Paladin Actions - Appropriate?

[Rystil Arden]

I admit I am not well versed in the interpretations that have been made in various official sources. It sounds like the official answer is that they are both pure Evil and also capable of Good actions with Good motives. I find that contradictory on a philosophical level, though not surprising give the number of authors of official sources and also the entertainment value of a surprise twist ending. It also probably makes for good story telling so I'm fine with that.

Granted. I also think that Anyiel's love is not necessarily 'Good' motives. I'd call them Neutral because she does it to make herself feel good. I agree with the thought about good storytelling.

Sorry if I implied you hold your paladins to low standards. I jumped to in-character thinking without clarifying. My paladin might or might not feel that way depending on a host of other character traits. However, if a DM has not talked to a player about it, the DM should be ready for the paladin to become disillusioned by any number of things, including his superior paladins who act differently from himself and possibly even his own diety. Its not that the standards are low, but a paladin character might think the standards are low even if they are actually stricter in some areas he hasn't run into yet.

I agree--some of the most interesting stories can happen when the paladin and his superiors differ strongly on their standards (in either direction) and the deity keeps granting all of them their powers!

I didn't specifically say that he shouldn't have a bad dream, though I didn't say that he should, either. Actually, I do think he should have a bad dream and feel bad about breaking his agreement. In my opinion, he should be admonished for making an agreement with an evil outsider, especially since in the original scenario there was no compelling reason to make the agreement in the first place. Paladins should not casually make agreements with parties who refuse to show themselves. He also shouldn't travel with people who casually make such agreements on his behalf.

Ah, I see. I wouldn't make him lose his powers either for the OP. I'd send a bad dream or something for breaking his word, but I don't consider it a gross violation yet.

Surely some of the events I proposed in post 232 would cause you to think it natural for the paladin to break the agreement with the imp. If so, then we only differ on where we draw the line on "the imp is a threat" question.

I would tell the imp "While I am honour-bound to let you live for the moment as per our agreement, you'd best not do <Pick Event in Post 232>, for I assure you I shall slay you then and there. If you take that action, take it forewarned of the consequences."

First, let's assume Erin was 100% bound to become Evil no matter what, even though that is different from the official (and your) standard assumption. For example, a miracle Percival casts himself with a scroll and Use Magic Device showed that there was no way to prevent Erin from becoming Evil. What if Percival killed her in her sleep, weeping all the way and feeling terrible about this deed he must do in order to spare her from the horror of turning into a creature of Evil? Think of all the "good" vampire stories where the vampire eventually realizes it can not control its cravings and thus ends its own existance after years of misery and guilt caused by hurting/killing others in fits of bloodlust. Wouldn't it possibly be good and merciful to end that before she has to suffer through years of failure and brokenness that leave her only capable of Evil?

It is clearly not "good" from a perspective of "respect for sentients to choose their own fate", but couldn't it be "good" from a "I must protect people even from themselves "kind of way? (caveat: not advocating anything analogous in real life as this is a wholly unrealistic set of assumptions for anything that could possibly happen in the real world. The situation has no real world equivalent. I don't want to get into a real world discussion of where this kind of thinking leads because it is not a good place in really any sense of the word.)

See, I like this discussion because you just gave me another cool idea--Precrime Paladins!

Your situation could be reverse-engineered, though I do it not just to make you question your argument but to propose an interesting idea:

What if a Paladin by law was required to baptise every baby in the town. But he had a magic relic that could tell him with the same shadow of a doubt as with Erin in your scenario that the baby would become Evil, with no way to prevent it. This time it's a human baby, but fate says it will be Evil for sure. Does the Paladin crush the baby's throat every time he gets that reading on his relic? What if it is his own human daughter?

If you tell me he should kill the babies, then I'll agree that the viewpoint holds valid on the same hypothetical with Erin. And then I'll write an adventure where the reason that babies in the town of Falston are mysteriously disappearing is the last person you'd ever expect--the Paladin!

 

[SlagMortar]

What if a Paladin by law was required to baptise every baby in the town. But he had a magic relic that could tell him with the same shadow of a doubt as with Erin in your scenario that the baby would become Evil, with no way to prevent it. This time it's a human baby, but fate says it will be Evil for sure. Does the Paladin crush the baby's throat every time he gets that reading on his relic? What if it is his own human daughter?

Depends on the paladin. I agree it raises questions. That's the campaign where I play a Chaotic Good wizard who rescues as many children as possible and then is horror struck when he realizes the paladins are having such an easy time finding him because he detects as Chaotic Evil - assuming that the Paladins really had a Good reason for such a practice and it was sanctioned by all the Good gods and assuming its the actions and not the motives that the DM finds important.

