The Paladin killed someone...what to do?

[Peter Gibbons]

From the SRD:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability.

How do the paladin's actions fall into either category?

First, you're asking the wrong question. A paladin is not required to be Lawful and Good with every action. How does eating her dinner fall into either category?

The question is: how do the paladin's action fall into the Evil or Chaotic categories?

Furthermore, consider this (from the PHB): "A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is lawful good."

Hmmm.

 

[Voadam]

From the SRD:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability.

How do the paladin's actions fall into either category?

They don't have to.

From the srd:

Alignment is a tool for developing your character’s identity. It is not a straitjacket for restricting your character. Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

He only needs to avoid doing an evil act.

“Evil” implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Waitaminute; I thought that was exactly what "Lawful" meant, seeing as Legal means "of or relating to the Law".

Because, in D&D, the alignment "Law" really means "Order" - stability, control, direct cause and effect, logic, etc.

Living creatures create "laws" which are specific to a given society. Their "laws" are not necessarily Lawful - though they can be.

A Paladin is required to be both Lawful and Good. Consider a Paladin who travels to a land where the "law" states that every third day you must sacrifice a baby to Yeenoghu. While there, the Paladin does not sacrifice that child. Has he committed a Chaotic act?

 

[Arravis]

It's not an issue of it being "evil", but not "lawful good".

Lawful, does imply some measure of actual following of laws, as stated in the SRD "obedience to authority". I agree that Lawful does not mean following laws without regard to morality (ie good), but that is a double sided blade.

I think many are interperting this as an issue of justice. Justice though is not good, nor is it evil. It is neutral. Justice is simply the administration of law... impartial to either good or bad, simply to the law itself. If a paladin followed justice alone, he would not be a good character for very long, much less a paladin.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Because, in most instances, cold-blooded murder circumvents law. Note that Paladins aren't typically supposed to serve as judge, jury, and executioner in instances where an established legal code and court system exist. If Paladin's run willy-nilly around the law whenever it suits them, it makes them criminals (specifically vigilantes).

Which reminds me... OP, if a penalty exists for murder in the city where this took place, I think that there'a good chance the Paladin will be arrested (or at least sought out by local authorities) and forced to stand trial.

How about Shadowbane Inquisitors from Complete Adventurer? They're trained in stealth and masters of sneaking around and even get additional backstab damage. If they're not supposed to be an exmaple of judge, jury and executioner, I must be reading their intent wrong.

 

[Voadam]

It's not an issue of it being "evil", but not "lawful good".

Not being a LG action is irrelevant unless it pushes his alignment to not be LG.

If it was an evil action then he would immediately lose his paladin powers.

Unless you are house ruling paladins to be different than RAW.

 

[Arravis]

The question is: how do the paladin's action fall into the Evil or Chaotic categories?

He only needs to avoid doing an evil act.

If all a paladin does is simply "not do evil", he's not a good character. He's neutral. The absence of evil or "sin" does not make someone good, it simply makes them not evil. Good is an action, it's an aggressive task that the individual must embark on.

If all you do is punish law-breakers, that is not a "good" action. It's a neutral one. That's Judge Dread. Good, as stated above from the SRD, is something completely different.

Additionally, actions like eating dinner, are not "moral" decisions. Eating dinner is neither good nor evil, nor neutral. The entire concept behind the paladin is that when presented with a moral decision, the paladin will choose the good and lawful moral decision.

Alignment is not a straightjacket... unless you happen to choose a class whose existance is based on alignment. Even then, there is quite a bit of room for interpertation, but it does set limitations.

 

[Arravis]

If it was an evil action then he would immediately lose his paladin powers.

Enough of those neutral actions and the alignment of the paladin changes to neutral, and thus he looses his paladinhood.

 

[Aaron L]

"And in righteous vengeance he did smite the halfling for his evil."


Sounds biblical to me.

Now, are we talking about some halfling villager who was forced into doing this against his will, or are we talking about some halfling sneak who is involved in a plot to kill the paladins wife? Lawful Good (and ESPECIALLY paladins) is ALL about righteous vengeance. If youre looking for ALL GOOD, ALL THE TIME... thats Neutral Good. Lawful Good and paladins isnt Superman. Its Heironeous and Moradin and Tyr. Smite the evil so that it doesnt spread.

 

[jdrakeh]

This thread is an excellent example of why alignments don't get used in my campaigns, incidentally - clearly there are two circles of thought here:

1. Lawful infers adherance to the law as it exists in a given setting.
2. Lawful infers the duty to do what one personally considers just, laws be damned.

Good cases can and have been made for both views, based on the RAW. In the end, it's a personal choice, not a rules issue, as the rules support both arguments equally well. So, to the OP - do whatever you think is the best thing to do, because that's the only right approach to take to an issue liek this.