Act of evil? Or just taking out the trash?

[That One Guy]

So, I was thinking (I had a few minutes to let my mind wander), what if the corrupt group (I assume there's a corrupt group, because it sounds like it) of the church actually encourages his behaviour? Sort of... trying to use him and his attitude to draw attention away from whatever less than good stuff they're doing.

So, there's the moral complications of who does the paladin listen to? how does the rest of the party react? ...and it all comes to a generally frothy mess.

 

[Ravingdork]

I think the Paladins behavior opens up all kinds of interesting role playing opportunities.

A) A more vicious faction of his church embraces him while the more modest are repelled. Decide which faction is more just or show both sides as having good and bad. Maybe the modest faction are bureaucrats who get nothing done but talk. Maybe the more vicious side are bloodthirsty to the point of evil and feared by a populace to terrified to speak against them.

B) A very interesting opportunity is to have him consider being a Knight of Tiamat considering his temperament. Going with the option above maybe he is reviled my someone he respects in his church while some Tiamat intermediary lauds him with praise to get him to switch teams. Nice opportunity for Holy War stuff.

C) Maybe the heretic really did have some powerful friends and they are a tad bit angry at the Paladin.

D) Someone seeing the Paladins tactics decides its the good thing to do to "evil" people. Murderer on the loose.

E) Local constable swears out a warrant for the Paladin. Will he choose to stand trial, will he win the trial, will he honor the verdict.

How about all of the above?

The paladin soon realizes that his loved ones are in real danger from the heretic's threat (perhaps he sees a known assassin following his wife--we have just one such reoccuring villain). As he rushes to save his family, he is picked up by the authorities of the church and detained against his will for his disobediance and lack of discression in his previous assignment. Due to his arrest and his inability to intervene, great harm befalls his loved ones.

A week later as he sits in a cell awaiting trial, having lost everything he ever cared for, he is approached by an evil cleric of a rival faith who propositions him to join "the only faith that won't ever let you down--the only faith that lets you get revenge against the men who did this to your loved ones--and against all those who allowed it to happen."

In the meantime his former church dissassociates itself from him, calling him a blackguard and heretic, while seeking to "stop him" from bringing further shame upon the church (political assassin pawn or not, not even a corrupt clergymen likes a loose cannon). Whether or not the paladin chooses it, he becomes a criminal himself. Those few members of the church who agree with the paladin (thinking him wronged) side with him, risking their very lives to do so. Those who believe in the corrupt church superiors will become the new pawns--the new assassins of the church leader's innocent political rivals.

I'm really big on kicking a PC while he's down if it means a more exciting scenario for all involved.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sounds pretty harsh . If that's what your players like, do it.

Alas, it was not to be, apparently

I suppose without alignment, we wouldn't have much "Kobold Baby killing" debates, but some "moral" discussions might still happen - typically in relation to the society the PCs interact with. If we ignore a moment the alignment for this debate - how do people react to a heretic being dragged through village? In a medieval world, this might be perfectly fine. But use a similar scene in modern society (say, a Agents of Psi or Shadowrun campaign?) - what would happen to the person in question?

 

[Ravingdork]

The whole reason I started this thread was because of the lack of alignment debates.

 

[Starbuck_II]

D) Someone seeing the Paladins tactics decides its the good thing to do to "evil" people. Murderer on the loose.

It was okay in 3.5, Detect/Smite was fully allowed in that game by the rules (DMs might houserule differently of course).

So as long as that someone kills actually evil people: all the better.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The whole reason I started this thread was because of the lack of alignment debates.

You're clearly evil. I congratulate to your new Blackguard Powers.

 

[Keenath]

It was okay in 3.5, Detect/Smite was fully allowed in that game by the rules (DMs might houserule differently of course).

So as long as that someone kills actually evil people: all the better.

That's the sort of bizarre morality that got Detect Evil removed from the game.

"It's okay for my paladin to go around slaughtering defenseless civilians! They detect as evil!"
"It was a dishonest merchant, a pickpocket, and a politician on the take."
"THEY DETECT AS EVIL!"

