Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

[JamesonCourage]

Oh dear, I seem to have failed to notice a bunch of stuff in a spoiler tag. I'm an idiot. I apologize, JamesonCourage, I was not intentionally avoiding your question.

It kinda blends right in there. And no worries, I think you're being very intellectually honest when you engage me. I wasn't worried about it

Does Cedric have any of the listed down sides of a lawful alignment? No, you're right, he's not demonstrated a single one on that list. He's 0/4. But all of those say that lawful characters CAN have those traits, not that they MUST.

That's all that the first 9 are; they're just traits that Lawful characters tend to have, not that they must have. Taking those into account, and your observation that he might not promote Lawful behavior in society, and your tally would become 8/14, which is 8 for Lawful, and 6 not for it. That's pretty close (and more generous than my reading, as I don't equate "helpful" with "reliable", and other bits I disagree with).

Now, point for point on Cedric's chaotic behaviors checklist:

1: Does Cedric follow his conscience. Yes. But I would have a great deal of trouble thinking of a paladin who doesn't. Conscience seems like a necessary element of the class's mentality to me.

Agreed on this one (though the Paladin, following his calling, probably has aligned his conscience [Chaotic] with his Oaths and the Code [Lawful]). But it's still marking 1 on the Chaotic checklist.

2: Does Cedric resent being told what to do? No. Cedric follows the tenets of his faith without issue, and lives in service to the High Lord.

I disagree. He doesn't like being judged by others in his faith. He bucked against it, and when the head Cleric tried to change things to get him expelled, Cedric paid for it. I'm sure he was taught and told not to do those things before that point, and he sure seemed to laugh off others judging him (which leads me to believe that he acted the same way before, when he was taught it was wrong -we are speaking of the personality presented).

3: Does Cedric favor new ideas over tradition? I grant that Cedric does not seem to ascribe any particular value to tradition because it's tradition, but neither is he shown to ascribe any greater value to new ideas because they're new. I do not believe the fiction has shown whether Cedric has this quality or not.

His lifestyle is based on it. He's living in a completely new way than his church recommends (in fact, it spoke against it) or teaches. It's clear that he values that over tradition. That's the point of this thread.

4: Does Cedric value his personal freedom? Cedric lives in voluntary servitude to a deity and a code, this suggests a willing abdication of personal freedom, so no.

Service is Lawful, yes. I'll give you that. But he's going to live how he wants, because it's fine. He deserves it. And if you don't like it, you can smiley-face off. It's all about his personal freedom.

5: Does Cedric value adaptability and flexibility? He lives by a code, there is an inherent degree of inflexibility in this premise. Cedric just seems to know exactly how much room he has to interpret this code, and pushes it that far and no further. Cedric is never shown complaining about the code being overly rigid, only about others misinterpreting the code as more rigid than it really is. So I would say this question has not been answered based on the fiction presented.

He's trying to make the Code as flexible as possible. He's adapting in combat and on the fly (dirty shots, setting the warlord up for Fireballs, etc.). He works with what he's got, and makes the best of his limitations. He tries to circumvent them as best he can (and in the case of the Code, without violating them). I think it's clear he favors flexibility and adaptation. Again, his lifestyle is based on that flexibility.

Final tally from my perspective? 1/7 chaotic behaviors demonstrated.

That's just so far from what I think is obvious that I don't think we'll resolve our alignment debate. It's fairly obvious to me that he values both Law and Chaos to some degree, which is why I pegged him at Neutral, leaning Chaotic. However, you think he's straight Lawful, and I just can't get behind the reasoning. It just doesn't click with me.

From the negative stuff...I don't see Cedric as reckless, I see him as dedicated. A reckless person charges into battle without stopping to think about whether it's a good idea or he might get himself killed.

This is exactly how he died. He charged into battle, and didn't think he would get killed by the mob. And they killed him. He planned out the fight to some degree, but man was he ever reckless.

As for the description of lawful good, the only problem you had with it was that you don't believe Cedric behaves as good people are expected or required to. I think he does, he just has a different idea of what those expectations and requirements are than some of the people around him, particularly Magnus.

Totally disagree. He knows how Good people are expected to act, and he blatantly disregards it and aggressively dismisses it when its brought up.

Neutral Good: A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. I think he obviously tries to do the best a Good person can do (he's a Paladin). He is devoted to helping others (in his way, but still helping them). It looks like he works with authority (the army), but he doesn't seem to be in their employ, and he'd probably fight against them if they were tyrannical. It seems to fit all around to some degree, while Lawful Good doesn't.

