D&D 5E Paladin oath. What constitutes willingly breaking your oath/code?

[Maxperson]

This is where we differ then.

Trying to do good and failing is not evil to me.

The road to Hell is paved with...

Suiciding, sacrificing millions of people in the process as the world is destroyed, just so that you can suffer a guaranteed death at the hands of a dragon in a failed attempt to save one person is not a good or even neutral act.

Trying to save the one guy while still being able to try and save the world and failing is not evil, it's just failing. "Got caught by dragon, guy died in spite of my efforts, could only save me..." not evil.

The bolded part is something we know to be wrong. There was no ability to try and save him while still being able to try and save the world. The paladin already attempted that and failed, with his very successful roll only succeeding in guaranteeing that he could go save the world.

The action the paladin took, even in failure, turned "two dead" into "one dead" and there wasnt a better option within reason. Last I checked, saving some but not all was not listed as evil.

Really? So your argument is that if there's a truck barreling at both of us and the only way for one of us to survive is to shove the other, so I shove you over, using that momentum to launch me out of the path of the truck, saving my life, that's not an evil act? After all, I did save some, but not all.

 

[FrogReaver]

The road to Hell is paved with...

Suiciding, sacrificing millions of people in the process as the world is destroyed, just so that you can suffer a guaranteed death at the hands of a dragon in a failed attempt to save one person is not a good or even neutral act.



The bolded part is something we know to be wrong. There was no ability to try and save him while still being able to try and save the world. The paladin already attempted that and failed, with his very successful roll only succeeding in guaranteeing that he could go save the world.



Really? So your argument is that if there's a truck barreling at both of us and the only way for one of us to survive is to shove the other, so I shove you over, using that momentum to launch me out of the path of the truck, saving my life, that's not an evil act? After all, I did save some, but not all.

Can you not imagine an example with a dragon demanding an NPC where the paladin could have done more to save the npc?

 

[Oofta]

Let's take a scenario. The BBEG @lowkey13 pushes a paladin off a cliff. The paladin falls on top of an innocent child. The paladin survives, the child is dead. The paladin saw the child but didn't have wings or some other way of stopping their fall. I see no way that the paladin was responsible for an evil act.

The difference is being in responsible for and in control of your own actions, making a choice to act, not having the action forced upon you. The only one responsible for the evil was, as usual, Lowkey13. The paladin may still want to talk to someone, while they didn't commit an evil act, they were still effectively used as a tool of evil.

In this case, the paladin literally could do nothing. But let's say our BBEG was a lawyer and nattering on about various sections of law, quoting arcane sections of legal code and describing the difference between copyright and trademark. Unable to bear it any more, the paladin throws himself off a cliff in a desperate attempt to escape.

If he had no chance to see the child before he leaped I would say this is still not an evil act. He did choose to leap, but did not understand the full consequence.

What if he just didn't think to look? There wasn't any reason to think there would be a child at the bottom. If he had looked, he may or may not have seen the child (it's a high cliff, but the paladin has a lot of HP). There was no reason to think there would be an innocent child at the bottom of this very cliff.

This is a gray area to me. Yes, the paladin in theory could have not killed the child but the question become would a reasonable person look before leaping? Was there any hint whatsoever that there could be someone down there? I can absolutely see the paladin needing to do absolution - even if it wasn't evil it should haunt anyone with a conscience.

If the paladin leaped knowing the child was there, that is much more serious IMHO. Then of course you get into the trolley car problem, how much do you have to risk to save others, so on and so forth. Issues that have been debated by philosophers for millennia.

But ultimate conclusion? Sometimes there is no clear answer, just opinion. Oh, and lawyers are evil. Or something.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Oofta]

I know!

How could I have not looked down, first, and noticed all that child-padding?

Next time, I aim for the pile of broken glass and spikes. Or the child with the very sharp and pointy head.

Love is not something that you can put chains on and throw into a lake. That's called a Paladin. Love is liking someone a lot, you know, like yourself.

