such mechanic in D&D and discussing the ethics of spanking outside of a D&D context is beyond the scope of this forum.

The problem is that your argument is predicated on the way things operate in the real world, and not even really heavily on that. In D&D there are no mechanics for prolonged stress leading to permanent damage, in fact all HP damage is temporary, meaning that there are few long term results of punishment, it makes the whole system kind of kooky at best.


False equivalence. If your employer doesn't want to pay you, you can choose to stop working for him or refuse the job in the first place. Employment is predicated upon suitable payment as an agreement between the employer and the employed.

A child has absolutely no say in who its parents are or how they choose to punish him or what they choose to punish him for. There's nothing resembling even a remote equivalence to any kind of agreement.

In any case, the specific response you're referring to, in the case of any and all corporal punishment, is fear. You don't do the bad thing because you fear the consequence; another punishment. It's generally expected that at some point the child will come to realize that there are other logical consequences to those actions but the initial response invoked by corporal punishment is, and always will be, fear. In the cases of many socialized behaviors the logical consequence never ceases to be more punishment and it is -always- fear that prevents that action; theft for example.

Well I'm not sure if that would constitute intimidation in the context of the D&D check however. That would fall under the nebulous social rules and those are difficult at best to apply. Fear effects are not all intimidation effects, and I would argue that not all physical punishment constitutes torture unless it is used specifically with the associated demoralization check.



In most of those cases the age at which it becomes acceptable to cane a teenager is also the age at which their culture, if not necessarily their legal system, considers them an adult. In D&D mechanics, humans become adults at 15. I also have to question whether such extremes were considered acceptable or were merely tolerated as rare aberrations.

That is not the case at all. In fact there are real world examples where that is completely not the case. I would provide them, but I can't, suffice it to say that they exist.



Caning and lashing are nonlethal damage. See the mechanics for a whip to confirm. There's also the question of whether "older children" would even be considered children in mechanical terms.

Once again, doing lethal damage of any kind is indistinguishable mechanically. There's effectively no difference between 1 point of fire damage caused by a spell and 1 point of slashing damage done by a dagger. All of those examples that I held up are mechanically equivalent; they're all forms of lethal damage.

D&D's alignment system plainly holds violence up as a method of last resort, even in the case of dealing with evil adults and is never a first response against anything that can be reasoned with unless it's so irrevocably evil as to be effectively impossible to reason with such as fiends and chromatic dragons. In this regard it's a very westernized system. Medieval Europe considered torturing the mentally ill by many and sundry means, ostensibly to cure their illness, perfectly acceptable. That doesn't change the fact that it's undeniably evil by the alignment system's rules.

Simply drawing blood doesn't constitute a lethal attack. A papercut can draw blood.

The problem is that the alignment systems rules do start to break down at many points. I would posit that doing lethal damage for a good end is still good, if you are helping somebody learn something, then it's probably not torture, since again you don't have the associated intimidate check.

Somensjev
2014-01-21, 08:26 AM
i skipped half the posts in this and am just gonna insert my 2cp into this

it starts being evil once it's for selfish reasons, that (intentionally/unneededly/etc) hurt others

and, as for the fire arguement, use prestidigitation, use the fire finger thing, and just hold it near their skin, so they can feel the heat of it, you avoid damage, and scarring, but they know what you could do if you wanted to, which should deter them (probably not a good approach, but maybe a neutral one?)

Scow2
2014-01-21, 08:47 AM
i skipped half the posts in this and am just gonna insert my 2cp into this

it starts being evil once it's for selfish reasons, that (intentionally/unneededly/etc) hurt others

and, as for the fire arguement, use prestidigitation, use the fire finger thing, and just hold it near their skin, so they can feel the heat of it, you avoid damage, and scarring, but they know what you could do if you wanted to, which should deter them (probably not a good approach, but maybe a neutral one?)And if it doesn't deter them, and only encourages them to be worse because they DON'T fear retaliation you feel morally compelled to never apply?

Also... have none of you guys ever burned yourself before? Children heal remarkably quickly, and the human body and mind is designed to take and recover from damage, and is actually required to take damage to develop properly into a healthy person. Also, small fires (Such as clothes/hair fires) are easy to control without magic. It's the clothing/nonliving material that takes damage long before the person is even at risk of taking more than cosmetic damage. In the meantime, they get to experience the awesomeness of fire close-up (Sure, it's scary immediately, but within the hour they'll be boasting about being set on fire without being harmed), get a bit of a scare, and learn/practice the valuable skill of learning to extinguish themselves, which might save their life later when their village gets invaded by bandits with flaming arrows, or they accidentally mishandle a torch.

The Immolating the kid absolutely is evil, but it's not so vile as to override that had the Pyromancer in question not intervened at all, he and several dozen other orphans would have burned to death and asphyxiated in the fire anyway (The kid's provocation was enough to drive the Pyromancer's otherwise heroic disposition to disproportionate retribution, in much the way a Party Fighter might gut a party rogue over constant party-theft.)

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 08:49 AM
Well I'm not sure if that would constitute intimidation in the context of the D&D check however. That would fall under the nebulous social rules and those are difficult at best to apply. Fear effects are not all intimidation effects, and I would argue that not all physical punishment constitutes torture unless it is used specifically with the associated demoralization check.

I never said all physical punishment constituted torture. Only that physical punishment which causes lethal damage. Watch the strawmen.

Anyway, spending a minute or more to invoke fear so that you change the target's behavior, at least in your presence, is -exactly- how an intimidate check works. Whether you invoke that fear through physical punishments or simply by your bearing and size is irrelevant. There are -no- other social rules in the game that could even begin to cover this.




That is not the case at all. In fact there are real world examples where that is completely not the case. I would provide them, but I can't, suffice it to say that they exist.

PM me. I'm far too doubtful to take you at your word on this.


The problem is that the alignment systems rules do start to break down at many points. I would posit that doing lethal damage for a good end is still good, if you are helping somebody learn something, then it's probably not torture, since again you don't have the associated intimidate check.

You're simply wrong here. Violence is only good, by the rules, when it's -necessary- to prevent or mete justice against evil. BoED explicitly states that the alignment system is -not- an ends justify the means system. Harming any creature as a form of behavior modification is neutral at best and far more commonly evil.

More importantly, the alignment system's rules don't break down at that many points and most of the points where it does are extremely odd corner cases.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 09:10 AM
I never said all physical punishment constituted torture. Only that physical punishment which causes lethal damage. Watch the strawmen.

Anyway, spending a minute or more to invoke fear so that you change the target's behavior, at least in your presence, is -exactly- how an intimidate check works. Whether you invoke that fear through physical punishments or simply by your bearing and size is irrelevant. There are -no- other social rules in the game that could even begin to cover this.


The intimidate rules don't though for that matter cover behavior change. In fact the only rules that do as far as I'm aware are the brainwashing ones from that prestige class. Which are diplomacy based. Other than that outside of spells we have zero precedent for behavior change.



PM me. I'm far too doubtful to take you at your word on this.


Done



You're simply wrong here. Violence is only good, by the rules, when it's -necessary- to prevent or mete justice against evil. BoED explicitly states that the alignment system is -not- an ends justify the means system. Harming any creature as a form of behavior modification is neutral at best and far more commonly evil.

And punishment is used to prevent children from becoming evil... That's the same exact sort of thing, and is clearly good in the end at least insofar as cosmic good is concerned.



More importantly, the alignment system's rules don't break down at that many points and most of the points where it does are extremely odd corner cases.

In my experience it tends to flounder terribly when exposed to real world moral situations, and is at best treacherous in this regard.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-21, 09:32 AM
The intimidate rules don't though for that matter cover behavior change. In fact the only rules that do as far as I'm aware are the brainwashing ones from that prestige class. Which are diplomacy based. Other than that outside of spells we have zero precedent for behavior change.


You can change another's behavior with a successful [intimidate] check... If you beat your target's check result, you may treat the target as friendly, but only for the purpose of actions taken while it remains intimidated.

I suspect the rules you're referencing are the rules in BoED for converting someone to a good alignment through diplomacy. They're the only other rules that I'm aware of for changing a target's behavior without resorting to magic.



And punishment is used to prevent children from becoming evil... That's the same exact sort of thing, and is clearly good in the end at least insofar as cosmic good is concerned.

No. Punishment is used to make children behave in socially acceptable ways. In an evil society such punishments would be used to induce the child to becoming evil, rather than prevent it. It's a form of socializing that isn't intrinsically linked to alignment at all.


In my experience it tends to flounder terribly when exposed to real world moral situations, and is at best treacherous in this regard.

My experience has shown me much the opposite. I've only ever seen it flounder under very peculiar circumstances. Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much either way, though, I suppose.

Berenger
2014-01-21, 10:01 AM
[...] If it's something a person might do voluntarily then it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world. [...]

Dude. People pay to have a tattoo in their face. People pay to be sterilized. People pay for gasoline to light themselves up. :smallmad:

Mastikator
2014-01-21, 10:36 AM
Well then the question is is spanking unnecessary? Which is very very difficult to impossible to examine under most context. And the other question of is worth the same as other punishments. For example Time Outs involve removal of social stimulation, which can be nearly as bad. Furthermore it's not really clear that spanking causes "prolonged" stress, I would argue that it doesn't. But the case is that there is no such mechanic in D&D and discussing the ethics of spanking outside of a D&D context is beyond the scope of this forum.
[snip]
The whole argument that if it's not simulated by the rules then it's not a thing that occurs in the game makes the whole question a non-issue. 99.999999% of the things that occur in games are not covered by the rules because they don't pertain to how the PCs interact with the world. The 1d4 hit dice a commoner has does not represent his skin and muscle tissue, his int/wis/cha score does not represent his brain cells. These are abstractions that are not relevant on this level of discussion.
In short, game rules =/= game physics. Unless told otherwise game physics are the same as real world game physics.
You could just as easily say that the player handbook don't cover how bees transfer pollen between flowers, therefore there are only non-flower type trees. Unless stated otherwise the apples in D&D game worlds work the same way apples do in real life, IE because of bees transferring pollen, the game mechanics are irrelevant to the discussion.

Yes it's true that causing damage to someone else can't be declared unilaterally necessary or unnecessary, since it's a matter of context. Sometimes you may need to pull someone out of traffic, you may need to pull so hard that you injure them in the process. But it's still necessary.
The same question can be asked for disciplining unruly children: "did you really need to physically and mentally permanently injure the child to discipline it". That question can only be answered on a case by case basis. But it's clear that if the answer is "no", then it is technically abuse, which has been established as evil by D&D standards.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-21, 10:45 AM
My opinions:
Discipline does not always involve any sort of damage inflicted. Loss of time and opportunities are pretty common disciplines, and probably the most effective ones. Time out, chores, community service, correctional facilities etc. I have pretty strong opinions against the way the latter is conducted in some Western countries, but that is not relevant to this discussion.

Physical discipline seems to be the scope we're aiming for in this article, though. Specifically inflicting some harm in order to create an added reaction to a behavior. By creating that reaction, the harm, you make acting in a specific way non-viable to the actor as the harm or fear of harm outweighs the benefits of the action.

So, by DnD logic, an evil act is one which unnecessarily inflicts harm, or inflicts more harm than is needed. You must, then, always inflict the minimum amount of "damage" in order to condition someone against an action. With the way healing works in DnD I don't think there is any specific divide between lethal and non-lethal in this regard, although some religions and codes may specify otherwise.

The real question, then, is how much damage one needs to inflict on a child to make them not engage in a behavior any further. I'd say in order to do that you'd just need to make a successful intimidate check. You're larger than the child, and the child most likely has a wisdom penalty for being 6. I'm pretty sure you also get a +5 against a child, as they count as helpless anyway.

What benefit to your intimidate check do you get from inflicting harm on the child, then? By any rules I know of you don't get any, truth be told. And any amount of damage to the child is likely going to knock them unconscious rather quickly.

I'd go so far as to say using intimidate on a child is something that can involve some sort of physical punishment which inflicts zero damage, and leave it at that. You don't know if it was successful, and you might have to repeat the process later on, but first injuring the child doesn't really help you any if it's a rather strong-willed child that won't be intimidated anyway. If you inflict damage it's unnecessary in any case, lethal or not. You could still succeed at intimidating the child without dealing damage, which makes any damage lethal or otherwise evil.

DSmaster21
2014-01-21, 10:52 AM
I think that if the punishment can be fixed with only a extended rest/care for a day would be about the line not to cross. Now of course this is based on my views on D&D which I will try to explain so as to prevent flaming.

1. Most children to me would be a level 1 commoner ie in Pathfinder gets 6 or so hitpoints. Thus because I feel that knocking them unconcious with pain (ie taking 7+damage) is wrong I think it is fine to hit him with say a burning hands for 1d4 which is point


2. I think that disciplining with magic should be acceptable because a wizard or sorcerer trains to be able to increase the power behind his spells so I would assume it is not impossible for a level 5 or so sorcerer to use only 1/5 of his normal output a burning hands spell ie 1d4 instead of 5d4


3. Now it could depend on the age as a teen of say thirteen may have been working for several years on a dirt farm or something and thus have 2-3 levels of commoner. This is not a popular view with some as they think only adventurers should level but there are suggestions for using roleplaying experience in any number of systems and all the NPCs (including those with PC levels) do is rp (live their daily lives) so they should gain some xp just not as much as those crazy people who go kill all those monsters instead of say staying in town and practicing on dummies or studying and testing incantations.

4. The Big One Hit-points and Relativity. Quite simply this will likely be argued about. How do Hit-points represent injuries? I always think of hp being how many little cuts and bruises one can handle. If I take one damage from the opponent's sword he may have have just given me a small cut. If it were a say a mace I might get bumped by it. This is why armor makes it harder for you to get "hit". So if you hit someone for say 60 damage with a fireball that might be approximately a second degree burn while 1-4 might be one of those times where you eat something too hot and you can't taste as well for a while. By the next day you are almost always better unless you did something to aggravate it.

So overall if you aren't causing them to pass out from bloodloss or pain I don't believe it crosses over into evil territory.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 10:56 AM
The whole argument that if it's not simulated by the rules then it's not a thing that occurs in the game makes the whole question a non-issue. 99.999999% of the things that occur in games are not covered by the rules because they don't pertain to how the PCs interact with the world. The 1d4 hit dice a commoner has does not represent his skin and muscle tissue, his int/wis/cha score does not represent his brain cells. These are abstractions that are not relevant on this level of discussion.
In short, game rules =/= game physics. Unless told otherwise game physics are the same as real world game physics.
You could just as easily say that the player handbook don't cover how bees transfer pollen between flowers, therefore there are only non-flower type trees. Unless stated otherwise the apples in D&D game worlds work the same way apples do in real life, IE because of bees transferring pollen, the game mechanics are irrelevant to the discussion.

The problem is that if you are making them into abstractions at this level, then so is the alignment system and one could simply use a real world one, which isn't bad, but it isn't the system as it is generally applied.



Yes it's true that causing damage to someone else can't be declared unilaterally necessary or unnecessary, since it's a matter of context. Sometimes you may need to pull someone out of traffic, you may need to pull so hard that you injure them in the process. But it's still necessary.
The same question can be asked for disciplining unruly children: "did you really need to physically and mentally permanently injure the child to discipline it". That question can only be answered on a case by case basis. But it's clear that if the answer is "no", then it is technically abuse, which has been established as evil by D&D standards.

Are you agreeing with me? I'm confused, since what I was arguing is that really you have to assess each discipline on a case by case basis. Well I guess I'll take that, since it is exactly what I've been saying.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 10:58 AM
There's plenty of ways of inflicting pain without "doing damage" - especially in D&D.

It's that, rather than the damage alone - which can be objectionable

Imagine a psion whose favorite method of discipline is using psychic powers:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/inflictPain.htm

A case could be made that, damage or no damage, it's kind of monstrous.

AMFV
2014-01-21, 11:07 AM
There's plenty of ways of inflicting pain without "doing damage" - especially in D&D.

It's that, rather than the damage alone - which can be objectionable

Imagine a psion whose favorite method of discipline is using psychic powers:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/inflictPain.htm

A case could be made that, damage or no damage, it's kind of monstrous.

Yes, that case could be made, if it's used without the child's best interests at heart in a way that's damaging to the child. But again one could make the same case for it being alright under certain circumstances, In D&D you're trying to keep your child from becoming Evil and going to hell or causing significant harm to others, the stakes are much much higher.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-21, 12:27 PM
BoVD says it's when it crosses the line into an Evil act like "bullying", "torture" "bringing despair", or "cowing innocents".

Setting one's own ward on fire is certainly Betrayal, which is an Evil act. Pyro has, explicitly or otherwise, taken this child into his protection and to some degree has its trust that he will not bring it needless harm.

hamishspence
2014-01-21, 12:46 PM
If I was DMing using the Sanity system, and I were to come up with a similar encounter, Richard's behaviour (bullying and insulting in the middle of an orphanage fire) would be more likely than not to be partly due to some disorder: "mad, not bad".

And being set on fire would have a nonzero chance of resulting in another one- pyrophobia etc, and further reduction to sanity.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 12:43 AM
Yes, that case could be made, if it's used without the child's best interests at heart in a way that's damaging to the child. But again one could make the same case for it being alright under certain circumstances, In D&D you're trying to keep your child from becoming Evil and going to hell or causing significant harm to others, the stakes are much much higher.

There's a presumption here that doesn't necessarily follow; namely that the goal in disciplining the child is intended to make the child objectively good by D&D's alignment system, rather than socially acceptable by whatever civilization he lives in. This is simply not the case. Parents in evil societies punish their children too. They do it, as do all parents, to instill socially acceptable behavior in their children but in their society this results in the child growing up evil. Going to hell and working your way up the infernal ladder in the afterlife doesn't sound like such a bad thing when the church of Baalzebul or Dispater is the major religion in your area.

You're confusing alignment and morality. They are -not- the same.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-22, 12:49 AM
namely that the goal in disciplining the child is intended to make the child objectively good by D&D's alignment system, rather than socially acceptable by whatever civilization he lives in.

Well, actually...


