Anyone had a paladin Fall and then dropped the PC?

[Voadam]

I can't recall ever hearing of anyone who was playing a barbarian and had the DM involuntarily change their alignment to lawful. I'm sure it's happened, but I never hear about it.

I might drop the barbarian or monk if their alignment were shifted to one that denied them further advancement in the class (and in the case of barbarian made them lose Rage), yes.

Helm of opposite alignment.

Back before wizards could choose their spells or buy scrolls of any low level spell fairly easily it was not guaranteed there would be an easy Identify for magic items found and therefore sometimes people would put on magical headgear loot to see what bonuses it gave ("Does it have lots of gems?").

 

[sirwmholder]

I played a paladin in 2nd who fell from grace. I stayed with the character who ended up taking on a very vigilante... Punisher kind of air. He hunted evil down in all it's forms... one of the more interesting characters I played... oddly I haven't had the desire to play one since.

One thing that bothers me... a lot of people see the paladin losing powers for stepping out of line but nearly no one mentions a cleric violating one of his deity's tenants and becoming powerless. I always felt that the cleric and paladin codes should be very similar... one with a more tactical and militaristic outlook... the other more concerned with the greater good and saving the souls of the damned.

My two cents,
William Holder

 

[DragonLancer]

If it was me, I'd use it as an opportunity to roleplay and work towards regaining my former status.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I think playing a fallen paladin is a good roleplaying opportunity. Sure, they are not very effective in combat, but they can still hit things with a weapon, at least. That said, I think it would be cool to play a fallen paladin as long as I, the player, initiated the fall, not the DM. What I mean by that is that through my own (mis)judgments and opinions, my paladin fell from grace. Not from a DM set up. (Choose the lesser of two evils, both of which are bad enough to make you fall) Now, I would be perfectly happy arranging a fall to be set up WITH the DM. I agree that if you play a paladin you had best know your DM's views of the paladin code beforehand.
A fallen paladin, to me, is more interesting a character than Saint McGood. As a DM, I'd pull a lot of strings and make many exceptions if a player wanted, either from the start or farther down the road, to play a fallen paladin. (But not a blackguard, unless it were quite appropriate. My group is prone to inter-party fighting, so I won't let a player play an evil alignment unless I absolutely know they can get along and interact with the others without trouble, which they usually can't and it wrecks the game)

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

From a DM perspective, I would hope that someone with a fallen paladin would be willing to play on. Of course losing the paladin abilities should be pretty hard to do without making a conscious choice. I usually warn a player if their paladin seems to be straying from the path of their code. If a player is going to make a really bad decision, I will take a short break and discuss it with them, making it clear that what they are about to do will strip them of their paladin abilities and the reason for it. They will either accept it, change their decision or persuade me to see the reason why they feel their decision is acceptable.

 

[haakon1]

I have played a fwe characters that most would drop... one of them being a fallen pally.
The scenario was that we (the party) inadvertantly assisted an NPC in robbing the money changer. The paladin fell (obviously), and I was forced to run him as a straight fighter on the atonement path. He died before the atonement could be completed, yet it was still one of the more fun characters I have ever had.
It is called a "role playing" game for a reason...

As a DM and sometime player (who likes to play paladins) that's an answer I can appreciate.

The one thing that makes the "dropping" mostly irrelevant in the campaigns I run is the basic table rule that no PC gets levels for "free" -- all PC's start at first level and have to earn every level. That goes back to AD&D ideas, where I realized early on that MU's have a low survival probability and low contribution early on, where Fighters start strong and get relatively weaker -- for that reason, it made sense that MU's needed to go through a Darwinian process and should never get to start at a higher level without payin' their dues.

That table rule makes the choice between a "nerfed" fallen paladin level 5 and whatever level 1, rather than between a fallen paladin and a shiny new 5th level character, so the power gamers aren't going to chose the easy, boring path.

I've only had two players (out of maybe 40 total in 20 years of DMing) ever switch characters. One reverted to a previous character, and the other started a new character, from 1st level.

I've never see a PC "fall from grace", as a paladin (which seems most likely), cleric, monk, or barbarian. I have discussed "you know if people find out what you're doing, they will probably try to execute your character and your character's alignment may change to evil" kind of discussions with players, but they've never been people playing a religious class . . . one of them was playing a barbarian, actually, but he was acting CE (so no alignment/class conflict), and he got killed by some angry NPC's and his own party within a hour or so of additional gametime anyhow.

Come to think of it, I don't think I'd make a barbarian go "ex" for an alignment change to Lawful, unless the player wanted to. That rules doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, whereas fallen religious classes does.

I have seen a paladin fall from grace in the computer game "Temple of Elemental Evil", for agreeing to kill some other evil dudes for an evil cleric . . . apparently the computer game version of D&D doesn't allow for "dood, I'm lying to the evil cleric for the greater good, and I plan to kill them all once I find out what's going on". As a DM, I'd have allowed it . . . I guess some DM's try to control players more . . . never seen someone do that.

 

[Solice]

I learned my lesson regarding Paladins back in the mid-Eighties.

Never play one unless you and the DM are in *complete* agreement regarding the Paladin's Code.

Excellent point, yet not such an easy task! I think it most important to have a reasonable level of communication as well. AND a reasonable player/DM.

 

[Ourph]

I think playing a fallen paladin is a good roleplaying opportunity.

IME things that qualify as "good roleplaying opportunities" are usually about as fun as things that "build character" or "put hair on your chest". I'd dump the character and roll up a LG melee-oriented Fighter/Cleric (actually, I'd probably do that in the first place, rather than play a Paladin).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

IME things that qualify as "good roleplaying opportunities" are usually about as fun as things that "build character" or "put hair on your chest".

So true.

 

[bytor4232]

As long as the fall was justified by the characters actions, hell yes I would play a fallen palladin. That there would be a character I would be ALL into. You could go so many ways with a character like that.