Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Vaxalon]

Do you honeslty mean to tell me that there are NO situations where chosing the lesser of many evils is the only choice you have?

There are no situations in which one cannot do good. There are no situations in which all of the choices are to do evil, including doing evil by inaction.

If you respond to that one with "yes there are no situations like that" i'll have to sign off on this conversation with you. remember.. we are talking about an absolute morality universe, not this one we live in of realtive morality.

In both a world of absolute morality, AND in the real world, whether its morality is relative or not, there is ALWAYS a choice that does good. It may not be appealing, and it may not be easy, but it's always there.

Bombing Afghanastan saves innocent lives, but kills innocent lives = not bombing afghanastan saves innocent lives, but kills innocent lives.

Correction. Bombing Afghanistan into the stone age saves American soldier's lives. NOT bombing Afghanistan into the stone age saves innocent Afghani lives. Important distinction.

give me your options about what a paladin can do in such a situation.

The paladin would go in for the hard slog, and send in the infantry. Oh, and they'd all have to be volunteers. If you can't convince enough of your countrymen that the job needs to be done to get them to go, then you've got a more important "fight" at home.

Bombs don't really do much good when dealing with guerillas and their ilk. Eventually, you HAVE to go in on foot and do the hard work of figuring out who the bad guys are, and that means putting yourself at risk. You just can't do the job from a thousand feet up.

sorry to bring this up as it a touchy subject, but it is a relavent one. im not interested in the real afghanastan here, im just talkinga bout a pretend one..

Afghanistan is COMPLETELY irrelevant, and you could JUST have easily changed it to a more fantasy-oriented setting. In the future, please try to bring in fewer irrelevancies.

 

[jgbrowning]

There are no situations in which one cannot do good. There are no situations in which all of the choices are to do evil, including doing evil by inaction.

Well we dont have enough common ground to have a conversation then. Im sorry to have wasted your time.

take care,

joe b.

 

[Vaxalon]

Evil doesn't usually go to that much trouble when there's no real benefit to them? WHAT? what do you think LE is all about... Organized evil.... terrifying evil...

how would killing all the paladins NOT benefit them?

Because the effort that it would require would be very high, and the results it would achieve would be very low.

The good gods can always make more paladins, especially low-level paladins. And while you're busy trying to stamp them out, good wins other, more important battles.

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[Vaxalon]

Well we dont have enough common ground to have a conversation then. Im sorry to have wasted your time.

I'm not convinced of that.

What you seem to mean is that you can't find a fault in my argument to argue through.

Prove I'm wrong! If you believe that there ARE such situations, then present me with one!

 

[Theuderic]

Don't you guys think that you are acting just a little silly? You're scaring the straights guys, come on lol!

 

[jgbrowning]

Don't you guys think that you are acting just a little silly? You're scaring the straights guys, come on lol!

Well i hope it doesn't seem like im acting silly. I dont feel like it. Its just sad that if we could have just discovered the basic difference between us instead of dragging it on and on and on... in the begininning, it would have just been easier to say "lets just agree to dissagree"

I'm not trying to be mean or juvinile or anything like that is just that when i say something, i mean it. I cant discuss this subject when there is no mutual ground for discussion. I'm not angry or anything, far from it , i just dont think i should spend any more time on it.



joe b.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

If a Paladin wants to keep his Paladinhood, he or she will never choose to do an evil act over a good act. You are confusing making two difficult equally good choices with commiting an evil act by choosing one over the other.

A Paladin who does an evil act will no longer be a Paladin, nuff' said.

Paladin's nor real people are required to live by your moral relativist views Joe. I don't, and I never will. I know when I do something wrong, and I don't go telling people that I "did right" when I didn't. I don't delude myself into thinking an amoral act is "just my opinion on good and evil" or that I am serving the greater good. Such assertions are delusions that have rarely if ever applied.

I'm out of this thread as well. Should have stuck to a discussion of Paladins, not how moral absolutism doesn't exist in the real world. Folks who play this game should understand that the alignment system if applied to the real world would have very few good or lawful good people.

Very few people are moral extremists. Never have been, and never will be. Neutral is the predominant alignment in any society. Just like Joe is arguing. Moral relativists who don't pick a strong belief and stick by it.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Good post! but i have to disagree... all i ever do apparantly.

