Here Comes the Jury!

[muhcashin]

My 2 cents?

I voted yes. I know it's harsh, but murder is as much a crime as what that commoner was doing. Taking law under his own hands like that is clearly not "lawful". Decapitation is far from what is expected from a paladin. Killing a evil man is one thing, but slicing his head off is overkill.

Maybe this come from a player who's DM is extremely harsh. Our cleric of Lathander lost his status as a cleric (no more spells, etc...) because he did not stop our fire mage from slaying a drunk yet very powerful priest of Torm. That Lathanderite underwent an atonement quest that took a good 6 months of real game time to complete.

 

[Zimri]

I have already said what I said and I stand by it. (To sum up: I would let the player decide to give them control over their character but I have some good players.) However, I must point out that the above is wrong, by at least two sources.

I work with a former police officer. Her husband teaches at the police academy of my city. I also saw several Discovery channel specials on training for FBI agents. This may surprise some of you but here is what I watched and what I was told.

Law enforcement officials are taught to shoot the bad guy until they go down. Period.

This could mean empty their clip. The reason they do this is because without a lucky shot to the head or heart, it takes a lot of wounds to cause a person to go down (Not to be mortal but go down) due to low blood pressure starving the brain. During this time, they can still react but each hit dimishes their ability to act.

Further, my same sources tell me that said police officers would also fire if the person was within fifteen feet of them and definitely within ten, because within that distance, they can close to melee range and perhaps grapple for the weapon probably before the officer can fire even one shot!

I think we see too much sensationalized violence on TV, including officers stopping at one shot or two, to understand fully what kind of training our law enforcement people receive.

Second, while I do agree that the FRCS is grey on this topic, the sources I quoted earlier, in terms of a LN perspective, were not. Some areas would kill the rapist, others would fine him. I don't know what sources the DM and player have in question, of course, but there are sources out there as to what would be done in FR in this situation.

I am not trying to attack you personally, so much as question what you brought up in terms of its veracity. I hope I did it in a fair and respectful manner to you and to the boards.

Good discussion!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

You are not being unfair. Perhaps our laws up here are different. You need cause to DRAW a weapon here. And firing into the back of a man that is less than 5 feet away from a victim he is about to rape is reckless endangerment because well things richochet and sometimes you miss. There would be two Police officers involved at least and more not far away if needed (patrols are tight and officers travel in pairs.)

You do NOT fire warning shots, you do NOT shoot to maim ( I am fairly certain we have similar rules about those first two). But you also do not draw a weapon unless you are either certain someone will be wounded or killed if you don't, or if the situation is one that is such that it is likely a weapon is involved. And the FBI is slightly different than local enforcement

 

[Crass]

Crass, I think voting for a necessary atonement would be yes to stripping him of his powers (though not permanently).

I was under the impression that the stripping was permanent, hence the NO! vote. Temporarily, atonement is in order, but with the paladin keeping his powers in the interim. Sorry about the apparent incongruity.

 

[Agemegos]

I was under the impression that the stripping was permanent, hence the NO! vote. Temporarily, atonement is in order, but with the paladin keeping his powers in the interim. Sorry about the apparent incongruity.

The rules for paladins regaining their lost powers are unfortunately rather complicated, and seem to be inconsistent, at least in PHB 3.0. Perhaps they were cleaned up in 3.5.

If the paladin loses his powers through a wilful, knowing evil act can never regain them. (According to the Atonement spell description).

A paladin who willingly but unwittingly commits an evil can have the powers restored by an Atonement, which will cost the caster 500 XP. The caster may chose to impose a penance befroe agreeing to cast the spell.

A paladin who loses his or her powers through committing a gross breach of the code of conduct or through associating with evil characters can presumably have them restored by getting a cleric to cast Atonement on his or her behalf. If the breach was a willing act it costs the cleric or druid 500 XP to cast the Atonement, but if it was an unwilling act it has no XP cost. (I am not sure that I would ever rule an unwilling act to be a gross breach, but that's beside the point.) It is up to the discretion of the caster of the spell to decide whether to impose a penance, not part of the spell or a decision of the god. If the character gains a level before atoning he or she gets his or her powers back but can never again raise his or her paladin level.

A paladin who loses his or her powers by ceasing to be of Lawful Good alignment must restore Lawful Good alignment either through extended consistent play or by use of the "Redemption" version of the Atonement spell. My ruling would be that the powers then spontaneously come back, but some GMs might require an Atonement. If the ex-paladin gains a level before regaining his or her alignment (and Atonement, if the GM rules that it is required) the powers come back but the character can never gain another paladin level.

