Paladin: Tricked Into Killing the Wrong Target

[Peter Gibbons]

Is Death too severe of a penalty for the action of "pretending to cast evil spells" even when his pretending allowed his master to kill several party members? The minion's actions would seem to fall under the category of conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting, etc.

You say that as if "conspiracy to commit murder" or "aiding and abetting [murder]" are any less of a crime than murder.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think he meant it that way...I think he was saying that the killing would still be justified, but he is unsure.

And yes, what was described would be actions that made the person an accessory to murder.

 

[jasper]

endur Sounds like a person I would let play a paladin a moments notice.

 

[Thia Halmades]

More and more I feel like I need to start a Paladin advocacy group. Couple things.

- Punking punky, who's punktastic master was a party punking party pooper. Yeah, I wrote that. Yeah, it's early, lemme 'lone. No loss of powers here; if he was 'pretending' to cast evil spells... and I'm not pretending to understand that one, and if the promise was "I'll be good, honest!" and the Paladin says "Good! Welcome to the side of righteousness and piety!" Genius then 'pretends' to kill the Paladins friends, and he's righteously smited.

No power loss, that's open and shut.

- IIRC, there was, at some point, might've been 3.0, might've been 2E, that said in short, "even if he commits an evil act via trickery, he still loses his powers and must atone." Which made getting a Paladin out of your campaign pretty simple. Now I'm with Endur on this, I feel that a Paladin can go toe to toe with another Paladin, no question. Both of them can be lawful (separate warring socieites, or simply believing in different structures) and both can be acting for their own societies' (i.e., in their mind, the greater) good. So I'm much more in line with flex when it comes to Pallies and how their view, combined with their God's view, determines their general outlook.

That being said, if an Illusionist sets up an innocent to be slain, and the Paladin doesn't know to make a check (the evidence in front of him was enough) then by all means, he's within his rights. If he never attempts a Smite, he wouldn't know the target wasn't evil. Would he be upset? Yes. Enough to go murder an Illusionist? Quite (who was evil, and was getting innocents killed with the Paladin's sword). Would I strip him of his powers?

Only if he wasn't remorseful. If he went to the trouble of telling the family, apologizing, and giving last rights to the fallen, than I have no trouble with it. In combat innocent people get hurt; especially when magic is involved. I can't reasonably hold a Paladin accountable for everything that happens on the battlefield. I can hold him accountable for how he responds to it, and acts in response to discovering the truth afterwards.

 

[Rel]

I'm a little surprised at this thread. I tend to steer clear of Paladin threads these days but I can recall a time when people saying "doesn't matter if he was tricked - he VIOLATED the CODE!!!!111!!" were thick on the ground around here. I found this assertion completely silly.

So silly in fact that I included it in one of my silly Orcz! games that I have run as one-shots. The PC's were all Orcs hunting down a Paladin and his party who had kidnapped all the women and children from their tribe (because you can't kill Orc women and children and instead must lug them back to town to "convert them from their evil ways" - another frequent flying theory in Paladin threads). During the big final battle, the Paladin whipped out his sword and stabbed one of the Orcs and...was stripped of his Paladinhood.

One of the Orc women had secretly slipped some poison into his scabbard.

The Paladin's last words were, "It's not FAIR!"


DISCLAIMER: I don't hold to this silly notion. I only enforced the rules this way for comedic effect for the benefit of the other ENWorlders present at the game table. They were horrified at this rules interpretation (thought it benefitted their Orc characters at the time). But they pretty quickly understood that it was the "punch line" of the adventure.

