NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="D'karr" data-source="post: 6078032" data-attributes="member: 336">I think that the problem with those "mechanics" was that they were not really mechanics at all.  DMs could decide willy-nilly if a particular act had violated the "code".  A "code" which was also nebulous.  I don't recall ever seeing one published.  So it became a "mechanic" whose sole basis for adherence/enforcement was opinion.  If a Paladin "lied" during an interrogation by enemies of his god, he might incur the wrath of the DM.  However, killing sentient creatures and taking their stuff was completely fine.It made for the entire alignment of LG to be regarded as Lawful Stupid.The Paladin in 4e is defined as a "Champion of a particular Ethos".  That's my closest definition based on the class writeup.  That particular Ethos might be espoused by the tenets of a particular deity and their faith.  Since nothing is published in the books except for broad "domains", and categories for the default gods, there are no "rules" for adherence to the ethos.  Similarly there were no rules in AD&D except punishing the player if he broke the nebulous tenets.  However, just because the "rules" don't have any consequences it doesn't mean that the DM and player can't work together on those areas which become questionable - according to the "Ethos".Just because the game doesn't spell everything out doesn't mean that a DM, and player can't come up with interesting things in their game.  The best part about this is that the "ethos" acknowledgement is being made by the best people to do so; the players at a particular table.  I prefer this rather than a game designer that has no idea of the "ethical" game that a particular table might want to play imposing his particular views on anything, except as a sidebar example.I would have liked to have seen a Faiths and Pantheons type book that explored things like that, but that is mostly flavor, not mechanics.</blockquote>

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