How should I punish the group for a Grey Area to Nigh Evil Area Act

[sightlessrealit]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.

**Disclaimer** Please don't get hateful towards me because of the use of the word punishment here. All I mean by it is the consequences for their actions.

[Ziegander]

Not at all? It's not the DMs job to enforce divine moral authority onto the players and punish them for "being bad boys and girls." And if you start using in-game divine intervention to do so, I have a feeling the players are going to get really tired of it, really quick.

[Sigreid]

Not at all? It's not the DMs job to enforce divine moral authority onto the players and punish them for "being bad boys and girls." And if you start using in-game divine intervention to do so, I have a feeling the players are going to get really tired of it, really quick.

Agree. Unless the cleric continues to flout his deity and is noticed (at this level the deity probably shouldn't be paying too close attention ), no witness no crime and it's a monster anyway so most people would be ok anyway.

[Knaight]

You shouldn't punish the group - if the problem is actions like this happening at all, get it agreed on as a character restriction (as in not playing murderers). Otherwise, have the NPCs in the setting respond according to their actions - in this case that probably doesn't mean much (if it was a solitary creature in the middle of nowhere), but even here there's the possibility of a response by a friend of the mimic.

[Potato_Priest]

The best way to turn a party away from evil that I have found is to guilt them out of it. Have the mimic's children come cry over their father's corpse. If they kill the kids, well, it's definitely not anywhere close to a grey area anymore, and if they feel remorse, it's a point for you.

[sightlessrealit]

For the record, by punish I don't mean to smite them one after another. I do agree one act of evil isn't enough to go all all old testament but some punishment needs to happen.

[Ziegander]

[...]some punishment needs to happen.

Well, it looks like most or all of us seem to disagree with you on that point.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Could have a local law enforcement fellow cast a detect evil type spell which signals to the party. Then have Sheriff Earp try to figure out what they did in the background. It may never turn into anything but they'll have it in the back of their minds.

[Kane0]

If you are at all familiar with Fable II then you should know that all mimics must die. The fact that they spoke to it at all means they are not aware of this.

But seriously, why they gotta be punished? They killed something. They're adventurers, that's what they do. It was even a loot-eating monster! Only you know it was a flumph at heart, not the players nor their characters realised the greater cosmic implications of slaying a chest monster.


Have the mimic's children come cry over their father's corpse. If they kill the kids, well, it's definitely not anywhere close to a grey area anymore, and if they feel remorse, it's a point for you.
The thought of shish kabobbing baby mimics gives me far more joy than it ought to.

[Flashy]

Could have a local law enforcement fellow cast a detect evil type spell which signals to the party. Then have Sheriff Earp try to figure out what they did in the background. It may never turn into anything but they'll have it in the back of their minds.

You'd have to homebrew the spell though, and "oops, there was alignment detecting magic you can't access and no one ever told you about" isn't really a great DM move, particularly in an edition where practically nothing keys off character alignment.

I'm definitely in agreement with Ziegander. There's no good reason to play out some kind of ritualistic punishment arc.

[King539]

Simple: DON'T. For all they knew, the mimic was evil and deceiving them.

[Malifice]

Change the alignment of Pcs that participated to evil.

Clearly they made a mistake writing good on those sheets at character creation.

[sightlessrealit]

If you are at all familiar with Fable II then you should know that all mimics must die. The fact that they spoke to it at all means they are not aware of this.

But seriously, why they gotta be punished? They killed something. They're adventurers, that's what they do. It was even a loot-eating monster! Only you know it was a flumph at heart, not the players nor their characters realised the greater cosmic implications of slaying a chest monster.

They knew it was good though. Because they had a nice little conversation before the whole eating there treasure happened. They mind you presented the treasure to him and he ate it.

[Ziegander]

Honestly I would argue that even the Cleric's deity suggesting he make amends for the action is a bit heavy-handed, but certainly there shouldn't be any punishment for the players beyond that. What in-game reason would you even have for punishing them aside from some really loopy and hamfisted cosmic karma?

If you must punish them, have something happen to them that's entirely unrelated to killing the mimic. Perhaps one of the characters falls down a pit trap that shoves them into a chute into a monster's cage. Hell, if you want to be really poetic about it, make the monster a mimic. A normal, evil one.

[sightlessrealit]

Simple: DON'T. For all they knew, the mimic was evil and deceiving them.
The mimic didn't attack them at all. Even when they started to attack him. And when they talked with him they did insight checked him & passed the check on if he was being honest about being a good mimic or not. So the deceiving argument doesn't hold any weight.

[Kane0]

Simple: DON'T. For all they knew, the mimic was evil and deceiving them.

Of course it was. It's a mimic, it's literally what it was created to do. See also: Piercers, Cloakers, Dopplegangers, etc

People can make mistakes. Consequences should be in game, don't meta it. If they got away with it, that's that.

[Saiga]

I don't think punishing them in-game will achieve anything aside from upsetting players and possibly creating an arms race situation where they lash out against the NPCs.

But I definitely agree that killing a Lawful Good character shouldn't be ignored. Either make it clear outside of the game that killing lawful good characters isn't acceptable just because they're a monster race, or try to do so subtly through the deity.

I definitely think any Good aligned deity would not ignore the killing of a lawful good creature. It would help knowing what deity this is, to know how they'd respond

Or to rip off Critical Role, the DM had their Cleric's holy symbol crack for executing a captive. No immediate consequence, but a warning that continuing this behaviour cost the cleric their powers. The cracked mended itself later through the Cleric doing some meditation and reflection.

[sightlessrealit]

I don't think punishing them in-game will achieve anything aside from upsetting players and possibly creating an arms race situation where they lash out against the NPCs.

But I definitely agree that killing a Lawful Good character shouldn't be ignored. Either make it clear outside of the game that killing lawful good characters isn't acceptable just because they're a monster race, or try to do so subtly through the deity.

I definitely think any Good aligned deity would not ignore the killing of a lawful good creature. It would help knowing what deity this is, to know how they'd respond

Or to rip off Critical Role, the DM had their Cleric's holy symbol crack for executing a captive. No immediate consequence, but a warning that continuing this behaviour cost the cleric their powers. The cracked mended itself later through the Cleric doing some meditation and reflection.
I think what I will do is once per day when the cleric roles for an attack or skill check he'll be given disadvantage on the roll.
It's minor enough that it shouldn't be terrible but enough to get the message across.

[Knaight]

I think what I will do is once per day when the cleric roles for an attack or skill check he'll be given disadvantage on the roll.
It's minor enough that it shouldn't be terrible but enough to get the message across.

You could just get the message across by asking the players, out of game, to play non-murderous characters. Handling it in game as a player punishment (as opposed to a game consequence) is roughly the worst way to handle it.

[sightlessrealit]

You could just get the message across by asking the players, out of game, to play non-murderous characters. Handling it in game as a player punishment (as opposed to a game consequence) is roughly the worst way to handle it.

Then I guess I'm the worst than.

[Corran]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.
Imo you shouldnt go out of your way to punish the players. If there is some NPC or monster, that would have reason within your campaign world, to hurt the PCs over what they did, then go for it. But if not, then do nothing about it. You shouldnt go out of your way to punish or reward your players' action according to your own sense of good/evil/whatever. Instead, imagine and flesh out your world, and have your world deliver the consequences (if any), the way you think that makes sense within your game world.

[Mellack]

Is your goal to have them become less good? Since you are punishing the cleric (the most good one in your words) you are pushing them to becoming more neutral characters. Then they can say they kill without your divine consquences. Is that what you want? If not, it would be much better to speak to them out of character and ask them to play a more heroic goodie-goodie campaign.

[DeadMoon]

I have to disagree with most of the people on this thread. If the cleric worships a good-aligned deity, I think it is reasonable and rational for the deity/order to warn him that further transgressions may lead to the revocation of his powers. If I were a deity of good and righteousness and one of my followers killed a clearly non-hostile creature for no reason other than anger, I would certainly not be terribly pleased with him. I also think the players might be told that such actions may lead to a shift of morality towards evil, which they might be fine with. If that is the direction they want to go, I suppose you'll have to roll with it.

[moveable feats]

Then I guess I'm the worst then.

HA! Nice one. If you think there should be consequences for their actions then you, as the DM, are completely correct. You've got a wide range of consequences to choose from and I'd recommend not making them feel random but tied directly to their actions. Maybe the cleric's deity was using his divine influence to hide the cleric (and the party) from some nasty followers of a rival deity. Maybe now seeing how that cleric behaves, the deity can't be bothered to provide that protection anymore.

[Sagetim]

Was this Mimic supposed to be a major, recurring npc of some kind? Or like, the party side kick? Was it supposed to evoke the reaction of 'awww, it ate our treasure, how cuuute' ? Because I'm really not seeing a strong in game reason that this merits punishment. Sometimes the party has to fight, and kill, Lawful Good characters. While they weren't apparently in any danger from this mimic, I could see being upset that it ate the only treasure they had found. After all, if it was the only treasure they got from a dungeon delve, then it was probably going to be sold to pay for food. You know, that thing that people need to eat to survive.

If anything, the mimic broke the civilized non aggression by eating the treasure. Up until that point, from your account, they were just talking to it, showing it what they had found and then bam. There goes the stuff they had worked hard to obtain.

I'm not saying I agree with them planning out the mimic's murder in front of it if they were, you know, going into detail about how they were going to turn it inside out and string it's insides all over the place to make a collage of pain to show other mimic's not to mess with them. But from what I've read, giving the cleric a warning that 'killing good beings is bad, mkay' should probably be about the limit as far as 'punishment' goes.

5e is not the same heavily alignment based thing that previous editions were. Paladins are not limited to Lawful Good, for example. And they don't get an Evildar like they did in previous editions. They cannot detect regular evil. Only supernatural Evil (such as Demons, Devils, and I dunno, Zombies?) But not Fancy Todd, the barber down the street that's been secretly killing hobo's to feed his need to cut things. So the players don't have a fair shake at being able to tell something's alignment in the definitive manner that previous editions provided. By that same token...they killed a lawful good creature. So what? Is this really something that merits some kind of metagaming punishment? Because that's sure what it sounds like this is moving towards. Metagaming to punish the players because they killed an npc you didn't want them to.

Edit: After reading Sharkforce's post below mine, I figured I should add a little. This is the cleric's first offense, right? And that's basically the only person who, by picking that class, signed up for potential cosmic morality based consequences for their actions. A first time offender for a Good deity should probably get a warning and, not really anything else. If they were an Evil cleric and they did something to offend their god, then getting struck with wildly out of proportion punishments in response might make more sense. But this is supposed to be a Good deity. Not an Evil one. So probably a bit more on the reprimand and forgive side than the 'set their eyeballs on fire and laugh' side.

[SharkForce]

Honestly I would argue that even the Cleric's deity suggesting he make amends for the action is a bit heavy-handed, but certainly there shouldn't be any punishment for the players beyond that. What in-game reason would you even have for punishing them aside from some really loopy and hamfisted cosmic karma?

If you must punish them, have something happen to them that's entirely unrelated to killing the mimic. Perhaps one of the characters falls down a pit trap that shoves them into a chute into a monster's cage. Hell, if you want to be really poetic about it, make the monster a mimic. A normal, evil one.

is it more heavy-handed for the deity to intervene and discuss what the cleric is doing than it is for the deity to intervene and give the cleric any spells at all in the first place?

i might agree that in general, no punishment is needed for evil acts beyond the reasonable consequences of said acts (which for most of the people in the party in this specific example would be nothing), but when you have a character who's powers come from a certain type of behaviour that goes against that behaviour, it is perfectly reasonable to expect consequences to result from it.

if you were a super-powerful being handing out amazing powers conditional upon people furthering your cause, and you knew (because you're a super-powerful being) that one of the people you gave amazing powers to was using them in a way that goes against the cause you're trying to further... would you not be displeased? do you think you would just let it slide, or do you think you might do something to express your displeasure? i mean, not necessarily a lightning bolt striking them dead, but you probably wouldn't just let the people you chose as representatives of yourself and your cause act *against* your cause without any objections whatsoever.

now, on eberron, where deities basically don't intervene and maybe don't even actually exist as such, sure you won't hear from your deity. but in most settings, the deity is paying close enough attention to you to know that you want call lightning today instead of the calm emotions spell you had prepared yesterday (because you were fighting berserkers in a dungeon yesterday and today you're expecting to fend off attacks from wyverns). they must obviously be paying *some* attention.

of course, this all depends on the deity. certainly, some probably wouldn't particularly care. most of the good or neutral ones could be reasonably expected to not be pleased, and many of them might be quite upset. that doesn't mean you should go completely overboard on it; the god knew when they chose servants that they were choosing flawed mortal beings after all. but just saying "hey, that wasn't what i gave you these powers for, you should try your best to fix the damage you've done" is honestly not that unreasonable.

and if the cleric responds by ignoring the deity, well, i would say it is perfectly reasonable to expect more serious consequences, at the very least resulting in a loss of the powers that were granted for being a devoted follower of the deity if they persist.

if you choose to play a character, then play the character. if you're not going to be a devoted follower of a deity who expects their followers to be examples of goodness, then don't write it on your character sheet in the first place.

[Knaight]

HA! Nice one. If you think there should be consequences for their actions then you, as the DM, are completely correct. You've got a wide range of consequences to choose from and I'd recommend not making them feel random but tied directly to their actions. Maybe the cleric's deity was using his divine influence to hide the cleric (and the party) from some nasty followers of a rival deity. Maybe now seeing how that cleric behaves, the deity can't be bothered to provide that protection anymore.

Consequences and punishment are two different things. A consequence for the actions would be for the mimic's corpse to be found and linked to the adventurers; this can then lead into attempts at revenge, reputation damage, etc. Nobody is against having a consequence, we're against imposing a punishment.

[blurneko]

I find it very strange that many people here think there should be no consequences for mindless killing.

[Sagetim]

Consequences and punishment are two different things. A consequence for the actions would be for the mimic's corpse to be found and linked to the adventurers; this can then lead into attempts at revenge, reputation damage, etc. Nobody is against having a consequence, we're against imposing a punishment.

oh, certainly consequences. But the question becomes: Who would avenge a mimic? And if they are a particularly powerful being, couldn't they just raise the mimic and move on with their lives instead of seeking revenge? It's not like raise dead doesn't work on monsters (and there are a few ways to get around the enormous gold cost).

[Khutef]

I'm not seeing a problem here.
They murdered a good mimic but if no-one witnessed the act, they shouldn't be punished for it.

If they continue to do those kind of things, maybe some guilt infused dreams for the good characters might be suitable?

[moveable feats]

Consequences and punishment are two different things. A consequence for the actions would be for the mimic's corpse to be found and linked to the adventurers; this can then lead into attempts at revenge, reputation damage, etc. Nobody is against having a consequence, we're against imposing a punishment.

Seems like a distinction without a difference, unless you're talking about positive consequences, which no one here was. In a world controlled by the DM negative consequences are de facto punishments.

[Knaight]

I find it very strange that many people here think there should be no consequences for mindless killing.
Nobody has recommended no consequences. We've recommended no punishment.


Seems like a distinction without a difference, unless you're talking about positive consequences, which no one here was. In a world controlled by the DM negative consequences are de facto punishments.
There's a major difference. Consequences emerge from the GM just running the simulation, punishments come from stepping outside the simulation to try and alter behavior. Behavior alteration is better served by just talking to the players, and using in game stuff for problems with the metagame hurts the integrity of the setting.

[Spellbreaker26]

If they just keep doing it and get found out by law enforcement that's one thing. Just stabbing a guy to death in the desert is another. If they murder someone with no witnesses or evidence (even if law enforcement would give a crap about a mimic) then there aren't going to be consequences.

Also, not gonna lie, it sounds like that Mimic was a real douchebag. Did it not ask for permission before it ate their stuff? Maybe killing is an overreaction, but this seems like the most annoying possible good monster encounter ever.

[StoicLeaf]

step 1)
determine whether or not being a DM for an evil party is a problem for you. If it is, discuss it with the group. If no one is willing to budge from their position then someone else will have to DM.

step 2)
There were no witnesses and gods tend to not interfere with mortal business.
Just wait for them to murder an civilian for flipping them off or something equally trite.
Then you can bring the law down on them; preferably in the form of a paladin strike group.

[Prince Zahn]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.

Monster NPCs - even good aligned ones - are always a craps shoot. you can never be certain that your PCs won't opt to kill it, given the first plausible excuse. As much as I would be tempted to reprimand this sort of behavior too, The Mimic's death was the consequences of your own actions with the mimic - and not of any "unusual adventuring behavior". adventurers see a monster, (an iconic monster who is renowned for being the bane of greedy adventurer's everywhere, no less), it's instinctual to try to kill it, and not to trust it. Especially if it's after yer player's pot o' gold, as it were.

I ran an adventure a while back where a Mud Mephit tried to steal the cleric's boot after the cleric accidentally stepped on him, he simply wanted the boot, when it begged for mercy, and offered to assist them in exchange for it's life, the players gave no quarter, nor should they have. they missed their opportunity for a guide in the woods, and earned their lousy 50XP or so to split amongst themselves.
It's not your problem anymore that they didn't trust your Mimic. fighting monsters comes second nature to D&D adventurers. if there are realistic story consequences to the Mimic being dead, that will suffice. but there is no point in being mad at your players for killing a monster, even if it was good aligned.

It could also be that if your adventurers are more inclined to distrust NPCs and fight them, or "punish them", that might say something about how your handle your NPCs in your campaign in general. Chris Perkins discussed making the world worth saving (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/world-worth-saving) with NPCs worth their salt back in 2013. it might be worth a read-through.

[sightlessrealit]

Was this Mimic supposed to be a major, recurring npc of some kind? Or like, the party side kick? Was it supposed to evoke the reaction of 'awww, it ate our treasure, how cuuute' ? Because I'm really not seeing a strong in game reason that this merits punishment. Sometimes the party has to fight, and kill, Lawful Good characters. While they weren't apparently in any danger from this mimic, I could see being upset that it ate the only treasure they had found. After all, if it was the only treasure they got from a dungeon delve, then it was probably going to be sold to pay for food. You know, that thing that people need to eat to survive.

If anything, the mimic broke the civilized non aggression by eating the treasure. Up until that point, from your account, they were just talking to it, showing it what they had found and then bam. There goes the stuff they had worked hard to obtain.

I'm not saying I agree with them planning out the mimic's murder in front of it if they were, you know, going into detail about how they were going to turn it inside out and string it's insides all over the place to make a collage of pain to show other mimic's not to mess with them. But from what I've read, giving the cleric a warning that 'killing good beings is bad, mkay' should probably be about the limit as far as 'punishment' goes.

5e is not the same heavily alignment based thing that previous editions were. Paladins are not limited to Lawful Good, for example. And they don't get an Evildar like they did in previous editions. They cannot detect regular evil. Only supernatural Evil (such as Demons, Devils, and I dunno, Zombies?) But not Fancy Todd, the barber down the street that's been secretly killing hobo's to feed his need to cut things. So the players don't have a fair shake at being able to tell something's alignment in the definitive manner that previous editions provided. By that same token...they killed a lawful good creature. So what? Is this really something that merits some kind of metagaming punishment? Because that's sure what it sounds like this is moving towards. Metagaming to punish the players because they killed an npc you didn't want them to.

Edit: After reading Sharkforce's post below mine, I figured I should add a little. This is the cleric's first offense, right? And that's basically the only person who, by picking that class, signed up for potential cosmic morality based consequences for their actions. A first time offender for a Good deity should probably get a warning and, not really anything else. If they were an Evil cleric and they did something to offend their god, then getting struck with wildly out of proportion punishments in response might make more sense. But this is supposed to be a Good deity. Not an Evil one. So probably a bit more on the reprimand and forgive side than the 'set their eyeballs on fire and laugh' side.