Lawful Good, "Crusader"
A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

So social expectations play a vague, poorly-defined role in alignment, for Lawful Good characters, at least.

Tengu_temp
2014-01-22, 01:15 AM
Let's see. Richard is a bully and a tormentor who abuses the other kids at the orphanage, not stopping even when the place is on goddamn fire. Pyro punishes him by casting a spell that's painful, but ultimately non-lethal, and which doesn't leave any lasting physical or mental injuries. The kid was warned several times already that if his behaviour keeps up, this will happen.

Slightly morally dubious, but ultimately, not evil. The kid, to put it simply, had it comin'.

Now, if he used a lethal spell? That'd be evil. Do note that per DND rules, a single evil act is usually not enough to fall from neutral to evil (or even from good to neutral), but it's still an evil act.

Some people say that any kind of physical punishment is evil, but I think that's simply not true. Different children require different methods, and the unfortunate side effect of that is that in some cases, the only good way of making them behave is through physical punishment. Some kids are nice and polite and all the punishment they require is explaining to them what they did wrong; others are not so well-behaved and need to be motivated by non-physical punishment, like being sent to their room or removing their TV priveleges; but some others are rotten brats and the only punishment that works on them is spanking.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-22, 01:38 AM
Some people say that any kind of physical punishment is evil, but I think that's simply not true. Different children require different methods, and the unfortunate side effect of that is that in some cases, the only good way of making them behave is through physical punishment. Some kids are nice and polite and all the punishment they require is explaining to them what they did wrong; others are not so well-behaved and need to be motivated by non-physical punishment, like being sent to their room or removing their TV priveleges; but some others are rotten brats and the only punishment that works on them is spanking.

Yeah, you're going to have a lot of psychologists disagree with you there. Corporal punishment often simply exacerbates causes of misbehavior, and can actually cause more problems than it solves, inflicting psychological harm and crystallizing a mistrust for authority figures. Some manner of nonviolent intervention and counseling will generally do more good, especially if the child is still young and changeable.

Threats of excessive punishment in general mostly happen because we assume an outdated a priori (that is, theoretical rather than empirical) classical theory of decision-making, in which we assume people make decisions like rational actors, basing decisions off an honest evaluation of expected pleasure vs. expected pain for each alternative. This has since been demonstrated not to be the case, as increasing punishments (prison sentences, chance to be caught) beyond certain values will have sharply diminishing returns in terms of crime reduction, even when a rational decision model would predict highly reduced crime and recidivism.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 01:45 AM
There's a presumption here that doesn't necessarily follow; namely that the goal in disciplining the child is intended to make the child objectively good by D&D's alignment system, rather than socially acceptable by whatever civilization he lives in. This is simply not the case. Parents in evil societies punish their children too. They do it, as do all parents, to instill socially acceptable behavior in their children but in their society this results in the child growing up evil. Going to hell and working your way up the infernal ladder in the afterlife doesn't sound like such a bad thing when the church of Baalzebul or Dispater is the major religion in your area.

You're confusing alignment and morality. They are -not- the same.

I'm not. You're confusing my statement that something is good in some cases with an assertion that it's good in ALL cases, which is an assertion I never made. I only said that in some cases it was good, and that whether or not it encourages the child to behave in a good way has an overall good result.

Nightgaun7
2014-01-22, 02:24 AM
Spare the fire, spoil the child.

Buncha frickin' hippies in here, we'll have chaotic evil little snots flooding the place in no time if y'all have your way.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 02:26 AM
Let's see. Richard is a bully and a tormentor who abuses the other kids at the orphanage, not stopping even when the place is on goddamn fire. Pyro punishes him by casting a spell that's painful, but ultimately non-lethal, and which doesn't leave any lasting physical or mental injuries.

In D&D, having your clothes and hair set on fire doesn't leave "lasting injuries".

In real life, it would be expected to leave mental and physical scars.

If the Sanity rules from Unearthed Arcana were in place, we would probably have a more realistic effect on a character's psyche.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-22, 03:03 AM
In D&D, having your clothes and hair set on fire doesn't leave "lasting injuries".

In real life, it would be expected to leave mental and physical scars.

If the Sanity rules from Unearthed Arcana were in place, we would probably have a more realistic effect on a character's psyche.

going even further off the quote you responded to.. "ultimately nonlethal" and "nonlethal damage" are not the same thing. if a child has 6 health and you're doing a fire spell that has 1d6 damage, heck even if it's 1d3, you are dealing potentially lethal damage to the child. and if for some reason, like for instance the child HAVING JUST BEEN IN A FIRE, the kid has taken damage you're now even more likely to kill the kid because they aren't as likely to stay above 0 with what is essentially just getting sick of a kid reacting to a high amount of stress in a stupid childish way.

and also, how the heck do people instantly know that lighting a kid on fire magically teaches them that being a jerk is bad, or that it doesn't cause psychological damage. a kid goes out and makes a snarky comment about someone else on the playground and suddenly the person in charge of the safety and well-being of both of those kids pulls out a match and flicks it into the kid's hair lighting it on fire.. even if the kid lives through this that doesn't mean they're thinking "what I did was wrong, I shouldn't do it again" it's far more likely they're thinking "THAT PSYCHOTIC PERSON JUST SET ME ON FIRE" instilling a fear of that person and fire, which does constitute psychological damage.


Spare the fire, spoil the child.

Buncha frickin' hippies in here, we'll have chaotic evil little snots flooding the place in no time if y'all have your way.

...please tell me you intended this as sarcasm and just forgot or didn't know about blue text..


and to AMFV. I have two things to say about your arguments here.

the "if others do it willingly it can't be that bad" argument: some people are willing to do self mutilation (repeatedly in fact), by your logic that means it's ok to start cutting bits off others if they do something mean to you. you put a cigarette against your arm to test your pain tolerance? ok, you tested your personal ability to deal with pain you put a fairly small point of burning ash against your arm for a few seconds to "prove you're tough"..and you want to use that to justify lighting a kid on fire with magic, putting a flame capable of killing them across their entire body and saying it's ok because "well I can control it I'll obviously know when to stop before he's cooked"?

the "in some societies it's acceptable" argument: weren't you the one constantly saying that entire arguments were inadmissible because it wasn't the right analog?

edit, no wait there's three things.

the "punishment is not intimidation" argument: it actually is. punishment to prevent repeated bad behavior is an attempt to put a consequence which the child is afraid to repeat against the action the parent or guardian wants to prevent. time out? threat of taking away time that child was or could be spending doing what they want (note the word threat). removing privileges? threat of removing even more or not giving the privileges back unless they act the way you want them to act. spanking? threat of physical pain unless they stop doing what you don't want them to do. even cautionary tales are there largely to make the child's fear of consequences outweigh their desire to take an action.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:08 AM
going even further off the quote you responded to.. "ultimately nonlethal" and "nonlethal damage" are not the same thing. if a child has 6 health and you're doing a fire spell that has 1d6 damage, heck even if it's 1d3, you are dealing potentially lethal damage to the child. and if for some reason, like for instance the child HAVING JUST BEEN IN A FIRE, the kid has taken damage you're now even more likely to kill the kid because they aren't as likely to stay above 0 with what is essentially just getting sick of a kid reacting to a high amount of stress in a stupid childish way.

and also, how the heck do people instantly know that lighting a kid on fire magically teaches them that being a jerk is bad, or that it doesn't cause psychological damage. a kid goes out and makes a snarky comment about someone else on the playground and suddenly the person in charge of the safety and well-being of both of those kids pulls out a match and flicks it into the kid's hair lighting it on fire.. even if the kid lives through this that doesn't mean they're thinking "what I did was wrong, I shouldn't do it again" it's far more likely they're thinking "THAT PSYCHOTIC PERSON JUST SET ME ON FIRE" instilling a fear of that person and fire, which does constitute psychological damage.



...please tell me you intended this as sarcasm and just forgot or didn't know about blue text..


and to AMFV. I have two things to say about your arguments here.

the "if others do it willingly it can't be that bad" argument: some people are willing to do self mutilation (repeatedly in fact), by your logic that means it's ok to start cutting bits off others if they do something mean to you. you put a cigarette against your arm to test your pain tolerance? ok, you tested your personal ability to deal with pain you put a fairly small point of burning ash against your arm for a few seconds to "prove you're tough"..and you want to use that to justify lighting a kid on fire with magic, putting a flame capable of killing them across their entire body and saying it's ok because "well I can control it I'll obviously know when to stop before he's cooked"?

the "in some societies it's acceptable" argument: weren't you the one constantly saying that entire arguments were inadmissible because it wasn't the right analog?

I've said that the end point is that the good for the child exceeds the harm done to the child it's that simple. I don't know exactly the circumstances, maybe you're rehabilitating a Red Dragon child. Furthermore we don't know about the control that exists.

As far as the society argument that was a direct response to people claiming that child punishment was universally frowned on in modern society, and it isn't, In fact different groups are fine with different degrees of the same.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 03:13 AM
Skipping to the end for 3 reasons:

-1 Controversial argument with lots of back and forth I can't be bothered reading.

-2 I'm surprised this isn't locked yet, and I expect it soon will.

-3 More harmful and selfishness are our yardsticks [page 1], well:

Pyro gets sick of Richard's (behaviour), sets him on fire (To the rejoicing of the other kids sick of Richard's constant bullying, needling, tormenting, and abusing his protections whenever someone tried to do anything about it), with his only regret being not letting the Orphanage fire do the job for him.

He's setting him on fire to vent his stress. Evil act.
I'm right along with mister pyro, I would've smacked his ass around instead [at minimum I would slap and yell], but it was stress venting, therefore evil.
At most you could argue neutral in that by punishing him like this now he's less likely to annoy someone with less control/annoy someone worse/continuing to be a bully and becoming a evil criminal thug. I would personally argue this point if confronted, but really, at the time, purely stress venting.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 03:18 AM
I'm not. You're confusing my statement that something is good in some cases with an assertion that it's good in ALL cases, which is an assertion I never made. I only said that in some cases it was good, and that whether or not it encourages the child to behave in a good way has an overall good result.

Yeah, no. You said "In D&D you're trying to In D&D you're trying to keep your child from becoming Evil and going to hell or causing significant harm to others, the stakes are much much higher." and even went so far as to capitalize Evil. Moreover you also included that bit about keeping them from doing significant harm to others, a Good (alignment) viewpoint that doesn't necessarily follow either.

Law is the alignment component concerned with meeting social expectations, not good or evil. A lawful good parent wants his child to do what's expected of him and what's right and just. A lawful evil parent wants the same thing but what he considers "right and just" will, necessarily, vary from the LG parent. A CG parent will simply want the child to do what's right and just and "to hell with what anyone thinks," while a CE parent will likely teach the child that might or cunning makes you right unless the other guy beats you.

Parenting does -not- fall, inherently, into any alignment bracket.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:20 AM
Yeah, no. You said "In D&D you're trying to In D&D you're trying to keep your child from becoming Evil and going to hell or causing significant harm to others, the stakes are much much higher." and even went so far as to capitalize Evil. Moreover you also included that bit about keeping them from doing significant harm to others, a Good (alignment) viewpoint that doesn't necessarily follow either.

Law is the alignment component concerned with meeting social expectations, not good or evil. A lawful good parent wants his child to do what's expected of him and what's right and just. A lawful evil parent wants the same thing but what he considers "right and just" will, necessarily, vary from the LG parent. A CG parent will simply want the child to do what's right and just and "to hell with what anyone thinks," while a CE parent will likely teach the child that might or cunning makes you right unless the other guy beats you.

Parenting does -not- fall, inherently, into any alignment bracket.

However good parenting does... And parenting that is good is not necessarily non-punitive. Yes, but there are more cases than you're covering and you are significantly oversimplifying the issue. Yes those are the outcomes that may be intended, but if you are using disciplinary methods toward good ends, then it's good in the end. As long as you are not causing permanent harm to the child or being selfish it's still good.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 03:20 AM
-2 I'm surprised this isn't locked yet, and I expect it soon will.
As long as no posters are rude to other posters, and it doesn't become "Politics" - it has a chance.

What caught my attention most (inspiring the thread in the first place) was:


Had Pyro merely given him a "Minor Ignition", he'd be Good, not Neutral, because he wouldn't have committed an evil act (Disciplining an unruly child is not Evil.)

In short- the argument that setting just hair or one item of clothing of an "unruly child" on fire, in order to "discipline them" is nonevil, something even a Paladin could do - as part of

"punishing those that harm or threaten innocents" (by bullying and mocking them).

Personally, I agree with those who posted at the start of the thread- fire is not an "acceptable" method of discipline.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 03:26 AM
Sorry for the double post.


I've said that the end point is that the good for the child exceeds the harm done to the child it's that simple. I don't know exactly the circumstances, maybe you're rehabilitating a Red Dragon child. Furthermore we don't know about the control that exists.

Except this is a specific system and we -do- know what control exists; not enough to guarantee the child's safety barring a single, specific feat that's rarely taken.


As far as the society argument that was a direct response to people claiming that child punishment was universally frowned on in modern society, and it isn't, In fact different groups are fine with different degrees of the same.

Hey look, another strawman. No one, that I've seen, is saying that punishing a child is universally frowned upon. That's a patently absurd thing to claim. The claim is, and always was, that -excessive, physical- punishment is universally frowned upon in child-rearing. Where the line for excessive is may vary to some degree but in -all- cultures going past that line will garner at least some social backlash if not legal action.

Nightgaun7
2014-01-22, 03:31 AM
...please tell me you intended this as sarcasm and just forgot or didn't know about blue text..


I feel no compunction to use blue text. If you don't get it, so be it.

Besides, I might be serious.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 03:37 AM
However good parenting does...

Now a value judgement enters into things, eh? "Good" parenting seeks to instill in the child the same values that the parent holds. FULL STOP. That's it; nothing more, nothing less. Whatever the parent's alignment that's what they're trying to make their child.



And parenting that is good is not necessarily non-punitive. Yes, but there are more cases than you're covering and you are significantly oversimplifying the issue. Yes those are the outcomes that may be intended, but if you are using disciplinary methods toward good ends, then it's good in the end. As long as you are not causing permanent harm to the child or being selfish it's still good.

I've oversimplified the issue? Your entire argument is predicated on a single idea; that it's okay as long as the harm done does not outweigh the good wrought. This idea is provably false. To whit; if you torture the location of the wizard that's about to drop an apocalypse from the sky on the capital out of one of his minions and are, thus, able to stop the wizard, you've saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives for one act of torture. That doesn't change the fact that torture is always evil. The good wrought just doesn't matter.

Simply presuming that there's no cutoff for how much harm is acceptable in punishing a child as long as it results in a Good (alignment) child is absurd.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:38 AM
Sorry for the double post.



Except this is a specific system and we -do- know what control exists; not enough to guarantee the child's safety barring a single, specific feat that's rarely taken.

Well we have no statistics on how frequently that feat is taken by parents.



Hey look, another strawman. No one, that I've seen, is saying that punishing a child is universally frowned upon. That's a patently absurd thing to claim. The claim is, and always was, that -excessive, physical- punishment is universally frowned upon in child-rearing. Where the line for excessive is may vary to some degree but in -all- cultures going past that line will garner at least some social backlash if not legal action.

The line for excessive is important because in some places pushing a child to unconsciousness may not be past it depending on the offense. The problem is that what is excessive is extremely difficult to ascertain, even in D&D it is the same sort of problem. So while punishing with fire may seem excessive to everybody around this area, that doesn't make it universally evil.

Assigning a social construct for excessiveness based on a very modern westernized moral idea, is not exactly in line with the rules. That was the point. Since you're claiming that something is always excessive then we would need to examine the net gain and loss, and while it may be seen as excessive by some, I doubt that it would necessarily be so universally.


Now a value judgement enters into things, eh? "Good" parenting seeks to instill in the child the same values that the parent holds. FULL STOP. That's it; nothing more, nothing less. Whatever the parent's alignment that's what they're trying to make their child.




I've oversimplified the issue? Your entire argument is predicated on a single idea; that it's okay as long as the harm done does not outweigh the good wrought. This idea is provably false. To whit; if you torture the location of the wizard that's about to drop an apocalypse from the sky on the capital out of one of his minions and are, thus, able to stop the wizard, you've saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives for one act of torture. That doesn't change the fact that torture is always evil. The good wrought just doesn't matter.

Simply presuming that there's no cutoff for how much harm is acceptable in punishing a child as long as it results in a Good (alignment) child is absurd.

The point is that the harm may or may not constitute torture, since we aren't necessarily invoking an intimidate check, the rules don't necessarily work in a way that would support your argument. They are mostly silent on the issue. Yes there is a point that would be excessive, but that's not an easily determined value.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-22, 03:53 AM
Well we have no statistics on how frequently that feat is taken by parents.

"it's ok guys, all parents are now arcane spellcasters with a nonlethal spell feat for their fireball spell. we'll break little timmy of that darned nose picking in no time."



The line for excessive is important because in some places pushing a child to unconsciousness may not be past it depending on the offense. The problem is that what is excessive is extremely difficult to ascertain, even in D&D it is the same sort of problem. So while punishing with fire may seem excessive to everybody around this area, that doesn't make it universally evil.

Assigning a social construct for excessiveness based on a very modern westernized moral idea, is not exactly in line with the rules. That was the point. Since you're claiming that something is always excessive then we would need to examine the net gain and loss, and while it may be seen as excessive by some, I doubt that it would necessarily be so universally.[/QUOTE]

by the same reasoning, just because you think something is acceptable doesn't make it universally acceptable. let's look at the options here, when causing unnecessary harm to a helpless target is considered evil, and you could get the desired end result out of simply talking to them or pointing out how in the same situation some people would've done something worse (like setting them on fire for instance) for their behavior, punishment with as much potential for lasting trauma as physically harming the child can be categorized as unnecessary or excessive. for it NOT to be excessive (going beyond what is necessary for the situation to be handled) the goal of the situation would have to change from "discourage bad behavior such as insulting others" to "cause fear of the person carrying out the punishment".

edit:



The point is that the harm may or may not constitute torture, since we aren't necessarily invoking an intimidate check, the rules don't necessarily work in a way that would support your argument. They are mostly silent on the issue. Yes there is a point that would be excessive, but that's not an easily determined value.

perhaps it wasn't seen because people responded while I was making the edit on my previous post but.. punishment actually is intimidating the child into acceptable (to the parent or guardian) behavior. some punishment is far more likely to cause a lasting fear or phobia, such as physical violence being more likely to lead to a fear of the person who carries it out, and thus can be seen a more harmful (and thus worse) way of trying to change a child's behavior.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 03:55 AM
Well we have no statistics on how frequently that feat is taken by parents.

