"Mark of Justice"

[Wolfkingleo]

Greetings all,

I have a doubt regarding the spell Mark of Justice (possibly).

Our party: Casual players Lvl 5 Homebrew Warlock Variant (myself); Lvl 5 Druid; Lvl 5 Cleric and a lvl 5 Sorcerer

The plot: Our characters were venturing in the wilds in order to reach some BBEG castle and end his schemes in the region. Things is, before all this, our sorcerer played the "Chaotic Jerk" character and manage to set a prison, with people inside, on fire in a town that we were passing through. After we got arrested, we plead a deal with the authorities and helped the town with some chores (mini-quests) to make up for the lives "we"(the sorcerer) took and fought in some gladiatorial arena to make money to repair the prison.

After that, with everything set and paid (we even got a declaration from the city council claiming that "our" debt was paid), we proceeded in our adventure with an cleric NPC guiding us to the aforementioned BBEG castle, where, during the trip, our sorcerer (now lvl 6) were killed by a quick encounter with a Bodak. This NPC cleric took her body to a church (away from the party) and paid her ressurection with her magical gear, also the one who ressurected her, an powerfull bishop from another kingdom, after learning from her mischieft with the prision from the NPC Cleric before bringing her back to live, put a Mark on her (according to the DM description is like a tatoo with the shape of a scale, that starts to change as the PC acts good or evil) saying that should she run amok or just be evil the Mark activates and an Order of Inquisitors will hunt her down to take her life.

That said, the player gets a bit grumpy, but neverless relents to it and our cleric friend (in off) said that eventually he can try to dispell it, but we fear that the DM might nullify this because plot. Since the sorcerer (even before dying) have been "behavoring" and our group tends to be neutral-chaotic, we (the PCs) thought that this Mark or whatever spell maybe, could become a problem...

Since this spells remembers the Mark of Justice, could it be dispelled? Or we need to get along?

Sorry if this looks noobish, but again the PC's (myself included) are casual players

Cheers

[Pleh]

First of all, the spell specifically says it cannot simply be dispelled. You need a break enchantment, limited wish, miracle, remove curse, or wish spell to remove a mark of Justice.

Also, to be fair, it sounds like your sorcerer friend tends towards the more chaotic evil side of chaotic neutral. This doesn't sound tremendously outside normal possible consequences for a character who acts in a chaotic evil manner.

Other than that, if you guys want the DM to use morality more loosely so you can get on with the game, best bet might be just talking with the DM about the dangers of things getting unfun.

[Venger]

nothing wrong with your question at all. as Pleh said, dispelling it won't work.

the problem seems to be more trying to deal with an ooc issue (sorcerer player is disruptive) with an ic solution (magical babysitter)

it would probably be more productive in the long run to have a conversation with the player about the discrepancy in playstyles and see if you can get her to behave.

the problem with using game things to patch stuff like this is the player will view it as a puzzle to circumvent, like a monster or trap, rather than the gm just saying out of character "please don't do these things anymore" and once the spell's removed, will return to prior behavior.

[Troacctid]

A mark of justice can be dispelled by break enchantment, remove curse, limited wish, wish, miracle, or greater dispel magic, but not by dispel magic.

[PrismCat21]

(we even got a declaration from the city council claiming that "our" debt was paid)

an powerfull bishop from another kingdom, after learning from her mischieft with the prision from the NPC Cleric before bringing her back to live, put a Mark on her
saying that should she run amok or just be evil the Mark activates and an Order of Inquisitors will hunt her down to take her life.

Y'all's dept was paid.
So under what authority did this bishop, (from a different kingdom), have to place the Mark on the Sorcerer?

The resurrection was paid for by the Sorcerer's gear, he/she died battling an evil undead, and we know of no other legitimate crimes they're guilty of. Why would this Bishop do this?

I say to try going to the local law keepers and find out if such an act is legal. If not, you'll likely get to have it removed immediately, free of charge. (As a bonus, have the Bishop arrested and investigated. )

Since the Sorcerer can no longer 'run amok', he/she simply wants to experience his long dormant Lawful personality.
Your DM may prefer running amok afterwards. Then is a good time for an OOC discussion with them both about expectations from everyone.

Edit: So basically, a group of Inquisitors are going to act as Assassins? This whole thing seems a tad extreme, really.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Y'all's dept was paid.
So under what authority did this bishop, (from a different kingdom), have to place the Mark on the Sorcerer?

The resurrection was paid for by the Sorcerer's gear, he/she died battling an evil undead, and we know of no other legitimate crimes they're guilty of. Why would this Bishop do this?

