Paladins with powers being deluded/deceived?

[pemerton]

Well, he certainly had the intent to park...

Sure, but the most salient physical element of the offence is that the vehicle be parked for a certain minimum duration. This is the physical element that attracts strict liability.

But, then we are talking about a mere infraction (fine only, no probation or jail time is possible, and the defendant doesn't get a jury trial) - technically, it isn't "criminal law" per se.

It's just the easiest example. I'd be surprised if there are not plenty of others to be found in the criminal offences that attach to environmental regulation, workplace safety, hazardous materials, the protection of national parks, marine parks and fisheries, etc.

 

[Celebrim]

Thanks for the detailed response! The not-L answer makes a LOT more sense to me now (even if I don't yet find keeping it LN any worse than moving it to the others as described in the books).

Well, if I'm not yet convincing, consider a person with the opposite description than what I provided.

1) He places law and tradition above his own dictates.
2) He places himself under higher authority and believes he is subject to duties and obligations.
3) He believes he is subject to judgment by other and can be rightly and justly punished by them.
4) He believes that the law is objective and not subject to interpretation.
5) He believes his code should be assimilated by others and eventually become universal, so that there would cease to be disunity and conflict.
6) He believes that there exists a universal law which is correct for everyone.
7) He judges people on the basis of how well they follow the code he follows. In fact, his code may even specifically state which precepts/duties are required of believers and which ones everyone should be judged by.
8) The highest sin possible in his code is 'betrayal of other', probably with a hierarchy specifying which betrayal is worst based on his hierarchy of duties with betrayal of liege being the absolute worst.

A person who acted in this way would almost certainly be LN. I can probably invent a character that believes that but isn't LN, but off the top of my head, only by making his beliefs actually delusional.

I'm pretty sure I could come up with 100+ you would find non-chaotic by the 1e/2e/3e descriptions and not 'true neutral' in the 1e sense.

Oh, I'm sure you could. That's not the point. The point that I'm trying to get across is that 'adheres to a code' is too vague to really tell us anything. The code could be The Ferengi Laws of Acquisition (which are heavily chaotic and evil, but could conceivably have a lawful adherent... who'd probably always be confused and unhappy), the 4chan laws of the Internet, Discordianism as revealed by the Principia Discordia (which includes in its code, "There are no rules anywhere", "Everything is true", and "Even false things are true"), or something like your 118 rules that are just pulled out of someone's arse. Every belief system believes in something, and if you start listing what it believes it will start looking like something that could be called a code. But as bad as this is, believes in a personal code tells us even less except that it also tells us that they believe the individual is more important than the group and that the individual does have the right to just make it all up, which strongly hints at chaotic.

Even if I did, I'm guessing there are a lot easier cases to show that the standard 9-alignments fit some types of people really badly.

In full confession, in real life I don't believe that chaos or law are fully consistent and fully applicable labels for talking about real personal beliefs and certainly not as real, consistent and important as good and evil. So, if they don't fully fit real people well or for particular actions it becomes impossible to say if one is lawful or chaotic, then I'm not discomforted. I'm just trying to create what I think is as rigorous and internally consistent description as is possible for the concepts. I have some pretty good idea where this position can lead to paradoxes though.

I'm equally aware that some people don't believe good and evil are real either though, which throws everything in to doubt. I could be wrong. They could be wrong. We both could be wrong.

I should also point out that these positions are in game also alignment positions and a this argument that Law and Chaos are constructs and not really real is made intellectually by certain philosophers in my game world. And, within my game world their are of course people who believe for reasons that seem good and sufficient to them that those arguments are wrong. For example, I know how the Lawful Neutrals would answer the claim that accepting the above definitions of Law and Chaos leads to paradoxes.

In fact, among a certain strain of True Neutrals of a more intellectual bent in my game world, it is popular to argue that neither law, nor chaos, nor good, nor evil really exist, and among the evidence presented for this is that they don't really sufficiently describe any real people (in my game world), and that neither good, nor evil, nor law, nor chaos can be well and sufficiently defined.

So the problem we have is that claiming "The Alignments don't work for real people." is itself an alignment position that arguably just reveals the alignment biases of the speaker. A person within my game world would shrug and say, "Well, you adhere to the True Neutral philosophy of <some famous thinker>, so of course you would say that. But, you philosophy fails to account for...blah blah blah."

In practice, I've never had a player present a character to me that didn't fit somewhere on the 9 space grid.

 

[N'raac]

Sure, but the most salient physical element of the offence is that the vehicle be parked for a certain minimum duration. This is the physical element that attracts strict liability.