We have some. Less than 5% of the population of an average world is comprised of spellcasters of -any- level. The largest segment of that population is comprised of 1st level adepts and the bulk of the remainder are adventurers for whom non-lethal attacks carry an inherent risk that's just not terribly wise. I'm quite comfortable in presuming that less than 3% of parents have the feat.




The line for excessive is important because in some places pushing a child to unconsciousness may not be past it depending on the offense. The problem is that what is excessive is extremely difficult to ascertain, even in D&D it is the same sort of problem. So while punishing with fire may seem excessive to everybody around this area, that doesn't make it universally evil.

It's not just this area. Setting someone on fire is something extreme by any cultures standards. It's an atypical method for execution, reserved for presumed supernatural offenders in most cultures where it's even considered for punishment of any kind at all.

More importantly, alignment -is- universal. What any particular culture or even deity thinks is irrelevant.


Assigning a social construct for excessiveness based on a very modern westernized moral idea, is not exactly in line with the rules. That was the point. Since you're claiming that something is always excessive then we would need to examine the net gain and loss, and while it may be seen as excessive by some, I doubt that it would necessarily be so universally.

Again, fire as excessive is -not- a modern or westernized idea. self scrubbed Under a certain universal guideline accepted by most of the world for what's okay to do with adult criminals and prisoners of war it's considered torture. That -any- culture sees it as acceptable, especially given all animals' visceral response to fire, is patently absurd, especially in the case of use for child-rearing.




The point is that the harm may or may not constitute torture, since we aren't necessarily invoking an intimidate check, the rules don't necessarily work in a way that would support your argument. They are mostly silent on the issue. Yes there is a point that would be excessive, but that's not an easily determined value.


Try this on for size; No parent wants their child to die under normal circumstances. In certain cultures they may accept it as necessary under extraordinary circumstances but no parent -wants- it. There is no circumstance under which an application of lethal damage has -no- chance to kill the child. In most adults (90% of the population is 1hd commoners) any application of lethal damage is extremely high-risk (minimum 1hp to rarely 4 or more [con 15; an elite commoner]).


Edit: removed something that could be considered political.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:56 AM
"it's ok guys, all parents are now arcane spellcasters with a nonlethal spell feat for their fireball spell. we'll break little timmy of that darned nose picking in no time."


And that's one circumstance where punishing with fire is fine, which should completely invalidate everybody's claims that it's always wrong. I don't see why I need to continue to provide scenarios where it isn't, since we already have one.




by the same reasoning, just because you think something is acceptable doesn't make it universally acceptable. let's look at the options here, when causing unnecessary harm to a helpless target is considered evil, and you could get the desired end result out of simply talking to them or pointing out how in the same situation some people would've done something worse (like setting them on fire for instance) for their behavior, punishment with as much potential for lasting trauma as physically harming the child can be categorized as unnecessary or excessive. for it NOT to be excessive (going beyond what is necessary for the situation to be handled) the goal of the situation would have to change from "discourage bad behavior such as insulting others" to "cause fear of the person carrying out the punishment".

I'm not claiming that it's always acceptable, only that it is not always unacceptable.


We have some. Less than 5% of the population of an average world is comprised of spellcasters of -any- level. The largest segment of that population is comprised of 1st level adepts and the bulk of the remainder are adventurers for whom non-lethal attacks carry an inherent risk that's just not terribly wise. I'm quite comfortable in presuming that less than 3% of parents have the feat.


And for that 3% it's completely fine then, therefore meaning that your original assertion that it's always wrong is patently false.



It's not just this area. Setting someone on fire is something extreme by any cultures standards. It's an atypical method for execution, reserved for presumed supernatural offenders in most cultures where it's even considered for punishment of any kind at all.

On our Earth, but not necessarily in D&D world, where the fire has no particularly unpleasant effects other than we might otherwise expect.



More importantly, alignment -is- universal. What any particular culture or even deity thinks is irrelevant.



Again, fire as excessive is -not- a modern or westernized idea. self scrubbed Under a certain universal guideline accepted by most of the world for what's okay to do with adult criminals and prisoners of war it's considered torture. That -any- culture sees it as acceptable, especially given all animals' visceral response to fire, is patently absurd, especially in the case of use for child-rearing.


Patently absurd in our world. Not necessarily in D&D.



Try this on for size; No parent wants their child to die under normal circumstances. In certain cultures they may accept it as necessary under extraordinary circumstances but no parent -wants- it. There is no circumstance under which an application of lethal damage has -no- chance to kill the child. In most adults (90% of the population is 1hd commoners) any application of lethal damage is extremely high-risk (minimum 1hp to rarely 4 or more [con 15; an elite commoner]).

Edit: removed something that could be considered political.

You'd still have to take them to -10, which 1d6 simply can't do. Even if they have only a single hitpoint that won't kill them.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 04:10 AM
Moved to the end of my next post.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 04:15 AM
If they go to zero they're temporarily crippled. Any vigorous movement could cost them another point and then at -1 they're DYING, with a 10% chance per round to stabilize. If you put -any- creature at -1 hp's or less and then leave them unattended there's a better than even chance that they -will- die within the next minute.

So you don't leave them unattended. You don't put a child in time out and then leave them for 48 hours. I'm not arguing that punishment should be conducted without any supervision, but I'm stating that your previous claim that it would always be fatal, is mistaken.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 04:20 AM
And for that 3% it's completely fine then, therefore meaning that your original assertion that it's always wrong is patently false.

For that 3% it -may- be acceptable. It's not certain that it's acceptable even then. In fact, it's rather doubtful.




On our Earth, but not necessarily in D&D world, where the fire has no particularly unpleasant effects other than we might otherwise expect.



Patently absurd in our world. Not necessarily in D&D.

This is the other crux of your argument, besides the verified false claim that it's always okay as long as the good outweighs the harm.

The world and cultures of D&D are not -that- dissimilar from our world. Given that fire is seen, universally, as excessive in our world and that it doesn't function significantly different in theirs, saying that it's not the case that those cultures would also see it as universally excessive is, at best, spurious.

Either our world is completely useless for a point of reference, in which case discussions of culture are pointless, or it's not and you're, forgive the pun, just blowing smoke at this point.


You'd still have to take them to -10, which 1d6 simply can't do. Even if they have only a single hitpoint that won't kill them.

If they go to zero they're temporarily crippled. Any vigorous movement could cost them another point and then at -1 they're DYING, with a 10% chance per round to stabilize. If you put -any- creature at -1 hp's or less and then leave them unattended there's a better than even chance that they -will- die within the next minute.

Essentially, you cannot deal lethal damage to much of anyone, much less children, without creating a non-trivial chance of killing that person.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 04:22 AM
So you don't leave them unattended. You don't put a child in time out and then leave them for 48 hours. I'm not arguing that punishment should be conducted without any supervision, but I'm stating that your previous claim that it would always be fatal, is mistaken.

Not always but in far too many cases to be seen as acceptable in any culture that gives any value at all to the sanctity of life. Unless there's a trained medic in the room to aid in the administration of such punishments it's simply far too risky to be considered reasonable.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 04:24 AM
For that 3% it -may- be acceptable. It's not certain that it's acceptable even then. In fact, it's rather doubtful.


Well, you have yet to prove that, since there are no mechanics for sanity in D&D, there is virtually no psychological scarring.



This is the other crux of your argument, besides the verified false claim that it's always okay as long as the good outweighs the harm.

The world and cultures of D&D are not -that- dissimilar from our world. Given that fire is seen, universally, as excessive in our world and that it doesn't function significantly different in theirs, saying that it's not the case that those cultures would also see it as universally excessive is, at best, spurious.

Either our world is completely useless for a point of reference, in which case discussions of culture are pointless, or it's not and you're, forgive the pun, just blowing smoke at this point.

I had been responding to specific statements regarding culture, I'd rather not include it in any case. Fire is not seen as a universally excessive punishment, just because something is banned in war does not mean that it is considered heinous under all circumstances.

The problem is that you are applying something as an absolute standard when it isn't even an absolute in our world where fire is difficult to control and does cause permanent damage.



If they go to zero they're temporarily crippled. Any vigorous movement could cost them another point and then at -1 they're DYING, with a 10% chance per round to stabilize. If you put -any- creature at -1 hp's or less and then leave them unattended there's a better than even chance that they -will- die within the next minute.

Essentially, you cannot deal lethal damage to much of anyone, much less children, without creating a non-trivial chance of killing that person.

Which is why as I pointed out you don't leave them unattended afterwards, that would be negligence, just like putting a child in timeout permanently and letting them starve. If you are using that particular punishment method, ten you'd have to make sure that it's taken care of.


Not always but in far too many cases to be seen as acceptable in any culture that gives any value at all to the sanctity of life. Unless there's a trained medic in the room to aid in the administration of such punishments it's simply far too risky to be considered reasonable.

It would be difficult to prove that, in any case. 1d6 could reduce them to bleeding. But it still shouldn't be a problem if you are equipped to take care of it.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 05:12 AM
Well, you have yet to prove that, since there are no mechanics for sanity in D&D, there is virtually no psychological scarring.

There are, in fact, mechanics for psychological damage in D&D. One that's based purely in psychology and one that includes it as part of a greater system (taint). The former is in UA and the latter in Heroes of Horror.

The problem isn't that they don't exist but that they're optional rules.



I had been responding to specific statements regarding culture, I'd rather not include it in any case. Fire is not seen as a universally excessive punishment, just because something is banned in war does not mean that it is considered heinous under all circumstances.

The problem is that you are applying something as an absolute standard when it isn't even an absolute in our world where fire is difficult to control and does cause permanent damage.

I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's seen as universally true. I am extremely confident that it is, though. Seriously, how much sense does it make for something that's a freakin' war crime and general human rights violation to be okay for child-rearing. Especially given that what constitutes a war crime or human rights violation is something that a convention of most of the world's nations agreed upon.

If we can't refer to the real world at all then this conversation can't go anywhere. There's simply no frame of reference for us to measure these sorts of things at all and the question becomes unanswerable.


Which is why as I pointed out you don't leave them unattended afterwards, that would be negligence, just like putting a child in timeout permanently and letting them starve. If you are using that particular punishment method, ten you'd have to make sure that it's taken care of.

This isn't even close to the same thing as putting the child in time out and letting him starve. That's intentionally choosing to be negligent and is counter to the entire nature of parenting in that it is -deliberately- killing the child. You may as well just slit his throat and be done with it.

Using lethal damage and putting him in the dying spiral puts his fate in luck's hands -every time- unless you're sporting a +14 heal modifier. All it takes is one unlucky series of rolls and he's dead. As I said, killing the child is somewhat counterproductive to raising him correctly and is, therefore, counter to the nature of parenting.




It would be difficult to prove that, in any case. 1d6 could reduce them to bleeding. But it still shouldn't be a problem if you are equipped to take care of it.

It's not at all difficult to prove. Unlike in real life there are very few variables to account for; essentially just the parents heal check and the child's stabilization rolls since virtually all other means of preventing the child's death are prohibitively expensive or otherwise only available to a very small subset of the population.

The child's stats don't matter at all since the stabilization roll is always a flat 10%.

From -1 that's only a 65% chance barring intervention.

The average parent will have a +0 modifier in heal giving them a 30% chance of success on the check to stabilize their -dying- child. If they start from -1 that's a 96% chance of success.

This comes to 98.6% chance that the child will be saved if they start at -1.

Sounds good, right? But consider this. Say the child has to be punished once each month; he's kinda dumb, just recalcitrant, whatever. Let's skip ages 1 and 2 and then go up to 15; the age at which the system say's they're an adult. 156 instances of a 1.4% chance of death comes to about an 89% chance of any given child living dying before reaching adulthood under the -best- of circumstances.

Yeah. Just over 10% of kids surviving to adulthood if using fire is okay. I don't think so.

Hell, let's be even more generous. Let's say the kid only has to be disciplined once every other month. That's still a 66.7% death toll.

Maybe once a season? Nope; still over half.

I think it's pretty plain to see that the death tolls would be absurd if any culture had parents regularly doing lethal damage.

Here's another consideration, if that isn't enough (seriously?); that kid's down for at -least- a day in every one of those instances. Natural healing requires 8 hours of rest to recover any HP at all. In the case of a 1HD person that's 2hp per -day- of bed rest. Any day he doesn't stabilize in that first round at -1 means at least two days of rest; one to get to zero and one more to be fully functional again.

Using lethal damage for corporal punishment of a child will, more often than not, amount to telling him "Do what you're told or I might kill you."

AMFV
2014-01-22, 05:34 AM
There are, in fact, mechanics for psychological damage in D&D. One that's based purely in psychology and one that includes it as part of a greater system (taint). The former is in UA and the latter in Heroes of Horror.

The problem isn't that they don't exist but that they're optional rules.


Indeed and that would mean that we would need to specify their inclusion, which would change my answer.



I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's seen as universally true. I am extremely confident that it is, though. Seriously, how much sense does it make for something that's a freakin' war crime and general human rights violation to be okay for child-rearing. Especially given that what constitutes a war crime or human rights violation is something that a convention of most of the world's nations agreed upon.

It's also against the Geneva Convention to deny folks mail, but that's not a right in all countries. It's against the convention to use poison but it's used as a lethal injection method in the US. I think that taking the Law of Land Warfare to be tantamount to international standards is really really really stretching.

Because those standards apply only to a very small subset of people (uniformed combatants in formally declared war) and generally do not apply to most people.



This isn't even close to the same thing as putting the child in time out and letting him starve. That's intentionally choosing to be negligent and is counter to the entire nature of parenting in that it is -deliberately- killing the child. You may as well just slit his throat and be done with it.


It's exactly the same thing, it's parental negligence, failing to get your child adequate medical care.



Using lethal damage and putting him in the dying spiral puts his fate in luck's hands -every time- unless you're sporting a +14 heal modifier. All it takes is one unlucky series of rolls and he's dead. As I said, killing the child is somewhat counterproductive to raising him correctly and is, therefore, counter to the nature of parenting.


It's not at all difficult to prove. Unlike in real life there are very few variables to account for; essentially just the parents heal check and the child's stabilization rolls since virtually all other means of preventing the child's death are prohibitively expensive or otherwise only available to a very small subset of the population.

The child's stats don't matter at all since the stabilization roll is always a flat 10%.

From -1 that's only a 65% chance barring intervention.

The average parent will have a +0 modifier in heal giving them a 30% chance of success on the check to stabilize their -dying- child. If they start from -1 that's a 96% chance of success.

But we aren't discussing general rules, you said that something was wrong in ALL cases, which isn't the case gaining a +15 heal modifier is fairly trivial once one has that, then using lethal methods as a punishment is fine. And you are also not including fairly cheap circumstance bonus items.




This comes to 98.6% chance that the child will be saved if they start at -1.

Sounds good, right? But consider this. Say the child has to be punished once each month; he's kinda dumb, just recalcitrant, whatever. Let's skip ages 1 and 2 and then go up to 15; the age at which the system say's they're an adult. 156 instances of a 1.4% chance of death comes to about an 89% chance of any given child living dying before reaching adulthood under the -best- of circumstances.

Yeah. Just over 10% of kids surviving to adulthood if using fire is okay. I don't think so.

Hell, let's be even more generous. Let's say the kid only has to be disciplined once every other month. That's still a 66.7% death toll.

Maybe once a season? Nope; still over half.

I think it's pretty plain to see that the death tolls would be absurd if any culture had parents regularly doing lethal damage.

Here's another consideration, if that isn't enough (seriously?); that kid's down for at -least- a day in every one of those instances. Natural healing requires 8 hours of rest to recover any HP at all. In the case of a 1HD person that's 2hp per -day- of bed rest. Any day he doesn't stabilize in that first round at -1 means at least two days of rest; one to get to zero and one more to be fully functional again.

Using lethal damage for corporal punishment of a child will, more often than not, amount to telling him "Do what you're told or I might kill you."

Again it's trivial to get the heal modifier up to +15, which is enough to make this work in enough cases that your blanket statement becomes false, you can do lethal damage with no chance of killing the child, making your blanket statement false. You can talk about the average all you want, and for the average person those things might be wrong or excessive or whatever, but as far as for EVERYBODY, you can't make that statement.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-22, 06:19 AM
Getting +15 to -anything- is extremely non-trivial. That's that PC centric world-view creeping in. For most characters in the standard setting just a few gold coins represents weeks if not months of work. The 50gp that a +2 circumstance bonus provided by a masterwork item costs could feed a family for years if its used prudently in the acquisition of ingredients or ingredient precursors such as seeds and bulbs for vegetables or even a whole coop full of chickens.

This is what I'm talking about when I say the system only breaks down on corner cases. Just because the -extremely- wealthy can afford to be bastards without consequence doesn't make it okay for everyone to do those same things. The core of the alignment system is built around what works for the vast majority of cases.

In this case, the majority of children disciplined with lethal damage attacks -will- die before reaching adulthood. Even if that weren't the case it's undeniable that you're putting those children in a state of -approaching death- as a form of punishment. This goes well beyond simple fear. It's abuse by any definition you'd care to cite, excluding those that don't have anything to do with people.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 06:30 AM
Getting +15 to -anything- is extremely non-trivial. That's that PC centric world-view creeping in. For most characters in the standard setting just a few gold coins represents weeks if not months of work. The 50gp that a +2 circumstance bonus provided by a masterwork item costs could feed a family for years if its used prudently in the acquisition of ingredients or ingredient precursors such as seeds and bulbs for vegetables or even a whole coop full of chickens.

