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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Endur" data-source="post: 443204" data-attributes="member: 3346">Three Choices, not two in Lesser of Two EvilsPaladins have three choices, not two in a Lesser of Two Evils situation.  The third choice may be the hardest, but it is always there, somewhere.Paladins have to remember that.My favorite Paladin book, "The Hawk of May" actually deals with this situation, of the Paladin conscripting supplies for King Arthur's army.  The solution in that case was to make sure that the Peasants are fairly paid for their grain.If the Peasants refuse to sell, well, Paladins have the Diplomacy skill for a reason.  If the Peasants flat out refuse to listen to reason, then perhaps the Paladin needs to find the food for his soldiers somewhere else.  A quest, as it were.  The enemy's troops must be getting their food from somewhere.Or perhaps the Paladin needs to persuade the Army Commander that we don't have sufficient supplies and it is time to go home.Many options are open.  Lawful does not equal obedient without question.And never does a Paladin have to choose the "Lesser of Two Evils."  There is always a third choice.  Part of being a Paladin is having sufficient faith to recognize that third choice exists even when the NPCs, the other PCs, (and the GM) fail to acknowledge that a third choice exists.For example, we played a game recently where a Demon Lord promised to kill everyone in the town unless we (the party) killed an innocent NPC that the Demon Lord wanted dead.  We declined his offer, and he started killing townspeople.  We weren't high enough level to affect the Demon Lord directly with spells or weapons (SR very high, DR +5/50, etc.).  The situation was presented to us as a "Lesser of Two Evils" i.e. kill one NPC to save a town, or watch the entire town die.  The Paladin, my character, flat out refused to consider the Demon Lord's "offer."  Instead, we searched and eventually found a way to stop the Demon Lord's killing spree.We found the third choice.  Now sometimes, the third choice may be expensive.  In our case, we found an alternative reasonably quickly.  In other cases, it could be much worse.  But, the alternative?  Are you going to follow the orders of a Demon Lord?  What if the Demon lied and killed everyone in the town after you killed the NPC, just because he felt like it.Tom</blockquote>

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