Does evil mean Evil? Is a paladin free to act against evil?

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Allow me to share a story...

In the woods, late at night, a low level group of adventurers is attacked. The paladin (me) turns on her evil-dar and searches in the darkness for the pings... soon enough, she notes that, not more than 30 feet away, there is evil...
walking over to it, she promptly smites it... smiles for a brief moment, thinking to herself "serves you right you evil, jerk!"

However, the momentary feeling of happiness is overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of dispare and deep regret... she feels empty, alone, and lacking in the powers she once possessed... Yes, indeed, she had lost her paladin abilities.

It was not until later that she learned that the evil she had killed happened to be a starving ninja that was just trying to get some food. Being a young and inexperienced Paladin, she was unsure of how to handle the situation... and dealt with it the only way the somewhat overzealous girl could think--stomp it out.

The Paladin is not at all obligated to kill kill kill evil. The rules specify distinct auras for different types of evil--strong, weak, etc for a reason... a Paladin must learn to tell the difference and know when it is right to act on the impulse to kill kill kil... and THEN stop out the evil.

Additionally, I would totally disagree that The Book of Exalted Deeds is the Paladin's handbook... Granted that could be the fact that my DM holds very very strict rules for those that are/wish to become exalted. In our game, it is not at all presented as a book specifically for characters with a divine calling... simply the best of the best... the goodest of the goodest, so to speak. In many cases, it is almost harder for the paladin to become exalted because it is their duty to seek out evil and do with it as (s)he will. If the character does not live up to the VERY strict standards set up by the DM, the character cannot access anything from the Book of Exalted Deeds... and cannot replace those abilities, feats, spells, or domains with anything else. They must spend months and months attoning for the sins they committed. It is a much stricter code than that of most Paladins that I have played/seen played/seen enforced... going above and beyond the responsibilities and obligations of the "good" character to an extreme... I've got the actual document around here somewhere that spells out the requirements for being "exalted" in the game... if anyone's interested, I'd be glad to share it...
Just comes down to this, bloodlust is not exalted. The Paladin has a tendency, possibly more than any other character class, to lust for the blood of their enemies and, as such, I have found it incredibly difficult to maintain any semblance of the "exalted" descriptor.

Does anyone else use the "Good Book" in this fashion? Or can your good characters simply utilize the spells and abilities in it freely?

 

[Umbran]

Many seven-year-olds are evil, yet it is generally bad for Paladins to kill them.

The rules state that creatures incapable of moral action are all neutral. To a certain extent, a child is not capable of understanding the repercussions of his or her actions, and is therefore not capable of making moral judgements, and so will tend to be neutral, even if a person capable of such judgement would call their actions evil if they were done by an adult.

I mean, living with kids is rather like living with a pack of wolves, right?

 

[Sejs]

I mean, living with kids is rather like living with a pack of wolves, right?

Nah, wolves are known to clean up after themselves from time to time.

 

[Kalanyr]

Yep. 3.5 PHB, pg 104:

"For other creatures, races, and classes, the indicated alignment on Table 6-1 is the typical or most common one."

Table 6-1 lists Humans under Neutral.



Looks like we are told both. I personally hold to the idea that the tables in the section that defines alignments trump flavor text in the racial descriptions. In addition, the descriptions of neutral folk in the "Good vs Evil" and "Law vs Chaos" sound like John Q Public commoner to me. YMMV.

Ouch, Okay so humans are mainly neutral AND evenly spread. Seems like the designers disagreed on some points.

The bell curve with mainly neutral makes more sense to me though admittedly ,not to mention otherwise 1/3 of all humans are villains willing to kill and degrade (by the roleplaying chapter) which is patently ridiculous. I guess seperate people wrote the chapters.

 

[takyris]

Allow me to share a story...

In the woods, late at night, a low level group of adventurers is attacked. The paladin (me) turns on her evil-dar and searches in the darkness for the pings... soon enough, she notes that, not more than 30 feet away, there is evil...
walking over to it, she promptly smites it... smiles for a brief moment, thinking to herself "serves you right you evil, jerk!"

Good on ya. You were attacked. You saw evil, and it was attacking you. An evil thing was attacking you. Smiting it is all good.

However, the momentary feeling of happiness is overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of dispare and deep regret... she feels empty, alone, and lacking in the powers she once possessed... Yes, indeed, she had lost her paladin abilities.