This is what I'm talking about when I say the system only breaks down on corner cases. Just because the -extremely- wealthy can afford to be bastards without consequence doesn't make it okay for everyone to do those same things. The core of the alignment system is built around what works for the vast majority of cases.

In this case, the majority of children disciplined with lethal damage attacks -will- die before reaching adulthood. Even if that weren't the case it's undeniable that you're putting those children in a state of -approaching death- as a form of punishment. This goes well beyond simple fear. It's abuse by any definition you'd care to cite, excluding those that don't have anything to do with people.

The problem is that rules aren't set based on what works for the majority. Those would be social rules and are on the law-chaos axis, and we've discussed earlier. Good and Evil simply aren't based on that, and by your logic a level 1 Adept, could use lethal damage to punish a child, that's an NPC class with enough healing magic to prevent death, there we go, an NPC centric solution.

Now I'm tiring of this how many counterexamples do I need to present to prove that your statement isn't true for ALL cases as you claimed. In the first part our theoretical disciplinarian has to be able to do fire damage which already puts them significantly outside of the commoner range, since simply lighting somebody with a torch is not what we were discussing, how unlikely is it that they would then not be able to stabilize somebody, an Adept certainly could.

So there we have a workable nonlethal fire damage solution that is available to level 1 NPCs... How does that treat you, are you willing to concede that it is not inappropriate in ALL situations as you previously asserted.

And I would argue that harsh punishment has existed in many cultures and is not necessarily morally terrible, it certainly doesn't always produce damaged children, as you are asserting, unless you are arguing that the majority of children born before the 1900s were emotionally crippled, which is a very large assertion.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 06:37 AM
The OP referred to "setting hair/clothing on fire"


have none of you guys ever burned yourself before? Children heal remarkably quickly, and the human body and mind is designed to take and recover from damage, and is actually required to take damage to develop properly into a healthy person. Also, small fires (Such as clothes/hair fires) are easy to control without magic.

but I'm guessing that they think the SRD version:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#catchingOnFire


Characters at risk of catching fire are allowed a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid this fate. If a character’s clothes or hair catch fire, he takes 1d6 points of damage immediately. In each subsequent round, the burning character must make another Reflex saving throw. Failure means he takes another 1d6 points of damage that round. Success means that the fire has gone out. (That is, once he succeeds on his saving throw, he’s no longer on fire.)

A character on fire may automatically extinguish the flames by jumping into enough water to douse himself. If no body of water is at hand, rolling on the ground or smothering the fire with cloaks or the like permits the character another save with a +4 bonus.

Those unlucky enough to have their clothes or equipment catch fire must make DC 15 Reflex saves for each item.

is vastly worse than "real-life".

RochtheCrusher
2014-01-22, 07:17 AM
Frankly, in D&D, if you saw this kind of behavior from a child and punished them (especially fatally) before checking to see if he was demon-possessed, I'd have a problem with your actions.

No kid gets rescued from a burning building with this level of defiance intact. No normal kid will refuse to give it a rest, for a little while, as he and his friends cough out smoke. Sure, he'd be insufferable by week's end, but not in the moment.

As a DM, I would rule that the kid was demon-possessed (using the petulance as a way in), forced to start the fire, and still possessed when killed. I would further rule that you had killed a child while barely inconveniencing the creature, and taken a giant leap towards damning your soul.

OldTrees1
2014-01-22, 07:40 AM
I am not sure if this was overlooked


He's setting him on fire to vent his stress. Evil act.
I'm right along with mister pyro, I would've smacked his ass around instead [at minimum I would slap and yell], but it was stress venting, therefore evil.
At most you could argue neutral in that by punishing him like this now he's less likely to annoy someone with less control/annoy someone worse/continuing to be a bully and becoming a evil criminal thug. I would personally argue this point if confronted, but really, at the time, purely stress venting.

I think this is a very good point about the example that started this thread.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 07:53 AM
Frankly, in D&D, if you saw this kind of behavior from a child and punished them (especially fatally) before checking to see if he was demon-possessed, I'd have a problem with your actions.

No kid gets rescued from a burning building with this level of defiance intact. No normal kid will refuse to give it a rest, for a little while, as he and his friends cough out smoke. Sure, he'd be insufferable by week's end, but not in the moment.

As a DM, I would rule that the kid was demon-possessed (using the petulance as a way in), forced to start the fire, and still possessed when killed.

I said something a bit similar (since the OP said that being immolated would be not lethal in this case):


If I was DMing using the Sanity system, and I were to come up with a similar encounter, Richard's behaviour (bullying and insulting in the middle of an orphanage fire) would be more likely than not to be partly due to some disorder: "mad, not bad".

And being set on fire would have a nonzero chance of resulting in another one- pyrophobia etc, and further reduction to sanity.

Tengu_temp
2014-01-22, 11:35 AM
Yeah, you're going to have a lot of psychologists disagree with you there. Corporal punishment often simply exacerbates causes of misbehavior, and can actually cause more problems than it solves, inflicting psychological harm and crystallizing a mistrust for authority figures. Some manner of nonviolent intervention and counseling will generally do more good, especially if the child is still young and changeable.

Threats of excessive punishment in general mostly happen because we assume an outdated a priori (that is, theoretical rather than empirical) classical theory of decision-making, in which we assume people make decisions like rational actors, basing decisions off an honest evaluation of expected pleasure vs. expected pain for each alternative. This has since been demonstrated not to be the case, as increasing punishments (prison sentences, chance to be caught) beyond certain values will have sharply diminishing returns in terms of crime reduction, even when a rational decision model would predict highly reduced crime and recidivism.

Emphasis mine. Well yeah, you cannot just punish a kid with spanking for everything! It has to be reserved for serious misconduct, when other forms of punishment don't have any effect.

When I was a little kid, I was generally polite and well-behaved (unlike now). Talking to me was enough most of the time. However, on some rare occasions, I did something bad enough to receive a single spank on the butt. Not a beating or getting bent over the knee and caned, just a single spank on the butt.

According to some people in this thread, that makes my parents evil. Not only is this a very black-and-white, simplistic viewpoint, but it's also something I find completely offensive. My parents are some of the most forgiving, patient and caring people I ever knew. I have deep respect and gratitude for them, and people who think they did the wrong thing by daring to lay a finger on their kid on a rare occasion can go to hell.

Now, in general I am against corporal punishment, because many parents who use it do beat their kids too much. But that doesn't mean it's automatically evil.


In D&D, having your clothes and hair set on fire doesn't leave "lasting injuries".

In real life, it would be expected to leave mental and physical scars.

If the Sanity rules from Unearthed Arcana were in place, we would probably have a more realistic effect on a character's psyche.

Fortunately that was strictly a DND scenario, not a real one. In the real world, setting a normal person on fire for anything would be an overreaction - but in the real world, no kid would act as sociopathic as Richard in that situation, either.



...please tell me you intended this as sarcasm and just forgot or didn't know about blue text..


Or maybe he knows about blue text and consciously avoids its use. From my point of view, using blue text is treating other people like morons who can't tell you're being sarcastic even when your sarcasm is really obvious. I have yet to see another forum or community that uses it.

Talya
2014-01-22, 12:25 PM
We cannot use modern social mores to answer this question. Different cultures and different eras have had very different ideas about discipline. Even here in the western world, there is still quite animated debate about the use of corporal punishment, with good and bad arguments being made by both sides. The severity of corporal punishment has varied throughout history, too, as has the definition of a child.

So lacking any concrete modern examples to use as absolute definitions for D&D's objective alignment system, one is left with one thing: Intent.

As a parent, I make a goal of trying not to discipline in anger. Regardless of one's opinions on corporal punishment, one must admit that the goal of any punishment should be behavioral adjustment - it is a teaching method. If I am disciplining my kids (be it by yelling at them, setting consequences, or even spanking them) while I am infuriated with their actions, I am not thinking clearly and not setting punishment with the goal of adjusting their behavior. Instead I am taking revenge, attempting to "balance the scales" with whatever negative behavior I have seen, and this is not acceptable. It is only once i am calm and rational and have had time to think things over that I consider it acceptable to set the consequences for bad behavior.


My view on how good or evil punishment would be in D&D is similar. If punishment is being dealt in anger, it is unquestionably evil. You are meting out "justice" rather than attempting to guide and correct. For a parent, "rehabilitation" is the only goal. Whether they choose to do this with a belt to the backside, or through extra chores, (barring extremes - which in D&D, I would set as "Does this action do actual damage, whether lethal or non-lethal, to the child?" A simple spanking/slap probably does not. Taking a real whip to them does, and becomes extreme,) it is the intent that sets the alignment of the action. If your goal is the betterment and training of the children, then even the strictest disciplinarian has a good heart.

Scow2
2014-01-22, 12:44 PM
and also, how the heck do people instantly know that lighting a kid on fire magically teaches them that being a jerk is bad, or that it doesn't cause psychological damage. a kid goes out and makes a snarky comment about someone else on the playground and suddenly the person in charge of the safety and well-being of both of those kids pulls out a match and flicks it into the kid's hair lighting it on fire.. even if the kid lives through this that doesn't mean they're thinking "what I did was wrong, I shouldn't do it again" it's far more likely they're thinking "THAT PSYCHOTIC PERSON JUST SET ME ON FIRE" instilling a fear of that person and fire, which does constitute psychological damage. His thought immediately afterward is "Hey, cool! I was just set on fire, and it didn't really hurt!", because fire is awesome (Though it can also be scary).

Were you never a kid? Also, the lesson learned is "Hurting others WILL cause the authorities to hurt me" - which is as good as you're going to get with a lot of people. Explaining why something is wrong doesn't do any good if the target doesn't care, and Intimidation doesn't work unless you have something to back it up with. The only way to get people to fear intimidation is to teach them at a young age that people can and will make good on their threats, and those threats hurt.

Also, @Tayla - "Meting out Justice" is a Good, not Evil, act. Also, corporeal punishment tends to not be effective long after the event... but if it's carried out during/within, it is extremely effective in both stopping the undesirable behavior immediately AND preventing future occurrences - While a rational mind may think "Person Y set me on fire", humans are still irrational animals on some level, and the behavior is instead subconsciously set to "Doing X will set me on fire" if it's done expediently. (Same with teaching a cat not to chase a pet bird. Hitting it with a thrown dictionary works wonders and lasts forever, while lesser methods may take multiple efforts to discourage the same behavior.




All of this said, I consider the degree to which Pyro reacts to Richard is so extreme as to be Evil (Not merely setting a small part of his clothes or hair on fire - which doesn't do damage in D&D until it destroys the hair/piece of clothes first)... but the contention that started the whole argument was "One evil action taken without remorse for it automatically makes you Evil, no matter how much Good for the sake of Good you do."

Tengu_temp
2014-01-22, 12:52 PM
"Meting out Justice" is a Good, not Evil, act.

That depends. "Justice" is too often used to mean "retribution", which is just another word for revenge. Also, justice for justice's sake is a lawful trait, not a good one. Good dispenses justice in order for evil deeds to stop.

Alberic Strein
2014-01-22, 12:58 PM
Back to the OP's example, and to D&D rules, I just LOVE how the 4th edition rolls with it.

Every single action, spell, power, etc, can be non-lethal, as long as you announce it as you use said ability.

So, if it's a 3.5 specific example it holds no relevance, but if it's D&D in general then summoning HELLFIRE FROM THE NINE HELLS can be less lethal than a thrown rock. And indeed, it turned out in a game, when my not-quite-evil sorcerer drew the line at killing innocent villagers and used his devil-granted fire powers in a non-lethal way, while the rogue inadvertently killed a little girl with a thrown rock.

Which is hilarious.

So, if this set of rules apply, then, rules-wise, spanking a child is no worse then BURNING HIM WITH HELLFIRE (non-lethally).

About the subject of child-violence... Well, everyone has their own beliefs. Was burning the little twerp evil? Can't see how it's not. Is it understandable? Oh, for hell's sake, yes.

If we were speaking of Paladin McPaladinus, Herald of Hireonymous, protector of all that's Holy and Warden of the West, then yeah, the slaying of that child might warrant a significant drop of alignment, and a major breakdown for the character.

For Burninator? As a anti-hero, he has his own set of morals, seemingly hinging around "help the willing, cremate the unwilling". It's neutral. Not "almost-evil" neutral, just plain neutral.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 02:06 PM
(Not merely setting a small part of his clothes or hair on fire - which doesn't do damage in D&D until it destroys the hair/piece of clothes first)

The SRD doesn't say "must destroy the hair/piece of clothes first". Nor, as far as I recall, does the DMG:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environmen...catchingOnFire

Characters at risk of catching fire are allowed a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid this fate. If a character’s clothes or hair catch fire, he takes 1d6 points of damage immediately. In each subsequent round, the burning character must make another Reflex saving throw. Failure means he takes another 1d6 points of damage that round. Success means that the fire has gone out. (That is, once he succeeds on his saving throw, he’s no longer on fire.)

A character on fire may automatically extinguish the flames by jumping into enough water to douse himself. If no body of water is at hand, rolling on the ground or smothering the fire with cloaks or the like permits the character another save with a +4 bonus.

Those unlucky enough to have their clothes or equipment catch fire must make DC 15 Reflex saves for each item.

1d6 damage the moment the item/hair catches fire, is the rule.

The Glyphstone
2014-01-22, 03:09 PM
I wonder how many other communities could, in utter seriousness, debate whether or not lighting orphans on fire is an evil thing to do or not.:smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 03:13 PM
I wonder how many other communities could, in utter seriousness, debate whether or not lighting orphans on fire is an evil thing to do or not.:smallbiggrin:
Personally, I figure that "physical harm" is something of a red herring in this context- to me, if it was possible to inflict a lot of pain - with zero chance of actual "damage" it would still qualify as Evil rather than "Neutral".

The question might be - where do people draw the line?

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:18 PM
I wonder how many other communities could, in utter seriousness, debate whether or not lighting orphans on fire is an evil thing to do or not.:smallbiggrin:

Well using burning as a method of punishment is irresponsible and immoral in almost all imaginable contexts on Earth, but not necessarily in D&D. The only case I can think of would be again the autistic child case I mentioned earlier.


Personally, I figure that "physical harm" is something of a red herring in this context- to me, if it was possible to inflict a lot of pain - with zero chance of actual "damage" it would still qualify as Evil rather than "Neutral".

The question might be - where do people draw the line?

The point is the intent. And what the end result is, I imagine that there is no solid line, we can't even agree on that on our world, I suspect that the same sort of thing might be the case in D&D.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 03:21 PM
"Intent" is relevant - but it's not the be-all-and-end-all.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:29 PM
"Intent" is relevant - but it's not the be-all-and-end-all.

This is true, it's why I've been advocating a combination of intent and the end result, that should cover all the bases.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 03:49 PM
Not all.

Even if a kid turns out to be mentally resilient enough to come away from an exceedingly excessive response without psychological damage- what matters may be that it was excessive in the first place.

Suppose, for the sake of it- that the parent is a psion - and uses powers to inflict "horrible pain" because they think it's the right thing to do. And the child survives, mentally, and grows up to be a productive member of society.

The acts themselves, can still qualify as Evil.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 03:52 PM
Not all.

Even if a kid turns out to be mentally resilient enough to come away from an exceedingly excessive response without psychological damage- what matters may be that it was excessive in the first place.

Suppose, for the sake of it- that the parent is a psion - and uses powers to inflict "horrible pain" because they think it's the right thing to do. And the child survives, mentally, and grows up to be a productive member of society.

The acts themselves, can still qualify as Evil.

Well what if the child would not have grown up to be a productive member of society otherwise? That's the problem is that it is only excessive if you could do the same with less, which may or may not be the case. Certainly not in any way that is easy to prove.

Tengu_temp
2014-01-22, 03:53 PM
What's important is the intended action you take. For example:

I want to scare the local criminals and stop them from committing crimes this way. In order to do that, I plan to kill a petty pickpocket and put his body on display in a public location. However, I accidentally stumble into a mass murderer at the same time, who attacks me, and I kill him instead.

The intended result is to stop crime, which is good.
The intended action is to kill someone who might be a criminal, but doesn't deserve to die, which is evil.
The actual result is the killing of a mass murderer in self-defense, which is either neutral or good.

Both the intented result and the actual result are good. However, the intended action is evil, and it's the most important part, and ergo what I tried to do is still evil.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 04:14 PM
What's important is the intended action you take. For example:

I want to scare the local criminals and stop them from committing crimes this way. In order to do that, I plan to kill a petty pickpocket and put his body on display in a public location. However, I accidentally stumble into a mass murderer at the same time, who attacks me, and I kill him instead.

The intended result is to stop crime, which is good.
The intended action is to kill someone who might be a criminal, but doesn't deserve to die, which is evil.
The actual result is the killing of a mass murderer in self-defense, which is either neutral or good.

Both the intented result and the actual result are good. However, the intended action is evil, and it's the most important part, and ergo what I tried to do is still evil.

Agreed.

Also, another's actions don't affect your alignment. Arguing that result is important in the DnD alignment system is like arguing Joker has saved lots of lives, because he made Batman.

A DnD product even has this made a point of, NWN2. Ammon Jerro is a warlock who makes deals with devils and does evil things for the sole purpose of putting down the King of Shadows. Good end goal right? He states he is evil and registers evil on the alignment charts.
There are also some characters in some official dnd setting, where some good chick is trying to kick of a world war. Evil Right? Wrong apparently, she's doing it for good reasons so it registers good, even whilst those trying to stop it, due to selfishness count as evil. [However I would probably rate those guys as neutral]

I disagree with the alignment system in many ways and think it should be burned [heh], but the OP asked a question where a objective alignment system was in place, using said system, evil is the result. Arguing otherwise is as said, like arguing Joker has saved people by making Batman.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 04:22 PM
What's important is the intended action you take.

And if the intended action is to commit something that is (in the DM's interpretation) "torture as punishment for offences" - then, at least using BoED and FC2, it qualifies as Evil.

Tvtyrant
2014-01-22, 04:27 PM
Is it weird that I read this as "as what point does an unruly child go from nonevil to evil?"

