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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    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.
    You'll note that I specified "media" as the target of my spite, because this is a common writing trick to add "ethical conflict" to a pretty black-and-white situation. I would simply refuse to take the big bad prisoner, because I'm sick of these lazy fictional quandaries.

    What do you suggest as a Good alternative to killing The Dark Lord anyway? Brainwashing them to match your sense of morality isn't a thing good people would do and even if prisons weren't inhumane no D&D bbeg is going to be held in one

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

    I abhor the idea of purposefully mocking the group's paladin just because the rules say paladins must act in a certain way. It's that player's choice to play a paladin, just as much it's other players' choice to play some other class. Individual choices do not justify being an ass towards the paladin or their player, nor vice versa. Learn to adapt to your circumstances.

    That said, what to do to a surrendering BBEG would largely depend on their nature. Even if you are the paladin. And even then, killing is not the only solution to achieve your goals and meet your Code.
    Last edited by Arkhios; 2020-10-22 at 11:39 PM.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr_Dinosaur View Post
    What do you suggest as a Good alternative to killing The Dark Lord anyway? Brainwashing them to match your sense of morality isn't a thing good people would do and even if prisons weren't inhumane no D&D bbeg is going to be held in one
    Trial by combat! Create the conditions for your battle and ensure the rules are followed strictly; keep your conscience clear and your prisons empty. ;) After all, if they were truly innocent in their intentions and intended to keep their word, surely some deity or another would interfere in their favor.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Here's for my last couple characters:

    Milo, follower of the sublime way and aspiring master of Nine;

    Depends on how much of a PITA he and his minions have been and how convenient it would be to cart the bandit leader back to civilization. He is LG but he's an itinerant fighter first and foremost. He's willing to entertain a surrender but there's no guarantee. Might even go so far as to give the bandit leader a last stand "Pick up your arms. If you can best me, my friends will let you go*. If not, you've earned your fate." If I'm honest, that * is probably not true. The other PCs are even more murder-hoboey than Milo is.


    Geoff the Blue, warlock and meldshaper extraordinare;

    Not likely to accept a surrender. If he's feeling generous or the enemy is particularly pathetic, he might just strip him to the skin and send him on his way. As a CN incarnate, he doesn't believe in the concept of the rule of law or that there's such a thing as legitimate civil authority.


    Luther Askarda, Exalted Paladin of the Silver Flame and Argent Knight Vindicator;

    Might swear under his breath if the enemy has been a particularly troublesome but almost certain to accept the surrender or even demand one when the tide of battle looks certain. Mercy should be granted whenever possible and brigands handed over to legitimate authority if there is one over the region. Sometimes evil can be redeemed and it should be if it can. If it can't or won't be then it faces the full, unbridled wrath of the Silver Flame.


    All three were pretty different personality-wise, even though two are the same alignment. "It's what my character would do" is a terrible justification for problematic behavior but it's something to cleave to most of the time.


    If there's a paladin in the party (or another in Luther's case) I'd expect them to agree with Luther for the most part. Geoff would just shrug and tell the paladin "do what you want but if he threatens me again he's dead." Milo might challenge the Paladin to a non-lethal brawl over it if the bandit has particularly offended him but is more likely to just shrug and go along with taking him prisoner.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    There are non lethal solutions.
    Blind him, cut his tendons and tongue, and he'll never hurt anyone anymore.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Conradine View Post
    There are non lethal solutions.
    Blind him, cut his tendons and tongue, and he'll never hurt anyone anymore.
    Mutilation of an opponent who has surrendered is still rather vile thing to do, and something a paladin might not approve.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldonauran View Post
    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.
    I propose unlife is equally valuable, or even more valuable. The undead make better laborers, and have more time to see, understand, and learn from the error of their ways. They are also cheaper to feed and house. For the most part.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vizzerdrix View Post
    I propose unlife is equally valuable, or even more valuable. The undead make better laborers, and have more time to see, understand, and learn from the error of their ways. They are also cheaper to feed and house. For the most part.
    I reject the proposition that unlife is equally valuable or more valuable because I take a much broader look at the situation than you seem to. As a cheap source of labor, mindless undead may be more efficient or profitable, but the only real thing of value an undead can possess is intelligence and sentience. Otherwise they are no more valuable than draft animals, and cheaper to upkeep.