It was an important character yes. The treasure it had eaten wasn't the only treasure they had found just the most expensive(though it boggles my mind as to why they would present such a thing to a mimic in the first place good or otherwise). The mimic simply in that instance acted out of natural instinct. But I can understand that it seems like I want to punish them cause it was an important character but it's not. They did all the right things to see if it was good. There is a character that they found that did know about the mimic after they had killed it. And like I said when I say punishment I don't mean some stupid over the top kind of thing. Just a simple minor act that will at least carry over to hopefully not doing something like that again.

[Saiga]

I think for the first transgression. it's probably best not to impose any mechanical disadvantages/consequences - but just find a way to make it clear that continual behavior of the sort will bring consequences. And that might be best down outside of the game.

It gives you a chance to here your player's perspective on the situation as well.

[coredump]

This has nothing to do with the DM 'punishing' the players.

This is the characters actions leading to logical consequences.

If a Good God witnesses a follower perform an Evil act, then it is a reasonable logical consequence for that God to punish that follower. It is the DMs job to make this happen.

[Battlebooze]

Later on, have them find some clue to a nice treasure they would surely like. Have the clue suggest two ways to retrieve the treasure. One way is nasty and unpleasant, like Crawl down the stinking sewer pit of excremental elementals. The other way is, find the rare good mimic and he will show you the easy way.

[Beelzebubba]

IMO a player should be free to change who they are over a campaign.

I'd keep track of how they operate, and if they continually act this way, then have consequences. Not punishment. Consequences.


Do they encounter planar beings of good? They're treated with mistrust.
Do they find magic items attuned to alignments? The ones they expected don't work; however, the one that has a nasty effect - say, poison, or necrotic damage - works.

That is a natural set of consequences that have nothing to do with punishment. It's just what it is.

Mechanically, after several more of those clearly Evil actions, change their alignments on their character sheets to Neutral, not Good. If they keep going, then Evil. Don't get all snarky when you do it, but just let them know what a Good character would have done, and now the world views them differently. No big deal. Alignment is way less of an issue this edition.

The only people who IMO should have more straightforward consequences is a Good Cleric or Paladin. It's one thing to adventure with Evil party members and use it as a chance to redeem them through your deeds and acts, and prevent them from doing their worst in their presence; it's another to participate or condone in the bad stuff.

Here's how I'd do it:

Give them a few cryptic messages and admonishments from their god when they pray for their highest level spells to start. Then messages of disappointment. Then, eventually, if it doesn't stop, one day when they pray for their highest level spells, don't give them to them, but pick a diety of the same domain of a Neutral or Evil alignment and have them appear in a vision, beckoning them, while having their 'line of communication' to their old Deity go cold. Their spell/power refills stop until they visit a church of that other Diety and participate in a ritual to convert.

I'd ONLY do it when they're near enough to a church of that Deity that it makes the conversion process relatively straightforward. Like, if they have a +1 Shield with their previous Deity's holy symbol on it, have the new church have a replacement with the new symbol waiting for them, and destroying the old holy symbol is part of the ritual.

Think of it this way: your conversion is bragging rights for the competing god. This is like a mid to high level executive leaving Apple for Tesla; there will be a benefits package awaiting them.

That isn't to say that Cleric or Paladin won't make some enemies out of it, but of course, those should be level appropriate and make for an interesting encounter that adds flavor to their adventures.

This lets them have the game they want, with the characters they want.

[Millstone85]

The mimic didn't attack them at all. Even when they started to attack him. And when they talked with him they did insight checked him & passed the check on if he was being honest about being a good mimic or not. So the deceiving argument doesn't hold any weight.Did a player roll the die or did you do it behind your DM screen? Did the players know the DC of their Wisdom (Insight) check, or that the creature wasn't making its own Charisma (Deception) check? Even if the players had all the meta-knowledge, their characters could still be suspectful of the mimic.

And perhaps your players think you wouldn't actually come up with a good-aligned mimic. You should discuss with them, out-of-character, what monsters in your setting are indeed monsters and which ones should instead be regarded as strange people and fantastic beasts. Or tell them nobody in the setting has really figured it out.

[Ursus the Grim]

It was an important character yes. The treasure it had eaten wasn't the only treasure they had found just the most expensive(though it boggles my mind as to why they would present such a thing to a mimic in the first place good or otherwise). The mimic simply in that instance acted out of natural instinct. But I can understand that it seems like I want to punish them cause it was an important character but it's not. They did all the right things to see if it was good. There is a character that they found that did know about the mimic after they had killed it. And like I said when I say punishment I don't mean some stupid over the top kind of thing. Just a simple minor act that will at least carry over to hopefully not doing something like that again.

Yeah, its pretty clear you want to punish the players for killing a unique monster you were excited to use.

A mimic's natural instinct is to kill and eat adventurers. Its entire existence is based around deceiving hapless people. It wasn't right for them to kill it, but its an understandable mistake.

This sounds like their first strike. Take a page from Matt Mercer's book and hint through the game that the cleric's diety is unhappy. Don't just arbitrarily and ham-fistedly impose disadvantage on the cleric for making a poor decision. They deserve a warning that they're nearing a dark path - perhaps the normally gleaming holy symbol is now worn and tarnished, or the cleric feels their connection to the divine waver ever so slightly when they cast their next spell - nothing mechanical yet. After transgression two, warn of an alignment shift and perhaps impose disadvantage on a single spell attack roll. The Cleric should be aware that their divinity is waning as a result of straying from their path. If they kill a third clearly good creature, that's when you crack the holy symbol, give everyone an alignment shift, and suggest the cleric convert to a different diety that more closely reflects their ethos.

Actions should have consequences. Consequences are natural, logical events that occur as a result of an action. If my PC murdered somebody and the law was informed of it, the PC would be arrested. That would be a natural consequence. If my PC murdered somebody and there were zero witnesses and neither of us had any divine or supernatural connections, there would be no natural consequences.

A consequence is saying 'this is a logical effect that occurred because of this thing you did.'
A punishment is saying 'you shouldn't have done X, so now I'm going to do Y to you.'

[LordVonDerp]

last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned.

That doesn't really mean much.



After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it.
Admittedly, this was not a bright move on their part.



The group didn't really like this.
Well yeah, people generally don't like being robbed.





In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.
It may not have meant any harm, but it still caused harm and it sounds like it made no attempt to make amends.



They ignored him and then killed him.
Ok.



So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder.
Only if Mimics are legally considered people in that jurisdiction.

[hamishspence]

Well yeah, people generally don't like being robbed.




After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it.

The implication is they thought it was a present for the mimic to keep long-term - the mimic thought it was food. Nothing there about robbery.

[Millstone85]

The implication is they thought it was a present for the mimic to keep long-term - the mimic thought it was food. Nothing there about robbery.I don't see that implication, and their reaction afterward would be more in line with the party wanting to question the mimic about the loot.

[Spellbreaker26]

I don't see that implication, and their reaction afterward would be more in line with the party wanting to question the mimic about the loot.

Agreed. At least this is what it sounds like. It could have just been the party being douchey.

[Syll]

I find it very strange that many people here think there should be no consequences for mindless killing.

I would wager too many people have suffered under too many DMs trying to force the DMs RL world view down their characters throats. Had the thread been titled "What consequences should there be...." this would likely have elicited very different responses. OP has reiterated multiple times now though, that this is in fact about Punishment for punishment sake.

[rbstr]

If the Cleric's deity is good then there should clearly be some kind of consequence for them. Not a mechanical one at this point but something like the crack in the Holy Symbol mentioned earlier. His deity knows what he did and is warning him.
If the cleric keeps on murdering then you're gonna have to work out some way to change his alignment/god/class.

In terms of mundane consequences...well there really isn't a reason for there to be any. Nobody knows but the party and it was a monster. Though I think it would be fun to try and guilt trip them somehow. Some guy in a bar all sad his mimic friend was killed, nobody believes him but the players know!

I am not opposed to a kind of karma system in a setting where deities are clearly present. As the party keeps on killing things without good reason perhaps good-aligned folk simply mistrust/shun them on instinct, while shady characters approach them with shady **** more often. They don't know what the party actually did, but they take on an aura of sorts.

[tieren]

Make the consequence some act that will now be much harder than would have been otherwise.

Such as...

All you need is the password to unlock the portal, you discover the password is kept by a friendly mimic who regularly is found near a cave...ooops

[RedMage125]

Disregarding the people saying "don't punish them at all", I think the meat of the OP's question is in regards to alignment shifting, and possibly not allowing players to retain control over Evil characters (that is, they become NPCs).

What I would do is talk to your players out of game. I would tell them that killing the mimic was an Evil act, as it was not an active combatant, did not wish to fight, and was not an inherently evil creature. Let them know that while one act does not change alignment, a continued trend of Evil acts will gradually move their alignments towards Evil, and that Evil characters will become NPCs, if that is how you wish to do it.

Make it clear that this is not "punishment", this is "consequences". Player actions have consequences. Those consequences are only "punishing" if they are breaking rules.

[Verisichilli2de]

"The party has now developed a reputation for brutality among the mimic community. Future encounters with mimic will find them far less amicable."

That's about as far as I could take it, and even that's a bit of a stretch with no witnesses... unless there were more mimics in the room!

[Ziegander]

Make the consequence some act that will now be much harder than would have been otherwise.

Such as...

All you need is the password to unlock the portal, you discover the password is kept by a friendly mimic who regularly is found near a cave...ooops

This. Having the gods interfere everytime the PCs do something that displeases them just seems really lame to me. If the mimic was intended to be an important character and they killed it, having whatever important stuff the mimic was supposed to do or provide not happen should be "punishment" enough.

I can't stress enough how punishing your players for the actions of their characters because out-of-character you didn't like those actions is completely bullheaded and wrong. You can punish the characters, if it makes sense in-game, in-character for some punishment or comeuppance to come back on them for what they did, but attempting to punish the players comes across as hostile, poor social skills, you being offended and trying to blow off steam, etc. It's messed up.

[Spore]

If anything maybe minor forces of evil should start asking the party for favors as they are clearly driven by greed. Let an Imp give them minor jobs in disguise or let a quasit offer them a small bunch of gold for murdering a sole hunter in the forests.

You are a DM. Temptation is your middle name.

[Dr.Samurai]

They had a conversation with a passive creature that didn't attack them in any way, and they plotted its murder and killed it in cold blood.

That's... bad.

That said, there is no intrinsic reason for anything to happen to them because of that. People get away with doing bad stuff all the time in real life.

That said (again), there may be alignment issues, and there may be deity issues. Don't be too heavy handed with it. But if the god takes notice enough to visit them cleric in dreams and grant him spells, he might care that the cleric is fickle enough to kill a sentient creature that displeased him.

But you have to be clear to yourself if this is you as a DM portraying logical in-game consequences to a character because it makes sense in the game you're running, or if this is you as a DM not wanting the characters to go around killing whatever they see and trying to find a way to influence that behavior without telling them directly out of game.

The former I think is fine if measured. The latter is a recipe for disaster.

[SharkForce]

This. Having the gods interfere everytime the PCs do something that displeases them just seems really lame to me. If the mimic was intended to be an important character and they killed it, having whatever important stuff the mimic was supposed to do or provide not happen should be "punishment" enough.

I can't stress enough how punishing your players for the actions of their characters because out-of-character you didn't like those actions is completely bullheaded and wrong. You can punish the characters, if it makes sense in-game, in-character for some punishment or comeuppance to come back on them for what they did, but attempting to punish the players comes across as hostile, poor social skills, you being offended and trying to blow of steam, etc. It's messed up.

when one of the characters is literally the god's agent for furthering the god's agenda, having the god interfere in that PC's life is perfectly reasonable.

again, i must stress, the god is ALREADY interfering routinely, with every single spell, every single channel divinity, and almost every single class ability used by the cleric (i am presuming that the weapons, armour, skill, tool, and language proficiencies are not the god's intervention, though even then if it's a knowledge cleric it might be)

[Spellbreaker26]

This. Having the gods interfere everytime the PCs do something that displeases them just seems really lame to me. If the mimic was intended to be an important character and they killed it, having whatever important stuff the mimic was supposed to do or provide not happen should be "punishment" enough.


Agreed. Evil acts shouldn't carry penalties for anyone who isn't a paladin (or a particular brand of cleric), and there are actual rules for what happens to them. Stupid ones should. Insulting a king (or not showing sufficient deference) would probably carry more of a penalty than killing a mimic. (A very stupid mimic, it should be said.)

[Ziegander]

when one of the characters is literally the god's agent for furthering the god's agenda, having the god interfere in that PC's life is perfectly reasonable.

again, i must stress, the god is ALREADY interfering routinely, with every single spell, every single channel divinity, and almost every single class ability used by the cleric (i am presuming that the weapons, armour, skill, tool, and language proficiencies are not the god's intervention, though even then if it's a knowledge cleric it might be)

You're free to rule things that way in your game. I think it's totally lame, but that's me. I don't believe a Cleric's chosen deity literally, actively works through the Cleric every time the Cleric does a thing. A Cleric is a "conduit for divine power (quote SRD)," and thus channels energy and spells from his or her god. It is my opinion that the Cleric is channeling that power themselves, it's not being watched over every second by the deity who provides them aid whenever the Cleric asks the god to do something, an opinion that's directly supported by the existence of the Divine Intervention feature. "Imploring your deity's aid requires you to use your action." Something you can't even do until you're 10th level, and even then it only has a 10% chance of succeeding.

Again, nothing mechanical preventing your interpretation of how Clerics' spellcasting and class features work, I just feel that it robs players of agency if their god, not them, is the one achieving everything they do. If the gods were that direct and did or did not want something to happen on the Material Plane wouldn't they just make it happen or stop it from happening?

[Dr.Samurai]

The OP already stated the god is visiting the cleric in his dreams. I think a lawful good deity is within his bounds to take action (however minor and unobtrusive) when one of his lawful good servants murders a passive creature in cold blood for nothing more than a misunderstanding.

[Ziegander]

Which I said, I think is a bit heavy-handed, but fine. That should be the end of it. Having the deity actively punish the Cleric would cross over into very heavy-handed, unless the PC is like 10th level or higher, and even then, if I were playing a Cleric and the DM had my deity constantly talking to me and interfering in my life, I would find it very annoying.

[clash]

I think others had mentioned this before, but I would have consequences moreso for the mimic not being around. Have something mentioned that would have been easier if the mimic had been around. You need a mimic to open something for them or something like that. Then the players think that you gave them an ally to help with that quest and they killed it. Makes them think twice about killing in the future for no reason but at the same time doesn't appear that you are punishing them.

[Dr.Samurai]

Which I said, I think is a bit heavy-handed, but fine. That should be the end of it. Having the deity actively punish the Cleric would cross over into very heavy-handed, unless the PC is like 10th level or higher, and even then, if I were playing a Cleric and the DM had my deity constantly talking to me and interfering in my life, I would find it very annoying.
I should have quoted Spellbreaker, since my response was geared towards him. I think a cleric is just as much a servant/representative of his god as a paladin, and I don't agree that circumstances for evil acts only apply to paladins.

More to your point Ziegander, I totally agree with you. I'd find it super annoying as well (probably why I don't play clerics ever). But there are some settings where the gods are much more involved, like Forgotten Realms, and the OP seems to be leaning more towards that side of the spectrum already, so I can see some action being taken fitting his game world.

My bigger concern is how much of this is out of game vs in game. So long as the DM isn't salty and wants to teach his players a lesson, I think this should be fine.

[Spellbreaker26]

I should have quoted Spellbreaker, since my response was geared towards him. I think a cleric is just as much a servant/representative of his god as a paladin, and I don't agree that circumstances for evil acts only apply to paladins.


Actually, a cleric is not as much of a representative of their god as a paladin - paladins don't have to serve gods at all. A paladin's power derives from being a symbol of rightousness, which is why they can fall. A cleric could potentially get entirely cut off from their power, but that requires more DM fiat (same for warlocks). Which is fine - a DM just has to hammer that out before it comes up, or if not, as soon as possible.

[SharkForce]

You're free to rule things that way in your game. I think it's totally lame, but that's me. I don't believe a Cleric's chosen deity literally, actively works through the Cleric every time the Cleric does a thing. A Cleric is a "conduit for divine power (quote SRD)," and thus channels energy and spells from his or her god. It is my opinion that the Cleric is channeling that power themselves, it's not being watched over every second by the deity who provides them aid whenever the Cleric asks the god to do something, an opinion that's directly supported by the existence of the Divine Intervention feature. "Imploring your deity's aid requires you to use your action." Something you can't even do until you're 10th level, and even then it only has a 10% chance of succeeding.

Again, nothing mechanical preventing your interpretation of how Clerics' spellcasting and class features work, I just feel that it robs players of agency if their god, not them, is the one achieving everything they do. If the gods were that direct and did or did not want something to happen on the Material Plane wouldn't they just make it happen or stop it from happening?

the cleric as a class revolves entirely around gods interfering in mortal affairs.

yes, clerics get an ability to directly ask their deity to brute force things more so than usual, for example by sending an avatar, a high-ranking servant, or the direct manifestation of divine will rather than manipulating events through their mortal servants. no, that doesn't change the fact that most of the rest of the cleric's abilities are also manifestations of the deity's divine power. in most settings all clerics must have a deity, that deity can't just be anything they feel like, and fluff-wise, the deity picks the cleric not the other way around, seeing as how there are many normal worshippers who receive precisely zero special powers, and based on the acolyte background there are even full-blown priests who receive precisely zero powers.

you may as well argue that because there are aircraft carriers and cruise liners, everything smaller is not even a ship. yes, those are particularly large and impressive examples of ships. no, that doesn't mean anything less than that is not a ship.

if your deity cares about people killing innocent creatures regardless of the type of creature, expect to hear from them if you participate in killing innocent creatures, and don't expect "well i didn't like that creature" to be a good enough excuse. if you're not comfortable with that, then there are a number of other classes you can play that don't work that way. you should probably choose one of those other classes.

[Dr.Samurai]

Actually, a cleric is not as much of a representative of their god as a paladin - paladins don't have to serve gods at all. A paladin's power derives from being a symbol of rightousness, which is why they can fall. A cleric could potentially get entirely cut off from their power, but that requires more DM fiat (same for warlocks). Which is fine - a DM just has to hammer that out before it comes up, or if not, as soon as possible.
I'm not really seeing the difference you're describing.

If you are in a campaign where the gods may take some form of action (if even just a verbal scolding) based on something you did that displeases them, then, to my mind, there is no difference between the cleric that murders an innocent good-aligned mimic in cold blood, and a paladin that murders an innocent good-aligned mimic in cold blood.

[Ziegander]

Again, if the deity is that concerned with mortal affairs, and that direct in chastising their servants over such affairs, why didn't the deity intervene before or even during the course of the Cleric's murder of the Mimic? If the deity is literally granting them the use of every spell the Cleric casts and class feature he or she uses, then why the hell would the deity have even allowed the Cleric to cast spells to kill the Mimic at all? Shouldn't the deity, who is apparently watching every moment of the Cleric's life and guiding him every step of the way, have flat out denied the Cleric access to its divine power the moment it tried to do something with it the deity didn't like?

[Ursus the Grim]

Again, if the deity is that concerned with mortal affairs, and that direct in chastising their servants over such affairs, why didn't the deity intervene before or even during the course of the Cleric's murder of the Mimic? If the deity is literally granting them the use of every spell the Cleric casts and class feature he or she uses, then why the hell would the deity have even allowed the Cleric to cast spells to kill the Mimic at all? Shouldn't the deity, who is apparently watching every moment of the Cleric's life and guiding him every step of the way, have flat out denied the Cleric access to its divine power the moment it tried to do something with it the deity didn't like?