It was not until later that she learned that the evil she had killed happened to be a starving ninja that was just trying to get some food. Being a young and inexperienced Paladin, she was unsure of how to handle the situation... and dealt with it the only way the somewhat overzealous girl could think--stomp it out.

Bull. Your DM was high. It doesn't matter if the ninja was starving and trying to get food. The ninja was evil, and he attacked you. By the book, that ninja is either the cleric of an evil deity, as twenty consecutive people have mentioned (Yeah, guys, read the earlier posts, we get it), or else he either enjoys the pain of innocents or has no problem inflicting pain on innocents to get what he wants. If this were a starving Mind Flayer, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Evil Ninja had an opportunity for growth. He had a chance to say, "Wow, this evil thing hasn't worked out for me. I'm starving and poor and I have no friends and when I die, I'm gonna spend a thousand years as a lemure before I get back in the game. Maybe I should ask someone for food humbly. Maybe I should throw myself on their mercy. Maybe I should ask to be arrested and tried for my past crimes, if only they feed me and give me a blanket."

But what did he do? He decided that the best solution was to attack innocent people. Evil. Smite away, ma'am.

The Paladin is not at all obligated to kill kill kill evil. The rules specify distinct auras for different types of evil--strong, weak, etc for a reason... a Paladin must learn to tell the difference and know when it is right to act on the impulse to kill kill kil... and THEN stop out the evil.

The paladin isn't obligated to wear armor or turn undead, either, but he gets those feats and abilities for a reason. The paladin has heavy armor proficiency and a fighter-type BAB and martial weapon proficiency. He's not a daisy-sniffing pacifist who takes that -4 to do subdual damage all the time (although a paladin with a sap isn't a bad idea).

You were attacked by something evil. Even if it's weak evil, that means it could be a decent-level fighter or rogue. By the books, this is not Jean Valjean we're dealing with. The bread-stealing might've been the reason he attacked you, but judging by his class, he's attacked others for money, for enjoyment, for tests of his skill, or because his masters were testing him. He's killed innocent people.

No, if this were the real world, I wouldn't be advocating this -- but if this were the real world, you wouldn't have Detect Evil, either. You'd have to judge for yourself whether the person trying to end your life were worthy of taking the extra risk to subdue them without killing them. As a martial artist, I've got multiple techniques that deal with knife or gun attacks (pre-emptive note: if handing over your wallet or running is an option, that's by far the best one). Some of them result in a stunned attacker. Some of them result in a dead attacker (knife ends up in their throat, gun could very well fire back into their face during the wrist flex that removes it from their hands, etc). This is something I've thought about -- if I'm being threatened with deadly injury by someone with a lethal weapon, and I have to fight (because my wife is also being threatened, because escape is not an option, because I think they're going to kill me anyway, etc), how much am I willing to risk to save this person's life?

And what it comes down to, most of the time, is:

1) This guy might have had a horrible life. His parents probably didn't love him. He didn't have role models. In this society, there's a good chance that this guy never really had a chance.
2) That said, I've got just as much right to live as he does, and I'm not the pinhead who started it.

So... if it's a shaky guy who's obviously terrified, and this is just a cry for help, then I'll risk something to avoid killing him. But if this guy looks competent, then I will mourn his death and live with it for the rest of my life... but I will to my utmost to live with it. (And note again, really, even if you have good techniques, the best one is to throw your wallet up into the air and then run like heck while they take their eyes off you.)

And I don't even have Detect Evil to let me know whether this is a poor desperate soul or a cold, calculating killer.

 

[Kalanyr]

All things considered the D&D rules are majorly conflicting:

a) 1/9th of all humans are of each alignment vs most humans are Neutral
b) Alignment is the sum of past actions and yet is also based on intent.
c) The strength of an evil aura tells you absolutely NOTHING about how evil something is, just how POWERFUL it is and due to the different categories gives a really bad estimate of that too.

Given this DMs basically have to make their own decisions whether paladins who smite on sight anyone detecting as evil are justified. Given taking a) as mainly neutral b) as intent and c) as Powerful a Paladin is justified in smiting anything with ANY aura of evil, OTOH modifying it so c) indicates the degree of evil something faintly evil is fairly easy to redeem and shouldn't be smitten. And a whole host of other variations. Sucks to be a paladin without getting the DMs view first.

