All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

[icefractal]

It always struck me as incredibly two-faced and a bad case of protagonist-centered morality for just the boss to live because they're 'important' in some way. They get the same moral consideration their minions got. So if everyone else lays dead, they can join their men shortly. The paladin should have no problem with this, given how he didn't have an issue with the rest of the killings.

This. I mean, "a gang of bandits" doesn't sound so irredeemably bad to begin with, so as a good-aligned character I'd be trying to subdue them non-lethally anyway. But if I was ok with killing all the minions, I'd be ok with killing the boss too.

Which is not to say I wouldn't consider accepting surrender if, for example, the minions are dead because the rest of the party is less merciful, and it's just luck the boss is still up. But I wouldn't say it's a mandatory required action if sparing the minions wasn't.

But at least this isn't the "after the hero killing their way through several dozen/hundred minions, the BBEG starts falling down a pit and the hero has to save him because 'otherwise I'd be as bad as he is'" scenario. Now that makes me want to push them both down the pit.

[Elkad]

Paladin accepts his surrender, and under authority granted directly to him as an agent of his god, acts as judge and (likely) executioner.

Done.

[Quertus]

Depends on the character, but…

Deal 9999999 non lethal damage then bring them in a redeemery?

Sounds like general best practices…

Well...

what if the enemy boss is a young, beautiful, curvaceous half-elf girl with tanned caramel skin...
soft, flawfless skin like precious silk...
with a tonic yet feminine body, long and muscular legs and a perky, full yet soft bosom and healty yet pleasantly curvy buttlocks...
honey hairs just slightly curly framing a cute, innocent yet surtly face who manage to elicit desire to protect and possess at the same time...
big, deep, slightly almond green eyes who's long eyelashes just happen to be fluttering gracefully....
full, pretty red lips slightly parted in a sweet yet fearful expression of supplication...

impercetibly snuggling up near the strong, handsome paladin's boots the surrendered boss begs for her life with songbird's-like voice, her big, big eyes just moistening with tears as she offers her plea.

" Oh, my Lord, please, be merciful with this poor, defenseless maiden! I fully recognize your might, your strenght, your superiority! Look, I hide no weapons on my self" - she proceed to remove her leather armor to prove she's truly weaponless - " I just want another chance at life... please, I would do anything to earn your forgiveness, anything..."

… might affect *where* I deal that 9999999 non lethal damage…

This. I mean, "a gang of bandits" doesn't sound so irredeemably bad to begin with, so as a good-aligned character I'd be trying to subdue them non-lethally anyway. But if I was ok with killing all the minions, I'd be ok with killing the boss too.

… and this brings up an interesting point. If we've been *killing* them up to this point, it says something about our relationship. I would be fine with the Paladin killing them, with the Paladin accepting their surrender and then lawfully executing them, or the Paladin looking the other way while I poison them. I would be dubious that they could have, as a group, done anything to deserve mass murder… whereby their leader deserves any less, so… even simply subduing the leader had best have some obvious point, like "big political trial" or something.

Now, I *did* have a character who similarly subdued a high-level prisoner, for the purpose of obtaining information about our mysterious foes, leading to this exchange when we got back to town:

Me: "can you cast Heal?"
Town Cleric: "no."
Me: (slits prisoner's throat) "how about Speak with Dead?"

Character didn't bother taking prisoners (or relying overmuch on the townsfolk) after that.

[mehs]

What im getting from this is that all of my good character's are exalted level compared to your guys' 'good' characters.

It is a surrender, the morality of killing someone who has surrendered is vastly different from killing someone currently trying to kill you. It is the difference between self defense and murder.

[Efrate]

Honestly depends on many things. Race of the bandit? If I am a paladin depends. Killing always evil race bandits is pretty much always a good act. Off with their head. Human/elf/etc. bandit who hasn't done anything crazy awful like slaughtering a nearby village. Take them to the authority. I will be the authority if none exist. Strip his ill-gotten gains and let him loose. If I'm in the party and I have better initiative than the paladin (I do). He dies. If paladin does not like it he no longer has to adventure with us.

