orion90000
First Post
perhaps i'm just struggling a bit on a paladin sneaking up from behind and assassinating someone... seems less than honorable to me...
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Paladin moral delima
- Thread starter orion90000
- Start date
As a sidenote I'd like to say that these kinds of morality-issues are among the many reasons why I've banned CE and LG from my game.
It's the moral extremes that often make people confused. People tend to think that NG is only almost pure good so you can make some compromises or even act smart, but if you have a LG character then you have to go overboard with things.
Just as an example:
Captured kobold gave a testimony that three humans had hired him and the desciption matched a trio sleeping in the same tavern as players. Paladin immediately left, ran into the tavern and assaulted the three men. All this just based on the testimony given by the kobold. Player in question had long experience of roleplaying.
There is something that makes certain people think that it makes them great roleplayers if they play totally uncompromising and ultraviolent paladins who don't hesitate for a second.
Quite frankly I blame the guys who created 3.x and earlier editions (never played 4e). They should have seen this bomb coming mile away.
It's the moral extremes that often make people confused. People tend to think that NG is only almost pure good so you can make some compromises or even act smart, but if you have a LG character then you have to go overboard with things.
Just as an example:
Captured kobold gave a testimony that three humans had hired him and the desciption matched a trio sleeping in the same tavern as players. Paladin immediately left, ran into the tavern and assaulted the three men. All this just based on the testimony given by the kobold. Player in question had long experience of roleplaying.
There is something that makes certain people think that it makes them great roleplayers if they play totally uncompromising and ultraviolent paladins who don't hesitate for a second.
Quite frankly I blame the guys who created 3.x and earlier editions (never played 4e). They should have seen this bomb coming mile away.
Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
I too, reread the whole thread again and didn't see any flaming wars going on. I see differing opinions on how the paladin should or may act depending on situation(s) and what the various DM's, rulebooks, editions, and settings say concerning the way a paladin should act. I find it an interesting thread and am actually learning a lot more about the paladin class and how people think they should best be played.
Anyhow, to the question at hand. To me a paladin would not walk around assassinating enemies unless it was a last desperate resort. He'd grab what he could (especially his own gear such as a holy avenger, plate mail, etc) and book it out of there to come back another time and deal with the threat when he is tactically ready to do so.
Again, echoing my own thoughts at first and that of the others, he'll be a tactician and not stupid about things when it comes to battle. If I was playing the paladin and had to get out of the camp, but only had the option of killing something to do it, I'd probably try to knock it out instead of killing it because my code of honor wouldn't allow me to kill it outright in that manner, that's left up to assassins and thieves to do. This is just how "I" would do it if I was role playing the paladin. Others might try to distract the single guard, challenge it to single combat, reason with it via diplomacy, or any number of other ways of resolving the situation, that is up to that person playing the paladin and what the DM says in their game that they can do w/o hurting their standing as a paladin.
I think that the OP really just needs to talk to his DM and talk about the options and what he or she expects from paladins in their campaigns. Pretty simple if you do it that way instead of trying to get 100 opinions from 100 other people on the forums. If done this way, you know for sure what your limitations are and you'll be able to immerse yourself into your character more and have more fun at YOUR table.
Anyhow, to the question at hand. To me a paladin would not walk around assassinating enemies unless it was a last desperate resort. He'd grab what he could (especially his own gear such as a holy avenger, plate mail, etc) and book it out of there to come back another time and deal with the threat when he is tactically ready to do so.
Again, echoing my own thoughts at first and that of the others, he'll be a tactician and not stupid about things when it comes to battle. If I was playing the paladin and had to get out of the camp, but only had the option of killing something to do it, I'd probably try to knock it out instead of killing it because my code of honor wouldn't allow me to kill it outright in that manner, that's left up to assassins and thieves to do. This is just how "I" would do it if I was role playing the paladin. Others might try to distract the single guard, challenge it to single combat, reason with it via diplomacy, or any number of other ways of resolving the situation, that is up to that person playing the paladin and what the DM says in their game that they can do w/o hurting their standing as a paladin.
I think that the OP really just needs to talk to his DM and talk about the options and what he or she expects from paladins in their campaigns. Pretty simple if you do it that way instead of trying to get 100 opinions from 100 other people on the forums. If done this way, you know for sure what your limitations are and you'll be able to immerse yourself into your character more and have more fun at YOUR table.
Celebrim
Legend
Just for the record, CE and LG are not moral extremes. They are, almost by definition, alignments based on compromise. The extreme alignments are those that don't represent a mixture: LN, NG, CN, and NE. If you think that CE and LG represent moral extremes, then that is your first point of confusion.
In practice, I think that the problem is that the alignments are so poorly defined and so poorly written that most people don't have a clue what they represent. What you tend to see in practice - and 4e explicitly encourages this - is for LG to be treated as a particularly extreme personality that is good and for CE to be treated as a particularly extreme personality that is evil. This of course gets to be ridiculous, as the sterotypically LG personality is anything but 'more good' and is often as not difficult to separate from the personality of a pyschopath.
When in fact, if we looked at just the blank definitions of the alignments themselves it would be Neutral Good that is true Good and pure Good unadulturated by any other consideration.
