Paladin thread, nuff said

[FreeTheSlaves]

You have detect evil, you detect the evil, you arrest the evil, if duly appointed by the king, you kill the bad guys. Judge, jury and executioner.

Magical detection is not reliable (and extremely rare & feared in this low magic campaign) and cannot be used in any legitimate court of law.

It can be used as an informal guide but my character is obligated to provide mundane evidence. Btw, I have eyewitness accounts & entries in my (bulging) notebook.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Quote:
Realistically though, we can't afford to fight fair ... *Not* the quote of a Paladin.

Does this mean we should forego unfair benefits of surprise, higher ground, flanking & longer ranged missile fire? An AC16, HP17, AB+5 warrior cannot beat a 'guard-of-the-dead'* with AC19, HP30(?), AB+? in a fair fight most of the time, and losing once is final in a world without ressurection.

*Recent foe guarding the gates to the underworld.

 

[Seeten]

A few quick questions for the "Lawful and Good" Paladin proponents.

The Law states, "You must kill 10 peasants by Sundown to do the Rite of Demon Summoning" The King, the legitimate law of the land, has issued this as a direct edict to you, his Deputy.

What do you do? The King is obviously evil. But, that is now a legitimate law from Legitimate authority.

IMC, being "Lawful" does not mean blindly obeying corrupt or ridiculous laws. It is more like following the ideals set out by the Geneva Convention. Some space is given for unique nations, if the laws arent draconian, or plain evil, but just because something is writ into law does not make it just, nor does it mean a Paladin should lose his paladinhood for not only ignoring that law, but actively opposing it.

Is actively opposing a legitimate law a chaotic act? I would state no, depending on what that law is.

A Paladin of a good god might find the law states all Paladins are to be killed on sight. When he enters the land, does he instantly kill himself? One would hope not.

I would argue that a Paladin must uphold the Laws of his god, church, or land, depending on which one he is a Paladin of. If he lives by a code, then he must follow it. And thats it. Illegitimate laws and illegitimate authority has no hold over Paladins IMC.

The Paladin in this campaign, depending on who he worships/works for, would not have lost his Paladinhood for anything, to this point, but, he might have gotten a stern talking to for burning down the house.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Anyway here is the most recent naughtiness:

****

Entering the apparent source of the undead plague, we enter the cave to the underworld. We are entering not just because it is the source of the undead but because our first party death arose from his cairn as an undead and we thought he was shambling his way down to hell. We intended to race and catch his corpse and put him to rest properly before his soul was lost for good.
Anyway, after losing a fight, winning a fight & winning again, we face a gateway that can't be opened by all our strength combined. Almost despairing, our 'fire & brimstone' evangelist companion remembers that this gateway only opens to the dead and so I reluctantly pick up and press a skeletal hand to the gateway - and loe it opens!
Now the naughty thing is that we are slowly penetrating the tunnels to the underworld, and retreating back the way to rest after every battle it seems & so I've taken to carrying the hand in a pouch. Okay we need it to open the doors on the way back but it is desecrating the poor person's corpse that it belonged to while it is not cremated, like we did with the rest of the bones.

What does it take to cross the line of desecration?

 

[Bront]

My DM doesn't care a whit but I wonder what the rest of us ENWorldians think?

Well, several of your actions of actions (At least the ones you initialy posted) cut it close, so I can understand you being concerned. My suggestion, is to RP this out a bit. Perhaps your paladin is worried a little bit that perhaps he is being a bit to liberal with his code, and perhaps he will go out of his way to do some personal repentance even when it is not called for by his god and order. It's a good personal bit of RP I think.

I read the hand post, and that I don't think is an issue. You may not like it, but you are using it as a means towards the greater good. The Paladin code is generaly for the greater good, and there may be a time or two that you need to stretch it to accomplish your true goal (IE, short assosiation with an evil char to help further your goal, etc). Now, I wouldn't stretch this much, and I think RPing your character's repulsion of it is a good way to deal with it.

A Paladin that is constantly weighing the cost of his actions is a good thing, and I think that repenting when you even get close to the line can RP a Paladin that realizes that there are a few occasions where the choices are grey, and is thinking beyond the now.

 

[TheEvil]

I think Bront has the right of it so far. What a lot of people seem to be missing in this whole discussion is that you don't play a paladin the same in all campaign types. A paladin played 'high fantasy' style in this campaign would last about as long as Roy Rogers in one of the darker Clint Eastwood westerns. Cut the guy some slack! The GM has made it clear that hauling the bad guys back to higher authority is NOT a theme of this campaign! I am inclined to agree that he is pushing the code in this sort of setting, but he certainly isn't breaking it. Roleplaying the internal conflict should do very nicely.

Stopping before I start ranting...

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Quote:
Realistically though, we can't afford to fight fair ... *Not* the quote of a Paladin... Does this mean we should forego unfair benefits of surprise, higher ground, flanking & longer ranged missile fire?

Rereading this I think I have presented a strawman's argument, I doubt that is what you meant. The point I'm trying to make is that we use all the tricks to win: we ready & delay to simultaneously flank, withdraw & charge, hide & ambush, attack at night when our enemy is not in armour etc...

To give an idea of the lethality we face; when we entered the cave to the underworld we foolishly went up huge stairs to the gateway of the dead without clearing the guardian side-chambers. The guardians emerged from the dark recesses and gathered at the foot of the stairs while we scrambled a defence (we're 2nd level and we numbered 4, another companion was guarding our retreat & horses) against 7 armoured skeletons led by a zombie barbarian. With the benefit of high ground & superior tactics we won with only one of us standing (heaving & dripping blood from a gash) but despite his best efforts to assist the healer my characters dear, loyal friend bled to death, and my character stabilized only a second from death.

This is all open rolling and btw I'm not complaining about this, I am finding this extremely fun, I'm just trying to paint a picture.

I think I'll take up your advice Bront and weigh up the costs of hard to make actions. I'll illustrate my character by speaking aloud his thoughts to the group (the players, not the characters) when it comes to important actions. This could be annoying/distracting by doing it too often or over things so trivial, so I'll use it sparingly, just like when I describe his facial expressions or the change in his tone of voice, scrub that, it needs to be less often than that. It hopefully will have the effect of adding gravity to the issue at hand.