Blood Crazed Paladin Fights The Man

[Dragonblade]

You can add "devotion to righteousness" to my earlier post and its still valid. No god required.

Just because the serial rapist/murderer in my previous example tries to surrender to save his own skin, does not in any way lessen the righteousness of killing him for his crime.

Nor in any way puts any obligation on the paladin to accept his surrender or to not kill him once his identity is revealed even after accepting his surrender.

Remember his death sentence was already passed down by "legitimate authority" and that legitimate authority expects the paladin to carry out their orders. Is this not what you meant when you said the paladin must obey the law?

Or should the paladin not kill him and disregard the "law"? And as you put it, be willing to risk his paladinhood over it? Because in this example, it is not killing the prisoner which seems to be the more "chaotic" act.

At least according your somewhat interesting interpretation of LG and CG.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Heh. You can play, but you can't win.

No more than you can, I suppose.

Stop trying to muddy the issue, dude.

I'm not. My point is that paladins battle evil without mercy. Meaning they fight evil until it is destroyed, not until the evil surrenders, at which point the paladin mercifully withholds the killing stroke and sends the evil away to be reformed. This mercilessness is validated by the quote given, that the iconic paladin herself is described in such terms.

It means, of course, that paladins can "kill evil without mercy" as long as they are "respecting legitimate authority."

It means nothing of the sort. You seem to have completely ignored my points regarding both respect not equating to obedience, and legitimacy being a subjective quality. "Of course," the two precepts of paladinhood, respect of legitimate authority and merciless destruction of evil, are not connected in a prime/subordinate clause way. It would be just as unfounded to say a paladin must "respect legitimate authority" so long as that authority allows them to "battle evil without mercy."

You've chosen to interpret "respect legitimate authority" to mean follow every law, and further chosen to make that particular precept of the paladin's code more significant than others. Which is fine. But those are house rules for your game and your game alone, not RAW.

Perhaps you can learn to accept legitimate criticism (complete with proof reinforcing it, even) instead of brushing it away as "cheap shots," eh?

I responded to everything in your post. But I wasn't about to let your comments by without note. I liked your "let's try this again" and "with me so far?" in your last post, too. A nice, thin veneer of condescension to cover up the holes in your argument.

 

[ced1106]

It's the paladin who wields the sword, but the deity cuts the checks. **How** did you advice the party? Was it table talk? Or did you tie it in to the words of Osiris? What Osiris says, goes, and if the Paladin thinks otherwise, he's got another deity coming.

In fact, it may be time to add a new deity on the scene. Rather than arguing with your player's definition of LG, accomodate him. Certainly some LG deities were less forgiving than others. Of course, the result of a merciless agent of a merciless god is widespread terror, but let him find out on his own. (;


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[thegreatbuddha]

For an example of "Lawful Good Gone Bad," check out the WoT series and look at the Children of the Light. Has nothing to do with alignment in general, but it may helpshed some light on the situation, if you feel like reading 9000 (nine thousand) pages.

I intend to play a Whitecloak paladin someday.

 

[Dragonblade]

I would say that although the Children of Light order was founded with noble intentions and may have been LG at one time, most of the Whitecloaks are definitely LE.

However, Galad is a great example of a paladin. Galad is most definitely LG and given Robert Jordan's history as a former DM I'm totally positive that the character of Galad was always meant to be a paladin.

Wheel of Time rules!

 

[reapersaurus]

The creatures in question are evil. I've advised the party that the correct action is not to execute vanquished foes, and everyone is cool with this but one Paladin, who thinks he should be able to execute them after they surrender because they are evil.

Here lies your problem.

Without telling us more about the evil these creatures represent, we can't knowingly comment on your situation.

While the old "Do Paladins execute little-"e" evil, or save it for Big-"E" Evil" thread is entertaining and all, if we're trying to address the particular scenario, it requires more input from the DM (who has been fairly quiet, and ambiguous).

this post was pretty wise:

What to do? It depends.

Here's my take on it. Once your opponent surrenders, killing him is out of the question if there is any reasonable hope of redemption. If there is no hope of redemption, the prefered alternative is to turn them over to appropriate authorities for trial and execution. If this cannot be done, then the paladin would certainly have the authority to kill his captives in a medieval world - typically a paladin would have such authority.

