So, you're level 2. You're barely stronger than commoners at this point. Freshly minted adventurers.
You're tailing people you need information from. You have targets for information. You decline to get the information and instead slit their throats. You cite the reasoning as "No one can see you in the warehouse". Why is that? Are you not acting as agents on an official quest for a city/adventurers guild/god/etc? Why can there "be no witnesses"
Why not bring them back to the authorities, have them stand in a zone of truth and hopefully get the information you want?
In this scenario, what the character did was an evil act. They had other means to deal with the situation and they chose homicide.
Forcing the information out of anyone against their free will is in of itself an evil act. No matter how passive or painless.
And a zone of truth is not perfect. They just do not have to answer the questions at all.
I do not remember who they were hired by. What if it was an (unknown evil) NPC who hired them to hunt down and find the people who stole from him.
Asking questions is not evil. Using magic that detects if the person is lying is not evil. Sure, the person doesn't have to answer questions but then the local authorities go from there.
Just because things aren't going to always work doesn't mean they aren't valid solutions to problems. It's the assumption OP made. "Well, their friends fought us, so they'll fight us too, let's just knock them out and kill them in one of the most painful ways possible"
Is it evil to drug someone to interrogate them? In real life it pretty much is in the western world.
So using a spell is pretty much exactly the same.
No, because you don't have to answer the question. It's a zone of truth. Anything you say in the zone has to be truthful once you fail the save, but you can choose not to speak. Using drugs that fundamentally alter brain chemistry against the users will(because they wouldn't have taken it willingly) removes the choice from the person.
Torture is both generally regarded as morally repugnant and is not particularly reliable. Interrogation as a concept is morally neutral, though some methods such as torture are generally regarded as immoral.
Regarding the scenario overall, I'm not sure I'd call it full-fledged Evil, but it's definitely on the southern end of Neutral, not Good. It's the kind of ruthless pragmatism that you get from anti-hero types like the Punisher.
Ah the mystery.
Another plot device.
So, you're level 2. You're barely stronger than commoners at this point. Freshly minted adventurers.
You're tailing people you need information from. You have targets for information. You decline to get the information and instead slit their throats. You cite the reasoning as "No one can see you in the warehouse". Why is that? Are you not acting as agents on an official quest for a city/adventurers guild/god/etc? Why can there "be no witnesses"
Why not bring them back to the authorities, have them stand in a zone of truth and hopefully get the information you want?
In this scenario, what the character did was an evil act. They had other means to deal with the situation and they chose homicide.
Forcing the information out of anyone against their free will is in of itself an evil act. No matter how passive or painless.
And a zone of truth is not perfect. They just do not have to answer the questions at all.
I do not remember who they were hired by. What if it was an (unknown evil) NPC who hired them to hunt down and find the people who stole from him.
Asking questions is not evil. Using magic that detects if the person is lying is not evil. Sure, the person doesn't have to answer questions but then the local authorities go from there.
Just because things aren't going to always work doesn't mean they aren't valid solutions to problems. It's the assumption OP made. "Well, their friends fought us, so they'll fight us too, let's just knock them out and kill them in one of the most painful ways possible"
Is it evil to drug someone to interrogate them? In real life it pretty much is in the western world.
So using a spell is pretty much exactly the same.
No, because you don't have to answer the question. It's a zone of truth. Anything you say in the zone has to be truthful once you fail the save, but you can choose not to speak. Using drugs that fundamentally alter brain chemistry against the users will(because they wouldn't have taken it willingly) removes the choice from the person.
The person in a zone of truth still has agency.
It depends on the diplomatic status:
If at war, no, it's not evil.
If the enemy is not at war vs us, yes it's evil.
Vifarc Cordelibre, the most unique ranger-tank, the wood-elf heavy-ranger.
Torture is both generally regarded as morally repugnant and is not particularly reliable. Interrogation as a concept is morally neutral, though some methods such as torture are generally regarded as immoral.
Regarding the scenario overall, I'm not sure I'd call it full-fledged Evil, but it's definitely on the southern end of Neutral, not Good. It's the kind of ruthless pragmatism that you get from anti-hero types like the Punisher.
Killing hired swords who are defenseless and not a threat to you at all seems pretty evil to me, yeah.
For me it really comes down to the game and even more so the table you are playing at. A session 0 should address this.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.