Chaotic Good: A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society. Cedric obviously follows his conscious (as Paladins should), and has little regard for what others expect of him (his lifestyle is based on this, as is the thread). He believes in Goodness and right (Paladin), but has little use for laws and regulations (seems to have a "live and let live" type of mentality, and didn't follow the teachings of the church). He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do (standing up against the warlord, or not yielding to the head Cleric of his church). He follows his own moral compass, which is Good, but may not agree with that of society (his whole lifestyle versus what the church -and maybe the soldiers- expect of a Paladin). He hits all of these notes dead on.

In the real world US military, and most modern first world military organizations, soldiers commit to service for a given period of time, and may not resign within this period.

You can resign. You might be imprisoned; so be it.

The atonement spell says it removes the burden of evil acts "or misdeeds", misdeeds in this case, by being presented as something other than "evil acts" being a blanket description suggested to cover whatever violations of a code of conduct could apply to a given class, including paladins inherently under that umbrella even though the code of conduct is not specifically discussed.

Again, I only have the SRD right now, but let me hit two parts of it.

Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate.

Atonement
Restore Class
A paladin who has lost her class features due to committing an evil act may have her paladinhood restored to her by this spell.

The Atonement spell specifically talks about bringing a Paladin back. This can only be done if the Paladin lost their class features due to committing an Evil act, and, again, my interpretation of "gross violation" would be along the lines of "conscious and voluntary disregard" of the Code. But, my point is that the Atonement spell only brings Paladin's back for Evil acts; not for violating the Code. If you lose your Paladin powers by knowingly acting against the Paladin Code, you cannot be Atoned.

Answer me this, how respectful of authority does a paladin have to be?

What scale am I using?

If you don't accept the idea that a paladin can get away with minor intentional violations of the code without falling, must a paladin demonstrate absolute deference to every legitimate authority figure he encounters? Would a paladin who made a wisecrack about the king to the other members of his adventuring party immediately fall just for a trivial joke? That seems like an extraordinarily disproportionate punishment.

I think that if it's disrespectful, yes. In the Two Towers movie, when Legolas asks if Gimli needs a box (to see the army over the wall), it was clearly not to disrespect him. It was a good-natured joke, and not an attempt to belittle or disrespect him. Such jokes would be fine. As always, play what you like

 

[Aurondarklord]

define reliable, if Cedric does not meet your definition. You say yourself, he's probably honest and would keep his word (though admittedly these contingencies have not been explicitly spelled out), his personal habits are extremely regular, he can always be counted on to do his duty...what more is required for reliability?

What do you mean that when the head cleric tried to change things, "Cedric paid for it"? I don't understand the phrasing, and nothing suggests Cedric was directly involved in those events. Cedric is not responsible for what a deity decides to do on his behalf, if the head cleric even fell exclusively because he went against Cedric, which is not how I read it. You seem to be acting as though Cedric himself did something to this guy or somehow was personally responsible for taking away his powers.

Now, a huge amount of your arguments boil down to "Cedric lives the way he chooses, against the doctrines of his church, and tells off anyone who says otherwise", but this is just not true in the fiction as it's presented. Look at the exchange between Father Shikuna and Magnus where they go over the tenets of the religion. Cedric is living by those tenets, Magnus is simply assuming other behaviors to be required which are not, and reading his own assumptions and biases into the tenets where they aren't. Cedric chooses to live by the tenets of his faith...as they are in fact, not as other people assume them to be, and he tells off people who ATTEMPT TO FORCE THOSE MISTAKEN ASSUMPTIONS ON HIM. That's very very different. If anything, Cedric is enforcing law, demanding other people acknowledge the actual truth of the High Lord's words, instead of making up their own version of it, and while we have no indication whether the high priest and Cedric directly interacted at all in the incident where the high priest lost his powers for trying to modify the tenets, I don't believe it's chaotic to defy an authority figure in defense of a HIGHER authority figure who your immediate superior is disobeying. That is in fact very lawful behavior in my book, in effect, a paladin throwing a heretic out of his religion, and that high priest, objective fact, WAS A HERETIC.

Cedric does not "try to make the code more flexible", he just knows how flexible the code really is. Cedric does not live in an entirely new way against the teachings of his church, he just knows what those teachings actually are, and that they're not as strict as some people blindly assume, etc.

As for the descriptions of the alignments, dealing with the one line about how good people are expected and required to act...what requirement has Cedric broken? And "expected" can have two very different meanings. "expected" can mean essentially "assumed", how good people are assumed to act, keeping up appearances and such, admittedly, Cedric does not do this. but "expected" can also be said in the sense of "expectations placed upon a person by an outside authority", like a person trying to live up to their parents expectations is trying to do what their parents WANT them to do, not what their parents necessarily assume they will do. Cedric definitely lives up to the High Lord's expectations. And aside from that one line...you're right, any of those three descriptions for the different good alignments could describe Cedric...frankly, I would call that a problem with how the descriptions are written, but if all three work and fit the facts, it should be up to the player which one gets stuck on their character, I mean, the player knows their character best...it's just the DM's job to keep them honest about it.