It is mostly up to you, as DM, to make clear what the limits are on the paladin's authority as granted by whatever church he follows.

In any case, a paladin would certainly prefer to avoid executions, if for no other reason than to avoid a guilt trip if it turns out that who he killed wasn't so evil after all. This would not have to void his powers since he did not knowingly commit an evil act, but still...

 

[Zentermi]

Knightly Oaths

Rule One: Thou Shalt Believe in the Church and obey her teachings.
means: Faith in your god or commitment to Righteousness

Rule Two: Thou Shalt always obey your feudal overlord, .so long as those duties do not conflict with the duties of/service to God.
means: Obey all laws except when they conflict with rule one

Rule Three: Respect and pity the weak, and be steadfast in defending them.
Meaning: self explanatory.

Rule Four: Thou shalt make war against the unjust without cessation and without mercy.
Meaning: let them look for mercy in the afterlife

Rule Five: Refuse to retreat before the enemy.

Rule Six: Be courteous toward women.

Rule Seven: Be loyal to truth and to the pledged word.

Rule Eight: Be generous in giving.

Rule Nine: Champion the right and the good, in every place and at all times against the forces of evil.

Excalibur - Muriens to Arthur
In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I give you the right to bear arms and METE JUSTICE.

I have been looking around. All the codes seem to point to the same things. Where they bear on this topic is Laws of the Land(where they happen to be at the time). And Laws of the Gods/Paladin's Code. Paladin's need feel no guilt for disobeying a Law that disagrees with the laws of his code and or God. The paladin is based on the Chivalric Code. One who is in strict adherence to it. So he is in essence a Pure Chivalric Knight. Knights, in those lawless times, were charged with enforcing Justice. They were the law of the land, answering to God and King.

Reform for those who committed heinous acts of wickedness is a pipedream. Folks in our day and time think it is possible for all. Most criminals are repeat offenders. We could debate the whys forever, but the fact remains.

The one time I played a paladin, I had come into minor conflict over this issue. So I adopted this credo. I will offer the chance for surrender BEFORE the combat. I claimed that the battle was their Trial. If the enemy surrenders before his defeat is certain, my character argued that it was more likely that the NPC was truely repentant. I made certain that all enemies knew that there would be no mercy after the fight was won. After a while... noone surrendered anymore. After.

Good and Lawful can be ruthless as well.

And for whoever said "So if the legitimate authority of the land ruthlessly murders all enemy combatants no matter what, doing so, too is all fine and dandy for the paladin (unless it's not compatible with the rest of the paladin's code and alignment, of course )." This conversation is about Evil combatants those who have performed evil acts. In any war which the paladin is involved in, there are structures in place for the handling of POWs. If the rules for such do not gibe with the paladin's, he shouldn't even be there.

As for an example of a bloodthirsty Paladin in an actual TSR module.... I have one. It was the very fun Al Quadim module that had the Cup and Talisman of Al Ahkbar {edit: Day of Al'Akbar :edit}. One of the premade characters was a Paladin who had no qualms about sending any foe to their deserved afterlife.

Nice arguements Pendragon.

 

[reapersaurus]

The paladin is based on the Chivalric Code. One who is in strict adherence to it. So he is in essence a Pure Chivalric Knight.

No..... that's the way paladins are in your campaign.

That's the Paladin-as-PrC mentality, to equate them with a Knight.

There are many kinds of paladins, and the one that I champion is the kind that was born different, with an inner knowedge of what is Right and what is Wrong and doesn't need to be taught like some wayward farmboy what the proper way to 'become' a Paladin is.

Hint: 3E Paladins are a core class - that means they were born different, and don't require an edict from an Order of Knights to become a Paladin.
All they need is a pure heart and the dedication to do what it takes to be a Paladin. (self-sacrifice, etc, etc, etc)

 

[Dragonblade]

Its good to see you join the discussion, reapersaurus!

Now if we can get SHARK to show up we'll really have some fun!

 

[reapersaurus]

Ya, it'd be like old times.

Except again: without more unique details from the DM about this particular incident, than all that's being done is the same old discussion...

which is perfectly fine, if any participant hasn't discussed it before - it's always a fun discussion - don't let me stop you...