Act of evil? Or just taking out the trash?

[Saben]

Sounds like a Lawful Neutral Paladin to me. Whether that shifts him towards Unaligned or keeps him at Lawful Good is the subject of obvious debate. Lawful Neutral (inquisitor-style) isn't well represented in the current setup. But someone that values LAW and SOCIETY (Lawful Good) is likely to value Law over Life. I'd argue that the current Lawful Good alignment is often less good than Good.

I'd say he'd be better served as a Paladin of Erathis than Bahamut, but he's obviously already made that choice.

 

[Ravingdork]

Sounds like a Lawful Neutral Paladin to me. Whether that shifts him towards Unaligned or keeps him at Lawful Good is the subject of obvious debate. Lawful Neutral (inquisitor-style) isn't well represented in the current setup. But someone that values LAW and SOCIETY (Lawful Good) is likely to value Law over Life. I'd argue that the current Lawful Good alignment is often less good than Good.

I'd say he'd be better served as a Paladin of Erathis than Bahamut, but he's obviously already made that choice.

The rules clearly state that a paladin's alinment MUST match that of his diety.

Um, so where does that leave me? Am I even allowed to change his alignment? If I am allowed, what happens when I do? Does he HAVE to switch dieties afterwards? Do his abilitites change at all?

 

[Keenath]

The rules clearly state that a paladin's alinment MUST match that of his diety.

Um, so where does that leave me? Am I even allowed to change his alignment? If I am allowed, what happens when I do? Does he HAVE to switch dieties afterwards? Do his abilitites change at all?

If he changes alignment, he changes deities, I guess -- but he doesn't have to change from this one event.


Even though he was following orders, "stop him by any means" hardly includes death by torture. To those who talk about 'medieval morality', yes, torture was something you could do.... but only after the guy's sentenced and only by appropriate people. I can't think the medieval church would be sanguine about one of their agents killing a man by inches like that. The purpose of torture was to extract a confession, not just to inflict pain!


It's a mark of an evil man to want to revel in having ultimate power over another. Faced with undeniable evil, a good man would just run him through without a word. It's evil that likes to look down on its victim and watch them squirm, that wants to see that they fully comprehend their own weakness, etc etc. And this guy wasn't even undeniably evil, orders or no orders. He's a heretic -- not a murderer or something.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know if it was rules, flavor text, or something just interpreted or made-up by a poster, but I remember this concept:

The Cleric (and a Paladin, too) is ordained by his church and then gains his divine powers. But after his ordination, he is free to do what he wants. And if he changes his believes, if he changes his alignment, he still has his powers. They are not taken away or anything by default. (Though some Churches might perform rituals to take them away, probably needing to capture the heretic first.)

I think I would use this approach in my campaigns, too, and it might be useful in this case, too. The Paladin was ordained, got his powers, and now he'll keep them. Even if he changes his alignment, he still has the powers. If he turns against Bahamut, he probably will have to pray to some other god (but maybe it is not always the same, until he has found the right one...)

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

The rules clearly state that a paladin's alinment MUST match that of his diety.

Um, so where does that leave me? Am I even allowed to change his alignment? If I am allowed, what happens when I do? Does he HAVE to switch dieties afterwards? Do his abilitites change at all?

Like I said in your WotC thread, you could change his alignment but it wouldn't make a lick of difference. If you read the paladin intro, it says that they are invested with divine power through a single ritual rather than through continual communion with their deity as in previous editions. Obviously the designers wanted to remove any and all mechanical consequences for a paladin who changes alignment or attitude. I'm not saying this is the best way to do things; in fact I think it's pretty absurd and wouldn't necessarily criticize you for house ruling in some mechanical consequences for this paladin.

So what should you do? Well there is no should in this situation, but what I would do is this: make it clear to the player that his paladin is drifting away from Bahamut. Maybe he's intentionally role playing his paladin into a fall from grace or maybe not; either is okay. If the paladin does fall from grace, don't take away his powers unless you want to enforce a heroic campaign. But it sounds like you're okay with an villain campaign, so if he falls from grace just use it as a role playing opportunity. What will he do when he starts having dreams where he chats with Bane over the heretic's corpse? What will he do when his radiant powers become necrotic equivalents instead? What will he do when he tries to use Armor of Bahamut in combat but instead gains the blessing of a dark god?

TS

 

[Simm]

As an alturnative to having his church punish him, have the soul of the man he killed rise and haunt him, and not a wimpy kill the wraith haunting but a genuine, milk curdles around you, animals panic, silver tarnishes, pervasive stench of blood, peasents ward off the evil eye haunt. Force him either to recognise his deeds as a price for exorcism "and just why might this tortured, restless spirit be following you mr. paladin," or to make some overtly evil sacrifice to appease the spirit, blood of the innocent works well, or feathers plucked unwillingly from the wing of an angel.

One bad turn deserves another

 

[Kaladhan]

It's awesome what happened to your game raven_dark64. I love morality issues and that's a good one. I never understood why baby kobolds should be spared.

I suggest to handle it this way : Have the Bahamut clerics investigate how the villain died. Interrogate the other characters. Let the paladin knows that he's being investigated. When he is summoned by a high priest, he'll probably get nervous (and for good reasons).

The high priest tells him that he's happy that somebody had the balls to do what he did. Dragging the body through many villages will teach the masses to behave. What the paladin doesn't know, is that the high priest is somewhat senile and belongs to an heretical branch of the clergy.

I think having secret meetings, doing "what must be done", encouraging the player to play how he wants it, could be more interesting in the long run than have a DM-player confrontation and arguments about his alignment.

This, of course, is with the assumption that the other players/characters won't mind in the long run.

 

[Ravingdork]

I never understood why baby kobolds should be spared.

Yeah, it's not like they are going to survive without their parents anyways, right?

I never understood those paladins and other goodly characters who would fight to save the baby kobolds from destruction at the hand of their party mates (after having slain all of the adults) and then leave them there TO STARVE TO DEATH.

Simply killing them all would be far more merciful.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I would start by talking to the player out of character.

I would explain that, while his character concept is entirely his own, he is playing with a group and that his in-character actions upset the rest of the group.

If the player "gets it", then its no big deal and we can proceed to resolve the issue in-game: Maybe the Paladin suffers from bad reputation, is punished by his superiors, maybe agents of Tiamat try to tempt him (as described above)... This can be a great opportunity to introduce a new adventure.

Now, if the player "doesn´t get it", then you´ve got a disruptive player in your hands and some other measures would be appropiate (as decided by the rest of the group).

Just don´t try to "fix it" or "punish" the character in-game before talking to him first. It can make things worse.

Damn it, and for a while I believed alignment debates might have gone...

Alas, it was not to be, apparently

 

[Valiantheart]

I think the Paladins behavior opens up all kinds of interesting role playing opportunities.

A) A more vicious faction of his church embraces him while the more modest are repelled. Decide which faction is more just or show both sides as having good and bad. Maybe the modest faction are bureaucrats who get nothing done but talk. Maybe the more vicious side are bloodthirsty to the point of evil and feared by a populace to terrified to speak against them.

B) A very interesting opportunity is to have him consider being a Knight of Tiamat considering his temperament. Going with the option above maybe he is reviled my someone he respects in his church while some Tiamat intermediary lauds him with praise to get him to switch teams. Nice opportunity for Holy War stuff.

C) Maybe the heretic really did have some powerful friends and they are a tad bit angry at the Paladin.

D) Someone seeing the Paladins tactics decides its the good thing to do to "evil" people. Murderer on the loose.

E) Local constable swears out a warrant for the Paladin. Will he choose to stand trial, will he win the trial, will he honor the verdict.