    Undeath has always been frowned upon in the D&D universe and there is a lot of disagreement from all sorts of different people about why, but it all boils down to the conflict between positive and negative energy, and the effects of undeath on the soul of a mortal creature. If all you focus on is the side of life that takes place on the Material realm, undeath seems a win-win situation, especially if you get to escape the consequences of what the afterlife brings. And this escape is usually a big driving force for why Evil beings tend to surrender or go out of their way to avoid their own death. They have a reason to be frightened of what awaits them.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldonauran View Post
    I reject the proposition that unlife is equally valuable or more valuable because I take a much broader look at the situation than you seem to. As a cheap source of labor, mindless undead may be more efficient or profitable, but the only real thing of value an undead can possess is intelligence and sentience. Otherwise they are no more valuable than draft animals, and cheaper to upkeep.

    Undeath has always been frowned upon in the D&D universe and there is a lot of disagreement from all sorts of different people about why, but it all boils down to the conflict between positive and negative energy, and the effects of undeath on the soul of a mortal creature. If all you focus on is the side of life that takes place on the Material realm, undeath seems a win-win situation, especially if you get to escape the consequences of what the afterlife brings. And this escape is usually a big driving force for why Evil beings tend to surrender or go out of their way to avoid their own death. They have a reason to be frightened of what awaits them.
    There is a good reason to not turn people into undead: you could be turning them into undying instead and undyings are usually smarter and kinder and also does not makes the world a place more full of negative energy.

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

    What are undying? Are they different from deathless?
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Venger View Post
    What are undying? Are they different from deathless?
    The deathless in Eberron are (typically) members of the Undying Court.

    The spells to create them though are locked behind a setting specific domain, so they might be uncastable in many settings since no deities will have that domain.

    Also, deathless are probably one of the worst ideas in Eberron, especially since the setting already supports a grey morality that Undeath not being Evil fits into perfectly fine. But on the topic of draft labor, all deathless are sentient, so that's basically slave labor.
    Last edited by Zanos; 2020-10-23 at 01:28 PM.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Reading this, I am reminded of this thread, where we could count on the Paladin to murder the prisoner once we've gotten any useful information out of them. If I run a Paladin, I'm running someone like *that*. No issues with *that* paladin being a wet blanket on murder.

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by Venger View Post
    Who said we're all playing Good characters when answering the question?
    Yeah, I'm kinda batting for team Lawful Evil most of the time. Any GM who "cares" about alignment, I'm *almost certainly* playing Evil.

    Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
    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.

    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    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.
    It's certainly rather evil Chaotic to accept their surrender, then kill them.

    The question is, do we *accept* their surrender?

    Historically, surrender is accepted, not for humanitarian reasons, but for advantage: taking the former enemies as slaves, ransoming nobles, etc. D&D "Good" doesn't believe in slavery, leading to some questionable World-building for them to believe in surrender.

    That aside, as I tried to say earlier, in D&D, it's really easy to take people alive. From the premise of the question, that we have *killed* all the (likely less-culpable) minions, it is clear that we have considered their deeds beyond redemption / have no intention to redeem them, so it makes no sense to consider accepting the leader's surrender unless there is some additional outside impetus to do so.

    So, from the question, if we've already *killed* the minions, we're going to *kill* the leader, too.

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    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.
    You *judged* them. In this case, you *judged* them redeemable. You deemed the root cause of their disruptive behavior to be "poverty", and you addressed this root cause. Good for you.

    We have been killing all the minions. We've already killed them all to death. We have clearly judged them beyond redemption. We will kill their boss to death, too (unless we have reserved an even worse punishment for him).

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

    On the topic of how easy it is to capture foes alive, I do wonder, how Evil is it to not take Subduing Strike and/or Nonlethal Substitution? It really is not much effort at all to always deal nonlethal damage with no penalty. Archers don't even need to spend a feat and can just buy arrows that deal nonlethal damage. You're pretty much intentionally choosing to use lethal force with little to no advantage at that point. Hell, I think coup de gracing a foe the wizard put to sleep is the same action as manacling him.
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    That aside, as I tried to say earlier, in D&D, it's really easy to take people alive. From the premise of the question, that we have *killed* all the (likely less-culpable) minions, it is clear that we have considered their deeds beyond redemption / have no intention to redeem them, so it makes no sense to consider accepting the leader's surrender unless there is some additional outside impetus to do so.

