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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zentermi" data-source="post: 575486" data-attributes="member: 9427">Knightly OathsRule One:   Thou Shalt Believe in the Church and obey her teachings.means: Faith in your god or commitment to RighteousnessRule 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 oneRule 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 afterlifeRule 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 ArthurIn 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.</blockquote>

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