Alignment shift question

[isauteikisa]

Hey guys. I'm currently DMing my first campaign (3.5, anywhere between 5-7 players depending on work schedules), and I recently put the group in a situation which caused them to all shift one step toward Evil. However, I'm second guessing myself, and I'd like your opinion on what happened and the result before I have to change things around because of their new alignments.

Background: The party has been recruited by the captain of the guard to eliminate the threat of an attack from the Grumesh orc tribe, which is located several days ride north of the home city of this campaign. Our party readily agrees, especially a half-elf ranger whose family was murdered by this very tribe. Upon reaching the area, they found a large encampment surrounded by wooden walls. After killing two patrols and a dire lion belonging to the chief of this tribe (due to an ill-advised use of signal flares that were found on some scouts), the party is now in the situation of having to take out the orcs residing in this encampment.

The situation that caused the shift: The party did not do any real scouting of the encampment, other than determining that there were several cottages with thatched roofs and wooden walls inside the walls of the encampment. Upon noticing this, they planned to burn down the city by shooting makeshift fire arrows and throwing alchemist's fire over the walls onto the roofs of the buildings. They rolled very well (and the sentries stationed on the walls rolled very poorly), and most of the buildings in the encampment caught fire rapidly.

What the party DIDN'T know was that, in addition to the warriors of this tribe, the encampment was home to the women and children of the tribe, that are now trapped in burning cottages with the roofs collapsing on top of them. Several of them have already died due to these collapses, and many others are trapped. This killing and reckless endangerment of innocents was enough, in my opinion to warrant a one-step shift toward Evil for all the party members involved.

My question is: was I too harsh on them? They did run in and burn the encampment down without thinking about potential innocents in there, but these orcs were the target of their mission. One of my primary concerns is that this has caused the party healer (cleric) to move too far from his god's alignment, and has now lost all of his powers. This is going to have dire consequences for the party in the coming encounter, and I'm going to have to shift several things around in the story to accomodate the party's new makeup.


tl:dr - is burning down a 'fort' that contains innocents worth a shift to Evil if you didn't consider the possibility that there were innocents present?

[Mr.Moron]

I'd say that's the sort of thing that could get you quickly kicked out of "Good" but not really send you all that much closer to "Evil" if you're already "Neutral".

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd say it was definitly harsh being as they didn't know that the Orcs had non-combatants there. I especially think it was over the top to have the Cleric losing their powers over it due to how useless they are now (if nothing else, I'd ret-con their alignment change so that it doesn't cause needless problems for the party). Incidentally, who was the Cleric's diety?

EDIT: Reading back over it, I'd say that having alignment changes for that sort of thing would be enough to make me quit the campaign due to causing me to think you did it to rail-road the party into "turning" evil, especially since scouting the camp out in too much detail would increase their chances of getting captured or killed.

[Serpentine]

Hmmm... Well, what do you mean by "one step"? How many "degrees" are there in Good before you hit Neutral, assuming the character starts at the maximum "Good" end?
Was it a matter of stupidity or not thinking, or of being willing to take the risk? That is, did they simply not consider the possibility that there could be innocents there? If so, then that could possibly deserve a small shift towards Neutral, because that's something they should really be considering, but a simple brain fart isn't too dire. If they did consider the possibility that there could be innocents at risk, why did they go ahead? Was it, "they're just orcs, they don't matter"? Or "They killed my tribe's women and children, why shouldn't I kill theirs?!" Or maybe "Don't leave anyone to seek revenge for the death of their menfolk"? Or "we were hired to eliminate the whole tribe, not just the warriors"?
These are all in need of analysis, themselves. I, personally, would consider the first to be quite Evil; the second fairly Evil but forgivable; the third... Neutral, maybe, or slightly Evil, maybe even nearly Good if their aim is to put a halt to the bloodshed there; the fourth... pragmatic, really. Evilish, perhaps. The final one seems more Lawful than Evil to me, though still a touch on the Evil side.

[Telonius]

I'd say that one incident of unwittingly burninating orc peasants (and their thatched-roof cottages) wouldn't put a character at risk for an alignment shift. As a one-off occurrence, it's a terrible mistake. If it becomes a general pattern of reckless behavior, then a shift is justified. No effect at all for most of the players.

If there's a Paladin or Cleric in the group, then it gets a little more complicated. For either one, it's really up to the DM to determine whether or not that action "grossly" violates the tenets of the deity or Paladin order. I'd say that the reaction of the Cleric or Paladin to the news that innocents were killed would be a good guide to whether or not it's justified. If it's, "Oh well, they were just orcs," then I would rule without hesitation that they fall and must Atone. But if it's, "Oh no, what have we done! Quick, put the fires out!" then I wouldn't make them fall.

[Tempest Fennac]

Putting the fires out would endanger them, though. Also, how would they find out that women and children were being burnt alive? I don't see any reason why any of the Orcs should have been classed as non-combatants anyway due to their culture being so battle orientated that I'd expect most of the tribe members to have learnt how to fight.

