evil acts?

[crazedloon]

Now I understand the alignment system is a little wonky but

How many evil acts would you say a normal good character would need to perform before changing alignment?

Would a coup de gras on a unconscious foe (one who you have knocked unconscious but has stabilized in combat) be an evil act?

Would attacking a man who has given up and dropped his weapons be an evil act?

[Spiryt]

"Evilness" depends on why you do it.

If for fun, or for some other personal gain, from pure hatred, or anything, it's most probably evil.

If you're killing someone who was trying to terminate your life before, and you have no other good way to stop him, you are protecting yourself. And so on.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Now I understand the alignment system is a little wonky but

How many evil acts would you say a normal good character would need to perform before changing alignment?

Would a coup de gras on a unconscious foe (one who you have knocked unconscious but has stabilized in combat) be an evil act?

Would attacking a man who has given up and dropped his weapons be an evil act?

If you are surprise that he does the evil act, he's a good person. Not a spotless, but still a good person

If you don't know which way he'll go, he's neutral

If you expect him to take the easy shot, he's evil.


I know it's very subjective, but alignment is always subjetive. There isn't any "hard" limit. This isn't a video game. Ultimately, you have to ask yourself: why does it matter, the alignment of the character?

[RagnaroksChosen]

It depends.

Do you consider it an evil act? How many times would a character have to do that to shift alingments...


As a gm when a player makes there character there Alignment they put down is what they want there character to be like. IF during the course of game play i feel there more twords one alignment or another it will shift. Some times the player is unaware of there shift. ( this is sort of to represent some one who has "good" intentions but is doing horrendusly evil ****).
If they are a class that alignment is important (barbarian, bard, cleric, monk, paladin, druid, etc), I may side bar with the character and explain why i think there shifting, i also allow them to plead there case on why if they think they should stay the same alignment. (on tough cases i bring in my girlfriend who doesn't game)

[awa]

their is also a matter of degree did he just desecrate soul or force a parent to eat their own child? or did he take to much enjoyment killing an enemy.

Its a matter of scale all evil acts are not created evil

[Inyssius Tor]

How many evil acts would you say a normal good character would need to perform before changing alignment?

None: a man who fully intends to rape and murder a little girl is evil regardless of whether he actually gets to do it. Alignment is a measure of intentions and behavior, but it's not a record of past intentions or behavior; a saint who decides one day that he would rather spend his life murdering the innocent than healing the sick is evil at the moment of decision, regardless of how good he was beforehand.

[awa]

well like i said before it depends on the degree. Now lets say you get really mad and your a bit drunk and you pick a fight with someone weaker then you just becuase despite the fact that he had nothing to do with why your mad. this is an evil "act" but not one that would cause you to become evil.

Now you may argue with this particular act saying it's actual chaotic or neutral i honestly don't care pick a diffrent act that fits your personal criteria for a relatively minor evil act and go on.

Also exalted characters or paladins will fall but that's a diffrent subject.

[hamishspence]

None: a man who fully intends to rape and murder a little girl is evil regardless of whether he actually gets to do it. Alignment is a measure of intentions and behavior, but it's not a record of past intentions or behavior; a saint who decides one day that he would rather spend his life murdering the innocent than healing the sick is evil at the moment of decision, regardless of how good he was beforehand.

For the purposes of the game, the DMG says "if the player says "My character is now Y alignment" the DM should say "Prove it"- asking the player to show that their character has behaved in a manner consistant with the new alignment.

FC2 states (for the purposes of whether a character goes to Baator or not) "A character must have actually committed evil deeds to earn damnation- thinking bad thoughts is not enough"

[Ravens_cry]

Well, it depends. An evil enough single act, such as burning down a temple to watch it burn and hear the cries of those trapped inside is enough, in my opinion, to turn the the Goodest Goodie Good Good to Evil with a capital E. In fact, it's enough to make me, at least, question if they were good in the first place.
It's really a group decision, as every groups idea what is too evil is a bit different.

[hamishspence]

This fits with 2nd ed,

which gave as an example, a paladin buring down a plague village, to protect a country, as an example of the sort of act for which a DM is justified in instituting an immediate change to Evil alignment.

As to "were they ever good"- sometimes, stressful situations, may lead to an initially good person choosing to do something evil.

Anakin in the first half of Episode 2 might have been at least mildly Good in D&D, but when he discovered his mother (dying of torture) his reaction was pretty extreme.