Current characters (all pf1e):

NG Gnome bard 4 sherriff of a small town: I have the authority, I hear his case, pass judgement and that's that.

LG Human Paladin 5, currently a prisoner in a gladiatorial arena who experiences regular mind wipes. Likely stop. Stop, accept, take him to the same prison I am living in and warn him if he tries to escape he will be cut down or maimed like every other prisoner.

Lvl 19 N(E) Elvan wizard, leader of Racism and Reptiles adventuring party, problem solvers for the crown. If he is an elf, and elf enough as I judge it, he probably lives. He might even be offered a position in the personal demiplane interplanar brothel retirement plan he has. An attractive female of any race would be offered as well. Anyone else, dead or mind controlled into a use. People sweetening some planar bindings is always an option, have to pay the various flavors of outsiders...sometimes, unless I just straight enslave them via truename binding. They get the honor of servitude and the possibility to convert or corrupt as long as it makes me money. I let them go after a while. I am fair.

Lvl 4 N Vizier: Take his gear let him go. He is not advancing my studies at all.

[Venger]

What im getting from this is that all of my good character's are exalted level compared to your guys' 'good' characters.

It is a surrender, the morality of killing someone who has surrendered is vastly different from killing someone currently trying to kill you. It is the difference between self defense and murder.

Who said we're all playing Good characters when answering the question? Even if the question specified asking what a Good-aligned character would do, you can still just kill the bad guy. Death is not permanent under most circumstances in dnd. He can always come back later. It's not like anything irreversible's been done.

[Eldonauran]

What im getting from this is that all of my good character's are exalted level compared to your guys' 'good' characters.

It is a surrender, the morality of killing someone who has surrendered is vastly different from killing someone currently trying to kill you. It is the difference between self defense and murder.

Sounds more like we have a difference in perspective of what a good/exalted character would do in a given situation, rather than a misunderstanding of what it means to be Good. Good does not mean nice. It tends to imply it but that doesn't always mean it extends to every single circumstance. Evil hides behind whatever shield it can to preserve its own life, while Good will lay down its life in order to protect others. If an Evil being surrenders, it should expect nothing more than death because that is what it would deal out to someone else (or worse). It seeks to prey on a perceived weakness of a 'good' character in doing so. Justice is not the same thing as mercy. It is blind and it is insistent, and it doesn't care about getting messy. The misuse and abuse of others demands restitution and the Evil BBEG is no more entitled to more mercy than any of their victims.

[icefractal]

It is a surrender, the morality of killing someone who has surrendered is vastly different from killing someone currently trying to kill you. It is the difference between self defense and murder.

IRL maybe, but in D&D I don't think the reasons hold up so well:
* You can fairly easily do nonlethal damage, and unlike RL it is reliably nonlethal.
* Depending on your relative power, some foes aren't really a serious threat to you even when armed and swinging.
* Conversely, some foes can be 90% as dangerous even when fully disarmed and tied up.

So I'd say that in D&D, it's both less justified to kill people in the heat of battle and more justified to kill them afterwards than IRL, with the result that there's less of a moral line between the two acts.

Also, is it really self defense if you kicked down their door and told them to halt their evildoing or face your blade? PCs are often the aggressors, on an immediate scale anyway. It's not like you were fighting those bandits just to survive, you probably sought them out and started the fight for (hopefully) good reasons.

[KillianHawkeye]

There are also more situations in D&D where taking an enemy alive doesn't lead anywhere. A lot of adventures take place in the wilderness or in distant ruins where there is nobody around to turn a prisoner over to. Not every dungeon is in the sewers of a populated area. Or if it is, there's the chance that the local government is evil.

But I think the biggest issue is that unarmed people are often the most dangerous threats in D&D. How do you know the bandit leader isn't a sorcerer or a vampire or a succubus in disguise? He could wild shape into a dire tiger or revert back to his natural draconic form at any moment! It could just be an illusion or a dominated minion being controlled by an invisible mind flayer.

The point is that you can't just treat a surrendering foe like he's an equal. You have to end the fight first, one way or another, and confirm that the situation has been secured, before accepting a surrender.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Kill him anyway to spite all the idiotic media that says slaughtering underlings en masse is fine but "if you kill the villain you'll be evil just like him!"

