A Paladin's Problem

[Li Shenron]

OTOH you can still use a Lich with less class levels.

 

[GSHamster]

GSHamster - I don't think they'd take the time to listen to the lich in the first place to set them up with going after the child... or trust it to be telling the truth. And if I'm going to introduce a villain like this I definitely want him to encounter the party - otherwise I don't get the fun of playing him.

I meant do that after the lich has defeated them in battle and they are in chains and forced to listen to him. It's another moral dilemma for the paladin: Agree to the lich's demands (which don't seem unreasonable) or die needlessly.

 

[Stormborn]

Stormborn - That's a good idea - kinf of what I was hoping for (avoids the need for a Lich by downgrading who uses the phylactery). I think I can go with that. My Gods don't really oppose each other in the classical sence (as none of them have any alignment - they are beyond 'earthly morality'). But there is certainly a god of Death - part of him is anti-undead but the other side is certainly in favour of it and would support this.

DOH! - a couple of adventures back they killed a half-demon Thrall of Orcus (BoVD) in an old Thanis Death Cult mountain temple. If I have him reappear now something's going to be up with it - and Thanis (God of Death, Reflection and Revenge) certainly has the power to send him back...


How to tie that in to the child though?

The child then is Kel's (the half-demon) own daughter... which makes it just an infant (cause he was fairly young himself - little more than a boy). It also means that the mother will be reluctant to let the party near it (It's a tiefling afterall and the mother is probably ashamed of that) to even find out that Kel is somehow clinging to life through it. Last time they just dumped his body down a shaft to dispose of it - when he first comes back they may try burning it in order to kill him, so I've got a few more sessions to build up to it.

Cheers for that Stormborn... and thanks to the rest of you for the ideas, I may try and twist some of those into it as well.

The Hoard

You are certainly welcome. Glad I could come up with something that worked in your campaign.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Reapersaurus - cheers for the input, and as you can see I didn't want to use a lich - it was just the idea of a lich like return from the dead that is tied to an innocent that I wanted... hence the question. Also it's not a moral dilemma I'm aiming for - it's a crisis of faith. The paladin won't want to kill the child but his god will be demanding it, and once he's done it his god will be pissed off at the death of a child. So ultimately the paladin will be pissed off at his god for forcing his hand and then judging him for it. As to the kid being the phylactery I was looking for something with the same sort of relationship rather than the RAW version. Plus the kid doesn't actually live with the creature (whatever it ends up as), it's just it's link to the world - maybe closer to a spirit based link than that created by a lich. It may not even know that the kid is the link.

Patlin - unfortunately too simple - if the paladin makes a genuine error by accident then he just needs to be really sorry and atone - serious I know, but easy enough to overcome and he would be truly sorry once he found out. What I'm aiming for is his conscious decision to slay the innocent.

LostSoul - will check out those suggestions at home this evening... still think the half-fiend they've already fought is propably the best option (as there's already history to it... makes it look like I had longer term plans right from the start...) And you've got the right twist to the crisis of faith I'm aiming for - once you've chosen this path once how soon before you do it again? Plus on top of that - do I still believe in what my God represents or do I need to think again about staying in her service?

 

[LostSoul]

Plus on top of that - do I still believe in what my God represents or do I need to think again about staying in her service?

Very cool. Do you think it would be interesting if the Paladin went to a church and voiced his concerns (or told the local Cleric what happened) and the Cleric waved his concerns away - enforcing the idea that what the Paladin saw as right and just isn't in line with his Church, and possibly his God?

 

[wingsandsword]

Once you've dealt with the roleplaying of the crisis of faith (cool idea BTW), if you want your PC's to have an option other than letting a lich run rampant or slaying a small child, be prepared for PC's to think "out of the box". Reward creative thinking here, you've thrown a big puzzle at them.

In 3rd Edition they have yet to mention one achilles heel of liches that existed in 2nd Edition (and I don't know about 1st), that if they die on a different plane of existence from their phylactery they die forever (ie their ability to transfer their soul doesn't cross planar boundaries).

Or maybe the PC's could "push" the child ahead in time a few years. A ritual or incantation (or a high level spell or other macguffin) that throws her a year into the future on a one-way trip. Then attack the lich, since his phylactery doesn't exist at the time he's killed, he won't be able to reform when the PC's slay him and he will die forever.

What if the child were placed in an antimagic shell? Or was under the influence of Protection from Evil, or even targeted with a Disjunction? What if she were taken to an upper/celestial plane of existence and kept there for a while? The PC's might not be able to do some of these things for a while, but that's a good source for adventures.

