A question about Paladins and killing.

[Harm]

Turn them over to the authorities.

Let the authorities decide what to do.

Paladins ARE the authorities. They're given increadible powers to act as an agent of a god. God says kill babies, you kill babies unless you like being a pillar of salt.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

In the back of the cave, there are three more trolls. They register as evil on my paladin's senses, and, normally, they would be issued a challenge and then a fought to the death.

Thing is, the three trolls are babies. What are your thoughts?

When I wuz DM'ing Age of Wurmz, The party found a baby Owlbear, they turned around and gave it to the owner of the Emporium, a bar with a freak show in the dungeon. So what you can do is either sell the Baby Troll's to a travelling freak show, train them to become guardians of your castle's dungeon, players do want to build a little fiefdom as they gain money and power and what better guardians then well trained Trolls to guard the loot.

Or Lastly sell them to a Wizard and he can either use them to guard his stuff or expairiment on them. The options and mis-adventures are endless!


Scott

 

[Elf Witch]

We had a dilemma like this in our game we found some baby kobolds now they were not evil but neutrul.

The townsfolk wanted the kobold babies to kill them most of the rest of the party where for it my chaotic elf sorcerer stood up to the party and took the kobold babies and raised them.

If these troll young registered as neutrul it would be wrong to kill them as a paladin because their nature is undecided. With the proper upbringing they could be nutured towards good.

But in this case they registered as evil. Which means it would take a lot to turn them away from that. I would not penalize a paladin for trying that route.

But I would say that a paladin is justified in killing these creatures not only is he justified he has duty to all good creatures to destroy them.

So many people think that because a paladin is supposed to be honorable that he cannot kill an evil creature who can't fight back. Sorry that is just crazy by not killing these creatures or finding away to stop their threat a paladin in my game would have the blood of the innocents on his hands that these trolls killed.

Unlike the real world a paladin has a god given ability to detect evil if he feels that is not enough to help him make a decision on the fate of these baby evil monsters then he should cast commune.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Unlike the real world a paladin has a god given ability to detect evil if he feels that is not enough to help him make a decision on the fate of these baby evil monsters then he should cast commune.

Commune isn't on the paladin list. And it would be a lot more cost-efficient to buy a Phylactery of Faithfulness once, than a Commune spell every time a question came up.

Phylactery of Faithfulness: This item is a small box containing religious scripture affixed to a leather cord and tied around the forehead. There is no mundane way to determine what function this religious item performs until it is worn. The wearer of a phylactery of faithfulness is aware of any action or item that could adversely affect his alignment and his standing with his deity, including magical effects. He acquires this information prior to performing such an action or becoming associated with such an item if he takes a moment to contemplate the act.

Faint divination; CL 1st; Craft Wondrous Item, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law; Price 1,000 gp.

-Hyp.

 

[Elf Witch]

Commune isn't on the paladin list. And it would be a lot more cost-efficient to buy a Phylactery of Faithfulness once, than a Commune spell every time a question came up.

Phylactery of Faithfulness: This item is a small box containing religious scripture affixed to a leather cord and tied around the forehead. There is no mundane way to determine what function this religious item performs until it is worn. The wearer of a phylactery of faithfulness is aware of any action or item that could adversely affect his alignment and his standing with his deity, including magical effects. He acquires this information prior to performing such an action or becoming associated with such an item if he takes a moment to contemplate the act.

Faint divination; CL 1st; Craft Wondrous Item, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law; Price 1,000 gp.

-Hyp.

I meant Augry and I know that is not on the paladin's spells list but I thought I read that this paladin was a cleric as well.

I house rule that all paladins in my game get access to the spell Augry.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I meant Augry and I know that is not on the paladin's spells list but I thought I read that this paladin was a cleric as well.

He is. I allow paladins to multiclass as clerics without penalty.

 

[Elf Witch]

He is. I allow paladins to multiclass as clerics without penalty.

I also allow paladins to freely multiclass with cleric as well as fighter and monk.

 

[GreatLemur]

I wonder how "dilemmas" like this would play out, without the existence of Detect Evil.

Or, better yet, without the existence of alignment.

Still, I think Whizbang set up a cool and interesting situation. Just because something is the right thing to do doesn't mean it's going to be easy, pleasant, glorious, or even "honorable".

That said, I don't think killing the tadpoles was necessarily the only "right thing to do". Alignments are changeable, and trolls are (technically) intelligent creatures that are only "usually" evil. So it would be theoretically possible to raise the little horrors to respect other intelligent life . . . if the characters could find time to arrange for such a difficult and dangerous re-education while they're presumably in the middle of saving people from other trolls and whatever other unpleasantness is going on.

Yeah, again: Nice situation to throw at them, Whizbang.

 

[bissichan]

We loved the RP possibilities of the dilemma.

Like I said, my paladin is a rookie with maybe 4 adventures under his belt. He is learning. He trusts the church hierarchy and values his superior's counsel.

Now, the scrags have been cut into more manageable pieces and there's some resentment between my LG paladin and the LG fighter. As soon as they get back in town, my paladin will have a long talk with his superior.