    So, from the question, if we've already *killed* the minions, we're going to *kill* the leader, too.



    You *judged* them. In this case, you *judged* them redeemable. You deemed the root cause of their disruptive behavior to be "poverty", and you addressed this root cause. Good for you.

    We have been killing all the minions. We've already killed them all to death. We have clearly judged them beyond redemption. We will kill their boss to death, too (unless we have reserved an even worse punishment for him).

    My point was that even before I knew anything about the bandits, as soon as they surrendered, I had bandaged their wounds. As soon as we got to a place to camp, I was making the scroll to heal their leg.

    If you are trying to make a case that good aligned creatures will never accept surrender or take prisoners when possible, you have a very warped idea of good.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    If you are trying to make a case that good aligned creatures will never accept surrender or take prisoners when possible, you have a very warped idea of good.
    I am pointing out that the underlying system does not provide one of the prime incentives present in historical societies for good characters to accept surrenders (namely, taking the defeated soldiers back as slaves).

    Without this underlying motivation, it would require some careful world-building for the very *concept* of surrender to be present, at least between good-aligned nations.

    Without that world-building, then "good" should, by definition and human psychology, be a very warped stance compared to most modern morality (like it already is in several other places).

    It's just another dysfunction you notice when you stop mistaking D&D alignments for anything more than team jerseys with legalistic entry requirements.

    But that is just a world-building aside to the main point, which is that the choice to have already killed all the (likely less culpable) minions says something important about our mindset in this mission - namely, that we have *already* judged them irredeemable.

    To act otherwise - to kill the redeemable as unnecessarily as it would generally be in 3e - is a rather warped take on good.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-10-23 at 09:54 PM.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    The deathless in Eberron are (typically) members of the Undying Court.

    The spells to create them though are locked behind a setting specific domain, so they might be uncastable in many settings since no deities will have that domain.

    Also, deathless are probably one of the worst ideas in Eberron, especially since the setting already supports a grey morality that Undeath not being Evil fits into perfectly fine. But on the topic of draft labor, all deathless are sentient, so that's basically slave labor.
    I was not planning on making them work.
    They will decide on their own to work(and probably not for me) because doing nothing is boring.
    Ex: you animate 50 deathless wizards and they will probably start doing things on their own like a charity business or selling the service of casting spells and so on.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-24 at 08:13 AM.

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

    We had an ultimately fatal to the game party fight over how to deal with a gang of bandits. The bandits were preying on groups of merchants on the road. The cleric (CG) cast a spell to make the Paladin more intimidating. The Paladin then spent several actions breaking the morale of the bandits and making them run away. My witch (LN) was horrified that they would let the predators run, without taking AOOs on the fleeing bandits, to allow them to to return to stealing from terrified caravans (but as a buffer/debuffer I couldn’t stop them myself). Unfortunately this immediately followed a moral debate about killing wolves and immediately preceded a moral debate on the feudal society and then we were done. 😢

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I am pointing out that the underlying system does not provide one of the prime incentives present in historical societies for good characters to accept surrenders (namely, taking the defeated soldiers back as slaves).

    Without this underlying motivation, it would require some careful world-building for the very *concept* of surrender to be present, at least between good-aligned nations.

    Without that world-building, then "good" should, by definition and human psychology, be a very warped stance compared to most modern morality (like it already is in several other places).

    It's just another dysfunction you notice when you stop mistaking D&D alignments for anything more than team jerseys with legalistic entry requirements.

    But that is just a world-building aside to the main point, which is that the choice to have already killed all the (likely less culpable) minions says something important about our mindset in this mission - namely, that we have *already* judged them irredeemable.

    To act otherwise - to kill the redeemable as unnecessarily as it would generally be in 3e - is a rather warped take on good.

    In feudal Europe, taking prisoners was pretty common as knights and other high ranking military officers represented a vast investment of resources. Taking prisoners allowed you to ransom them back, allowing you to gain a profit as well as bleeding the enemy of resources.

