D&D General Holding non-Paladins to their class vows

[Blue]

In the recent discussions about Paladins and their oaths, @Oofta pointed out correctly that there are many other devotional classes. How often do as a DM do you take players of other classes to task for not following their devotions, up to and including taking features or spells from them until they atone?

 

[Oofta]

I'd be surprised if anyone took away features from a divine class or warlock, I've only had to deal with a paladin violating their oath once over many years of play.

 

[GameOgre]

I have done it but with a lighter hand. If your a cleric of the God of Strife and War and you promote peace or Follow the Goddess of peace and butcher whatever crosses your path.....you Deity isn't going to stay happy with you. That said"It's a game". I give the players a lot of leeway and when it does come time to really start to mess with class abilities I try and give them choices and opportunities.

Warlocks however, I mess with freely. Warlock in my games comes with a lot of extra bossing around for most patrons. They require stuff on a regular bases....shrug.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Celebrim]

In the recent discussions about Paladins and their oaths, @Oofta pointed out correctly that there are many other devotional classes. How often do as a DM do you take players of other classes to task for not following their devotions, up to and including taking features or spells from them until they atone?

In my most recent campaign, which at this point has spanned like a decade, it is not the 'Paladin' that has had a hard time keeping up with their oaths and maintaining their moral purity. The class that has most often found itself in need to atone for failings is the Shaman, a class based off of the Green Ronin Shaman from their 'Shaman's Handbook'. This is because the Shaman's oath is based more on a letter of the law agreement not to violate specific taboos, and accidental violation of those taboos is reasonably common, leading to regular needs to apologize to the spirits and atone.

In general, I can't recall ever having a Paladin willfully violate an oath in any game I ran or was a player in, nor can I recall a cleric willfully violating the tenants of their deity. Fundamentally, it's not a problem I suspect if the following are true:

a) The player is sincerely committed to playing out the strictures of his chosen character, and doesn't in fact view those strictures as some sort of disadvantage on the class to avoid and metagame his way around. If the player sees the RP requirements of the class as some sort of disadvantage, then I'd strongly discourage the player from playing the class.
b) The DM is not actively trying to put the paladin in no win, gotcha situations. It's quite possible that a Paladin could find himself in a situation where the only way he could keep the code is death, but if you aren't actually trying to contrive that situation IME it would rarely come up and the sort of player that can play the class well would probably see it as a "good death". However, I have heard of GMs that so dislike the very notion of Paladins, that they play with a sort of "The GM is Satan" stance, where they endeavor to prove that good is stupid, evil is smart, that life is pain, that the only hope is to be ruthless, and that it's perfectly realistic for anyone trying to be good to be just smashed by the reality of the impossibility of good. I know that these GMs are out there because I occasionally get players that are refugees from those tables, who expect me to essentially be a jerk and metagame against them at every opportunity, and the only way to be successful while playing D&D is to be a ruthless bastard that the DM can't get any sort of edge on.

But if the DM is not trying to prove anything, and the player is sincerely trying to live up to the code and do the right thing, I think table issues around loss of paladin status will be vanishingly rare.

 

[Oofta]

There is nothing more satisfying than watching a metal-clad Druid explode.

I love the smell of organic locally sourced napalm in the morning.

 

[Salthorae]

I'd be surprised if anyone took away features from a divine class or warlock, I've only had to deal with a paladin violating their oath once over many years of play.

Well, the poll says otherwise for now!

Back in 2nd Edition I saw Druids losing abilities for violations.

I've never taken away Druid abilities, but I've had situations where Clerics and Warlock players IC acted against the gods/patrons who they made their pact with originally.

Though for Warlocks, I've never "taken away" abilities, but I have said that their patron isn't teaching them anything new until they get right with them in whatever way.

Clerics for me are bigger than Paladins even for making sure that their actions are in alignment with their deities portfolio/alignment/dogma. There are a plethora of gods to choose from, find one who fits the character concept and do it. It is surprising how often players just ignore the whole "I get my powers from a god and they have ideas about ways to act" thing in games I've been in.

If not, they lose some things.... like Channel Divinity. Can't do that if you and your Divinity aren't on the same page in my book. Also Divine Intervention, and higher-level spells.

"Punishment" usually starts off small (maybe 1 channel divinity/day decreased, and escalates if the player/PC either continues down their path or takes no action to ask "why is this happening to me [Insert X god here]?" It all depends on the PC's level, the degree of their "transgression" against their god, etc.

In my games, there is no "following a philosophy" to gain divine power. You have to worship a deity. I allow for some NPC's who claim to follow no gods to have divine powers, but they are definitely getting their powers from an evil deity or fiend for some nefarious purpose!

There are also powers and other faiths who like to pounce on high-level clerics or paladins who are wavering in their faith or devotion, to try to lure them to their side. Leads to some fun RP potentials.

 

[Blue]

@Celebrim , thanks for the information about the Shaman and their taboos. As 3rd party I didn't have a poll option for it, but it's interesting to see where it does come into play. One of the points I brought up in the the paladin discussison was about how having defined Oaths vs. vague fluff descriptions was part of what made the paladin more "open" to violations. Your example with the shaman's taboos is a great example of that.

I'd like to leave the paladin part of the discussion in the (multiple) threads) discussing that and not pull this thread into paladin-oaths as well, so I'm not going to comment on that here.

 

[Blue]

There are also powers and other faiths who like to pounce on high-level clerics or paladins who are wavering in their faith or devotion, to try to lure them to their side. Leads to some fun RP potentials.

