DM time again. I will edit this post to reflect answered questions:
1.Since the paladin posted on this board with this as a conundrum, can I assume that this fine line isn't explained?
2. Altogether is the paladin a person who steps over lines and then retreats when he makes mistakes (begging and atoning for forgiveness to silent gods) or do they instead recieve some sort of explanation for their behavior? Paladins walking a tight rope doesn't necessarily mean they should do so blindfolded
1. The basics from the SRD explain nicely what the paladins line is. This together with the basic concepts and teachings of said god (god of battle/war) bundle together a basic principles and teachings of a paladin. One of the things we added for said paladin was for him to NOT attack a fallen enemy or an unarmed one that is obviously a non-combatant. That's not in the SRD but it's a addition to said code of conduct.
2. Will it be noticable. Yes. Immediate loss of said abilities will be dealt with just like if any other PC with alignment abilities knowingly does an act that compromises their alignment. Communing with a god or cleric of said religon (and not a similar one) can explain things on what happened. Me as the DM will be silent but the PC in question can usually remember what they did as causing the 'downfall.'
Now individual dieties will have their own flavor of the code. But with this as the only universal baseline, paladins do not HAVE to smite evil creatures where they find them. They don't HAVE to avoid associating with evil beings. They may choose to or it may be part of their diety's specific edicts, but it is not inherent in the class. It means that if an evil creature (follower of hextor) is trying to do something that has a good end result and "acts with honor" while doing so, the paladin can work with them.
If the follower of hextor acts without honor or will have evil ends, the paladin SHOULD act. If he doesn't wander off the path of acceptable behavoir then the paladin is not required to oppose him.
very nice. this is how i feel on this issue.
I'm not sure which post you were responding to. I don't the the question is "Is the servant of Hextor evil?" because everyone agrees that a detect evil will reveal the truth.
3. (BTW: AFAIK no one from the game has posted whether the hextorite has detected as evil)
4. (I will point out that detect evil can determine, vaguely, how evil something is and paladins should at least consider that information.)
3. Only one person in the party 'knows' if the servant of hextor is evil or not and that's 3rd hand knowledge granted by a celesital being summoned to the prime for combating kuo-toa (they are in Night Below book 2)
4. Detect evil-ahh let me explain how i do it. Detect evil by a cleric or a arcane caster reveals if the entity if good (has a white glow around it) neutral (has a gray glow around it) evil (has a dark cast to it). Now if done by a paladin or a celestial or infernal ability they see something very very different.
Remember in LOTR when frodo saw the ring wraiths? That is what happens to the person in question. His eyes turn aglow and they see in a somewhat corperal vision what the persons aura is. For instance let's say that a paladin detected evil on 3 people, a half-celestial, half-fiend, and a normal peasent (neutral).
Half-celestial-The paladin would see that around said person would be an aura of white aglow with perhaps feathered wings and skin matching the primal alignment (law would be yellow, neutral a gray and chaotic a green or blue). An aura of awe would be circling them and no taint would be present.
Half-fiend: When said person was detected a dark spirit would be looming over them, perhaps a meancing creature with a hand clutching their heart opening and closing it to keep it in line with it's infernal powers or their eyes were dripping blood, etc. The presence of evil taint would be on them and to the extent of how far into evil they have fallen. The bigger and stronger the evil the more powerful the blackened glow becomes until it is almost painful to see.
Peasent: Generally this would be seen as just the figure itself, garbed in gray looking like themselves. Usually a pale skin to to match their outfit. Nothing could be gleaned from their aura and no taint is presence.
Now i use the application of taint. Taint is how far you have fallen into evil. The deper you go the more the taint is present and the more a paladin can see if you are 'saveable' as some paladins like to save people that may have thought they were doing good even though they have been wicked and repent to them.
Does this blend a few spells into one ability? Yes it does. But being a paladin is tough enough in my world, why not allow a tad bit of ability to help the role-playing aspect out a bit. Clerics and other casters don't get this, only paladins, anti-paladins, etc. do.
The question is: what is the paladin going to do? He *looks* evil but what if detect evil says he isn't? What if he *is* evil but doesn't *do* anything evil and is actually doing something the paladin considers good.
this is the $50,000 question of the day....
So, my advise to the Paladin is to make a knowledge religion check to see if he knows that ALL fiends are evil (given the nature of fiends, the DC should be VERY low),
Now this is not true at all. I don't just off hand make the DC low for this. I would make it very high indeed. Why you say? Because we have here a paladin of a god of battle. He knows how to fight the enemy, how to use his godly powers to smite and crush the followers of evil, how to champion his god onward and upward etc. nowhere do i hear about this PC in question of anything about demons, devils, or infernals. I would make this instead a knowledge (infernal) check and set the DC medium to make him know if there was such as case and if so, the frequency of said event if any.
DM: If you have, for some reason, allowed a Non-Evil Fiend—why?
No comment on this as it could give away some secrets...
but where does it say I ALWAYS have to make a fiend evil. Remeber fiends can be nothing more than fallen celestials, some may repent but still not far enough to earn their 'wings' back. You can be fiendish but not ALWAYS be evil, but i would make that few, far between, and one in a million. To me that would be like a paladin drow, sure they may have been one, but noone among the inner families wants to EVEN mention such a thing...
We do not know that this is a fiendish template. More importantly, the paladin doesn't know that its a fiendish template.
this much is true.
What he does know is that his friend and comrade has been seduced by darkness. He isn't actively harming innocents or anything, but his soul has been tainted.
he does not know this either.
The best thing the paladin could do is try to lead by example the proper path. That and keep both eyes on the hextorian. If he starts acting evil, he'll regretfully have to lay some smitage down. It doesn't mean that they have to be buddy-buddy.
wise advice i agree...
Also, this character is honor bound to work on this quest. In most campaigns, dwarves place a lot of importance on honor, and saying that lawful is more important than good to dwarven paladins in a certain setting is perfectly valid.
dwarves in my world are default LN. They work hard, strive hard, and drive a hard bargin. But they ALWAYS keep their word and strive to make sure that their honor goes with their word goes with their name so that if someone says "I bought from Hilgar" others who have dealt with Hilgar will know that it is good and fair item and deal.
The changed color of the eyes and skin (black as coal and fiery red, respectively, IIRC) is a dead giveaway..... It's either fiend or sunburn.
assumptions and lack of knowledge can get you killed in my world... i made that abundantly clear after i waxed a few of the PC's when they said "Oh noone is in there, let's storm the keep and worry about everything later..."
