Paladin moral delima

[Kzach]

The only thing that would strip a paladin of his paladin-hood is doing evil. Now there are a lot of interpretations as to what is evil, but sneaking out of a certain death situation isn't one of them.

 

[haakon1]

I'm not even really understanding the question.

I'll guess, "....No?"

Seriously, I'm not seeing the moral conflict here. I can imagine some things that might cause moral conflict in this case, but you haven't mentioned them.

1) Did the Paladin beg for mercy? Did the Paladin's foe extend parole to the Paladin? Did the Paladin in any way pledge not to escape?

2) Is the Paladin abandoning an innocent to their fate by fleeing? For example, is there another captive whose safety depends on the Paladin not escaping? Is the Paladin abandoning a comrade in arms who has also been captured?

I'm not seeing any sign that the Paladin fleeing amounts to cowardice. Not fleeing when the oppurtunity presented itself might amount to cowardice. Asking an enemy that the Paladin believed was without honor for mercy, or extending his word to an enemy that the Paladin believed to be honorless might be cowardly. Collaborating with the enemy could be very dishonorable. But escaping from a stockade after having been captured by the enemy doesn't strike me as the gutless thing to do.

I'm with you. Either the question is a "huh, of course" or there's missing context.

The simple answer to this sort of question would be: "Would Luke Skywalker do it?"

If Luke were captured (alone) by the Emperor, would he escape when he saw a chance? Duh, of course, he would.

But if he were captured with Han, he'd do everything in his power to also get Han out too, and wouldn't leave him behind unless circumstances forced it (like he was trying to get Han out when Darth showed up and drove him back).

And he would NOT sneak back into the Imperial Palace to apologize for having escaped and ask the Emperor would he please mind not being evil anymore.

 

[Dausuul]

The only thing that would strip a paladin of his paladin-hood is doing evil.

Not strictly true. Ceasing to be lawful good, or "grossly" violating the code of conduct, can also result in loss of paladin abilities. This is clearly not a gross violation, so the paladin is in no danger of going beige. By 3E rules-as-written, going beige is the only sanction the universe can inflict on a paladin--there are no lesser punishments--so by a strict reading, the paladin is entirely safe. Were I the DM, I would ding him for it in some small manner, as I said.

Now there are a lot of interpretations as to what is evil, but sneaking out of a certain death situation isn't one of them.

It's not a certain death situation. Read the OP again. It's a choice between sneaking out, or fighting one's captor in a trial by combat. (I'm assuming the paladin has convincing evidence the trial is a fair one, which is a rather big assumption.)

 

[malcolypse]

orion90000, show some tact, please.

 

[Gardukk]

It's a choice between sneaking out, or fighting one's captor in a trial by combat. (I'm assuming the paladin has convincing evidence the trial is a fair one, which is a rather big assumption.)

If there are no other lives in danger than his own, what is the point of challenging the captor one-on-one instead of just booking it? A paladin with an axe between his eyes isn't going to do a very good job of protecting the innocent. If the opportunity arises that would allow the paladin to avoid putting himself in senseless danger it would make sense to do so.

 

[Squire James]

I agree with the majority of the posters here that paladins should not be required to act like idiots. They might do so if they dumped their Intelligence down to 7 or something, though I should note that a cat with Intelligence 2 still knows how to be stealthy and is aware of the advantages of flanking someone.

 

[marelion]

The only moral dilemma I could think of is the rather abstract threat that the evil ruler who imprisoned him is going to unleash his fury on the innocent people he governs who are still in the reach of his whip. If it were clear to the paladin that his captor has such revengeful tendencies then IMHO he would be violating his code of conduct.

But since the OP hasn`t stated that this would be the case I cannot see how he could possibly violate any of the sacred vows that turned him into a paladin.

The possibilty of challenging his former captor to a duell could be a course of action for those Paladins who are especially devoted to challenge and chivalry but those paladins run the risk of promoting chaos. And let`s not forget that executing revenge is not a display of chivalry either. If you kill a leader in a LE society chances are that his successor(s) swear revenge to the paladin and those he is sworn to protect or that the lawful government itself gets overthrown by revolution. Even worse, the evil nation/cult that our anonymous "evil guy" is part of might declare war upon the order/nation the paladin is a part of and bring havoc to the paladin`s allies and innocent bystanders. Thus, our example paladin might loose his status for promoting chaos by agreeing to duell.

