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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawken" data-source="post: 3668938" data-attributes="member: 23619">Agreement or not, catch-the-imp-off-guard or not, it boils down to one simple truth: The paladin killed an imp. Period. Circumstances of doing so are not important. He killed a fiend, a monster, one of Hell's creations. It wasn't a misguided rogue, a cruel wizard or even a drow with a touch of goodness waiting for the right moment to come out. It was a creature of irredeemable, calculating, eternal evil. You can't apply morals to such beings, or even laws. Its home is where souls of evil beings go when they die. For all the crimes each devil has commited, a swift execution is about the most merciful they could receive. There can be no mercy or protection or leniency for such creatures that deal in eternal torment. Regardless of how its slain, the paladin did a good thing. For those of you whining about striking unaware or mercy or any other such nonsense, stick to the cleric classes and leave the paladins to do what they do best; smiting evil back into the afterlife! Again, Lawful Good is not Lawful Stupid or even Lawful Cannot-Tell-A-Lie. Even if the paladin made a bargain, it was done so ignorant of the fiend's nature and the paladin's promise to his deity/church/gov't is a higher oath than any agreement unwittingly made to a fiend--which didn't include protection or allowing it to escape. His code of conduct is specific, "punish those that harm". That's what he did. "Keeping his word" is a LG thing, but not keeping one's word is not necessarily not a LG thing either. If a paladin does something that is not lawful, that doesn't make him chaotic or even neutral, it just means he did something not-lawful, nothing more or less. And for those of you that say "strip his powers for X days as a warning" need to realize that his powers are not just a personal asset but a party asset as well. Detect Evil, turn undead, cure disease, smite, those are all as important to the party on the whole as to the paladin himself. What happens when the party needs an emergency LoH but doesn't get it because the paladin is being punished for killing an imp?! Or someone is exposed to Green Slime and the paladin can't snap off a Cure Disease?! Give it a rest!The paladin's powers are no more or less extraordinary than any other class's. The DM should not be an arbitrary light switch flipping them on or off based on his own opinions. If the player plays the character in good faith, leave him alone. If he's abusing things, warn first, then punish. The player is there to play a paladin not to perform to the DM's expectations or interpretations of what a paladin is or is not.</blockquote>

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