 

[painandgreed]

I think it would be possible to trick a paladin into commiting an action that would strip him of his powers, but probably not in the example given. Agreed that mistakenly attacking an illusion that is covering somebody would be a very regretable event but once again the true crime is upon the illusionist. However, if there was something with a longer setup and less magic, it might be possible to trick a paladin. Say he was guarding a caravan along with a good ranger. It becomes evident that there is an evil priest hiding in the caravan. The paladin finds some clues that the ranger is the evil priest and then stumbles upon part of the caravan with a lone survivor telling him that it was the ranger and warnign the paladin not to let the ranger say a word because he quicken spells, charms, Word of Chaos or something of that nature. The paladin goes out and finds the ranger, and as the ranger greets the paladin unaware that anything is wrong the paladin strikes him down which is wrong because the survivor was the evil priest and lied to the paladin and framed the ranger with the clues. Killing an innocent as such would be a violation of code as although paladins are given the right to smite, they are held to the standard of being right. He attacked and killed the ranger without any magical coersion during the encounter and should have confirmed his suspitions first. I don't think the attack would be sufficient to need atonement, but the killing would.

 

[Thia Halmades]

Y'all realize this is part & parcel of Morgana looking like Guenevyr and shagging Arthur, thus having Modred and thus the wheels falling off, right? It's part of the same mythos; there was an evil act, trickery or not, and the punishment (destruction by the seed Arthur planted, his own 'crime' coming on him) was inherent to the "crime" itself. Of course, this is also from a time period when people believed nobility was a bloodline, and thus those people were better than the rest of us mere mortals. That aside.

This sort of thinking really doesn't apply to a D&D game, generally speaking. The Code is there to add to roleplaying and to give the Paladin an edge against evil. Can it hamstring them? Yep, and that's good (if not great) roleplaying right there. I have a Paladin NPC (named, amusingly, Thia Halmades) who's primary problem right now is that the code prohibits him from playing the same dirty political games as his adversaries. He can't step down from his position, because what little good he can do must be done, and without him, wouldn't be done. It's a major crux of the story arc, and makes the character tragic, because the code he adheres to is the same code which prohibits him from taking action.

Whether or not a Paladin is stripped of his powers is really DMO; so long as the ruling is consistent and the player's character isn't utterly ruined because he was so misled, I have no real problem with it. Mind you, if the player doesn't grasp the concept of Paladin, that's a whole 'nother problem.

 

[Sejs]

I think Don Tadow nailed it.


The higher power that grants the paladin his abilities can't be suckered into withdrawing its favor. The is no 'gotcha' and those eyes can see right through any wool that might be pulled.


That higher power knows why the paladin did what he did and that the paladin was acting in what he thought was the right way based on the information available to him at the time.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

In the second example the paladin may well want to atone, but does not suffer a penalty from his god. Being tricked into something is not an evil act. No interpretation needed.

That would be your interpretation.

I'm of mixed minds on being tricked into 'sin' as it were. I think a lot depends on the nature of the campaign and the conception of the paladin.

There's definitly mythological support for divine retribution for mistaken actions. Abraham kept getting cities struck with plagues by lying about his marriage, Helen was held responsible for starting the trojian war in spite of being essentially under a love spell, the arthurian fall mentioned earlier.... Also, there's the idea of "spiritual cleanliness". Striking down an innocent could be seen to leave a spiritual stain which interferes with the purity of soul which is the paladin's source of power. (campaign dependant thinking here obviously). It would not at all be unreasonable to expect a paladin to ritually purify himself (atonement) before again being a propper vessel for the power of good to flow through. As long as this process was relitively painless and did not require long quests or hassle, I see this as no more unfair than a PC beng poisoned and having to get a restoration spell cast or wait out the recovery.

The other side obviously hinges on the interpretation of the word "willingly" and the feeling that its unfair for the paladin to suffer a temporary loss of powers based on an outside agency's actions. If this was used to "screw" the paladin, or the player simply could not get into the "ritual cleanliness" mode, I'd see it as a bad thing for the game.

 

[painandgreed]

That higher power knows why the paladin did what he did and that the paladin was acting in what he thought was the right way based on the information available to him at the time.

Are you saying that a paladin can only act on what information he has and has no obligation to verify his information or beliefs or a responsiblity to be correct when he makes life and death choices?

Personally, I think that the power would hold paladins acting in their name to a little higher standard.