Would the multiverse of D&D define this as a good or evil act?

Would the multiverse of D&D define this as a good or evil act?

>A cart is standing still
>You can pull a lever
>One person nearby is tied up
>The other five are delitized and lovin it.

Probably not Good, but a Paladin wouldn't fall regardless of his choice because short of shoving the trolley off the tracks completely, he can't stop at least one person from dying. As long as he made what he thought was the best choice at the moment, he'll be fine.

So... you're saying good makes a special consideration in this case to deem this act not particularly good but not evil either?

It depends on what the multiverse of D&D would define the lever-dude, single dude, and five tied up dudes as.

Basically, if this is a situation that, depending on the oath in question, would violate it and cause the Paladin to fall, he wouldn't fall.

A Paladin has to willingly make a choice to break his oath to fall. In a situation like this, where there is no good choice and you can't uphold your oath regardless of what you do/don't do, you don't fall because you had no choice.

I'm probably explaining this really badly. Basically despite what shitty GMs would have you believe, Paladin's don't fall in poorly contrived no-win situations because they had no choice to stick to the oath.

Don't pull it!
If you pull it, you'll be just as bad as they are!

If you're considered good or evil for anything remotely resembling a trolley problem the only true good move is to end that universe.

Essentially this. You can't take a single action in a bubble as the sole basis of "pally falls" bullshit. Both outcome and intent have to be evaluated. So while pulling a lever that kills a guy might be an evil act in another scenario, pulling that lever so that five others might be saved becomes a good act. If the trolley is full of people such that derailing the trolley leads to more death and destruction, there isn't really any proper way out of this that doesn't lead to at least one death.

But of course, shitty DMs trying to make their paladins fall because of memes don't care about logic, morality, or internal consistency. That's why they're shitty DMs.

Could I be the big man to fall stopping the cart in its' place at the cost of my life?

If the trolley can run over and kill five people at once, how would you jumping on the tracks be anything other than suicide?

Answer this one fa/tg/uys

>chances of getting hit are 125% all up vs 85%

Chance to avoid all damage on the top row is 15%.

Chance to avoid all damage on the bottom row is 23.7%.

Well Veeky Forums? What's right here?

The test is to stop the trolley. It is not not surviving.

Depends, what is the trolley's alignment, in addition to it's level and class?

Unless your character is a lawful evil autist who seeks the destruction of chaos at all costs, I don't see how this changes the math in any way.

...

Greater good, necessary evil...

How about now?

It is lawful to suppress chaos. Go for the bottom track.

It's not about what's lawful to do it's what's good/evil to do.

I cast Animate Objects on the trolley, and crush only the CE and NE npcs.

Which path is neutral good and which is lawful evil?

Wait, what's the alignment of the tracks?

I attack the track, it is no much for my godlike might

GUESS WHAT MOTHERFUCKER YOU'RE NOT A WIZARD

Can I jump under the train rather than continue life as a Truenamer?

Pull the lever, stab the evil guys, untie the rest

Ah, but the bottom row also has a non-zero chance of damaging more than one person.

>Deciding my class for me
Man, talk about railroading

>chances of getting hit are 125% all up
???

What level and class are the people tied to the tracks?

fuck you for making me laugh at this

Here is that better

now you're just making it easy

They seem pretty straight to me

Look at that confident smile, he doesn't fear the trolley, he doesn't fear death. I send the trolley towards Carlos, let it face him if it dares.

The ones on the bottom, sure.
The top ones are probably gay, and there's a few tracks near the beginning that are very clearly bi.

>Level 20 Truenamer
I cast Gate as a Spell-Like Ability and get my CG angel friend to shank that bitch-ass trolley.

What's my STR?

OK the ultimate question now.

Who do you diagnose with death?

Wouldn't a strict interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath's "do no harm" lead you to allow the five to die through inaction rather than letting the one die through your intervention? Because obviously all doctors follow the Hippocratic Oath religiously, especially the stuff about worshiping Apollo and whatnot.