I just have the picture of a failing mid-level paladin accepting the offer of one of the Powers and the player (with DM approval) relevelling them as a warlock, perhaps keeping the starting 1-2 levels of paladin (the pre-Oath levels).

(In superhero RPG terms my group would call this a "radiation accident", where someone's powers get a full rewrite, but there's no fantasy trope equivalent coming to mind.)

 

[Oofta]

Well, the poll says otherwise for now!

Thanks for proving me wrong!

 

[LordEntrails]

Well, the poll says otherwise for now

Yea, but the poll is poorly worded if that is the conclusion you want to draw from it.

 

[Salthorae]

Yea, but the poll is poorly worded if that is the conclusion you want to draw from it.

Well, I didn't make the poll, but how is it worded poorly? The question is: Do you discipline/take powers for not following devotions/oaths/whatever. Then there is a list of options for classes that have powers taken from them by people who have responded to the poll.

The only thing I could see is an "I don't take them from anyone" option, but that is up to Blue if he wants to get that kind of response on his poll or not.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Why Paladins are so code bound and not clerics always seemed dodgy to me.

 

[Celebrim]

@Celebrim , thanks for the information about the Shaman and their taboos. As 3rd party I didn't have a poll option for it, but it's interesting to see where it does come into play. One of the points I brought up in the the paladin discussison was about how having defined Oaths vs. vague fluff descriptions was part of what made the paladin more "open" to violations. Your example with the shaman's taboos is a great example of that.

Yeah, it's always harder to follow a code precisely than vague guidelines, simply because it's easier to see when you're off the path. When you have vague guidelines and axioms to follow, it's by design open to some interpretation and not as open (or open at all) to external review. Basically, only the character can know when they've broken their own internal code in some places and betrayed themselves, and there are few exceptions to that - all of which are pretty easy to keep for a player whose primary motivation is advancing their character.

But when you are sworn to something external that can judge you, it gets a lot harder because everyone can see when you failed as a mostly objective fact.

I don't actually have 'Paladins' any more in my game, though you'd be welcome to play one that is more or less exactly that. I have a homebrew class called 'Champion' which works for any alignment or any combination of beliefs, which in the class are called 'portfolios'. The current Champion in my group is the Champion of a deity called Aravar, whose is the god of travelers and in particular in his role of guardian of travelers is the god charged with protecting souls of the dead on their journey to their afterlife. So when the player created the character, we worked out like 5 things that Aravar would absolutely require of his mortal representative, which are things like - "Always provide protection to travelers.", "Never refuse hospitality to a traveler.", "Always see that the dead are respected and properly interned.", etc., along with a general prescription that alignment could not stray from Aravar's alignment of LG. No doing any thing that is obviously chaotic evil in result or motive. And so yeah, every time they kill someone, he's got to stop afterward and do his RIP thing, and provide for a proper burial. The thing is, it's not really a burden for this player, because honestly he is Lawful Good. He's more or less incapable of playing a character that isn't putting the considerations of others before himself, striving to establish justice in the world, taking on other peoples burdens as his own, and protecting the innocent.

 

[Celebrim]

Why Paladins are so code bound and not clerics always seemed dodgy to me.

It's because clerics are so diverse but originally Paladins were all the same. Any cleric oath right from the start would have been a negotiated thing between the player and the DM. So mechanically that's always been treated at least officially as just, "have to maintain your alignment strictly".

In practice, over the years, there has been a lot of attempt to make religion more interesting, some of which are well conceived and some of which aren't.

The cleric in my campaign currently is a cleric of Showna the goddess of the Sun, and so aside from needing to stay mostly Neutral Good, the cleric generally is expected to advance Showna's interests and be a "light" in the world. Right when we put the campaign on hold, things were reaching a point where the cleric and paladin and the shaman were about to come to difficulties with each other - both because I'm currently tracking the Shaman's alignment as CE and the Shaman has just entered into a bargain with a decidedly unclean spirit (ironically, to save the life of the Champion). So I'll be curious to see how all parties react to this when we get back to the game, as we're going to I suspect get into a situation where something will have to give.

If it does, I'll probably resort to fiat to give options to keep the game going.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I am a strong believer in anything the PC's can do that can cause celestials, fiends, elementals, fey, or aberrations to have a beef with the party. So go ahead, devotion paladin, burn down that orphanage, and the druid can clear cut a forest for a textile mill (because the PC was a dwarf and "the nature of dwarves is to love gold", so anything that got the dwarf gold was "revering nature").

Don't be too shocked when something comes along and is mad at you. I figure you can get xp and gold from an angry angel the same as anything else.

 

[Celebrim]

Don't be too shocked when something comes along and is mad at you. I figure you can get xp and gold from an angry angel the same as anything else.

Sure, but does this angry angel keep having to deliver your spells to you every day?

 

[Blue]

The only thing I could see is an "I don't take them from anyone" option, but that is up to Blue if he wants to get that kind of response on his poll or not.

Well, I don't think that the poll is worded poorly, but in fairness, there should be an option for "No" or "I don't take them from anyone" to give you a baseline to compare the affirmative answers to.

It's not that the poll is worded poorly, it's that it's hard to understand the results without an extra response category.

I see what you are saying and agree. I was thinking that since it's multichoice that people just don't click - but there's no record of that. I've added it now, but there are probably people who have read the poll, clicked nothing and won't be back. It looks like 9 people responding so far, so it's still pretty early.

 

[Blue]

I see the lowest example is currently Monks. Anyone want to share an actual play issue where they had to discipline a monk for not following their vows or devotion?