You say you don't understand my reasoning for saying Cedric is lawful...so think about this....what's Batman's alignment? Batman is a gruff, often foul-tempered curmudgeon, he acts entirely outside the law, and he is arguably mentally ill...and yet the comics depict him as a force of order in stark conflict to the chaos embodied by The Joker. How can someone so seemingly chaotic embody order? Because if you look past the veneer, Batman isn't chaotic at all, his mind, however damaged it may be is rigidly structured and meticulous, almost compulsive in his behavior, and he lives by an internally imposed by nevertheless incredibly stringent code of behavior that he absolutely will not violate in any circumstance ever.

Cedric I view as a less extreme but similar example of lawful behavior, a character who rejects superficial strictures and the trappings of order, instead living by a more deeply ingrained and personal, but no less valid set of strict behavioral rules, in service to a HIGHER authority.

Now...the most serious point, what you said about the atonement spell...you can't seriously believe that this was the intention of the designers, to say the a paladin can be atoned for an evil act, but not for breaking the code? Admittedly, the way it's written is oddly worded, but to draw the conclusion you've drawn would require a system of morals exists in the game world so backwards I can hardly fathom it, not to mention imposes absurd role playing restrictions. Under such a system, a paladin who voluntarily committed cold blooded murder could be atoned...but a paladin who kicked an ogre in the groin has committed an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Gods/the universe/whatever and can never be atoned...which also renders the player's character forever and irrevocably all but useless mechanically.

And not only does this not make sense, it is provably untrue. I will directly quote Complete Scoundrel's grey guard prestige class:

"Dishonorable acts still cause you to lose both grey guard and paladin class features until you atone".

STILL CAUSE, UNTIL YOU ATONE. A direct statement that a normal paladin who was not a grey guard could atone for dishonorable acts and get their abilities back.

"Thus, whenever you seek to atone for deeds that you willingly commit in the name of your faith but that break your code of conduct, a cleric casting an atonement spell on your behalf does not spend 500 XP as is normally required."

Another direct statement that a paladin can receive an atonement spell to get back their class features after breaking the code of conduct.

Absent that reading of the atonement spell, my point stands that "misdeeds" must be an umbrella term that includes violations of the code of conduct aside from evil acts, which means that the 500 XP penalty being dependent on whether the acts were willing or not applies to code of conduct violations, which means that "gross violation" must not mean "willing violation" and that the possibility of minor intentional violations that do not cause a paladin to fall must exist. The chain of logic holds.

 

[JamesonCourage]

define reliable, if Cedric does not meet your definition.

Someone I can rely on. I don't find this to be the case unless I'm willing to do things his way. That's reliable some of the time, but not much of the time (especially since he's bucking tradition and conventions).

What do you mean that when the head cleric tried to change things, "Cedric paid for it"? I don't understand the phrasing, and nothing suggests Cedric was directly involved in those events.

Boy did I mess that up. I meant the Cleric paid for it. I'm sure that the Cleric tried to get Cedric in line, first, and Cedric certainly bucked against it.

You seem to be acting as though Cedric himself did something to this guy or somehow was personally responsible for taking away his powers.

No, I'm saying he blew off what the elder of his church said. He doesn't take "you need to act this way" from basically anyone. That's "resents authority" on a rather massive scale. He doesn't mind working with them, but he seems to fight against getting told what to do from anyone.

Now, a huge amount of your arguments boil down to "Cedric lives the way he chooses, against the doctrines of his church, and tells off anyone who says otherwise", but this is just not true in the fiction as it's presented.

I disagree (though, again, the fiction slowly warped more in favor of Cedric the more it dragged on). The church obviously teaches people how to live, and those members seem to come to the same conclusions. And, again, you're arguing what his god will take away, not the churches teachings (though Shilsen did try to make it impossible to argue when he decided the church didn't have any teachings one way or the other on stuff). And I don't believe a god grants Paladinhood, so that doesn't mean much to me.

There's a reason that people of the church act a certain way, and why Father
Shikuna is so weary when he needs to explain it again; this is nowhere near the first time people have had a problem with Cedric. He's the outlier. He's not accepting tradition, or being told what to do, and he's going to live his life, and people can accept it or get lost. He doesn't care if you don't approve, what you think of him, or if you get upset.

a paladin throwing a heretic out of his religion, and that high priest, objective fact, WAS A HERETIC.

Yes, Shilsen stripped his powers away when the priest moved against Cedric. I mean, up to this point he's had his powers, teaching against Cedric using these powers, and he's fine. The church still apparently strongly leans that way (indicated by the Father's weariness), but no, it doesn't matter, the old head priest moved against Cedric, so he loses all of his powers. To call him a heretic is nearly nonsensical.

Cedric does not "try to make the code more flexible", he just knows how flexible the code really is.