Children do not normally have an alignment in D&D for whatever reason, and then at some point they magically do!

Scow2
2014-01-22, 04:29 PM
We live in a world where people can't create low-temperature fires with just a thought.

And if the intended action is to commit something that is (in the DM's interpretation) "torture as punishment for offences" - then, at least using BoED and FC2, it qualifies as Evil.But, setting someone on fire with a cantrip does not count as Torture.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 04:29 PM
15 is considered "adulthood" using the PHB.



But, setting someone on fire with a cantrip does not count as Torture.

There's such a thing as "intimidating torture" in FC2- anything that does no damage.

If I had my clothes set on fire by interrogators, and then dowsed, and told that next time they'll let them burn a few seconds longer- and repeat the cycle until I talked- I personally would call that torture.

Same if it was "punishment" rather than an interrogation measure.

Scow2
2014-01-22, 04:41 PM
15 is considered "adulthood" using the PHB.



There's such a thing as "intimidating torture" in FC2- anything that does no damage.

If I had my clothes set on fire by interrogators, and then dowsed, and told that next time they'll let them burn a few seconds longer- and repeat the cycle until I talked- I personally would call that torture.

Same if it was "punishment" rather than an interrogation measure.Well, yeah, when you extend "Set on fire" from a quick to an entire session of being ignited and dowsed until X condition changes, you get into torture. But that's like saying dope-slapping someone is torture because tying them down and backhanding them repeatedly is torture.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 04:52 PM
Difference is, being set on fire normally does 1d6 fire damage immediately, in D&D.

Whereas being "dope-slapped" might not even qualify as doing the usual 1d3 nonlethal damage that an unarmed strike does.


Well using burning as a method of punishment is irresponsible and immoral in almost all imaginable contexts on Earth, but not necessarily in D&D.

A case could be made that in D&D, it's far more irresponsible - since 1d6 damage is highly likely to kill a 1st level commoner (negative hit point spiral, in the absence of healers).

AMFV
2014-01-22, 07:15 PM
Difference is, being set on fire normally does 1d6 fire damage immediately, in D&D.

Whereas being "dope-slapped" might not even qualify as doing the usual 1d3 nonlethal damage that an unarmed strike does.



A case could be made that in D&D, it's far more irresponsible - since 1d6 damage is highly likely to kill a 1st level commoner (negative hit point spiral, in the absence of healers).

Yes but that's not a scenario that's always going to be the case. So if you have the ability to heal the individual then it should be fine.

hamishspence
2014-01-22, 07:19 PM
Just because the injury can be healed- doesn't mean it wasn't extremely traumatic.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-22, 07:20 PM
Yes but that's not a scenario that's always going to be the case. So if you have the ability to heal the individual then it should be fine.

"ok so the fireball plan didn't work, it's ok though we've got a spell that stops hearts, all we need to do is keep this defibrillator around and it'll all work out fine I'm sure"

AMFV
2014-01-22, 07:31 PM
Just because the injury can be healed- doesn't mean it wasn't extremely traumatic.

Any physical pain is traumatic, the question is "was it necessary". Which could go either way.


"ok so the fireball plan didn't work, it's ok though we've got a spell that stops hearts, all we need to do is keep this defibrillator around and it'll all work out fine I'm sure"

Well a CLW spell has a 100% success rate which is significantly better than anything in modern medicine. So we can't draw an analog to that.

TuggyNE
2014-01-22, 07:39 PM
Yes but that's not a scenario that's always going to be the case. So if you have the ability to heal the individual then it should be fine.

"You sassed me? Let's slit your wrists. Don't worry, I can bandage them up before you actually die, but feeling your life ebb out and needing a few days to recover should teach you not to talk back."

Seriously. What. :smallannoyed:

(The odd thing here is that Pyro is not actually in charge of disciplining Richard in the first place, being neither a relative nor a guardian, so the whole idea of "teaching him a lesson" is even more suspect.)

AMFV
2014-01-22, 07:53 PM
"You sassed me? Let's slit your wrists. Don't worry, I can bandage them up before you actually die, but feeling your life ebb out and needing a few days to recover should teach you not to talk back."

Seriously. What. :smallannoyed:

(The odd thing here is that Pyro is not actually in charge of disciplining Richard in the first place, being neither a relative nor a guardian, so the whole idea of "teaching him a lesson" is even more suspect.)

Well there are cultures where caning or lashings are acceptable punishments. Those would almost certainly deal lethal damage in a real context. Also with CLW you wouldn't need days to recover. But the existence of that sort of thing puts more intense disciplinary options on the table. And if those could help a child cease being evil or not become evil, then it might still be okay, if the child is better for it. That's really the criteria we should be looking at.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 07:58 PM
(The odd thing here is that Pyro is not actually in charge of disciplining Richard in the first place, being neither a relative nor a guardian, so the whole idea of "teaching him a lesson" is even more suspect.)

It isn't even teaching him a lesson. It's venting.

There is no world in which this isn't a evil act and reffereing back to it is silly given it's state as answer. By DnD the character can still be good [he risked his life to save how many kids? And a puppy.] All the other discussion has been about what if he was intending to teach a lesson, which was not the case making it irrelevant. However.


"You sassed me? Let's slit your wrists. Don't worry, I can bandage them up before you actually die, but feeling your life ebb out and needing a few days to recover should teach you not to talk back."

Seriously. What.

That's quite the logical fallicy. And heal in this case ment a spell of cure light/minor wounds. Also, that isn't you healing them, that's them healing themselves.

Also, in dnd, slit wrists tend not to do bleeding damage. Hell, missing arms/legs don't even.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 08:10 PM
What some people seem to forget is that in D&D-verse, morality/alignment is objectively defined by cosmic forces not even the gods can overturn. Good and Evil don't care about what's culturally acceptable, and if you can't morally justify burning a child, it's Evil.

How do you morally justify resorting to such force, according to Book of Exalted Deeds? There has to have been literally no better answer and you have to have tried something else. Merely conceding that burning the child was necessary isn't good enough; you need to have had the reticence and self-doubt to stop and realize if this is a good idea, ideally after having tried a non-violent means of fixing the problem.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 08:24 PM
What some people seem to forget is that in D&D-verse, morality/alignment is objectively defined by cosmic forces not even the gods can overturn. Good and Evil don't care about what's culturally acceptable, and if you can't morally justify burning a child, it's Evil.

This is certainly true.



How do you morally justify resorting to such force, according to Book of Exalted Deeds? There has to have been literally no better answer and you have to have tried something else. Merely conceding that burning the child was necessary isn't good enough; you need to have had the reticence and self-doubt to stop and realize if this is a good idea, ideally after having tried a non-violent means of fixing the problem.

What if you have tried other things and haven't developed a better ansewr, such things have happened, in fact stranger things have happened. I'm just pointing out that the number of cases where it would be justified is certainly non-zero.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 08:33 PM
What if you have tried other things and haven't developed a better ansewr, such things have happened, in fact stranger things have happened. I'm just pointing out that the number of cases where it would be justified is certainly non-zero.

That's pretty much a Devil's Proof argument. I've yet to see a scenario where fire is warranted. There are several much less problematic applications of force even with a pyro-wizard (at the very least, an ILLUSION of being burned would be preferable; still totally torture though).

AMFV
2014-01-22, 08:38 PM
That's pretty much a Devil's Proof argument. I've yet to see a scenario where fire is warranted. There are several much less problematic applications of force even with a pyro-wizard (at the very least, an ILLUSION of being burned would be preferable; still totally torture though).

Why are those less problematic? We have an aversion to fire for several reasons, there's less of a reason behind those aversions in D&D, fire is a good a force as any other in this case.

prufock
2014-01-22, 08:49 PM
"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
Yes, burning someone alive, regardless of age, for no worse crime than being a jerk is an evil act. Whether that makes the character evil depends on his overall behaviour (saving the kids in the first place is a good act), but this act is evil. "Proportional response" and "reasonable force" are probably terms this character should research.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 08:51 PM
Why are those less problematic? We have an aversion to fire for several reasons, there's less of a reason behind those aversions in D&D, fire is a good a force as any other in this case.

You seem to be working under the assumption that humans have different in-born instincts in D&D. This is an unsupported assumption.

It doesn't matter how you rationally justify how controllable or fixable fire and burning is, it's still viscerally painful, traumatizing, and emotionally horrific to be put through.

I was a burn victim. I've literally been put on fire as a small child and was powerless to do anything about it. No permanent damage was done that still remains today, but that doesn't make it okay and it doesn't undo the emotional damage or the fact that I was betrayed by an adult I trusted.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 08:53 PM
You seem to be working under the assumption that humans have different in-born instincts in D&D. This is an unsupported assumption.

There is no mechanical system for that, unless we're using optional rules, so that isn't an unsupported assumption but rather the standard one, just as in D&D it is normally impossible to have your arm cut off or become disabled. Without optional rules it simply doesn't function.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 09:00 PM
There is no mechanical system for that, unless we're using optional rules, so that isn't an unsupported assumption but rather the standard one, just as in D&D it is normally impossible to have your arm cut off or become disabled. Without optional rules it simply doesn't function.

Yes, it does. D&D isn't just mechanics, it's also fluff. People walk around with disabilities and dismemberments. If we're going to turn this into a farce where only things written in the mechanical rules exist, then the child doesn't suffer at all, period, because there's no rules saying characters experience pain unless a spell specifically says so.

That's stupid. And it's stupid to attempt to argue anything even REMOTELY similar.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 09:02 PM
Yes, it does. D&D isn't just mechanics, it's also fluff. People walk around with disabilities and dismemberments. If we're going to turn this into a farce where only things written in the mechanical rules exist, then the child doesn't suffer at all, period, because there's no rules saying characters experience pain unless a spell specifically says so.

That's stupid. And it's stupid to attempt to argue anything even REMOTELY similar.

Well HP damage is technically pain that's an in-game mechanic for the same thing. And we have no reason in-game to suspect that fire is any more painful than anything else, after all it has the same damage as many other things, the same ability to leave you damaged. This isn't the real world and it makes the system infinitely more complicated.

Also you'd have scenarios such as where you're attempting to rehabilitate a powerful evil monster who would still be a child, that's at least one case where more excessive punishment might become necessary.

Also I don't really think my argument is that stupid, I mean it is a separate viewpoint from yours, but identifying it as "stupid" is a little bit much for my tastes.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 09:14 PM
Well HP damage is technically pain that's an in-game mechanic for the same thing.

No it's not. It's damage. There are spells that infict pain with no damage, and torture does exactly this in the BoVD, and characters that explicitly feel no pain, such as constructs, still take HP damage. Hell, OBJECTS take HP damage.

You have officially demonstrated you don't know what you're talking about vis-a-vis game mechanics and simulating reality. Please cease taking this tactic of argument, it's not working out for you.


And we have no reason in-game to suspect that fire is any more painful than anything else, after all it has the same damage as many other things, the same ability to leave you damaged. This isn't the real world and it makes the system infinitely more complicated.


Technically, the rules never state that dead characters can't act. Technically, the rules allow you to heal dying people by drowning them. Technically, the rules allow you to pass objects hand-to-hand between thousands of people across miles and miles of distance within six seconds.

These are all stupid and not how the game is intended to work. Unless specifically it claims otherwise, the rules obviously want us to assume things work exactly the same as the real world. It's common sense.

You know, D&D rules never define what fire is. Maybe it's puppies that lick you into pieces and boil water with their cute stares.

Or maybe everything works exactly as it appears to in relation to reality unless magic is involved.

Again, this argument is stupid and you make everyone in the room dumber for trying to use it.



Also you'd have scenarios such as where you're attempting to rehabilitate a powerful evil monster who would still be a child, that's at least one case where more excessive punishment might become necessary.

Cool. Good thing the Book of Exalted Deeds provides rules for rehabilitating totally capital-E sociopaths without resorting to fire or pain of any kind. Your argument is invalid.


Also I don't really think my argument is that stupid, I mean it is a separate viewpoint from yours, but identifying it as "stupid" is a little bit much for my tastes.

There are two possibilities. Either 1, you seriously believe this argument outside of thought experimentation in which case you have no business running philosophical exercises, or 2, you are being disingenuous and insulting to everyone else in the room.

You keep changing the premises of your arguments in the middle of the discussion while shooting others down for not meeting those premises. This is arguing in bad faith. Either you do not know how to hold a reasoned debate, or you are being dishonest. There are no other possibilities.

TuggyNE
2014-01-22, 09:29 PM
That's quite the logical fallicy. And heal in this case ment a spell of cure light/minor wounds. Also, that isn't you healing them, that's them healing themselves.

I was referring to the original idea of having +14 Heal modifier so as to stabilize them. Not sure if it's less likely for a parent to have cure X wounds available or to have +14 Heal, but of course both of them are a very small fraction of the population, and if we have a good parallel and a lousy parallel, both originally suggested by the same poster and neither retracted, I'll use the one that's easier to understand and reason about.

I don't see where the fallacy comes in, since they appear to be quite similar cases.


Also, in dnd, slit wrists tend not to do bleeding damage. Hell, missing arms/legs don't even.

Close enough, though: you do enough lethal damage to drop them into negatives and they start bleeding out. (Whether that lethal damage is fire or slashing is largely irrelevant for D&D purposes, although you could probably argue that fire can be more terrifying and thus worse, which certainly does not weaken my argument any.)

AMFV
2014-01-22, 09:30 PM
No it's not. It's damage. There are spells that infict pain with no damage, and torture does exactly this in the BoVD, and characters that explicitly feel no pain, such as constructs, still take HP damage. Hell, OBJECTS take HP damage.

You have officially demonstrated you don't know what you're talking about vis-a-vis game mechanics and simulating reality. Please cease taking this tactic of argument, it's not working out for you.

Actually constructs don't explicitely feel no pain, so maybe, you should re-evaluate before you start trying to asses whether or not somebody else knows what they're talking about.



Technically, the rules never state that dead characters can't act. Technically, the rules allow you to heal dying people by drowning them. Technically, the rules allow you to pass objects hand-to-hand between thousands of people across miles and miles of distance within six seconds.

These are all stupid and not how the game is intended to work. Unless specifically it claims otherwise, the rules obviously want us to assume things work exactly the same as the real world. It's common sense.

Common sense isn't exactly a good variable to use for this since it varies so much person to person.



You know, D&D rules never define what fire is. Maybe it's puppies that lick you into pieces and boil water with their cute stares.

Or maybe everything works exactly as it appears to in relation to reality unless magic is involved.

Again, this argument is stupid and you make everyone in the room dumber for trying to use it.


The problem is that the rules are disingenious to reality, if I stand in a room and try to hit a man sized target with my fists, I'm not going to miss 5% of the time, the rules simply don't work if you try to apply common sense to them, they aren't intuitive in that respect and trying to treat them as such creates tons of issues.

To imply that I'm stupid for using an argument that treats a non-intuitive system as non-intuitive and then claims that one could use the nebulous "common sense" to understand something that operates in a manner counter to intuition, is seriously problematic.



Cool. Good thing the Book of Exalted Deeds provides rules for rehabilitating totally capital-E sociopaths without resorting to fire or pain of any kind. Your argument is invalid.

Which are only available to high level wizards, what if you're a low level wizard and you need to work with that, what if you didn't qualify for that prestige class, there's certainly enough wiggle room here for fringe cases.



There are two possibilities. Either 1, you seriously believe this argument outside of thought experimentation in which case you have no business running philosophical exercises, or 2, you are being disingenuous and insulting to everyone else in the room.

You keep changing the premises of your arguments in the middle of the discussion while shooting others down for not meeting those premises. This is arguing in bad faith. Either you do not know how to hold a reasoned debate, or you are being dishonest. There are no other possibilities.

My only premise has been that not in ALL cases is the use of disciplinary fire evil, many other people have interpreted this to mean that I approve of this in most cases, or even in the majority, which is simply not what I've said. Maybe you should cease insulting me and my argument, and actually read it, since I've been fairly consistent throughout and other folks have been extrapolating things that were not said by me.



Close enough, though: you do enough lethal damage to drop them into negatives and they start bleeding out. (Whether that lethal damage is fire or slashing is largely irrelevant for D&D purposes, although you could probably argue that fire can be more terrifying and thus worse, which certainly does not weaken my argument any.)

Again there are scenarios which would require that sort of response, and that sort of response may not be in excessive in all cases, furthermore excessiveness of punishment is not exactly evil or good, possibly chaotic, but it falls on a separate axis, unless said excessiveness causes undue harm, and I don't think that we can demonstrably prove this to be the case in D&D.

AuraTwilight
2014-01-22, 09:38 PM
Actually constructs don't explicitely feel no pain, so maybe, you should re-evaluate before you start trying to asses whether or not somebody else knows what they're talking about.

They do if they're mindless. Pain requires consciousness.



Common sense isn't exactly a good variable to use for this since it varies so much person to person.

There's nothing variable to "being on fire hurts unless someone is different from ordinary human beings in some way."


The problem is that the rules are disingenious to reality, if I stand in a room and try to hit a man sized target with my fists, I'm not going to miss 5% of the time, the rules simply don't work if you try to apply common sense to them, they aren't intuitive in that respect and trying to treat them as such creates tons of issues.

That WOTC is bad at writing games doesn't mean we should treat the game world like a glitching videogame as opposed to a real place with suspension of disbelief in place.

Especially if we're having a philosophical/ethical debate.



To imply that I'm stupid for using an argument that treats a non-intuitive system as non-intuitive and then claims that one could use the nebulous "common sense" to understand something that operates in a manner counter to intuition, is seriously problematic.

The game rules require common sense to mean anything. RAI is a thing.



Which are only available to high level wizards, what if you're a low level wizard and you need to work with that, what if you didn't qualify for that prestige class, there's certainly enough wiggle room here for fringe cases.

I wasn't talking about magic. I meant, you know, rehabilitating hostages via Not!Stockholm Syndrome.


My only premise has been that not in ALL cases is the use of disciplinary fire evil, many other people have interpreted this to mean that I approve of this in most cases, or even in the majority, which is simply not what I've said. Maybe you should cease insulting me and my argument, and actually read it, since I've been fairly consistent throughout and other folks have been extrapolating things that were not said by me.