    In other societies, the defeated asking to reclaim the bodies of the dead or the prisoners was an admittance that the winner's owned the battlefield and have of course won.

    In societies where the rank and file are not particularly ideologized, it is pretty simple to recruit captured soldiers into your own ranks.

    Then there is the possibility of interrogating/truth magic'ing military and political intelligence.

    There is the more cynical reason that enemy soldiers that know they will just be slaughtered will fight longer than if in the case where they can surrender or be allowed to retreat..

    I mean, god man, there is so many reasons to accept surrender other than "enslave everyone". Not to mention that unless all wars between good aligned nations end with one side totally genocided, the idea of surrender has to exist. I would argue that you are being purposefully close minded to maintain such a position as that good people dont accept surrender.

    This is all aside that you are trying to force the necessity for good aligned people to need to a reason to not kill people, when it should be the other way around, that good people should need a reason to kill people. In the outlined scenario, the reason to kill the minions is that they are actively trying to kill you and that you can't safely subdue them. The reasoning for not killing the surrendering leader is then a rather obvious: He is not trying to actively kill you.
    Last edited by mehs; 2020-10-24 at 10:19 PM.

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

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    This is all aside that you are trying to force the necessity for good aligned people to need to a reason to not kill people, when it should be the other way around, that good people should need a reason to kill people. In the outlined scenario, the reason to kill the minions is that they are actively trying to kill you and that you can't safely subdue them. The reasoning for not killing the surrendering leader is then a rather obvious: He is not trying to actively kill you.
    That's exactly the warped version of "good" I was talking about: the minions trying to kill you is reason to make them killing you not happen; however, "killing them" is not a prerequisite for them to not kill you, particularly when knocking them out instead is, as others have explained, quite non-lethal in 3e. So "they're trying to kill you" is a reasonable Neutral reason to kill someone; Good should look at more details than that. Otherwise, we're just in "team jerseys" territory, where everyone is trying to kill everyone else with a different jersey color, simply because those with a different jersey color are trying to kill them.

    This ability to incapacitate the minions does, of course, open up the option for an as-yet unexplored path: not killing all the minions, then killing the surrendering leader (rejecting their surrender, or accepting their surrender and then executing them for their crimes). Although this is perhaps the most likely path that one of my Good characters would default to in a "bandits" scenario, it is not an option in your more specific "bandits where you've already killed all the minions" scenario.

    But I don't play Good characters very often anymore. Most of my Good characters are dead. I'm batting for team Lawful Evil these days.

    -----

    What would my characters do in this scenario?

    Quertus: Well, the Bandit Leader attempting to surrender is kinda... odd. Because Quertus probably nuked the site from orbit. (perhaps the bandits stole something he had shipped in; annoyed, Quertus (performed divinations, scryed through time, then) teleported through space and time, and replaced the shipment with, well, something that went "boom" (for example, a few hundred metamagic'd Delayed Blast Fireball gems stored in Quintessence, plus a few diminutive Simulacra to extract the gems at the appropriate time)). Or he sent an army of Golems to deal with the problem. In any event, in the strange scenario where my epic wizard was dealing with bandits, their calls for surrender should go unheard. On the off chance he was somehow "on the ground" dealing with bandits (they happened to be camped at the site of a rare convergence of magical energies or something, and they mistook Quertus for an adventurer come to wipe them out, and attacked), calls of "I surrender" would, perhaps, be met with a response of, "don't resist", followed by Quertus casting a spell (most likely Polymorph Any Object, to turn the surrendered leader into a shovel, or whatever other tool Quertus thought he needed at the moment).

    Armus: Armus most likely hired the bandit leader (likely through an alias), to manipulate the political landscape (and/or, in the case where we've killed all the bandits, to collect irredeemable ne'er-do-wells in one place for the party Paladin to slaughter), so of course Armus would (say what was necessary to get the party to) accept his pawn's surrender (unless getting the pawn killed was somehow part of the plan).

    Illirian: The only reasons Illirian wouldn't pull a Stark and execute the surrendered bandit leader would be if someone else had greater claim to swing the blade, or if the party didn't accept the surrender and killed the bandit leader outright.

    Briq: Yeah, um, Briq would beat the bandit leader unconscious, just as he did to all of the minions that he came across. Apparently, someone else in the party has been going along slitting all their throats after the fact (probably the paladin), and I expect that they'll do the same to the bandit leader.