It's just the easiest example. I'd be surprised if there are not plenty of others to be found in the criminal offences that attach to environmental regulation, workplace safety, hazardous materials, the protection of national parks, marine parks and fisheries, etc.

I believe that you would be surprised, then. Most of the areas you cite above have primarily civil, not criminal, penalties. The differentiation I am most familiar with and I'm Canadian, so that is the legal structure I have at least some familiarity with) is in the income tax system. There are numerous civil penalties under income tax law, from strict liability offences (this document was filed late and the penalty is $25/day late, minimum $100, maximum $2,500 is a pretty common penalty) to the penalty commonly referred to as gross negligence (typically 50% of the taxes otherwise sought to be avoided) and its sister penalty, for culpable conduct as a tax preparer (again, typically 50% of the tax at stake). The last was recently held by our Federal Court of Appeal to be a civil penalty, not a misnamed criminal penalty, in a case involving penalties of over half a million dollars (almost 300,000 GBP for those of you in England). So civil penalties can be quite significant.

But they are still civil penalties. In Canada, the Courts have held demonstrating due diligence is a defense against any and all civil penalties. That would not be an issue for gross negligence (or culpable conduct), which require behaviour beyond simple negligence or carelessness, but has been held as a defense for strict liability penalties. The standard for due care is typically phrased as the degree of care and attention a wise and prudent person would take in the same circumstances.

There are criminal offences under the income tax system as well, the best known being tax evasion - the deliberate filing of false tax returns, essentially a form of fraud (itself an action with both criminal and civil law connotations) against the taxing authority. Key differences:

- tax evasion requires mens rea, the intent to avoid payment of taxes rightfully owing. This is a higher standard even than gross negligence (the common law standard often being described as tantamount to willing conduct; reckless disregard for the law or indifference as to whether the law is complied with) - it is a deliberate intention to violate the law. The courts often look for evidence of actions taken to conceal income, for example.

- the burden of proof in a civil case is generally on the appellant (typically the taxpayer, as the initial court appeal is always launched by the taxpayer against an assessment by the taxing authority) except in special cases (for example the Crown generally has the burden of proof in asserting gross negligence), where the burden of proof in a criminal case is always on the Crown, who brings the charges ("innocent until proven guilty" is the standard in criminal, but not civil, law).

- the standard of proof in a criminal case is the familiar "beyond a reasonable doubt", where the standard in most civil cases (all tax situations I am aware of) is a "more likely" test, which our courts have sometimes described as "one featherweight" in difference.

Combining burden and standard of proof, if the tax authority and the taxpayer present no evidence whatsoever in a civil case, the tax authority wins. In a criminal case, the tax authority must establish the case beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a huge difference in practice, one which I likely do not fully appreciate, not being a lawyer. For example, in a review of one's tax affairs by the taxing authorities, at least in Canada, the law imposes a duty to co-operate on the taxpayer. In a criminal case, he has the right to remain silent, avoid self incrimination, etc. Search and seizure laws are highly relevant in criminal cases, but not in civil cases. The case I mentioned above is considered of great importance (it may go before our Supreme Court) due to the substantial difference between civil and criminal law, and the requirements to impose a civil penalty as opposed to a criminal sanction.

 

[Umbran]

It's just the easiest example. I'd be surprised if there are not plenty of others to be found in the criminal offences that attach to environmental regulation, workplace safety, hazardous materials, the protection of national parks, marine parks and fisheries, etc.

Part of my point is that many violations of regulations don't fall into "criminal law".

There are crimes where strict liability does usually or frequently apply - drunk driving is an example. The drinker could have had zero intent to drive under the influence, but willfully diminishing their own capacity entails the implicit acceptance of liability of actions taken under the influence.

But there, intent does still matter. If you can show you were drugged without your consent, I severely doubt you'll be convicted of a DUI.

The space of actual "criminal law" in which mens rea does not apply seems to be pretty limited. Not nonesxistent, but limited.

 

[tomBitonti]

I've heard the phrase "strict liability" in relation to two situations:

* A boat which has caused damage, say, by becoming free of its mooring and being driven by wind and tide into other boats.

* A person in possession of child pornography.

The first case sits alright with me: One chooses to own and maintain a boat (or not), and has a responsibility for the boat.

The second I'm mostly OK with, but, there are edge cases which are troublesome. What if your computer were turned into a bot and used as a porn hub, without your knowledge? What if a PDF attachment which a friend sent, which was to be the latest beta rules document for SystemX, was actually porn.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

The second I'm mostly OK with, but, there are edge cases which are troublesome.

The edge cases are why it is seldom used for major crimes.

 

[tomBitonti]

The edge cases are why it is seldom used for major crimes.

That seems very sensible.