[Milskidasith]

So you are changing them from Good to Neutral and from Neutral to Evil and making the Cleric fall over something that was an accident caused by playing pragmatically? How did you describe the village, also? Even little flavor text can matter; if you said "you see several orcs carrying war-axes walking around," there is no reason to consider innocents; if you said "you see a few orcs, mostly women, carrying food around outside the huts" then it's a lot worse.

But really, in most all situations, a direct shift of alignment is absurd for that mistake. Shifting from Good to Neutral, if they've been good before and had one accident, is going to be enough to piss everybody off. Shifting from Neutral to Evil makes no sense in this situation, because killing orcs is a decidedly neutral act anyway (stopping the bloodshed). Practically every book says that almost no act besides cold blooded murder is enough to instantly shift your alignment, and I don't consider "burning down the village we were hired to destroy" to be cold blooded murder, especially when they had no clue who was there (either due to not giving enough hints during the descriptions you did give, or because of pragmatism on their part; why scout when you are going to kill them all anyway?)

[hamishspence]

BoED answer- Intentionally dropping fireball on both orc combatants and non-combatants, is an evil act. So, yes, there is such thing as orc noncombatants.

BoVD answer- Recklessly endangering people, leading to their deaths, is evil.
But if you had no reasonable way of knowing they were there, its not reckless endangerment, its accident.

It might fit. the phrase used in the reckless endangerment case was "The paladin isn't exactly a murderer, but they should fall until they make atonement."

So, paladin powers (or exalted feats) should be lost, but alignment shift might be a bit uncalled for.

[Milskidasith]

The thing is, even then, it says that it is an evil act. It doesn't say that it is an act worthy of an immediate drop in alignment. And they had no way to know, so it isn't even under those examples.

[isauteikisa]

@Tempest - St. Cuthbert (LG deity, for my game), cleric was LN before and other than this mission had no personal reason to hate the orcs. Also, they had the option of either trying to take the area themselves (with the exception of the dire lion, none of the patrols had presented any difficulty, though they knew the leader was powerful), sneak in and try to take out the leader alone, or the option they chose (burn the place down).

@Milsk - they couldn't see much over the walls of the city. They only tried to observe it at night, from a great distance, and so didn't see anyone other than a few orcs patrolling.

@all - thank you for the responses. I'm going to take this into consideration... as I said, this is my first time DMing, and I misjudged how important the killing of innocents in this context was. I'm probably going to keep most of the shifts from Good to Neutral (as most of the party was tending Neutral during the game anyway), but I'm definitely going to re-eval the cleric situation.

Thanks for helping a n00b out :P

[hamishspence]

3.5 ed isn't very clear on "acts worthy of an immediate drop" though in DMG it does say "immediate shifts" are rare but not unheard of.

Fiendish Codex 2 lists "Corrupt" (Always Evil) acts including murder, but again, doesn't say if acts can lead to an immediate alignmnet shift.

2nd ed PHB and DMG were much more explicit, stating clearly that "murder the villagers to save the country" leads to immediate shift to Evil alignment.

But this might be closer to involuntary manslaughter.

[Serpentine]

The thing is, even then, it says that it is an evil act. It doesn't say that it is an act worthy of an immediate drop in alignment. And they had no way to know, so it isn't even under those examples.

That would be the crux of my questions. Did they know? Could they have known? Is it something they could or should have considered? 'til we know that, we can't really judge *shrug*

[Kroy]

Just remember that one evil act isn't enough to switch alignments. Also, keep in mind that alignment is based on knowledge of what your doing. Is killing a bandit evil if it was a paladin in disguise?
Edit: Ninja'ed!

[hamishspence]

"Burn the building down" has a nasty reputation, even when done to enemy soldiers. Most fiction (historical and otherwise) that I've read portrays it as a bit of "extreme ruthlessness"

Historical novel example

Spoiler

Show

Nigel Tranter's The Wallace- burning the Ayr barracks full of soldiers.

[Tempest Fennac]

Based on the whole tribe apparently being involved in attacks, I'd say St. Cuthbert would say that was fair retribution for the Orc's crimes against everyone else, so I really don't see why the Cleric should have fallen.

EDIT: I missed the alignment change bit. Admittedly, if that's the only thing about St. Cuthbert that changed, I can't see him having a problem with killing the Orcs like that.

[Random832]

Hmmm... Well, what do you mean by "one step"? How many "degrees" are there in Good before you hit Neutral, assuming the character starts at the maximum "Good" end?

I think "one step" here meant "Good to Neutral" or "Neutral to Evil".

"Don't leave anyone to seek revenge

Way to work in a reference to the comic

[hamishspence]

Orc children doesn't necessarily "deserve" this retribution- have they ever participated? Are they in a position to complain about their parent's behaviour?