    Eladove: Nah, she doesn't need a bandit leader (A'Jin: especially an unnamed NPC) as a Synthesis - they need to at least measure up to Hessalo Synthesis One, Irmutar Synthesis Two, and Rathkuul Synthesis Three.

    Pidge: Pidge would disarm the bandit leader - literally, as in remove his arms. And his tongue. And eyes. And all his hair (including eye lashes, eye brows, etc) and teeth. And wonder if he missed anything. Which leads us to...

    Delock: Much more efficiently, Delock would simply turn the bandit leader into a brain in a jar. We can always give him a body back later if he is absolved of his crimes.

    Anna: <Bang!> <Headshot!> "Sorry, what was that?" Much like Quertus, Anna would not be in range to hear the surrender; unlike Quertus, she isn't terribly perceptive in the first place.

    Rita: (looks for a Staff of the Magi to break across the bandit leader's face)

    Datch: "Finally, someone who surrenders! ... Don't resist" <Arcane energies>

    Korin: "Sorry, I've ordered too many undead to kill you - I can't order them all to stop in time. So make peace with whatever gods you follow - quickly." (turns to party) "Can you believe I used to be good, and that this used to be something of a moral dilemma for me?"

    K'Tamair: K'Tamair am be taking bandit leader's belt, am be tying their shoe laces together.

    Raymond: (Quirks an eyebrow, turns to party/Tivek) "Is he worth keeping?"

    Tivek: (looks bandit leader over) "...Yes. Let's invite him to dinner."
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-10-25 at 09:23 AM.

  20. - Top - End - #80
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    You are ignoring that unless you are specifically statted into it, taking people alive is much harder than subduing them with lethal force.

    The core disconnect seems to be a difference, intentional or not, in the interpretations of how the scenario arose. In my interpretation, the reasonable assumption for how it happened is if taking the minions alive were unreasonably difficult and presented undue risk. In your interpretation, the paladin and party slaughtered the minions just 'cuz. While the latter is more common from the perspective from players not caring about morality, the former is much more likely from an in game perspective.
    Last edited by mehs; 2020-10-25 at 11:16 AM.

  21. - Top - End - #81
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    You are ignoring that unless you are specifically statted into it, taking people alive is much harder than subduing them with lethal force.

    The core disconnect seems to be a difference, intentional or not, in the interpretations of how the scenario arose. In my interpretation, the reasonable assumption for how it happened is if taking the minions alive were unreasonably difficult and presented undue risk. In your interpretation, the paladin and party slaughtered the minions just 'cuz. While the latter is more common from the perspective from players not caring about morality, the former is much more likely from an in game perspective.
    That sounds very much like a CaS vs CaW issue: CaS assumes a sporting challenge, while CaW says "what's there is there" & it could be anywhere from a cakewalk to impossible. As a CaW corollary, "bandits" are usually at the *low* end of threats that adventurers face, making them rather easy ("wade through them like they were humans" easy) for most adventurers (let alone average "past" characters, who have presumably "completed the campaign").

    So, yeah, outside of CaS contrivance, *most* characters / parties should find *most* bandits somewhere between "easy" and "trivial", and should have no excuse for their wanton murder.

    Most of *my* characters would murder them unapologetically nonetheless, because I don't play many good characters any more. (Not because I dislike questions of morality, but because I'm enjoying looking at them from perspectives that are very different from my own.)

    EDIT: and several of my good characters not only would but *have* taken the hard road, and subdued highly threatening bandits, at the risk of their own personal safety or even at the risk of a TPK. Nobody said that good was easy.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-10-25 at 05:45 PM.

  22. - Top - End - #82
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    I was not planning on making them work.
    They will decide on their own to work(and probably not for me) because doing nothing is boring.
    Ex: you animate 50 deathless wizards and they will probably start doing things on their own like a charity business or selling the service of casting spells and so on.
    That is not what the Deathless actually decided to do in the one canon setting where they exist, so I'm not sure where you're pulling this from. As far as I know you can't create a deathless wizard either, since both spells only allow you to create specific creatures, not add templates.