 

[Silveras]

Does anyone else use the "Good Book" in this fashion? Or can your good characters simply utilize the spells and abilities in it freely?

It sounds like your DM is going a little overboard on access to material in the book.

Certainly, the Exalted feats require strict adherence to a moral code, much like a Paladin. Other material in the book, though, just requires that you be good, or nonevil.

Many of the spells have the [Good] descriptor. All that means, in game rule terms, is that Evil divine casters can't use them (although arcane can). Even Sanctified spells are available to Neutral characters, though Evil casters can't use them at all (arcane or divine).

Likewise, aside from the Exalted feats, there are a few that are .. well... generic. Spell Focus (Good) just requires you to be Good-aligned. Subduing Strike has NO requirements at all; a 1st level CE Rogue could take it. Note: Spell Focus (Good) is now also "in the mainstream" as part of Complete Divine, as is Consecrate Spell.

 

[ph0rk]

evil != hostility, imho at least; but of course it will vary by campaign.

I cannot imagine a world where paladins kill anything detecting as evil on sight, where said things detecting as evil don't kill all the paladins before they can walk.

(i.e., just kill everything that detects good - evil does tend to be more sneaky)

I'd also expect the paladin to be at least a -bit- honorable about the whole thing. No smiting unarmed combatants (unless they've just unleashed their monk skillz), etc.

 

[Elf Witch]

There are so many reasons why there will always be threads like this. People have different views of what they want out of a game if you want a simple black and white then by all means go and smite away but if you want a deeper game then detecting evil=smites is not as much fun.

I have been watching the first season of Xena and I was thinking about this if a paladin read her before she changed I am sure that she would have radiated a strong evil so if he just smited her he would have taken an evil warlord out of the world but as we know Xena had it in her to be redeemed and become a strong force for good.

Trying to allow someone a chance to redeem themselves seems a much better goal for a paladin than to just kill and kill. I would also like to point out that there are spells that change alignment what if this person has had it cast on them? The paladin comes across detects evil then kills an innocent person. A paladin should be wise enough to know that it might be a good idea to investigate rather than just charge in sword swinging. Follow the guy see what he is up to you might actually accomplish more good by doing so because you uncover a plot to bring a great evil into the world and you now have a chance to stop it. If you kill him and go on your way you then have no idea that a group of evil doers have something bad planned.

Pladins are supposed to be champions of good and fight evil it just dosen't seem very productive to just kill evil beings without finding out what they are up to first.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Ouch, Okay so humans are mainly neutral AND evenly spread. Seems like the designers disagreed on some points.

Quite possibly. However, I think there's enough information to conclude that none of the designers though evil to be a particularly rare part of the human condition. Often neutral, evenly distributed, 01-50 evil (LE, NE, or CE), whatever. In any of these models, a significant minority of a typical population group will be some kind of evil alignment. A population that was 12%-20% evil would be as much as could be reasonably expected under any of these models. (Of course, there would be a massive difference between an area with a 12% evil population and one with even a 20% evil population, let alone a 50% evil population, but then again, in D&D, there's usually a big difference between the Furyondy and the Bandit Kingdoms of any campaign world).

The bell curve with mainly neutral makes more sense to me though admittedly ,not to mention otherwise 1/3 of all humans are villains willing to kill and degrade (by the roleplaying chapter) which is patently ridiculous. I guess seperate people wrote the chapters.

While I agree that the bell curve makes sense. However, I think that with the descriptions I gave in my previous post, and a tiny smidgin of historical knowledge, I don't think the idea that 1/3 of all humans are willing to kill or degrade other people and would probably enjoy it is patently ridiculous. If anything, the figure is too low.

You'd be hard pressed to find many people groups that haven't been involved in some kind of ethnic cleansing, purge, or genocide in the past 70 years. There are a lot of sociological and psychological experiments (the Stanford Prison experiment is probably the most well known) that seem to indicate that, given the appropriate environment and the opportunity to do so without punishment most people will behave in a manner corresponding to the PHB's description of evil. That shouldn't surprise students of history or anyone else. At the moment, westerners are fortunate enough to live in an unusually just (by historical standards) and free society where institutions of law and a historically religious culture have pressed most of us into a mold that enables us to live together in a reasonably humane and comfortable way. That, however, is the exception rather than the rule of human community. (And, given the direction our cultures have taken over the past half-century or so, is extremely unlikely to last).