It happens to all of us, sooner or later. Especially if we happen to want to leave as many options open as possible.

Your right in that Paladins dont HAVE to have a diety, just like clerics dont, but if they do they have the same diety relationship as clerics do. ie. they get their spells from the diety.

Chapter and verse.

It is an assumption, but i dont think its too unreasonable..
"Paladins devoted to a god are scrupulous in observing religious duties and are welcome in every associated temple." Even both classes are described as "feeling a call" or "answering a call". I think its a reasonable assumption that under similair circumstances things work about the same.

They could be answering or feeling a call to divinity. They could be answering a call to fight evil. There are multiple explanations for what exactly they are "feeling".

The difference between the two classes is thus:

Clerics "devote" their lives to a single god.

Paladins "align" their lives besides gods who happen to share their interests.

Notice also the PHB description for Clerics:

PHB pg. 32---

Ex-Clerics
A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct expected by his god loses all spells and class features and cannot gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones.

The above description specifically mentions "god", whereas the Paladin description never mentions the word.

So, yep paladins dont have to worship gods, nor recieve their powers from them, but, IMHO they do have that option.

Yes, they may worship gods, but recieve no additional power for doing so, kinda like a LG Fighter who worships Pelor.

I repeat: Anything else is an assumption. Therefore a house rule.
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Additionally, the best reason I can think of to keep Paladin as a core class instead of a PrC:

Lawful Good characters are especially good at having a single, absolute, focused drive. Thus, they would be more likely to be single-classed.

Chaotic Good characters are especially good at seeing all sides of an argument and learning lots of different trades, and being, by definition, random. Thus they would more likely be Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue/Ranger/Holy Liberators.
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Besides, the Code of Conduct for a Paladin is not a straightjacket. It is strict, but not so binding that a Paladin is unable to function. Hence:

A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct...

1) Changing alignments takes awhile. Performing a few Chaotic actions does not automatically switch a character to CG or even NG.


2) Notice the word "grossly". This means "extremely". A few white lies are okay. Using sleep poison is okay (If not relied upon.) Not helping an innocent who is being trampled by a Red Dragon while you are level 1 is also okay. (Although you will swear revenge when you are prepared. A.k.a. L15 or so...)


3) The best example I can think of as a Paladin is not actually from literature or even remotely like a Paladin in substance:

Superman!

So what if Superman lies about his identity? He is the knight in shining armor. Sure, he's got a few flaws, but he is the champion for truth and justice and good. He has a single, focused determination to defeat lawlessness and evil.


4) Record of the Lodoss War. Parn. Lawful Good, and yet The Free Knight of Lodoss. Spark, the young and rash Paladin in training. Both attack the Grey Witch Karla when she sides with the Evil Necromancer who is going to resurrect the God of Chaos and War, even though she herself is TN and trying to keep the balance of power.

Is this evil? No.

Lawful Good Paladins thwart evil actions regardless of the "alignment" of the person who commits the act.

Those druids were performing an evil action (namely, letting the people die) regardless that they were TN.
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Anyway, I go back to my previous position:

Should the Paladin be abandoned as a core class?

No.
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Why?

I like it.

 

[Gez]

I'll just give my answer to the original question, regardless of all other things that have been developed in this thread.

IMC, I somewhat mimicked the FR in that I have specific paladin orders with their own quirks. In the FR, this only apply to multiclassing capacities, some paladin orders allow their paladin to progress in other classes and yet be able to continue progressing as paladin later.

I have expanded that a bit. Some paladin orders allow to detect chaos and evil, rather than simply evil. Some paladin orders give additional class skills. And one paladin order, the one of the True Paladin Deity, allow her paladin to be LG or NG, thus stressing that goodness is far more important than lawfulness.



As for having holy warriors for all alignments... I don't much agree. It's useless, a multiclass combination adequate to the deity fit better. With a same alignment, say, CE, the (un)holy warrior could be either a barbarian/cleric or a druid/rogue. Not much in common, actually.

In fact, even LG holy warriors are not always suited to be paladin.

There's already a divine champion PrC in the FRCS, that should be sufficient.

D&D adventurers are supposed to be heroes, and the paladin is the archetype of the True Hero. No problem with its existence.

 

[Piratecat]

The thread originator has asked that this be closed. So closed it goes!