I've said before (not in this thread) on solving alignment issues, I pick my character's personality and what alignment I think fits it. Then once the game starts, I let the DM figure out what alignment that makes my character in his campaign world. Of course, that's a problem if your class has an alignment restriction.

It's also a reason I don't like future telling magic that has any kinds of absolutes.

Edit for your edit: I believe in a world of absolute future telling magics, killing babies who are destined to become Evil could be considered fine. For human babies, you would need to know what being evil meant. If it meant they were going to become crazy serial killers, then yes its probaby ok as these are the type of people the paladin would be smiting anyway. If it meant they might occasionally cheat on their taxes, then no its probably not. Note that in the Erin example, I meant she would become capital 'E' evil as in just as Evil as a fiend.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Depends on the paladin. I agree it raises questions. That's the campaign where I play a Chaotic Good wizard who rescues as many children as possible and then is horror struck when he realizes the paladins are having such an easy time finding him because he detects as Chaotic Evil - assuming that the Paladins really had a Good reason for such a practice and it was sanctioned by all the Good gods and assuming its the actions and not the motives that the DM finds important.

I've said before (not in this thread) on solving alignment issues, I pick my character's personality and what alignment I think fits it. Then once the game starts, I let the DM figure out what alignment that makes my character in his campaign world. Of course, that's a problem if your class has an alignment restriction.

It's also a reason I don't like future telling magic that has any kinds of absolutes.

I agree with you for sure. It takes free will out of the equation, and it eliminates the much-more-interesting 'last resort' clauses: "No matter how lovingly you raise her, if something drastic is not done, your daughter will still revert to evil. However, there is still a way to save her. If you were willing to perform a powerful ritual on the Celestial planes to infuse her with a portion of your own soul, it could strengthen that part of her that is good and allow her to keep a pure and good heart. However, that would entail convincing the Celestials, especially the Archons, to let you bring a fiend there and perform the ritual (not an easy task), gathering the rare ingredients needed for the ritual, and then risking your own death as a portion of your soul is ripped away."

I will point out, though, that it was you who suggested the absolute future telling magic in the first place

EDIT for the EDIT for the EDIT: It is a tricky and slippery slope, though. Because you are killing someone who is currently an innocent baby (and I could substitute that for a child who is sentient enough to have an alignment and is currently good-aligned, though destined by absolute future-telling magic to become an Evil serial killer). And then we come to the next layer of the onion--absolute future-telling magic tells you for certain that if you don't kill this baby who won't become Evil, an entire country of innocent Good-aligned people will die (if you want an example of how this could be possible, perhaps we just killed Helen of Troy and averted the Trojan War).

 

[SlagMortar]

I agree that the OP's paladin did not handle the situation in precisely the best way - a warning would have been more appropriate, I think.

I would tell the imp "While I am honour-bound to let you live for the moment as per our agreement, you'd best not do <Pick Event in Post 232>, for I assure you I shall slay you then and there. If you take that action, take it forewarned of the consequences."

Still, what if the imp then said to your paladin, "No thanks, I like the terms of our original agreement just fine and you are not allowed to add terms to it unilaterally. After all, its not really an agreement if you can just go around changing it however you want. Now watch while I pull the ears off that farmer over there."

 

[SlagMortar]

I agree with you for sure. It takes free will out of the equation, and it eliminates the much-more-interesting 'last resort' clauses: "No matter how lovingly you raise her, if something drastic is not done, your daughter will still revert to evil. However, there is still a way to save her. If you were willing to perform a powerful ritual on the Celestial planes to infuse her with a portion of your own soul, it could strengthen that part of her that is good and allow her to keep a pure and good heart. However, that would entail convincing the Celestials, especially the Archons, to let you bring a fiend there and perform the ritual (not an easy task), gathering the rare ingredients needed for the ritual, and then risking your own death as a portion of your soul is ripped away."

I will point out, though, that it was you who suggested the absolute future telling magic in the first place

I used the absolute truth telling magics just like you did in your dinner date example. I find an absolute "This will definitely happen unless you do this" to be just as frustrating as "This will definitely happen."

 

[Rystil Arden]

I agree that the OP's paladin did not handle the situation in precisely the best way - a warning would have been more appropriate, I think.

Still, what if the imp then said to your paladin, "No thanks, I like the terms of our original agreement just fine and you are not allowed to add terms to it unilaterally. After all, its not really an agreement if you can just go around changing it however you want. Now watch while I pull the ears off that farmer over there."

