My Paladin killed a child molester (and now my DM wants to take away my powers!)

[Rackhir]

The arguments seem to come down into two basic camps. The "Paladin did wrong" camp seems to be arguing for essentially 4 color comic book hero moral codes for paladins, ie. killing should always be avoided if possible, never strike from behind, follow the law if at all possible, etc. read superman basically. The other camp seems to be more "The Punisher" code of morality, hey they're evil, we know they're evil, just kill them and save everyone some hassle. Given that it's a grim and gritty (or alt least grimy) campaign the "Punisher" code of morality seem to be more appropriate to me. The Superman code of morality really only makes sense (to me) in situations where you are dealing with clear black and white situations.

The second issue seems to be the authority of the Paladin in the situation. Which doesn't seem to have been well established. If the paladin has some sort of authority to judge and procecute justice, then the situation is much less problematic. If they have no formal authority and there is a strong local system of laws, then it's much more dubious.

Given that you had the paladin find the desceased in the middle of comitting a clearly evil act, I don't think that it was an "evil" act to simply execute judgement on the perpetrator. One of the reasons we don't permit such things in our society is a simple one. We can't be certain of the reasons behind the actions or of the judgement of the person executing the criminal. So we have a formalized process to at least attempt to make sure that justice has been served.

A paladin is by definition supposed to be a different case. First off they can know if someone is evil, so that eliminates a large measure of uncertainty. Second, IF they have acted in error, they have essentially an (supposedly) infallable judge to point this out to them (ie. their god).

That said, it sounds like you need to sit down and have a talk with your DM about what exactly IS the code of conduct he/she expects from a paladin. This generally seems to be a good idea whenever trying to run a paladin. A final word of advice, if your paladin is getting a clear warning from the DM as to your course of action, what ever you think may be the correct course of action. You should probably try arguing with the DM beforehand.

If it makes you feel any better I once had a chaotic neutral bard of a true neutral god, get flame struck by his god for hamstringing a prisoner so he couldn't escape like one had the previous night. I still don't get that one.

 

[Torm]

I, Torm, God of Paladins, have no problem with this Paladin's behaviour - save for one part of it: His swift and decisive delivery of justice did not allow him to ascertain whether this man was the ONLY threat to the little girl. There may have been others who were party to this crime.

That is my charge for this Paladin. He must now seek, using whatever Lawful Good means are in his grasp, to ascertain that, and bring any others to justice that this makes necessary.

To those who think that "Lawful" refers to the laws of man in the place you are in, I feel sorry for you if you ever visit Thay or Zhentil Keep. That is not it at all. The Laws of your God transcend those of man. If this player's Overgod (DM) would allow, I would, in fact, Bless this Paladin in his pursuit of such monsters as the molester - certainly not see him stripped of his powers.

 

[Rackhir]

I, Torm, God of Paladins, have no problem with this Paladin's behaviour - save for one part of it: His swift and decisive delivery of justice did not allow him to ascertain whether this man was the ONLY threat to the little girl. There may have been others who were party to this crime.

That is my charge for this Paladin. He must now seek, using whatever Lawful Good means are in his grasp, to ascertain that, and bring any others to justice that this makes necessary.

To those who think that "Lawful" refers to the laws of man in the place you are in, I feel sorry for you if you ever visit Thay or Zhentil Keep. That is not it at all. The Laws of your God transcend those of man. If this player's Overgod (DM) would allow, I would, in fact, Bless this Paladin in his pursuit of such monsters as the molester - certainly not see him stripped of his powers.

This whole sort of argument just reminded me of a terrific quote from one of the "Guards" books in the Diskworld series. Vimes at one point is telling one of the other watchmen

"If you are ever in a situation where the other guy has the drop on you and you are dead to rights. Pray the man on the other end of the crossbow is an evil SOB. Because an Evil SOB is going to want to watch squirm and suffer and beg for your life. However, if it is a good man, who is convinced he's doing the right thing, he is going to kill you immediately without a second thought."

Hey, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to argue with Cmdr. Vimes. Sounds like he'd give the paladin the night off and a comendation.

 

[Henry]

I, Torm, God of Paladins, have no problem with this Paladin's behaviour - save for one part of it: His swift and decisive delivery of justice did not allow him to ascertain whether this man was the ONLY threat to the little girl. There may have been others who were party to this crime.

That is my charge for this Paladin. He must now seek, using whatever Lawful Good means are in his grasp, to ascertain that, and bring any others to justice that this makes necessary.

'Atta Boy. See, I told you he wouldn't have let it go and would have seen it to the gory end.

 

[shilsen]

This whole sort of argument just reminded me of a terrific quote from one of the "Guards" books in the Diskworld series. Vimes at one point is telling one of the other watchmen

"If you are ever in a situation where the other guy has the drop on you and you are dead to rights. Pray the man on the other end of the crossbow is an evil SOB. Because an Evil SOB is going to want to watch squirm and suffer and beg for your life. However, if it is a good man, who is convinced he's doing the right thing, he is going to kill you immediately without a second thought."

Hey, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to argue with Cmdr. Vimes. Sounds like he'd give the paladin the night off and a comendation.