If Pelor loves us, didn't he set us up to fail by allowing us free will? :P

[SharkForce]

Again, if the deity is that concerned with mortal affairs, and that direct in chastising their servants over such affairs, why didn't the deity intervene before or even during the course of the Cleric's murder of the Mimic? If the deity is literally granting them the use of every spell the Cleric casts and class feature he or she uses, then why the hell would the deity have even allowed the Cleric to cast spells to kill the Mimic at all? Shouldn't the deity, who is apparently watching every moment of the Cleric's life and guiding him every step of the way, have flat out denied the Cleric access to its divine power the moment it tried to do something with it the deity didn't like?

because if the deity was looking to interfere directly all the time, they wouldn't have clerics at all.

the very fact that the deity is using mortal servants instead of sending angels or similar to do their work indicates that for some reason, the god either wants or needs a mortal intermediary. that doesn't mean the mortal intermediary is free to do whatever they wish with their granted powers and expect approval.

[Demonslayer666]

I would have the good and neutral party members lose some sleep over it, maybe a one or two nights of restless sleep.

I also don't see a problem with the cleric's deity taking notice and giving fewer spells the next day.

The party's knee-jerk reaction was way too severe. At most, they should have roughed him up a bit and told the mimic to never to do that again.

[Snails]

Actually, a cleric is not as much of a representative of their god as a paladin - paladins don't have to serve gods at all. A paladin's power derives from being a symbol of rightousness, which is why they can fall. A cleric could potentially get entirely cut off from their power, but that requires more DM fiat (same for warlocks). Which is fine - a DM just has to hammer that out before it comes up, or if not, as soon as possible.

I see this very differently. The paladin class was the only one where a stringent code of conduct was ever explicitly written out, that does not mean other divine classes get to play more loosey goosey on morals. It has been understood since forever that gods could impose similarly stringent codes on their clerics, even if the details varied enormously by deity. The 3e cleric class includes language hinting very very strongly in that direction.

I think the designers simply recognized that it was impractical and annoying to spell this all out in the cleric class itself. After all, the PHB classes are supposed to be ready to play and somewhat generic to fit into any campaign world. It would be overwhelming to the players and DM to read 17 different cleric codes of conduct for Greyhawk, and then be told your DM has to rewrite a bunch of stuff before you are allowed to play a cleric.

For the paladin, it was a narrow enough concept that one code could be written, and it was expected to be playable enough as is.

[Spellbreaker26]

For the paladin, it was a narrow enough concept that one code could be written, and it was expected to be playable enough as is.

Well, one per subclass.

[Flashy]

I think the designers simply recognized that it was impractical and annoying to spell this all out in the cleric class itself. After all, the PHB classes are supposed to be ready to play and somewhat generic to fit into any campaign world. It would be overwhelming to the players and DM to read 17 different cleric codes of conduct for Greyhawk, and then be told your DM has to rewrite a bunch of stuff before you are allowed to play a cleric.

Especially since the PHB Cleric needs to work for worlds like Eberron or Athas where the gods are either not involved or just nonexistent.

[Segev]

The mechanical consequences of this act would be to be a mark towards moving the characters' alignments towards whatever alignment is most expected to perform this act.

Do you consider it an evil act? Then let them know, OOC, because it's only fair, that you consider it such. Then just...be aware. If they keep performing evil acts, but mix it up with good ones, then shift the most egregious offenders to neutral. If they're getting vile enough repeatedly enough, shift them towards evil.

That is the mechanical consequence of strongly-aligned acts: they move you towards their alignment.

In-game consequences are narrative-based. It's up to you to examine the situation and see if there are natural consequences that would come about from it.

[MadBear]

Just going to point out that if you view your role of DM as one to "Punish" actions you don't like, then you're going to find yourself without many players in the end.

This is a game. A fun, role-playing game, but a game nonetheless. You're misusing the responsibilities of the DM if you view your role as that of someone who punishes players who don't do what you don't like.

Consequences as a result of poor decisions of the players are one thing, but you're taking your role to a more adversarial position than it ever needs to be.

(I supervise a D&D club at my school, and one of the saddest things I've seen happen was a DM who lost his entire group. He spent $150 on books, adventures, miniatures to use with his players. They all up and quit because he loved to "punish" players who he felt didn't act the way he liked. I talked with him repeatedly about how his actions were likely to lose his players, but he was confident that it was fine. Finally one day, the whole group quit the club, abandoned him, and he had no real recourse).

[jaappleton]

This screams of "The party didn't do what I wanted so I want to punish them".

Which... Sorry, that's a move a bad DM makes.

[Koningkrush]

Never directly punish the party for any alignment based act, it's a sure way to piss your players off.

Instead, just let natural consequences happen. The most obvious in this situation is the Cleric. Depending on what deity he serves, the deity may reprimand him (for example, maybe take away one of his spell slots for a week or something.)

If they decide to start being an antagonist evil force in the campaign itself, create a separate party of NPC adventurers that seek to destroy the party as news of their evil actions spread.

I've heard stories of DMs who basically remove players from the game or by turning their characters into NPCs if they are an alignment that they don't like. It's just crap DMing.

[LordCdrMilitant]

If I punished my players for being evil, they'd all be dead within 2 sessions.

If the GM's for the games I played punished characters for being evil [or good, since I have a lot of evil characters], my characters would be dead within 2 sessions.

Alignment is kind of fuzzy as is, and is mostly a guide to the player as to how his character thinks and perceives the world.

[SharkForce]

most of you accusing the DM of being a horrible person for wanting to punish the party seem to be either overreacting or just not reading the thread.

the only punishment the OP is talking about is that the cleric's deity is expressing displeasure and giving disadvantage to the cleric a few times. it is not about the DM trying to force the party to do anything. it is about "how would the cleric's deity respond to the cleric participating in cold-blooded murderer of a friendly creature which never attacked any of them".

[jaappleton]

most of you accusing the DM of being a horrible person for wanting to punish the party seem to be either overreacting or just not reading the thread.

the only punishment the OP is talking about is that the cleric's deity is expressing displeasure and giving disadvantage to the cleric a few times. it is not about the DM trying to force the party to do anything. it is about "how would the cleric's deity respond to the cleric participating in cold-blooded murderer of a friendly creature which never attacked any of them".

It's a mind set problem.

First, the DM wants the deity to punish the Cleric.

Then it goes further down that path.

Next thing you know, there's money missing off the dresser and your daughter's knocked up.

I've seen it a hundred times....

[Ziegander]

That's what the DM knows he's going to do, which is still bad because now he's singling out one character for something the entire party was complicit in. Right from the get go, it's literally in the thread title, he came to ask us how he should punish the whole group for it.

[Beelzebubba]

I'd say lower level characters don't really get noticed.

Granting low level spells is like, I dunno, getting a T-shirt for volunteering at the charity soup kitchen.

Once they get mid level, now that's getting on the private email distribution list.

High level is getting on Pelor's contact list on his phone.

Adjust Pelor's ire accordingly.

[sightlessrealit]

This screams of "The party didn't do what I wanted so I want to punish them".

Which... Sorry, that's a move a bad DM makes.

Thanks for the compliment.

[sightlessrealit]

They had a conversation with a passive creature that didn't attack them in any way, and they plotted its murder and killed it in cold blood.

That's... bad.

That said, there is no intrinsic reason for anything to happen to them because of that. People get away with doing bad stuff all the time in real life.

That said (again), there may be alignment issues, and there may be deity issues. Don't be too heavy handed with it. But if the god takes notice enough to visit them cleric in dreams and grant him spells, he might care that the cleric is fickle enough to kill a sentient creature that displeased him.

But you have to be clear to yourself if this is you as a DM portraying logical in-game consequences to a character because it makes sense in the game you're running, or if this is you as a DM not wanting the characters to go around killing whatever they see and trying to find a way to influence that behavior without telling them directly out of game.

The former I think is fine if measured. The latter is a recipe for disaster.

I wont do the whole once per day disadvantage thing since I'v been thinking on it. For now I'll just stick with what already been done. Which is the Clerics deity in passing mentioning that he should make up for the evil act.

I may have the mimic's brothers show up at some point.

[Sagetim]

I'd say lower level characters don't really get noticed.

Granting low level spells is like, I dunno, getting a T-shirt for volunteering at the charity soup kitchen.

Once they get mid level, now that's getting on the private email distribution list.

High level is getting on Pelor's contact list on his phone.

Adjust Pelor's ire accordingly.

Alternatively, think of clerics as being part of a bureaucracy. Most of it, the upper echeclons of the organization, are off in whatever plane the deity hangs out in (be it a heaven, a hell, or whatever). It's organization level might be more or less strict based on where it lands on the lawful vs chaos aspect, but in the end...the Deity is the head honcho. The CEO or what have you. Under that is the board of directors, the Solars, Balors, or Pit Fiends or what have you. Under them is upper management, the high cr but not max cr angels and servants of gods. Finally you get to middle management. And those are the lantern archons and such. The low cr angels? Higher in the hierarchy than the grand high pope priest bishop of your character's deity on earth. Then comes Lower management, your popes, bishops, and so on. And finally you have the grunts- the clerics and priests that directly interact with the faithful.

So when the CEO comes by and says 'don't do that again' to your cleric. It's not just the guy giving you the power, it's the guy that you would probably never get direct contact with coming by to say that you done messed up. I know that if I were a player running a cleric, that would change my character's course of actions. He would put a big note on his copy book of 'don't do X' and tell the other characters, in character, that if they want to keep the healing train coming that we all need to be more careful about doing X* again in the future.

Now that this kind of context is present, you should also ask yourself: Is this indicative of a trend in the player's actions? If they did this as a one off thing, and a few sessions pass and they wind up doing something similar again, it's not necessarily a trend in behavior. After all, they're probably going to forget about the mimic after some amount of time and might do something shady again. If the cleric is the only one getting consequences from the party's shady actions, and doesn't seem to know how to get the others to stop, then your reaction doesn't even need to be punishing the cleric. It could take the form of another priest of his faith noticing something troubling him the next time they stop in at a church of the faith and having a little side conversation. This provides you a means to tell the cleric's player, in character, advice on how his god would like him to handle the situation. It then puts the knowledge in the hands of the player to utilize as a means of solving the problem or not. This gives the player agency, and if they choose not to solve the problem, Then they might find that they aren't getting granted the spells they want as much...they might be getting different ones instead...like Geas/Quest, or Mark of Justice. That should be enough of an implication to get the players thinking about 'why didn't I get raise dead' or what have you. Even then, the cleric probably isn't getting too badly impacted if just a few of their spells are being swapped out for more 'make them atone' spells.

You could even proceed from there, if the problem keeps being a problem. Eventually getting to not granting as many higher level slots, then not higher level slots, and so on. But we're talking about this being a long term problem now. And still relatively benign. And it's probably not so much the Deity itself managing that aspect, as much as having assigned a lantern archon to keep an eye on the problem and micro-manage from the supply side of divine power.

In contrast, if this mimic slaying is just a prelude to the players acting like murder hobos, then the cleric would see themselves cut off from divine power Much faster. You know, like...if they get back to town and hear the barkeep mourning the loss of his mimic friend, then dragging the guy out back to murder him...then the town guards, then all the witnesses, and so on and so on, you can bet that cleric is not getting their spells recharged when they pray. They aren't even getting a talking to, just straight up 'nope.' Even if they later got an atonement for slaughtering a village, it would have a price tag attached in the form of some serious questing to make the world a better place without getting paid for it. But by that point it would probably be easier to convert to an evil god and just continue being a horrible party of evil people.



*No, I'm not talking about a drugs.

[Syll]

I think a cleric is just as much a servant/representative of his god as a paladin, and I don't agree that circumstances for evil acts only apply to paladins.

I'm not really seeing the difference you're describing.

If you are in a campaign where the gods may take some form of action (if even just a verbal scolding) based on something you did that displeases them, then, to my mind, there is no difference between the cleric that murders an innocent good-aligned mimic in cold blood, and a paladin that murders an innocent good-aligned mimic in cold blood.

The difference is that a PLD is not (required to be) a servant of the gods at all. period. Default PLD has no deity to answer to for transgressions because he is not drawing power from a deity.

The 'as much a servant of his god as a paladin' doesn't make a lot of sense when the PLD isn't a servant of a deity. Now, if you swapped that around and said a PLD -COULD- be just as much a servant/representative of his god as a Cleric, i'd be on board.


Make the consequence some act that will now be much harder than would have been otherwise.

Such as...

All you need is the password to unlock the portal, you discover the password is kept by a friendly mimic who regularly is found near a cave...ooops

I like this suggestion, personally.

[SharkForce]

That's what the DM knows he's going to do, which is still bad because now he's singling out one character for something the entire party was complicit in. Right from the get go, it's literally in the thread title, he came to ask us how he should punish the whole group for it.

"the OP named the thread poorly" is not great. it also doesn't mean you need to call the OP a horrible person and make accusations of behaviour for which we have precisely zero evidence.

and the single character is being singled out because there is a reasonable consequence for that character, but not particularly one for anyone else... broadly speaking, pretty much nobody knows the group did anything wrong. unless some random person comes along and decides to use speak with dead on the corpse of the mimic and ask about how it died, that information will probably not be available to most people. but it *is* probably available to the deity of the cleric, who is at least on some level paying attention to the deity all the time.


I'd say lower level characters don't really get noticed.

Granting low level spells is like, I dunno, getting a T-shirt for volunteering at the charity soup kitchen.

Once they get mid level, now that's getting on the private email distribution list.

High level is getting on Pelor's contact list on his phone.

Adjust Pelor's ire accordingly.

except that they all get spells straight from pelor. nobody is getting spells granted by a solar or a lantern archon or the priest in charge of the local shrine or anything else. pelor's clerics are all routinely being given access to pelor's power by pelor. it does not make sense to propose that they have no contact with pelor, because they very obviously do, on a regular basis. as often as once per long rest, they can change their spells, and use up a number of spell slots. they have channel divinity (which right in the name indicates where the power is coming from) at least once per short rest. they are granted god-given powers to use at-will in the form of cantrips and sometimes domain powers.

[Mochan]

they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.


Before you punish your PCs for acting out of alignment maybe you should look at your Mimic who is supposedly Lawful Good but selfishly ate someone else's treasure?

Don't punish your players if you yourself can't roleplay your monsters and NPCs properly.


This all wouldn't have happened if there weren't any lame mimics trying to be cute by being Lawful Good.

And murder? It's a freaking wooden treasure chest monster. Talk of murder should never come into the equation.

[FilthyLucre]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.
Do nothing? It's not the DMs job to enforce morality on the players. If they continue being evil eventually their will be casual/plausible repercussion for evil but in this instance there aren't.

[Honest Tiefling]

I find it very strange that many people here think there should be no consequences for mindless killing.

I am going to agree with this. I think the DM needs to divorce themselves from the 'punish' mentality, which is a natural and common response for a DM. I think going overboard with it can make someone into a bad DM, but Roleplay can get emotional. Being able to take a step back and think rationally is going to be needed when acting out characters, since many get invested in them even if they are an NPC.

My advice is to think about what has been established about the god and their powers: COULD they have seen the crime (posts indicate yes) and what would they be inclined to do? What has the player been informed about their god? This is a bad time to pull a 'gotcha' moment, but the player isn't likely to know everything about their god in many cases. Then determine how much the god would feel about this case, and what a proper response would be in their mindset.

Perhaps send some omens at first. The god probably doesn't want to severely punish their follower for ignorance, even if that ignorance led to a hateful act. Send some omens appropriate to the god. If the behavior continues or a lack of atonement (which the god already asked for, clearly), start docking spells. If the character goes as far as to IGNORE THEIR GOD, I think it is very likely the god might revoke powers.

However, make sure to sprinkle in some hints that this might occur to the player. Such as rolling the religion skill during omens or dreams to discern that the god is very disappointed and stories they have heard indicate that he doesn't like it when followers ignore his requests. Have a bard tell a story that involved a religious servant (paladin is fine, if they follow the same rules in this setting) among other stories. Have them visit a shrine and have other priests comment on the omens. Basically, telegraph this so the player is getting some idea of what is happening and doesn't feel like you revoked things out of the blue. It also gives the party a way to roleplay out the death.


Yeah, its pretty clear you want to punish the players for killing a unique monster you were excited to use.

A mimic's natural instinct is to kill and eat adventurers. Its entire existence is based around deceiving hapless people. It wasn't right for them to kill it, but its an understandable mistake.

Well...No. The DM did say it was their own campaign setting. Saying that all monsters will behave a certain way in all settings is a very bad habit. Also, unless the players were of high enough level, pretty meta-gamey, unless they did actually make some skill rolls.


I should have quoted Spellbreaker, since my response was geared towards him. I think a cleric is just as much a servant/representative of his god as a paladin, and I don't agree that circumstances for evil acts only apply to paladins.

Again, we don't know the campaign, so either side could be true. If the DM failed to communicate how clerics work in the setting, then that's a goof, but a pretty common one. If there is a possibility this happened, I suggest getting it ironed out.

[Mochan]

Nobody is saying there shouldn't be any consequences.

It's quite clear that the DM is just pissed off that the players killed off an NPC/monster that he liked and put some effort into making.

Punishing the cleric by giving him disadvantage once day is stupid, makes no sense, and frankly very small-minded. At least let it be a sensible punishment in game mechanical like taking away a spell slot.

But that kind of punishment is foolish. As a DM you have to be prepared to wing it based on the player's actions and the luck of the dice. This isn't a linear adventure. DND has always been about the DM and the players co-authoring a story together.

The best way to handle this is to show consequences for the "mindless killing" that make sense in the narrative. Someone suggested a great way to do it (the mimic was going to give them a password but he can't because it's dead).

There's something beautiful about poetic justice like this, it makes sense, it Isn't about you punishing the players for raining on your parade, and it teaches the adventurers a lesson at the same time. If the mimic was an important NPC then wing the story so that his death gives the players some kind of disadvantage in the narrative you made, and let it be known to the players.

[sightlessrealit]

Nobody is saying there shouldn't be any consequences.

It's quite clear that the DM is just pissed off that the players killed off an NPC/monster that he liked and put some effort into making.

Punishing the cleric by giving him disadvantage once day is stupid, makes no sense, and frankly very small-minded. At least let it be a sensible punishment in game mechanical like taking away a spell slot.

But that kind of punishment is foolish. As a DM you have to be prepared to wing it based on the player's actions and the luck of the dice. This isn't a linear adventure. DND has always been about the DM and the players co-authoring a story together.

The best way to handle this is to show consequences for the "mindless killing" that make sense in the narrative. Someone suggested a great way to do it (the mimic was going to give them a password but he can't because it's dead).

There's something beautiful about poetic justice like this, it makes sense, it Isn't about you punishing the players for raining on your parade, and it teaches the adventurers a lesson at the same time. If the mimic was an important NPC then wing the story so that his death gives the players some kind of disadvantage in the narrative you made, and let it be known to the players.

I'll pass.

[Segev]

What, if any, role was the mimic to play if it survived? Did you have plans for it?

[sightlessrealit]

What, if any, role was the mimic to play if it survived? Did you have plans for it?

Oh yes, very much so. It had an established back story, has 2 brothers that the players would have met but now might meet again under "different" circumstances. As to what it would have done had it not been killed. Been a key factor to finding 3 of the 4 unique items the group would find to help aid them in defeating the Big Bad. Among other things.

