Not really. Firstly, if she doesn’t do anything evil, how will they know? Druids (and hence also rangers) don’t get Detect Evil in 1st Ed.
Secondly - even if they do find out she’s evil, but she doesn’t attack them - the LG response to that is to hand her over to the correct authorities. Anything else is vigilante justice, which is CG at best.
Ranger, not paladin, so a bit less tied to religion (although, still has to be Good)
I should note, all my answers are predicated on this being a fairly By The Book 1st Ed. AD&D game.
Which I would never DM, myself. I hate those old rules.
I’d say this depends a lot on your campaign and cosmology. 1st Edition AD&D has pretty solid ideas about Good & Evil, and a lot of modern moral relativism loses its bite in a world where you can cast a spell and literally quantify if someone/thing is Good or Evil. And Good & Evil exist strongly enough as concepts to have planes of existence coalescence around them. Within this framework, there’s a solid argument that slaying something that is Capital-E Evil is justified regardless of what they’re currently doing because they are quantifiably Evil and removing them reduces the amount of Evil on the Prime Material Plane.
She’s out in the wilds without “correct authorities” and the ranger doesn’t belong to any government structure. From the sounds of it, he’s sort of a Sturm Brightblade type – clinging to the tenets of a largely dead organization. We don’t have enough information about what the now-gone race of wood elves believed to make a call on how this affects his lawfulness.
Doesn’t have to be a formal state structure. But there does have to be some sort of overarching framework that the LG character follows, it can’t just be their own morality. That’s CG.
If he’s just following an extinct code that has no legitimate jurisdiction over the witch, that’s no different. CG, still. LG is all about legitimate authority. IMO, of course.
Amendment to this - obviously, if the ranger is 9th level, he could get the magic-user spell.
Later in my post I elaborated on “genuinely evil,” with examples involving lots of torture and murder. In those cases, a lawful good character could decide that protecting the innocents involved killin’ the threat, as long as they were following a “protect the innocents” moral code. I’d be inclined to say that leaving a serial killer to continue their work, because the serial killer didn’t attack you, would compromise most LG codes.
Disagree there. Basically every campaign is going to take a LG character outside county lines. When you’re sent by The Good King half a continent to stop the Evil Lich Emperor, do you lose jurisdiction and freedom to act once you’re in LE Lich territory? Of course not.
“Sorry, Sir Goodyshoes, around here the law says we can eat all the babies we want. I guess you’re the real monster for trying to break our laws!”
Provided his code is one of order and structure (not “Do what you want” is our creed), and he’s following it, he’s acting lawfully in regards to his class and alignment.
Sorry, that part wasn’t in reply to me so didn’t read it before replying. Sure, if the party knows she’s done/doing those things.
CG and NG too, I’d say.
Sure.
I’ll concede there’s a baseline morality that is borderless, not murdering and even not stealing stuff.
But that’s the G part of LG, not the L part. and an LG can be more invested in the G part than the L part and still be LG. But if they’re executing non-hostiles, it’s because of the G part, not the L part.
From the 1st ed AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide:
Creatures of lawful good alignment view the cosmos with varying degrees of lawfulness or desire for good. They are convinced that order and law are absolutely necessary to assure good, and that good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest
Law dictates that order and organization is necessary and desirable
There is no requirement that Lawfulness only exists or is valid under an existing government jurisdiction. It is the belief that society best exists under a framework of order and LG is the belief that the best way to provide the most Good is via order. Using an ancestral code of conduct as the basis for that order is definitely not chaotic just because the local city hall doesn’t recognize it.
Just because one lawful framework exists doesn’t mean people working another another are invalid. Lawful nations coexist and respect one another’s differing codes all the time. Arguably, that’s part of being Lawful. In this instance, there is no prevailing legal code to come into conflict so, provided the ranger’s ancestral code doesn’t prohibit action, there shouldn’t be any lawful/chaotic conflict.
Yes, I specifically said that:
But
Blindly following the tenets of a dead system is not organization.
I’m not arguing that.
I’m specifically arguing about the case where it’s only two people following a dead culture’s code.
Sometimes I miss alignment. But the last few posts have reminded me of why WotC essentially phased alignment out of existence.
