Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
A Paladin would not be the King's executioner
It might be legal to execute a forger but it's unlikely that a Paladin would agree to do so.
Why not?
A Paladin would not be the King's executioner
It might be legal to execute a forger but it's unlikely that a Paladin would agree to do so.
That sounds EXACTLY like the citizens of that country we're always in border skirmishes with, so I guess we can put them down with impunity as well, right?
Notice, this is respect for ALL life, not a respect for "only neutral and good creature's lives"...
This is a good one, thank you for this scenario...
When we consider the Lawful Good alignment, so much emphasis gets put on the Good part. There are a lot of conflicts the DM can throw at us where doing the Good thing is not the Lawful thing, and vice versa. More often then not, the choice is made on the side of Good.
Your example is a great scenario where I think picking the Lawful option is the right thing to do.
Sparing his life would be Good.
Not sparing his life would not be Good, but it also would not be Evil. His crimes were obviously heinous enough to warrant a death penalty. Unless he is dying for an unjust reason (something silly, like being executed for cheating on his wife). But since you did not go into detail as to what he was convicted of and why he got a death sentence, I will assume it was just.
A Paladin would not be the King's executioner
It might be legal to execute a forger but it's unlikely that a Paladin would agree to do so.
Depends, killing a Demon or Devil could well qualify as good.
Killing to defend others could well be a good act. (If you kill an evil high priest as he's about to sacrifice a baby for instance)
Based on my reading of Detect Evil the 'evil intent' means that a non-evil creature with evil intent radiates evil as if it was an evil creature rather than 'automatically detects as evil' so a low powered creature doesn't detect as evil irrespective of intent.
Look, if you're the DM, the rule is simple: don't be a jerk. If the player of the Paladin is making an honest effort to do the right thing all the time, and he can make even a halfway decent argument for why what he did was the right thing, he is playing a Paladin properly and in accordance with the rules. Taking away his powers because you don't agree with his interpretation of Lawful Good is being a jerk; don't be a jerk.
I'm not so sure about that. If the Paladin's king orders him to be the royal executioner, what kind of act would it be for the Paladin to refuse the orders of his king? Hint: Not a Lawful one...
I liken this example to the deserter of The Wall in Game of Thrones.
Lets say that the person being executed was conscripted to be a solider to guard "the wall". He was a petty thief, and his choice was "die or pledge your life guarding the wall." He chose to live and guard the wall.
While at the wall, he comes face to face with horrible monsters. Rather then stand and fight, he cowardly turns tail and run, deserting his post. Deserting your post is an act of treason. Treason is punishable by death according to local laws.
So lets say we have a deserter/traitor about to be executed. Instead of Eddard Stark, we have a LG Paladin that was ordered by Eddard, his king, to do the beheading (all of the "the man that passes the sentence swings the sword" aside).
What does he do?
If the rank-and-file citizens of that country we're always in border skirmishes with are raiding our villages so that they can eat our flesh, then damn right. I'm not quite sure what you were actually trying to argue there.
As they're normally written, goblins, orcs, gnolls, derro, and the like have free will, but they are normally brought up to be utterly terrible. To them, mercy is a weakness to exploit, not a virtue to be honored. Some of those creatures, like hobgoblins or duergar, may actually have personal codes of honor and actually mean it. But most won't. Most probably wouldn't offer to surrender, either - if they don't give a damn when others try to do it, why would they expect differently?
But as normally written, most of the monster races form into what amount to bandit clans and enclaves, and launch raids on any of their neighbors at any time. The closest you can reach to peace with them is managing to hurt them badly enough that they'll stop attacking you. At least until their numbers recover...
If a goblin knows how to say "I surrender, don't hurt me," in common, it probably learned that from a victim that it then killed and ate (or killed by eating).
If goblins are free-willed, then they can choose non-evil. If they can choose non-evil, then a paladin can not kill on sight. I don't particularly have a problem with paladins killing enemy combatants who try and surrender. But people who haven't raised arms against the paladin or his party, that's a different matter.My group handles this sort of thing as "a Paladin can refuse to accept a creature's surrender."
While goblins are free-willed, a normal goblin is raised to view nearly anything that isn't a goblin as prey.
If goblins are free-willed, then they can choose non-evil. If they can choose non-evil, then a paladin can not kill on sight. I don't particularly have a problem with paladins killing enemy combatants who try and surrender. But people who haven't raised arms against the paladin or his party, that's a different matter.
As a DM, I have my paladin players write out their honor codes before hand. I do chime in with a few suggestions here and there, but leave it largely up to the character to define it. I find that there are much fewer arguments about code violations with this method.
Good players would likely come up with some solid, and diverse, codes of honour.