Paladin Actions - Appropriate?

[RigaMortus2]

Also, what else is an invisible Imp going to do to 'assist' in battle, if not attack enemies or use its spell-like abilities on them (both of which results in turning visible). All it can do is Sting foes, turn into an Alternate Form that will allow it to bite or claw or gore them, or cast Suggestion on an opponent, all of which will turn it visible. (Imps can only turn themselves invisible, not other people, so it couldn't have helped out with friendly Invisibility effects)

Gee I don't know...
*Look for the item the party is trying to find (as well as his own item) while the party is keeping the enemies at bay.
*Make sounds while invisible to possibly draw enemies away from the party
*Move objects infront of the enemies to prevent them from advancing, or to give the allies cover.
*Use a healing potion on a downed party memeber to revive them.

None of those "assists" would turn the Imp visible as far as I know...

Again, "assist" during combat does not have to mean attack. All the examples you listed are things the Imp could do which would be considered an attack, which of course would turn him visible. Since the OP never specified what he meant by the Imp "assisting" in the OP, we can't just assume he meant he helped to attack.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

When the battle erupted, he chose to lend a bit of assistance to give credence to himself, and (try to) ensure that the adventurers would hold up their end of the bargain long enough for him to find the item he desired. <snipped for space reasons>

The fact that he may have incidentally helped the adventurers in the battle, is just a small nuisance that he has to bear for the sake of his greater scheme, and not so much helping the adventurers as it was helping himself to achieve his goals; <snipped for space reasons>

Once he had item he sought, the imp would have considered the agreement fulfilled, and himself now free to sabotage the mortals' efforts if he could find a suitable opportunity to do so, <snipped for space reasons>

Of course, the party was slaying a vile imp, who is evil incarnate and very tricky, deceptive evil at that, who lives only to make deals and twist them to acquire mortal souls for the Nine Hells. If the impartial observer were completely ignorant of fiends, which an imp very much looks like, then sure he might expect the imp to be less treacherous, but he'd be so very, very wrong. The one adventurer just turned on the deceptive imp before it could turn on them, most likely.

And the impartial observer would of course have to be ignorant of the fact that the imp has probably caused the deaths or damnation of numerous other mortals before and will continue to do so for the rest of its fiendish life.

<snipped for space reasons>

but he'd guess that the imp must've tried to use some evil power on the human, or that the human just didn't think he could trust an imp once he saw the invisible creature's true form.

But this represents the very thing that I don't like about this arguement (and most that support the paladin free-will concept)! Do you hear how many assumptions are in here that are necessary to justify killing the imp?

1. Assumed the imp was acting only out of its own interests
2. Imp was probably going to sabotage the party anyway once it got its way
3. Killing an imp is always acceptable because it is vile (and thus also assumed to be beyond redemption)
4. Imp has probably caused damnation of other mortals
5. Imp probably has just used a power on some human anyway, so killing it is justified

Now, I agree that any of those may well be correct. I also agree that these are fair assumptions. But they are at best only that. They are assumptions, which just might be wrong! When I play a paladin, I find that playing off assumptions is usually the quickest way to blackguard without seeing it coming. Sure, there are quicker ways. But assumptions are the quickest way to getting there without honestly trying to get there!

In the end, I have to go back to my earlier conclusion. Killing a fiend just for the sake of it being evil does not make one good. At the very best, it makes one guilty of shedding blood. At the very worst, it makes one another fiend.

Killing a fiend for legitimate reasons (such as observable attempts towards corruption) is totally different. As far as I recall, the worst that the imp did was to make the deal while invisible. But if the party went along with it and the paladin never once activated his detect evil ... I'd hardly call that the imp's fault! I mean, even if the paladin wasn't present when the deal was made, wouldn't you be suspicious about someone invisible helping you out? Wouldn't you check it out, especially given that it doesn't cost you anything?

 

[Hypersmurf]

The one adventurer just turned on the deceptive imp before it could turn on them, most likely.

"It was self-defence, Your Honour! I hit him back first!"

-Hyp.

 

[IanB]

3. Killing an imp is always acceptable because it is vile (and thus also assumed to be beyond redemption)

I don't see this as an assumption, and (with the caveat that must always be assumed when talking about paladin yes/no questions) in my campaign it is the only justification the paladin would *ever* need to kill an imp (or a demon, or a yugoloth, or a demodand...) They're not *like* humans, who can (presumably) choose their own path.