[Batcathat]

Kill him anyway to spite all the idiotic media that says slaughtering underlings en masse is fine but "if you kill the villain you'll be evil just like him!"

Heh. That's certainly as good a reason as any, I do hate that cliche.

[mehs]

Sounds more like we have a difference in perspective of what a good/exalted character would do in a given situation, rather than a misunderstanding of what it means to be Good. Good does not mean nice. It tends to imply it but that doesn't always mean it extends to every single circumstance. Evil hides behind whatever shield it can to preserve its own life, while Good will lay down its life in order to protect others. If an Evil being surrenders, it should expect nothing more than death because that is what it would deal out to someone else (or worse). It seeks to prey on a perceived weakness of a 'good' character in doing so. Justice is not the same thing as mercy. It is blind and it is insistent, and it doesn't care about getting messy. The misuse and abuse of others demands restitution and the Evil BBEG is no more entitled to more mercy than any of their victims.

You seem to be trying to go somewhere with this, but fall rather flat. For one, random innocent victims are entitled to being shown mercy. Secondly, there is a wide range of evil beings. From random thieves to full on murderers to technically evil but redeemed fiends.

Killing random thieves because they tried to con you out of a dozen gold pieces is a wild overreaction. Even if you try to contend that they've stolen from countless others, it is still overkill.

Killing people when you don't need to is pretty damn evil.

In contrast, getting the evil being to be redeemed through one method or another is a Much more good aligned action than killing them during a fight, much less after they've surrendered.


For comparison, one time my character, a LG artificer, and company got attacked by some random bandits. I got them to surrender as quickly as possibly. One of their leg's was almost torn off, so I paid to create a scroll to heal it. We found out that they were bandits because they were poor as ****, so I gave them jobs in the party's silver mine.

That wasn't a paladin or an exalted character, but it sure seems like he was compared to the majority of other people's responses.

That is what I would hope a good aligned character would try to do, instead of all of this "execute them immediately" nonsense. Yeah, you don't have to be gullible about it, you can knock them unconscious, disarm them, take precautions, but if at all possible, don't kill prisoners. Killing prisoners or people that have surrendered is pretty much always going to be an evil aligned action in my book.

[Vizzerdrix]

If the pally wants to play warden, then that is on them and not the party. Do make sure to remind your pally that everything the bbeg does after his escape falls squarely on their shoulders.

[Eldonauran]

You seem to be trying to go somewhere with this, but fall rather flat.

There is a reason why my explanation seems to fall flat to you. You are taking a specific statement and artificially inflating it to become a general (or universal statement) about all kinds of evil. Try to keep things in context on within the same scope of the original discussion, and you miight find less confusion in the future.

Context: Evil leader seeks to surrender to you.
Specific: Do you accept his surrender?
My Response: No. Justice demands satisfaction.

[Zanos]

This. I mean, "a gang of bandits" doesn't sound so irredeemably bad to begin with, so as a good-aligned character I'd be trying to subdue them non-lethally anyway. But if I was ok with killing all the minions, I'd be ok with killing the boss too.

Depends on the banditry. Most bandits I've met in D&D are murderers.

In those circumstances, I see no particular reason to spare a murderer. Even a Paladin is under no obligation to do so.

[mehs]

If the pally wants to play warden, then that is on them and not the party. Do make sure to remind your pally that everything the bbeg does after his escape falls squarely on their shoulders.

That isn't how criminal guilt works. If the bbeg surrenders, is captured, and then escapes, the guilt for any crimes the bbeg commits is still their own, not anyone elses.

[mehs]

There is a reason why my explanation seems to fall flat to you. You are taking a specific statement and artificially inflating it to become a general (or universal statement) about all kinds of evil. Try to keep things in context on within the same scope of the original discussion, and you miight find less confusion in the future.

Context: Evil leader seeks to surrender to you.
Specific: Do you accept his surrender?
My Response: No. Justice demands satisfaction.

Again, my point is that you are reducing good and law down to executing people you think are evil. Honestly question, is that justice or is that self righteous vengeance? There is a difference.