There is a tendency by a lot of players to mistake alignment for personality, or to conflate alignment with intelligence, charisma or wisdom. The result is stupidly sterotyped characters who act in stupidly unreflective ways that are often as not poor reflections of the sort of things that the character supposedly believes. Indeed, I don't think there is much reflection on what characters of different alignments believe and why; in my experience there is much stronger focus by players on what a particular alignment will 'allow them to get away with'. Typically poor RPers of alignment actually map all 9 alignments into a single axis of, "How restricted am I in playing the character the way that I want/the way that results in me winning." This typically results in all sorts of 'hilarity'.
I don't, though I admit that the writers of earlier editions did little to help the matter. Writing on the subject of ethics has been terribly impoverished, contridictory and confusing over pretty much the entire history of the game. You are pretty much required to come up with your own internally consistant description of what alignment is, because the game won't provide it for you and of course many players/DMs simply gave up trying.
Michael Silverbane
Adventurer
Unless the paladin's code was specifically worked out previously, I would assume that the paladin's player had a reason to assume that whatever his actions were, were allowed by his code.
Outside of game-play, you might want to have a discussion with the player about what sorts of actions are allowed and disallowed bu his code, and why.
Outside of game-play, you might want to have a discussion with the player about what sorts of actions are allowed and disallowed bu his code, and why.
Celebrim
Legend
This is a very good place to remark that there are two very different questions at stake here:
a) What does the Paladin's devotion to law and good require him to do as a Paladin?
AND
b) What does a particular Paladin do in this situation?
In my opinion, the situation as presented is not one that leaves question 'a' readily answerable. Unless there is some other factor not mentioned, what the Paladin should do doesn't seem to be answerable solely based on the question of 'what does the law require' or 'what does good require'. The closest I can get to that is that the law probably requires that the Paladin - in absence of higher duty - as a good soldier, resist his capturs and escape at the first oppurtunity.
The answer to question 'b', being highly unconstrained by the answer to question 'a' is therefore one that has to do with the personality of the individual Paladin. Different Paladins will have different personalities, different degrees of wisdom, and yes different flaws and temptations. A Paladin tempted to vain-glorious behavior might well upon escaping attempt to wage a one man war on his captors, or another might assess that as the best way to fulfill his duty or to destroy the threat represented by his foes. Another Paladin may reason differently and feel different emotional motivations. A Paladin regardless of his choice of actions, is always going to have to be deeply involved in inspecting his own real inner motivations and judging whether he has acted wisely and justly. The vain-glorious Paladin, even if he successfully trounces his former captors and thereby heroicly saves the day, may quitely seek a confessor to repent of his pride once he notices it.
One of the best books on the subject of playing a Paladin is 'The Deed of Paksinnarion'. One thing that I appreciated most about the portrayal of the Paladin is that the character was marked most noticably by always harshly judging their own actions and being cognivant of their every flaw while at the same time being forgiving of other peoples flaws to the point of being willfully blind to them. This is almost the exact opposite of the goofy way, psychopathic, quite literally chaotic evil way that I typically see Paladin's played.
Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
If you read my post I say pretty much the same thing, I was giving an example about how I personally would play it if I was the OP and giving examples of how he could possibly resolve the situation based on what his DM would allow.
From what I understood just from the OP and his follow up about the situation is if he is going to escape: "What would should he do in the case of assassinating an NPC to get loose?"
I relayed my personal opinion - which is what he asked for - and stated I'd go the more honorable route of just knocking the NPC out instead of a straight up assassination using whatever method(s) be on hand.
I understand that this all comes down to a bit more information being needed on the part of the OP. Which is a question I pose to him on how he plays his paladin, what he normally does during game play, what his paladin's motivations are, and what his code of honor is. When/if we get that information we could give more opinions on how we (the peanut gallery) would deal with the situation. As it stands we can only go from our own personal experiences (as players/DMs), knowledge of the rules, knowledge of the editions, and knowledge of the settings we've all played.
I think that there are a number of ways to resolve this capture/escape dilemma whether it be combat challenges, skill challenges, or role playing situations.
Steel_Wind
Legend
What? O_0
Where did a backstab assasination come into this in your original post?
That's an entirely different kettle of fish.
Celebrim
Legend
Well, yes, but what does that have to do with escaping from confinement or challenging someone to a duel?
saskganesh
First Post
Threads like this are good evidence that people get confused , often.
Here's an idea. Why not just ban all Alignment as a Stat? You and the pc's will still have to navigate a moral compass, as I am assuming that heroic fantasy still requires morality and there will be Good and Evil but decisions will be based on character and actual roleplay, rather than an opaque list of rules.
It's rather liberating running a game without the 9 point alignment grid. Simply put, PCs and NPCS are judged by what they do, not by what is written on their character sheet.
Yeah, there will be still be tough choices in game and PC's will still have to decide on the spot the best course of action . And if the moral situations are challenging, and if there is second guessing and remorse and guilt after the fact, well it's called character conflict, and actually deepens the drama ... if literature is to be any guide.
On an aside, how come we always have Paladin alignment threads, but rarely Ranger alignment threads. Is it because they are seen as more Dirty Aragon Harry than Galahad so nobody fudges with them?
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