I say to try going to the local law keepers and find out if such an act is legal. If not, you'll likely get to have it removed immediately, free of charge. (As a bonus, have the Bishop arrested and investigated. )

Since the Sorcerer can no longer 'run amok', he/she simply wants to experience his long dormant Lawful personality.
Your DM may prefer running amok afterwards. Then is a good time for an OOC discussion with them both about expectations from everyone.

Edit: So basically, a group of Inquisitors are going to act as Assassins? This whole thing seems a tad extreme, really.

Small issue; Bishops tend to outrank local constabulary, either explicitly or defacto, in a medieval-esque scenario unless you happen to be in the capital seat of an empire. Polytheistic society mitigates this somewhat but I still wouldn't put all my eggs in this basket.

I agree with some of the other posters above. This feels like an OOC solution to an IC problem. I wouldn't put money on it just yet but I'd definitely look into whether that's the case and, if it is, encourage the DM to talk to the sorcerer and maybe retcon that particular move.

[Crake]

Y'all's dept was paid.
So under what authority did this bishop, (from a different kingdom), have to place the Mark on the Sorcerer?

The resurrection was paid for by the Sorcerer's gear, he/she died battling an evil undead, and we know of no other legitimate crimes they're guilty of. Why would this Bishop do this?

I say to try going to the local law keepers and find out if such an act is legal. If not, you'll likely get to have it removed immediately, free of charge. (As a bonus, have the Bishop arrested and investigated. )

Since the Sorcerer can no longer 'run amok', he/she simply wants to experience his long dormant Lawful personality.
Your DM may prefer running amok afterwards. Then is a good time for an OOC discussion with them both about expectations from everyone.

Edit: So basically, a group of Inquisitors are going to act as Assassins? This whole thing seems a tad extreme, really.

The authority that the bishop was under was: I'm bringing this person back from the dead, so their actions are now my responsibility, thus I will ensure that their actions bear the appropriate consequence. This isn't a simple "Pay money, get service" kind of thing, bringing back an evil person from the dead is most certainly something that will bear consequences from a cleric's deity if they follow some kind of good god, if they just let the evil person continue on with their evil deeds, and the clerics are under no obligation to perform the resurrection in the first place.

Honestly, considering the DM let the sorcerer get away with mass murder with just a slap on the wrist and some minor quests goes to show just how lenient the DM is being.

I honestly don't see it as an OOC problem, it makes perfect sense from an in game perspective. The way I see it is the option was: Get a mark of justice, or get refused resurrection services because your character is an evil mass murderer.

[Stealth Marmot]

Sounds like the DM was trying to use an IC solution to fix an OOC problem.

When a character acts in a way that is entirely disruptive of the DM's ability to provide a campaign scenario, and the other players and their characters are unable to play the way they want to because they have to deal with the character's fallout, then that player is being disruptive and rude.

There is a certain level of inherent party cohesion that players will end up forcing that is somewhat OOC, since the players all WANT to be part of the same party. However, if a player strains that cohesion beyond what could rationally considered verisimilitude, you end up irritated at the players action and thus not really having fun. SO unless the other players were intentionally enabling the sorcerer, they likely are suffering along with the DM.

While a player can contend that the actions of a character could, in theory, be independant of the player, the player is sill responsible for that characters actions for two reasons.

One, while a character can have a long list of motivations and personality traits, it is up to the player to decide how that player manifests those traits and the actions they take. Take Belkar for example during the latter arcs of OotS. He was still a psychotic CE jackass, but he decided to manifest it in controlled bursts and pointing his psychotic tendencies towards those that the party would prefer he did. During earlier arcs, Belkar acted in ways that was disruptive towards party cohesion, and it cost him. Belkar, much like this player, had to learn to play the game and figure out how to suit his actions to work with the rest of the crew, even if his intentions are not noble or align with the party's intentions.

Two, even if the character is specifically built in a way that would make it impossible to not act in the way specified in the OPs post (Setting fire to a jail and getting the party stuck with community service), and the player could not find a way to justify acting any other way, it was still the player's decision to build AND play a character that was built that way.

This is a very important point so I'm going to bold it:

When designing a character for D&D, which I remind you is a COOPERATIVE game by design, part of the players responsibility is to design a character that is capable of contributing to the adventuring party in a way that they become an asset more than a liability.

This means that a player must design a character that is useful is at least one fashion, preferably a few, AND that the character must not cause more problems then they solve. If a character fails to meet these requirements, then the other characters will have no reason to travel with this person, and any circumstances that the DM would enforce to force the players to accept this person is a form of unfair railroading that will cause spite and bitterness between players.

This PC, the sorcerer, is failing to meet the second half of that requirement. The player will either have to drastically change the methods by which he interprets the personality of this character, significantly change the nature of the character, or roll up a new character that does not have these particular issues.