[Necroticplague]

That isn't how criminal guilt works. If the bbeg surrenders, is captured, and then escapes, the guilt for any crimes the bbeg commits is still their own, not anyone elses.

And? The post your responding to didn't say anything about criminal charges.Morally, it is entirely acceptable to acknowledge good-intentioned actions as having bad consequences.

[Eldonauran]

Again, my point is that you are reducing good and law down to executing people you think are evil. Honestly question, is that justice or is that self righteous vengeance? There is a difference.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is the evilness of the boss leader in question? Are his/her crimes in question? Perhaps you are operating under the assumption that these things are in question. Let me clarify: I am not operating under that assumption. There is a Paladin present. I may be the Paladin. Does the Paladin have a habit of lying? Does the Paladin confirm the presence of evil?

There is a difference between self-righteous vengeance and justice, I agree. I do not argue that. However, I never brought up anything about vengeance. I spoke of justice. If you want to project the self-righteous vengeance on the actions of my character, that is something you have to wrestle with. I don't need to go into the motivations of the character I've described in much detail, but I will say that he has no interest in exacting payment from the evil bandit leader or BBEG. He is there to end the threat to innocent life. He does not kill on a whim or without purpose.

[icefractal]

If the pally wants to play warden, then that is on them and not the party. Do make sure to remind your pally that everything the bbeg does after his escape falls squarely on their shoulders.

Or - just hear me out - don't have the BBEG escape and do bad things. If anyone's wondering where murder-hobo attitudes in characters come from, it's from things like this. You want people showing mercy and taking prisoners? Then don't make that a sucker's game.

[Eldonauran]

Or - just hear me out - don't have the BBEG escape and do bad things. If anyone's wondering where murder-hobo attitudes in characters come from, it's from things like this. You want people showing mercy and taking prisoners? Then don't make that a sucker's game.

You are missing out on a very distinct and dangerous aspect of Evil if you completely forgo this kind of behavior from the enemies. Good heroes becoming 'murder-hobos' is a very real possibility when they are exposed repeatedly to things like this. Evil uses every tool it has available in order to preserve its own existence, and taking advantage of the merciful nature of 'good' characters is high up on that list. It is one way that Evil slowly drains the concepts of mercy and sacrifice from Good and converts them to a mockery of what they once were. It is supposed to be a scary concept, and a very real danger.

[noob]

You are missing out on a very distinct and dangerous aspect of Evil if you completely forgo this kind of behavior from the enemies. Good heroes becoming 'murder-hobos' is a very real possibility when they are exposed repeatedly to things like this. Evil uses every tool it has available in order to preserve its own existence, and taking advantage of the merciful nature of 'good' characters is high up on that list. It is one way that Evil slowly drains the concepts of mercy and sacrifice from Good and converts them to a mockery of what they once were.

Just cram the evil guys in a redeemery and then you get good guys from them.
They can not resist if you have the right setup.
So yes you can spare opponents by just stunning them and sending them to the redeemery.

[Eldonauran]

Just cram the evil guys in a redeemery and then you get good guys from them.
They can not resist if you have the right setup.
So yes you can spare opponents by just stunning them and sending them to the redeemery.

If you have that option available, then take it. Life is too valuable not to make the attempt if success is guaranteed like that. Though, you start to get into the problem of free will and autonomy. That is a much more murkier issue than I care to argue about.

[Efrate]

Sanctify the wicked is an exalted good spell. Completely rewrite someone's will into the goodest of good. They get no choice and can be forced into it pretty easily. That is dnd morality for you.

You could conceivably be exalted good paladin and rewrite the world to that. Probably get a promotion to solar on dying for saving an entire world.

Or just kill them. If this person has been leading a group of bandits who have been terrorizing folk he is guilty as his underlings which you had no issues slaughtering. He earned his sentence.

[Jay R]

No, a prisoner is someone who you've secured and taken into custody. That doesn't immediately happen when he throws his weapon down. He can't Michael Scott "I DECLARE IMPRISONMENT" and become safe from all attacks. At the very least, keep attacking and knock them unconscious so you can properly secure them. Never just stop when the bad guy asks you to stop.