Paladins cannot possibly know the results of every choice. A paladin must WILLINGLY choose to commit evil knowing it is an evil act, knowing he could have done it another way

>You spot a lord's carriage being raided by a massive group of goblins. The lord has been forced to flee the safety of the vehicle but you see one goblin readying to throw a javelin at him. What do you Do?
>"Goblins are usually evil creatures, I've been attacked by enough of them,
>"I rush the goblin and attempt to thrust my sword into it, hopefully I'll reach it in time to prevent the throw"
>You manage to make him. Roll to hit/damage
>"Natural 20, 19 damage"
>You cleave the goblin in two. However this lord is actually an evil tyrant and the goblins were about to end his reign of terror. You fall for preventing the end of an evil man

This is obviously hyperbole, but the point is that a paladin is not all knowing, not infallible, not all powerful. If there are situations where he cannot prevent the deaths of everyone, or situations where he must make a choice he's not sure of. So long as the paladin is sure he's making the right choice going by his oath, you can't fault that

>There exists no moral situations in D&D in which the correct course of action cannot be decided rather quickly
>The killing of baby Orcs and similar is a good action because they are an objectively evil race born being evil
>The killing of Tiefling as the distant spawn of demons is also a good action
>The only leaway in this is if their death would case more harm than good in the example they were they only shopkeeper who could provide food for a town
>In a similar vain if you couldn't kill them you still wouldn't want them to make more of their kind so you wouldn't let them have children under threat of death
>Same with similar situations
Fight me. There is no grey in a setting that exists positive and negative energy and more unless a setting specific situation that appears through plane nonsense and similar.

Neutral gets to be amoral.

I am sure you kill them both.

The trolley is clearly dead. I cast resurrection.

...

...

Good luck passing the check.

>The killing of baby Orcs and similar is a good action because they are an objectively evil race born being evil

That's... not the case in a lot of people's settings. That might be like Tolkein Orcs but D&D Orcs are like a people and numberous heroic orcs exist. They're culturally evil but not inherently like a demon, if they were then they'd have the evil subtype.

>The killing of Tiefling as the distant spawn of demons is also a good action

Again similar problem.

>The only leaway in this is if their death would case more harm than good in the example they were they only shopkeeper who could provide food for a town

That could require OOC knowledge however. Like if you kill an orc chieftan who actually protects a small farming village from another more brutal and sadistic orc cheiftan and that town dies does your paladin immediately fall despite not being aware of this?

>In a similar vain if you couldn't kill them you still wouldn't want them to make more of their kind so you wouldn't let them have children under threat of death

wew lad

>Fight me. There is no grey in a setting that exists positive and negative energy and more unless a setting specific situation that appears through plane nonsense and similar.

Or you know the whole concept of objective morality being a force in this setting is just fucking stupid and your post helps illustrate that.

Drop the gun and cast mage hand to get a guaranteed push on the faraway target. If it's too far, use Magic Missile.

Caster supremacy wins again.

>They seem pretty straight to me
Fuck my keyboard and/or sides

...

>That's... not the case in a lot of people's settings.
Not only is that objectively how it works in D&D, but Gygax has described it with "nits make lice" and compared killing orc babies to Colonel Custer killing native American women.

Wew lad. Careful you might be cutting your dick on the edge there.

Source on the Gygax quote?

,

>That's... not the case in a lot of people's settings.
I'm not talking about other people's settings. I'm talking about D&D.
>does your paladin immediately fall despite not being aware of this?
No, that paladin's action was still good. You then go one layer deeper into lawful, neutral, or chaotic.
>wew lad
Fight me. They are OBJECTIVELY evil by blood therefor their children will be OBJECTIVELY evil.
>Or you know the whole concept of objective morality being a force in this setting
Tough shit, that's literally how it works.

I shot the person alone though me, killing all seven. Should I miss there is still a grantee kill of the five tied together and the last one starving to death if he nor anyone help him out.

Alright. You win mister internet tough guy.

I couldn't imagine enjoying a game with you but I suppose I'll let you win this argument on this thread on the internet.

Now go home.

One of the Q&A with Gary Gygax threads on Dragonsfoot. It's been a while since I've read them, so I can't recall which one.

