# Talk:Murder
In nethack 3.4.3, drinking from a fountain in the Gnomish Mine Town makes the guards angry if it dries up in the process. Killing them still counts as murder! I think this should be considered a bug and fixed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.194.34.103 (talk • contribs) 

Don't do that, then.  The guards are doing their job.  Whether this is a "bug" is a matter of opinion, and the only opinions that count are those of the DevTeam.--Ray Chason 18:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Alignment penalty; similar in effect?
I'm not sure I'd call the alignment penalty for killing always-peacefuls "similar in effect." If you're not playing pacifist and not too early in the game, your alignment will recover pretty quickly and may not even enter negative territory, and it doesn't even come into play that often; as opposed to luck and lost telepathy, which can have immediate negative effects on your game. Also the alignment penalty isn't that big; I think it's -15, which is what you'd get for killing a peaceful coaligned dwarf lord or golden naga, as per the alignment record spoiler.
(Which reminds me that the scenario where you really have to worry about getting a negative alignment is if you're playing as a lawful and bumping off the Mines' dwarves and hobbits in search of mithril; it may be early enough in the game to take your alignment negative, and killing gnomes won't build your alignment back up.)
Once as a chaotic barbarian I summoned Juiblex by sacrifice and knocked him off for the lulz (well, because I was trying to get enough XP to go on the quest), which is an eye-popping -45 alignment penalty, but I had no problem going on the quest or with any other dealings with my god -- it's just very easy to get away with alignment-lowering actions. Slandor 03:59, July 13, 2010 (UTC)

Ok, "similar in effect" is debatable. The penalty is -16, including angering the guy first.
Still, in my current speed run, the effect was very well devastating (and even lost me sanctuary). On the other hand, bad Luck does time out. In general, by the time you can get positive Luck, it's pretty easy to control. So there is not that much difference to the de-facto timeout of bad alignment. Tjr 12:58, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I can see how that'd wreck a speed run, and bad luck timing out is a good point. Is this a good place to ask what the special penalty for killing a co-aligned nonrenegade priest is? I vaguely remember someone saying there wss one (loss of protection?), though it's probably most relevant for SLASH'EM players who didn't read the Lawful Quest spoiler. --Slandor 13:10, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
Penalty for killing a co-aligned nonrenegade priest
(As in the lawful quest) The alignment penalty is -15 (see alignment record), and I guess the loss of protection &amp; murder is the same as for coaligned priests tending temples, see aligned priest. Tjr 15:33, July 13, 2010 (UTC)

I just wiztested with one of the wandering priestesses on the Astral Plane (#chatting first to anger her after buying protection from my high priest) and I got the murder penalty but my protection stayed. So, huh. Maybe someone should source dive to see what's going on. --Slandor 15:51, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
Does only dealing the last hit count as murder?
Let's say I bring a Watch Captain down to 1 hp and then the pet deals the hit to kill it, will I be responsible? Does it consider who did more damage or who landed the killing blow? WarriorX90 (talk) 10:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)