Lawful Stupid -- kill all evils, regardless of the scale or scope of their evil. Murder is the only punishment no matter what the crime. If there even was a crime; nothing says you have to actively be committing evil acts to be evil-aligned. It's the name "Paladin" used as a license to enforce morality on everyone around you.

Funny, that sort of sounds like lawful good wrapping back around into evil, doesn't it? Hello, Judge Dredd.

That's the sort of behavior that has paladins so disliked in a lot of places. It was allowed in 3.5. It was never all right.

 

[Skyscraper]

Interesting thread.

I think this paladin's acts are despicable. It is a clear case of overreacting: killing someone because he insults you. If the police were to work this way, there'd be deaths every day in the city. I would not expect anything else from a prisoner who's about to be sentenced to death and carried by his capturer. If the insults really get too much for the paladin to bear, he should be in another business.

As a side note, i find that this kind of reaction is often borne from a lack of immersion from the player. Because really, cutting down the guy's legs and dragging him until he dies is a gruesome act of torture and death. It's one thing to say it around a game table; quite another to do it, to be there while the helpless guy screams while your knife cuts through his flesh, to endure two days of dragging him while he pleas for mercy, suffering, bleeding. (Not that i've done that, mind you ). I think that if you're able to put yourselves into the shoes of the paladin, you won't brush the idea off of ceasing that torture before you carry it out, even though it might be a fleating thought while the insults are initially pouring out of the lad's mouth.

This being said, i like a lot of the suggestions that have been offerred for handling this situation. Valiantheart's list is interesting in this respect.

Have fun,

Sky

 

[DM_Blake]

The problem here is one of player/DM communication.

Something I learned decades ago: when a new player makes a paladin, or any other alignment-champion kind of character, it's my duty as a DM to present him, at character creation, with a full outline of my views, and my in-game world views on his alignment, his religion, his order, his expected conduct, etc. I make sure the player knows this stuff and agrees to it. If I didn't have it pre-printed, I then type all this up and bring it to him by the next game session in a format he can keep in his character folder and refer to as needed.

Of course, he may not like these restrictions, in which case I suggest, during character creation, that there might be better class choices. In my game world, there are many orders of paladins, each with different faiths and different moral codes - maybe I suggest a different order that fits closer with his idea of his character.

But once the player has agreed to the expected rules of conduct, I hold him to them.

In the OP's example, Lawful paladins don't resort to vigilante executions. They let the local authority dish out punishements. To a lawful paladin, executing a captured criminal is a violation of lawful conduct. Good paladins don't torture anyone. If an execution is merited, swift dispensation of justice is the way to go. A slow, torturous death by dragging over two days is not good behavior, even in a society that views such methods as "execution" rather than "torture". Two days of agonizing lingering death is unaligned at best, and evil in any society that doesn't condone this as "execution".

So, if this paladin were unaligned, or evil, and belonged to an order that allowed vigilante and/or retributive exections and/or torture, then all is well.

But if he's good, he may find his methods of dispensing justice called to question for his choice of brutality and torture.

And if he's lawful, he may find his methods of abdicating proper authority's rights to dispense justice and taking maters into his own hands called into question.

In general, society's tolerance for a Dirty Harry type of law enforcement tends to be much more lenient than the tolerance of a specific organization (a church or order to which a paladin might belong). In other words, the local authorities might look the other way, and the citizens might look the other way, or even commend the paladin for ending the threat of this vile criminal, but his own order will not likely look the other way if he violated their codes of conduct. It's easy in any society for a law enforcement official to serve justice and be viewed by society as a hero, but still lose his job and his position because he crossed lines that his organization would not tolerate, hero or not.

 

[ScottS]

I think this paladin's acts are despicable. It is a clear case of overreacting: killing someone because he insults you[...]As a side note, i find that this kind of reaction is often borne from a lack of immersion from the player.

It's a combat-oriented fantasy game, so perhaps the player in question doesn't really give a fig about "immersing" himself. Maybe he thought the whole bring-em-back-alive quest was boring, and he was amusing himself between fights by going Schwarzenegger on the prisoner. We don't know these people's gaming/story preferences, so it's altogether possible that the OP is wasting his time setting up ethical dilemmas, complicated intra-church scheming, etc., when his players don't care and just want to kill monsters.