The letter not the spirit of the Law

[bibliophile20]

That true 99% of the time but if your attacking with 10 shifts of hellfire powered fire when you take the enemy out the GM is right to go no you killed him. I would say the same goes for supernatural strength attack as well as they have the reminder 'be careful at this level its very easy to kill someone with a single blow'.  

Yeah; if a PC claims that they managed a nonlethal attack with, say, a .50 cal sniper rifle, or a bazooka, or a mingun, I'd call shenanigans.  Past Weapon:3, you're attacking with weapons that have the end result not of "dead" but of "fine red mist" or "requiring blotters".  Or, to pull a wonderful bit of imagery, it's like dropping an anvil on an egg... and expecting to have two neat halves of shell, one with the white, one with the yolk.

[Drachasor]

You're right, that would be ridiculous if that's what I meant. It's a good thing that it's not. I'm saying specifically to use magic to either directly kill someone, or to incapacitate someone beyond any ability to be aware of their very immediate doom. I'm not talking about restraining yourself to use magic in creating a scenario where you'll have the upper hand, which is precisely what a warden does.

Which is explicitly not what the First Law is.  It's about the magic itself doing the killing.  Disabling is perfectly fine.

Warden runs after warlock and corners him. He starts by creating a personal long lasting block that is a great deal stronger than anything the warlock can throw at him. Then he likely creates a huge zone barrier to cut off the warlock's escape. Then he draws his sword and advances on the warlock. Warlock tries to throw a fireball ... sizzles on warden's shield. Draws a gun and fires on warden ... which also sizzles on warden's shield. Warlock tries desperately to throw up a block of his own which warden counterspells himself or using the enchantments on his sword. Warden draws back with his sword with nothing but his Weapons skill to aid him, and decapitates the warlock who royally failed his Athletics roll to dodge.

And technically the Warden is stopping the Warlock from engaging in his free will when he counterspells, when he undoes enchantments, when he defends himself.  That's literally taking the choices someone makes and undoing them, making them into nothing but wasted action.  The warden being there to do any sort of law enforcement limits free will, and he's there to end the Warlock's free will.  That's what Law Enforcement is all about and you can't do that with stomping all over the criminal's free will.

Again, it's a question of free will. The warlock had no chance magically, but could still choose to surrender. He could (and likely did) choose to dodge or parry. He *did* have the ability to defend himself and was very much aware of his own actions and the actions of the warlock. He was simply outclassed by not only a master evoker, but a master swordsman as well. Wardens' swords are not merely ceremonial you know. They are very very good at actually using them.

First, if the Warlock surrenders, then he gets killed.  If he doesn't surrender, he gets killed.  It isn't like there's any real choice there.  Not one of any meaning.

Second, the Laws of magic are NOT about the free will of the people you are affecting.  There are innumerable ways to take away someone's choices with magic that don't violate the laws such as imprisoning them.  The laws are magic are exactly what they say on the tin.  The First Law is only about purposefully killing with magic.  The second just transforming with magic.  So on and so forth.  There's no law against mitigating, undoing, or stopping someone from exercising their free will.

By your definition, any wizard could simply bypass the first law by casually wandering around, putting people to sleep, and slitting their throats. Rinse and repeat. That's hubris of the very highest order, mate.

That is allowed.  The Laws of Magic aren't about morality or free will.  They explicitly go over this in the novels.  

(click to show/hide)

Harry's mother was quite upset over this, in fact.

[jybil178]

Yeah, thats kinda were the "you control what your attacks do" thing kinda falls apart... With that kinda power...  But anyway, to the current subject...  I honestly don't know if the whole putting someone to sleep, or incapacitating them then killing them would break first law or not..  In all honesty, its very similar to the whole, you use a gust of wind, and knock someone off a building..  In fact, they have an even better chance to survive that then you after you knock them out..

The whole point of the matter...  Is they are practically the same thing..  You knock someone off the building, its not you or the magic that kills them.. Its the fall.. But it was your intent to put them in a lethal situation, where they were completely helpless to protect themselves, as they fall to their deaths..

Its just the thought of this, and their similarity that puts me into such bind on the subject...

[sinker]

There have been threads about this on the forum before. There likely will be more. It is one of those issues that people rarely agree on and everyone seems to have a very strong opinion on. I won't comment on how one obtains lawbreaker, however this is my two cents.

Lawbreaker should almost never be used to "punish" a player. The only circumstance I believe it is ok to force lawbreaker on a player is if you have repeatedly told them that the action would lead to lawbreaker (everyone else at the table agrees) and they do it anyway. Otherwise you're just being vindictive and doing something that may lead to that player loosing their character and possibly all interest in gaming with you. I'f that's a desirable outcome you might want to ask why they're there in the first place.

In light of this I don't think it's really necessary to heavily define lawbreaker. There will either be an obvious situation (as above), or the player will be inflicting it on him/herself.

[BumblingBear]

Yeah, thats kinda were the "you control what your attacks do" thing kinda falls apart... With that kinda power...  But anyway, to the current subject...  I honestly don't know if the whole putting someone to sleep, or incapacitating them then killing them would break first law or not..  In all honesty, its very similar to the whole, you use a gust of wind, and knock someone off a building..  In fact, they have an even better chance to survive that then you after you knock them out..

The whole point of the matter...  Is they are practically the same thing..  You knock someone off the building, its not you or the magic that kills them.. Its the fall.. But it was your intent to put them in a lethal situation, where they were completely helpless to protect themselves, as they fall to their deaths..

Its just the thought of this, and their similarity that puts me into such bind on the subject...

Consider this.

If you knock someone off a roof with magic, you killed them with magic.  Your gust of wind is what propels them off the roof.  It means you made the decision when making the wind to kill.

