Should a midwife have a level of Paladin?
- Thread starter Duncan Haldane
- Start date
Duncan Haldane
Explorer
333 Dave said:
Oh, I wouldn't call it a troll. I just thought it was an interesting topic (do new borns have an alignment), coupled with an interesting response.
And I thought it was a topic title which would make people look at the topic.
I'm not intending to mislead people, or make people angry. And I haven't even posted my thoughts on the subject.
And I included a
in my post.So no, I don't really think it's a troll. It's just the first time I've had a really good topic idea
Duncan
mirzabah
First Post
Are you being deliberately obtuse? The BAB progression, the hit points, the weapon and armour proficiencies and various other class features, not to mention the literary models on which the class is based and the actual class description itself all tend to point towards Paladins being a martially oriented class.Tiefling said:
Technically you're right; there is nothing in the D&D rules to stop a Paladin from devoting his or her life to delivering babies, but a Cleric or Adept or Expert would be a much better choice - with or without a Midwife prestige class.
tsadkiel
Legend
Well, there was a series of fantasy novels by Sherri S. Tepper (the True Game books) which posited among other things that occasionally, people or animals are essentially born without a soul. And the Midwives* could, among other things, check at birth to see if the baby had a soul, and if it didn't . . . So you're not the first person to think of this.
*While the moral framework of the books is a bit unusual, the magic system was really cool - there were eleven basic types of magic (Healing, Necromancy, Shapeshifting, etc.) and magic using characters were divided into what were essentially classes depending on which Talents in which proportions they had. IIRC Midwives had some Healing and a bit of Seeing; Dragons had Shapeshifting, Fire, and some other Talents I can't remember (it's been a while.) And then there were Wizards, who basically negotiated with powerful spirits and could perform a wide variety of magical feats. The whole thing would lend itselfquite well to d20, I think.
*While the moral framework of the books is a bit unusual, the magic system was really cool - there were eleven basic types of magic (Healing, Necromancy, Shapeshifting, etc.) and magic using characters were divided into what were essentially classes depending on which Talents in which proportions they had. IIRC Midwives had some Healing and a bit of Seeing; Dragons had Shapeshifting, Fire, and some other Talents I can't remember (it's been a while.) And then there were Wizards, who basically negotiated with powerful spirits and could perform a wide variety of magical feats. The whole thing would lend itselfquite well to d20, I think.
Alhandra
First Post
Seldom do evildoers call themselves Evil, either.Duncan Haldane said:
That would be too much of the dead giveaway.
But you, sir, fit the most commonly-held definition of troll:
This topic is very predictable.
And here's the flame- killing a baby is SO beyond every tenet of being a paladin EXCEPT the slaying of evil that your post borders on the insulting.
In addition, anyone remotely wavering on the answer to your disgusting thought not only knows absolutely nothing about paladins, or Good, but also should come out back and have a .... *ahem* .... Discussion
with my Paladin brothers and sisters.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'd agree with those who've said babies, as 0-2 Int creatures, have animal intelligence and are thus incapable of moral choice -- they're neutral.
By the time they can haltingly speak a language (at about Int 3), they're still usually neutral.
Late toddlerhood/early childhood (ages 5-8 ish) are about when the thougts take on a moral pattern, and most by then would have game-term Ints of 5-8 themselves.
And still, most humans are neutral. They look out for themselves and those they love first.
Though, the birth of some demon-spawn or something can easily be evil from birth. Fiends and outer planar beings are evil from inception, and half-fiends and tieflings, though perhaps born neutral, usually are swayed to evil because it's natural for them.
Any humanoid is probably neutral at birth; the alignment is largely a culturally determined factor, though it may have fiendish origins (the legend of Gruumsh corrupting elves to make orcs lends itself to a belief that he was a fiend who attracted some elvish worshippers and eventually grew to dominance over them, perhaps sending emmisaries or using his own power to warp their minds and bodies, inclining them to evil as they mingled with fiendish blood...theoretically, orcs could just be elf-tieflings who have fallen very far from the tree...).
It might not be a bad idea for a midwife (probably an adept, given how close these figures often are to the forces of life and death, and how much they are often associated with mysticism) to take detect evil in a land that's suffered from many fiendish trepedations and such. Fiends diguise themselves as many things. Make no mistake, the cute mewling larvae that is born is merely a fiend in a different guise, fully aware of the evil it causes and delighting in it.