What if the child grows up to be a good cleric or a paladin, could she try to Dispel or Turn herself. What happens to the Lich as she grows up and rejects the darkness within her?

 

[billd91]

With respect to using the lich for this idea, they don't have to encounter the lich right away. They can encounter his minions, foil a few plots, and as they go along they find out that it's a lich behind all of this and that the lich has used something really deviant as his phylactery (like an innocent child).
That could produce a much longer campaign against this main villain.

Alternatively, the phylactery could be something else sacred to his religion. Perhaps he has to help recover some religious artifact of great significance. Maybe it even holds the soul to some great patriarch (and diety's favorite) of the church. Now, if that holy artifact had to be rescued from the lich and his minions, but they only succeeded with it AFTER the lich had managed to do some really potent ritual to turn that into his phylactery as well... then things get a bit trickier. Destroy the artifact (which might be hard in and of itself) and it also destroys the soul of the great patriarch.

I suppose they could still say one innocent soul being destroyed to annihilate the lich is OK, but what if that great patriarch's soul was bonded to the artifact for some other, really important thing? Maybe that soul is there to act as a guaranty that some other nasty thing won't happen, like perhaps the opening of a powerful gate to Hell or the Abyss in some innocent town. This could rapidly get to be some kind of unsolvable problem, but there are ways to handle it.

So, they can't destroy the artifact without destroying the soul that keeps the gate closed. If they can move the people living in the town, most of whom don't believe the whole gate story nonsense, then opening the gate isn't such a bad problem. Sure, it lets in lots of devils/demons/whatever, but they might be containable and at least with the area evacuated, the destruction of innocents will be minimized. Except remember that I said most people there don't believe the whole gate thing? They refuse to pack up and leave. Do you force them? Do you go on a quest to find an alternative way to seal off the gate so that you can then destroy the original seal and thus destroy the lich?

Whew! OK, that's brainstorming for today. But you see how something could be made to work that can be revealed over time as the PCs get stronger and feel more capable of taking on the actual hard work of the quest.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

1) It's not exactly a very compelling "moral dilemma".
It basically boils down to simply "is it better to sacrifice one innocent life than to allow a great Evil to live"?
Since every paladin would answer yes to this if it was THEIR innocent life that was being sacrificed, than they are a long way down the road to answering this questions already.
IMO, that's simple - kill the innocent if you have to.

This is absolutely the wrong answer. The ends never justify the means. Save the world at the cost of an innocent life, and you've damned yourself and the world together.

Killing the child will piss off Fera - allowing the Lich to live will piss of Fera. Nice moral conundrum to play through and winner's on all sides in terms of game fun! The paladin can come up with good reasons for action or inaction, justify it to himself, and still end up on the wrong side of his goddess.

This is not a moral conundrum. It's a Catch-22. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The paladin is screwed no matter what decision he makes, no matter how he plays his hand.

If your paladin player is interested in having a Crisis of Faith, then I suggest you do something along the following lines. Introduce a beautiful, sweet, innocent young maiden, then have clerics of Fera come to the paladin (or send the paladin a dream) in which the maiden must be killed, for eventually she is destined to become a terrible Queen of Evil. The goddess' doctrine claims that her destiny is evil, and thus she is evil even though she has yet to do any wrong. She Detects as Evil. Now the paladin has a choice: kill the maiden (and thus satisfy his goddess' demands), or refuse to kill the maiden, and defy his goddess.

If he chooses to kill the maiden, he'll be haunted by the act, guilt-ridden, and may eventually come to doubt his goddess' wisdom leading to the Crisis of Faith the player wants.

If he chooses to spare the maiden, then he comes to his Crisis directly. he believes his goddess is wrong, and will have to pay the consequences of his loss of faith.

Can you see the difference between my scenario and yours? In your scenario, there is no right answer to the question. The paladin is screwed regardless of what he does, in a way that makes no sense (how can the goddess expect him to both spare the child and kill the lich, if doing so is impossible?) In my scenario, there are two right answers: the moral right answer, and the goddess' right answer. The paladin must weigh them and decide which is more important to him, then pay the consequences of that decision.

 

[LostSoul]

In my scenario, there are two right answers: the moral right answer, and the goddess' right answer. The paladin must weigh them and decide which is more important to him, then pay the consequences of that decision.

That's really cool. You're playing the Lawful against the Good. Nice work!

 

[CyberSpyder]

This is absolutely the wrong answer. The ends never justify the means. Save the world at the cost of an innocent life, and you've damned yourself and the world together.

Huh. Somebody's going to have to tell all the governments that ever were, and it ain't gonna be me.