You've failed to provide a single circumstance where applying fire to children is acceptable to anyone in the thread. If so many people are misunderstanding your argument so terribly, maybe you've done a poor job of presenting it in the first place.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 09:39 PM
I was referring to the original idea of having +14 Heal modifier so as to stabilize them. Not sure if it's less likely for a parent to have cure X wounds available or to have +14 Heal, but of course both of them are a very small fraction of the population, and if we have a good parallel and a lousy parallel, both originally suggested by the same poster and neither retracted, I'll use the one that's easier to understand and reason about.

I don't see where the fallacy comes in, since they appear to be quite similar cases.



Close enough, though: you do enough lethal damage to drop them into negatives and they start bleeding out. (Whether that lethal damage is fire or slashing is largely irrelevant for D&D purposes, although you could probably argue that fire can be more terrifying and thus worse, which certainly does not weaken my argument any.)

This is an adventurer doing the damage and the healing. Thus, the easiest to understand and reason with is the healing be it by potion and spell.
The fallicy comes into:
a- Sevre Exageration.
b- That the person doing the damage and healing is doing so by bandaging, which isn't healing [I know which skill it's governed by, that's semantics, it's still done by the body natural]

Also, slit wrists may well no drop you into the negatives [Here's a thought for you, slit up or across, you slit someones wrist across they may well be fine, bloodloss and woozy, yes, dead, how thick/deep? It could well clot fist]. Again, dnd, so fire isn't inherently terrifying. In DnD world, either act is homebrew.

I will take this moment to say, HP is ABSTRACT! 1d6 fire damage could be singed eyebrows and shaken confidence, or it could be your lungs drying out as you breath in fire. One is very lethal, both could be the effect of rolling a 6 on said die.

I will also take this moment that I don't support the extremity of the measure, I agree it's a evil act, I just disagree with how you respond to their ludicrous counter-claim that it could potentially be good in the situation as described.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 09:44 PM
You've failed to provide a single circumstance where applying fire to children is acceptable to anyone in the thread. If so many people are misunderstanding your argument so terribly, maybe you've done a poor job of presenting it in the first place.


I'll do so.
Letting a kid get burned [to a small degree], in order to teach respect for hot things/flame.

Under close monitoring so they don't really hurt themselves badly, and so you note if they happen to ignore pain, which is a sign of a worse problem.


Of course, not related to the main argument... A closer one, do you consider telling a kid that if they do wrong they'll go to hell and burn for eternity torture/evil?
I entirely see a cleric/adept as priest apply a small amount of very small fire [enough to cause a slight burn, 1st degree to a small area] to a certifiably evil child and saying 'If you keep this up, you will go to a place where this would look like a kiss on the cheek by your mum'.
I would consider that as something said priest would have to do morally, and if done in a reasoned way, a good act... That does maybe 1 HP damage, which may or may not be lethal.

Of course, kinds in dnd don't have alignment, so it's hard to be certifiably evil as a kid. But I doubt a bully is going to suddenly become good once they hit 15 [someone throwed that number out as minimum age, I'm not sure as to truth nor can I be bothered back quoting].

I will note that I wouldn't support this in RL, however I put that down more to atheism.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 09:45 PM
They do if they're mindless. Pain requires consciousness.

Does it? I see no rule to this effect. There are very few "pain" effects, and the only ones are specific types of spells that are tagged as not affecting undead, who are certainly capable of pain, as per certain bits of fluff.



There's nothing variable to "being on fire hurts unless someone is different from ordinary human beings in some way."


Yes, and being spanked hurts, I'm arguing that with sufficient control the fire could be used in much the same manner under certain circumstances, hell with Merciful Spell it could do no damage at all.



That WOTC is bad at writing games doesn't mean we should treat the game world like a glitching videogame as opposed to a real place with suspension of disbelief in place.

Especially if we're having a philosophical/ethical debate.


We're not having a philosophical debate in the context of real life, we are having one in context of game philosophy in the game, as such we need to separate completely from real life insofar as such a thing is possible.



The game rules require common sense to mean anything. RAI is a thing.


BS, RAI is not a thing that we can know unless you personally are the author. Even an author tract could be misleading (I mean the author couldn't get the message accross once why would a second time be any better). The rules work contrary to common sense in too many cases for us to be able to use common sense.



I wasn't talking about magic. I meant, you know, rehabilitating hostages via Not!Stockholm Syndrome.


That's also a specific class ability.



You've failed to provide a single circumstance where applying fire to children is acceptable to anyone in the thread. If so many people are misunderstanding your argument so terribly, maybe you've done a poor job of presenting it in the first place.

As much as i love appeal to authority, that's just a flawed style of argument, several people have stated that merciful spell might make it okay, and then have extrapolated to say that because it is not acceptable in all cases (the healing method) that it is acceptable in none, so far as I have seen this isn't a direct rebuttal at all.

And we've still not answered the evil child thing, or why it would be considered evil. Maybe you misunderstood my argument, but I was clear. Everyone as far as I can tell has an emotional response to this argument and has been unable to examine it in the context that there are factors present here that aren't in the real world.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 09:49 PM
And we've still not answered the evil child thing, or why it would be considered evil. Maybe you misunderstood my argument, but I was clear. Everyone as far as I can tell has an emotional response to this argument and has been unable to examine it in the context that there are factors present here that aren't in the real world.

:smallconfused:

But then again, you may not have seen my last post before this. However, do you really expect a dispassionate response?

Most of the counter points to you have been psychological trauma and chance of death. One doesn't exist in game and one is being presented in a overball manner. Still, I would only say non-evil in one/and handful of specific cases, such as those I presented in my last post, and none are to the extremes used by Pyro the wizard.


Thought for the OP, is this something that has happened IG?

AMFV
2014-01-22, 09:55 PM
:smallconfused:

But then again, you may not have seen my last post before this. However, do you really expect a dispassionate response?

Most of the counter points to you have been psychological trauma and chance of death. One doesn't exist in game and one is being presented in a overball manner. Still, I would only say non-evil in one/and handful of specific cases, such as those I presented in my last post, and none are to the extremes used by Pyro the wizard.


Thought for the OP, is this something that has happened IG?

Pyro the wizard is a problem, the whole argument started because I responded to somebody that was saying fire was evil in all cases, and I said it wasn't demonstrably the case. Anymore than spanking is evil in all cases, or time-outs are evil in all cases. The context matters too much to be able to have a good rule for something that isn't explicitely spelled out as evil being evil in all cases.

I've not been arguing for more than a handful of cases, and I do agree with the two you presented, if we include merciful spell, then that's another case where it may be appropriate. The cases are complex and assigning a simplistic solution to a system as bizarre as this isn't exactly workable as is.

Isamu Dyson
2014-01-22, 10:43 PM
Using FIRE to discipline a child? Has to be a joke...has to be.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 10:44 PM
Using FIRE to discipline a child? Has to be a joke...has to be.

In the real world it would be, but with merciful spell people in D&D can do things that we can't, they can instantly heal injuries (with an adept). We can't use real world analogs because they start to break down.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 10:54 PM
Using FIRE to discipline a child? Has to be a joke...has to be.

In the manner suggested, claiming it was disiplanary is a joke.

In the eyes of a highly devout religious man [as I presented as reasonable. I would near on violently disagree given atheism] who belives in fire and brimstone hell, no.

...
I'm starting to think that referencing that above could be considered referencing IRL religion, I will state now that isn't the intention.
Mostly because fire and brimstone isn't the key point to dnd hell, more infernal torture.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-22, 10:57 PM
In the real world it would be, but with merciful spell people in D&D can do things that we can't, they can instantly heal injuries (with an adept). We can't use real world analogs because they start to break down.

but you HAVE used a real world analog, your cigarette-to-the-arm to test pain tolerance example, to try justifying burns as a reasonable thing. I'm going to repeat something I'm fairly sure I've said before in different wording, if we're not allowed to say "that's not right" due to our real world views not being written down in the rules of D&D how are you allowed to say "it makes sense and isn't evil to burn someone as a punishment" when it's also not written in D&D rules for that to be an accepted punishment?

your "CLW has a 100% success rate" isn't actually true if the kid is in negative hit points (which is what my comment was pointing out) and that cure light wounds has to, through the power of RNG, get a high enough roll to put the child at 0 or above.

your "it doesn't cause an intimidate check so it's not torture" is flawed because the punishment WOULD be intimidating the child, if it wasn't then all you're doing is pointlessly hurting the child not trying to make them change their behavior.

saying that the spell is now non-lethal damage doesn't change the fact that it's excessive to actually knock the child unconscious, that much trauma CAN cause lasting issues. and before you say there's no rule for that trauma and thus it doesn't happen in D&D there were already multiple cases of people proving otherwise that have just been ignored.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 11:07 PM
but you HAVE used a real world analog, your cigarette-to-the-arm to test pain tolerance example, to try justifying burns as a reasonable thing. I'm going to repeat something I'm fairly sure I've said before in different wording, if we're not allowed to say "that's not right" due to our real world views not being written down in the rules of D&D how are you allowed to say "it makes sense and isn't evil to burn someone as a punishment" when it's also not written in D&D rules for that to be an accepted punishment?

He didn't say that the test was punishment, just things some kids [him included] did to selves/peers as part of the not all fire is evil. I would have gone with cooking and early farming myself though



your "CLW has a 100% success rate" isn't actually true if the kid is in negative hit points (which is what my comment was pointing out) and that cure light wounds has to, through the power of RNG, get a high enough roll to put the child at 0 or above.

.... Fail.
Bleeding to death stops if you heal 1 HP, cure minor wounds heals 4. Cure minor wounds at minimum [ok, I will say otherwise if you could get a - cl] cures 2. That's 100% success rate.
Of course, kid would be in a coma like state, however even rolling a 6 on your single die of fire dame your not going to kill the kid.



your "it doesn't cause an intimidate check so it's not torture" is flawed because the punishment WOULD be intimidating the child, if it wasn't then all you're doing is pointlessly hurting the child not trying to make them change their behavior.

DM Fiat and therefore irrelevent.
Water deeper than my head causes an intimidation check on me, doesn't on most people.
Fire doesn't scare me what so ever, just hurts.
Your argument has now been proven flawed in my case, and phobias have been shown now to be highly variable, even so called ingraned ones such as fire.



saying that the spell is now non-lethal damage doesn't change the fact that it's excessive to actually knock the child unconscious, that much trauma CAN cause lasting issues. and before you say there's no rule for that trauma and thus it doesn't happen in D&D there were already multiple cases of people proving otherwise that have just been ignored.

DM Fiat/House rule, therefore no.
The moment DnD has rules for insanity kicking in when your 20 not 60 due to head blows/nonlethal I will believe you, but until then no.

Theres also that if it droped him to >0 there wouldn't be pain until he woke up. And hell, people faint to pain without long lasting psychological trauma, say a really hard gut punch. Hey, people faint to the pain of a needle all the time without enduring trauma... Hmm, argument again debunked.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 11:07 PM
but you HAVE used a real world analog, your cigarette-to-the-arm to test pain tolerance example, to try justifying burns as a reasonable thing. I'm going to repeat something I'm fairly sure I've said before in different wording, if we're not allowed to say "that's not right" due to our real world views not being written down in the rules of D&D how are you allowed to say "it makes sense and isn't evil to burn someone as a punishment" when it's also not written in D&D rules for that to be an accepted punishment?

Only in response to the other real world analogs that were brought up, we can drop it if you like, my point still stands without it.



your "CLW has a 100% success rate" isn't actually true if the kid is in negative hit points (which is what my comment was pointing out) and that cure light wounds has to, through the power of RNG, get a high enough roll to put the child at 0 or above.

Two cure light wounds checks then.



your "it doesn't cause an intimidate check so it's not torture" is flawed because the punishment WOULD be intimidating the child, if it wasn't then all you're doing is pointlessly hurting the child not trying to make them change their behavior.

There is no mechanic along those lines, the only mechanic that is, in fact uses diplomacy to adjust behavior, not intimidate, so the only analog we have does not use intimidate at all.



saying that the spell is now non-lethal damage doesn't change the fact that it's excessive to actually knock the child unconscious, that much trauma CAN cause lasting issues. and before you say there's no rule for that trauma and thus it doesn't happen in D&D there were already multiple cases of people proving otherwise that have just been ignored.

There are people that certainly have that much discipline for children in many many cultures. Canings and beatings are not always unusual, again if the intent and the goal is to improve the child and prevent them from becoming evil or having later life problems it's probably good at least on some level.

There have been ZERO fricking cases of people proving that wrong, unless they are using an optional rule, as I said, if that is the case and that optional set of rules is in play, my answer changes, with the base D&D it doesn't. You can't move the base assumptions, not give me a chance to respond, and then claim that my argument would remain the same, it wouldn't.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-22, 11:17 PM
He didn't say that the test was punishment, just things some kids [him included] did to selves/peers as part of the not all fire is evil. I would have gone with cooking and early farming myself though

ah right how foolish of me, somehow I confused his example in saying that fire isn't that bad because he himself chose to get burned for...wait no that's exactly what I thought it was, SHOCKING!



.... Fail.
Bleeding to death stops if you heal 1 HP, cure minor wounds heals 4. Cure minor wounds at minimum [ok, I will say otherwise if you could get a - cl] cures 2. That's 100% success rate.
Of course, kid would be in a coma like state, however even rolling a 6 on your single die of fire dame your not going to kill the kid.

the kid's in the negatives still, just about any action has the risk of starting that downward spiral all over again. gratz you've made it so you have to spend quite a bit of time to make sure you didn't just kill your child to teach them manners.



DM Fiat and therefore irrelevent.
Water deeper than my head causes an intimidation check on me, doesn't on most people.
Fire doesn't scare me what so ever, just hurts.
Your argument has now been proven flawed in my case, and phobias have been shown now to be highly variable, even so called ingraned ones such as fire.

ah I see so you're not trying to teach the kid anything through your actions, yes clearly you're being DIPLOMATIC by burning or hurting them. if you're trying to influence their behavior, which is the point of punishment ("don't do that again it's wrong" or "don't do that again or else") that's a function of intimidate and the manner you go about it with definitely isn't looking like diplomacy.



DM Fiat/House rule, therefore no.
The moment DnD has rules for insanity kicking in when your 20 not 60 due to head blows/nonlethal I will believe you, but until then no.

Theres also that if it droped him to >0 there wouldn't be pain until he woke up. And hell, people faint to pain without long lasting psychological trauma, say a really hard gut punch. Hey, people faint to the pain of a needle all the time without enduring trauma... Hmm, argument again debunked.

you disagreeing because it doesn't fit your views does not mean debunked, but hey I guess it's impossible to debate when the only way the other side will listen is if I get a signed note by WotC saying they're wrong.

Erik Vale
2014-01-22, 11:28 PM
ah right how foolish of me, somehow I confused his example in saying that fire isn't that bad because he himself chose to get burned for...wait no that's exactly what I thought it was, SHOCKING!

Then there was no point in the bringing up of it.



the kid's in the negatives still, just about any action has the risk of starting that downward spiral all over again. gratz you've made it so you have to spend quite a bit of time to make sure you didn't just kill your child to teach them manners.

Unless the kid has die hard he isn't taking any actions. Oh, and he can't, you need to be an adult to have levels. [Minimum ages].
Yes, there is a chance that he could wake up at 0hp, that's why I'm not saying you leave him in a comatose state, I'm just saying that he would be in said state if you did.



ah I see so you're not trying to teach the kid anything through your actions, yes clearly you're being DIPLOMATIC by burning or hurting them. if you're trying to influence their behavior, which is the point of punishment ("don't do that again it's wrong" or "don't do that again or else") that's a function of intimidate and the manner you go about it with definitely isn't looking like diplomacy.

1: The priest example I did was using diplomacy.
2: The guy was just setting him on fire without words, therefore no intimidation check, just pain.
3: Intimidation can alter behaviour, it's just less successful and only works short term, and therefore is best followed by diplomacy. And since you stress the IRL, 10 straps stopped my forming kleptomania dead in it's tracks. Talking and being shown a jail cell, nope. So, that's debunked on both angles.
4: Where the hell did that come from?



you disagreeing because it doesn't fit your views does not mean debunked, but hey I guess it's impossible to debate when the only way the other side will listen is if I get a signed note by WotC saying they're wrong.
1: I'm arguing from a dnd perspective, therefore unless there is either signed note for ingame or pre-existing rules, your argument is flawed.
2: I don't support burning a kid as is being debated what so ever. If it weren't for me being a commoner were I moved to IG, I would be decking the wizard.
3: I'm not supporting IRL use of fire as described what so ever and I agree in almost all cases there would be continued psychological trauma, that may or may not support the desired shift in behaviour. I'm stating that it doesn't exist in DnD.





You can't overblow arguments for a DnD perspective, there is no support for that. You can't overblow them from a IRL perspective because it is entirely irrelevant and most importantly, I already agree with you.


The original question has been answered. Should people be interested in continuing this debate in it's current form make a new thread, otherwise I will end up bringing in a Mod to lock the thread. And before you say so, that's not me trying to have the last word, just me stating that this debate is irrelevant.

AMFV
2014-01-22, 11:29 PM
ah right how foolish of me, somehow I confused his example in saying that fire isn't that bad because he himself chose to get burned for...wait no that's exactly what I thought it was, SHOCKING!

I was saying that fire is not the worst thing that could happen to somebody even in the real world.



the kid's in the negatives still, just about any action has the risk of starting that downward spiral all over again. gratz you've made it so you have to spend quite a bit of time to make sure you didn't just kill your child to teach them manners.

Well it depends on what the punishment is for, and why it was so severe, there is a scale here and is important.



ah I see so you're not trying to teach the kid anything through your actions, yes clearly you're being DIPLOMATIC by burning or hurting them. if you're trying to influence their behavior, which is the point of punishment ("don't do that again it's wrong" or "don't do that again or else") that's a function of intimidate and the manner you go about it with definitely isn't looking like diplomacy.

