Evil acts to make a ranger fall

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I was just joking around with an old buddy who I used to play AD&D with back when 2nd edition was current. We were wondering if a ranger were to commit some of the following "evil" acts, if they might make him fall.

Say the Ranger and the Thief sneak into the enemy castle to scout out the layout prior to storming it. They also decide to do a few things to cause havoc without betraying their presence.

Would any of the following actions make a Ranger or Ranger/Cleric fall:

1. 1. Finding out where the spellcasters sleep and rigging a magic mouth or other spell/device to play something like "The song that never ends", "The song that gets on everybody's nerves", "It's a Small World" or some other song that is both annoying and tends to get stuck in your head continously in the middle of the night. Thus, the mages are awakened and do not get their full 8 hours of rest, AND they get an annoying song stuck in their heads, making it hard to concentrate on spells.
   
2. 2. Transmuting the coffee to decaff so the castle inhabitants have trouble waking up in the morning when your forces are getting ready to attack.
   
3. 3. transmuting the beer to light beer in the hopes of causing a riot among the soldiers and guards.
   
4. 4. Putting pepper corns in the food, replacing or transmuting the sugar to salt, and other things to annoy the troops at breakfast.
   
5. 5. Alternately, outright poisoning the food, water, coffee, alcohol, etc to thin the number of enemies.

Would any of them NOT cause a ranger to fall, or would some cause a Paladin to fall, but not a Ranger?

Just some humor we were talking about from the old days. We were joking around about things we should have tried, but wondering how the DM would adjudicate it.

 

Most of those are simple chaos, not evil.

Also... do you play in a modern setting or something?

Poisoning would be considered evil, and actually damaging sabotage. There's a difference between disabling an opponent to prevent losses on both sides and disabling an opponent so it's easier to cut them down.

Annoyances and trivial messing around doesn't really reach the same level as poisoning. Coffee, for example, shouldn't really be a factor.

 

None of those are even in the rhealm of "not nice" let alone evil. I'd make the paladin atone in some minor way for doing those thing ... especially if he/she found the funny.

If I was the DM, I might make the paladin or ranger fall for NOT killing high value enemies while in the castle -- by allowing those enemies to live the casualties of the "good" forces will greatly increase. Not disabling the enemy, if the chance exists without being caught, is simply an act of cowardice.

I would allow a ranger to kill high value "evil" enemies through assassination, but not the paladin. If you want to demoralize an enemy force take a lesson from the Turks, not frat boys ... kill every third person in their sleep. Everyone wakes next to a dead body. A ranger is practically designed for such work (so long as the enemy is a known evil).

I disagree with 8 -- poisoning is a valid tactic to kill an evil enemy. Wiping out an entire enemy force by poisoning their food or water supply saves the lives of "good" people. Once again I would allow a ranger to do this given the right cercumstances and precautions, but not the paladin.

 

The easy answer is..... what would Robin Hood do?

Seriously, ramming your sword through their innards is a swordfight or posioning their food or killing them in their sleep all have the same result. Dead bad guy. It's the intent that counts. Poisoning them for pleasure of seeing them suffer is different than poisoning them to stop the impending invasion and destruction of their homes and lives.

 

Perhaps it is a valid means of killing an enemy, however within D&D confines it is a method that does not allow the opponent an opportunity to defend himself, also if poisoning a water or food supply there are considerations such as servants, slaves or prisoners who also have to consume from a contaminated supply.

It also does not specify the occupants of the keep are evil two forces of good can clash, what then? Does wiping out a force for good via poisoning or similar acts constitute a decent act because of a righteous belief that the party is following a 'better' cause?

 

I meant that it was the fortress of an evil enemy. The leader of the fortress is most definitely evil, as the most loyal soldiers. The canon fodder may or may not be made up of mercinaries or conscripts. I was trying to make it generalized.

The idea was to scout out the place so the rest of the party could plan an attack, and do things to cause havoc or demoralize the enemy without tipping off the fact that an attack was coming.

Killing the enemies in their sleep would tip them off. Poisoning may as well, depending on how it was done. I should have made the poison one more specific, something that could easily be excused as an accident, such as changing mushrooms from a safe variety to a poisonous one.

The music one might be written off as somebody playing a prank. The coffee one can have a real effect on people in the morning, as somebody did pull that one at work by accident (somebody picked up decaff by mistake and put it in the tin), and production went WAY down that morning.

I agree that attempting to assassinate the big bad would be the best choice, but usually our GMs had him too well guarded. They liked the big showdowns.

 

A ranger can deffinatly fall. At least in the FR setting, where the ranger has to have a nature diety for spells. If you follow a good dieaty, and start doing atrocities, then that god won`t give you anymore spells. Same as with a cleric, I would think.

 

I don't think anybody questioned if a D&D ranger can fall or not. In 2nd edition AD&D, both Rangers and Paladins could fall. Rangers must be of good alignment, and they will fall if that changes. Rangers could also fall for performing certain evil acts, although it was less stringent than for Paladins.
A fallen ranger would lose their spells, although I don't recall them losing much else. They still knew how to track and most other things. However, they could not improve their ranger levels until atoning like a paladin. Level ups were treated as ordinary fighters, but without the ability to get 5 points in a weapon proficiency and with a ranger's experience requirements.

 

Poison was always treated by Gygax as an inherently evil thing. That idea carried over to 2nd edition, IIRC. So the use of poison would, I believe, cause a Ranger to fall.

As for killing people once you've snuck in, why the heck would that make a ranger fall? Especially a Chaotic one, but even so, if you are outnumbered 30 to 1 and they are all asleep, it would be plain Stupid for you to wake them up to "give them a fighting chance" or some other such nonsense. Even Miko made clear, Lawful Good doesn't mean Lawful Stupid. I can see a Paladin trying to take out the main leader while not engaging in unecessary killing, but a Ranger? Lots and Lots of silently slit tracheas!

The rest of what you talked about were merely pranks, which are funny as hell but nowhere near Evil. They wouldn't make anyone lose Paladinhood or Rangerhood in and of themselves (though I can imagine some more serious Gods being a little pissed that an opportunity to do something useful was wasted in such silly pranks.)

 

Well, killing some of the enemies would alert them to the fact that an attack is coming. Of course, if you can kill enough you can negate the disadvantage of the loss of surprise and the castle being on high alert.

The idea of the pranks as to lessen the efficency of the troops the next day without giving away the fact that an attack is coming. The main purpose of the ranger being there is scouting the defenses. Remember that some of those pranks can be effective. Waking up the spellcasters and disturbing their rest while trying to find out how to stop the music will prevent them from being able to memorize (or pray for) spells in the morning. Switching the coffee, while also a funny prank, will make the guards far less alert in the morning and more likely to miss the attack until the last minute. I myself am NOT a coffee drinker, but I've seen first hand the detrimental effect putting decaff in the coffee pot at work can have on production and the increase in mishaps. It wasn't even a prank, somebody bought the wrong kind of coffee by mistake.


Of course, if a chance to get the big bad in is sleep appeared, they would take it, but only if they had better than even odds of successfully assassinating him and escaping.