Top rail
>15% 0 hits
>85% 1 hit
Average outcome: 1 hit

Bottom rail
>23.73% 0 hits
>39.55% 1 hit
>26.37% 2 hits
>8.789% 3 hits
>1.465% 4 hits
>0.09766% 5 hits
Average outcome: 1.25 hits

Bottom rail is more likely to avoid all damage, but it also has greater average damage potential (36.7% chance of 2 or more hits). The choice depends somewhat on your risk-taking philosophy. If think about repeating this 1000 times, it is better to go with the top rail.

>I couldn't imagine enjoying a game with you
Probably not, because you have no imagination.
>Paladin strolls into town with the party
>Is the a motherfucking Tiefling or Half-Orc I see
>You got to smite all the evil boy.png
>Party has to go through high hell to find evidence of this evil being being evil to convice the guards who is just a guy like everyone else so that the paladin doesn't slaughter them and get them all into trouble
>Having to explain to people that "you got to smite all the evil boy.png" despite it being just a guy
>"But I knew 'evil guy' and he was nice and everything"
>"But the gods say he's evil"
>"Why are the gods so mean"
>Large scale societal uproar because more people now know X, Y, and Z are objectively bad within paladin's knowledge and some want to keep on keeping on while others want to "you got to smite all the evil boy.png"
>Get a summons from the king by an escort of guards
>"Who are you and why are you destroying my everything?"
>Have to deal with a righteous madman, the societal collapse, the king and his, and whatever else you happened to be their for
You have no vision.

>All my typos
Don't bed and post, kids.

>Now this is the story...

you fool! clearly carlos knows something we don't...
dear god no-

DONT TOUCH THE LEVER!

GET AWAY FROM THE TRACK!

He's been training for this

You are forced to make a decision, therefore there are no alignment impacts.

>pull lever
>trolley moves faster

But what if killing the five prisoners also causes the trolley to do a sick loop de loop?

this one?

>You are forced to make a decision
Nope. Get that Randian shit out of here.

>Chaotic Neutral
Bottom, the other four are a necessary sacrifice

The bottom row, they'll have more HP and a greater chance to survive being run over.

Gygax was NE and not to be trusted.

It doesn't say he's a doctor in medicine user

Lone Guy seeks the sweet release of death or these bindings, whichever's first.
Everyone else but Lever Guy is having a pretty good time.

You're level 20, rip the lever out of the ground and swat the trolley off the tracks with it.

Yes.

I shoot myself.

I think the gods of the generic setting of DnD would recognize your meta-fuckery and deem it to be evil. Which is to say, presenting this agonizing PH101 exercise to someone is an irredeemable act for which one should be tortured. This is also what I believe to be the most amusing outcome.

foreverial

THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE

AND THEY SPELL DISASTER FOR YOU

AT SACRIFICE

>i was just following orders

literally indefensible

Oh god no!

Why did you have to remind me of that abomination.

>lvl 20
Isn't it a demigod? I block the path of a trolley.

>tieflings are inherently Evil and killing them is Good Act
What kind of BS.

Just change the rail points halfway between the two settings, so the trolley derails and grinds to halt between the two groups of captives. Only shit DM's would not allow.

It is. The person giving orders is higher on the chain of command then you, therefore he is likely to have information you don't know. Baby orcs might be trained suicide bombers who would blow up you and your unit the moment you turn your back. Chief paladin knows it, and you do not, so you do what he tells you.
Army just wouldn't work as a concept if any retarded conscript would be allowed to stop following orders if they don't feel right to him. Any decent legal system recognizes that your commanding officer is held responsible for any war crimes you perform on his orders, as long as you don't help with concealing them.

Roll to intimidate. Scare that trolley into submission.

Who cares? The paladin falls anyway.

He's right

Trolley kills 6 people and the now blood and gore covered trolley does a sick loop-de-loop? Why would I ever switch the track?

Try telling that to a war crimes court

Still think we live in a just society?

Neither orcs, nor tiefling are all evil, the monster manual itself explains this.

the first witty carlos in ages

It all depends on what alignment the people tied to the tracks are

>Switch track to the one with one person
>After they get fucked Revivify them
ge ge no re