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

[Maxperson]

Ummm...this seems pretty obvious. All count as potentially willfully breaking the oath depending on the oath the dogma the deity and the specific situation. The players opinion also generally is irrelevant.

This goes directly against RAW which doesn't care about what the oath says or who the deity is. All that matters per RAW is whether the breach was willing, which means that a coerced breach cannot result in the loss of paladinhood.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's two problems with your argument.

1. You are insisting that any failure is automatically a "non lawful good" solution. Leaving the NPC to the dragon is not necessarily an evil or even willing violation of an Oath act. The problem comes in when you insist that your interpretation of Lawful Good (any result other than the paladin's death is an oath breaking) is so limited that it becomes Lawful Stupid. It's not that a Lawful Good death trap is more realistic. It isn't. But, it's also not unrealistic. It's actually quite plausible. Which means that in their style of games, where something being plausible means that it's quite possible to use, then obviously they cannot use such a tightly wound interpretation of the Oaths.

Let me make it clear then. I'm only talking about scenarios where the DM has set up a challenge such that the player playing his conception of his lawful good character would require him to play lawful stupid.

There are 2 solutions.
1. The player could have chosen to play a different character
2. The DM could choose a different challenge

IMO Since the DM permitted the character in the game in the first place then the onus is on him to choose a different challenge - unless the player knew full well that the DM would challenge character in said ways and the player still made the choice to play the character

The rest of this paragraph is you talking past me because it really doesn't matter that there are other conceptions of lawful good - we are talking about a particular lawful good concept that can be placed in no-win situations - which ironically is every kind of lawful good concept except the pragmatic - greatest good for greatest number type (which many would question if that should be counted as a lawful good character in the first place).

2. You are pointing to the player's conception of Lawful Good. But, throughout this discussion, it has always, ALWAYS been the DM's conception of Lawful Good and the Oaths that have been the sticking point. As soon as we put it on the player, the problem goes away. The character fails, but, that failure is not considered a break point for the character. It might need some atonement, but, such atonement is fairly minimal. IOW, from the player's POV, the character has not violated his oath at all. It's only because the DM is insisting on extremely limited interpretations of the Oaths (all paladins are Cavaliers or Captain America) that this is actually a problem.

This side conversation isn't about oath breaking. It's about whose to blame for lawful stupid. My take is that non-pragmatic concepts of lawful good exist and should be playable in the D&D universe without them resulting in lawful stupid. There's a simple way to do that and it's to challenge them with 1 of 10,000 other things that the DM has at his disposal to challenge.

It's not that a smart intelligent villain can't challenge him with that, it's that he has chosen to challenge him with something else entirely. There's no loss of fidelity or realism or whatever you want to call it with this approach. The only thing you as the DM has to do is be a little creative and come up with something else the villain decides to challenge the party with.

IOW, the problem with Lawful Stupid is not that the DM has set a no-win situation. The problem is that the DM has set a no-win situation and then actively punishes the PC for making the best of a bad situation.

A lawful good wizard plays the same as a lawful good Paladin. The only difference is a wizard won't lose his powers for abandoning his principles because following them would be costly. At the end of the day though, if a lawful good paladin would do something to uphold his principles to cost his life then a lawful good wizard would as well. It's not about punishment for abandoning your principles. It's about the punishment when you follow them.

 

[Maxperson]

Let me make it clear then. I'm only talking about scenarios where the DM has set up a challenge such that the player playing his conception of his lawful good character would require him to play lawful stupid.

You keep saying that, but lawful stupid was selected at character creation. The situation the DM came up with did not require lawful stupid, lawful stupid is what the character is and the player is responsible for his own stupid choices.

There are 2 solutions.
1. The player could have chosen to play a different character
2. The DM could choose a different challenge

3. The player could have made a smart choice and not selected lawful stupid at character creation.
4. The player can realize that he made a dumb choice at character creation and alter his lawful stupid alignment and make it LG.

IMO Since the DM permitted the character in the game in the first place then the onus is on him to choose a different challenge - unless the player knew full well that the DM would challenge character in said ways and the player still made the choice to play the character

Nyet! Players come to me with ideas that will be rough to play all the time. I give them a warning at character creation and if they go forward anyway, their difficulties are on them. If a player chooses lawful stupid, I'm going to let him know that it isn't required for him to play paladins stupidly and then let him choose his path from there. I will not alter the game world to account for bad choices, though.

 

[FrogReaver]

The gods don't control the world. A paladin needs to accept that they can't win every battle, but hopefully they can win the war.

The point is that wow the God's behave and everything else is setting dependent. Rogues can be given more grief in certain settings than Paladins ever dreamt of experiencing. The reason no one complains about neutral stupid rogues is that nearly no one uses such a setting.

I don't know why you think a typical non-pragmatic conception of lawful good implies that the lawful good character must never lose a battle. That's entirely not the case. Nor do such concepts entail never retreating. What they do entail is putting your own safety above others. So for example if the Paladin is protecting an NPC then all I'm suggesting is that you forcefully take the NPC from him instead of setting up a scenario where he's expected to give up the PC to save his own life. The 2nd would be a challenge to his lawful goodness such that he will die for following his principles.

I can imagine a world where the rogue was a kleptomaniac that refused to drop the treasure chest. Even after they set off an alarm and knew that the only chance of escape was to drop the chest and run. It did not end well for the rogue.

Great example of neutral stupid.

If you want to have kiddie cartoon villains where everyone always has a perfect option, go for it.

It's not kiddie cartoon villains. They can do literally everything yours can except 1 thing. Surely you can find an adequate replacement to challenging the lawful goodness of such a character that is both realistic and sensible for an intelligent evil NPC to use against the party.

