[Intellectual challenge] Justify a paladin being a member of a thieves' guild

[I'm A Banana]

Paladins can do anything that their Gods approve of. Anything. If the Deity agrees your decision is just, then it is.

Thats the beauty of being a Divine Being.

Thats my interpretation of the overlooked aspect of being a Paladin

This runs against the RAW, but I'm sure it's fun to play.

I like the paladin being elite, myself.

 

[Seeten]

How could you fall, if your God doesn't withdraw your grace?

 

[Janx]

As a DM, I'm less concerned abou the "legitimate authority" limitation. That can be rationalized one way or the other. And in fact, a good DM may allow some latitude in attitude, if he is to get a party together that isn't trying to kill each other or refuse to work together.

From the SRD, I glean the following behavior rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/paladin.htm):
must be of lawful good alignment
respect legitimate authority
act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth)
help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends)
punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment
never knowingly associate with evil characters
discontinue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code
may only accept henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good

So to sum up, the paladin can't hang out with evil people, or do evil things. Therefore, the members of the Guild can't be evil, and they can't do evil things. The Paladin won't be able to help with some less honorable tasks (stealing or swindling).

The paladin might be able to act as a highwayman (Stop villain! Surrender your money or face my steel in combat). But anymore than that might be pushing the limits of the code of conduct too far.

Played strictly, a Paladin will have a hard time playing with any party that isn't deliberately designed to work with the paladin. And that restricts other players fun (and I'm all for players making PCs that can work together, but when somebody says "I wanna be a paladin", everybody else has gotta fall in line and that's rather unfair).

Let's get back to the OP, however.

Here's the ideas I've seen so far in this thread:
corrupt government, paladin finds unlikely allies
honor debt to a rogue/guild
paladin is fed info to work against guild's enemies
honorary membership in guild due to past good deed


Here's some others:
paladin is forced to work for guild (threatened, magically induced)
paladin is sent as liason to guild for some cooperative project (has to tolerate them because of orders and specificity of the mission)
rival guild which is more bloodthirsty than 1st guild is setting up in town, paladin needs help, so he forms a truce with 1st guild)

 

[I'm A Banana]

How could you fall, if your God doesn't withdraw your grace?

Paladins, by the RAW, don't give a twig about deities. The Code. An Alignment. Nothing else necessary.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I was contemplating the Merry Men myself when I posed the question. I don't think a paladin could justify joining the MM as written. Prince John and the Sheriff, while bastards, were the legitimate authority at the time, and a paladin is supposed to work within the system to change the behavior of legitimate authorities (or at least to try that first, before taking to more extreme measures).

If, however, you had a similar situation in a conquered/occupied nation, where the leadership wasn't legit, and if the guild focused on robbing members/supporters of the regime to support a resistance, I think the paladin could easily justify being a part of that.

You're dead on about this! - The best example would be the knights that went with Richard on crusade and then re-established control after he returned. The assumption is that all of the "Paladins" went with Richard, so those that were left behind were not quite so...'Princely' (sorry, I couldn't help myself)

 

[painandgreed]

I'd say that a paladin could end up with a Merry Men sort of situation. There's not that much difference between sitting out in the woods and attacking evil nobles that surround you and taking their stuff, than there is venturing with a party into another evil country, attacking their evil nobles and taking their stuff. The difference between what the Merry Men did and what an adventuring party does is fairly trivial. So long as the theives aren't evil, he doesn't preform any evil actions, he's fairly in the clear. They'd leave the good and virtuous nobles alone, raid the evil ones and the ones that profit due to the evil policies of the current head of state, help the peasants, and otherwise seek to uphold how the true, good king would want things done. Once the good king was back, things were made right, then I couldn't see a paladin continuing to do so, nor too many that the paladin might assiociate with.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I was enjoying my cookie, but Kamikaze Midget had to point out my lapses of clarity

In my interpretation of the paladin's code...

Paladins CANNOT compromise for expedience. They can't use poison or associate with evil. Not just "unless forced to." But they CAN NOT.

It is one of the many things that makes a Paladin MORE than just Lawful Good. They hold themselves to very high standards of behavior that are absolutely inviolate.

Or, if they do violate 'em, they're on the slow fall to losing their Paladin status.

I was pretty careful about all this. He didn't associate with them right off the bat, he just didn't report them. (I probably could have been clearer on that segment)

Once he saw the power inherent in association, he elected to associate. BUT... he attached rules vis a vis who would be allowed in the organization, and took steps (relatively subtle for a paladin, perhaps) to keep everyone's behavior in line. Luckily for him, I supplied him with a "Pragmatic Good" fellow to handle the messy details like potential stool pigeons, but by the RAW, I don't even need to do that. I could have him execute every evil person in the guild, by the RAW. But that doesn't square with MY interpretation of paladins, so I gave him some help.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it doesn't require much fudging (if any) to fit the RAW.

 

[haakon1]

Answer 1: La resistance!

The paladin is a member of a good or neutral thieves' guild in an evil land. The thieves' guild is the one hope of the downtrodden people against the oppressive rulers.

See: Robin Hood, The Legend of Zorro

-----------------------------------------------------

Answer 2: The Company

The paladin is a member of a thieves' guild that protects a good society, by controlling the sewers and the rest of the underbelly. If the paladins control the underworld, nothing really bad can happen.

See: Any complicated CIA or mafia-infiltrator movie

 

[Klaus]

Nit-pick incoming...

Richard left Longechamps (sp?) as regent. Depending on your source material, John kicked the lawfully appointed regent out (or killed him) to take charge. John was definitely NOT lawful authority in most versions.

The version I remember had Richard leaving his mother as the regent, and John usurped the throne and refused to pay for Richard's ransom (he was captured when returning from the Crusade).

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

The version I remember had Richard leaving his mother as the regent, and John usurped the throne and refused to pay for Richard's ransom (he was captured when returning from the Crusade).

The historical record only muddies the waters, naturally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_the_lionheart