[PrismCat21]

bringing back an evil person from the dead is most certainly something that will bear consequences from a cleric's deity if they follow some kind of good god, if they just let the evil person continue on with their evil deeds, and the clerics are under no obligation to perform the resurrection in the first place.

At what point did this character become evil?
All we've been told so far is 'Chaotic Jerk'.
No where was it stated or implied, that people dying was international, or even setting the fire was intentional. His crime was completely paid for.
What evil deeds are you referring to?

Honestly, considering the DM let the sorcerer get away with mass murder with just a slap on the wrist

What mass murder? People dying was a consequence of the sorcerer's action. Nowhere does it imply, in any way, that was the intent.
Accidentally killing someone is not murder. Usually just carelessness.
Whatever he was doing could easily have just gotten out of control, we don't know.

Get a mark of justice, or get refused resurrection services because your character is an evil mass murderer.

When was the character given the choice? It seems the NPC made all the choices IC.
Again, "evil mass murderer" is pure assumption. There's no backing for it. A simple Detect Evil from someone at the church could have solved the evil portion, but we don't know if it happened. We do not know the sorcerer's alignment. It's generally bad form to convict someone based on assumption and (at best) secondhand information.

If he/she runs amok OR just be evil, the Mark will activate.
If resurrecting the sorcerer is such a big risk, why do it at all?
IF they are a cleric of a good deity like you believe. And IF the sorcerer is Evil and the cleric is so concerned he'll keep preforming evil acts, like you believe. Then why resurrect him?

Would resurrecting an evil being, (with no specific purpose for the greater good), be considered an evil act?

[Crake]

At what point did this character become evil?
All we've been told so far is 'Chaotic Jerk'.
No where was it stated or implied, that people dying was international, or even setting the fire was intentional. His crime was completely paid for.
What evil deeds are you referring to?

What mass murder? People dying was a consequence of the sorcerer's action. Nowhere does it imply, in any way, that was the intent.
Accidentally killing someone is not murder. Usually just carelessness.
Whatever he was doing could easily have just gotten out of control, we don't know.

"Involuntary manslaughter: (sometimes referred to as fourth-degree murder), a killing that stems from a lack of intention to cause death but involving an intentional, or negligent, act leading to death."
It doesn't matter if that was his intent or not, he killed a lot of people because he was being negligent at the very least. More likely he was trying to break out of prison because he'd done something equally stupid earlier. Either way, it is still technically mass murder, and mass murder is generally evil. And the OP said "up until this point he was playing chaotic jerk". That clearly implies that after the point in time being mentioned he was no longer "chaotic jerk" but something else (most likely implication being chaotic evil, based on context). I don't feel like the character's level of evilness is at question here in any way.

When was the character given the choice? It seems the NPC made all the choices IC.
Again, "evil mass murderer" is pure assumption. There's no backing for it. A simple Detect Evil from someone at the church could have solved the evil portion, but we don't know if it happened. We do not know the sorcerer's alignment. It's generally bad form to convict someone based on assumption and (at best) secondhand information.

If he/she runs amok OR just be evil, the Mark will activate.
If resurrecting the sorcerer is such a big risk, why do it at all?
IF they are a cleric of a good deity like you believe. And IF the sorcerer is Evil and the cleric is so concerned he'll keep preforming evil acts, like you believe. Then why resurrect him?

Would resurrecting an evil being, (with no specific purpose for the greater good), be considered an evil act?

People capable of casting resurrection are also capable of casting high level divinations, so they would be more than capable of gathering enough information to make an informed decision. Resurrecting the sorcerer was done because a decently leveled NPC cleric of the clergy in question reqested it, and paid for the service with a bunch of his/her gear, so clearly that was a sign of good faith from the NPC cleric, which the bishop accepted, but wanted an assurance the sorcerer would have some incentive to not act in an evil manner, clearly thinking that the town's punishment was not even close to acceptable for his actions.

And yes, resurrecting an evil being and just allowing them to return to their evil ways is most definitely an evil act.

[icefractal]

It's a reasonable IC action by the bishop (although one that the Sorcerer could reasonable complain about - he had to pay for the resurrection and get geas-lite?), but on an OOC level it's piling **** on the Sorcerer to the extent I'm surprised that the player hasn't just had him go out in a blaze of glory and made a new character.

Let's review - the Sorcerer is now:
* A level behind
* With no gear - putting him even further behind the curve.
* Compelled to act a certain way, so he's limited in RP as well as mechanically.

That might be fun for some players, but for most of them it won't be. If encouraging the Sorcerer's player to change characters isn't the goal, then the GM probably shouldn't kick him when he's down.

[Wolfkingleo]

Wow, that is a lot to take into consideration.

Thank you for your replys, people! I believe we will have another session this sunday and I will meditate on this and pass on the other members.

Cheers