Can you explain to me what flexibility is, then? He's willing to bend in ways that most others won't. He accepts things that people in his position don't. He takes a strict code and pushes it as far as he can (but never breaks it). He's all about flexibility.

Cedric does not live in an entirely new way against the teachings of his church, he just knows what those teachings actually are, and that they're not as strict as some people blindly assume, etc.

No, he knows what his god wants more (in the fiction). The church obviously had a problem with it. Members of the church do, and they're not all stripped of their power. The younger Paladin didn't lose his power for looking down on Cedric, though the high priest did.

Cedric knows the Code well enough that his god (in this fiction) protects him. That's fine, sure. Cedric is a badass that can really do no wrong; that's also fine for a Paladin. It's part of the archetype, really. But Cedric can do it even though everyone disagrees. That's the point. It's not "there's an order of Cedric's out there." No, the point is that he bucks the system, the traditions. And that's defined as Chaotic.

As for the descriptions of the alignments, dealing with the one line about how good people are expected and required to act...what requirement has Cedric broken?

Presumably an order from the high priest prior to him trying to change the laws to get Cedric to stop. Regardless, he's certainly gone against how he's "expected" to act.

And aside from that one line...you're right, any of those three descriptions for the different good alignments could describe Cedric...

I agree. Aside from that one line, and the other two fit well (the Chaotic one very well). If he's exhibiting characteristics of Lawful and Chaotic deeds (and he is in my mind), and he fits the description of Neutral Good with no misses, Chaotic Good very well, and Lawful Good with one exception, then he's probably somewhere in the middle. Again, that makes me place him at Neutral with Chaotic tendencies.

You say you don't understand my reasoning for saying Cedric is lawful...so think about this....what's Batman's alignment? Batman is a gruff, often foul-tempered curmudgeon, he acts entirely outside the law, and he is arguably mentally ill...and yet the comics depict him as a force of order in stark conflict to the chaos embodied by The Joker. How can someone so seemingly chaotic embody order? Because if you look past the veneer, Batman isn't chaotic at all, his mind, however damaged it may be is rigidly structured and meticulous, almost compulsive in his behavior, and he lives by an internally imposed by nevertheless incredibly stringent code of behavior that he absolutely will not violate in any circumstance ever.

Lawful doesn't comment on violence, and Lawful does not mean "following the law." I don't understand the comparison. Though if I took him through all the descriptions of the alignments, I think he might end up Neutral, too.

Now...the most serious point, what you said about the atonement spell...you can't seriously believe that this was the intention of the designers

Again, the point of the thread is a comment on a Paladin by RAW. The RAW gets fuzzy because sometimes it needs interpretation (the "Honor" section of the code saying "and so forth", interpreting alignment, and the like), but this is not one of those times. In the spirit of the thread and its judgment of RAW, I'm sticking to my comment on Atonement and Paladins.

Under such a system, a paladin who voluntarily committed cold blooded murder could be atoned

Maybe. If it breaks his Code of honor, too, he won't get his powers back.

And not only does this not make sense, it is provably untrue. I will directly quote Complete Scoundrel's grey guard prestige class:

"Dishonorable acts still cause you to lose both grey guard and paladin class features until you atone".

Two things on this. One, still not Core, which I've said it's what I'm dealing with (since that's the context of the Paladin class). Two, specific trumps general. That means that Paladins can only be Atoned for Evil acts, while Grey Guards have a looser restriction (since they aren't even mentioned by Atonement, it's covered in the class).

A direct statement that a normal paladin who was not a grey guard could atone for dishonorable acts and get their abilities back.

Technically, the class says that Grey Guards can get their Paladin powers back. Not that a normal Paladin can. And we're out of the Core 3, too. The rules, in the Core 3, have specific rules for turning an Ex-Paladin back into a Paladin, and that only includes Atoning from Evil acts. I'll accept a source you site from the Core 3, or from errata, since the thread is about the Paladin's Code, and it seemingly meant Core (otherwise why not make him a Chaotic Good Paladin of Freedom and be done with it? Then he wouldn't be bucking the system).

I think we've just about run out. I'm definitely not going to convince you, and that's fine. I just don't feel any of my points have been adequately countered or disproven. I think it might be time to respectfully end the conversation, and I want to say thanks again for the civil discussion on it. You can take the last word if you want to, and happy gaming in the future. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

it seems to me that to reach the conclusion that a basic D&D class is inherently unplayable and disallowed by the rules in a basic D&D setting requires jumping through so many intellectual hoops that you can't seriously believe it was the designers intention.

I'm not saying that the paladin is inherently unplayable. I've said it causes difficulties if the gameworld doesn't vindicate the paladin's faith. Because the gameworld is very much in the hands of the participants, it's not that hard to make it work. I've run three long campaigns over the past 30-odd years. Every one of them has featured paladin PCs. And not a lot of drifiting from basic D&D assumptions has been required to make them work - you just have to disregard the alignment rules as written (in particular, the idea that they confer power on the GM to judge the player's playing of his/her PC).

