D&D 5E Paladin just committed murder - what should happen next?

[Maxperson]

No mission is a suicide mission. There's always a tiny chance you may fulfill your objective and come out alive.

If that's your qualifier, then I guess shooting yourself in the head isn't suicide, either. Except, oh yeah, the chance of coming out of it alive is irrelevant. Shoot yourself in the head and hit that small chance at survival, and it's attempted suicide. Succeed and it's suicide. Same with the mission. Go on a suicide mission and die and it's suicide. Get lucky and live and it was only attempted suicide.

 

[Maxperson]

To take a graphic example: if I am killed defending my child from an assailant, and then my child suffers at the assailant's hands, I am not (posthumously) liable for negligent parenting or child endangerment. If I give my child to the assailant then I am. The fact that my child suffers either way isn't relevant - what the law fastens on is my conduct.

The law is irrelevant. We don't play Dungeons and Legal Treatises, and paladins are not lawyers. The law is also very wonky when it comes to things. For example, in California a fetus is not a person until approximately 6 months for purposes of abortion, is a person around conception for purposes of counting as a double murder if someone murders the mothers, and is not a person until after birth for purposes of inheritance.

D&D is played with every day people and every day meanings in mind, not the law. It doesn't matter whether the law flies in the face of reality with "willful" and murder. The law cannot change the fact that if a person is coerced, the act that person was forced to commit was against that person's will. It can only punish the person for "willfully" engaging in an unwilling act.

Stop with trying to make this about the law already and address the common meaning.

 

[Oofta]

I asked this a few pages ago and never got a response. Assume for a moment the OP's scenario is as follows (it's my understanding of what happened):

• The lone paladin is carrying a badly injure NPC that cannot walk on their own.
• They come across an adult dragon
• The PC makes a diplomacy check, explaining that he is part of a group trying to save the world. If he fails, the dragon will die along with everyone else.
• The PC rolls and gets a very good result
• The dragon responds "Leave the injured man and you may go"
• The PC leaves the NPC and goes

Sound about right? You discuss it with the player after the game. They tell you:

​

"I gave it my best shot. I saw no way of surviving the encounter with the dragon. I believed any more discussion would lead to my death in addition to the death of the NPC. As much as I would have liked to save the NPC, I didn't see any alternative. My mission to save the world is more important."​

What do you respond?

Because I know how I would respond. I screwed up. At the very least I should have given the player an insight check to know that the dragon's response was just an opening offer, not an ultimatum. At this point I'd discuss with the PC what to do next. He's not an oathbreaker, but it is a gray area one that certainly could haunt him even if he believed there was no better option. Maybe he needs to say a dozen Hail Titanias*. Seek counsel of another paladin or cleric. Have a dream/vision where he visits the Feywild and learns that at some point he must return the bones of the NPC to a sacred grove.

Because that's what we should be addressing. What's an appropriate response for a DM in this situation and why?

*Arch Fey summer queen

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, I have to say, that if your child is abducted at gunpoint, at no point did you willingly give up your child.

That's not the example I gave. I'll let you go if you give me the child is the relevant example.

Perhaps there's a defence of duress. But duress is an excuse, not a justification.

(I think you and @Fanaelialae may also be conflating "GIve me the child or I'll shoot him/her" and "Give me the child or I'll shoot you". These are very different choice situations.)

this paladin did have a duty to the man he was protecting. However, he also had a duty to the world itself (because he was on a quest to prevent the destruction of said world).

What is the source of the posited second duty? Who did the paladin make a promise to? Who entrusted the world to the paladin's care?

 

[FrogReaver]

I asked this a few pages ago and never got a response. Assume for a moment the OP's scenario is as follows (it's my understanding of what happened):

• The lone paladin is carrying a badly injure NPC that cannot walk on their own.
• They come across an adult dragon
• The PC makes a diplomacy check, explaining that he is part of a group trying to save the world. If he fails, the dragon will die along with everyone else.
• The PC rolls and gets a very good result
• The dragon responds "Leave the injured man and you may go"
• The PC leaves the NPC and goes

Sound about right? You discuss it with the player after the game. They tell you:

​

"I gave it my best shot. I saw no way of surviving the encounter with the dragon. I believed any more discussion would lead to my death in addition to the death of the NPC. As much as I would have liked to save the NPC, I didn't see any alternative. My mission to save the world is more important."​

What do you respond?