There are NO RULES for it, assuming that the rules would work one way or the other is pure speculation.




you disagreeing because it doesn't fit your views does not mean debunked, but hey I guess it's impossible to debate when the only way the other side will listen is if I get a signed note by WotC saying they're wrong.

It doesn't fit the rules, it has been debunked. It's impossible to debate when the other side continuously misinterprets my position and appeals to emotion over logic. The problem is that D&D is not the real world and treating it as though it is produces non-sequitors. It's a non-intuitive system, it can't be treated intuitively.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 01:52 AM
That's pretty much a Devil's Proof argument. I've yet to see a scenario where fire is warranted. There are several much less problematic applications of force even with a pyro-wizard (at the very least, an ILLUSION of being burned would be preferable; still totally torture though).Torture requires extended application.

The reason Fire is used is because the Kid is physically stronger than the pyromancer (There are drawbacks to dumping Strength) - and possibly larger if the igniter is a halfling or gnome.

Of course, I missed out that Fire immediately causes 1d6 of burn damage regardless of how much fire there was in D&D... but the sample character is "Fluff over crunch", and by real physics, Fire is not that terrible if it's extinguished quickly or burns at a low enough temperature.
You seem to be working under the assumption that humans have different in-born instincts in D&D. This is an unsupported assumption.

It doesn't matter how you rationally justify how controllable or fixable fire and burning is, it's still viscerally painful, traumatizing, and emotionally horrific to be put through.

I was a burn victim. I've literally been put on fire as a small child and was powerless to do anything about it. No permanent damage was done that still remains today, but that doesn't make it okay and it doesn't undo the emotional damage or the fact that I was betrayed by an adult I trusted.... I seem to have an opposite experience with being set on fire. That people are terrified and traumatized by it doesn't make sense to me.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 02:23 AM
the sample character is "Fluff over crunch", and by real physics, Fire is not that terrible if it's extinguished quickly or burns at a low enough temperature.... I seem to have an opposite experience with being set on fire. That people are terrified and traumatized by it doesn't make sense to me.

It make not make sense to you - but it's true:



It doesn't matter how you rationally justify how controllable or fixable fire and burning is, it's still viscerally painful, traumatizing, and emotionally horrific to be put through.

I was a burn victim. I've literally been put on fire as a small child and was powerless to do anything about it. No permanent damage was done that still remains today, but that doesn't make it okay and it doesn't undo the emotional damage or the fact that I was betrayed by an adult I trusted.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 02:30 AM
...but I was set on fire as a child too. How can two people have radically different takes on the same event?

AMFV
2014-01-23, 02:38 AM
...but I was set on fire as a child too. How can two people have radically different takes on the same event?

People are different which is why different punishments have different degrees of cruelty depending on the circumstances.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 02:49 AM
People are different which is why different punishments have different degrees of cruelty depending on the circumstances.

For truth.

As said, Fire scares me [and apparently him] not one whit.

Put me in a body of water deeper than 1.6m I get tense, over 1.8 I start suffering from shortness of breath and increasing anxiety followed shortly by this thing called drowning. Whereas most people are having a good time.

Isamu Dyson
2014-01-23, 02:59 AM
Uh huh........

AMFV
2014-01-23, 03:04 AM
I also thought of another case where that sort of thing might be necessary. Children with DR, you would need to use more excessive punishments for them because of the fact that regular nonlethal punishments might not even be enough for them to notice.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 03:08 AM
I look at it this way. If you wouldn't countenance doing that to a cat to "discipline it" - why should you countenance doing it to a child?"

I can't think of any cat-owning authority that recommends dousing a cat's paw in alcohol, setting fire to it - then putting it out - to discourage it from misbehaving, somehow.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 03:09 AM
I also thought of another case where that sort of thing might be necessary. Children with DR, you would need to use more excessive punishments for them because of the fact that regular nonlethal punishments might not even be enough for them to notice.

Is there a non-monster race with DR? Cause I think for most monster races 'disciplining' isn't the word I'd use.
Of course, exception to the rule.

Also, large amounts of nonlethal get around DR same as lethal, so your argument is invalid. [Assuming you can get a large enough sap]

Edit:


I look at it this way. If you wouldn't countenance doing that to a cat to "discipline it" - why should you countenance doing it to a child?"

I can't think of any cat-owning authority that recommends dousing a cat's paw in alcohol, setting fire to it - then putting it out - to discourage it from misbehaving, somehow.

Exaggerating again. No supporter of using fire damage has suggested large scale burning. I was rather explicit with my situations being small first degree, similar to accidentally touching a hot moter of a mulcher by accident [boy did that hurt, and I was wearing pants so less on the burn].

Ok, the DR one might be supporting it, but anyone with DR worth mentioning notices a fire when it rolls a 6, if then.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 03:11 AM
I also thought of another case where that sort of thing might be necessary. Children with DR, you would need to use more excessive punishments for them because of the fact that regular nonlethal punishments might not even be enough for them to notice.

Not necessarily.

I could see a vampire parent (with a clothes peg on their nose) waving garlic at their kid if they misbehave (where garlic repels but does not harm).

AMFV
2014-01-23, 03:12 AM
I look at it this way. If you wouldn't countenance doing that to a cat to "discipline it" - why should you countenance doing it to a child?"

I can't think of any cat-owning authority that recommends dousing a cat's paw in alcohol, setting fire to it - then putting it out - to discourage it from misbehaving, somehow.

Cat's can't tell you if you're being excessive, and can't communicate, and can't understand when you've set a limit for them because they don't understand speach. It's so different on so many levels its not even relatable, even in a little way. I put my dogs nose up to his own leavings, I wouldn't do that to a child. They're not relatable instances, since the communication is so completely different.

To put it more succintly, you aren't disciplining your animal because you cannot tell your animal the rules, it doesn't understand speach. You are disciplining the child. For the record I wouldn't recommend the fire thing with alcohol ever. But with a fire spell against a child with DR, or at such a level as to not harm the child, or with mercifiul spell, sure, those aren't relatable scenarios, and we have no real world analog for them.


Not necessarily.

I could see a vampire parent (with a clothes peg on their nose) waving garlic at their kid if they misbehave (where garlic repels but does not harm).

Vampires don't reproduce that way, and I'm not sure why presenting an example that would work differently invalidates the example I presented earlier. I have not been advocating for universal fire punishment. I'll repeat since this seems to be a reoccuring issue: I AM NOT ADVOCATING FOR UNIVERSAL FIRE PUNISHMENT. I am suggesting that it is not in all circumstances evil.

For example we have the teaching the disabled child about fire, we have children with DR (stone child is a good example), we have the use of merciful spell, we have the use of healing spells in extreme cases where no other punishment works and its the only way to keep the child from becoming evil. That's several instances where fire damage might not be evil, certainly enough to disprove an allegation that it is universally evil.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 03:16 AM
Cat's can't tell you if you're being excessive, and can't communicate, and can't understand when you've set a limit for them because they don't understand speach. It's so different on so many levels its not even relatable, even in a little way.

Regardless- if doing it to a cat would be "cruelty" - I figure, in most circumstances, doing it to a child would be the same.

People "discipline" cats by squirting them with a tiny bit of water, or whacking a rolled-up newspaper next to them - or in extreme circumstances tapping the cat very gently.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 03:17 AM
But with a fire spell against a child with DR, or at such a level as to not harm the child, or with mercifiul spell, sure, those aren't relatable scenarios, and we have no real world analog for them.

Actually, for non-lethal fire capsicium [or whatever the nuerotoxin responsible for spice in chilli] at certain levels of purity creates burning sensations of varying intensity on the skin, but is entirely non lethal.

Of course, it's also longer lasting unless your using a non-lethal combustion.

Edit: He never once said it wasn't cruelty.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 03:19 AM
Vampires don't reproduce that way,

But an older vampire might turn both an adult and a child into vampires- then "set them loose"

Scow2
2014-01-23, 03:23 AM
I look at it this way. If you wouldn't countenance doing that to a cat to "discipline it" - why should you countenance doing it to a child?"

I can't think of any cat-owning authority that recommends dousing a cat's paw in alcohol, setting fire to it - then putting it out - to discourage it from misbehaving, somehow.The problem with the cat analogy is that by the time you grabbed the cat, doused its paw, lit the paw on fire, and then doused the paw, the cat has forgotten why you're trying to punish it. Shooting it once with a Roman Candle or other low-velocity/low-temperature flare is the closest we can come, and that singes the cat and it is MUCH less likely to repeat the task. (And I suspect hurling a dictionary heavier than the cat is risks even greater damage to the cat... but it still survived in good health, and WON'T be chasing the cockatiel any more!)

"In the Moment" punishments are MUCH more effective than after-the-fact punishments, and aren't torture.

If the child is traumatized and gets PTSD flashbacks whenever he finds himself being an annoying and bullying little ****head in the future, then Mission Accomplished.

AMFV
2014-01-23, 03:25 AM
Regardless- if doing it to a cat would be "cruelty" - I figure, in most circumstances, doing it to a child would be the same.

People "discipline" cats by squirting them with a tiny bit of water, or whacking a rolled-up newspaper next to them - or in extreme circumstances tapping the cat very gently.

I thwack cats pretty hard, because the other cats do that sort of thing. I don' think it's cruel in the slightest, I punish cats and dogs in ways I never would punish children and vis versa, the communication is too differing an aspect here, it's not translatable. Yes, if you are cruel to cats it may be an indicator that you would be cruel to chilrden, but what would be cruel is completely different.


Actually, for non-lethal fire capsicium [or whatever the nuerotoxin responsible for spice in chilli] at certain levels of purity creates burning sensations of varying intensity on the skin, but is entirely non lethal.

Of course, it's also longer lasting unless your using a non-lethal combustion.

Edit: He never once said it wasn't cruelty.

Pepper spray is also a good analog. I've been pepper sprayed and it never bothered me, although that isn't the norm, but if a child is only mildly irritated by it and you can use it with no lasting damage then it might be totally fine as a punishment, you just need to evaluate for different circumstances.


But an older vampire might turn both an adult and a child into vampires- then "set them loose"

Possibly but then it's not exactly tantamount to parenting it's a very different scenario, in any case there are still scenarios where you have children with DR, and that's certainly a case for that sort of punishment.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 03:29 AM
If the punishment doesn't hurt, it's not a punishment, and the message sent to the kid is "I can do whatever I want because the ones responsible for me aren't going to do anything about it"

It reminds me of the Spanish Inquisition sketch... "FETCH THE COMFY PILLOW!"

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 03:30 AM
Angel mom: Don't make me douse you in unholy water!
Angel kid: Ok I'll be good.

Actually, on the line of DR, that can all be overcome with non-lethal so I don't support it. Regeneration/Fast healing however would increase acceptability, as long as it wasn't what the baby was vulnerable to.
Punching a baby troll doesn't do much [partially because it's stupid, but it's just the creature at hand], punching a baby human however is liable to get you beaten and cause severe damage [except in dnd, where it's non-lethal unless your a monk].

AMFV
2014-01-23, 03:36 AM
Angel mom: Don't make me douse you in unholy water!
Angel kid: Ok I'll be good.

Actually, on the line of DR, that can all be overcome with non-lethal so I don't support it. Regeneration/Fast healing however would increase acceptability, as long as it wasn't what the baby was vulnerable to.
Punching a baby troll doesn't do much [partially because it's stupid, but it's just the creature at hand], punching a baby human however is liable to get you beaten and cause severe damage [except in dnd, where it's non-lethal unless your a monk].

You don't spank a baby, it's context dependant. You spank a child at a certain age range, and then only with great discretion. Ergo, the same sort of thinking would apply to D&D, a baby is the same as animal you cannot communicate with them.

Also I see no rule that allows non-lethal damage to penetrate DR, anymore than regular damage does. I was saying that if the DR exceeds the damage you could do with mundane means, then magical damage might be the way to go. And in any case if any one of those scenarios works, then that's all that is needed for "fire is always evil" to be wrong.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 03:45 AM
You don't spank a baby, it's context dependant. You spank a child at a certain age range, and then only with great discretion. Ergo, the same sort of thinking would apply to D&D, a baby is the same as animal you cannot communicate with them.

Also I see no rule that allows non-lethal damage to penetrate DR, anymore than regular damage does. I was saying that if the DR exceeds the damage you could do with mundane means, then magical damage might be the way to go. And in any case if any one of those scenarios works, then that's all that is needed for "fire is always evil" to be wrong.

I know I wrote baby but I didn't mean actual baby.
And I know, I was saying I didn't support using lethal to get over DR as you can use non-lethal to [I may not have been explicit enough].
Also, just build a ubercharger with a sap if you don't think you can do enough damage, he can be the town spanker... I feel like that's come out wrong.

AMFV
2014-01-23, 03:47 AM
I know I wrote baby but I didn't mean actual baby.
And I know, I was saying I didn't support using lethal to get over DR as you can use non-lethal to [I may not have been explicit enough].
Also, just build a ubercharger with a sap if you don't think you can do enough damage, he can be the town spanker... I feel like that's come out wrong.

Well that's still less effective that using magic to beat DR, since magic beats DR no problem. And is more readily available than uberchargers. I was suggesting using fire, which is not subject to DR since it's magical damage. You may not be able to do enough nonlethal damage to bypass DR.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 04:07 AM
Well that's still less effective that using magic to beat DR, since magic beats DR no problem. And is more readily available than uberchargers. I was suggesting using fire, which is not subject to DR since it's magical damage. You may not be able to do enough nonlethal damage to bypass DR.

Hmmm. Can you take 20 on a attack roll in a non-threatening situation?

Naughty boy, 20 straps [20 rounds later a crit hit with a sap for 1d4+str*2 non-lethal. Or 1d4*2+Str, can never remember]

Also, some creatures with DR have energy resistance, and magic users are supposed to be less common than fighters, who just happen to have sunk their feat slots in the right direction.

Of course, do you really need to actually do damage to punish a child, as has been pointed out plenty of spells cause intense pain with no HP damage, as a DM I would be entirely happy to handwave it.

AMFV
2014-01-23, 04:11 AM
Hmmm. Can you take 20 on a attack roll in a non-threatening situation?

Naughty boy, 20 straps [20 rounds later a crit hit with a sap for 1d4+str*2 non-lethal. Or 1d4*2+Str, can never remember]

Also, some creatures with DR have energy resistance, and magic users are supposed to be less common than fighters, who just happen to have sunk their feat slots in the right direction.

Of course, do you really need to actually do damage to punish a child, as has been pointed out plenty of spells cause intense pain with no HP damage, as a DM I would be entirely happy to handwave it.

Well as far as the rules go, there's no actual mechanic for pain, the closest abstraction we have is damage. Also, you can't take twenty on an attack role under any circumstances. Saps are light weapons and you don't get strength and a half with them. Well if your child has energy resistance then you would use a different methodology, clearly.

Gnome Alone
2014-01-23, 04:29 AM
I'm a little flabbergasted this hasn't run afoul of the real-world politics line yet. Cuz I mean, I regard any physical attacking of children (under the guise of "discipline" or not) as borderline inhumanly barbaric, yet I'm kind of afraid of getting dinged for even saying so. I mean, I think of spanking as bordering on sexual abuse, and to answer the OP, regard the idea of burning children (in a D&D context) as kill-on-sight Evil, and this is the kind of thing it's cool to discuss? Seriously?

AMFV
2014-01-23, 04:32 AM
I'm a little flabbergasted this hasn't run afoul of the real-world politics line yet. Cuz I mean, I regard any physical attacking of children (under the guise of "discipline" or not) as borderline inhumanly barbaric, yet I'm kind of afraid of getting dinged for even saying so. I mean, I think of spanking as bordering on sexual abuse, and to answer the OP, regard the idea of burning children (in a D&D context) as kill-on-sight Evil, and this is the kind of thing it's cool to discuss? Seriously?

Well clearly if there is a sexual context then it is both selfish and damaging to the child, ergo evil, but there doesn't have to be. As far as D&D is concerned the real factors are is it necessary and non-excessive (which is strongly debatable), is it good for the child (or better than the alternative at any rate) and is it conducted in good faith (meaning not out of self-interest), if all three of those are met, and they can be then as far as D&D is concerned it's Good.

SiuiS
2014-01-23, 04:33 AM
I'm a little flabbergasted this hasn't run afoul of the real-world politics line yet. Cuz I mean, I regard any physical attacking of children (under the guise of "discipline" or not) as borderline inhumanly barbaric, yet I'm kind of afraid of getting dinged for even saying so. I mean, I think of spanking as bordering on sexual abuse, and to answer the OP, regard the idea of burning children (in a D&D context) as kill-on-sight Evil, and this is the kind of thing it's cool to discuss? Seriously?

Only mention of real world politics is political. Abuse, immorality, and defined boundaries are possibly the point of reasoned discussion, and certainly possible without touching on political associations at all. This is because these things exist outside of politics as well as within.
Other than that? Yeah. I've clicked this topic three times now, always on accident, and this is my one response. This is definitely a discourse I don't even want to know exists.

Gnome Alone
2014-01-23, 04:47 AM
AMFV: Well, I regard spanking as always sexual (the buttocks being an erogenous zone) and therefore automatically wrong and abusive. Maybe not in D&D morality, seeing as it has only a passing relation to the real world.

SiuiS: If what you say is true, then I think I must have a broader definition of "politics" than the board-standard. Which seems likely. I mean, I don't quite get how it's kosher for people to discuss gender issues (for example) if it's verboten to speak of real world politics. Yet gender issues are discussed all the time. Maybe it's just electoral politics that are supposed to be off-limits? That'd make sense.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 04:56 AM
AMFV: Well, I regard spanking as always sexual (the buttocks being an erogenous zone) and therefore automatically wrong and abusive. Maybe not in D&D morality, seeing as it has only a passing relation to the real world.

SiuiS: If what you say is true, then I think I must have a broader definition of "politics" than the board-standard. Which seems likely. I mean, I don't quite get how it's kosher for people to discuss gender issues (for example) if it's verboten to speak of real world politics. Yet gender issues are discussed all the time. Maybe it's just electoral politics that are supposed to be off-limits? That'd make sense.