[Battlebooze]

Screwing with their minds sounds like fun too.
Have them find a valuable book about Mimic physiology. In it, they read that mimics reproduce by spores released at death that grow on organic tissue, the baby mimics sometimes consuming their killers alive. Then the next time they sleep, say they all feel itchy. Don't actually do anything to them, just suggest that something is up.

[Segev]

Oh yes, very much so. It had an established back story, has 2 brothers that the players would have met but now might meet again under "different" circumstances. As to what it would have done had it not been killed. Been a key factor to finding 3 of the 4 unique items the group would find to help aid them in defeating the Big Bad. Among other things.

Do his brothers know how he died? If not, have the party learn of the unique items, but discover that they're being sold by some mimics who are trying to raise money to have their brother resurrected. If so...well, same thing, but now these brothers are hostile and may even spread tales of the murderous PCs.

But as to the alignment thing, definitely talk to them OOC. Explain why you think it was evil. Let them try to justify it; maybe they'll persuade you. If not, just let them know that was not a Good act, and that continuing to act like that could cause them to drift to Neutral and eventually Evil alignment.

[Honest Tiefling]

Screwing with their minds sounds like fun too.
Have them find a valuable book about Mimic physiology. In it, they read that mimics reproduce by spores released at death that grow on organic tissue, the baby mimics sometimes consuming their killers alive. Then the next time they sleep, say they all feel itchy. Don't actually do anything to them, just suggest that something is up.

Admittedly, I sorta like this idea if you pair it with the idea that the book is completely wrong...And possibly written to encourage people to murder mimics and other good aligned but weird looking beasties.

[Knaight]

Oh yes, very much so. It had an established back story, has 2 brothers that the players would have met but now might meet again under "different" circumstances. As to what it would have done had it not been killed. Been a key factor to finding 3 of the 4 unique items the group would find to help aid them in defeating the Big Bad. Among other things.

So all further information is lost, there are two brothers potentially seeking revenge (assuming they figure out what's up), and then there's unspecified other things that are clearly not going to happen. This pretty much takes care of itself.

[Potato_Priest]

Oh yes, very much so. It had an established back story, has 2 brothers that the players would have met but now might meet again under "different" circumstances. As to what it would have done had it not been killed. Been a key factor to finding 3 of the 4 unique items the group would find to help aid them in defeating the Big Bad. Among other things.

Well, unless they display a remarkable amount of initiative, it looks like your players will be going up against the Big bad significantly under-equipped. I'd say that's a pretty good punishment, even if they only find out about it afterwards.

[Telwar]

Well, unless they display a remarkable amount of initiative, it looks like your players will be going up against the Big bad significantly under-equipped. I'd say that's a pretty good punishment, even if they only find out about it afterwards.

Punishment is very much the wrong word.

CONSEQUENCES are fine, and this is one. Missing out on resources, and having enemies that will show up later on are perfectly fine consequences for player actions.

[SharkForce]

Nobody is saying there shouldn't be any consequences.

It's quite clear that the DM is just pissed off that the players killed off an NPC/monster that he liked and put some effort into making.

Punishing the cleric by giving him disadvantage once day is stupid, makes no sense, and frankly very small-minded. At least let it be a sensible punishment in game mechanical like taking away a spell slot.

But that kind of punishment is foolish. As a DM you have to be prepared to wing it based on the player's actions and the luck of the dice. This isn't a linear adventure. DND has always been about the DM and the players co-authoring a story together.

The best way to handle this is to show consequences for the "mindless killing" that make sense in the narrative. Someone suggested a great way to do it (the mimic was going to give them a password but he can't because it's dead).

There's something beautiful about poetic justice like this, it makes sense, it Isn't about you punishing the players for raining on your parade, and it teaches the adventurers a lesson at the same time. If the mimic was an important NPC then wing the story so that his death gives the players some kind of disadvantage in the narrative you made, and let it be known to the players.

how is it more "wise" and "sensible" and "makes sense" to rewrite the campaign to take away something the group was never originally going to get? how is this somehow not punishing the players while having the god show up and say "hey, i'm not the god of brutally murdering innocent harmless creatures" is the worst punishment imaginable? oh please no, not the dreaded "talking to", anything but that... please, arbitrarily rewrite reality so that i feel like i would've gotten something if i just hadn't done something that was an incredibly obvious evil act, that would be *far* less punishing than just mentioning that i shouldn't be murdering things! oh, woe is me, how should i have known that my non-evil god would object to committing one of the most obviously evil acts imaginable?

seriously, this is just nonsense. finding out that the powers your god gave you so that you could further the god's agenda don't work so well when you act *against* the agenda makes sense, and is not a huge punishment, even if the OP did follow through (which they didn't).

pretending that the party was going to get something if they hadn't done the act, and making sure they know they would've gotten that thing (except they were never going to get that thing)? THAT is punishing the players. you are going out of your way to rub their faces in it.

having the cleric's deity be upset at an obvious major transgression against what the deity teaches? that is a reasonable consequence that could plausibly happen (unless the god was the god of murder or something, but contextually we can presume it was not). now, you might disagree with the magnitude of the consequence (frankly, disadvantage once per day doesn't sound that awful to me.

frankly, human society would dictate *far worse* punishment for murder. getting away with slightly less miraculous powers being given sounds pretty generous as a consequence for murder.

[Syll]

how is it more "wise" and "sensible" and "makes sense" to rewrite the campaign to take away something the group was never originally going to get? how is this somehow not punishing the players while having the god show up and say "hey, i'm not the god of brutally murdering innocent harmless creatures" is the worst punishment imaginable? oh please no, not the dreaded "talking to", anything but that... please, arbitrarily rewrite reality so that i feel like i would've gotten something if i just hadn't done something that was an incredibly obvious evil act...
So, you encounter a monster in a dungeon (cave) who swears up and down he's good, eats your most valuable loot, and what, that's it? Best friends forever?

The DM knew this was a good creature, not the players. Rolling an insight check does not grant the party access to the omniscient knowledge of this monster's life story, and they would be foolish to immediately trust a creature whose entire schtick is pretending to be something it is not. "Incredibly obvious evil act" it is not.

In fact, if I were making my paranoia check (1-20, paranoia check is always a success:p )I would think it reasonable to tempt a mimic with loot as a test wether he really could be trusted. Typical 'Frog and the Scorpion' scenario.

"Man, it sucks we lost that golden idol, but it's a good thing we found out he was lying to us now, and not down the road when we got the Macguffin"

EDIT: also, DM already said this mimic was going to lead them to 3 of the 4 objects of power to beat the BBEG, so no reality revision required... it is a natural consequence of their actions

[Vogonjeltz]

They had a conversation with a passive creature that didn't attack them in any way, and they plotted its murder and killed it in cold blood.

That's... bad.

That said, there is no intrinsic reason for anything to happen to them because of that. People get away with doing bad stuff all the time in real life.

I'd argue this is sufficient grounds to alter their alignments towards evil. It's one thing to say that sometimes Lawful Good people do somewhat evil things, or that a single evil act doesn't make a person's entire character that way, but this appears pretty solid.

Murdering a seemingly sapient being that has in no way presented hostility is pretty well grounds for stating that someone is capital E, Evil. Maybe they can change, but the malice and planning that went into it don't buy them much leeway at all.

But don't just change their alignments in the next session, instead have them come across a Gypsy, or a holy person of the Cleric's deity, who agrees to provide them a boon, but contingent upon their passing some rite or other, where the mystic asks them questions about both their character and actions in the recent past.

Have they engaged in violence?
Was the cause just?
Do they regret their actions?

Based on their responses, that's their new alignment, plus if they answer honestly (ask the player if the character is telling the truth, or lying) they get some kind of benefit along the way.

Malifice is correct, some people write X Good on their chart when the character they play is really quite Evil. That's ok! Just hold them to the reality of the situation, not the conceit.

[SharkForce]

So, you encounter a monster in a dungeon (cave) who swears up and down he's good, eats your most valuable loot, and what, that's it? Best friends forever?

The DM knew this was a good creature, not the players. Rolling an insight check does not grant the party access to the omniscient knowledge of this monster's life story, and they would be foolish to immediately trust a creature whose entire schtick is pretending to be something it is not. "Incredibly obvious evil act" it is not.

In fact, if I were making my paranoia check (1-20, paranoia check is always a success:p )I would think it reasonable to tempt a mimic with loot as a test wether he really could be trusted. Typical 'Frog and the Scorpion' scenario.

"Man, it sucks we lost that golden idol, but it's a good thing we found out he was lying to us now, and not down the road when we got the Macguffin"

EDIT: also, DM already said this mimic was going to lead them to 3 of the 4 objects of power to beat the BBEG, so no reality revision required... it is a natural consequence of their actions

they presented the treasure to it. it isn't like it dug around in their backpacks, found their most valuable item, and ate it. they selected the item and presented that item to the mimic. furthermore, eating treasure is not evil. it is, at worst, neutral, certainly no more evil than eating any other inanimate object, and frankly there's an argument to be made that it is less evil than eating animals, which humans do all the time.

furthermore, given they had made checks to try and figure out it was evil, and all those checks came up with "nope, not evil", and it didn't respond with violence to them planning to kill it right in front of it, nor even to them starting to get violent, there is no reason to presume that this mimic is actually evil.

to the best of their knowledge, all signs pointed to this creature not being evil. nothing they had witnessed indicated evil. they just decided to slaughter it. whether they had absolute perfect knowledge or not is irrelevant, they had evidence that the mimic was not evil, and no evidence that the mimic was evil, and they ignored that evidence to kill it. a good person cannot go around murdering other people that they have decided might be bad in spite of the fact that all evidence points to those people being good. had the mimic actually attacked them, and they killed it in self-defense, no problem. had they come across the mimic, and not really had a chance to figure out if it was good or evil before getting in a fight and killing it, well, not exactly a good act, but not evil, just ignorant. but that isn't what happened. they had talked to the mimic, had peaceful interactions with it, found evidence of goodness, and then they killed it.

so yes, that is indeed a blatantly evil act, as murder generally is regardless of whether you were really angry at the time, and regardless of whether you happen to really hate the person you murdered or not.

[Ursus the Grim]

so yes, that is indeed a blatantly evil act, as murder generally is regardless of whether you were really angry at the time, and regardless of whether you happen to really hate the person you murdered or not.

Congratulations. 95% of PCs are now evil. Murder is the unlawful, premeditated killing of a person. If you're extending 'personhood' to an Intelligence 5 Monstrosity, you must also extend it to every goblin, dragon, demon, and doppelganger a PC comes across in their career. Planning to kill an evil demon is just as murderous (even more so, arguably) than killing a good mimic in anger.

[Segev]

Congratulations. 95% of PCs are now evil. Murder is the unlawful, premeditated killing of a person. If you're extending 'personhood' to an Intelligence 5 Monstrosity, you must also extend it to every goblin, dragon, demon, and doppelganger a PC comes across in their career. Planning to kill an evil demon is just as murderous (even more so, arguably) than killing a good mimic in anger.

That's stretching the definition of murder. A lot of what adventurers do is more akin to self defense or war. What makes this situation different is that the monster wasn't...well, doing anything to deserve killing, not EVEN attacking.

[Ursus the Grim]

That's stretching the definition of murder. A lot of what adventurers do is more akin to self defense or war. What makes this situation different is that the monster wasn't...well, doing anything to deserve killing, not EVEN attacking.

No, its really not stretching the definition of murder any more than killing a mimic in anger is. It would be really pedantic to sit here and cite multiple sources for the definition of 'unlawful, premeditated killing of a human being/person.'

I mean, how is it self-defense when adventurers actively seek out these things to slay? Sure, in some instances, they're asked by a legal authority (well, legal to civilization) and in very rare instances, they're explicitly given dispensation to do so - in those instances I suppose its 'akin to war'. But when you think of what the average party does (hunt dragons, exterminate goblins, slay vampires), there's a whole lot of things that are unlawful.

[Unoriginal]

No, its really not stretching the definition of murder any more than killing a mimic in anger is. It would be really pedantic to sit here and cite multiple sources for the definition of 'unlawful, premeditated killing of a human being/person.'

I mean, how is it self-defense when adventurers actively seek out these things to slay? Sure, in some instances, they're asked by a legal authority (well, legal to civilization) and in very rare instances, they're explicitly given dispensation to do so - in those instances I suppose its 'akin to war'. But when you think of what the average party does (hunt dragons, exterminate goblins, slay vampires), there's a whole lot of things that are unlawful.

Most of those beings aren't tranquilly sitting in their home and working their fields. They're either roaming the land and assaulting anything that they find, planning to destroy or enslave others, or are in the middle of another kind of deliberately malevolent scheme or act.

Finding a goblin camp and attacking it is not really different from finding a fort filled with brigands and attacking it.


If the PCs found an old hermit who was nice and polite with them, didn't do anything malevolent as far as the PCs know, and all their investigations shows that the hermit is genuinely a kind person, but then when he sees what the PCs looted in their last treasure hunt he destroys their loot, killing the hermit would not be what a good person would do, yes?

[Ursus the Grim]

Most of those beings aren't tranquilly sitting in their home and working their fields. They're either roaming the land and assaulting anything that they find, planning to destroy or enslave others, or are in the middle of another kind of deliberately malevolent scheme or act.

Finding a goblin camp and attacking it is not really different from finding a fort filled with brigands and attacking it.

Oh aye. I'm not saying its unjust. I'm saying its unlawful. A vigilante who prowls waterdeep, assassinating Zhentarim agents is still a murderer.


If the PCs found an old hermit who was nice and polite with them, didn't do anything malevolent as far as the PCs know, and all their investigations shows that the hermit is genuinely a kind person, but then when he sees what the PCs looted in their last treasure hunt he destroys their loot, killing the hermit would not be what a good person would do, yes?

I never said the PCs committed a 'good' action. I said it wasn't murder, and while its a step towards evil, they made an understandable mistake. You're taking issue with an argument I'm not making.

[Bladeyeoman]

Getting back to the original post, a few questions that you might ask yourself:


1. Was this a truly evil act? It's a bit hard for us to tell, as we weren't there. I've had a lot of fun with NPCs lying, with doppelgangers, etc. Parts of the story make it sound like they were. I started a thread a while back that exploded, all about whether it was moral to kill prisoners (doppelganger, potent spellcaster, etc). It's up to you and the players how realistic you want your world, but the reality is that realistic morals in this kind of world are unlikely to resemble those in our world. This isn't Batman - when a monster or evil NPC escapes to go on a rampage, NPCs who die from said rampage would be alive if the players had killed the monster before. If I introduced my players to an npc or monster who claimed to be good, talked to them for a bit, and their insight checks suggested was being honest, there's a pretty reasonable chance that I am expecting it to do them harm at some point. Certainly they don't have much of a way of knowing. And taking prisoners is not a luxury that everyone has. This is not to say that you're wrong in your judgement call. We weren't there. You were.
2. Whether or not this particular act was Evil, are you comfortable with players making evil acts? Obviously acts have consequences from natural within-game dynamics, but are you uncomfortable with them making evil acts?


I would then have a conversation with your players out of character, maybe before the next session. Explain to them that you had intended the mimic to be a good NPC, and how you viewed their actions. Tell them whether or not you are comfortable with Evil actions (and a general definition of them - for example, I have found that killing prisoners isn't as cut and dried as I would have expected before careful thought). And make it clear to them what sort of non-apparent consequences evil acts will tend to have. (It is NOT clear from the player's handbook how clerics or any other class will be punished for apparent Evil acts, or how deities make such determinations). I wouldn't implement any sort of class-related consequences or godly intervention or such from this incident, since you hadn't had that conversation with them yet.

In general, I think everyone is better off if the players have a clear idea of what you're not okay with in terms of morals, and the consequences of good vs evil acts in your setting and at your table. That way everyone makes decisions with the full knowledge of the general type of consequences, and your decisions don't feel like post-hoc DM fiat.

Obviously there are non-moral consequences from their decision - the mimic is dead, and that influences the game world.

And despite what anyone here says (including me), this is your table, and you and your players get to decide how you do things. We're just all throwing out thoughts/advice. Good luck!

[Bladeyeoman]

And as an addendum, I'm aiming to create some interesting good-aligned NPC (not just on their character sheets, but in their general actions) that will still be antagonists to my good-aligned players. Said antagonists will likely need to be incapacitated, and perhaps justifiably killed. So at least in my world, good alignment does not guarantee that killing the NPC/creature is an evil act (although it obviously depends on their actions and the context) (and in your world this may not be the case).

[Segev]

Two distinct, but not always unrelated, definitions of murder.

One depends on the law. The other depends on moral rights. It is not legally murder for an LE aristocrat to run his personal carriage, heavy with expensive metal adornments, over a passel of refugee children whose parents haven't paid their "right to live" tax that month. However, by moral codes which generally prohibit "murder," it would be considered an evil act. (And D&D's objective morality would agree.)

It is not morally murder for a peasant boy to stab the LE aristocrat's daughter with the stiletto-like hair pin she was holding to his throat to compel compliance while she raped him. That LE society likely would view it as legally murder, however.


We are discussing morality, here, more than ethics, as no question of the L/C axis of alignment has come up. Generally speaking, adventurers aren't going into peaceful homes and slaughtering innocents who just want to live their lives and leave everybody alone. No, they're raiding goblin warcamps, killing bandits that accost them on the road (or hunting those bandits back to their camp to put a stop to their wicked waylaying of wayward wanderers), and killing dragons that have kidnapped princesses and are extorting the kingdom under threat of immolation and famine.

What the party did, according to the OP, is get offended when an NPC who had been nothing but kind to them accepted their gift and ate it rather than...whatever they expected him to do with it. And then they discussed how to kill him. In front of him. While he did nothing but beg them not to.

[NOhara24]

Oh yes, very much so. It had an established back story, has 2 brothers that the players would have met but now might meet again under "different" circumstances. As to what it would have done had it not been killed. Been a key factor to finding 3 of the 4 unique items the group would find to help aid them in defeating the Big Bad. Among other things.

This explains a lot.

Anyway the name of the game here (as I'm sure others have stated...) is to make the reprehension feel connected to the incident versus random. It has two brothers, so how long would brothers B & C be okay without hearing from brother A before they got suspicious and started looking for him? How would they react when they learned he was murdered in cold blood? Likely not peacefully.

Of course then there's the obvious - if the Cleric worships a good-aligned god then this Cleric would likely be on thin ice. I'm not sure how Clerics work in 5e, but in 3.5 most Clerics draw their powers from their god. IMO, if it happens again an alignment change and excommunication from their chosen church wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

EDIT: I just saw your post in page 3 - I think you've got the right idea. Making the Cleric atone for his misdeeds and having the brothers search for him makes logical sense and makes it known to the party that they can't just do as they please without repercussions.

[Dr.Samurai]

What the party did, according to the OP, is get offended when an NPC who had been nothing but kind to them accepted their gift and ate it rather than...whatever they expected him to do with it. And then they discussed how to kill him. In front of him. While he did nothing but beg them not to.
Correct. And then proceeded to carry out that plan and killed him.

I mean... this is just EVIL.

Arguments about personhood seem to miss the point I think. Puppies are not people but you can't just murder one in cold blood because its yipping annoys you.

I'd reveal that the entire cave system is a greater mimic, and their actions displeased it, and now they are trapped in its ever-changing labyrinthine corridors, beset upon by countless mimics that inhabit the gut system of this great mimic. Unable to escape until they are killed by the mimics, crushed in the muscular action of the greater mimics tunnel-gut system, or they die of thirst and hunger.

[Unoriginal]

I think the PCs thought they were just showing the item, and that the Mimic eating it was a surprise.

