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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6686476" data-attributes="member: 6681948">My hypothetical situation removes the sword, the deal and the previous meeting.  They have never been to the town before - they just come across the same destroyed town and, investigating, find the staked-out half ogress.  Detection of Evil reveals she is Evil.  Can the Paladin choose to kill her?  Can he choose not to?Zeus (hardly a Paladin) agreed to share power, and Hades drew the underworld.  Athena (an LG, I would suggest) puts up with her brother, Ares, despite opposing most of his schemes.  If the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number demands a deal, can an LG character reasonably refuse to deal?  If the Deities recognize they must compromise on occasion, holding their followers to a markedly higher standard seems like something Chaotic and Evil deities might do, much more than virtuous, fair-minded deities.I think I mentioned knowledge of prior evil deeds as a mitigating factor that can explain the Paladin striking her down.  Are those evil deeds known, with certainty, to have been undertaken by her, or are they rumour?  Here, I am not versed in the campaign lore, so I don't know.As a "source of obvious evil", it seems that the Paladin can and should strike her down.  Again, you have not told us what he SHOULD have done, only a long list of things he ought not to have done, and "A Paladin has a tough road to travel".  We do seem to agree that, if it's wrong for him to strike her down, it's just as wrong to let someone else do so while his back is conveniently turned.Assuming the moral code of the Paladin is such that he must not strike down a helpless opponent, what does that mean to a villainous Orc which has fallen to a Colour Spray?  Can he strike it, or must he await its recovery?  Is he required to take positive action?  Must he seek to bind the wounds of fallen foes, or can he let them bleed out?  To the half ogress specifically, is it OK to walk away and expect she will eventually starve to death?  A deal for her freedom is, from your comments, out of the question - no deals with the Evil.  Guess that means he can't buy the freedom of a slave from an evil slavemaster either.Absolutely.  The Paladin is a shining beacon of Heroism.  That Heroism should be capable of success, or we are not really playing in a Heroic game any more.  If the intent was a non-heroic game where shades of grey rule, then we should just say "no paladins" as they will soon be fallen paladins or deceased paladins - which really makes them come off as "Lawful Stupid".  That's clearly not the case in your game - the fact no Paladin PCs have fallen before makes that obvious.A good question - one to which the answers depend on background we do not have.  What were the options when the deal was struck?  I suspect the Paladin did not have the power then that he has now.  If his choices were to walk away and let the town be destroyed, or throw himself (and his friends) against an unbeatable foe (so she gets the sword and destroys the town anyway), was one of those the right choice?  I would hope that, in your game (where the ground rules are laid out more clearly, from your comments), the Paladin would not be left between choosing those two outcomes, or losing his Paladinhood by making a deal.  btw, why just the Paladin?  Why not another LG character?  The consequences are not as severe, but the requirement of the Paladin is to remain LG and not commit a wilful Evil act.  If he has not done the latter (which would mean "Paladinhood gone", not "six weeks to atone"), then would his actions have equally significant consequences for, say, a divine spellcaster?  Would they push an LG character along the road to an alignment change?  I'm curious in this regard - some tables certainly treat the Paladin as not just LG, but the upper left corner of LG in the alignment diagram.I come back to the original post, as well as steeldragons' comment about past crimes.  Can she be executed if her guilt in those past crimes is certain, and those crimes would justify her execution?  Should she be so executed?  Does it depend on whether this is a Paladin of Tyr, stern Norse god of Justice, or of a deity of mercy and forgiveness?  Or should we take her back to town to face trial (knowing full well how fair a trial a half ogre is likely to get, especially one with a reputation for being an evil sorceress)?I'm coming back to "what does the campaign say" - steeldragons campaign/culture seems pretty well defined,  but I think Whizbang needs to decide (alone or with the players) how it is defined in his game.  Practically, if the decision (or consensus) is that the actions of the Paladin were incompatible with Paladinhood, then a retcon should be permitted, since no one seems to have known what those requirements were.</blockquote>

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