I guess, it would be helpful if the OP could leak a little more information, for right now answering feels a bit like playing Blindman`s Buff in the minefield of moral diemma for paladins.

 

[mmadsen]

I think any of these Paladin-alignment discussions could be improved by looking back at what real scholars who took these issues seriously considered the important elements of a just war -- even though a Paladin is not literally a (Catholic) Christian knight going to war on behalf of his lord.

Besides the more obvious criteria -- that the threat has to be serious, and non-violent options must be impractical -- are two that stand out to me: (1) there must be serious prospects of success; and (2) the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

 

[Celebrim]

The only moral dilemma I could think of is the rather abstract threat that the evil ruler who imprisoned him is going to unleash his fury on the innocent people he governs who are still in the reach of his whip. If it were clear to the paladin that his captor has such revengeful tendencies then IMHO he would be violating his code of conduct.

I think you have to be very careful in assigning the Paladin the blame for the moral agency of others. It's the evil ruler here who makes the choice to be wrathful and vengeful, not the Paladin. And in particular, the evil ruler is not constrained to make that choice regardless of the Paladin's action. You could easily get into a Catch-22 situation here, where because you are blaming the Paladin for the evil doers actions and because being an evil doer the evil doer does evil all the time, regardless of what the Paladin does you blame the Paladin for it.

This is actually an ugly special case of 'no one is accountable for their own choices because its societies fault'. We've now gone one step uglier, 'no one is accountable for their own choices because its all the fault of those within the society championing righteousness for not making it all better'. The Paladin can't be blamed for the existance of evil, or if rectifying the problem of evil in the land is at times an ugly process. In my opinion, the Paladin can only be judged by what they do given the choices available to them. If someone else decides to act immorally and brutally and makes terrible choices, that's not something you can easily blame on the Paladin.

...for right now answering feels a bit like playing Blindman`s Buff in the minefield of moral diemma for paladins.

If you can be judged for someone else failing a moral test in response to jealous, anger, or hatred of your own righteous action, then yes, doing good is a moral minefield. Do you really think it is a valid criticism to counterfactually claim, "If you had only not freed those persons from unjust bondage and showed them kindness, then the oppressor would not have been provoked to kill another innocent in a fit of embarassed impotent rage. All the deaths that they have caused are on your hands!"? Under those terms, you run the risk of suggesting that its wrong to resist evil because look what they'll do if you do.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

If a paladin was captured, striped of his gear, and imprisoned, would he lose his paladin status if he escaped, recovered his gear, and got out of the enemy camp as quietly as possible?

I know it sounds retarded and I'm not leaning on this, being a special circumstance and all. But if he had the opportunity to challenge his oppressor in a Lawful Evil society for his possessions and right of passage but chose to be sneaky instead would there be any divine punishment for cowardice or would that be stupidity instead?

What are your thoughts?

1. DM's decide what the requirements of a paladins behavior are - what is acceptable, what is not. These should be decided before play ever begins especially if the DM anticipates ever specifically challenging the paladin player with a moral question.

2. DM's MUST communicate to the player what he has decided as noted above. Obviously it is best that this be done before it ever becomes an issue, but it is similarly possible for a DM to simply INFORM the player that his intended course of action WILL OR WILL NOT call his morality into question - AND WHY. Paladins who are IGNORANT of what is acceptible morality CANNOT become paladins in the first place. It's illogical. Paladins EXEMPLIFY moral behavior and cannot do so if they can't even define it, much less know how to adhere to it. Players who have not been informed by the DM of the details of their class and alignment restrictions as the DM interprets them to be cannot be held responsible for that DM's failures in that regard.

3. In ANY circumstance in which a DM has failed to identify beforehand what a paladin IS ALLOWED to find morally acceptable that DM has BY DEFAULT given permission to the player to reach his own conclusions without being punished for failing to GUESS correctly.