Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3298172" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree.That, and people get caught up in the idea that because he's lawful he must have a single approach to every situation.  Either PC thinks that the Paladin has to be 'Lawful Stupid' or the DM gets upset if you don't play the character as 'Lawful Stupid'.  Both are equally annoying.A Paladin can be, and probably is, about trying to redeem the bad guys OR if failing that, sending them to hell.  Lost in the conception of Paladins is the fact that 'Lawful Good' is a highly nuanced belief system - more nuanced than either NG or LN.  Paladins are balancing two priorities: to be lawful, and to be good.  Thier code will provide for them to lean one way or the other according to the situation.  So if the bad guys seem redeemable, if mercy seems like it has some chance of success, then they will be merciful within the limits provided by thier code.  If on the other hand the bad guy doesn't seem redeemable, or seems to be trying to abuse the Paladin's mercy, then its swift justice and a one way ticket to hell time.   But in no way does the Paladin have to be stupid, and in fact Wisdom - knowing when to do things - is one of the traits most valued by LG types.  If the code didn't require interpretation and discernment, Wisdom would be unnecessary.At least in 3rd edition.  In 1st edition they all had to have 17 Charisma or higher, which meant that they were either polite or else very charming SOBs. To be honest, alot of PCs are sociopaths.  Part of that comes from taking 'Nuetral Gamist' stance as a player.  One form of 'nuetrality' is that under normal circumstances, you are supposed to be 'nice' because 'good' is the alignment appropriate to living in ordinary circumstances, but that when your survival is threatened all the rules of behavior are off you are allowed to be as ruthless as you need be to protect yourself.  If you have a player who approaches the game (or heaven forbid, life) from this perspective, which isn't suprising since that's a typical competitive gamist stance outside of role playing, because the game is about putting the characters in dangerous challenging situations, you end up with a player whose ideal of fun is simply 'winning by any means necessary'.</blockquote>

Verification