I'm not going to defend these rules, which seem rather arbitrary and in some respects pointless, besides which there seems to be a mistake in either the Paladin class description ot the write-up of the Atonement spell. And things may be different in the Realms. And of course any use of Rule Zero is beyond what we can contemplate. But as the rules stand the question of whether and how Vindicators character can get his powers back depends on the ruling under which the GM stripped them away (if, indeed, the GM decides to stand by his decision).

 

[DM_Matt]

Additional fact: We now know that child molesters are virtually impossible to rehabilitate. Punishment doesn't work because their lust for children is basically a sexual orientation.

Assuming that your campaign world, like most pseudo-midieval worlds, has harsher laws than we do now, and a greater willingness to execute, chopping his head off would seem quite appropriate.

As far as making him turn around, whats the point. The guy would hav edied no matter what. Did the Pally have to say "Turn around and face me so that I can kill you in one swing?"

No, no powers lost. No punishment either.

 

[Goobermunch]

Additional fact: We now know that child molesters are virtually impossible to rehabilitate. Punishment doesn't work because their lust for children is basically a sexual orientation.

Assuming that your campaign world, like most pseudo-midieval worlds, has harsher laws than we do now, and a greater willingness to execute, chopping his head off would seem quite appropriate.

As far as making him turn around, whats the point. The guy would hav edied no matter what. Did the Pally have to say "Turn around and face me so that I can kill you in one swing?"

No, no powers lost. No punishment either.

First, while medieval justice was harsh and swift, D&D worlds need not apply a medieval justice system. In fact, as posted elsewhere on this topic, the published Forgotten Realms materials indicate that some justice systems are far more enlightened than others.

Second, the point is exactly that the paladin should have said "Turn around and face me while you die." That's the honorable thing to do.

So yes, powers lost, punishment too.

--G

 

[BryonD]

As far as making him turn around, whats the point. The guy would have died no matter what. Did the Pally have to say "Turn around and face me so that I can kill you in one swing?"

Very good point.

 

[Torm]

Which means that you were not considering the sentences proposed by those who voted to acquit? Because I certainly nominated ex-paladinhood as appropriate if any substantial charge had found to be proven.

No. It means that those were exactly what I was looking at, and your opinion, while well-reasoned, was far in the minority.

Its as though you had someone on trial for a specific crime in a current court. The judge can't just make up any old thing. "You are sentenced to having to handshake each member of the jury" for serial killing, or "You are sentenced to death and Black Mass" for stealing an apple at the grocery store just aren't balanced. Society sets a range of punishments that are to be specified by law as appropriate to the crime.

And in this case, a majority of society (posters in the thread) seemed to be saying that permanent revokation was too heinous for the crime.

 

[Agemegos]

No. It means that those were exactly what I was looking at, and your opinion, while well-reasoned, was far in the minority.

Its as though you had someone on trial for a specific crime in a current court. The judge can't just make up any old thing

Exactly so. And yet the same consideration drives the two of us to opposite conclusions! Isn't that strange?

My take is that the only ruling that we had any business making was whether Vindictor's character had committed was making any of the transgressions specified in the PHB, and that the only actions we had any right to recommend were those supported by the PHB: suspending all paladin powers (restoreable by alignment returning to Lawful Good), removing all (restorable by Atonement), or removing all paladin powers (irrestorable). By my reading of the rules we had no power to temporarily, conditionally, or partial suspend the character's paladinhood.

 

[Torm]

By my reading of the rules we had no power to temporarily, conditionally, or partial suspend the character's paladinhood.

You're right, except for one little thing - Rule 0. Which probably should have been enough that this never have been brought to our court in the first place. The DM should have made a ruling that made sense, and stuck to it. Period. But since it did come to us, Rule 0 still meant that the DM had more options than those suggested by the Core Rulebooks.

I've played a paladin in almost every game I've ever played in, and I've DMed when others have played them (although never under 3E), and I can't recall EVER seeing a DM penalize a Paladin by FULL revocation of powers - to me, it doesn't even make sense in story terms unless the player intends to go Ex-Paladin. Otherwise, you have to assume the player (and thus, the character) is at least trying, in which case the roleplaying potential of making them redeem themselves and restore a minor penalty is far more of a story hook than simply revoking all their powers and p*ssing off the player at your heavy-handedness - possibly losing that player.

A Paladin with their powers revoked is NOT a Fighter, btw, to those who have suggested that is the case. There's a severe lack of feats and advantages - the ones that balance the Fighter against a Paladin level for level.

What I'm getting at is - having your powers revoked REALLY sucks. And not just in ways that make you a whiny little munchkin for being upset about it. And the authors of the PHB really should have thought about that a little more. Compare the penalties for any other class that goes Ex, and you'll see what I mean - it is seriously out of whack.