Because I know how I would respond. I screwed up. At the very least I should have given the player an insight check to know that the dragon's response was just an opening offer, not an ultimatum. At this point I'd discuss with the PC what to do next. He's not an oathbreaker, but it is a gray area one that certainly could haunt him even if he believed there was no better option. Maybe he needs to say a dozen Hail Titanias*. Seek counsel of another paladin or cleric. Have a dream/vision where he visits the Feywild and learns that at some point he must return the bones of the NPC to a sacred grove.

Because that's what we should be addressing. What's an appropriate response for a DM in this situation and why?

*Arch Fey summer queen

In fiction the paladin only gave an argument and rolled persuasion for his life.

No reason he had to believe the roll should have saved the npc

 

[pemerton]

For you, though, apparently, any failure must be a violation of the paladin's oath. Therefore, in your games, the paladin can never fail. You will never allow the paladin to fail, since that would violate the paladin's oath, and you apparently don't want to do that.

For someone who posted that he has no interest in my games or how I play them, you sure do like to speculate about them!

Here's a self-quote from the 2011 thread I pointed you to upthread:

An actual play example, concerning a paladin in a Rolemaster game. RM is a game with random crits, and is also one in which defeat of foes frequently occurs by disabling them via accumulated penalties to action, perhaps leaving them maimed but allowing their bleeding to be staunched so they can be taken prisoner/sent on their way/whatever. The first time the player of this paladin actually killed an NPC in combat was when he rolled a death crit - 00 on the percentile dice - and therefore beheaded the foe. This sent him into a period of deep mourning and introspection, and he wandered alone away from the rest of the party. I (as GM) rolled a random encounter, got a low level demon, and proceeded to have that demon appear near the paladin and begin taunting him for his conduct. I assumed that the paladin would attack the demon, on the grounds that demons speak falsehoods and not truths, but in fact he interpreted the whole thing as a sign from his god that he had done the wrong thing and deserved punishment. He therefore let the demon beat him to a pulp, until - realising that there was no more sport to be had here - it let him go. The paladin in question spent the next part of the campaign trying to atone for (what he took to be) his wrongs by building housing for refugees fleeing war in a neighbouring country.

None of your examples end with the NPC eaten.

Last I heard, the player succeeded on the only relevant check, (a persuasion check). Call me old-fashioned, but when I referee a win is a win.

If the check had failed then the dragon seizes the NPC (or whatever). It seems to me that a powerful dragon that wants the NPC but wants the paladin alive should have the werewithal to achieve that result without the cooperation of the paladin.

 

[Maxperson]

That's not the example I gave. I'll let you go if you give me the child is the relevant example.

Perhaps there's a defence of duress. But duress is an excuse, not a justification.

It doesn't matter if it's a defense or not. To the rules, all that matters is that the paladin is unwilling. The king's court may convict him, but the king will be convicting a paladin who was unwilling in the eyes of his class rules on oathbreaking.

 

[pemerton]

It doesn't matter if it's a defense or not. To the rules, all that matters is that the paladin is unwilling. The king's court may convict him, but the king will be convicting a paladin who was unwilling in the eyes of his class rules on oathbreaking.

As I just posted, I think that if the dragon wants the NPC but doesn't want to kill the paladin, that result is easy enough for it to bring about without the paladin's help. That would be an example of an unwilling failure to fulfill the duty of protection owed to the NPC.

 

[Maxperson]

As I just posted, I think that if the dragon wants the NPC but doesn't want to kill the paladin, that result is easy enough for it to bring about without the paladin's help. That would be an example of an unwilling failure to fulfill the duty of protection owed to the NPC.

Sure it is, but that isn't what happened in the example the OP gave. Would've, should've, could've on the part of the DM doesn't really matter. The DM came here for help and advice on what actually happened.

 

[Oofta]

In fiction the paladin only gave an argument and rolled persuasion for his life.

No reason he had to believe the roll should have saved the npc

So what is your ruling? How do you address it?

Do you rule that the best response the player could think of at the time was not good enough? That they can no longer be an oath of the ancients paladin?