    Quote Originally Posted by mehs View Post
    You are ignoring that unless you are specifically statted into it, taking people alive is much harder than subduing them with lethal force.
    Stating into knocking people out instead of killing them is trivial. At most it's a feat, and in some cases it's as little as a piece of equipment that's cheaper than any printed magic item. If you don't want to spend a feat you can also buy a relatively cheap magic item property that allows you to do so at no penalty. So much for being Good. Apparently taking your enemies nonlethally isn't even worth a feat or a +1 bonus on a weapon(the deals extra damage anyway).
    If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!

  23. - Top - End - #83
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    That is not what the Deathless actually decided to do in the one canon setting where they exist, so I'm not sure where you're pulling this from. As far as I know you can't create a deathless wizard either, since both spells only allow you to create specific creatures, not add templates.


    Stating into knocking people out instead of killing them is trivial. At most it's a feat, and in some cases it's as little as a piece of equipment that's cheaper than any printed magic item. If you don't want to spend a feat you can also buy a relatively cheap magic item property that allows you to do so at no penalty. So much for being Good. Apparently taking your enemies nonlethally isn't even worth a feat or a +1 bonus on a weapon(the deals extra damage anyway).
    Deathless wizard is a specific kind of creature (with a caster level of 3 and a statblock representing multiple creatures sharing it) not a template.
    And participating to the undying court is a job.
    As is sitting on a spot awaiting for people to get advice from you.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-26 at 01:29 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #84
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    In one campaign I was in our group of adventures rarely fought people during our quests.(by people we any humans or Demi-humans) it was almost always monsters. When we did face people not only did we accept surrender we made every effort to bring them in alive.

    This included a serial killer who made a suit from the skin of his victims. The murderer was tried and executed. The only time lethal force was used against people were against those of which there was a defacto state of war with. And if someone surrendered we either took them as POWs or let them go so long as they left their weapons behind.

    But even as a general rule, do you execute a surrendering big bad? Well usually those types of people have done stuff that will earn them and execution anyway if you did bring them back for trial.
    So why are they even surrendering?
    In 3rd edition paladins are lawful good divinely empowered instruments of justice. If they can not be brought back for trial and their sentience carried out safely. Then it may be the paladins duty to carry out that sentience on the spot.

    “Lord Darkhold, you murdered scores of innocent men, women and children without care or remorse. Turned them into your armies of the dead and unleashed them upon your enemies. Any prisoners you took were worked to death in your iron mines. For your crimes against sapience the sentience is death!”

    And if the big bad didnÂ’t do something worthy of a death sentience. You might have to question why you slaughtered all his men.
    Last edited by Lord Vukodlak; 2020-10-26 at 02:15 AM.
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  25. - Top - End - #85
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Remember, if you don't want prisoners but the paladin is insisting, you can always pretend to go along then convince the paladin to go elsewhere while the resident sneaky type shanks them and makes it look like an accident.
    I am rel.

  26. - Top - End - #86
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    As far as I know you can't create a deathless wizard either, since both spells only allow you to create specific creatures, not add templates.
    Create Greater Deathless allows you to create a Sacred Watcher from BOED. That's a template.
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  27. - Top - End - #87
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    DruidGuy

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Vukodlak View Post
    But even as a general rule, do you execute a surrendering big bad? Well usually those types of people have done stuff that will earn them and execution anyway if you did bring them back for trial.
    So why are they even surrendering?
    In 3rd edition paladins are lawful good divinely empowered instruments of justice. If they can not be brought back for trial and their sentience carried out safely. Then it may be the paladins duty to carry out that sentience on the spot.

    “Lord Darkhold, you murdered scores of innocent men, women and children without care or remorse. Turned them into your armies of the dead and unleashed them upon your enemies. Any prisoners you took were worked to death in your iron mines. For your crimes against sapience the sentience is death!”

    And if the big bad didnÂ’t do something worthy of a death sentience. You might have to question why you slaughtered all his men.
    For real. You aren’t going to have Trial by Combat/Ordeal in D&D. That depends on the idea that god protects the innocent and just, which isn’t likely if Malar or Bane is as likely to be watching the fight as Selune or Mystra. Other than that, most medieval trials weren’t trials as we would think of them. I can’t see most groups going out of their way to deliver someone to the local magistrate for summary execution when there is a perfectly good knight or priest right there in the party to pass judgment.

