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Does evil mean Evil? Is a paladin free to act against evil?
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<blockquote data-quote="Aristotle" data-source="post: 1556448" data-attributes="member: 5885"><p>The people that <strong>Al</strong> is describing are evil by the way I interpret the rules. By the interpretation I'm seeing the smiters give they are saying that evil alignments are much rarer than what the books seem to indicate to me. I guess thats why so many people have said 'Run it to your preference so long as your group knows where you stand and they are okay with your interpretation'.</p><p></p><p>I don't like the psych argument about how evil people can find good outlets for their darker desires and therefore they are not evil. I don't think the rules really imply those sorts of situations, nor do I think this argument should hinge on things one would require a psych degree to know anything about. That would leave quite a few of us out of luck when trying to interpret the rules.</p><p></p><p>If I described the "evil headsman" and the "good headsman" to my players they would quickly agree that the one was bad and the other one was good. If one of the players was a paladin he may dislike the bad one and respect the good one, but he wouldn't kill the bad one because he hasn't done anything legally wrong. Even though his moral reasons for doing what he does remain sinister.</p><p></p><p>Once again I think the line that is getting blurred. This isn't an issue of good and evil so much as one of law and chaos (the paladin would consider both aspects of his alignment equally important). In my opinion the evil headsman has not found a way to channel his truly evil desires into a "good" thing. His desires are *still* evil... He has just found a legal way to sate them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aristotle, post: 1556448, member: 5885"] The people that [b]Al[/b] is describing are evil by the way I interpret the rules. By the interpretation I'm seeing the smiters give they are saying that evil alignments are much rarer than what the books seem to indicate to me. I guess thats why so many people have said 'Run it to your preference so long as your group knows where you stand and they are okay with your interpretation'. I don't like the psych argument about how evil people can find good outlets for their darker desires and therefore they are not evil. I don't think the rules really imply those sorts of situations, nor do I think this argument should hinge on things one would require a psych degree to know anything about. That would leave quite a few of us out of luck when trying to interpret the rules. If I described the "evil headsman" and the "good headsman" to my players they would quickly agree that the one was bad and the other one was good. If one of the players was a paladin he may dislike the bad one and respect the good one, but he wouldn't kill the bad one because he hasn't done anything legally wrong. Even though his moral reasons for doing what he does remain sinister. Once again I think the line that is getting blurred. This isn't an issue of good and evil so much as one of law and chaos (the paladin would consider both aspects of his alignment equally important). In my opinion the evil headsman has not found a way to channel his truly evil desires into a "good" thing. His desires are *still* evil... He has just found a legal way to sate them. [/QUOTE]
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