In a land such as this, the midwives have to be very trusted -- it's a trust that's fully subjectable to being perverted and misued for personal ends. Like, say, the midwife is the old favorite wife of the king and, to spite his rejection of her, she finds that all his children are fiendish and has them dealt with. Perhaps she even starts spreading the rumor that the king himself is a fiend that must be destroyed, and is just using a cunning guise. Maybe she pays some guy at the local tavern to spread the rumor in a sad song, and, maybe, recruit some happy little adventurers to do her dirty work for her and kill the king. And maybe, if they actually succeed in killing him, the midwife can actually contact some form of fiend for her own glee, perhaps eventually taking levels as an evil cleric and challenging the party at many future junctions...
...though that's just a random thought.
By the time they can haltingly speak a language (at about Int 3), they're still usually neutral.
Late toddlerhood/early childhood (ages 5-8 ish) are about when the thougts take on a moral pattern, and most by then would have game-term Ints of 5-8 themselves.
And still, most humans are neutral. They look out for themselves and those they love first.
Though, the birth of some demon-spawn or something can easily be evil from birth. Fiends and outer planar beings are evil from inception, and half-fiends and tieflings, though perhaps born neutral, usually are swayed to evil because it's natural for them.
Any humanoid is probably neutral at birth; the alignment is largely a culturally determined factor, though it may have fiendish origins (the legend of Gruumsh corrupting elves to make orcs lends itself to a belief that he was a fiend who attracted some elvish worshippers and eventually grew to dominance over them, perhaps sending emmisaries or using his own power to warp their minds and bodies, inclining them to evil as they mingled with fiendish blood...theoretically, orcs could just be elf-tieflings who have fallen very far from the tree...).
It might not be a bad idea for a midwife (probably an adept, given how close these figures often are to the forces of life and death, and how much they are often associated with mysticism) to take detect evil in a land that's suffered from many fiendish trepedations and such. Fiends diguise themselves as many things. Make no mistake, the cute mewling larvae that is born is merely a fiend in a different guise, fully aware of the evil it causes and delighting in it.
In a land such as this, the midwives have to be very trusted -- it's a trust that's fully subjectable to being perverted and misued for personal ends. Like, say, the midwife is the old favorite wife of the king and, to spite his rejection of her, she finds that all his children are fiendish and has them dealt with. Perhaps she even starts spreading the rumor that the king himself is a fiend that must be destroyed, and is just using a cunning guise. Maybe she pays some guy at the local tavern to spread the rumor in a sad song, and, maybe, recruit some happy little adventurers to do her dirty work for her and kill the king. And maybe, if they actually succeed in killing him, the midwife can actually contact some form of fiend for her own glee, perhaps eventually taking levels as an evil cleric and challenging the party at many future junctions...
...though that's just a random thought.
reiella
Explorer
There's also that simply using Detect Evil as a reason to condemning someone doesn't always flow so well. It depends on the god, the world, and of course the DM.
Beyond the simple "Just because they're evil, doesn't mean they did anything wrong" (ie, the Law v Good conflict of a Paladin that makes them such a nice character archetype) argument, there's also that Detect Evil isn't infalliable. And while it might be ok to kill someone just because they follow an evil god, it may not be as well. Vecna can have neutral clerics (which would detect as evil). Now it would be a nice reason to distrust said person and be watchful.
Course I'm just someone who doesn't like seeing people use Detect Evil blah blah as a reason to have carte blanche with killing. Then again, it's really dependant on the world/DM.
Beyond the simple "Just because they're evil, doesn't mean they did anything wrong" (ie, the Law v Good conflict of a Paladin that makes them such a nice character archetype) argument, there's also that Detect Evil isn't infalliable. And while it might be ok to kill someone just because they follow an evil god, it may not be as well. Vecna can have neutral clerics (which would detect as evil). Now it would be a nice reason to distrust said person and be watchful.
Course I'm just someone who doesn't like seeing people use Detect Evil blah blah as a reason to have carte blanche with killing. Then again, it's really dependant on the world/DM.
Gumby
First Post
Midwife? Bah! In MY campaign, every expectant mother has to report to a paladin at three and six months. If he detects evil inside of her, that evil little fetus finds itself aborted with an animated rope post haste. Only way to be sure, you know.
Seriously people, this is a stupid thread. Someone please lock it.
Seriously people, this is a stupid thread. Someone please lock it.
