Prickly moral situation for a Paladin - did I judge it correctly?

On Saturday I ran my campaign, which is standard D&D fare with a strong focus on Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe and Ravenloft material. The Paladin in the party is an aasimar, and while not a member of the church heirarchy, he dutifully follows the tenets of the faith.

The player group had been investigating a recent mysterious event: the disappearance of an entire hamlets' worth of adults, with the children left behind unharmed. A goodly local abbot, hearing of the strange event, took the children to his abbey until the players could uncover the truth of the parents' whereabouts.

What they found shocked and disturbed them: the children, under some evil influence, had sacrificed their parents in an infernal rite. In truth, the children had long ago made a deal with a fiend - in exchange for periodic sacrifices, the fiend granted them immortal childhood and certain unholy powers, including the ability to dominate the minds of adults. Using these powers, they would then insinuate themselves into a community, make the adults meet their every demand, and then upon bleeding their benefactors dry, sacrifice them to their dark patron.

Like I said, it's influenced by Ravenloft.

The party, upon piecing together most of this information through clues, raced to the abbey to warn the monks of their charges' nature. When they arrived, they quickly deduced that the children had dominated the abbot,who had begun to divert church money to supporting the children in lavishness. Not knowing what else to do, the party sent a message to the one church official they knew who might be able to help: a certain cardinal from their home region. Upon receiving the message, the cardinal (a 9th-level cleric) at once replied with a sending that implored the player characters to keep both abbot and children at the abbey until the cardinal could arrive to deal with the problem. Furthermore, he informed the party that the abbot had refused to reply to a sending himself. Armed with this knowledge, the party readied themselves to contain the problem, if they could.

Shortly after the cardinal's message, the players discovered that the abbot was preparing to leave the abbey with the children. They delayed his efforts and confronted him with the matter, exposing his mental domination to the other monks. The abbot, who was a frail old man and not at all possessed of magical powers (a 3rd-level expert), was easily contained. The children proved to be much more difficult to entrap.

Upon discovering that the gig was up, the children rallied to escape the now-prison of an abbey, and when confronted by the party, attempted to dominate the paladin. He shrugged off the icy fingers of control, and then began to hack down the evil children. Although possessed of formidable mental powers, they were in all physical respects mortal children, and easily bested in physical combat. Throughout their long lives they succeeded with guile, subterfuge, and mental domination.

When the paladin smote evil on the first child (a wan blond girl who appeared to be no more than four years old), I warned him that his paladinhood was in danger. The group barbarian, of all people, was subduing them, and the party wizard shouted at the paladin to do likewise. The goal, after all, had been to keep them contained until the cardinal's arrival, not to slaughter them for their crimes. Instead, the paladin hacked down another child, this one a young boy apparently no more than eight.

At that point, gameplay screeched to a halt and an argument ensued regarding whether or not the paladin was violating his code. My sense was that, as the only person in the party who was truly of the faith - and doubly blessed by the gods, being both aasimar and paladin - the onus was on the paladin to ensure that the children were alive to face the cardinal. Also, no matter how you slice it, I believe that a paladin should be undeniably hesitant to hew down children, no matter how old and vile they prrobably are. The paladin's player argued that he had violated nothing, because he knew they were evil, had commited truly heinous acts, and had attempted to dominate him to boot. From his perspective, he was well within his rights to destroy them.

Most of the player agreed with him. One of them agreed with me. Because it was a sticky moral situation that had already degenerated into bickering, and because I was not absolutely convinced that I was right (it was more of a gut feeling...), I let it slide. But I think that, of all the characters, the paladin should be the one who holds himself to a higher standard, and who should enforce the will of the church (represented in this matter by the explicit orders from the cardinal to keep the children there until he arrived). In these things I feel the paladin failed, and I believe that I should have removed his holy powers, at least until he atoned. The crazy alienist wizard should not have a better grasp of such things than the paladin.

What do you think?

I'm with you on this one. I'm all for letting Paladin's stretch the boundries sometimes, but they were specifically asked to hold the children there, not slaughter them. The Paladin could easily have subdued them. And they were children, for crying out loud! Did they even have weapons?

I don't know, maybe I don't have all the details to judge properly, but off the top of my head, I would side with you in the argument.

ForceUser said:

What do you think?

Click to expand...

I think you have a case for the lawful bit, though I'm not sure if the "keep them there" order had to have been taken as "keep them alive" as opposed to "keep them from leaving"... Not enough to lose paladin powers, but a good warning, maybe.