Nice example (that's from "Men at Arms" incidentally). I'm pretty sure Vimes might have done exactly the same thing in the same situation as Vindicator's paladin. But do you think Carrot (pretty good example of a paladin, IMO) would have?

 

[mroberon1972]

Nice example (that's from "Men at Arms" incidentally). I'm pretty sure Vimes might have done exactly the same thing in the same situation as Vindicator's paladin. But do you think Carrot (pretty good example of a paladin, IMO) would have?

With grim certanty. A child, with that situation? He runs quite a bit deeper than you think. In fact, I think vimes stopped him from that path once already if I remember correctly. Vimes knows that carrot could not handle the after-effects of such an act very well.

 

[Rackhir]

Nice example (that's from "Men at Arms" incidentally). I'm pretty sure Vimes might have done exactly the same thing in the same situation as Vindicator's paladin. But do you think Carrot (pretty good example of a paladin, IMO) would have?

Capt. Carrot is far more than simply a paladin, he's so utterly and fundamentally GOOD that evil undead probably get negative levels just from being in the same room as him. Remember this is a guy with such charisma and force of personality that he's been able to single-handedly stop two armies from fighting and got them to play soccer instead (Okay, maybe it's not peace, but it's still an improvement). He IS a four color comic book character essentially. Also if I remember "Men at Arms" correctly at the end of the book, he cut down the BBEG without a moments thought or hesitation.

 

[satori01]

What really disturbed me about this thread is the still continuing "lawful stupid" mentality when it comes to Paladins.

The Paladin is a martial class, why wouldnt a Paladin take a stategic advantage.
This "cant attack from behind" dogma is a bit silly. Why not? Does this mean a Paladin can not flank, or take a suprise round, or have numerical superiority?
Come on the two salient class abillities of a Paladin is the Warhorse and Smite Evil. It isnt exactly sporting to ride someone down on your Warhorse and Smite Evil simultaneously doing,(assuming mounted feats), extreme boatloads of damage, but that is what the class is meant to do.

If you want subdual damage and stunning fists for justice, play a monk. Paladins are about destroying evil, not apprehending it.

Furthermore, the DM's contention that it was a wrong act due to the molester being a first level commoner, is metagame thinking. Class and level and not triggering points for spells like forbbidance, thus in effect are not game world descriptors. In real life you dont think of your boss as a "5th level expert" or Michael Jordan as a "10th level monk". Your boss is the guy who knows all about X, MJ is a great athelete, so it should work from a players perspective.

The Molester was not a first level commoner, the molester was just, that a scruffy molester.

Beyond that, real life 'Paladins", the Knights Templar, often performed 'Conversions by the sword', in essense forcible conversions, sometimes followed by execution so the soul of the recently converted would not lapse into error again, and be assured heaven. While most of us would not consider that good, we also do not have strong religous convictions about the subject, and extreme acts being justified by religous belief still occur today,(slaying of gynecological doctors that perform abortions, honor killings etc).

Of course, if none of these convince your DM that your actions were consistent with being a Paladin, bring out this justification:

The Player's Handbook explicitly states that a Paladin can not associate with known evil things. Clearly if you apprehended the molester you would be associating with him, and might be forced to defend this evil creature from good folks wanting to exact justice. To satisfy the EXPLICT code of conduct written into the PHB,(unlike this no attack from behind nonsense), you had to kill him.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Just to add my vote, I agree with the "good, but not lawful" camp.

Since your character "knew" (through the GM) that the character was not a match for your paladin, it was not necessary to kill him to uphold the good and protect the girl. Having him face the courts (assuming they, too are LG) would do just as well, and does a better job of showing the populace that justice was done here.

The paladin could have grabbed the man, slammed him against a wall, and generally voiced his displeasure without killing him. A rebuke is in order - but not the loss of paladin powers.

 

[Vae Victus]

Perhaps that was the 1st edition paladin, but we are now talking about a 3rd edition...

What's the differance? The 1st edition paladin was a nightmare for a GM due to it's near invulnerability to supernatural evil. The protection from evil aura allowed him so much protection, combined with his other abilities, so as to make him unusable by some gamemasters.

The 3rd edition is balanced (more or less) against the other classes. He has no advantage. The idea of placing strict moral handcuffs on the character can ONLY be balanced by his social power in the setting.

What did I just say? If he has to play by strict rules of conduct, then the GM better be giving the character power and leeway to match.

Otherwise, he's saying fighters loose all thier class abilities if they ever touch an axe. That ain't right.

My bad. I am speaking from the perspective of my campaign- which technically isn't D&D anymore since we have added SO many house rules and chopped it up so much that it would be more accurate to describe it as a d20 fantasy RPG than a game of D&D 3rd edition. And by the way, we do go by the 1st edition mentality. COMPLETELY. I literally use 1980's Gary Gygax modules converted to 3rd edition and have a number of other 1st edition characteristics to it (elf is a class as well as a race, demihuman races are EXTREMELY restricted, etc.).

However, that does not eliminate the historical example of what the quintessential 11th through 14th century Western European chivalric knight model of a paladin is supposed to look like (provided you use that model instead of, say, a Samurai from the Warring States period).

Your mileage may vary.