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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chrisling" data-source="post: 437078" data-attributes="member: 6816">SHARK,I didn't response to the the situations with the gnolls because, well, you keep inserting this idea of medieval chivalry into paladins.  I don't feel that it's there, it needs to be there, or is actually there in the games I've played.  Perhaps you've had different experience, but in the games I've played paladins were primarily religious men to non-Christian gods and tried to embody the noblest principles of those deities (whomever they might be).  Chivalry, either as actually practiced by medieval knights or out of medieval romances, never entered into the picture.  Plus, your scenario left out so much information that to adjudicate (for me) the morality of it was impossible.I still think it's largely true that you believe that we disagree as to the activities a good-aligned person can perform and remain good-aligned.  You think that it is possible for a person to engage in torture (if in rare circumstances) and remain a good-aligned character.  I strongly disagree.  I do not think the ends justify the means.  I do not think civilian casualties are acceptable as the "price of doing war" -- like I said, elsewhere, war is the problem, not the solution.  War is evil.  If things have come down to it being a war, evil has already won and people are just fighting to see which evil will win.  A good-aligned person in war is probably either going to die because they refuse to abandon their morality, have extraordinary luck in never having to have their alignment tested, or take actions that change their alignment.  A paladin in a protracted, dirty war will probably either die or come out of the war not a paladin -- which you disagree with.  You think ruthlessness in the defense of good allowed people to remain good; I disagree. As a partial aside, I think you sorta ignore some of the "truths" that exist in most D&D games.  I mean, you've said stuff like an unyielding benevolent attitude doesn't give paladins anything -- but, well, that's not true.  Paladins have divine grace, lay on hands, detect evil, cure disease, spell-casting abilities, magic wonder horses and the ability to turn undead (and other things, too, if they get the right feats).  They keep these wonderful abilities only so long as they are spotlessly the good guys.  So, in my games, when faced with a decision to do something like torture someone for information that could decide a battle the paladin's player would have to make a rough decision: to keep their wonderful powers or loose them to gain this information.In short, paladins (and good-aligned clerics) most demonstrably gain something from being spotlessly good that helps them survive with an uncompromising moral stand that their religious devotion gives them.Certainly this has cascading effects.  If a king wants to do something wicked to win a battle (let's say he wants to destroy civilian infrastruction behind enemy lines that will cause huge suffering and loss amongst the civilian population) and the paladin objects to this (for all the same reasons that it is illegal to destroy civilian infrastructures in our own world).  Well, the king can say to himself, "Screw the paladin.  What does he bring to this fight?"  Or he can say to himself, "Man, the paladin really was useful when the plague broke out after fighting those yugoloths.  And his detect evil power is useful for rooting out those demon spies that are trying to infiltrate our society.  Not to mention his massive charisma and leadership abilities.  And after a battle, his laying on of hands is really useful.  Not to mention the huge damage he can do to evil with his holy sword and smite evil powers.  He can brandish his holy symbol and destroy a host of zombies!  Demons run from his presence when he does that, too!"In short, a paladin does get things for being "stupid," as you've called it.  The benefits might even justify him continuing to be stupid even though certain tactical advantages are lost.</blockquote>

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