I don't set up no-win or choose between two evils scenarios. That doesn't mean they can't happen under the right circumstances because I run a very dynamic campaign.

Then you do set up no-win choose between evil scenarios. It's always your decision what happens to the PC's. It's your setting and your NPC's. You are the driver. There's always an alternative action you can take that is just as challenging and realistic etc that doesn't trod all over such lawful good PC's.

The more we go through this conversation - the more it convinces me that DM's are the true creators of lawful stupid. They control everything. All I control as a player is what my PC does in response. Don't want lawful stupid then don't put me in a situation where I will be forced to do the thing you call lawful stupid.

It seems like you want paladins to be perfect and then blame the DM if they hold them to an impossible standard without providing the "perfect" option every time.

Perfect option? No. Simply don't put them through a lawful stupid trap.

I would no more do that than purposely set up a scenario where you have to commit evil acts to succeed.

You are the DM and you are in control. Whether you threw it at them straight away or jumped through some hoops before throwing it at them it doesn't matter - ultimately you had the choice to throw it at them or not. Alternatively if you insist on running the kind of game you run that's fine too - just make sure the players always realize that pragmatic lawful good is the only lawful good concept they should actually try.

 

[FrogReaver]

You keep saying that, but lawful stupid was selected at character creation. The situation the DM came up with did not require lawful stupid, lawful stupid is what the character is and the player is responsible for his own stupid choices.



3. The player could have made a smart choice and not selected lawful stupid at character creation.
4. The player can realize that he made a dumb choice at character creation and alter his lawful stupid alignment and make it LG.



Nyet! Players come to me with ideas that will be rough to play all the time. I give them a warning at character creation and if they go forward anyway, their difficulties are on them. If a player chooses lawful stupid, I'm going to let him know that it isn't required for him to play paladins stupidly and then let him choose his path from there. I will not alter the game world to account for bad choices, though.

First of all - good on you for emphasizing such characters aren't welcome in your games.

Secondly, playing a non-pragmatic lawful good paladin isn't playing lawful stupid. It's the challenges you throw at him that ultimately makes that character play lawful stupid.

 

[Flamestrike]

Why are people constantly conflating 'oath' with 'good alignment'?

The only bearing alignment has on the oath is it is the lense through which the Paladin views his oath.

A LE Vengeance paladin likely sees Good aligned churches as the 'Greater evil' he is sworn to eradicate, and engages in torture, murder and genocide in upholding his vow of 'by any means'.

A LN Vengeance paladin probably interprets his oath a different way, and LG Vengeance paladin probably interprets 'by any means' as obliging him to heal, put his own life on the line, and show acts of kindness towards evildoers.

It's largely a subjective interpretation of the oath, that's up to the DM to enforce.

 

[Maxperson]

First of all - good on you for emphasizing such characters aren't welcome in your games.

Secondly, playing a non-pragmatic lawful good paladin isn't playing lawful stupid. It's the challenges you throw at him that ultimately makes that character play lawful stupid.

Again, nyet! If you choose to play a suicidal paladin, don't get upset if you end up killing yourself. It's flat out wrong for the player to demand via choosing lawful stupid, that the game cater to his wishes and the DM change how the world works. The player doesn't have that right.

 

[FrogReaver]

Playing an evil character as being someone who is willing to exploit the perceived weaknesses of others is not realistic? It might be unrealistic if EVERY villain is this way. But never using any Machiavellian villains is quite unrealistic to me. That's part of what makes a villain a villain, even if they see their ends as justified. They're willing to cross a line to achieve those ends that a good character would not.

There's still a million ways for your Machivellian villain to challenge a non-pragmatic lawful good paladin. Why do you insist on leaving open for your villain the one option that makes non-pragmatic lawful good paladin's unplayable?

What the good character considers strength (doing the right thing because it is the right this to do) the evil character will typically consider a weakness. That isn't to say that you can't have honorable villains who refuse to stoop so low. However, too honorable to exploit a perceived weakness and too stupid to perceive a potential weakness are but two options in a nearly infinite assortment of potential villains.

Then set up the scenario in such a way as there was a smarter weakness for the Machivellian villain to exploit than the non-pragmatic lawful good nature of the paladin. You are in full control of both the Villain and the setting. You have all the power you need to make that happen.

If your game is based in part on Arthurian legend, and extreme nobility is expected of paladin's, then it's perfectly fair to avoid using such villains because they run counter to the themes of the campaign (or at least the survival of any paladins therein). Much as if I was running a light-hearted campaign based on Saturday morning cartoons, I would avoid scenes of graphic ultra violence. Avoiding either is not "being realistic", because such things can and do happen in the real world. That said, it is in keeping with the established thematic elements of that campaign.

Such a Villain works anywhere. You have 1 million+ options to challenge players with and the means to make any of those options actually be the most intelligent and best option the villain could have chosen. It's not that the Villain can't choose to do that, it's that you as the DM will never have him make that choice and will dictate the scenario in such a way that there is a more sensible option.

 

[FrogReaver]

Again, nyet! If you choose to play a suicidal paladin, don't get upset if you end up killing yourself. It's flat out wrong for the player to demand via choosing lawful stupid, that the game cater to his wishes and the DM change how the world works. The player doesn't have that right.

As long as you've told them before hand that you shouldn't play non-pragmatic lawful good. If you didn't then it's on you - so change your world.

 

[Campbell]

Double binds are poor scenario design no matter who you use them on. Manipulating the setting to put a player in that position is not good storytelling. It is poor storytelling.