There might be an atonement involved in this scenario, but it would be for making a deal with the imp in the first place - the invisibility of the deal-maker should have at least been a tip-off to toss out a detect evil. My big problem with the scenario as presented is that it seems like the paladin should have suspected what he was dealing with in the first place, and went along anyway.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I don't see this as an assumption, and (with the caveat that must always be assumed when talking about paladin yes/no questions) in my campaign it is the only justification the paladin would *ever* need to kill an imp (or a demon, or a yugoloth, or a demodand...) They're not *like* humans, who can (presumably) choose their own path.

And this is a legitimate comment so long as we are talking about your campaign. And I certainly won't argue about it in your homebrew world. But it is not a fair comment to make about D&D in general. In my campaign, for example, outsiders are not beyond conversion. It is a tough road with very impression skill checks. But just as a red dragon can be sanctified, even an imp can find their way down the path to righteousness.

I am curious, though. In your campaign, is the same curteousy granted to angels, guardinals, eladrins, and archons? Are they always 100% good and beyond corruption regardless of what power is trying? Because unless they are, the fiends have a clear advantage.

And are innevitables always 100% neutral? I hope so!

Now, please don't see this as a challenge, because it is your world. Just making sure that all sides are playing fair.

 

[SlagMortar]

Killing a fiend for legitimate reasons (such as observable attempts towards corruption) is totally different.

This is really where we differ. In my opinion, a fiend does not get to be innocent until proven guilty. It is a force of nature created by an evil deity to plague the lives of all sentient creatures.

Note, I'd be happy to play in a campaign that is much more gray where fallen angels and ascended fiends are not as uncommon, but I would not play a paladin in such a campaign, and I do not believe the paladin class was created with such ideas in mind.

Edit: Though I might play a cleric who tries to redeem fiends in such a campaign. I might even run such a campaign.

 

[IanB]

And this is a legitimate comment so long as we are talking about your campaign. And I certainly won't argue about it in your homebrew world. But it is not a fair comment to make about D&D in general. In my campaign, for example, outsiders are not beyond conversion. It is a tough road with very impression skill checks. But just as a red dragon can be sanctified, even an imp can find their way down the path to righteousness.

I am curious, though. In your campaign, is the same curteousy granted to angels, guardinals, eladrins, and archons? Are they always 100% good and beyond corruption regardless of what power is trying? Because unless they are, the fiends have a clear advantage.

And are innevitables always 100% neutral? I hope so!

Now, please don't see this as a challenge, because it is your world. Just making sure that all sides are playing fair.

It might be getting a little off topic, but yes. This would not be true for mere descendents of outsiders (tieflings, aasimar, etc), but all of the "alignment embodying" outsiders - archons, eladrin, guardinals, modrons, etc., don't drift; they're not capable of it. (I suppose, thinking about it, that artifact/deity level effects could *force* a change to one, but that would not be any sort of free will... and who ever heard of a ring-of-turning-you-good anyway. That's not a good McGuffin. )

The main exception I make is for outsiders of non-fixed alignments - a solar can fall, for example; a solar is not a manifestation of the essence of a particular aligned plane; they can be lawful, neutral or chaotic - and thus can be tempted into a fall (very unlikely of course.)

In any case my larger point here is that these arguments are very difficult to conduct with any kind of consistency, just because 'what can a paladin do' is going to be different in *every* game. The best we can do to answer a question like the OP poses is say "well, this is how it would go down in MY game." It isn't really a rules forum question, because the RAW doesn't really provide enough guidance for a concrete answer.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

This is really where we differ. In my opinion, a fiend does not get to be innocent until proven guilty. It is a force of nature created by an evil deity to plague the lives of all sentient creatures.

I'm glad you added that it is true in your campaign, because I can't argue about your campaign. I agree, though, this is our point of contention.

Note, I'd be happy to play in a campaign that is much more gray where fallen angels and ascended fiends are not as uncommon, but I would not play a paladin in such a campaign,

Cool. Well, if you ever find yourself in north central PA, look me up!

and I do not believe the paladin class was created with such ideas in mind.

Yeah, I can see that. But, I also know that they created the BoED with the sanctified creature template (which specifically calls out fiends of all kinds). Certain a paladin could play in a BoED-style campaign, so there must be some room there. I honestly think that playing a paladin in a campaign world like mine should be reserved for people who have gamed with me (DM) a while and know my cosmology and divine/fiend expectations.

In general, I don't think a player should ever play a paladin under a new DM unless they've specifically talked about and called out several issue.