I cetainly don't believe these difficulties were intended by the designers. I think the designers made mistakes. (Though things are also compounded by the fact that the class was designed in the mid-70s, whereas the Planescape cosmology into which you are trying to fit it was developed in the mid-90s.)

In particular, I don't think Gygax was a very good moral philospher, nor a particularly strong social theorist. And this shows in his alignment rules.

Perhaps if your notion of what a paladin is requires being so divorced from the RAW, you should seriously consider if you and I, or for that matter you and the designers, are discussing the same class concept here

The class concept is present in the very name of the class: "paladin" ie "knightly or heroic champion".

Central to the paladin class are such paradigms as Lancelot (before his fall), Galahad, Percival, Arthur, Aragorn etc. A player who is familiar with those characters, and who plays in accordance with their stories - chivalrous, gentle unless roused to anger, merciful, honest - should have not to think about the RAW content of the "code of honour" in order to comply with it, as the whole point of the code is to capture those characters.

There is a design tension inherent in AD&D that puts pressure on the paladin class - namely, the use of thoroughly modern concepts (like equality and human rights) to define the content of the Good and Lawful Good alignments. A GM who wants to can use that to screw over the player of a paladin - for example, by creating a situation in which a paladin must choose between loyalty to superior authority (say, a king) and equality between ruler and subject (say, if because of the kings taxes the peasants can't afford to rethatch their rooves, and therefore have to live in cheerless, damp houses). Of course the literary paladins were never confronted by this dilemma - peasants barely figure in the Arthurian romances, and the only peasants we come to know in LotR are the Hobbits, and purely by authorial fiat these have the living standards of mid-nineteenth century English folk despite having the apparent productive power of their thirteenth-century analogues.

The game has no inbuilt solution for reconciling the modernity of its definitions of its key moral concepts, with the romantic pre-modernity of the paladin archetype.

This is why I said, upthread, that there are two solutions to running a paladin in a more-or-less traditional D&D game. Either the GM plays along, and doesn't confront the player of the paladin with these sorts of dilemmas, which means that the above sort of problem doesn't occur - the players never encounter oppressed peasants (as opposed to proud yeomen under threat from orcs!), the orcs never surrender (and hence the issue of mercy doesn't have to be adjudicated), the bad guys never threaten to kill 10 innocents unless tha paladin himself commits murder (so the puzzles of non-romantic consequentialist morality don't have to be dealt with), etc. Roughly speaking, this is the world of Dragonlance or, as best I have a general impression of it, the Forgotten Realms.

In this sort of play, the paladin's loyalty and faith is vindicated by default, because nothing ever happen to challenge it. The threats that the paladin confronts, like marauding orcs or haunting undead, don't threaten his/her faith but confirm it. I think that, when the paladin was first introduced into the game, this was the default approach to play.

For some, though, this approach is a bit saccharine or polyanna-ish. (Though in my view it need not be. There are flaws to LotR, but I think Moorcock is unfair when he labels it "Epic Pooh".) They want something more morally or socially gritty (eg the Seven Samurai, or Hero). In this case, I think some drifting is required - namely, the GM's adjudication of alignment has to be abandoned, and the the player has to be given latitude to decide what his/her PC's calling demans, and what counts as permissible or impermissible. Given the obvious tensions between modernity and romance that I've outlined above, it is trivial for the GM to raise dilemmas should s/he want to. But it strikes me as completely pointless to raise them and then expect the player of the paladin to guess what is (in the GM's view) the correct answer. It also strikes me as pointless to raise them, expect the moral answer to be clear, and have the real challenge be a procedural one of how to achieve that answer - it is very easy for the GM to generate procedural challenges for the players of an RPG without throwing in the danger of a paladin's fall from grace.

If you're going to raise moral dilemmas, do it for real and let the player make the call! Let the player decide whether the gameworld vindicates the paladin's faith, or does not (in which case the paladin falls).

Planescape complicates things, because inherent to Planescape is the throwing up of dilemmas that are at one-and-the-same-time both extremely stylised and even artificial (compare the moral problem of poverty with the moral "problem" of an angel and a devil drinking together at a tavern in Sigil) yet, because of Planescape's infusion of everything with alignment significance, bear extremely heavily on a paladin's code per the RAW (a paladin presumably can't joint the pair for a drink, because of the prohibition on fraternisig with the evil - but what is the point of that prohibition, if an angel is permitted to violate it?!). Planescape makes the paladin's code look like trainer wheels, or like a rule that applies to the unitiated ("berks") but that the wise can transcend in pursuit of higher, more mysterious ends.

This is the cyncial, nihilistic attitude in Planescape that I mentioned earlier.