Some people would say "A good person, is someone that would never make the decision to do anything evil"

but as written, D&D is more "when a good person does make the decision to do something evil, they start to move away from Good"

[TheMadLinguist]

FC2 states (for the purposes of whether a character goes to Baator or not) "A character must have actually committed evil deeds to earn damnation- thinking bad thoughts is not enough"

The FC2 system for alignments is also really really dumb.

Fortunately, it's campaign-specific for grayhawk, so you don't have to use it.

[hamishspence]

Technically its valid for any system that has a Nine Hells of Baator.

That said- as a splatbook, nobody has to use it.

As written, using FC2, if a saintly CG character gets a helm of Opposite Alignment put on them- then killed before they can do anything Evil- Baator can't let them in, because deeds matter, more than alignment.

Which sort of makes sense- Baator was set up to punish transgressors, and if someone somehow dies LE, without committing any transgressions- they can't punish them.

So, yes, you can be Lawful Evil without ever having done anything (newborn Blue Dragon or Green dragon, CG person who's been Helmed) but the FC2 rules override the normal afterlife rules- preventing such LE characters from going to Baator.

There are two ways to be evil- acts (since, by Champions of Ruin, a person who consistantly, repeatedly does evil acts, is evil-aligned regardless of their motives)

and personality (a newborn Blue or Green Dragon is evil regardless of not having done anything)

Both need to be used to represent it well.

[Mastikator]

Now I understand the alignment system is a little wonky but

How many evil acts would you say a normal good character would need to perform before changing alignment?

Would a coup de gras on a unconscious foe (one who you have knocked unconscious but has stabilized in combat) be an evil act?
Depends on your options, if you can tie him up and bring to court then yes. If you're sure that he'll kill you if he wakes up then no.

Would attacking a man who has given up and dropped his weapons be an evil act?
Yes. Maybe neutral if you think it's a trick. But yes, killing someone non-hostile in cold blood is unquestionably evil, doesn't matter how evil he is either

ten characters.

[Shalist]

Look at it backwards: If the LE blackguard saves someone's life, or helps an old lady cross the street, does he suddenly fall (or is it 'rise')? What if he did these things as part of some grander, eviler scheme?

If that's the case, I can go out and CDG a bunch of kittens today and become CE...just to become LG again by lunch tomorrow, from properly disposing of those pieces of litter I found on the ground.

[hamishspence]

Champions of Ruin's bit strongly implies that, no matter how much good you are doing, if you're routinely doing Evil, you're Evil-aligned.

So no, it's not a case of Good acts being able to balance out Evil ones.

BoED, on motives for "good" acts says, that if the motive for doing them was selfish, they are Neutral at best.

So said Blackguard, who heals the sick, helps people in distress, and so on, all as part of his Evil Plan, is committing Neutral acts rather than Good ones.

[TheMadLinguist]

You cast deathwatch nine times. You are damned to hell regardless of whatever else happens. Even if you spend three billion years healing the sick in penance, because the conditions sufficient for removing corruption points can't be met.

[hamishspence]

Yeah- I think Deathwatch being evil was an error in the PHB, since it's on the caster list of the Healer (Must be Good-aligned) and the Slayer of Domiel (Falls if they ever commit an evil act).

"give up all personal gain obtained by committing the evil act" is a tricky one- but with a bit of common sense, the DM can usually think of ways to do that. Or simply ignore it, if the character themselves did not do the evil act for personal gain, but to help others.

The system is an interesting idea- but it does need to be handled with caution by the DM, who should probably give the characters a lot of leeway when it comes to "making up for what they're done"

[TaintedLight]

None: a man who fully intends to rape and murder a little girl is evil regardless of whether he actually gets to do it. Alignment is a measure of intentions and behavior, but it's not a record of past intentions or behavior; a saint who decides one day that he would rather spend his life murdering the innocent than healing the sick is evil at the moment of decision, regardless of how good he was beforehand.

This.

In all seriousness, repeated instances of petty theft will have to go on for a long, long time before the gravity of the situation matches, say, the mass-sacrifice of a hundred virgins to a dark god.

[Yuki Akuma]

This.

In all seriousness, repeated instances of petty theft will have to go on for a long, long time before the gravity of the situation matches, say, the mass-sacrifice of a hundred virgins to a dark god.

Petty theft isn't Evil. It's Chaotic.

It's certainly not Good either, but it's not Evil.