Still, killing someone like that instead of, I don't know, just demand compensation is not only what a bad person would do, it's also pretty dumb.

[SharkForce]

there's a difference between killing things that are actively threatening you, and killing things that are begging for their life. practically speaking, a number of creatures in the D&D world are in a more or less permanent state of war with the typical adventurer races. which is why if they hadn't interacted peacefully and determined that the mimic was a good creature, I would have said it wasn't really a good act, but also not really evil, because they are ignorant of its unusual nature... you're basically at war with mimics, and they are at war with you, so engaging in war on sight is not evil. (I would describe it as a good act to attempt to determine if those creatures are unusual in that they are not at war with you, provided you don't then just follow up with murdering it regardless of what you determine).

but that isn't what happened. and yes, it is always possible that whatever you're talking to is just better at lying than you are at detecting lies. but here's the thing: good doesn't mean you do what is convenient and easy without regard for moral questions, it means you do what is right. it doesn't mean you respect life but only when it's convenient, it means you respect life even when it isn't convenient, because that's what good is. the more you do that, the more good you are. the less you do that, the less good you are.

for most adventurers, I'd expect them to get away with it. they're in an isolated location with no witnesses, and frankly not many things are going to care that they killed the mimic, and the ones that do care (the brothers) probably don't have any realistic way of finding out who did it (it's always possible one of them can cast speak with dead, but not terribly probable). this particular adventurer, however, is a cleric, apparently of a deity that doesn't approve of this kind of thing. and the deity can know, and indeed has reason to be paying some attention to this particular adventurer and what he's doing with the god's power, and furthermore has reason to discipline the cleric in some way.

again, the cleric is getting off pretty easy at this point. he's committed murder, which generally carries a much harsher punishment than a stern talking to and telling him to make amends. what's more, he committed murder *in his god's name* while using his god's power. he is making his god an accessory to murder. this is not the sort of thing that I would expect a good aligned deity to treat lightly.

[Sigreid]

I would put what you have said above as consequences not punishment, but that semantics. It would also be fair for the cleric to feel a sense of displeasure when using divinition magic until he atones.

I think some of us reacted the way we did because we read punishment and it drew up thoughts of past threads that encourage CSI Faerune to show up, hunt down and execute a party for killing surrendering bandits 1000 miles from the nearest town.

[Segev]

Correct. And then proceeded to carry out that plan and killed him.

I mean... this is just EVIL.

Arguments about personhood seem to miss the point I think. Puppies are not people but you can't just murder one in cold blood because its yipping annoys you. I agree up to here.


I'd reveal that the entire cave system is a greater mimic, and their actions displeased it, and now they are trapped in its ever-changing labyrinthine corridors, beset upon by countless mimics that inhabit the gut system of this great mimic. Unable to escape until they are killed by the mimics, crushed in the muscular action of the greater mimics tunnel-gut system, or they die of thirst and hunger.This, however, is DM vindictiveness, not setting-based consequences. I don't recommend it. If you have to CHANGE something about what "is" in the setting, it's not consequences; it's punishment from the DM. At which point, you're not really letting them play the game. You may as well say, "No, your character doesn't do that. He does this instead," for all the good it does your game.

[Beelzebubba]

Congratulations. 95% of PCs are now evil.

You're not wrong... :smallamused:


Planning to kill an evil demon is just as murderous (even more so, arguably) than killing a good mimic in anger.

...well, until this part anyway.

[Beelzebubba]

Destroying treasure is only an evil act to those consumed by greed.

They're either pathologically greedy, or just missed an opportunity to laugh at their own stupidity by giving a precious possession to an alien being they just met.

[Segev]

I think a lot hinges on this treasure destruction. As I understand it, they GAVE it to the mimic. What he did with it from that point on in theory should have been his business. It's not like they would have seen it again unless he used it in their line of sight.

Others seem to think they just showed it to him, and the mimic maliciously (or out of some confused mistake) ate it.

In the former case, their reaction is one of people who are offended at what was done with a gift they gave. It assumes a right to dictate how somebody is to use said gift, which belies it actually being a gift. That the response to this offense is carefully meditated murder is the stuff of terrifying villainy.

In the latter case, the fact that they didn't give the mimic any chance to apologize, to offer to make amends, etc., while they're discussing its murder right in front of it and it is trying to avoid getting murdered, is also pretty terrifying and cruel. It's valuing wealth over life.

Would they have murdered a street rat who stole this item from them and accidentally broke it when they chased him? Stealing isn't right, by any means, but is it really worthy of a death sentence?

[Vogonjeltz]

Congratulations. 95% of PCs are now evil. Murder is the unlawful, premeditated killing of a person. If you're extending 'personhood' to an Intelligence 5 Monstrosity, you must also extend it to every goblin, dragon, demon, and doppelganger a PC comes across in their career. Planning to kill an evil demon is just as murderous (even more so, arguably) than killing a good mimic in anger.

Maybe 95% of your characters attack and kill things that don't in any way threaten them or someone else.

I can't even recall a single instance where I've played a character who outright attacked and killed another non-threatening creature.

Most of the things you mentioned are prone to attacking and waylaying PCs or NPCs on sight themselves. Fighting and killing in self defense (or to protect innocent third parties) are explicitly not murder.

Planning to kill an evil Demon probably revolves around the fact the Demon just sacrificed some orphans to its dark master, which puts it flatly in the realm of bringing a killer to justice themselves, not murder.

[sightlessrealit]

Just some bits on the players

Cleric is Neutral Good Light domain & their Deity is Lathander

Rogue is Chaotic Neutral but see's Cleric as their moral compass so will follow what they decide to do. Is greedy for "personal" reasons

Barbarian is Chaotic Good was meta gaming to not want to fight the mimic but followed the crowd

Bard is Chaotic Neutral & didn't care either way

They also were found out by the person who was captured and held prisoner.

[Syll]

I think a lot hinges on this treasure destruction. As I understand it, they GAVE it to the mimic. What he did with it from that point on in theory should have been his business. It's not like they would have seen it again unless he used it in their line of sight.

Others seem to think they just showed it to him, and the mimic maliciously (or out of some confused mistake) ate it.

In the former case, their reaction is one of people who are offended at what was done with a gift they gave. It assumes a right to dictate how somebody is to use said gift, which belies it actually being a gift. That the response to this offense is carefully meditated murder is the stuff of terrifying villainy.

In the latter case, the fact that they didn't give the mimic any chance to apologize, to offer to make amends, etc., while they're discussing its murder right in front of it and it is trying to avoid getting murdered, is also pretty terrifying and cruel. It's valuing wealth over life.

Would they have murdered a street rat who stole this item from them and accidentally broke it when they chased him? Stealing isn't right, by any means, but is it really worthy of a death sentence?
the quote from the OP on the matter was
The treasure it had eaten wasn't the only treasure they had found just the most expensive(though it boggles my mind as to why they would present such a thing to a mimic in the first place good or otherwise). The mimic simply in that instance acted out of natural instinct.

I read this as displaying the treasure to the mimic, not -make a present of the thing- to the mimic.

Maybe this is just unique to the tables I've played at, but the line between OOC chatter and IC chatter can get very blurry, very quick. I would hazard a guess this is a case of them having a metagame discussion on killing the mimic, not an in character one, directly in front of it.


Getting back to the original post, a few questions that you might ask yourself:


1. If I introduced my players to an npc or monster who claimed to be good, talked to them for a bit, and their insight checks suggested was being honest, there's a pretty reasonable chance that I am expecting it to do them harm at some point. Certainly they don't have much of a way of knowing. And taking prisoners is not a luxury that everyone has. This is not to say that you're wrong in your judgement call. We weren't there. You were.


This mirrors all my experiences with a DM insisting "No you guys, this monster is totally not evil.."

[sightlessrealit]

the quote from the OP on the matter was

I read this as displaying the treasure to the mimic, not -make a present of the thing- to the mimic.

Maybe this is just unique to the tables I've played at, but the line between OOC chatter and IC chatter can get very blurry, very quick. I would hazard a guess this is a case of them having a metagame discussion on killing the mimic, not an in character one, directly in front of it.


This mirrors all my experiences with a DM insisting "No you guys, this monster is totally not evil.."

Nah they were definitely role playing the discussion.

[SharkForce]

the quote from the OP on the matter was

[these boards don't nest quotes so the quote isn't here]

I read this as displaying the treasure to the mimic, not -make a present of the thing- to the mimic.

Maybe this is just unique to the tables I've played at, but the line between OOC chatter and IC chatter can get very blurry, very quick. I would hazard a guess this is a case of them having a metagame discussion on killing the mimic, not an in character one, directly in front of it.

but why would they just show the item to the mimic? i mean, do you walk around randomly showing people hundred dollar bills?

[Syll]

they presented the treasure to it. it isn't like it dug around in their backpacks, found their most valuable item, and ate it. they selected the item and presented that item to the mimic. furthermore, eating treasure is not evil. it is, at worst, neutral, certainly no more evil than eating any other inanimate object, and frankly there's an argument to be made that it is less evil than eating animals, which humans do all the time.

furthermore, given they had made checks to try and figure out it was evil, and all those checks came up with "nope, not evil", and it didn't respond with violence to them planning to kill it right in front of it, nor even to them starting to get violent, there is no reason to presume that this mimic is actually evil.

to the best of their knowledge, all signs pointed to this creature not being evil. nothing they had witnessed indicated evil. they just decided to slaughter it. whether they had absolute perfect knowledge or not is irrelevant, they had evidence that the mimic was not evil, and no evidence that the mimic was evil, and they ignored that evidence to kill it. a good person cannot go around murdering other people that they have decided might be bad in spite of the fact that all evidence points to those people being good. had the mimic actually attacked them, and they killed it in self-defense, no problem. had they come across the mimic, and not really had a chance to figure out if it was good or evil before getting in a fight and killing it, well, not exactly a good act, but not evil, just ignorant. but that isn't what happened. they had talked to the mimic, had peaceful interactions with it, found evidence of goodness, and then they killed it.

so yes, that is indeed a blatantly evil act, as murder generally is regardless of whether you were really angry at the time, and regardless of whether you happen to really hate the person you murdered or not.

The DM already said they have no idea why the party decided to display this treasure to the mimic. My guess of using it as a litmus test is as good a reason as any in the absence of the DM asking the party, and relaying their reasons.

I don't consider skill checks as 'evidence' of anything; I am not suggesting, though, that this was a good and just action for them to take, just that it was not 'blatantly evil act'. I'd wager it would have played out differently if it was a small child who broke their item, rather than a monstrosity eating it.

Encountering a monster in a dungeon full of monsters, who likely witnessed them just kill said dungeon full of monsters (and thus knows it is not in its interest to provoke them), and who subsequently ate their loot is not the best scenario to present the one LG mimic the world has ever seen to the party. (Assuming mimics in OPs setting are typically not good)

That doesn't make it right, just not black-and-white 'blatantly evil' from my perspective.

[Syll]

Nah they were definitely role playing the discussion.

Ah. Well, yeah that's pretty terrible of them.

[SharkForce]

The DM already said they have no idea why the party decided to display this treasure to the mimic. My guess of using it as a litmus test is as good a reason as any in the absence of the DM asking the party, and relaying their reasons.

I don't consider skill checks as 'evidence' of anything; I am not suggesting, though, that this was a good and just action for them to take, just that it was not 'blatantly evil act'. I'd wager it would have played out differently if it was a small child who broke their item, rather than a monstrosity eating it.

Encountering a monster in a dungeon full of monsters, who likely witnessed them just kill said dungeon full of monsters (and thus knows it is not in its interest to provoke them), and who subsequently ate their loot is not the best scenario to present the one LG mimic the world has ever seen to the party. (Assuming mimics in OPs setting are typically not good)

That doesn't make it right, just not black-and-white 'blatantly evil' from my perspective.

if you make efforts to determine whether something is friendly or not, conclude that it is friendly, and then proceed to murder it, that is blatantly evil. i don't care if you're not 100% certain. all the evidence you had available was that it was not evil, none of the evidence available showed that it was evil. if you then ignore the evidence because you find the evidence inconvenient, well, that's evil. i almost said i'm sorry, but on further reflection, i'm not. if you have evidence that someone is harmless and guiltless, and then you choose to ignore that evidence and slaughter them because it is more convenient for you to ignore the evidence than it is to give it any real consideration, you are evil. you have valued your convenience above someone else's life, and that is evil.

if the party had no evidence one way or the other, then like i said, they're basically in a perpetual state of war with mimics by default, so acting under the assumption that the mimic is a threat is neither good nor evil, it's self-defense (and if you have reason to believe that it has in fact harmed others without just cause and you're stepping in to prevent it from harming others, it can even be a good act). but as soon as they have evidence that the mimic is not a threat? you can no longer call it neither good or evil to kill it. before you had evidence of friendliness, it would have been a terrible mistake to attack the mimic, but not evil, even if the mimic had died. once you have evidence of friendliness, that changes everything, and it is now evil to try and kill it, regardless of whether you like the mimic or not.

[Unoriginal]

Did the Mimic offer to repay the group because he couldn't control himself and damaged their expensive goods?

[Spore]

I am starting to become angry because sightlessrealit is just ignoring one side of the argument. Face it, you don't want advice, you just want a bunch of internet people to confirm you because you KNOW that punishing the players is petty and is a bad choice. To the people not wanting to punish wanton murder? It could be punished if the creature was under any jurisdiction and the deed was witnessed by anyone who would confess. Both are unlikely.

And for the brothers: How do these relate? Mimics to me are results of magical (or alchemical) experiments to give household objects sentience. Even if it's "brothers" are just made by the same alchemist/mage, there is no blood bond or relationsship between these. I feel mimic brothers is just a weird concept that doesn't fit in a campaign that serious that you would consider punishing players for killing silly monsters.

Face it, the players ruined one of your toys, a maybe loved NPC of yours before realizing its backstory. This is going to happen several times. In fact they may just kill the mimic brothers on sight because "once they tried to steal from me". Do yourself a favor and ignore any and all alignment. Have the cleric be vaguely within his belief and just have other clergy members confront him if they have info from higher up that he is abusing his divine powers. Honestly, this crap isn't worth discussing 5 pages over.

[Dr.Samurai]

This, however, is DM vindictiveness, not setting-based consequences. I don't recommend it. If you have to CHANGE something about what "is" in the setting, it's not consequences; it's punishment from the DM. At which point, you're not really letting them play the game. You may as well say, "No, your character doesn't do that. He does this instead," for all the good it does your game.
Agreed, I wasn't being serious lol. Though I should say this type of player mentality is annoying to me. I wouldn't enjoy playing alongside psychopaths for very long as a player, and as a DM it is wholly uninteresting to me to craft a world so that simpletons can kill their way through every interaction.

[Laurefindel]

Nothing good will come out of *punishing* the characters. You are not their dad, nor a law enforcer. All it will do is increase distrust between players and DM, and destroy the feeling that a RPG is a game they is played together in a group of friends.

Instead you should have the characters face the concequences of their actions within the frame of the world you play in, with as little bias as possible. It may come out as similar but there is a huge philosophical difference as stated before.

But most importantly, there seems to be a disconnect between the play style you want and that of the players, which should be addressed out of game in a group discussion ASAP.

[War_lord]

Never ever "punish" your players, for anything. If you're talking in terms of "punishment" that indicates that you sightlessrealit are angry at your players for killing your pet NPC, (I would argue a DM should never have a pet NPC) that's an out of game problem, that needs to be addressed by actually talking to your players about your expectations for the game.

[sightlessrealit]

I am starting to become angry because sightlessrealit is just ignoring one side of the argument. Face it, you don't want advice, you just want a bunch of internet people to confirm you because you KNOW that punishing the players is petty and is a bad choice. To the people not wanting to punish wanton murder? It could be punished if the creature was under any jurisdiction and the deed was witnessed by anyone who would confess. Both are unlikely.

And for the brothers: How do these relate? Mimics to me are results of magical (or alchemical) experiments to give household objects sentience. Even if it's "brothers" are just made by the same alchemist/mage, there is no blood bond or relationsship between these. I feel mimic brothers is just a weird concept that doesn't fit in a campaign that serious that you would consider punishing players for killing silly monsters.

Face it, the players ruined one of your toys, a maybe loved NPC of yours before realizing its backstory. This is going to happen several times. In fact they may just kill the mimic brothers on sight because "once they tried to steal from me". Do yourself a favor and ignore any and all alignment. Have the cleric be vaguely within his belief and just have other clergy members confront him if they have info from higher up that he is abusing his divine powers. Honestly, this crap isn't worth discussing 5 pages over.

Your starting too? Good, get even more angry. Cause, guess what I am looking at both sides of the argument. However, your making a very biased look at me.

One, I'm not this super ultra salty angry GM who's pissed cause his Pet NPC was killed. I very much enjoy the antics my players get themselves into & the experience we have is pretty chill & loose. When they did kill Sir Mimicsworth the 3rd I wasn't angry at them. Just really sad. I understand murder hobo's are a thing & I know meta gaming is a thing. And I hate that I have to punish them for the act but it's something that has to be done.

Two, there's been a very huge misunderstanding because of the my personal definition of a word. Punishment for me = Consequences. Every post that has separated these two I'v simply ignored(in the sense I'm not bothering to respond to them)

Three, oh cool that's how mimics are normally. But my campaign isn't normal.

Four, I'm not going to ignore alignment.

[MadBear]

And I hate that I have to punish them for the act but it's something that has to be done.


That is 100% incorrect. It isn't at all something that "has to be done". It's something you "want" to do. It's a petty decision on your part.

You can dance around that fact all you want, but at the end of the day, you're being petty, which if you're players are good with, that's ok. Just don't be surprised if you keep this mindset of "I just had to punish my players" that soon you'll find yourself all alone without anyone to play with.

[Spellbreaker26]

Two, there's been a very huge misunderstanding because of the my personal definition of a word. Punishment for me = Consequences. Every post that has separated these two I'v simply ignored(in the sense I'm not bothering to respond to them)

Three, oh cool that's how mimics are normally. But my campaign isn't normal.



First of all, there is a commonly accepted terminological difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment refers to a consequence that is not internally consistent with the game world. For example, the mimic's brothers refusing to help if they find out would be a consequence, not a punishment. A never-before-seen wizard teleporting in and avenging the mimic by cursing the cleric is a punishment. There's some grey area between the two but it's an important distinction that all we DMs should recognise. You already have an excellent consequence built in to your campaign (the mimic brothers) without having to introduce anything else so I think you have your solution there without having to do anything to the players directly.

Secondly, in terms of killing certain monsters on sight, that is something DMs need to make clear before the campaign starts; for example whether dragons are shoot-on-sight or redeemable. I'm guessing this wouldn't have mattered to your players, since the mimic hadn't actually tried to attack them, but it is something to keep in mind. Mimics are not only usually in-game evil, like demons, they are also one of the most likely creature to invoke a "kill it with fire" response from real life players because they are so dangerous (see mimic chests in Dark Souls). I doubt a redeemed orc, for example, would have been beaten to death. Since mimics are one of the most dangerous tools in a DM's arsenal I'm honestly surprised that they didn't smash it on sight before it even got out a word.

(P.S. I heavily advise not doing "you have bad dreams" or "you feel guilty". It's up to the characters whether they feel guilty or not; emotions are one of the areas that DMs have absolutely no sway in)

[sightlessrealit]

That is 100% incorrect. It isn't at all something that "has to be done". It's something you "want" to do. It's a petty decision on your part.

You can dance around that fact all you want, but at the end of the day, you're being petty, which if you're players are good with, that's ok. Just don't be surprised if you keep this mindset of "I just had to punish my players" that soon you'll find yourself all alone without anyone to play with.

