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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 3669217" data-attributes="member: 13966">The imp purposely remained invisible while making the deal with them.  The party was quite clearly a group of humans, some heavily armed.  The paladin may or may not have also been wearing the symbols of his patron deity, if any.  If the imp had been visible and in its normal form when making the deal, it would not have been deceptive in the dealing process.Acting with honor does not necessarily require him to fulfill deals that were made under false pretenses; acting with honor would not have required him to fulfill the deal if it had, in fact, turned out to be the McGuffin of Ultimate Doom that the stranger was seeking, because he was tricked into agreeing to the deal; had he known the invisible fellow was an imp, he would never had agreed to it.Instead he was lead to believe that the invisible foe was merely some stranger who needed to recover an item in yonder building, and wanted to work together with the adventurers for a while until finding it, so as to make things easier on them all.  He was never given any reason to believe it would be against his code to go along with the agreement, other than the fact that the stranger was apparently shy or kind of suspicious since they remained invisible as long as possible.Someone who is dishonest in making a deal, and knows that honesty would most likely result in the other party not agreeing to it (as an imp would expect most mortals to reject cooperation with a fiend like him, at least at first), is not making the deal honorably while the other party is making the deal in good faith, not expecting such a significantly important deception.  The imp didn't make the deal in good faith, it made the deal expecting, as a devil would, that everyone in the party would just have to go along with it after they agreed to it, and that they would have to follow through on the agreement just because it's the 'honorable' thing to do, and devils live to bend deals and twist honor around their pinky fingers.Note the exception "(except when they would use that help for evil)."  Which you left out for some reason.  A paladin will not help anyone when it is only going to perpetuate more evil or be abused, which helping the imp would cause.  Fiends are evil incarnate.  Their only goals are to commit evil acts and further their own personal power, so they can do more evil to their 'lessers'.There can be no doubt in a paladin's mind that, whatever a fiend wants something for, their ultimate purpose for it is to use it for evil, or to use it to get something else that they can use to evil ends, or to use it to get out of a contract of theirs so they can get on with doing evil things for their own pleasure.And the paladin is very clearly unable to help evil, commit any evil acts, or continue associating with evil creatures after learning that they are evil.  The revelation of the imp's true form certainly prevents the paladin from working with him any longer.  And he can almost certainly expect that whatever the imp wants the item for, it is intending to use that item for evil somehow, and paladins are not required to give aid when it would be used for evil, so he is not required to work with the imp at that point.  And I think that is listed before 'act with honor' in the description so it may take precedence.Sure, but the agreement may've been voided by the false pretenses it was made under, and the knowledge by the fiend that a paladin (or good cleric, to a less certain extent) would never agree to work with a fiend.  We don't know if the imp was sure he was a paladin or cleric beforehand, but the imp did feel a need to stay invisible while making the deal, as lawful evil always believes in the letter of the law and the exact wording of an agreement, never the spirit of the law or the spirit of the deal, only its exact wording and how they can twist it.No, the paladin would definitely be violating his code if he fulfilled the agreement after learning the imp's true form.  He is absolutely, spelled-out in the rules, not allowed to continue association with evil creatures.  He is also not required to give help when it would be used for evil.  I believe these trump the supposed honor of the deal that was made under false pretenses.  Honor does not demand that he fall on his own sword.  And fulfilling the agreement while letting the fiend go would have cost him his paladin powers without any shadow of a doubt.But considering the verbal agreement to be null and void by the fiend's deceptions and its true nature, then smiting the imp, is less certainly a violation.  The paladin is avenging the slight to his honor, from the imp trying to make him violate his oaths to never do evil and never willingly aid evil.  I mention the imp's true nature only because the fact that it is a fiend makes it fairly obvious to the paladin that, whatever it made them agree to, it will be used to help the imp do evil.If it were an evil human it would be less clear, but we don't know if he would've attacked them as suddenly if it were a human; he may've challenged him more formally in that case or demanded that the evil human leave the place immediately, without its item, lest he be forced to smite the evil-doer for trying to turn the paladin's oaths against him.Anyway, I do agree about not smiting stuff just because it's evil, but in this case we are talking about a fiend, and one who deceived the paladin to begin with, and was trying to get him to help with a task that probably had some evil purpose to it.  As a fiend it is already a corrupt, damned soul that has gone to the Lower Planes for its sins, and been twisted into an even-more-evil creature, that exists only to perpetuate further evil.</blockquote>

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