Now, you can make any neutral act either Good or Evil depending on circumstances... Stealing a beggar's hard-'earned' money? Evil. Stealing a loaf of bread from a bakery with dozens like it to feed said beggar? Good.

[hamishspence]

BoVD: "Any child can tell you that stealing is wrong"

That said, a lot of players may go with "this is only valid if the motive for stealing is personal gain- a sufficiently Good motive, involving saving lives, excuses it"

FC2 calls out only one kind of stealing as a Corrupt Act- "Stealing from the needy"- so you could make the case that other kinds of stealing aren't evil enough to make a character nongood, (when the character's Good acts are taken into account).

[TaintedLight]

Petty theft isn't Evil. It's Chaotic.

It's certainly not Good either, but it's not Evil.

Now, you can make any neutral act either Good or Evil depending on circumstances... Stealing a beggar's hard-'earned' money? Evil. Stealing a loaf of bread from a bakery with dozens like it to feed said beggar? Good.

I was talking more about the issue of scope than of relative evil-ness. While it can be much harder to quantify sometimes, I think it fair to say that most people in the Western world would agree that murder is a more serious crime than shoplifting. Shoplifting might not be expressly evil, but then again if the "murdered" individual was actually evil himself and the paladin who slew him knew this, is it still evil? Is it still murder?

[hamishspence]

Depends on what kind of Evil you're running in the campaign.

If "Humans tend toward no alignment, not even neutral" is taken as implying that, taken as a whole, roughly a third of the humans in a fantasy setting are Evil-

then many of these will be "petty thieves" "grasping landlords" "scheming barons" and what have you.

With "Evil implies oppressing, hurting, and killing others" taken as meaning any one of those three can be enough to make a character evil,

then the evil characters who only oppress others, or who hurt them on a small scale, through theft or emotional torment, as well as physically, may not be evil enough for a paladin killing them to not be murder.

[Shalist]

This.

So is a fiend who decides one day that he would rather spend his life healing the sick than murdering the innocent is good at the moment of decision, regardless of how evil he was beforehand?

If you slap a helmet of opposite alignment on someone Mr. CE, he becomes Mr. LG instantly, regardless of what he's done with his life prior to that.

That is, I agree completely that alignment is something that happens before a decision is made, not after. I just disagree with the notion that someone can wake up good, and go to bed evil, without some serious brainwashing mojo going on. Silly abstract D 'n D alignment systems...

On a side note, read a novel like "The Enemy Within" (ravenloft) some time...it can be interesting to watch that descent...every compromise, every justification, every good intention...it may eventually culminate in some dramatic point of no return, but even then, the person has fallen long before they arrived there.

[Yuki Akuma]

I was talking more about the issue of scope than of relative evil-ness. While it can be much harder to quantify sometimes, I think it fair to say that most people in the Western world would agree that murder is a more serious crime than shoplifting. Shoplifting might not be expressly evil, but then again if the "murdered" individual was actually evil himself and the paladin who slew him knew this, is it still evil? Is it still murder?

Killing in self defense isn't illegal in the western world, either, you know.

Killing someone unprovoked is Evil. Killing someone in self-defense is Neutral. (Killing a demon in self-defense is Good, but that's neither here nor there.)

A Paladin can kill a Good-aligned person in self defense and be fine, because such is not Evil. But if he attacks and kills an Evil person unprovoked just because he triggered his Evil-dar? Damn right he's falling.

So is a fiend who decides one day that he would rather spend his life healing the sick than murdering the innocent is good at the moment of decision, regardless of how evil he was beforehand?

If you slap a helmet of opposite alignment on someone Mr. CE, he becomes Mr. LG instantly, regardless of what he's done with his life prior to that.

That is, I agree completely that alignment is something that happens before a decision is made, not after. I just disagree with the notion that someone can wake up good, and go to bed evil, without some serious brainwashing mojo going on. Silly abstract D 'n D alignment systems...

I don't think it's as simple as 'one leads to the other'. If you're Lawful Good, you will tend to before Lawful and Good acts. If you perform Chaotic and Evil acts, you will stop being Lawful Good.

Basically, the Lawful Good person performs an Evil action, knows it's wrong... and performs more anyway. He's going to become Evil. If he performs one Evil act and feels horrible, well, obviously his alignment isn't changing.

Not everyone with the same alignment has the exact same responses to their own actions. People who don't care tend to drift towards Evil eventually, unless they really suppress their urges.

I wonder if I'm making sense here?

