Another Paladin Thread: Throw Rocks!

[The Thayan Menace]

Putting the Tyr Back in Tyranny!

In my opinion, one of the best reasons to run a paladin is to get a healthy measure of respect from the other PCs.

I must respectfully disagree that paladins deserve automatic respect, especially in the Moonsea (where Law is typically associated with Despotism).

I know it's a cliché, but true respect is earned ... not given.

-Samir

 

[Rystil Arden]

I must respectfully disagree that paladins deserve automatic respect, especially in the Moonsea (where Law is typically associated with Despotism).

I know it's a cliché, but true respect is earned ... not given.

-Samir

In fact, I not only agree--I would go so far as to claim that any player who does specifically as tonym suggests and plays a paladin to require respect from the other players and their characters is actually a problem player. They are the 'attention whore' type of player that is trying to find a railroading way to force other characters listen to follow their way or the highway.

 

[Falkus]

Orcs with wives and loving children are ridiculously lame. Orcs are brutish CE monsters. They rape, pillage, and burn. I don't imagine an orc warrior coming back to his camp and playing with the orclings...

Well, of course he is. Wouldn't you be, if, routinely, groups of so called adventurers came into your lands, burnt down your villages and slaughtered them to the last man, woman and child?

 

[Thurbane]

Orcs with wives and loving children are ridiculously lame. Orcs are brutish CE monsters. They rape, pillage, and burn. I don't imagine an orc warrior coming back to his camp and playing with the orclings...

The paladin does good by killing the orc.

Yep, they deserve nothing more than being marched off to death camps...no, wait... :\

I guess D&D's comic book like approach to morality (aka alignment) breeds this kind of thinking, sadly.

In my own campaign world, no sentient being is irredemably evil, except for lower planar types and most undead...

 

[Hypersmurf]

In my own campaign world, no sentient being is irredemably evil, except for lower planar types and most undead...

Not too dissimilar to the Often/Usually/Always alignment breakdown in the MM, at a guess

-Hyp.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

This Party's Not Over ... Yet!

If the DM says no infraction, isn't this thread really done?

Maybe for you. However, I'm cool with additional discourse.

Please keep in mind, I started this thread to gain discernment ... not to punish the paladin.

-Samir

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Crusader Sermons & Wild Magic

Disclaimer: I have not read through the entire thread as of typing this post

I appreciate your honesty. Please take my light-hearted responses with a grain of salt.

Orcs are "often Chaotic Evil". Paladins destroy evil without mercy wherever it's found. Thus, paladins destroy evil Orcs without mercy.

First, orcs are not always evil. Second, killing a creature strictly because its race is often evil is questionable ... at best. Finally, although many paladins fight evil without pause, they are not required to "destroy" every evil creature they detect.

YOUR character said that he'd let the Orc live; in my book if I was playing a paladin that means that my companion is letting his good heart get the better of him by allowing this evil filth to live, and it's my duty as a warrior of good to eliminate evil.

I beg your pardon, but executing an unarmed orc in the Thar is roughly on par with dusting a crippled quasit in the Abyss (i.e., I would hardly consider either act to be truly noble or effective).

We destroyed the ogre citadel; the ogres were the real threat.

If that was my paladin, I would have slaughtered the orc and then give your character a sermon about the road to hell being paved with good intentions (i.e. if you let evil go they'll return later).

Although the road to the Nine Hells may be paved with good intentions, I'll wager that lack of mercy is a first-class flight (esp. if Nigel frags you).

-Samir Asad is Nigel Yarrow (CN)

 

[Thurbane]

Methinks too many Paladins thesedays are graduates of the Dirty Harry finishing school...

 

[Thurbane]

Not to hammer a dead horse, but was wondering if the OP might like to describe how the points I raised apply to this particular incident?

1. Will letting the prisoner live and/or flee ultimately endager the lives of more innocents?

2. What are the chances for the prisoner to be rehabilitated? Are they genuinely remorseful for their misdeeds, or only interested in saving their own skin?

3. What emphasis does the Paladin and/or his church/deity place on revenge as opposed to rehabilitation? A Paladin of St Cuthbert might have a very different viewpoint than a Paladin of Pelor.

4. Will having to guard/transport the prisoner impede on the Paladin's abilities to protect other innocents? Is there an effective means of incarceration at hand?

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Responses to Thurbane:

1. Will letting the prisoner live and/or flee ultimately endager the lives of more innocents?

Anything is possible, especially in the FRCS. However, the Thar is a blasted heath full of savage humanoids. Killing one orc mook makes very little difference, especially when his ogre bosses are the real scourge.

2. What are the chances for the prisoner to be rehabilitated? Are they genuinely remorseful for their misdeeds, or only interested in saving their own skin?

Who knows? I wasn't really expecting rehabilitation. I was expecting to him run away like a cowardly pariah, so we could move on with the plot.

3. What emphasis does the Paladin and/or his church/deity place on revenge as opposed to rehabilitation? A Paladin of St Cuthbert might have a very different viewpoint than a Paladin of Pelor.

She's a Tyrran and they are pretty straight-edge ... however, they are not completely devoid of mercy.

4. Will having to guard/transport the prisoner impede on the Paladin's abilities to protect other innocents? Is there an effective means of incarceration at hand?

Yes, and no.

-Samir