Does the imp have the item yet? If not the Paladin knocks the imp out and gets it the promised item. If the imp already has the item, the Paladin says

"Letting you take the item and then immediately killing you would be a Lawful Evil loophole out of the agreement, since you don't actually get to keep the item at all, and as such, I chose not to take that action to uphold the spirit of the law and maintain my honour. However, by letting you go right now, my obligation to you has been fulfilled and we are finished with the previous transaction."

"I have merely warned you that now that I have let you go, any future actions on your part will not be bound by the previous agreement. Like your assault on the farmer, for instance. If you try it, I will slay you."

 

[Rystil Arden]

I used the absolute truth telling magics just like you did in your dinner date example. I find an absolute "This will definitely happen unless you do this" to be just as frustrating as "This will definitely happen."

In this case, I don't consider mine to be absolute truth telling magic--they used the spell to find a complete list of all ways to access the dimensional pockets where the ritual pieces were held. Unfortunately, the complete list was very short--either Orcus himself could tell them (yeah right ) or Anyiel could. The magic was not used to predict the future--instead, it found them an obscure way that Orcus hadn't considered that would let them access the ritual pieces and destroy one of them. Similarly, if they said "I hate this troll! It keeps coming back. How can I possibly get rid of it for good?" and the spell said "Use fire or acid damage or it will just regenerate", I would not consider it to be absolute truth-telling magic if they refused to use fire or acid damage and the troll regenerated. Am I missing something in this analogy?

 

[SlagMortar]

EDIT for the EDIT for the EDIT: It is a tricky and slippery slope, though. Because you are killing someone who is currently an innocent baby (and I could substitute that for a child who is sentient enough to have an alignment and is currently good-aligned, though destined by absolute future-telling magic to become an Evil serial killer). And then we come to the next layer of the onion--absolute future-telling magic tells you for certain that if you don't kill this baby who won't become Evil, an entire country of innocent Good-aligned people will die (if you want an example of how this could be possible, perhaps we just killed Helen of Troy and averted the Trojan War).

Definitely a slippery slope and one best to avoid in real life due to the fact that you never absolutely know anything, and especially because when you think you have an "either or" decision in real life, there is often a less obvious option that is better than either one, but you will never see it if you just put the decision in terms of "it's ok to do X because it is the lesser of two evils."

In a world of absolute truth telling magics, you then have to ask whether one person is more valuable than a country of people and I submit that such is firmly in the unprovable opinion category. I think the most one can say is that an argument can be made for either choice and so either could be considered the Good choice.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Definitely a slippery slope and one best to avoid in real life due to the fact that you never absolutely know anything, and especially because when you think you have an "either or" decision in real life, there is often a less obvious option that is better than either one, but you will never see it if you just put the decision in terms of "it's ok to do X because it is the lesser of two evils."

In a world of absolute truth telling magics, you then have to ask whether one person is more valuable than a country of people and I submit that such is firmly in the unprovable opinion category. I think the most one can say is that an argument can be made for either choice and so either could be considered the Good choice.

Either one might be considered the Good choice, but I'm actually worried that neither one is an acceptable choice for a Paladin. This is why I do avoid absolute truth-telling magic that uses loopholes and self-fulfilling prophecies to bite you no matter what you do through a series of coincidences like poor Oedipus (See above post for why I don't consider that to be the case in the dinner-date, though).

At the very least, you could have two Paladins fighting each other to the death over which of those options to pick.

 

[SlagMortar]

In this case, I don't consider mine to be absolute truth telling magic--they used the spell to find a complete list of all ways to access the dimensional pockets where the ritual pieces were held. Unfortunately, the complete list was very short--either Orcus himself could tell them (yeah right ) or Anyiel could. The magic was not used to predict the future--instead, it found them an obscure way that Orcus hadn't considered that would let them access the ritual pieces and destroy one of them. Similarly, if they said "I hate this troll! It keeps coming back. How can I possibly get rid of it for good?" and the spell said "Use fire or acid damage or it will just regenerate", I would not consider it to be absolute truth-telling magic if they refused to use fire or acid damage and the troll regenerated. Am I missing something in this analogy?

Granted, I guess the miracle in your example was more of an absolute present telling magic, though the end result was the same. I don't like the idea that the list is complete. I'm ok with the question, "How can we do this?" and the response "This will work." I'm not ok with the quesiton, "How can we do this?" and the response "This is the only thing you can do."

In your troll analogy, I learned in a recent thread that trolls can be killed by suffocation. They can also be killed by death magic. It could also be charmed, talked into going away, trapped in a prison, dropped in the ocean, etc.

In the dinner date example, Orcus left one vulnerability. Perhaps he left others as well, but when I brought up the possibility, you said, "Nope, the miracle said there's only one way."