To put this simply. Nope.

[sightlessrealit]

First of all, there is a commonly accepted terminological difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment refers to a consequence that is not internally consistent with the game world. For example, the mimic's brothers refusing to help if they find out would be a consequence, not a punishment. A never-before-seen wizard teleporting in and avenging the mimic by cursing the cleric is a punishment. There's some grey area between the two but it's an important distinction that all we DMs should recognise. You already have an excellent consequence built in to your campaign (the mimic brothers) without having to introduce anything else so I think you have your solution there without having to do anything to the players directly.

Secondly, in terms of killing certain monsters on sight, that is something DMs need to make clear before the campaign starts; for example whether dragons are shoot-on-sight or redeemable. I'm guessing this wouldn't have mattered to your players, since the mimic hadn't actually tried to attack them, but it is something to keep in mind. Mimics are not only usually in-game evil, like demons, they are also one of the most likely creature to invoke a "kill it with fire" response from real life players because they are so dangerous (see mimic chests in Dark Souls). I doubt a redeemed orc, for example, would have been beaten to death. Since mimics are one of the most dangerous tools in a DM's arsenal I'm honestly surprised that they didn't smash it on sight before it even got out a word.

(P.S. I heavily advise not doing "you have bad dreams" or "you feel guilty". It's up to the characters whether they feel guilty or not; emotions are one of the areas that DMs have absolutely no sway in)
Again, the two words to me mean exactly the same thing.

[War_lord]

An NPC monster destroyed a valuable possession belonging to the players. In response they killed it, what part of that is metagaming exactly? If anything, you're metagaming by trying to create some chain of events that brings a "punishment" upon the players for doing something you didn't want them to do. And no, punishment and consequences are not the same thing. Punishment is the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense. Consequences are the direct result of an action.

Characters experience consequences, which is fine. Players are punished, inevitably leading to a broken group, because no one wants to play a game with a person who feels the need to "punish" them for playing "wrong". And no, you don't "need" to punish them, you've decided to. On some level you know it's the wrong action to take, and you're trying to offload it onto something or someone other then you.

[Segev]

Again, the two words to me mean exactly the same thing.

I'm afraid you're wrong, then. Because they don't mean the same thing.

Consider it this way: If the party rescues a princess and she, in gratitude, gifts them with noble titles and magic items, is that punishment?

It is a consequence.

[sightlessrealit]

I'm afraid you're wrong, then. Because they don't mean the same thing.

Consider it this way: If the party rescues a princess and she, in gratitude, gifts them with noble titles and magic items, is that punishment?

It is a consequence.

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

[Laurefindel]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

The words don't mean the same, whether you are ready to admit it or not. It matters because language is what we use to have a conversation. If words are going to have different meanings 'to me', we're not going to be able to communicate.

Thing is, I don't disagree with your players being first class a-holes in this situation, but the *punishment* part comes to me as the bigger wrong. This is not a case of bad-wrong-fun, this is a case of how a person treats its friends.

[Honest Tiefling]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

Okay, but you can't complain when people are getting the wrong idea of your actions and intent, because you refuse to communicate clearly. If you continue to use a word in a way that 1) doesn't mean that and 2) most people in the context in which you use it don't think it means that, then you are being very confusing.

[Segev]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

It's as much a matter of you being wrong as if you told me that "vitamin" and "poison" meant the same thing to you, so when you spoke of giving your children poison every morning, it was fine.

[sightlessrealit]

It's as much a matter of you being wrong as if you told me that "vitamin" and "poison" meant the same thing to you, so when you spoke of giving your children poison every morning, it was fine.

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

[Asmotherion]

Xp penalty for that encounter and advance their alignment one step towards evil (with +100 being good and -100 evil.

[sightlessrealit]

Xp penalty for that encounter and advance their alignment one step towards evil (with +100 being good and -100 evil.

Hmm, that's interesting, Night of the Old Republic style Alignments. I may implement this. Not sure about the XP penalty though.

[hamishspence]

An NPC monster destroyed a valuable possession belonging to the players. In response they killed it, what part of that is metagaming exactly?

Did it belong to them? Or had they gifted it to the mimic, and did not appreciate it destroying their gift - believing that death was appropriate for what they perceived as ingratitude?

[GPS]

how is it more "wise" and "sensible" and "makes sense" to rewrite the campaign to take away something the group was never originally going to get? how is this somehow not punishing the players while having the god show up and say "hey, i'm not the god of brutally murdering innocent harmless creatures" is the worst punishment imaginable? oh please no, not the dreaded "talking to", anything but that... please, arbitrarily rewrite reality so that i feel like i would've gotten something if i just hadn't done something that was an incredibly obvious evil act, that would be *far* less punishing than just mentioning that i shouldn't be murdering things! oh, woe is me, how should i have known that my non-evil god would object to committing one of the most obviously evil acts imaginable?

seriously, this is just nonsense. finding out that the powers your god gave you so that you could further the god's agenda don't work so well when you act *against* the agenda makes sense, and is not a huge punishment, even if the OP did follow through (which they didn't).

pretending that the party was going to get something if they hadn't done the act, and making sure they know they would've gotten that thing (except they were never going to get that thing)? THAT is punishing the players. you are going out of your way to rub their faces in it.

having the cleric's deity be upset at an obvious major transgression against what the deity teaches? that is a reasonable consequence that could plausibly happen (unless the god was the god of murder or something, but contextually we can presume it was not). now, you might disagree with the magnitude of the consequence (frankly, disadvantage once per day doesn't sound that awful to me.

frankly, human society would dictate *far worse* punishment for murder. getting away with slightly less miraculous powers being given sounds pretty generous as a consequence for murder.
Isn't this the main advantage clerics have over paladins though, that in 5e they can't fall or have powers takes away unless they mess with members of their church?


Congratulations. 95% of PCs are now evil. Murder is the unlawful, premeditated killing of a person. If you're extending 'personhood' to an Intelligence 5 Monstrosity, you must also extend it to every goblin, dragon, demon, and doppelganger a PC comes across in their career. Planning to kill an evil demon is just as murderous (even more so, arguably) than killing a good mimic in anger.
That's another thing. In 5e, isn't Into of 6 the min for sentience, or is it 3. I forget.

[Segev]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

I'm honestly unsure. Are you trolling? Surely you realize that deliberately bad communication is only going to create confusion and frustration for anybody who isn't deriving enjoyment from that confusion.



Regardless, I will ask this instead: do you actually want any advice or suggestions at this point? If so, on what?

[GPS]

I am starting to become angry because sightlessrealit is just ignoring one side of the argument. Face it, you don't want advice, you just want a bunch of internet people to confirm you because you KNOW that punishing the players is petty and is a bad choice. To the people not wanting to punish wanton murder? It could be punished if the creature was under any jurisdiction and the deed was witnessed by anyone who would confess. Both are unlikely.

And for the brothers: How do these relate? Mimics to me are results of magical (or alchemical) experiments to give household objects sentience. Even if it's "brothers" are just made by the same alchemist/mage, there is no blood bond or relationsship between these. I feel mimic brothers is just a weird concept that doesn't fit in a campaign that serious that you would consider punishing players for killing silly monsters.

Face it, the players ruined one of your toys, a maybe loved NPC of yours before realizing its backstory. This is going to happen several times. In fact they may just kill the mimic brothers on sight because "once they tried to steal from me". Do yourself a favor and ignore any and all alignment. Have the cleric be vaguely within his belief and just have other clergy members confront him if they have info from higher up that he is abusing his divine powers. Honestly, this crap isn't worth discussing 5 pages over.
I'm starting to feel this way too. OP, you've spent the past few pages basically saying no to anyone who disagreed with you in one line responses. It's OK, everyone makes threads for validation, but at a certain point you have to admit to yourself they killed your pet mimic, and that that's why this is a "punishment" thread, not a "consequence" thread.

[Millstone85]

Did it belong to them? Or had they gifted it to the mimic, and did not appreciate it destroying their gift - believing that death was appropriate for what they perceived as ingratitude?I still find this chain of events very unlikely.

I wish we knew more about the characters' intentions, but maybe the OP really has no idea why they presented treasure to the mimic, or maybe the OP is ignoring this matter too as irrelevant.

[hamishspence]

Maybe they somehow thought the Mimic would be an "item-identifying NPC" like Deckard Cain in the Diablo series?

[GPS]

The question we should really be asking is whether OP told them before the campaign started that years of accepted conventions like mimics being evil kill on sight monsters would no longer apply

[Millstone85]

Maybe they somehow thought the Mimic would be an "item-identifying NPC" like Deckard Cain in the Diablo series?I can think of some how.

Unidentified treasure would likely be from the same dungeon the mimic was encountered in.


The question we should really be asking is whether OP told them before the campaign started that years of accepted conventions like mimics being evil kill on sight monsters would no longer applyIt is worth asking again.

Though another question would be: What did the players know about their characters' knowledge of mimics?

[GPS]

I can think of some how.

Unidentified treasure would likely be from the same dungeon the mimic was encountered in.

It is worth asking again.

Though another question would be: What did the players know about their characters' knowledge of mimics?

Actually, yeah, that's a pretty important question. That would influence a lot, didn't even think of that.

[SharkForce]

Again, the two words to me mean exactly the same thing.

fwiw, this is an example where you probably should take this particular feedback. punishment and consequences are most frequently used to mean different things, and you're only going to confuse people if you use them the same way.

not that it justifies someone reading the subject line, jumping to the end of the thread, and pitching a hissy fit over the word punishment, mind you, but it is something that is going to happen if you keep doing that. it is, essentially, a consequence of using the word punishment when you mean consequence :P

edit: actually, in 5e, paladins are the ones that don't answer to gods (usually... i think forgotten realms has a special rule that paladins, druids, and rangers all have to gain their spells from a specific god, but that might just be a 3.x rule).

clerics don't necessarily have to answer to their church (although they might), and their powers never come from the church, but from the god. the high priest of pelor doesn't make you a cleric; pelor makes you a cleric. in fact, the high priest of pelor may not actually even be a cleric at all.

[Unoriginal]

The question we should really be asking is whether OP told them before the campaign started that years of accepted conventions like mimics being evil kill on sight monsters would no longer apply

The whole encounter established this Mimic was friendly. Then it ate their loot, and they decided to kill it.

What I'm wondering is what the Mimic did when it realized it did a massive jerk move by eating the loot

[GPS]

The whole encounter established this Mimic was friendly. Then it ate their loot, and they decided to kill it.

What I'm wondering is what the Mimic did when it realized it did a massive jerk move by eating the loot
Also true. If it's a **** to the party members and eats their stuff just to be cute without showing any remorse afterwards, I would have killed it on site. If that's the case, can anyone really blame them? A supposedly good mimic eating stuff just to be cute is like a kender stealing stuff just to be cute, gotta kill it unless it offered some kind of apology and repayment. If it does dumb stuff with no consequences just to be cute, it's a pet NPC that you want to punish the PC'd for killing.

[Dr.Samurai]

The question we should really be asking is whether OP told them before the campaign started that years of accepted conventions like mimics being evil kill on sight monsters would no longer apply
3.5E Mimic Alignment --> Usually Neutral
5E Mimic Alignment --> Neutral

You know what else isn't a part of "years of accepted convention"? Having a peaceful conversation with a mimic that ends in you presenting a magical item to it as a gift. You know what else isn't part of "years of accepted convention"? A mimic begging not to be killed and being beaten to death without defending itself.

At some point the players might take a step back from metagaming and react appropriately to what is actually happening in the game. Though, if they were to metagame in the way you suggest they'd still be wrong because mimics aren't evil. Is there a term for when someone is "metagaming" but their knowledge of the game is ****?

Also true. If it's a **** to the party members and eats their stuff just to be cute without showing any remorse afterwards, I would have killed it on site. If that's the case, can anyone really blame them? A supposedly good mimic eating stuff just to be cute is like a kender stealing stuff just to be cute, gotta kill it unless it offered some kind of apology and repayment. If it does dumb stuff with no consequences just to be cute, it's a pet NPC that you want to punish the PC'd for killing.
Hmm... ate the magic item with no remorse, didn't apologize, did a dumb act... surely this goes against the "years of accepted convention" that mimics are geniuses! Surely the DM is playing *against* the creature's stats JUST to be a vindictive ******* and "punish" his players! Oh wait... mimics have an Intelligence of 5. Whups!

You can argue about what the appropriate course of action is for what the players did, but there is simply NO ARGUMENT that what they did wasn't wrong.

[GPS]

3.5E Mimic Alignment --> Usually Neutral
5E Mimic Alignment --> Neutral

You know what else isn't a part of "years of accepted convention"? Having a peaceful conversation with a mimic that ends in you presenting a magical item to it as a gift. You know what else isn't part of "years of accepted convention"? A mimic begging not to be killed and being beaten to death without defending itself.

At some point the players might take a step back from metagaming and react appropriately to what is actually happening in the game. Though, if they were to metagame in the way you suggest they'd still be wrong because mimics aren't evil. Is there a term for when someone is "metagaming" but their knowledge of the game is ****?

Hmm... ate the magic item with no remorse, didn't apologize, did a dumb act... surely this goes against the "years of accepted convention" that mimics are geniuses! Surely the DM is playing *against* the creature's stats JUST to be a vindictive ******* and "punish" his players! Oh wait... mimics have an Intelligence of 5. Whups!

You can argue about what the appropriate course of action is for what the players did, but there is simply NO ARGUMENT that what they did wasn't wrong.

Wait, if 5 or above is human-like intelligence, why can't the mimic feel remorse or offer to fix it's ****ty mistake? It doesn't take a genius not to be a piece of ****, despite popular belief. If a mimic has the int to beg you not to kill it, it has the int to beg you for forgiveness. If you had to be smart not to be an *******, imagine what the world of d&d would be like.

Yeah, with the conventions thing I was referring to general fantasy, and was hella wrong for d&d. My bad. They're still widely accepted kill-on-site monsters, but not evil ones in d&d apparently. Doesn't have to be evil aligned to be a kill-on-site monster.

I never argued their actions were right, I just said I wouldn't blame them. I would have killed that mimic whether or not it meant an alignment change, with extreme prejudice. Eating a loot item is enough to demand the death sentence for a monster, I'm sorry.

[Syll]

3.5E Mimic Alignment --> Usually Neutral
5E Mimic Alignment --> Neutral

You know what else isn't a part of "years of accepted convention"? Having a peaceful conversation with a mimic that ends in you presenting a magical item to it as a gift..

I don't think OP ever said it was magical. And showing you this shiny thing I found doesn't mean I'm gifting it to you.

[Millstone85]

Is there a term for when someone is "metagaming" but their knowledge of the game is ****?I think metagaming is metagaming, regardless of the quality of the player's knowledge.

Though, in this case, it might have been table-metagaming, as opposed to book-metagaming. The MM might say the creature is neutral, but I wonder how often it gets used as something other than a deceitful predator.


Oh wait... mimics have an Intelligence of 5. Whups!Interesting. In 4e, the object mimic was Int 19 and jumped to Int 26 as it matured into an impersonator mimic.

[GPS]

I think metagaming is metagaming, regardless of the quality of the player's knowledge.

Though, in this case, it might have been table-metagaming, as opposed to book-metagaming. The MM might say the creature is neutral, but I wonder how often it gets used as something other than a deceitful predator.

Interesting. In 4e, the object mimic was Int 19 and jumped to Int 26 as it matured into an impersonator mimic.
Yeah, I've never seen the mimic used as anything other than a trap. It's weird why they'd choose to make it neutral.

Mimics were also int 10 in 3.5e, so I'm not sure where Dr. Samurai's long convention of them being idiots comes from. Either way, again, if it has enough int to beg for mercy, it must have had enough int to beg for forgiveness.

[Spellbreaker26]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

The fact that you not only don't know the difference but have repeatedly refused to acknowledge it when it's being pointed out to you is hugely important, since it means you're either unable or unwilling to create a dividing line between your role as GM and the temptation to try and make players do what you want them to. Without that distinction this thread is meaningless since you're going to run into serious, serious problems somewhere down the line regardless of what you do in this specific situation.

[sightlessrealit]

The treasure they presented to the mimic wasn't magical & I assume the party meant for him to identify it. Obvious it didn't because it ate it. It also didn't apologies because they presented it to him in the same fashion as the previous residents of the cave had when they would feed him. The group had also given the mimic one the residents they had killed prior to this to eat. Once the group realized the treasure wasn't coming back was when they started to plan to kill it while in front of it.

That should clear that up.

[Syll]

Yeah, I've never seen the mimic used as anything other than a trap. It's weird why they'd choose to make it neutral.


Doesn't really strike me as evil, honestly, its just a predator. I think of them as like a trap-door spider


The group had also given the mimic one the residents they had killed prior to this to eat.


Eating goblin corpses doesn't really project an image of LG either. I recognize that's projecting societal norms on to a creature that's incompatible with those norms, but still.

[GPS]

The treasure they presented to the mimic wasn't magical & I assume the party meant for him to identify it. Obvious it didn't because it ate it. It also didn't apologies because they presented it to him in the same fashion as the previous residents of the cave had when they would feed him. The group had also given the mimic one the residents they had killed prior to this to eat. Once the group realized the treasure wasn't coming back was when they started to plan to kill it while in front of it.

That should clear that up.
Ah, my bad, thanks. Sorry about that Dr. Samurai, I can be kind of a ****. In that case, the party should really have asked the mimic why it ate their stuff before killing it. Them planning to kill it in front of it reminds me of myself...before an alignment shift. Seriously, that's pretty evil, premeditating murder in front of the mark. That should definitely switch alignment to neutral or put them on the edge of neutral. Clerics in 5e don't really get powers taken away, but having their god give them a stern talking to is a good idea.

[Millstone85]

It's weird why they'd choose to make it neutral.It could be that "neutral" sometimes means "unaligned, but with above beast-like intelligence". Or what TV Tropes would call blue and orange morality. Basically, there is nothing in a mimic that would see humanoids as anything but food, except for the humanoid currently being digested.

Conversely, the party might not have cared about the mimic's alignment. It is a man-eating monster, to be slain at the first sign that it won't play along.

[GPS]

It could be that "neutral" sometimes means "unaligned, but with above beast-like intelligence". Or what TV Tropes would call blue and orange morality. Basically, there is nothing in a mimic that would see humanoids as anything but food, except for the humanoid currently being digested.

Conversely, the party might not have cared about the mimic's alignment. It is a man-eating monster, to be slain at the first sign that it won't play along.
Like yeah, I would still kill it, but premeditating it's murder in front of it was a pretty bad move. I would still kill it, but I wouldn't expect my alignment not to be shifted.

Actually, a question that might have some influence, did the mimic explain to it that people fed it loot? It had time to explain while they planned it's murder in front of it. If they didn't know, then that's an easy mistake to make. If it was explained to them and they ignored it, that's pretty bad form on the party's part.

[Dr.Samurai]

Gah! Too many ninjas posting while I type!!!

At least some stuff got cleared up :smallsmile:.

My point about convention isn't that mimics have always been stupid, but rather that you can't go by "convention".

Most of us here would have assumed they were devious evil deceitful trap monsters. They're mostly that, but they're not evil (usually) and not super clever. But they are in 4th! And dumb in 5th.

A couple of you wondered how to use it as something other than an evil trap monster, and here we have an example in the OP. But if you go by "convention" and "kill-on-sight", you'll miss out on those opportunities.

All that said, the players weren't going by convention or kill-on-sight, so that's all kind of moot. They established that it was telling the truth about it's nature, and they had a conversation and exchange with it. So... they're murderous psychopaths.

(As an aside, I prefer 4th's genius mimics myself.)

