Paladins in Sunless Citadel (UPDATE)

[Arravis]

Good by defination has to be tolerant. Intolerance, the lack of empathy, IS one of the definations of evil.

As a DM (which is mostly what I do btw), if a paladin in the party attacked or killed someone simply because that creature or person detected as evil, I'd likely change the paladin's alignment. If such a person were to kill someone because of a divination, and not based on any witnessed acts of evil, how could you not define that as evil? Simply having an evil alignment doesn't mean that a person has actually commited any acts of extreme evil (ie: murder, rape, etc). It could be simply a greedy miser, ala Scrooge. You think a paladin would be justified in killing such a person? Why would it be any different if it were a kobold?

Also, I don't see why a lawful good cleric and a lawful good paladin of the same god would behave differently in such a situation. Paladin's follow a "warriors" code of conduct, but this code of conduct is there to re-enforce the established ethos of that religion (which the cleric is also bound to follow).

 

[Kershek]

Personally, I think your agument is flawed. But at least we can both have our opinions I can agree to disagree on this matter.

 

[Aristotle]

*sigh* This is the weakest point of the alignment system. The idea that an entire race detects as one alignment is absolutely absurd to me.

By the books... I gotta side with the the paladin killing the "evil". After all, it is EVIL! Why would you tolerate some evils and not others? I would need a pretty good explanation in order to buy that argument.

In my own games... an evil person is someone who is evil. You aren't born that way. A society of kobolds that spends most of its time trying to survive in a hostile environment may not have a great deal of time to comit acts of true evil. So the Paladin might detect a small percentage of evil (about what you would get in the typical human city), but certainly not the entire race.

 

[Arravis]

Kershek: I can as well . I'd like to know what you see wrong with it though, it's an interesting intellecual excercise.


Aristotle: I think most races have been changed from one absolute alignment to a "mostly" status

 

[LuYangShih]

Kill them. They are an organized force of evil that will almost certainly harm the residents of Oakhurst in the future. You are a Paladin, not a social worker. You are a virtuous warrior who exists to purge evil from the land. And the divinely granted gifts from your deity have revealed these creatures, in what is no certainly no surprise, as evil.

 

[armac]

Doesn't this come down to the argument of nurture vs nature?

Can the kobolds, and the white dragon, be taught to not be evil?

If there is no immediate danger to the town, why wouldn't the
paladin try to convert the kobolds and dragon. They might have
to struggle against their nature to remain non-evil, but don't PCs
do this all the time when they play a non-evil character from an
evil race?

armac

 

[Arravis]

LuYangShih, don't make me quote Nietzsche .

Armac... I think it does boil down to that. In my game world, the only absolutely "evil" or "good" creatures are outsiders from the outer planes (Devils, Demons, etc).

 

[maddman75]

A paladin who did this in my game would be needing an atonement. He's not only good, he's also *lawful*. Attacking the kobolds and the dragon would mean betraying an ally, most definately a chaotic act. Basically, if the paladin feels these kobolds will be a threat he should not have agreed to aid them. Now that he has, he is honor-bound not to go after them unprovoked. Besides, it is the paladin's duty to go after evil that exists and threatens good people NOW, not worry about what may come in the future.

The 'detect evil' thing works much better if you treat it as the touch of demonic or elemental evil influence. Thus a greedy merchant (NE) and a serial killer (CE) would not detect as evil, but a neutral necromancer that summons demons or animates the dead would. IMO.

 

[LuYangShih]

Once again, the Paladin is a righteous warrior, not a social worker. What do you want the Paladin to do, adopt every force of evil he encounters and attempt to raise them in the good path, in a vague, vain hope it might do some good? That's not his calling nor his duty.

The Paladin is a living embodiment of honor and virtue, meting out judgement as he sees fit, with the right of a divine mandate. He is a slayer of evil whose wrath undoes the unjust and the wicked, thereby protecting the innocent from their machinations. As such, the Paladin has every right, and in fact, a duty, to eliminate warrens of depravity and wickedness like the one Trainz' now confronts.

 

[Arravis]

Sounds more like a neo-nazi hate monger then a warrior of virtue.

I'm not sure what else to say about your comments on that... that version of paladin, in my opinion, would lead someone to hate-filled, intollerant, evil and not at all towards good. He, inevitably, would become the very evil he's so zealously, and blindly, trying to stamp out.