Orcs are extremely patriarchal- the orc woman who becomes a soldier is a rarity.

LN to LE shift automatically causes cleric to lose powers- despite being LN St Cuthbert does not accept LE clerics.

[Tempest Fennac]

The problem with keeping the women and children alive is that there's a good chance that the cycle will just continue, meaning that killing all of them off would probably result in less deaths on both sides overall in the long run. (Taking out the leader and nobody else would just result in another Orc taking over and continuing to raid places.)

[hamishspence]

Maybe Core Beliefs: St Cuthbert in Dragon Magazine 358 is more informative than Deities and Demigods.

For example (despite BoED's disapproving stance of forcible conversions)

"Paladins of St Cuthbert work in frontier areas, starting crusades to forcibly convert evil-natured monsters to worship of The Cudgel using a "tough love" approach to save endangered souls."

So, they'd rather convert them than kill them.

Saint Cuthbert sees things mostly in terms of black and white, with only a few narrow shades of gray in the middle, for it's just common sense to realize exceptions exist to every rule. For example, there are laws against thievery, but a man whose family is starving might have to steal food to provide for them. Such a man must be punished, but not to the same extent as someone who steals out of greed or to harm another. If the penalty for stealing food is death, the food-stealing farmer certainly doesn't deserve that and might just get a whipping.

He's harsh, but not insanely so.

[hamishspence]

The problem with keeping the women and children alive is that there's a good chance that the cycle will just continue, meaning that killing all of them off would probably result in less deaths on both sides overall in the long run. (Taking out the leader and nobody else would just result in another Orc taking over and continuing to raid places.)

Champions of Valor raised the same problem with warlike goblins. The suggested solution was leaving the women and children farming gear, arranging for clerics of appropiate deity to teach and supervise them, since they may be "evil out of starvation or worship of evil gods"

MM IV points out most common exception to "often CE" orcs are CN. Not NE. So a hefty proportion of the orcs can be expected to be nonevil.

[Tempest Fennac]

The Orcs are remorselessly killing people, though. Also, would the party be able to convert them? (Ironically, I'd class using that sort of coersion to get followers as worse then killing them due to my view being that violence should only be used as a last resort if not killing the people who are causing the problems would result in more death and destruction.)

[Raphite1]

The problem with keeping the women and children alive is that there's a good chance that the cycle will just continue, meaning that killing all of them off would probably result in less deaths on both sides overall in the long run. (Taking out the leader and nobody else would just result in another Orc taking over and continuing to raid places.)

And according to my understanding, that is precisely what an evil act is. An act that is extremely harmful to someone (especially involving elements like killing or betrayal), but is done anyway because it benefits the actor.

[hamishspence]

if it also involves "killing people who had minimal involvement with the problems" in the case of the orc women and childen, it might be pretty dubious.

[Tempest Fennac]

Regarding the farming point, that is an interresting solution, but I can't help thinking that it would still lead to resentment between the races who are involved, while coming across as sexist due to assuming females are defenceless. If I'm honest, I just ignore listed alignments altogether due to seeing them as resulting in races becoming less realistic. I'd see ending the cycle as beneficial to everyone (going abck to my views on listed alignments, I assume people from generally evil tribes would go somewhere else to avoid getting involved in any evil acts the rest of the tribe perpatrates).

[hamishspence]

Its consistant with the way Orcs are portrayed- patriarchal and oppressive. Yes, they do occasionally have female soldiers (or spellcasters) but these are the exception, not the rule.

Races of Faerun and MM IV have the most details on orc society.

The CN members might gravitate away. Or, the society is intermixed, with CN members disliking the raids and not committing atrocities (rape, killing the defenseless), but not fleeing either. Like Zaknefein among the drow.

[Tempest Fennac]

Sadly I don't have access to those books. If the males were all dead, wouldn't the females just be able to teach themselves how to use weapons, though?

[hamishspence]

Possibly- that's why supervision. However they (if represented as orc commoners and experts rather than warriors and barbarians) will be a lot worse at it.

[Tempest Fennac]

I was wondering if retraining could be done. (I think "it makes things less complicated" is another reason why I'm better off ignoring listed alignment looking at this discussion on the topic of alignments.)

[Kylarra]

Just remember that Stupid Good is rarely a practical thing and that singular incidents that are accidents generally shouldn't cause alignment shifts.

[hamishspence]

Listed alignment is a handy tool, but should be treated as a guideline. The "often CE" plus "most common exception is CN" bits do help to justify the presence of non-evil orcs.

BoED also points out "evil orc societies" don't necessarily have to be causing active harm, and if they aren't, their alignment alone is not a just cause to go after them.

(probably manifests itself as bad treatment of fellow orcs. Some people might say these evil acts are harm enough to justify attack- some wouldn't).

"Your parents bullied you- so we killed them, and now we're going to kill you, because their bullying made you evil."

Not very convincing.