I can see a couple of possible responses. One is a sort of gnostic response - the person of faith, upon being initiated into the true mysteries, transcends earlier limitations. This sort of approach doesn't really have room for a paladin class, however, because adherence to the code is a sign of failure (failure to transcend) rather than of success. It suits a certain approach to the monk class, however.

The second sort of response is one that I've seen played out in my game, though in a slightly less relativistic context than Planescape - but it was still a cosmology in which gods and devils had entered into secret pacts to preserve hidden features of creation to which the ordinary people were not privy, and for which the interests of ordinary people, plus some heroic lesser divinities also, were being sacrificed. This is the response of the paladin standing on his/her virtue, re-affirming the values for which s/he stands, and therefore taking on the nihilism and cynicism of the heavens, and forcing them to recognise the proper demands of morality and virtue.

But this also requires the GM to let go of the reins of alignment, and let the player take the lead in deciding what morality and the code requires.

 

[pemerton]

The Atonement spell specifically talks about bringing a Paladin back. This can only be done if the Paladin lost their class features due to committing an Evil act

you can't seriously believe that this was the intention of the designers, to say the a paladin can be atoned for an evil act, but not for breaking the code? Admittedly, the way it's written is oddly worded, but to draw the conclusion you've drawn would require a system of morals exists in the game world so backwards I can hardly fathom it, not to mention imposes absurd role playing restrictions. Under such a system, a paladin who voluntarily committed cold blooded murder could be atoned...but a paladin who kicked an ogre in the groin has committed an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Gods/the universe/whatever and can never be atoned...which also renders the player's character forever and irrevocably all but useless mechanically.

I am strongly with Aurondarklord on this one. It strikes me as an obvious error of drafting.

This sort of error occurs in statutority drafting from time to time, and statutes are drafted with far more care, by much higher-paid professionals!, than game rules texts. It's unrealistic to expect game rules to be drafted to such precision that no slippage between obvious intention and words used will ever occur.

There is no rationale given, nor - as Aurondarklord points out - rationale able to be given, for limiting Atonement to evil acts only.

This suggests that an unwilling "gross violation" can occur, which suggests the intent of the designers was not to conflate "gross" with "intentional", so "gross" must have a different meaning

I agree with this too. The meaning of "gross" isn't "intentional" or "deliberate". It's "excessive" or "flagrant", as in "gross negligence" (which by definition can't be intentional!).

(I'm assuming that by "intentional" here we mean "intended by the paladin under a code-violating description" - for example, if the paladin hands someone a drink, not knowing that it is poisoned, and they drink it and die, we have an unintentional violation, because the paladin did intend the action under the description "handing them a drink" but not under the description "poisoning them". Nearly all code-violating behaviour is going to be intentional under some description, unless the paladin is sleepwalking or has been dominated.)

What exactly counts as a gross violation would presumably have to be resolved between GM and player from time-to-time. A one-off kick in the groin, while in my view obviously dishonourable, doesn't strike me as grossly dishonourable. A pattern of such groin-kickings might be. Spitting in the face of the king would strike me as a gross violation, unless unintentional and excused via extremely non-culpable error!

how respectful of authority does a paladin have to be? If you don't accept the idea that a paladin can get away with minor intentional violations of the code without falling, must a paladin demonstrate absolute deference to every legitimate authority figure he encounters? Would a paladin who made a wisecrack about the king to the other members of his adventuring party immediately fall just for a trivial joke? That seems like an extraordinarily disproportionate punishment.

Here, on the other hand, I'm inclinded to disagree with you, and I think you're reading modern sensibilities back into the paladin archetype in a way that doesn't really work.

By coincidence yesterday, I was reading about the sedition trial of the poet William Blake. Blake was alleged to have said, during an altercation with a soldier who was billeted near his house, "Damn the King". Blake was acquitted because it couldn't be proved that he said the words - the soldier's testimony was contradicted by the testimony of other witnesses. Had the uttering of the words been proven than Blake would almost certainly have been found guilty and sent to prison for 3 months, perhaps whipped also. This is England in 1803/4. The standards for a paladin are at least as strict!

Look at Aragorn in LotR. He never mocks the steward, or the king. To a significant extent he refrains from judgement altogether, because he doesn't need to judge. There is no need to judge Saruman or Sauron, for example - opposing their deeds is all that's required of him. (This is part of a paladin's humility. Note it is different if a paladin is also a justiciar or ruler, because then s/he has been vested with the authority to judge. But a paladin shouldn't feel the need to judge in the abstract.)

I don't know that a single wisecrack against the king should produce a fall, but it strikes me as more serious than a kick to the groin against a dangerous foe - because there is no excuse of the exingencies of the situation - and a step down an unhappy road for a paladin.