[sightlessrealit]

Like yeah, I would still kill it, but premeditating it's murder in front of it was a pretty bad move. I would still kill it, but I wouldn't expect my alignment not to be shifted.

Actually, a question that might have some influence, did the mimic explain to it that people fed it loot? It had time to explain while they planned it's murder in front of it. If they didn't know, then that's an easy mistake to make. If it was explained to them and they ignored it, that's pretty bad form on the party's part.

It had explained that the previous residents would feed it prior to them presenting the treasure.

[Millstone85]

They established that it was telling the truth about it's nature, and they had a conversation and exchange with it. So... they're murderous psychopaths.Considering the amount of interaction they now appear to have had with the thing, purposely feeding it and all before the treasure incident happened, I have considerably warmed up to the "*gasp* That's Disney-evil!" side.

But I am curious about the cleric's arguments when he suggested to kill the mimic.

[sightlessrealit]

Considering the amount of interaction they now appear to have had with the thing, purposely feeding it and all before the treasure incident happened, I have considerably warmed up to the "*gasp* That's Disney-evil!" side.

But I am curious about the cleric's arguments when he suggested to kill the mimic.

His only argument was that he didn't care about what the mimic said anymore. It ate their treasure and that was it for him.

[GPS]

His only argument was that he didn't care about what the mimic said anymore. It ate their treasure and that was it for him.
That's an alignments change for sure, the cleric should be neutral.

[JBPuffin]

If only there were a way to downvote threads...

Simply put, unless you want to consistently be throwing your players through a moral crucible and make "playing good people" an essential part of this campaign, there's no reason to impose any consequences on this. Whatever reasoning they had for killing this mimic, no matter how heroic you think these heroes oughta be, it's a game, not some sort of morality play. If you do start punishing your cleric for this, be warned - players don't like DMs passing out arbitrary penalties.

[GPS]

If only there were a way to downvote threads...

Simply put, unless you want to consistently be throwing your players through a moral crucible and make "playing good people" an essential part of this campaign, there's no reason to impose any consequences on this. Whatever reasoning they had for killing this mimic, no matter how heroic you think these heroes oughta be, it's a game, not some sort of morality play. If you do start punishing your cleric for this, be warned - players don't like DMs passing out arbitrary penalties.
While the OP has refused to use the word consequences instead of punishment for whatever reason, it's obvious from recently revealed information that the cleric should be alignment shifted. This wasn't a morality trap at all, they made the decision to kill the mimic in front of him after he told them it was an honest mistake. Anything further than an alignment shift and a stern talking to by the god would be too much though, clerics in 5e don't fall.

[Segev]

"I don't care anymore. Let's just kill it," is sociopathic, at best. And certainly neutral to evil as a mindset. That "I don't care" opens up "let's just kill it" as a go-to option for something that is, at worst, annoying, reveals a non-good alignment.

You should discuss this with the players, particularly the cleric's. If they insist they didn't mean to be demonstrably non-good, let them justify it, but track their choices. Warn them as you see future choices looking evil, before they actually act on those decisions.

[MadBear]

Again, the two words to me mean exactly the same thing.

Oh, I didn't know we could just do that with words.

In that case I think you're an obtuse blithering moron.





Which to me means the same thing as a normal everyday person.

[sightlessrealit]

Oh, I didn't know we could just do that with words.

In that case I think you're an obtuse blithering moron.





Which to me means the same thing as a normal everyday person.

Thanks for the compliment. ^_^

[GPS]

Look OP, I like you so I'm gonna tell you to quit while you're ahead. I've seen a lot of DM's get hurt by alignment threads. I've seen my DM get hurt by one almost exactly like this. Just use the word consequences, people assume you're some kind of monster if you use the word punishment due to the implications of the term in a d&d context. If not, welp, you have the answer. Cleric should be alignment shifted or on the edge. Page 7 is the point of no return, so you should probably choose the right term. Make the right decision.


"I don't care anymore. Let's just kill it," is sociopathic, at best. And certainly neutral to evil as a mindset. That "I don't care" opens up "let's just kill it" as a go-to option for something that is, at worst, annoying, reveals a non-good alignment.

You should discuss this with the players, particularly the cleric's. If they insist they didn't mean to be demonstrably non-good, let them justify it, but track their choices. Warn them as you see future choices looking evil, before they actually act on those decisions.

Like, you could talk to the cleric's player, but it was still demonstrably non-good. The cleric already gave their resoning, and I respect that reasoning, but it's not good-aligned reasoning by any standard. If a DM warned you every time your future choices looked evil, you'd never have the joy of experiencing an alignment change. They don't have a paladin on their crew, so it can't hurt. Lathander won't care as long as he torches some zombies later. Clerics kill people, they shift alignments, they move on. I imagine he was one of those cleric players who found out that they'd have to start good if they wanted sweet light powers, as most light gods are good.

[Millstone85]

I am now convinced that it would be a logical consequence for Lathander to punish his cleric, and that it wouldn't be the same thing as a DM punishing a player. A simple demand that the cleric make amends, as a first warning, would even be quite generous of the god.

But it is going to look like the DM is, well, playing God at the table.

An OoC discussion would help avoid this, but I expect it to be ruined by the "words are the same to me" and "your insults flatter me" attitude of the OP.

[GPS]

I am now convinced that it would be a logical consequence for Lathander to punish his cleric, and that it wouldn't be the same thing as a DM punishing a player. A simple demand that the cleric make amends, as a first warning, would even be quite generous of the god.

But it is going to look like the DM is, well, playing God at the table.

An OoC discussion would help avoid this, but I expect it to be ruined by the "words are the same to me" and "your insults flatter me" attitude of the OP.

Ah, the point of no return. You missed your chance OP, now the forum has carte blanche to tear apart your ability to DM.

Anyway, I can see an alignment shift and a warning, but why would Lathander need to go further than that? This man is a cleric, not a paladin, and this isn't 3.5e.

[Millstone85]

Page 7 is the point of no return
Ah, the point of no return.Sorry for starting the dreaded page. :smallbiggrin:


Anyway, I can see an alignment shift and a warning, but why would Lathander need to go further than that? This man is a cleric, not a paladin, and this isn't 3.5e.My experience (as a player) is with 4e, where...
As a cleric, your deity does not directly grant you powers. Instead, your ordination or investiture as a cleric grants you the ability to wield divine powers.
What you do with your powers once you are ordained is up to you, although if you flagrantly and openly defy your deity’s tenets, you quickly earn the enmity of the faithful. But 5e reintroduces the fluff that a cleric's access to the Weave is constantly mediated by a god. Although there is no formal game mechanic for a cleric losing their powers after displeasing their god, it is difficult to reconcile the cleric keeping their powers with the fluff.

And I do believe Lathander would be displeased.

If it came to this, I would then have a different god try to recruit the cleric.

[GPS]

Sorry for starting the dreaded page. :smallbiggrin:

My experience (as a player) is with 4e, where... But 5e reintroduces the fluff that a cleric's access to the Weave is constantly mediated by a god. Although there is no formal game mechanic for a cleric losing their powers after displeasing their god, it is difficult to reconcile the cleric keeping their powers with the fluff.

And I do believe Lathander would be displeased.

If it came to this, I would then have a different god try to recruit the cleric.

Can you post the exact fluff that let's 5e clerics use their clerical powers? Not saying you're lying, just saying that this obviously needs more proof

[Millstone85]

Can you post the exact fluff that let's 5e clerics use their clerical powers? Not saying you're lying, just saying that this obviously needs more proof
All magic depends on the Weave, though different kinds of magic access it in a variety of ways. The spells of wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards are commonly called arcane magic. These spells rely on an understanding---learned or intuitive---of the workings of the Weave. The caster plucks directly at the strands of the Weave to create the desired effect. Eldritch knights and arcane tricksters also use arcane magic. The spells of clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers are called divine magic. These spellcasters' access to the Weave is mediated by divine power---gods, the divine forces of nature, or the sacred weight of a paladin's oath.This is what I am talking about. You might, of course, interpret it differently.

[GPS]

This is what I am talking about. You might, of course, interpret it differently.
Hm. I can see this, but there is still no proof clerics, rangers, and druids can get their powers taken like paladins. Otherwise, there would be fall mechanics for each of them for when they go against alignment or something, like 3.5e. I like to think that we live in a much more civilized edition, where paladins are paladins and clerics are clerics, and clerics can only get their powers taken by killing the members of their church or something, nothing so alignment related as the current situation.

[Gtdead]

The mimic created a problem. The "I mean no harm" attitude doesn't matter. The players don't know (or shouldn't know), if the Mimic is lawful good or chaotic evil.

If the party demanded something in return and the Mimic did it's song and dance about how he didn't mean any harm, then the party could feel threatened/cheated/assaulted.

Intend is a big part of alignment. Even a Lawful Good character shouldn't be stupidly good. Someone wronged him for whatever reasons, he must ask the why of things and how the other can make amends.

Now of course, if the "good" character in the party always searches for a reason to murder while maintaining appearances in front of the women and children... well, he wasn't good to begin with and a Good deity should at least take issue with that. Doesn't have to be anything more than a reminder. I think that you dealt with the situation well.

[Unoriginal]

Hm. I can see this, but there is still no proof clerics, rangers, and druids can get their powers taken like paladins. Otherwise, there would be fall mechanics for each of them for when they go against alignment or something, like 3.5e. I like to think that we live in a much more civilized edition, where paladins are paladins and clerics are clerics, and clerics can only get their powers taken by killing the members of their church or something, nothing so alignment related as the current situation.

Paladins can't have their powers "taken" in 5e, either. They just lose them if they break their Oath and don't repent.

[An Enemy Spy]

This isn't a matter of me being wrong. The words mean the same to me.

Then you're doubly wrong. I can claim that elephant and banana mean the same thing, but that doesn't mean they they are. Punishment and consequences are two different things. Punishment is an arbitrary measure meted out by an authority as a disincentive for unwanted behavior. Consequences are the naturally occurring effects of someone's actions. Sometimes punishment is the consequence of an action, but that doesn't make the words synonymous.

[Segev]

At the risk of ruining a joke with explanation...what is so special about the 7th page of a thread?

[GPS]

Paladins can't have their powers "taken" in 5e, either. They just lose them if they break their Oath and don't repent.

Yep, that's what I'm talking about. The mechanics for powers being taken by a diety. Clerics don't swear oaths, they're not in it for paladin reasons, they're chill. In the 3.5e days, alignment switches would get powers taken away as with monks and such due to alignment restrictions. This is 5e, and their give'th and take'th days are long over.

[sightlessrealit]

Then you're doubly wrong. I can claim that elephant and banana mean the same thing, but that doesn't mean they they are. Punishment and consequences are two different things. Punishment is an arbitrary measure meted out by an authority as a disincentive for unwanted behavior. Consequences are the naturally occurring effects of someone's actions. Sometimes punishment is the consequence of an action, but that doesn't make the words synonymous.
I'll be frank here, do you really want to argue this point to me like all the others have and waste your time?

[GPS]

I'll be frank here, do you really want to argue this point to me like all the others have and waste your time?
It's obvious at this point that this bit of the argument isn't going anywhere, so let's just pretend you said consequences instead and drop it.

[SharkForce]

Yep, that's what I'm talking about. The mechanics for powers being taken by a diety. Clerics don't swear oaths, they're not in it for paladin reasons, they're chill. In the 3.5e days, alignment switches would get powers taken away as with monks and such due to alignment restrictions. This is 5e, and their give'th and take'th days are long over.

nonsense. the rules don't tell us explicitly that the clerics can lose their powers, and neither do they tell us that after hundreds of years of a fighter deliberately refusing to use their skills that they'll get worse at it, but that doesn't mean those things can't happen.

furthermore, if the god cannot reclaim their powers by simply reclaiming their powers, that means the only way for the god to get rid of the rogue agent who is using their power and acting in their name is to send things to hunt them down and kill them. this would be a massive derailment and i would argue is undesirable.

the much more reasonable solution is that the cleric will no longer be a cleric of lathander if they continue along the path they've started down, and until they become a cleric of someone else (which will require that other god's approval), they will have none of their cleric powers. this being a PC, and a powerless cleric being kinda sucky, i would give the cleric a choice; either they fix what they're doing, or a god who is an enemy (or at the very least not very friendly) of their former god will make an offer, and if they refuse to follow both, then they're choosing to not be a cleric anymore. i'd probably let them gradually convert their cleric levels to other classes (since, being massively far behind everyone else in the party is bad for gameplay) or allow them to retire the character, but if they're unwilling to live up to the expectations of their god, they aren't going to be that god's cleric any more (being the cleric of some other god is, as i noted, an option still).

the rules are not designed to cover every single thing. that doesn't mean that nothing covered in the rules happens. clerics are supposed to be the god's representative. one false step isn't going to be instant removal of all powers... but continued refusal to live up to the god's standards should result in the god no longer giving that cleric any powers. and probably that character being specifically not welcome in any of the god's holy places.

for anyone who wants to argue this is unfair, well, it's only unfair if the player didn't get to choose their god as far as i'm concerned. so far as we know, nobody forced this guy to be a priest of lathander. if he doesn't want to live up to what lathander expects of his clerics, then don't be a priest of lathander.

[GPS]

for anyone who wants to argue this is unfair, well, it's only unfair if the player didn't get to choose their god as far as i'm concerned. so far as we know, nobody forced this guy to be a priest of lathander. if he doesn't want to live up to what lathander expects of his clerics, then don't be a priest of lathander.

That's just the thing. I've seen this kind of light cleric before, and I think I might know what's going on. I might be wrong (in fact I'm probably wrong), but I think the player wanted to have sweet light domain powers but also wanted a neutral character. They found that there were only good light gods available to them, and were forced to make a good character. Their real desire is a neutral character, so they try living the neutral life as a "good" character, and it goes exactly as well as it sounds.

Crazy speculation aside, here's the thing: I'm just going by RAW, and RAW neither the PHB nor the DMG have any clerical power loss scenarios. Want to houserule some up, that's good with me, do what you want to do. I really don't feel like 5e is the edition of alignment restrictions, and I feel they removed the cleric falling mechanics for a reason, but I'm not you, and you can run your campaign however you want. Either way, houserule like that are really the kind of thing you tell a PC who wants to play a cleric before the campaign starts. Session 0 stuff, you feel me?

[SharkForce]

That's just the thing. I've seen this kind of light cleric before, and I think I might know what's going on. I might be wrong (in fact I'm probably wrong), but I think the player wanted to have sweet light domain powers but also wanted a neutral character. They found that there were only good light gods available to them, and were forced to make a good character. Their real desire is a neutral character, so they try living the neutral life as a "good" character, and it goes exactly as well as it sounds.

Crazy speculation aside, here's the thing: I'm just going by RAW, and RAW neither the PHB nor the DMG have any clerical power loss scenarios. Want to houserule some up, that's good with me, do what you want to do. I really don't feel like 5e is the edition of alignment restrictions, and I feel they removed the cleric falling mechanics for a reason, but I'm not you, and you can run your campaign however you want. Either way, houserule like that are really the kind of thing you tell a PC who wants to play a cleric before the campaign starts. Session 0 stuff, you feel me?

according to the PHB, helm is a lawful neutral god who grants the light domain. of course, he probably wouldn't be thrilled about one of his clerics murdering stuff in cold blood either, but probably less so than lathander i suppose. simple fact is, neutral people aren't terribly fond of murder any more than good-aligned people, and i see no particular reason to expect a neutral deity to be pleased by one of their priests committing murder, in their name, while using their powers.

and the PHB doesn't have rules for lots of things. like how to breathe regular air, for example. it does have rules for suffocation, though... should we presume that since there are no rules for breathing regular air, the designers intended for it to be impossible and most characters just die within the first few minutes of a campaign starting?

let's read a few excerpts from the cleric class:

"Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods. As varied as the gods they service, clerics strive to embody the handiwork of their deities."
"Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don't grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling. Harnessing divine magic doesn't rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity's wishes."
"As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody."

does it give you a step-by-step set of rules for what happens when a cleric isn't serving a god? nope. just like it doesn't give us step by step rules for handling regular breathing.

but if you don't embody the ideals of your deity, you aren't going to have any power flowing from your god that you can act as a conduit for. as i've just quoted, casting cleric spells relies on your devotion to your god. no devotion? no power. your god stops granting you power, and you are no longer chosen to fulfill that high calling.

now, what happens beyond that is certainly homebrew. technically, the cleric just loses all their powers (or, at the very least, all the spells. personally, i would include stuff like channel divinity as being something that flows from your god as well, but technically that isn't explicitly stated). as i said, leaving things at that makes for a pretty bad experience for the player of the cleric, seeing as how they'll basically wind up with maybe a few useful proficiencies and no other class features. which is why i would recommend having another god make an offer, or allowing the player to retire that character, or some other solution. and which is also why, in spite of the fact that the character just committed murder (which i wouldn't expect any good god to be tolerant of, and any neutral god isn't going to be pleased either) i would allow the character to make an attempt to make amends with their god in spite of the fact that it would mean the god is letting that character get away with murder. literally.

[Spore]

I'll be frank here, do you really want to argue this point to me like all the others have and waste your time?

If you are just partially as rude to your players as you are to us then I truly weep for your table.

[sightlessrealit]

If you are just partially as rude to your players as you are to us then I truly weep for your table.

Then your in luck because I'm not rude to my players. Though frankly a whole lot of people here have been rude to me. You included(though not initially in fairness to you) and the same goes for the poster that I responded to in that quote. I was just being civil and honest. Though I will not say everyone here has been rude to me because that would frankly be a lie.

[Rynjin]

It's a ****ing Mimic. Which are especially bad in 5e for being undetectable until they choose to reveal themselves as more than an object. Quite frankly all of them deserve to die just for that bit of bad design.

[Unoriginal]

It's a ****ing Mimic. Which are especially bad in 5e for being undetectable until they choose to reveal themselves as more than an object. Quite frankly all of them deserve to die just for that bit of bad design.

How is that bad design? Shapeshifter with only one neat trick (pretend to be an object, then attack in surprise) better be good at said trick. Given that it's pretty likely the Mimic will die in one or two turns against your typical group, once revealed.

[GPS]

A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity's wishes."

Ah, now you've given me something concrete I can actually work with. Yep, it appears you're right about that, a diety can dump a cleric. Man, 5e really threw out that 4e precedent hard. First Eladrin aren't get anymore, just live in the feywild. Now this.

Why would a neutral dirty care about a single murder though? I feel like they'd be ambivalent about that.

[Saiga]

Because murder is absolutely not neutral at all?

[GPS]

Because murder is absolutely not neutral at all?
It's one murder no one saw, what care would a neutral dirty have? I feel like a neutral diety would care more about murder making them look bad than murder being bad. If it's not enough to push someone's alignment beyond neutral from their good point, why would they care?

[Unoriginal]

It's one murder no one saw, what care would a neutral dirty have? I feel like a neutral diety would care more about murder making them look bad than murder being bad. If it's not enough to push someone's alignment beyond neutral from their good point, why would they care?

Neutral doesn't mean "lol I don't care about murder".

A neutrald deity would probably consider this a first offense, though.

[GPS]

Neutral doesn't mean "lol I don't care about murder".

A neutrald deity would probably consider this a first offense, though.
Good enough for me, I'm not picky. I'd take second offense for some sweet neutral light powers.

[Saiga]

It's one murder no one saw, what care would a neutral dirty have? I feel like a neutral diety would care more about murder making them look bad than murder being bad. If it's not enough to push someone's alignment beyond neutral from their good point, why would they care?

That POV seems more apathetic or selfish, which is not a good fit for neutral.