As for smiting the little tykes GOOD ON HIM! A paladin SHOULD be the one to fight evil no matter its form and support good, no matter it's face. A paladin who deals with deep down evil, fiend worshipping, parent sacrificing, monsters based on their cute level is the one who should lose paladin status. I would applaud his willingness to treat them as what they are rather than what they appear...

Kahuna burger

"immortal childhood and certain unholy powers"

As a player in the game, I think these are not "children" at all. They are immortals who dominate and sacrificed an entire village to a devil in a horrific wash of blood and gore (as was evidenced). I felt the paladin attacking them didn't break any part of his paladin code or alignment. ForceUser had already stated in his campaign that devils/demons (whatnot) may take the forms of seemingly innocuous things (such as children) prior to the session.

Yes, I would have subdued. But that is a personal choice. I don't think that attacking them was out of line.

I'm with the Paladin. They used to be children... before they sold themselves into perdition, became "immortal" (in which case, how did he kill them?), gained evil powers, and started dominating, draining, and murdering people!

I don't know what they are, now, but they aint just children!

Now if the priest they had contacted had told the PCs to hold the kiddles, as he had a way of removing the taint, that (somehow, although I can't see how) they were still innocents, then you might have a point. As it was, however, they were knowingly and willingly evil, and deserved a good smiting. They were a danger to the Paladin, his party, the folks in the abbot's keep, and the surrounding countryside!

Nope, the Paladin has my vote! Smite Evil!

Those aren't kids. They're demon worshipping cultists guilty of countless acts of evil who are decades old. If they can dominate you, that's all the weapon they need.-

Let's put it another way: if evil bad guys polymorphed themselves into small children, and you knew they were polymorphed, would you restrain yourself from beating them down?

I'm not saying killing them all was necessary, but well within a paladin's limits. The Cardinal had only instructed to keep the immortal evil kids at the abbey, and they were running away. The Cardinal made his decision on incomplete information, and circumstances change. A concentrated effort by the kids could probably dominate a percentage of the party.

Based on the facts as they stand....

I side with the paladin. The children were a threat - a clear and present danger. Maybe not physically but they were endowed with powerful mental powers. The children could have just as likely have dominated the other party member(s) and then the paladin would likely have to content with the other party member(s) turning against him.

Just because they appear as helpless young children doesn't mean they are. I would argue that given their 'conversion' (immortality and unholy powers), that they are children in appearance only and their spirits have been corrupted into something unholy.

One doesn't treat evil with kid gloves. The children were a clear and present danger and the paladin made a judgement call as to what the appropiate response should be given the situation and circumstances. There was no guarantee than subduing them would be effective (the mind still operating while the body is subdued and it is the mental powers which define the threat).

Orders not withstanding, the paladin must deal with the situation as best as he can and he must be allowed some latitude of judgement within his code.

Ultimately, it is your game and your call. Ask yourself - did the paladin act within his code, even if it was not the ideal solution or the solution another would have selected?

If yes, then no foul....

The paladins code requires him to vanquish evil where it's found. I think this overrides his obedience to superiors, who might be corrupted or under some evil spell anyway.

So the paladin did a tough but right decision. If he had taken a more light-handed approach, he might've let some children escape (subdued children may use their powers again, faking unconsciousness; dead can't) and thus end up failing to obey the order anyway. Making it a bit damned if you do; doomed if you don't situation.

Under the rules paladins lose their powers for evil acts and gross violations of the paladins code.

Smiting evil who can dominate and have done evil things, not an evil action.

Smiting things in child form when church higher up said contain them, not a gross violation or evil act, IMO.

There's always some argument about the relative priorities of 'smite evil' vs 'mercy' for paladins. The relevant issues are:

1) The children were attacking, and were thus a clear and present danger. This is a mark in his favor.
2) He had received orders from his superior to hold them for judgement. This is a mark against.
3) His companions urged him to show mercy, and he did not grant it. This is a mark against him, for two reasons. First, it shows that the situation did not appear so extreme that usage of maximum force was necessary. Second, it should always shame a paladin to be outdone in any virtue.
4) If capturing and neutralizing the children was viable, destroying them was unwise; it's hard to question the dead.

Overall, IMO, this is a violation of code -- but it's a relatively minor one, and unlikely to result in more than a warning of sort. Perhaps strip him of his powers for a day.