So when the cleric casts detect evil on Jim and the rest of the party decides to vigilante-slaughter him for his loot, what should our Lawful friend do?
The Lawful friend will attempt to follow the law—or, depending on the particulars, his code of honor / sacred traditions / whatever. If the Law says that criminals are innocent until proven guilty, then the Lawful guy would treat the criminal as such. He doesn’t need to know whether the criminal is reforming, or struggling with his inner demons (of the figurative kind), or whatever; all that matters is making sure the Law is followed.
Thus, if the Law says, “you can’t murder Evil people unless you have evidence of them committing actual crimes and/or atrocities”, then that’s that. Both our reforming criminal, and Stalin McHitlerguy, would be treated the same by a Lawful character who followed that Law.
They don’t ? I was under the impression that they did, to an extent; just like Lawful Evil characters have to obey at least the letter of the law. This is why their evil is all about convoluted contracts and complex machinations with plausible deniability—as opposed to, say, torching villagers while laughing maniacally.
Oh, they would prefer to reform the system from within proper channels, obviously, but they can consider a specific law non-binding based on their own code of honour or whatever. Lawful characters can free slaves because their human rights are being violated, for example.
The Lawful friend will attempt to follow the law—or, depending on the particulars, his code of honor / sacred traditions / whatever. If the Law says that criminals are innocent until proven guilty, then the Lawful guy would treat the criminal as such. He doesn’t need to know whether the criminal is reforming, or struggling with his inner demons (of the figurative kind), or whatever; all that matters is making sure the Law is followed.
Thus, if the Law says, “you can’t murder Evil people unless you have evidence of them committing actual crimes and/or atrocities”, then that’s that. Both our reforming criminal, and Stalin McHitlerguy, would be treated the same by a Lawful character who followed that Law.
Actually, Lawful Good characters don’t have to obey Evil laws.
EDIT:
Emphasis on the code of honour types.
They don’t ? I was under the impression that they did, to an extent; just like Lawful Evil characters have to obey at least the letter of the law. This is why their evil is all about convoluted contracts and complex machinations with plausible deniability—as opposed to, say, torching villagers while laughing maniacally.
Oh, they would prefer to reform the system from within proper channels, obviously, but they can consider a specific law non-binding based on their own code of honour or whatever. Lawful characters can free slaves because their human rights are being violated, for example.