  28. - Top - End - #88
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    Reputations are a thing. In general, accepting surrender when you don't have specific reason not to is good policy (and usually is even when you do have specific reason not to). Same for treating prisoners well. A couple of reasons:

    1) If it's known that you accept surrender and let folks live, folks are a lot more likely to try surrendering when the odds are no longer in their favor. This means they're not fighting as long, so you and yours take fewer hits. On the other end, if you're known for NOT taking prisoners (or for executing prisoners arbitrarily), then your opponents will always fight to the death, as once they've engaged it's victory or death - you've eliminated all other options.
    2) People in general are more likely to accept surrender from folks who are known for accepting surrender. Unless you're so full of yourself that you think you'll always win (to be fair, in some games, that's a reasonably justified stance for PC's), it's better to have the option than not. If you never give quarter to those who ask, you can reasonably expect to never be given quarter yourself.
    3) You're not the only person out there doing this sort of thing. Your actions will affect how folks see those who seem to be like you (even if it's just superficial appearances). This is part of why US soldiers are under standing orders to accept surrender and treat prisoners well, even when it's a significant hardship to do so: It's a practical matter. It's known US troops accept surrender and treat prisoners well, so a lot more opposing soldiers are likely to surrender, which means less fighting - and in turn, fewer US soldiers die as a result. Likewise, it's known that US troops accept surrender, so when US troops are sufficiently outgunned that they surrender, it's a lot more likely that their surrender will be accepted. Your convenience is not worth their lives.

    For obvious reasons, this doesn't apply with Demons and the like, but for simple bandits? Absolutely. Surrender and live, all the way.
    Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.

  29. - Top - End - #89
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    I don't care about the Paladin. It won't affect my RP in any way, as I don't tailor my RP to what class is in the group. If me and the Paladin have established a mutual Respect for each other through RP, I'd probably try to find a compremise solution that satisfies both of us; Otherwise, what the Paladin wants will be irrelevant to what I do.

    That said, depends on what character I'm playing, his alignment, if he has a personal history with the Villain and what the villain has done to merit my wrath.

    For my current, Neutral character: If the villain has engaged in inocent kills or other forms of despicable acts, torture followed up by enslavement followed up by death would be the default chain of actions. This character's whole personality revolves around Machiavelism, and has a simple rule: "You deserve to be treated exactly as you treat people, and that's how I will treat you". He's a vindictive b@stard, but if you're a kind soul, he'll make extra effort to treat you kindly.


    That said, it depends on my character's personality as well. Sometimes I may play a Lawful Good grandson of a Metalic Dragon, and be more willing to hand the villain to the authorities, and let them deal with the punishment. Other times I may play a Neutral Evil Dexter-type Serial Killer Lich/Necropolitan who takes pleasure with torturing and killing other murderers. Or a Cleric of the 9 Hells whose purpose is to deliver Evil guys to the 9 hells. And sometimes, my chaotic neutral character will be too interested in looting the headquorters to actually care what the party does with the captive, and probably turn a blind eye if something scetchy was to happen, provided he gets an extra cut from the loot.

    So, yeah, in a game were you can be a series of different people, there is not one answear to this question.

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  30. - Top - End - #90
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    Default Re: All the enemies are dead except the boss who says he surrenders, what do you do?

    I assume this is a low level thing, since death ceases to be an issue at higher levels, at least for PCs, and healing magic as it is make it significantly less threatening for pcs with resources. So that angle or saving more lives IRL is meaningless when a spell or some GP can more or less totally invalidate that concern. Combat is sport for PCs, it is war for npcs generally

    And no one will know about your surrender acceptance policy and such if all your foes die. Also the murderhobo adventure style where you are travelling from point a to b do not have to worry about reputation. Word cannot travel if there is no one to spread it.

    If all your quests come from a patron, your instructions will be alive, alive if possible, or end threat by any means necessary so you know going in what you should do.

    If you adventure from a central base but not at the behest of anyone, again your reputation does not matter.

    Also unless in a very odd setting, at mid levels you have outstripped the ability of most normal humanoids to reliably be a threat. The foes you do face are much more likely to be either non-humanoid and/or have different societies and morals and goals than you and not respect whatever you and yours do.

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