Only caring how your Clerics make you look is how an Evil deity should think. Good or Neutral deities should not need someone watching to be true to their alignment. They aren't just part of that alignment, they are paragons for it.

[GPS]

That POV seems more apathetic or selfish, which is not a good fit for neutral.

Only caring how your Clerics make you look is how an Evil deity should think. Good or Neutral deities should not need someone watching to be true to their alignment. They aren't just part of that alignment, they are paragons for it.
The only reason I say this is because True Neutral is described as steering clear of moral questions. But yeah, I get your point, does seem like more an evil thing in hindsight.

[Keltest]

The only reason I say this is because True Neutral is described as steering clear of moral questions. But yeah, I get your point, does seem like more an evil thing in hindsight.

Neutrality generally means that someone is unwilling to go very far out of their way to either hurt or help someone unless theres significant compensation involved. They don't like doing evil or seeing it done, but wont do much to hinder (or help) it unless theyre directly involved already somehow.

[Rhedyn]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.

**Disclaimer** Please don't get hateful towards me because of the use of the word punishment here. All I mean by it is the consequences for their actions.The mimic was a thief and deserved death.

If anything, not killing it would have been evil.

[hamishspence]

The mimic was a thief and deserved death.


Is it really theft to eat something that was "presented to you"?

I still want the OP to clarify what the party meant by "presenting the mimic a treasure" - were they just showing off their loot "See what we've managed to get ourselves", did they expect the mimic to identify it for them - or was it an attempt to buy a service from the mimic?

[Segev]

The mimic was a thief and deserved death.

If anything, not killing it would have been evil.

So, just to be clear, the French government in Les Misérables was evil because they didn't execute Jean Valjean immediately upon conviction. Am I parsing you correctly, here?

The US government is evil because we have thieves in prison who are not on death row?

Medieval Arabic justice was evil because they ONLY cut off the hand of a thief, rather than executing him for the first offense?

[Dr.Samurai]

The mimic was a thief and deserved death.

If anything, not killing it would have been evil.
And the gold medal in Mental Gymnastics goes to.....

[GPS]

Is it really theft to eat something that was "presented to you"?

I still want the OP to clarify what the party meant by "presenting the mimic a treasure" - were they just showing off their loot "See what we've managed to get ourselves", did they expect the mimic to identify it for them - or was it an attempt to buy a service from the mimic?
The OP has clarified on the 6th (in a scattered series of posts) that the party presented the item thinking the mimic could identify it. The mimic, having been fed items by previous visitors this way, ate the item. The mimic explained it's mistake, presumably during the time the party was loudly planning to kill it in front of it. The cleric said that he didn't care, the mimic had eaten their loot. Then the party killed the mimic.

[Rhedyn]

So, just to be clear, the French government in Les Misérables was evil because they didn't execute Jean Valjean immediately upon conviction. Am I parsing you correctly, here?

The US government is evil because we have thieves in prison who are not on death row?

Medieval Arabic justice was evil because they ONLY cut off the hand of a thief, rather than executing him for the first offense?
Don't be ridiculous.

The French government was evil for not keeping it's citizens fed and thus forcing theft. That's like theft x100. Super evil.

Death row cost more than life in prison. That's basically public theft which is super evil.

Medieval Arabic thought stealing hands was appropriate. Which is just more theft. Thus even more evil than doing nothing.

But the real point is that the mimic did something bad and wasn't being good. Theft is a horrible crime and removes innocence from the monster.

[Dr.Samurai]

But the real point is that the mimic did something bad and wasn't being good. Theft is a horrible crime and removes innocence from the monster.
You don't have to be innocent to justify not being murdered. Your entire point is nonsense.

[Syll]

You don't have to be innocent to justify not being murdered. Your entire point is nonsense.

Murder doesnt seem like the right word to me, unless every chicken farmer is being branded a murderer as well, for all the chickens that they (premeditatively)kill.

[Rynjin]

How is that bad design? Shapeshifter with only one neat trick (pretend to be an object, then attack in surprise) better be good at said trick. Given that it's pretty likely the Mimic will die in one or two turns against your typical group, once revealed.

Two reasons.

1.) Perception is already nigh pointless in 5e, basically relegated only to stopping the occasional ambush and the rare trap. All the things you'd actually want to use Perception for in previous editions is handled by Investigation. This would give it another use.

2.) Nothing you can encounter in the game should be impossible. Insurmountable for your current level, perhaps. very difficult, of course. Impossible? No. An effective DC Infinity skill check is lazy and just leads back to the same behavior that makes the game sound so silly (in a bad way) from earlier editions. "Well, now you know. Attack every door, chest, pot, barrel, or carpet you come across! Easy solution!". Feh.

[GPS]

Murder doesnt seem like the right word to me, unless every chicken farmer is being branded a murderer as well, for all the chickens that they (premeditatively)kill.
That's another thing. Mimic are pretty low-int in this position, but are they high-int enough for it to be murder? I forget if the cutoff is 6 or 3 for true sapience in 5e, that would be helpful

[Dr.Samurai]

Murder doesnt seem like the right word to me, unless every chicken farmer is being branded a murderer as well, for all the chickens that they (premeditatively)kill.
I don't see the connection between the mimic and chickens to be honest. What would you call what the PCs did to the mimic if not murder?

[Syll]

I don't see the connection between the mimic and chickens to be honest. What would you call what the PCs did to the mimic if not murder?

Why would the mimic be murder if the chicken isn't?

I'd call it slaughter, I think

[Rhedyn]

You don't have to be innocent to justify not being murdered. Your entire point is nonsense.
Only in a society with laws and enforcement to ensure just measures are taken.

In the lawless frontier theft is cause for death. That's even true in most US states, if someone breaks into your home, you can kill them.
It's also why in the recent Fallout games, the NPCs will murder (murder is not always wrong) anyone who steals a spoon.

[Dr.Samurai]

Why would the mimic be murder if the chicken isn't?
Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that mimics and chickens are the same thing?

[Dr.Samurai]

Only in a society with laws and enforcement to ensure just measures are taken.
Replace "murdered" with "killed".

In the lawless frontier theft is cause for death. That's even true in most US states
I'm not aware of any lawless frontiers in the United States.

if someone breaks into your home, you can kill them.
The opposite happened here. They entered the mimic's home, and killed it.

[comk59]

Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that mimics and chickens are the same thing?

Because without that assumption their argument seems ludicrous?

[Keltest]

Only in a society with laws and enforcement to ensure just measures are taken.

In the lawless frontier theft is cause for death. That's even true in most US states, if someone breaks into your home, you can kill them.
It's also why in the recent Fallout games, the NPCs will murder (murder is not always wrong) anyone who steals a spoon.

In as much as anything can be murder in a lawless area, that they are a thief does not make the retribution any less disproportionate. If I drop, say, a wand off a cliff, and someone finds it and uses up the charges, killing them would be entirely unnecessary and wouldn't get the wand back. Its something only evil people do.

[GPS]

Only in a society with laws and enforcement to ensure just measures are taken.

In the lawless frontier theft is cause for death. That's even true in most US states, if someone breaks into your home, you can kill them.
It's also why in the recent Fallout games, the NPCs will murder (murder is not always wrong) anyone who steals a spoon.
Have you ever been to the US? The "lawless frontier theft" defense is not really valid in most murder cases, and will probably lead to your conviction. Contrary to popular belief, the American legal system is not actually solely comprised of a crowned hillbilly with a sawed-off shotgun.

[Syll]

Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that mimics and chickens are the same thing?

Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that a mimic was murdered?

I'm not trying to be coy; this is s genuine question. What separates this mimic from an animal, that you consider this murder and not slaughter?

Is it because it was capable of speech? It certainly wasn't capable of suppressing basic urges. What about this mimic conveys the requisite 'personhood' that this transitions to murder, as opposed to killing an animal?

[GPS]

Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that a mimic was murdered?

I'm not trying to be coy; this is s genuine question. What separates this mimic from an animal, that you consider this murder and not slaughter?

Is it because it was capable of speech? It certainly wasn't capable of suppressing basic urges. What about this mimic conveys the requisite 'personhood' that this transitions to murder, as opposed to killing an animal?
It accepting and eating the item because it was trained to by previous dungeon patrons seems like a straightforward learned behavior. Of course, this argment can easily be countered by the fact that it suppressed the basic urge to kill them and didn't attempt to attack them even while they were killing it. Seems sapient enough to count as murder.

[Keltest]

Why am I supposed to operate under the assumption that a mimic was murdered?

I'm not trying to be coy; this is s genuine question. What separates this mimic from an animal, that you consider this murder and not slaughter?

Is it because it was capable of speech? It certainly wasn't capable of suppressing basic urges. What about this mimic conveys the requisite 'personhood' that this transitions to murder, as opposed to killing an animal?

Mimics are sapient. They can be reasoned with, even if they aren't exceptionally intelligent on average. Furthermore, this one's death served no purpose whatsoever beyond the gratification of the killers.

Even if you feel the need to quibble over whether its technically murder if it wasn't of a human being, it was still an unnecessary killing motivated by spite.

[MadBear]

It accepting and eating the item because it was trained to by previous dungeon patrons seems like a straightforward learned behavior. Of course, this argment can easily be countered by the fact that it suppressed the basic urge to kill them and didn't attempt to attack them even while they were killing it. Seems sapient enough to count as murder.

To play devils advocate, I can train a pig to follow many commands and express many learned behaviors. (they're smarter then most dogs).

Does that mean killing a pig for bacon is murder?

[Beelzebubba]

The mimic was a thief and deserved death.

If anything, not killing it would have been evil.

Fantastic work, A++ trolling. You're doing the devil's work. :smallamused:

[Syll]

Even if you feel the need to quibble over whether its technically murder if it wasn't of a human being, it was still an unnecessary killing motivated by spite.

I agree, but my conment was that it wasn't a murder. I don't think drawing a distinction between killing and murder is any less valid than the distinction between consequences and punishment

[Keltest]

I agree, but my conment was that it wasn't a murder. I don't think drawing a distinction between killing and murder is any less valid than the distinction between consequences and punishment

While this is true, your argument appears to rely entirely on a semantic reading of a literal real world legal definition, rather than using it in the context of "this is a fantasy world and any laws and their definitions are going to take into account that there is more than one sapient race".

[Beelzebubba]

I agree, but my conment was that it wasn't a murder. I don't think drawing a distinction between killing and murder is any less valid than the distinction between consequences and punishment

It's a good-aligned sentient being that didn't have any hostility towards them, didn't attack them, and was just done eating a tasty treat the party - it's new acquaintances - gave it as a gift.

It was premeditated. The party didn't act in passion, it planned it and did it with cold logic.

If that isn't murder, nothing is.

[Syll]

While this is true, your argument appears to rely entirely on a semantic reading of a literal real world legal definition, rather than using it in the context of "this is a fantasy world and any laws and their definitions are going to take into account that there is more than one sapient race".

Look at it from the other side; between Speak with animals, polymorph, wizard familiars and the like how do you decide what is sentient and what is not?

I personally don't think a box with teeth that you just watched eat a goblin whole, qualifies

And sapient, for the record is utterly inapplicable unless you are arguing this mimic possessed 'great wisdom or sagacity'

[Syll]

It's a good-aligned sentient being that didn't have any hostility towards them, didn't attack them, and was just done eating a tasty treat the party - it's new acquaintances - gave it as a gift.

It was premeditated. The party didn't act in passion, it planned it and did it with cold logic.

If that isn't murder, nothing is.
Please. Stop spreading wrong information. It wasnt gifted anything. This has been repeatedly rebuffed. Also, confirmed by the DM. presented =/= gift. They displayed it TO, not gave it to the mimic.

[Keltest]

Look at it from the other side; between Speak with animals, polymorph, wizard familiars and the like how do you decide what is sentient and what is not?

I personally don't think a box with teeth that you just watched eat a goblin whole, qualifies

And sapient, for the record is utterly inapplicable unless you are arguing this mimic possessed 'great wisdom or sagacity'

Sentient = ability to feel.

Sapient = ability to think.

3 int is typically considered the cutoff for sapience, though I'm struggling to locate anything to either confirm or deny this for 5e.

[GPS]

To play devils advocate, I can train a pig to follow many commands and express many learned behaviors. (they're smarter then most dogs).

Does that mean killing a pig for bacon is murder?
Huh? I think you misunderstood a bit. I meant your point, that learned behavior was an animal thing, then countered the application of that point to the mimic with a different point. I was presenting a point and counterpoint to Syll's argument.


Please. Stop spreading wrong information. It wasnt gifted anything. This has been repeatedly rebuffed. Also, confirmed by the DM. presented =/= gift. They displayed it TO, not gave it to the mimic.

I'm just going to repost what the author said to this:

The treasure they presented to the mimic wasn't magical & I assume the party meant for him to identify it. Obvious it didn't because it ate it. It also didn't apologies because they presented it to him in the same fashion as the previous residents of the cave had when they would feed him. The group had also given the mimic one the residents they had killed prior to this to eat. Once the group realized the treasure wasn't coming back was when they started to plan to kill it while in front of it.

That should clear that up.
Basically, no, it wasn't a gift. Do what you will with that info. Also remember that the author later stated that the mimic explained why he ate the treasure to the players, so they didn't not know.

[Syll]

Sentient = ability to feel.

Sapient = ability to think.

3 int is typically considered the cutoff for sapience, though I'm struggling to locate anything to either confirm or deny this for 5e.

I'm willing to be wrong but the definitions I'm seeing all relate to Wisdom, not thought in regards to sapience.

In regards to fantasy law... the surface world countenanced killing on sight for drow, I'm struggling to believe that mimic makes the cut

[GPS]

I'm willing to be wrong but the definitions I'm seeing all relate to Wisdom, not thought in regards to sapience.

In regards to fantasy law... the surface world countenanced killing on sight for drow, I'm struggling to believe that mimic makes the cut
Actually, weird moral loophole here, but not in your favor. Apparently, mimics are actually neutral by default (Weird, believe me, I know. Why would they make a kill beast neutral instead of evil? Possibly because they can't use unaligned because of it's int, but now it's off topic.), so killing them if they don't try to attack and actively restrain themselves from attacking you is gonna be an evil action. This compared to drow, who are evil by default, presents a sort of apples to oranges.

[Syll]

Actually, weird moral loophole here, but not in your favor. Apparently, mimics are actually neutral by default (Weird, believe me, I know. Why would they make a kill beast neutral instead of evil?), so killing them if they don't try to attack and actively restrain themselves from attacking you is gonna be an evil action. This compared to drow, who are evil by default.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, before i started this particular tangent, but, it doesn't strike me as weird at all. I don't think lions or wolves or trap door spiders are evil either.... they're all just predators.

Edit: and since they're predators, I don't care how friendly that viper/hyena/shark is, I wouldn't trust them.

Is no one else familiar with the Frog and the Scorpion fable??

Edit Edit: and exactly makes this him LG anyway? I would be curious to know what lofty ideals it held to, and good deeds it had performed that qualified him as LG to begin with

[Beelzebubba]

Please. Stop spreading wrong information. It wasnt gifted anything. This has been repeatedly rebuffed. Also, confirmed by the DM. presented =/= gift. They displayed it TO, not gave it to the mimic.

Sorry, as a legal representative hired by the Mimic's immediate family, I have to disagree.

This is a LIFE we're talking about here.

[gooddragon1]

So my players are playing half & half campaign. It follows the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" Campain but is branching off into my own homebrew setting. last week they were searching the area of Klargs Cave after having defeated them & they stumbled across a very eccentric Mimic who was lawful good aligned. After the party decided to present him one of the treasure they had found he ate it. The group didn't really like this. Especially, who I would consider the most good of the group their cleric. Who spearheaded the plan to murder this mimic. In front of said mimic no less. Despite this the mimic didn't attack them and insisted that he didn't mean any harm.

They ignored him and then killed him. So what should I do? On the one hand I can kinda understand & murder hobo can be tough to control but at the same time this was essentially murder. Just an FYI I had the Cleric meet with their Deity in a dream(pre planned for plot reasons, not the mimic murder) and noted to him about the him making amending for murdering the mimic.

**Disclaimer** Please don't get hateful towards me because of the use of the word punishment here. All I mean by it is the consequences for their actions.

My suggestion:
Offer the players a chance to do an atonement quest or have their alignment shifted 1 step towards evil. It's definitely murder, which is certainly evil. They can choose to opt out of the quest and receive the alignment shift or they can go on the quest and receive some loot as well as not take the alignment shift. Consider adding a modified version (as it's a 3.5 item) of the Phylactery Of Faithfulness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#phylacteryofFaithfulness) as part of the treasure for the cleric.

[Syll]

Sorry, as a legal representative hired by the Mimic's immediate family, I have to disagree.

This is a LIFE we're talking about here.

In fairness, I don't think "they slaughtered the peaceful mimic as it begged for mercy" softens the wrongness of it, i just think 'murder' was the wrong word choice.

[sightlessrealit]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, before i started this particular tangent, but, it doesn't strike me as weird at all. I don't think lions or wolves or trap door spiders are evil either.... they're all just predators.

Edit: and since they're predators, I don't care how friendly that viper/hyena/shark is, I wouldn't trust them.

Is no one else familiar with the Frog and the Scorpion fable??

Edit Edit: and exactly makes this him LG anyway? I would be curious to know what lofty ideals it held to, and good deeds it had performed that qualified him as LG to begin with

Well lets see.

It absolutely aspired to never eat a being that was still breathing. When found by passer-biers, never attacked them, unlike most(but not all) mimics in my world.
Founded and established the MCF, Mimic Community Foundation. Which has various laws that restrict what mimics should do both to their own kind as well as to other races. Though most of the mimic community don't bother following these laws.

[Keltest]

Well lets see.

It absolutely aspired to never eat a being that whas still breathing. When found by passer-biers, never attacked them, unlike most(but not all) mimics in my world.
Founded an established the MCF, Mimic Community Foundation. Which has various laws that restrict what mimics should do both to their own kind as well as to other races. Though most of the mimic community don't bother following these laws.

So this is like, the George Washington of mimics?

[sightlessrealit]

So this is like, the George Washington of mimics?
Of sorts I suppose. This was suppose to be a pretty important NPC after all.

[GPS]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, before i started this particular tangent, but, it doesn't strike me as weird at all. I don't think lions or wolves or trap door spiders are evil either.... they're all just predators.

Edit: and since they're predators, I don't care how friendly that viper/hyena/shark is, I wouldn't trust them.

Is no one else familiar with the Frog and the Scorpion fable??

Edit Edit: and exactly makes this him LG anyway? I would be curious to know what lofty ideals it held to, and good deeds it had performed that qualified him as LG to begin with
Mimics are too intelligent to be unaligned like predator beasts, which is why them being neutral by default strikes me as odd.

[Syll]

Mimics are too intelligent to be unaligned like predator beasts, which is why them being neutral by default strikes me as odd.

But apes are 6 Int, and unaligned, so... yeah.

Edit: i didn't realize till now that beasts alignment in 5e was literally 'unaligned'... but that ape still has 1 higher int than the mimic

[Millstone85]

Ah, now you've given me something concrete I can actually work with. Yep, it appears you're right about that, a diety can dump a cleric.What I had given you seemed more concrete to me, with the technical matter of a cleric's access to the Weave.

Devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity's wishes, that's more poetic.

But oh well, this is magic after all.


Man, 5e really threw out that 4e precedent hard. First Eladrin aren't get anymore, just live in the feywild. Now this.If I am not mistaken, eladrins were originally celestials, but then 4e retconned them as elves of the Feywild and also another word for high elves, and now in 5e eladrins are elves of the Feywild but not the same thing as high elves.

I find this sort of thing really annoying.