 

[Arkhandus]

You're really trying to twist my explanations around to suit your own needs, aren't you? :\

And you seem to be completely ignoring the nature of fiends in D&D. We're not talking about ordinary, evil humans who deceived the party. We're talking about damned souls that have gone to the Lower Planes and been twisted into even-more-Evil creatures that exist only to perpetuate more evil still. They are formed pretty much from pure Evil. Only the rare fluke, like A'kin (JUST MAYBE; we still don't know if he's really just unspeakably evil and puts on an act, or if he's actually a 'risen' fiend), and I mean extremely-rare fluke, has some abnormal inkling of Good in them that wasn't purged when they became fiends.

Yet even those ones are composed of more raw Evil than any mortal human. The absolute worst human is still suffused with less raw Evil than the fiends who are created from Evil itself, even the 0.00001% of them who somehow retained a tiny shred of Good during their creation (and you have to keep in mind that most of those ones get destroyed by other fiends for their 'flaw', whereas fallen celestials are more likely to just be banished or something; fiends are never so merciful to those among their own kind who possess the 'taint' of Good).


THE POINT BEING........that Imp has already committed a lifetime of sins when it was a mortal, and continued to commit sins after its 'rebirth' as a fiend on the Lower Planes. It has already murdered, corrupted, abused, violated, poisoned, betrayed, or orchestrated the doom of several other mortals before it ever met the party. YOU CANNOT JUST IGNORE THAT. It is not a fiend just because it happens to do evil things sometimes. It is a FIEND because it has ALREADY GONE TO HELL for its atrocious sins. It is already a damned soul. It is already MORE THAN WORTHY OF SMITING.

You cannot simply disregard the reasons for why it is an Imp in the first place, or what terrible evil it has already perpetrated. It cannot even be redeemed unless it is one of the rare, flawed fiends, whom other fiends are likely to have already destroyed anyway. If it were one of the virtually-unheard-of few 'risen' fiends that escaped Hell intact, it would be trying a lot harder to figure out its purpose and how to either redeem itself or purge the 'taint' of Good within it.

It would not be deceiving a party of adventurers, whom it almost certainly had more than enough time to scan for Good while it was invisible before they had any idea it was even there. It would have either been direct with them and tried to get their help honestly, to prove it wasn't going to use the item for evil and that it was trying to redeem itself, OR it would have avoided them altogether and left, or waited until after they had gone in and then tried to retrieve the item afterwards, invisibly.

It would not have followed the course of action that it did, in the manner that it did, unless it was as thoroughly, irredeemably evil as fiends generally are, or was giving in to its evil side and forsaking redemption rather if it was in fact 'tainted' with a shred of Goodness.


That Imp already deserved to be destroyed by the paladin, whether or not it had caused any direct harm to the party of adventurers yet.

It was already a creature of terrible sinfulness and villainy, not just a corrupt mortal, and was already one of the Damned. The paladin needed no direct, personal reason to smite it, for it had already horribly wronged, probably killed, other mortals beforehand. It was already an incarnation of pure, cosmic Evil, that would only commit further evil as long as it lived. And there is no doubt that it had already committed terrible sins against fellow mortals beforehand; while possible that it had not killed anyone yet, it is not likely, and the imp still committed enough sins beforehand to go to the Nine Hells of Ba'ator upon its death as a mortal.

 

[Arkhandus]

But it is not a fair comment to make about D&D in general. In my campaign, for example, outsiders are not beyond conversion. It is a tough road with very impression skill checks.

Actually, it is. The default in D&D, as spelled out in the rules (check Manual of the Planes, for instance), is that Fiends are damned souls who have gone to the Lower Planes after death because of their terrible sins and unrepentance. They have already earned eternal torment for their actions. And nearly all of them are truly, completely, irredeemable.

The rare few who are not irredeemable are 'tainted' by a bit of Good that was not quite successfully purged from their souls, but those ones are still largely raw Evil, and still committed terrible sins beforehand. And those few are almost always destroyed by their own kind, for the Fiends will not suffer any of their kind being 'tainted' by Good.


In standard D&D, only a few varieties of Fiend are not already-damned souls. Those are the few sorts who were instead formed purely from the manifest, cosmic Evil of the Lower Planes, which really makes them even more Evil in nature, despite not having committed any sins personally before their formation on the Lower Planes. These few varieties of fiend are rarely ever encountered by adventurers, and are typically either Archfiends or just lesser fiends that the main varieties (Ba'atezu, Tanar'ri, etc.) oppress and/or destroy as rivals. I think Yugoloths are an exception to that, but they're different anyway, and typically serve as mercenaries in the Blood War, or fiendish bureaucrats working on the Lower Planes and amusing themselves by tormenting damned souls there, rather than being very active in the Material Plane corrupting mortals or the like.