A paladin in chaos

[Calim]

I am currently running a game in which I have a player running a Monte chaotic good type paladin.

Problems are arising whentrying to define how this character should act and react to events going on around them.

Example an NPC who had been sent to kill the party was dropped and at -9 hp's. The paladin purposely walked over dropped one point of healing in said NPC and said okay ready to go. The paladin intended to leave the NPC behind at -9.

Granted the NPC was saved from immediate death and he was evil is this the way a "Chaotic Paladin" would react? When I say that he is playing a Monte Paladin, all I mean is that he is playing a chaotic good version of the phb paladin as the player does not own the book of hallowed might.

 

[Diirk]

Chaotic means he doesn't care abow the law.. he'll quite happily break steal money from drug lords and give it to an orphanage, he'll break into prison to rescue an innocent man from hanging, etc.

Good means he does does nice things. Is it nice to leave someone in the middle of nowhere in a deep coma? Odds are fairly good that he'll be dead before he wakes up. Its nothing to do with the law, so chaotic vs lawful doesn't apply, but its not really a 'good' thing to do

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

I'd say it depends largely on how judges, philosophers, and various religions in your particular gameworld think about evil.

Someone who was sent to kill you is, arguably, performing an evil act. Probably you're not the first person he was sent to kill. A hardline lawful good type might come at this from a few different points of view; perhaps the traditional punishment for assassins is death, in which case a LG paladin would've delivered a coup de grace to the dying man and felt pretty damn good about himself. Perhaps the traditional punishment is less, and a LG paladin would have preferred reviving the man and dragging him back to civilization to be tried and imprisoned. But whatever the LG paladin decides to do, it's most likely going to be in accordance with an established principle of some institution, and he's not going to second-guess them on it.

Make the paladin chaotic good, and now you're left with just personal sentiment as shaped by whatever religious order he belongs to. Perhaps his religion believes that even the most evil being can be redeemed, in which case leaving the guy in a coma in the wilderness is cruel, unusual, and wrong: he should be reviving him and giving him an opportunity to reform.

Or perhaps the paladin's religion believes that evil acts should be opposed, stopped, and punished no matter who performs them, in which case this assassin shouldn't have been stabilized; he fought against the good guys and lost, so whatever honor there is in combat is his, and may he wing his way swiftly to whatever dark god he worships, never to trouble good people again.

Or perhaps there's an element of divine randomness to the religion, and a CG paladin may figure that, while it would be evil to slay the assassin when he could be saved, he's under no particular obligation to give the evildoer anything more than a chance at surviving on his own; so stabilize him, and then leave him to his fate. If the assassin has friends, they may come and rescue him. If the assassin is favored by his gods or just lucky, he may recover before a passing animal has him for lunch. Either way, it's out of the paladin's hands; he's spared the man's life but won't interfere in the decisions of the gods beyond that.

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warning: this may require a cg paladin to actually determine what he believes
ryan