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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 1566175" data-attributes="member: 5724">How does one deal with these apparant contridictions from different D&D books? "Good is the awesome holy energy that radiates from the celestial planes and crushes evil. Good is selfless, just, hopeful, benevolent, and righteous." BoED"Attacks evil on sight" Lamassu (always LG alignment)"Fights evil without Mercy" Alahandra under LG in PHB."Violence against evil is acceptable when it is directed at stopping or preventing evil acts from being done."BoED"The means of violence must be as good as the intention.""Practices that inflict undue suffering upon the victims goes beyond the pale of what can be considered good.""Violence cannot be considered good when it is directed against noncombatants" BoED"Subduing opponents and turning them over to the city watch is preferable" BoED"Tempting to treat foes as they have treated others, to exact revenge for slain comrades and innocents, to offer no quarter and become merciless. A good character must not succumb to that trap. Good characters must offer mercy and accept surrender no matter how many times villians might betray that kindness or escape captivity to continue their evil deeds" BoED"A good character approaches every encounter with orcs, goblinoids, and even the thoroughly evil drow with heart and mind open to the possiblity, however remote, that his opponents might some day be transformed into allies. Creatures that are "usually evil" can be redeemed. This is not to say that a good character's first thought in an ambush should be, "How can I redeem these poor orcs?" However, if the ambushing orcs end up surrendering, there is ample opportunity to seek their redeption"To me, these quotes mean that good has to try and be all of these things. If any aspect of being good is ignored, the overall goodness of the creature is diminished. It's all right to attack evil, but you should try to deal with the problem in other ways per the "good code" before attacking even though attacking evil is good. I don't view these as contridictions, but as complementary goals that aim towards a single higher goal: That of "Killing Evil by turning Evil into Good." Or I guess, more simply, redemption. Killing evil is easy, turning evil into good (and therefore really killing evil) is hard.It's a constant tug-of-war between protecting the innocent and attempting redemption though actions of mercy, kindness, and honor. If a good person smites evil but is is never mercyful, never redemptive and never kind, that person is perhaps not good, but neutral. Being merciful is just as important as smiting evil, just as important as protecting the innocent. There is no aspect of "being good" that is more important than the others because "being good" is the whole package.This is why I think being a paldin should be damn hard and full of tiny missteps. The paladin will never be perfect, but should always strive to that perfection. To me, that means he'll lose his powers now and then and atone to get them back. He'll do this a lot, because the world is an evil place and he's got a code that he must follow that doesn't make his path one that's easy to follow. His goal is not to just smite evil, but to increase good. Smiting evil is only one aspect of being a paladin.What the paladin should be punished for is his failure by immediately using lethal force when presented with an "evil" that was easily and acceptably overcome without. Many arguements hang on the immediate need to protect the child as if the only method of doing so was through lethal force. This is not true, there were other ways, but none of those ways were as satisfying to the player and hence the PC. Even when we agree that the perp deserved death, his death is as least as just, if not more so, at the hands of the community than it is at the hands of the paladin because of all of the many associated benefits as stated by others throughout this thread.In otherwords there were many other ways of using the good code to deal with the situation. Chosing to use lethal force means that there is no posiblity for mercy, forgiveness, and redeption to the perp. That means that although the paladin supported one aspect of his goodness (protecting the innocent girl) he failed to support several other aspects of his goodness even though he had the opportunity to do so. Hence, he suffers a small setback, makes his atonement, and in the future tries to find ways of dealing with circumstances that support as many aspects of good without opposing other aspects of good as possible.In the end, although a paladin has the right and the goodness to kick butt and ask questions later when need be, that is far from SOP. A Paladin's normal behavior should be one primarily of Helping Others, Charity, Healing, Personal Sacrifice, Mercy, Forgiveness, Bringing Hope, and Redeeming Evil. It is only within these considerations that "attacking evil on sight" should be performed. It is only with all of these other aspects in mind at the same time that lethal punishment should be meeted out to the deserving.joe b.</blockquote>

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