Dm:ing a paladin?

[moritheil]

Well now, let's say that the demonic merchant is operating under a "legitimate, goodness-sanctioned authority", where it is illegal to simply slay someone on the street (no matter who they are). Undoubtedly, the merchant will be up to no good, but according to the code you must both respect "legitimate, goodness-sanctioned authority" and slay evil on the spot.

So what's a Paladin to do?

Then he's screwed. Either way he would be censured by his order, and you, the DM, have put him into a classic no-win situation. His player may complain, and rightly so.

 

[LostSoul]

My main concern is that I´ve never dm:ed a paladin before, neither have I played one.
What should I look out for? Any advice how I should prepare myself for this?
We are playing 3.5 with alignments as usual.One more thing: all players are long time friends.

I had a paladin once. Whenever there was ever some kind of moral dillema that came up in the game, I asked the player what he thought should happen. If he was okay with keeping his powers, then everything was okay by me.

That whole "code" is just flavour text, and it's not meant to balance the paladin with the other classes. If you are someone who wants to play a (the set of rules & stats that we call a) paladin without its code, fine with me.

If you want to play with the code, I'll let you define and decide how it works. Because I don't want anyone to play a character they don't really want to. And if I tell you that you either have to have these beliefs (and stick to them) or you become a warrior... that's not good in my book.

 

[FireLance]

A bit of advice from Magic of Incarnum for DMs of Incandescent Champions (a PrC) which I think applies very much to DMs of paladins as well:

"If a character in your campaign has chosen the path of the incandescent champion, make sure you give her the opportunity to resolve some problems through faith, trust, and goodwill. After all, if every foe whose life she spares repays her efforts by murdering townsfolk a few days later, you merely demonstrate to her that compassion and redemption have no place in your game.

Similarly, if she calls on foes to surrender but begins every fight flat-footed because the enemy shoots instead of talks, she's likely to wonder why she bothered with the prestige class. An incandescent champion is ultimately a warrior, so make sure you give her plenty of opponents that she can defeat with courage and swordplay, but don't punish her for attempting to show mercy and be compassionate."

 

[IcyCool]

Then he's screwed. Either way he would be censured by his order, and you, the DM, have put him into a classic no-win situation. His player may complain, and rightly so.

So according to the Farland Paladin Code, the entire Planescape setting (or at least Sigil) pretty much means no Paladins?

Edit - That's a shame, because the Farland code seemed pretty cool too.

 

[moritheil]

So according to the Farland Paladin Code, the entire Planescape setting (or at least Sigil) pretty much means no Paladins?

Edit - That's a shame, because the Farland code seemed pretty cool too.

If you read it as necessitating immediate military action upon every encounter with an evil alignment, I cannot see such a paladin not getting kicked out of Sigil one way or another with astounding speed.

 

[IcyCool]

If you read it as necessitating immediate military action upon every encounter with an evil alignment, I cannot see such a paladin not getting kicked out of Sigil one way or another with astounding speed.

So what would you throw in there to make the paladin a non "detect and smite"?

 

[Bront]

I never understood the whole "Keep the Paladin in line!" thing. I've never had nor played a paladin as the type who slaughters evil just because he found it. The evil begger who is not beyond picking a pocket is not to be slain by the Paladin just because.

A paladin is a rightious crusader of justice, and a religious becon of good and law (Or other philosophies if you use the UA alternates, which I like as well). Should a paladin be more upholding to the principles of Law and Good? Yes. But should a Paladin be such a goodie two shoes that he can't function normaly in society? No.

Examples:
Party needs to lie to gain entrance to a city. Paladin doesn't wish to lie, so he simply remains silent, neither confirming nor denying the lie if possable. Not a breach in any way, but the paladin still stands up for what he believes in.

The Party tracks down a murderer. The Paladin insists the man gets a fair trial because that is what is fair, but later strikes him down when the man attacks him while walking back. No breach, and the Paladin stood up for what is good and right, even if he knew the man was guilty.

The paladin does business with a merchant, that later turns out to be evil or uses the money for an evil purpose. The paladin did nothing wrong if there was no hint or reason to suspect the evil.

Some paladin codes are different than others. Discuss them with the player, but instead of looking for ways to trip up the Paladin's moral delema and get him in trouble, give him a way to use his convictions to do good, perhaps in situations where good would be hard to do otherwise.

Of course, I've never been a big stickler on allignment myself.

 

[moritheil]

So what would you throw in there to make the paladin a non "detect and smite"?

If I were running the campaign, and determined to make the code work?

The paladin does not have to take immediate action to slay the enemy. He cannot ignore his duty and at any point decide not to kill a demon, but he can spend months casing the shop, finding out what the guards' routines are, making friends amongst the Sigil factols (or whoever is in power if you play that the factions have been driven out), finding out who the demon's friends are, and otherwise positioning himself so that he can slay the entire nest of evil and hightail it out of town safely, or otherwise accomplish his objective without compromising himself (only because he is an asset to the War, you understand.) As long as he's actively working on the "kill the demon" project, I'd say he's actively fulfilling his paladin code.

Don't think that he has to lie, either - if asked about things by one of those factols, he'd state something like "If it were up to me, I'd drive all those demons out of Sigil, but for now, I'll abide by your rules." He'll come across as an honest and opinionated LG person, which he is.

 

[Farland]

If I were running the campaign, and determined to make the code work?

The paladin does not have to take immediate action to slay the enemy. He cannot ignore his duty and at any point decide not to kill a demon, but he can spend months casing the shop, finding out what the guards' routines are, making friends amongst the Sigil factols (or whoever is in power if you play that the factions have been driven out), finding out who the demon's friends are, and otherwise positioning himself so that he can slay the entire nest of evil and hightail it out of town safely, or otherwise accomplish his objective without compromising himself (only because he is an asset to the War, you understand.) As long as he's actively working on the "kill the demon" project, I'd say he's actively fulfilling his paladin code.

Don't think that he has to lie, either - if asked about things by one of those factols, he'd state something like "If it were up to me, I'd drive all those demons out of Sigil, but for now, I'll abide by your rules." He'll come across as an honest and opinionated LG person, which he is.

I wrote the code. Thanks for the compliments, and thanks for giving it such thought. I would say that Moritheil pretty much nailed my response. Paladins don't need to be mindless killing machines, nor do they need to be stupid, but they need to keep the "ontological war" in mind. That's my code, at least.

 

[sword-dancer]

Well now, let's say that the demonic merchant is operating under a "legitimate, goodness-sanctioned authority", where it is illegal to simply slay someone on the street (no matter who they are). Undoubtedly, the merchant will be up to no good, but according to the code you must both respect "legitimate, goodness-sanctioned authority" and slay evil on the spot.

So what's a Paladin to do?

Which legitimate goodness sanctioned authority with a quarter of a brain will knowingly license/legitimate demonic creature, als long as the authority isn`t sure it has abandonned his old ways?

I recommend using knowledge: Religion. So the paladin can compare "What Would Heronius Do", compared to "What Bahamut Would Do", compared to "What Would Orcus Do"

The only problem with that method is, that it didn`t work with paladins who aren`t faith trained but called from other ways.
Like A Maid from the farm, or a merc from the ranks.