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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5395395" data-attributes="member: 59506">I agree.  Good is way more subjective than an objective alignment allows.   One shouldn't be punished due to different subjective interpretations.  In real life it shouldn't happen either, though it's more understandable.  In a game...well that just takes all the fun out of it.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />   Of course there's a conflict.  If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth the trouble of trying to adhere to such a Code.  The Code is a means of making a value judgement in any given situation, so that one can balance oneself in favor of Good and Law over Chaos and Evil (and this is where the game conceit supersedes or alters the historical conceit).  As to the disabled opponent, I agree, which is why I don't have a problem with the OP's Goblins being coupe de grace'd.  I agree, but what you're talking about is a modern view of morallity.  Not the conciet upon which the class was based.   Again, I agree with you here, I don't believe such actions are wrong or Evil.  However, the in game D&D conceit has been that it is.  I don't agree with it for personal reasons, and because it isn't consistent with the historical model upon which the class was based.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />   Yes, because it's the conceit upon which the class was based.  Show me a historical Paladin like character (one with an ethos based upon or indistinguishable from a Chivalric Knight) from one of our own polytheistic cultures?  That's right, there aren't any.  Yet that's exactly what the class attempts to create.  It attempts to shoehorn a Christian concept into a polytheistic world. Also, a Chivalrous Knight is a concept that's practically impossible to actualize in real life.  I doubt there was ever a real living person that ever measured up to the concept of Chivalry.  But that is what existed in Medieval Literature, and was the benchmark that was encouraged to pursue.  Putting such a character into a polytheistic world is a bit like trying to apply modern morals to a game based on a Medieval European world.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> But that's what the game attempts to do.  So, we make a European Knight character class that is the Champion of one God in a Pantheon of Gods.  But it doesn't change the moral conceits with which the class was based upon - unless you choose to, in which case it's now a Paladin only in name...in application, it's only a God's Champion with the morals and restrictions of that God.  The historical Paladin is an icon of a specific time and culture, one for which the class was originally designed to emulate.  No.  Classical as in the High Medieval and Late Medieval Literature upon which the class is based.  (Arthur's Knights from Mallory's le Morte d'Arthur, Charlemagne's Paladins from Taillefer's Song of Roland, etc. - basically the European myths and stories collected in Bullfinch's Mythology)  How did I hurt my own argument?  I referenced it because you said people were inserting things that weren't there.  Which isn't correct.  The Code of Chivalry (that list) is the conceit upon which the class, and the code, was based.  The class has changed a bit through the editions, but that underlying spirit has always been there.  One can't insert something that already exists within it. Although I don't normally like to use Wikipedia as a source, in this instance I am because I just don't feel like digging out the quotes and references from the actual D&D books right now.  I'm afraid I'm just a bit tired and lazy tonight.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" />    Absolutely.  The code used (whichever code used) should just be a guideline for roleplaying the character.  Not a stick by which the DM beats the player into compliance.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

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