If you knock someone out with magic and then kill them, it is a BLADE that is killing them.  Not your magic.  The only decision you make when you knock them out is to knock them out.

To some that may seem like a fine line, but it's actually a pretty big difference.

By this line of reasoning, as a GM I would say that if a wizard kills a vampire in an apartment building with magic but the building burns down and kills a few families, whether or not the wizard was thinking about the other people in the building at the time would make the difference on whether they got the law breaker stunt or not.

I will say this again - the laws are not about morality.  At all.  You could be a really terrible, murdering wizard and not break any laws of magic.

I think some of the confusion here is that a few people are getting the laws mistaken for morality.

The laws exist to keep mortal magic users from turning into monsters - pretty much forces of nature for chaos and destruction.  They are not there to keep people from killing each other.

[Drachasor]

Yeah, thats kinda were the "you control what your attacks do" thing kinda falls apart... With that kinda power...  But anyway, to the current subject...  I honestly don't know if the whole putting someone to sleep, or incapacitating them then killing them would break first law or not..  In all honesty, its very similar to the whole, you use a gust of wind, and knock someone off a building..  In fact, they have an even better chance to survive that then you after you knock them out..

Depends on the situation.  You use a gust of wind to knock someone over or have a 5 foot drop, then you are ok.  Knock them off a 10 story building with the exact same spell, and you aren't.  Put someone to sleep at home?  That's ok.  Put them to sleep while swimming or driving?  That's not.

The difference with putting them to sleep and then killing them with a sword is that you are choosing to kill them with the sword.  It is you and the sword doing the killing.  The spell didn't kill anyone there, it just made it easier (the same way disabling their magic with yours or defending yourself with magic makes killing them easier).  In a situation where a chain of events no one controls kills them and it is foreseeable by you (or to be expected), then the spell made it happen and you killed them with that spell.

Obviously there are some grey areas here, but it is a sensible basis to go by.  Otherwise you start saying that disabling a warlock with blocks so they can't use magic or fight you is bad.  Limiting free will with magic is NOT inherently a violation of the Laws of Magic, even if that ends up leading to someone's death (unless it is a foreseeable chain of events with no intelligent being playing a willful role in those events).

Might as well say tricking a Warlock into thinking you are on the roof (with an illusion) so he looks up while you stab him from behind is against the Law then or veiling yourself and striking the hidden blow from a concealed spot.  It's just an unworkable principle that leads to Lawful Stupid behavior and more importantly isn't supported by the books.

[toturi]

With your laws of magic, wizards would pretty much just be helpless carebears who can only do magic tricks.

You sir have been sigged.

Epic quote. Bravo.

[Peteman]

You sir have been sigged.

Epic quote. Bravo.

Don't mess with the carebears.  They'll mindrape you.

[infusco]

Don't mess with the carebears.  They'll mindrape you.

Yup. They hit you with their belly beams and suddenly you turn into this perpetually happy fool. That's 4th law violation right there, lol.

Please don't assume it's about being vindicative as it's not. As a GM, I'd warn players if they were about to commit a lawbreaking act as I see it and give them the chance to reconsider. And I have nothing against players killing humans in my game. I just have an opinion about using magic to render them *completely helpless* with intent to kill. You are welcome to disagree.

[Drachasor]

Please don't assume it's about being vindicative as it's not. As a GM, I'd warn players if they were about to commit a lawbreaking act as I see it and give them the chance to reconsider. And I have nothing against players killing humans in my game. I just have an opinion about using magic to render them *completely helpless* with intent to kill. You are welcome to disagree.

It's just not backed up by the rules, is all.

[Peteman]

Yup. They hit you with their belly beams and suddenly you turn into this perpetually happy fool. That's 4th law violation right there, lol.

Not quite. It's more WCV incite emotion. Plus they ain't human.

[BumblingBear]

You sir have been sigged.

Epic quote. Bravo.

I'm flattered.

It's just not backed up by the rules, is all.

Exactly.  If some people want to play that way... fine.  But I would probably almost immediately quit a game that deviated that far from the RAW /and/ cannon /and/ common sense.

[infusco]

Not quite. It's more WCV incite emotion. Plus they ain't human.

True ... they're not wizards. They're just supernatural fuzzy little cartoon bears with cute tattoos.

[infusco]

Exactly.  If some people want to play that way... fine.  But I would probably almost immediately quit a game that deviated that far from the RAW /and/ cannon /and/ common sense.

Well, actually, by RAW and canon, it's very much a grey area. The only thing we know is that Wardens use their sword for the killing blow. It's never actually described how they go about it. And even in the Magic section, it is stated that there's a lot of grey area here, that Wardens can never use magic as a means to that end, and that players and GMs should discuss how to apply and interpret this rule in the game. Personally, I feel that using magic to create a situation where death is completely inescapable and inevitable warrants it. If you yourself disagree, you are welcome to as there are no hard rules regarding it. We indeed do not have to play together. Mind you, given how heated this topic is here, I'll certainly bring it up with my players and get their feedback as their opinion is the one that counts.

[tymire]

Yes it's a grey area, however got to the chapter in the book that talk about death curses.  It specificaly says that wardens have gotten VERY good at avoiding them.  Pretty much this means they take the target unaware or at least fast enough that they don't have time to spit one out or even think about it.

Imo having Morgan in the books was a very bad idea as far as example of a warden.  Because except for what happened at the end of the first book he didn't bother to try to be tricky at all.  Though this could easily have just been his stubborness.

Really when you get right down to it why even bother knocking them out unless you are in combat.  With good use of veils you could be right up next to them, wait till they are asleep, drug them, or just about anything, and well that's that.