[hamishspence]

Manual of the Planes, in its description of Celestia, mentions a "chaotic evil wizard dedictaed to learning the ways of goodness" who resides there.

In this case, he's part way through redemption. He's sincerely trying to reform, but he's got a long way to go, and retains many of the attitudes of his former lifestyle.

I suspect the same would apply to many evil characters- reformation the normal way, takes time.

Going by the various sources, it seems it is possible for even fiends to reform (for example, Fall-From-Grace in Planescape Torment- mentioned again in the Demonomicon: Malcanthet article in Dragon Magazine (I think those articles were written by WoTC staffers).

Killing someone unprovoked is Evil. Killing someone in self-defense is Neutral. (Killing a demon in self-defense is Good, but that's neither here nor there.)

A Paladin can kill a Good-aligned person in self defense and be fine, because such is not Evil. But if he attacks and kills an Evil person unprovoked just because he triggered his Evil-dar? Damn right he's falling.

True- though there are people who say it didn't work that way in 1st edition- and that Evil-dar only detected people who deserved to die so much, that killing them on the spot was not Fall-worthy.

And that it should work that way in 3.0-3.5.

I don't think it's as simple as 'one leads to the other'. If you're Lawful Good, you will tend to before Lawful and Good acts. If you perform Chaotic and Evil acts, you will stop being Lawful Good.

Basically, the Lawful Good person performs an Evil action, knows it's wrong... and performs more anyway. He's going to become Evil. If he performs one Evil act and feels horrible, well, obviously his alignment isn't changing.

Depending on the DM, a sufficiently Evil act will cause an alignment change even if the character feels horrible about it (the DMG does suggest that there are exceptions to the general rule that alignment change is gradual).

However, this will vary from DM to DM.

Anakin slaughtered a whole village- and felt horrible about it. Had he been a D&D character, would he have stayed Lawful Good?

[Yuki Akuma]

A fiend repenting would probably be more intellectual than emotional - they want to be Good and they know what it means to be Good, so they force themselves to act that way, even though all their instincts are screaming at them to go kill some orphans.

It must suck being a succubus Paladin.

True- though there are people who say it didn't work that way in 1st edition- and that Evil-dar only detected people who deserved to die so much, that killing them on the spot was not Fall-worthy.

And that it should work that way in 3.0-3.5.

All that matters to the Evil-dar is your alignment. Evil? You ping on the Evil-dar, if only very faintly. Being Evil does not mean you deserve to die - you might just be a selfish jerk who does everything for personal gain, but still helps others for selfish reasons. Does he deserve to die? Probably not.

Maybe it should be "in self-defense or the defense of others" (just like the real-life laws on justified homicide). If you see a cultist about to unleash Hell on Earth and he doesn't see you, is it Evil to kill him from the shadows? No. Probably Chaotic, but the Paladin doesn't care if he does some Chaotic acts occasionally.

[hamishspence]

All that matters to the Evil-dar is your alignment. Evil? You ping on the Evil-dar, if only very faintly. Being Evil does not mean you deserve to die - you might just be a selfish jerk who does everything for personal gain, but still helps others for selfish reasons. Does he deserve to die? Probably not.

That is the way it works in 3.0/3.5.

In 1st and 2nd ed, it didn't work that way- an Evil character did not "ping" unless they were exceptionally evil, and (unless much more evil than that) wouldn't ping unless intent on evil acts.

In 3.0/3.5, it works more like Know Alignment- if the character is evil, they ping- no matter how low level they are, or that they aren't intent on evil acts at the moment, or that they are only just evil enough to fall into Evil rather than Neutral.

So when people apply 1st ed Detect Evil mentality to 3rd ed- there are clashes.

Maybe it should be "in self-defense or the defense of others" (just like the real-life laws on justified homicide). If you see a cultist about to unleash Hell on Earth and he doesn't see you, is it Evil to kill him from the shadows? No. Probably Chaotic, but the Paladin doesn't care if he does some Chaotic acts occasionally.

That's pretty much what BoED and BoVD say. They might say other, less well thought out things, but they got that one right.

A fiend repenting would probably be more intellectual than emotional - they want to be Good and they know what it means to be Good, so they force themselves to act that way, even though all their instincts are screaming at them to go kill some orphans.

It must suck being a succubus Paladin.

Yup.

If the "instincts" are deemed to be stemming from the fiend's Evil subtype, then there is a ritual in Savage Species that can change the subtype.

However- it's a bit risky when they are that opposed- the being must pass a DC20 Will save, or die.