Bringing this back to the case of the Paladin, there are game mechanic type problems which interfere with a nuanced analysis:

Cases where the Paladin is magically influenced are very easy to create: A Confused Paladin could easily harm or kill a bystander.

Curiously, Paladins used to have a continuous Protection from Evil, which would guard against many problematic effects, but that seems to have been removed from v3.5. A v3.5 Paladin could be dominated and made to commit all manner of evil acts. Unlikely, because of high saving throw values, but possible.

Because of the chance of accidentally breaking their strictures, I imagine a Paladin would have many special rules to provide protection against such accidents. Say, never attack first; never attack an unarmed opponent; always offer mercy, and so forth.

In a kind of worst case: A Paladin's memories could be wholly altered in a high level campaign as the result of an encounter with a mind flayer. All sorts of transgressions could result. If the mind flayer were used against a low level Paladin, the Paladin would have no hope. (Which says to me, as a DM, don't do that, unless you know that the players will have fun dealing with the consequences.)

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

That seems very sensible.

Bringing this back to the case of the Paladin, there are game mechanic type problems which interfere with a nuanced analysis:

Cases where the Paladin is magically influenced are very easy to create: A Confused Paladin could easily harm or kill a bystander.

Yep.

Let's look at the 3.5 SRD:

"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...
She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate."

So, it is "willfully commits an evil act" or "grossly violates the code".

Reading strictly, gross violations do not need to be willful - strict liability, it seems. If you are dominated or controlled or deceived into a major violation, *poof*, there go your powers. This probably requires a bit of setup - the bad guy probably has to know the code in detail, has to provide the nudge in the right time and place and situation where a violation is apt to happen, and have that violation be successful, and large enough to be considered "gross".

Also, strictly speaking, either willful evil or gross violation can be fixed through atonement. The issue is not permanent.

With a less strict reading, (with willfully applying to evil acts *and* gross violations) this is a non-issue. The paladin is then not bound by strict liability, and cannot be duped or influenced into violations to lose status.

Because of the chance of accidentally breaking their strictures, I imagine a Paladin would have many special rules to provide protection against such accidents. Say, never attack first; never attack an unarmed opponent; always offer mercy, and so forth.

And always have a 9th level cleric as a friend

If the mind flayer were used against a low level Paladin, the Paladin would have no hope. (Which says to me, as a DM, don't do that, unless you know that the players will have fun dealing with the consequences.)

Yes, it is kind of a jerk move for a GM to toss such a thing at a paladin who has no real ability to resist at all.

But, no hope? The condition can be alleviated, so there is hope. If the transgression was not willful, Atonement has no cost to the caster!

 

[tomBitonti]

...

Yes, it is kind of a jerk move for a GM to toss such a thing at a paladin who has no real ability to resist at all.

But, no hope? The condition can be alleviated, so there is hope. If the transgression was not willful, Atonement has no cost to the caster!

Well, meaning, no hope but to be jerked over.

Actually, the removal of protection from Evil seems to be a huge problem. Would failure to protect an innocent from harm be sufficient to cause a paladin to lose his powers? I don't mean a case where the paladin is physically prevented from providing protection (the bad guy is across a moat and up in a tower, and kills a hostage to spite the paladin). I mean a case where the paladin is carrying a wounded child away from danger, and is dazed, per the spell, and fails to prevent the bag guy from killing the child.

That is, do we interpret "failing a saving throw" (against Daze) as a weakness of the Paladin, with the Paladin being culpable for the failure?

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

That is, do we interpret "failing a saving throw" (against Daze) as a weakness of the Paladin, with the Paladin being culpable for the failure?

Which is to say, "Is the GM being a real jerk?"

If we are to be detailed about it, it probably falls to the question, "Did the paladin take reasonable precautions?".

If the paladin failed the save because he or she had been out drinking and was three sheets to the wind, or because they'd made some other foolish choice, then yes, they're culpable.

If the paladin had taken reasonable precautions, had used his or her resources to resist, and so on, I'd not hold them culpable.

We'd as well ask, do we hold the paladin in violation of not punishing the wicked if he or she doesn't hit and kill villains on a single stroke every time? No? Why not? Because some things in the world are simply not possible, and the paladin cannot be held responsible for those.

Now, I could imagine a story in which the paladin is held to a much higher standard - where it isn't so much about intent and breaking rules, and more about purity or worthiness. The failure at the critical moment is indicative of a flaw in their character, and they simply cannot be of this lofty class until they prove themselves worthy. That kind of story usually works far better in fiction (and older fiction at that) than it does in a game, though, so I don't tend to run it that way, myself.

In the end, part of it really depends on what kind of challenges the *player* likes. Would the player like a loss-and-redemption arc?