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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StupidSmurf" data-source="post: 2593722" data-attributes="member: 35893">Good response! Well, mercy and kindness are "good" qualities, and if a paladin embraces all that is good, then mercy and kindness can, mind you, CAN be a part of his/her repertoire. It can also be a matter of degrees. Maybe all paladins favor the idea of healing the sick and feeding the poor, but for some, it may be less of a priority, or there's less interest in going out of his/her way to accomplish it.I once read a nifty little anecdote about the difference between justice and mercy. A murderer was caught, jailed, and tried. His guilt was iron-clad. At the end of the trial, the judge passed sentence: "Death!". The murderer responded "Please! Spare my life! I want justice!" To which the judge replied, "Justice you've been given. What you're really asking for is mercy."With justice, you get what's coming to you as dictated by the law. With mercy, you are spared something unpleasant regardless of whether you actually deserve/earned it or not. But again, "mercy" is not something limited to a combat situation. The word has also been used in the context of "Help me, even though you have no obligation or need to do so!"And as it happens, I run a Forgotten Realms campaign so I understand precisely what you're talking about. But let's take Tyr, for example. OK, big god type...heavy-duty justice being, the whole "Though shalt not get away with it" mentality. Great. However, read his description in Faiths and Pantheons, and you see he has a tender side. Now, much in the same way as clerics choose which domains of their patron god they wish to emphasize, it could be argued that a paladin could choose to emulate a certain aspect of his god over others.For instance, let's take Ilmater. Member of the Triad. Buddy of Tyr. Lawful Good god of suffering, and not prone to violent behavior. You could have an Ilmarian paladin that spends several hours a day walking the streets of the worst section of town, healing lepers, dressing wounds, giving out alms to the poor. Maybe he even volunteers at the local house of healing and does everything from tend to wounds to emptying chamberpots or folding bandages. But, and the description of Ilmater backs this up, that same Paladin could see some nasty evil warrior bullying some poor defenseless types, and  so the holy warrior goes over and "kicks arse for the Lord", if you get my meaning.  <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=";)" /> Man, I love discussions like this  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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