Red herring duly noted. Yes, I would take steps to disarm and bind my prisoner. That has nothing to do with the question, which is about whether or not to murder a prisoner.

Kill him anyway to spite all the idiotic media that says slaughtering underlings en masse is fine but "if you kill the villain you'll be evil just like him!"

Nobody has said anything that can be honestly or fairly interpreted as "slaughtering underlings en masse is fine but 'if you kill the villain you'll be evil just like him!'"

Killing somebody who is trying to kill you is fine, and killing a prisoner who is not trying to kill you is murder, regardless of which one is the underling and which one is the leader.

[Zanos]

Killing bad people is fine. It's D&D time, not modern 2020 sensibilities of capital punishment. Both the alignment books even explicitly point this out.

[Necroticplague]

Red herring duly noted. Yes, I would take steps to disarm and bind my prisoner. That has nothing to do with the question, which is about whether or not to murder a prisoner.

No, it's not. It's about whether to take him prisoner in the first place. He's not a prisoner until we decide to make him one. Referring to the discussed act as murdering a prisoner is just begging the question.

Killing somebody who is trying to kill you is fine, and killing a prisoner who is not trying to kill you is murder, regardless of which one is the underling and which one is the leader.

And if you had some perfect ability to identify which was which, that would be very useful information. Sadly, a hypermajority of people lack this. Anybody appearing to surrender may have any of a thousand perfidious tricks at their disposal of which you are unaware, waiting for you to drop your gaurd. Continuing to treat them as a threat until corpse or unconcious is simply prudent.

[mehs]

No, it's not. It's about whether to take him prisoner in the first place. He's not a prisoner until we decide to make him one. Referring to the discussed act as murdering a prisoner is just begging the question.

And if you had some perfect ability to identify which was which, that would be very useful information. Sadly, a hypermajority of people lack this. Anybody appearing to surrender may have any of a thousand perfidious tricks at their disposal of which you are unaware, waiting for you to drop your guard. Continuing to treat them as a threat until corpse or unconscious is simply prudent.

The difference in morality between treating someone who has surrendered and someone who is your prisoner is so slight as to be meaningless. In either case, good people don't kill them if at all possible.

Secondly, equating there being a chance that the person might be doing a trick to being reasonably certain that the person is just trying to trick you and stab you in the back is unreasonable. You could, with equal strength of logic, try to justify that ANYONE might be secretly attempting to kill you which makes it perfectly okay to kill them first.

You can be reasonably certain of something not being a trick just the same as you can be reasonably certain that a random store clerk isn't trying to cheat you. Sure, they might be, but taking the nuclear option on every store clerk would make business impossible. At the end of the day, taking a minimized (by reason of chains, disarmament, etc) risk is the cost of doing business.

[KillianHawkeye]

Killing bad people is fine. It's D&D time, not modern 2020 sensibilities of capital punishment. Both the alignment books even explicitly point this out.

It seems like a lot of people in 2020 are even okay with it....

[Necroticplague]

The difference in morality between treating someone who has surrendered and someone who is your prisoner is so slight as to be meaningless. In either case, good people don't kill them if at all possible.

I disagree. A prisoner is somebody you have made a promise to attempt to keep alive to some extent. A surrendering person is somebody claiming to be making an offering to become a prisoner. Saying they're basically the same is like saying an interviewee and an employee are functionally identical. A prisoner is already under your control, a surrendering person is not yet.

Secondly, equating there being a chance that the person might be doing a trick to being reasonably certain that the person is just trying to trick you and stab you in the back is unreasonable. You could, with equal strength of logic, try to justify that ANYONE might be secretly attempting to kill you which makes it perfectly okay to kill them first.

Except 'likely to try and kill me' is not a binary measurement. There's a sliding scale of 'is currently trying to kill me' to 'couldn't even if they wanted to'. I have no particular reason to believe any random person on the street ever means me any harm above a threshold justifying violence. A person who appears to surrender because they're losing, however, I have considerable more reason to believe they'll try something. They're rating at 'just tried to kill me', which I believe is above the reasonable threshold. Somebody who just tried to kill me is inherently significantly less trustworthy than almost everyone else in existence on this scale, besides currently active combatants against me.