Right, I just disagree with you on it. Nothing in the DMG for Lawfulness backs up your assertion and 1st Ed era TSR published materials with a character who was doing exactly that: Sturm Brightblade, Lawful Good, following the tenets of a defunct group (he starts unaware of the remaining enclave) and rollin’ out there on his own. Held up as one of the standards of the LG paladin-esque alignment types (despite being a Fighter) as early as 1984.
I just don’t think it’s a very good argument to make to the player, nor one backed up by 1st ed AD&D materials.
Also, even if he DID do something for the “Greater Good” or his code didn’t count, etc he would be Neutral Good, not Chaotic. Chaotic is the ethos that freedom is paramount and structure is bad. Your CG elves aren’t just good, they believe that freedom from laws is part of WHY they’re good. A CE orc tribe believes that, if you can’t protect your stuff through might, you don’t deserve to have it. In contrast, someone who simply believes that Good overrides concerns about law is Neutral – not opposed to organization but not willing to let it limit good acts.
In my head, I replace the alignments with an Altruist/Predator axis, and a Coded/Spontaneous axis.
A Coded Altruist has a plan for giving up their own self (wealth, safety, pleasure, etc.) on behalf of others. They’ve thought about how they can best do this, and are following the plan they came up with. A Spontaneous Predator takes advantage of others whenever the occasion arises. They haven’t really thought it through; they act day by day. A Coded neutral person doesn’t really make personal sacrifices, but doesn’t deliberately prey on others. And so on.
In this case, if the witch isn’t preying on others, she’s not a predator, which means she’s not Evil. If the ranger isn’t taking things from her just because he thinks it’s for the general good, he’s being both altruistic and a predator, and I’d rule that the predation outweighs the altruism.
You yourself quoted the part that backs me up.
Fighters don’t have the same alignment characteristics as pallies and rangers.
Sure, not going to disagree with that.
They have the exact same type. They just have fewer repercussions when they violate them. But LG is LG in 1st ed AD&D and there was no indication that Sturm was ever anything but LG in the official materials.
That’s what I meant.
But he was LG from the very start. According to you, that’s impossible because his Lawfulness was a direct result of his strict following of The Code & Measure. So he should have never been LG.
In the TSR materials, he was LG because of his strict following of the Code & Measure despite it being the laws of a defunct group of dishonored guys who everyone else (Sturm included) expected were long gone by now.
To bring it back around to the OP, I’d say there’s definite precedent for a Lawful Good character following an ancestral code and that how he responds to the witch (and how/if it affects his alignment) would strongly depend on what that code is.
Now I want to see a scenario where Lord Brightheaven sends his paladins to deal with a bunch of CN ruffians who are causing problems down at the port. They keep breaking the laws without doing anything overtly Evil - violating curfew, public drunkenness, herding cattle through the middle of a busy market street, and failing to pay taxes, for example. When the paladins arrive, the large group of well-armed ruffians make no hostile actions. Instead, they rudely insult the paladins, fail to respect their authority, and make confusing statements about refusing to create joinder.
My least favorite part of Baldur’s Gate II was a side-quest for a party paladin. It turns out he and his wife were not in love, and she’d fallen in love with someone else and was having an affair. IIRC (and I may not), the successful completion of the quest involves the paladin turning her in and watching her execution, and feeling real bad about it, but that’s what his lawful good alignment tells him has to happen.
Lawful good, in my opinion, means nothing of the sort; but it’s always been contentious.
Edit: oh damn, I think I did that quest all wrong
It sounds like there wasn’t a “kill the wife” option, it was just “kill the lover.” And it wasn’t the only outcome. Somehow I either missed the other outcome, or rolled too poorly to gain it. Either way, maybe I shouldn’t’ve hated on the game for it (although I’m still grossed out that the character could stay lawful good after ordering that execution).
Executing the wife may be lawful, but is it written that it is “good”?
In the “real” legend, what happens is something like Arthur has the problem that it is not just a personal issue, his honor is publicly at stake, so he reluctantly sentences Guinevere to be burned at the stake. She is subsequently rescued by Lancelot. In any case, ultimately only Galahad is worthy enough to achieve the Holy Grail, even though neither Arthur nor Lancelot is “bad”.