Yeah, it takes a while until that hits in. But yes, that's personal preference not simple morality.

And for politics, I just thinks it's any time you reference real world history/political history and such. I would elaborate further but I think that hits upon talking about politics, and having seen someone getting- Nope, I'll keep my infractions to accidentally posting after a necromancer...

Ground is a little foggy, but that always happens when no-tolerance is actually in effect.

AMFV
2014-01-23, 04:58 AM
AMFV: Well, I regard spanking as always sexual (the buttocks being an erogenous zone) and therefore automatically wrong and abusive. Maybe not in D&D morality, seeing as it has only a passing relation to the real world.

I don't think that's true in the sense of D&D, and my experience is that spanking is almost completely non-sexual. At least that's been my experience, in D&D that's almost certainly the case as there are no official rules for that, which would make it not an issue.



SiuiS: If what you say is true, then I think I must have a broader definition of "politics" than the board-standard. Which seems likely. I mean, I don't quite get how it's kosher for people to discuss gender issues (for example) if it's verboten to speak of real world politics. Yet gender issues are discussed all the time. Maybe it's just electoral politics that are supposed to be off-limits? That'd make sense.

Actually gender issues are not permitted, this is kind of a fringe case because we are discussing morality in the line of the system of morality as used in D&D, which is easier to use, and should not involve any real politics. If gender issues were a part of the game mechanics we could discuss it as well.

SiuiS
2014-01-23, 04:59 AM
AMFV: Well, I regard spanking as always sexual (the buttocks being an erogenous zone) and therefore automatically wrong and abusive. Maybe not in D&D morality, seeing as it has only a passing relation to the real world.

Erogenous zones are subjective. It's not sexual until made that way.


SiuiS: If what you say is true, then I think I must have a broader definition of "politics" than the board-standard. Which seems likely. I mean, I don't quite get how it's kosher for people to discuss gender issues (for example) if it's verboten to speak of real world politics. Yet gender issues are discussed all the time. Maybe it's just electoral politics that are supposed to be off-limits? That'd make sense.

Real world politics. Not society, not morality, but the legislation of actual rules by actual people through history being applied and discussed.

Talking about the laws of Gondor is cool. Talking about how Gondor mirrors actual Greek states is not, for example.

Gnome Alone
2014-01-23, 05:09 AM
Erogenous zones are subjective. It's not sexual until made that way.
Made that way by, for example, non-consensually (i.e. violently) striking a more-or-less defenseless child's (probable) erogenous zones.

As far as the "real world " thing, so the idea is it's cool if I say that I find attacking children to be morally wrong or indicative of a society based on violent domination, but not cool if I actually start saying what I think should be done about it?

Cuz I could see that. I seriously don't quite grok the politics restriction and am trying to understand it; to me the distinction between social mores and political embodiment of such is pretty thin.

Obviously not everyone feels this way, and so I have often felt hemmed in to not saying anything when something offends me, which I can't help but notice would benefit the status quo in any particular subject. If these rules are actually less restrictive in this regard than I'd thought, then I'd be glad to hear it.

AMFV
2014-01-23, 05:25 AM
Made that way by, for example, non-consensually (i.e. violently) striking a more-or-less defenseless child's (probable) erogenous zones.

As far as the "real world " thing, so the idea is it's cool if I say that I find attacking children to be morally wrong or indicative of a society based on violent domination, but not cool if I actually start saying what I think should be done about it?

Cuz I could see that. I seriously don't quite grok the politics restriction and am trying to understand it; to me the distinction between social mores and political embodiment of such is pretty thin.

Obviously not everyone feels this way, and so I have often felt hemmed in to not saying anything when something offends me, which I can't help but notice would benefit the status quo in any particular subject. If these rules are actually less restrictive in this regard than I'd thought, then I'd be glad to hear it.

They are fairly restrictive, in other words you couldn't actually say that the children attacking thing is morally wrong (since that falls under real world philosophy), but you could say that it is Evil in the context of the rules of D&D morality, does that make sense. For example, my opinions in this thread are very very different than my real life ones (which I'm not going to elucidate since that would be real world, if anybody wants to know they can PM me). Mostly I just noticed that there was general agreement with the D&D rules and what I said earlier, however the main point was that fire was brought up as a specific exemption which I don't believe it is.

The spanking as erogenous would fall under the real world since it isn't reflected that way in game terms, at least insofar as I would read it.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 06:06 AM
... I think real world opinions should be fine, just as long as certain countries views on corporal punishments not be brought up. Otherwise I'll just hope a mod doesn't come in.

For example, saying that you believe beating children should be banned and is inhumane etc should be fine. Saying a perticular countries/politicians viewpoints and bringing such things in support is not.

Of course, unless we want to bring a mod in to determine if someone's stepping over the line we won't know for certain. And I'm fairly certain most wont because they don't want to be found toeing over the line.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 06:07 AM
Only mention of real world politics is political. Abuse, immorality, and defined boundaries are possibly the point of reasoned discussion, and certainly possible without touching on political associations at all.

True. Illegal activity (within host's area), however, is considered Inappropriate.

charcoalninja
2014-01-23, 06:24 AM
I can't believe this is actually a thing, as no child ever makes fun of their savior when their HOME IS ON FIRE.

little bully child set on fire isn't actually a beleivable character and wouldn't actually exist so the whole debate from the onset is bunk.

Even saying that, harming children is evil. No ands ifs or buts about it.

And there IS a mountain of evidence that proves that punishment of any kind is terrible, useless, and results in worse behaved people who are drastically more hateful and self centered. Don't do it, make children understand WHY they shouldn't do something (hitting hurts other people) no raise them to only do what's right under duress (threat of punishment) because if you don't surprise you're going to raise people that only care about themselves and only do what they're supposed to when nobody's looking.

Erik Vale
2014-01-23, 06:32 AM
{{scrubbed}}

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 06:52 AM
Maybe we should dig around in D&D splatbooks to see where they "draw the line" so to speak.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 08:40 AM
Maybe we should dig around in D&D splatbooks to see where they "draw the line" so to speak.

BoED draws the line at any "unnecessary" damage. Since we're trying to essentially scare a child out of a behaviour, it is an act of intimidation. As dealing damage to a child is not required to intimidate the child, any time you're rolling the dice counts as unnecessary damage. By DnD Rules lethal or non-lethal damage dealt as part of an intimidate against a child will be somewhere south of neutral. No real world arguments or morality required, just RAW.

As to whether or not real-world analogs like cigarette burns deal damage at all and would constitute as evil, well that is all up to DM fiat. A fire that isn't going to deal damage at any measurable level via lowering HP won't be evil by RAW. It could be by fluff, or DM Fiat, but it certainly isn't by raw.

"I ignite my hand and hold it very close to his face, so that the flames burn away his eye-lashes and singe the tip of his nose." Pretty damned scary, but I don't think it's going to cause HP damage of any sort based on that description. So by RAW it isn't evil.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 08:41 AM
I can't believe this is actually a thing, as no child ever makes fun of their savior when their HOME IS ON FIRE.

little bully child set on fire isn't actually a beleivable character and wouldn't actually exist so the whole debate from the onset is bunk.I take it you don't have much experience with children? (I personally DO know children just as vile as the theoretical Richard, if not moreso.)

What the heck makes you think Richard sees the Orphanage as a "Home" instead of a "Prison"? And, without experience of effective discipline, the idea that he's at any actual risk may never cross his mind - He's always had his way before, and never been hurt by another (Though he has harmed others). Getting hurt and being harmed, then healing, are mandatory parts of the process of maturity. There's a reason children are so resilient (Not that those in power seem to understand that, because they're adults and adults aren't as resilient as youth.)
BoED draws the line at any "unnecessary" damage. Since we're trying to essentially scare a child out of a behaviour, it is an act of intimidation. As dealing damage to a child is not required to intimidate the child, any time you're rolling the dice counts as unnecessary damage. By DnD Rules lethal or non-lethal damage dealt as part of an intimidate against a child will be somewhere south of neutral. No real world arguments or morality required, just RAW. Well, D&D operates under the impression that intimidation works because the 'victims' are aware that they ARE actually in danger, which requires previous experience of being actually subjected to danger through ignoring intimidation (Most kids do go through this - but I've seen some where the parent/society refuses to discipline a kid, and the result is worse than the theoretical Richard)

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 08:42 AM
"Intimidating torture" (which does no damage) is an Evil act by FC2.

I think BoED also calls out "causing excessive suffering" as Evil.

It may vary depending on the DM as to what's "excessive" or "gratuitous" and what's not.


Getting hurt and being harmed, then healing, are mandatory parts of the process of maturity.

"Harming the innocent" is, for the average paladin, a punishable offence:

a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Up to the DM what counts as "innocent" though - for some, it's "any nonadult".

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 08:46 AM
"Intimidating torture" (which does no damage) is an Evil act by FC2.

I think BoED also calls out "causing excessive suffering" as Evil.

It may vary depending on the DM as to what's "excessive" or "gratuitous" and what's not.

I was unaware of that rule from FC2. I now think spanking might be evil by RAW? I would personally rule that utilizing fire as part of an intimidate check in any way would fall under "Intimidating torture", if that category includes acts that deal no damage.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 08:48 AM
Every DM's going to have their own definition of what level of "hurting" is excessive or not.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 08:49 AM
Note: I am in no way attempting to cover letting a child touch a hot thing to learn about consequences that way. That is not disciplining in any sense, it is simply permitting the child to obtain a lesson about consequences on their own. This may or may not seem like a valid way to teach children, ymmv, but I personally think it is fine.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 08:50 AM
There's a difference between restraining someone, putting them on a rack/dousing them in alcohol, and igniting/dousing them or otherwise inflicting pain well after the 'troublesome behavior' has occurred and been resolved, and shooting someone once with a low-impact flare in the middle of the act.

Merely striking someone (With force or fire) is not enough to be counted as Torture.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 08:52 AM
"Revenge" and "paying back past wrongs" are considered "Not Acceptable" reasons for violence in BoED.

Of course, the line between "discipline" and "domestic violence" can be a fuzzy one.



Merely striking someone (With force or fire) is not enough to be counted as Torture.


Might qualify as "causing gratuitous suffering" though.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 08:52 AM
Well, D&D operates under the impression that intimidation works because the 'victims' are aware that they ARE actually in danger, which requires previous experience of being actually subjected to danger through ignoring intimidation (Most kids do go through this - but I've seen some where the parent/society refuses to discipline a kid, and the result is worse than the theoretical Richard)

D&D has that built in assumption regarding intimidation, yes. We don't need to bring in real-world children to create edge cases for one side or the other, though. The assumption is there, as are the rules for intimidation. You can in fact intimidate a child in D&D, and it isn't particularly hard. Whether this holds up in real life or not is irrelevant, as that simply invites Fiat and house-rules.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 09:01 AM
"Revenge" and "paying back past wrongs" are considered "Not Acceptable" reasons for violence in BoED.

Of course, the line between "discipline" and "domestic violence" can be a fuzzy one.The same BoED also says punishing wrongdoing and meting out Justice is good. Revenge is payback for harm someone commits against you. Justice is payback for harm brought against another, and significantly more selfless.


Might qualify as "causing gratuitous suffering" though.
It's not Gratuitous if it's in response to and less than the suffering inflicted by the victim that prompts the disciplinary action.
D&D has that built in assumption regarding intimidation, yes. We don't need to bring in real-world children to create edge cases for one side or the other, though. The assumption is there, as are the rules for intimidation. You can in fact intimidate a child in D&D, and it isn't particularly hard. Whether this holds up in real life or not is irrelevant, as that simply invites Fiat and house-rules.D&D 3.5 isn't the only system with Good and Evil alignments. Different editions and even different tables of 3.5 have varying levels of DM intervention/fiat to handle situations where the normal rules do not work well in delivering the result expected. Rules should serve verisimilitude until Balance becomes a concern.

(Also, there actually is a way in 3.5 to take 20 on an Attack Roll. It's called a Coup-De-Grace, and can be delivered any time someone is completely helpless OR at your mercy)

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 09:05 AM
One can exact "revenge" on behalf of another. "Retributive justice" is just revenge reworded.

"Rehabilitive justice" is allowable.

Violence isn't usually a part of "rehabilitation" though.

Scow2
2014-01-23, 09:05 AM
One can exact "revenge" on behalf of another. "Retributive justice" is just revenge reworded.Yet still Good by the BoED.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 09:07 AM
Could you cite the specific lines that say "retributive justice" is Good?

Violence against "Noncombatants" (children are specifically mentioned) is called out as not acceptable, I know that much.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 09:08 AM
D&D 3.5 isn't the only system with Good and Evil alignments. Different editions and even different tables of 3.5 have varying levels of DM intervention/fiat to handle situations where the normal rules do not work well in delivering the result expected. Rules should serve verisimilitude until Balance becomes a concern.

If we're going to throw out the entire previous thread and start afresh from another system, fine go for it. If you want an end-all be-all for any system ever, then you want to find a philosophy forum, ask them, and then wait until the sun burns out.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 09:09 AM
Yet still Good by the BoED.

Arguably, this only includes "nonviolent punishments"

Scow2
2014-01-23, 09:18 AM
If we're going to throw out the entire previous thread and start afresh from another system, fine go for it. If you want an end-all be-all for any system ever, then you want to find a philosophy forum, ask them, and then wait until the sun burns out.This is the "General RPG" forum, not the 3.5 subforum. These arguments work for any system that has Good/Evil alignment in some form and, in this case, pyromantic firecasters.


Arguably, this only includes "nonviolent punishments"Like killing the dragon that burned down the town? Or executing the unrepentent mass murderer? We're talking Adventurers here, not pacifists. The Vow of Peace and "Waging Peace" are NOT the only valid takes on Good.

There's a reason Archons and Eladrins are trained with and carry Greatswords, and Guardinals have claws+fangs. Also, Archons are frequently described as "Vengeful", yet are the epitome of Lawful Good.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 09:23 AM
This is the "General RPG" forum, not the 3.5 subforum. These arguments work for any system that has Good/Evil alignment in some form and, in this case, pyromantic firecasters.

Disagreeing with a system specific case is fine, please provide counter-examples and other interpretations. Side-stepping an interpretation you disagree with via put-down is not, however, useful to discussion. If you would like to bring up rules from another system, I'd be happy to learn and discuss them. Don't bring up their existence like it invalidates a point about 3.5, though.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 09:27 AM
Like killing the dragon that burned down the town? Or executing the unrepentent mass murderer? We're talking Adventurers here, not pacifists.

Falls under "preventing them from committing future Evil" not "punishing them for past evil".

Scow2
2014-01-23, 09:49 AM
Disagreeing with a system specific case is fine, please provide counter-examples and other interpretations. Side-stepping an interpretation you disagree with via put-down is not, however, useful to discussion. If you would like to bring up rules from another system, I'd be happy to learn and discuss them. Don't bring up their existence like it invalidates a point about 3.5, though.3.5 Houserules to sidestep the oppressive rulesyness of the system and handle situations that fall apart when the fundamental assumptions about the actions being taken don't apply to the given circumstances.

A DM might rule that a person who deliberately sets a small part of a person's hair or clothes on fire takes only 1 point of fire damage the first round, or has a 'grace period' to extinguish the flame before damage is inflicted.


Falls under "preventing them from committing future Evil" not "punishing them for past evil".Which is the point of setting the kid on fire. It's to stop him from continuing to annoy the pyromancer and tormenting the other orphans, and stop being a jerk to everyone in general.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 09:55 AM
Which is the point of setting the kid on fire. It's to stop him from continuing to annoy the pyromancer and tormenting the other orphans, and stop being a jerk to everyone in general.

That's what they might tell themselves is the reason - but, in practice - there will be enough "revenge" in the motive, and the level of suffering will be severe enough, that the act would cause a multiclass pyromancer/paladin to fall - at least in my games - even if only hair or a small spot on one item of clothing, was ignited.

Jacob.Tyr
2014-01-23, 09:58 AM
3.5 Houserules to sidestep the oppressive rulesyness of the system and handle situations that fall apart when the fundamental assumptions about the actions being taken don't apply to the given circumstances.

A DM might rule that a person who deliberately sets a small part of a person's hair or clothes on fire takes only 1 point of fire damage the first round, or has a 'grace period' to extinguish the flame before damage is inflicted.

Aye, RAW does not cover every situation, nor most situations very well. Personally I'd be fine with a pyromancer causing a minor ignition to scare someone, and label it as a neutral act.


Which is the point of setting the kid on fire. It's to stop him from continuing to annoy the pyromancer and tormenting the other orphans, and stop being a jerk to everyone in general.
From my reading of the initial case, he burned the kid to death. Was that not correct? I thought we were talking hypothetical other situations.

If the intention is to prevent the child from continuing to commit evil acts, then I'd go with it being neutral, despite the extreme reaction. If it was just done because "I hate this kid" then it'd be evil. I assume that the character knows them self well enough that if they aren't labeled as evil then their intentions are most likely not the evil choice in this case.

hamishspence
2014-01-23, 10:01 AM
From my reading of the initial case, he burned the kid to death. Was that not correct?

Not exactly:


(Richard gets ALL his clothes and hair ignited for being a monster - he'll still live). Unless the kids in question are pickpockets/thieves, when it's Explosive Runes all the way.

So only thieves get attacked in a way that's highly likely to kill them.


Personally I'd be fine with a pyromancer causing a minor ignition to scare someone, and label it as a neutral act.

"Minor ignition"


Only the ones that get overly annoying are at any risk of being minorly-ignited (Such as small clothing or hair fire, Which can be extinguished/will extinguish itself before anything worse than a 1st-degree burn is caused)

hymer
2014-01-23, 10:09 AM
I find myself wondering - where do other people draw the line between Nonevil and Evil, when it comes to this?

Violence, pain, and threats of these used against children I would consider evil acts if my players had their PCs do them. The threats would be somewhat less so than actually carrying out that threat, although one tends to lead to the other eventually (as in the example), so in practice it's usually a moot point.

LibraryOgre
2014-01-23, 11:32 AM
The Mod Wonder: Closed for moderation. This is unlikely to be reopened.