But what if it was a gnome? I mean, technically it's still padding, but it's a chance to kill two birds ... um ... targets with one push. Talk about philosophical dilemmas!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FrogReaver]

Let's take a scenario. The BBEG @lowkey13 pushes a paladin off a cliff. The paladin falls on top of an innocent child. The paladin survives, the child is dead. The paladin saw the child but didn't have wings or some other way of stopping their fall. I see no way that the paladin was responsible for an evil act.

The difference is being in responsible for and in control of your own actions, making a choice to act, not having the action forced upon you. The only one responsible for the evil was, as usual, Lowkey13. The paladin may still want to talk to someone, while they didn't commit an evil act, they were still effectively used as a tool of evil.

In this case, the paladin literally could do nothing. But let's say our BBEG was a lawyer and nattering on about various sections of law, quoting arcane sections of legal code and describing the difference between copyright and trademark. Unable to bear it any more, the paladin throws himself off a cliff in a desperate attempt to escape.

If he had no chance to see the child before he leaped I would say this is still not an evil act. He did choose to leap, but did not understand the full consequence.

What if he just didn't think to look? There wasn't any reason to think there would be a child at the bottom. If he had looked, he may or may not have seen the child (it's a high cliff, but the paladin has a lot of HP). There was no reason to think there would be an innocent child at the bottom of this very cliff.

This is a gray area to me. Yes, the paladin in theory could have not killed the child but the question become would a reasonable person look before leaping? Was there any hint whatsoever that there could be someone down there? I can absolutely see the paladin needing to do absolution - even if it wasn't evil it should haunt anyone with a conscience.

If the paladin leaped knowing the child was there, that is much more serious IMHO. Then of course you get into the trolley car problem, how much do you have to risk to save others, so on and so forth. Issues that have been debated by philosophers for millennia.

But ultimate conclusion? Sometimes there is no clear answer, just opinion. Oh, and lawyers are evil. Or something.

Extreme negligence that results in death is evil IMO

That’s the issue with other versions of the dragon and npc problem, ones where the paladin had a reasonable opportunity to do more and didn’t.

That’s also the issue you are having with jumping off a cliff and killing a child on landing without looking.

The question is what counts as sufficient negligence to make something evil vs making something an accident

 

[5ekyu]

Can you not imagine an example with a dragon demanding an NPC where the paladin could have done more to save the npc?

Well, here is the rub for me... if there had been an option for paladin dies but other guy lives, then you kinda hot a choice of evil or not complicated by saving the world quest. Like the truck option slid in by the quote you showed.

But here, after try to run failed to save guy, after try to talk strong result got only to save paladin or both die... then that next step is not yto me within the reasonable chance that outweighs the obvious downsides.

So, not evil to me to accept the defeat and lose one, try to save many and maybe come back to this later.

It's not evil to try and fail, but it sure might be to suicide if that hurts others too.

 

[Oofta]

Extreme negligence that results in death is evil IMO

That’s the issue with other versions of the dragon and npc problem, ones where the paladin had a reasonable opportunity to do more and didn’t.

That’s also the issue you are having with jumping off a cliff and killing a child on landing without looking.

The question becomes one of the state of mind of the actor and what is reasonable.

If I take the "drive while blindfolded" challenge and run someone over, I was being reckless and am responsible even though I didn't see the person.

If I'm driving on the freeway at a reasonable speed for the conditions and a lawyer throws a paladin in front of my car, timing it so that I have no chance to stop then I am not responsible.

You could argue that I should have been able to see the lawyer getting ready to throw the paladin off the overpass but in the vast majority of cases I do not think it would be a reasonable expectation. Could I have seen it? Maybe I was physically capable. But in most cases I'll be paying attention to traffic, not things overhead.

So basically I agree with:

The question is what counts as sufficient negligence to make something evil vs making something an accident

That's not always easy to determine, even when it comes to an RPG. As a general rule of thumb if there's a question I'll ask the player and have them explain their thought process and give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*