 

[Greg K]

I'm with JamesCourage. I don't see Cedric as Lawful Good for the reasons he stated. Cedric is not, to me, a Paladin. A holy warrior (and, for this, I am defining Holy Warrior to include the various non-evil Unearthed Arcana paladin variants, Green Ronin's Holy Warrior's Handbook, etc.), yes. A Paladin?

It sounds like the player is one of the those players that wants the powers without being restricted by codes, church tenets and doctrines, etc. That does not fly in the games that I run. In the games that I run, deities have tenets and doctrines (provide to the player up front) that their clerics, paladins, and holy warriors (unholy warriors) are expected to follow. A player that does not want that can find another class or another table.

(as Batman being a Paladin, that some people ask about, the answer depends on which version. Silver Age and the crappy Adam West show? Maybe. Original, Bronze Age and post Miller Year One? No, I don't.)

 

[Manbearcat]

@pemerton

Can't xp but that is an absolutely excellent and thorough post. The juxtaposition of the amoral, nihilistic nature of the Sigil setting to the implied Prime Material setting where Paladins presumably actually unflinchingly believe in and steadfastly carry out their code really knocks it out of the park.

While you can play a Paladin whose faith is undone, and thus the ritualistic trappings of his code degraded, D&D's mechanics and its implied setting (along with its peripheral settings) does you no favors. That is a recurring theme with many things D&D. It is just about inevitable and could be well compared to comic books. The longer a run by a particular comic book, the larger the numbers of authors and editors will imprint their vision upon the book. The larger the numbers of authors and editors imprint their vision upon the book, the more incoherent the story becomes and the more inconsistent the characterizations and chronology. Every creative venture follows that pathway.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I am strongly with Aurondarklord on this one. It strikes me as an obvious error of drafting.

Again, we're talking in the context of RAW, and I'll accept any Core source or any errata. That was the question in the original post, and that's why I'm sticking to it. I'm not commenting on whether or not I agree with whether it's a mistake, or how'd I'd run it.

I agree with this too. The meaning of "gross" isn't "intentional" or "deliberate". It's "excessive" or "flagrant", as in "gross negligence" (which by definition can't be intentional!).

I actually quoted the first part of "gross negligence" when I explained my reasoning. From a very reputable source
Gross negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or both. It is conduct that is extreme when compared with ordinary Negligence, which is a mere failure to exercise reasonable care.
I took this to mean "conscious and voluntary disregard" of the code, and not just any violation, regardless of intent. And I think that's a fair interpretation. As always, play what you like

Edit: more definitions for discussion!
Another reputable source:
gross negligence
n. carelessness which is in reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others, and is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety. It is more than simple inadvertence, but it is just shy of being intentionally evil. If one has borrowed or contracted to take care of another's property, then gross negligence is the failure to actively take the care one would of his/her own property.
This interpretation might mean breaking the Code in any way that results in "a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety" would constitute "gross violation" of the Code. I could see that one. Again, as I've said twice, I could see a lighter interpretation than "conscious and voluntary disregard" of the Code, and may even use one, too. But I don't think mine in unfair.

 

[pemerton]

That is a recurring theme with many things D&D. It is just about inevitable and could be well compared to comic books. The longer a run by a particular comic book, the larger the numbers of authors and editors will imprint their vision upon the book. The larger the numbers of authors and editors imprint their vision upon the book, the more incoherent the story becomes and the more inconsistent the characterizations and chronology. Every creative venture follows that pathway.

Hmm - what does that tell us about traditional RPGing as such, which aspires to the long-running, multi-participant-authored campaign as its idea?

I think Planescape adds to this general tendency of ongoing story edifices to collapse under their own weight (vale, Claremont X-Men!), by being deliberately modernist or even post-modernist in its theory of value. Forum rules prevent me from expressing a view about the merits of that per se, but I would have thought any designer could see that that was going to upset the foundations of a class like the paladin!

 

[pemerton]

Again, we're talking in the context of RAW, and I'll accept any Core source or any errata.

Given that judges, in the much higher stakes of real world legal disputes, sometimes have to make-do without "errata" - ie they have to make sense of legislation that has not been purged of drafting errors or oversights - than I think it is more than reasonable to expect the same of RPGers.

Which is to say, I am also talking about the RAW. I think you are misinterpreting those rules, by putting a literal interpretation on the use of "evil" in the Atonement spell description which that word was not intended to bear.

I actually quoted the first part of "gross negligence" when I explained my reasoning.

<snip>

Gross negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or both. It is conduct that is extreme when compared with ordinary Negligence, which is a mere failure to exercise reasonable care.

<snip>

carelessness which is in reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others, and is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety. It is more than simple inadvertence, but it is just shy of being intentionally evil. If one has borrowed or contracted to take care of another's property, then gross negligence is the failure to actively take the care one would of his/her own property.

"Conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care" or "reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others" is not the same thing as intentionally harming others. A clear example would be a construction worker, high on a building site in an urban area, simply tossing a brick or a piece of steel piping over the side onto the street below. If that object were to land on someone and hurt or kill them, it would be highly arguable that the construction worker had been grossly negligent. But the construction worker has not intended to kill or hurt anyone. (What would be a possible instance of non-gross negligence producing the same harm?: the construction worker fails to adequately secure his/her pile of bricks or pipes, and one falls from the pile and lands on someone.)

I took this to mean "conscious and voluntary disregard" of the code

In the case of negligence, the duty is one of reasonable care - the avoidance of the risk of forseeable harm. Gross negligence is simply failing to meet that duty in a particularly bad way: namely, reckless disregard of the need to take reasonable care, or - to flip it around - taking flagrant risks in a reckless fashion.

A fat person is fat. A grossly fat person is really, really fat. A negligent person is someone who fails to take care. A grossly negligent person is someone who fails to take care really, really badly - like my brick-tossing construction worker above.

A paladin who acts dishonorably violates the code. A paladin who acts really dishonorably grossly violates the code. I think talking about "conscious and voluntary disregard of the code" can be misleading, because it makes it seem like the paladin's mind should be on the code. But that is not what the code requiers. It requires, rather, that the paladin's mind be on those things that the code requires. The code is a statement of duty, but it is not itself the subject matter of the duty: the paladin's obgligation is to do certain things (like grant mercy) and refrain from others (like poisoning people).

So, if you want to phrase it in parallel to gross negligence, it would be "conscious or voluntary poisoning of someone", or "conscious or voluntary failure to grant quarter". But I don't know that that adds much, and I'm not sure it covers all the cases.

I emphasised, upthread, that it is important to think about the description under which a person intended an action - because this goes to the person's belief about what s/he was doing, which in turn goes to what exactly it is that is "conscious and voluntary". The construction worker who, in my example, tosses a brick over the side and kills a pedestrian has intentionally performed an act (namely, the brick-tossing) that kills a person. But s/he has not intentionally killed a person, because what she intended to do was not to kill a person, but simply to toss a brick. (Contrast an assassin, who deliberately drops the brick on his/her victim.) The gross negligence consists in the fact that s/he ought to have had regard to the fact that falling bricks in urban areas can hurt pedestrians, but failed to do so.

It seems to me that a paladin who hands someone a poisoned drink, thinking it not poisoned, is less culpable than one who deliberately hands over a poisoned cup. My feeling is that the latter, but not the former, is a gross violation, because more dishonorable, and more dishonorable because the paladin intended and desired to get the benefit of poisoning the person. She "consciously and voluntarily" poisoned another. Whereas the paladin who didn't know the cup was poisoned did not "consciously and voluntarily" poison anyone. She accidentally poisoned someone.

As I said upthread, one kick to the groin, in extremis, would almost certainly not count as a gross violation: the paladin has chosen dishonour over death, but not under that description: the immediate threat to which s/he was subject, not a conscious prioritising of life over honour, has motivated him/her. A repeated pattern of groin kickings, on the other hand, would be a different matter, because the paladin should be having regard to such things, after the fight at least, and a repeated pattern would suggest a readiness to prioritise life over honour that is wilful and therefore a gross and culpable violation.

My own view is that spitting in the face of the king, even when the paladin thought the face to belong to a peasant, could well count as a gross violation, because a paladin - cultivating the virtue of humility - should recognise that any pauper could be the king in disguise, and hence that any face could be the face of the king, and hence not to be spat upon. While I could see some room for disagreement with that judgement, it's hard for me to conceive of a situation in which spitting in someone's face takes place in the same circumstances as a one-off emergency kick to the groin. This would be an instance in which the paladin commits a gross violation of the code, although the violating action - spitting in the face of the king - wasn't intended. I think this shows that the "conscious and voluntary" analysis has to be deployed with care (here the paladin is consciously and voluntarily taking a risk of violating the code, in circumstances where - given the demands of humility - that risk was not permissible).

(If someone took the view that humility was not itself a further paladin requirement, then they might reject the above analysis.)

not just any violation, regardless of intent

<snip>

I could see a lighter interpretation than "conscious and voluntary disregard" of the Code, and may even use one, too. But I don't think mine in unfair.

The measure of "really dishonorably" isn't to do with the degree of intention behind the act - it's to do with (i) the degree of disregard of the demands of honour, and (ii) the severity of the consequences that result from that disregard. Nearly all breaches of the code will be intentional actions - the point is that, in many cases (like the accidental poisoning, or the impromptu groin-kick) they will not be "conscious and voluntary" breaches, because not intended under the requisite description. And in some other cases - like the face-spit - they will also not be "conscious and voluntary" breaches, but nevertheless gross violations because of the culpability in running the risk of breach.