Should the Paladin pay for Evil Magic Items he wants / has destroyed?

[Lord Mhoram]

If the party wanted to take it out of his share, I'd go along with it as a GM.

Then the paladin gets a huge XP award for roleplaying.

 

[guardianfallenangel]

yes, it should come out of his loot. we have a LG cleric who likes to destroy anything that is even remotely evil. alters and statues of evil gods, anything with the symbol of an evil god. it's not that we have a problem with the destruction of truely evil things, heck we tell him all sorts of stuff are evil just so he'll smash them. problem is that he destroys evil magic items and thinks he should have dibs on the non-evil stuff. we consider the evil items he destroys to be part of his share of the loot.

 

[Dross]

I see this a lot. Why? If the paladin is odd man out, the player needs to make a new character, not the rest of the group. Attitudes like this reinforce the drama whore "mother may I" type of paladin-group dynamic.

I don't attribute the coment you quoted as saying that all the other players need to make the change. It means that the paladin leaves the party (as I think should happen) and the players decide which was they want to go, it being fairly likely that the paladin player needs a new PC.

The paly, more than any other class, can restrict the rest of the group's actions, so some idea of what is expected and aceptable should be made clear. I wonder why I never hear about a druid lambasting heavy fire using wizards for example, or a monk commenting on a rogues' impulsive actions etc.

 

[Dross]

The party has won the battle and the Dark Knight lay dead. His black rune covered blade lays nearby and still mutters its blasphemous chant. With a mighty swing of his holy warhammer the paladin reduces the blade to shards of daemonic metal.

From nearby the fighter says, "You know the value of that sword is coming out of you share of the treasure "

The wizard screams "Again?! Every time we defeat someone, it is either 'He used an evil spell, burn his spell book' or 'his magic items are evil, smash them!' That stuff is not cheap and neither were those Greater Boots of Speed you love so much. if your share of the rest of his stuff doesn't cover the sword, THOSE are getting sold.

BTW, what would the DM do to the paly if the evil magic was NOT destroyed? And the spellbook?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The paladin represents law. Since when does the law pay for anything? They normally steal what they want from the people.

 

[Janx]

The party has won the battle and the Dark Knight lay dead. His black rune covered blade lays nearby and still mutters its blasphemous chant. With a mighty swing of his holy warhammer the paladin reduces the blade to shards of daemonic metal.

From nearby the fighter says, "You know the value of that sword is coming out of you share of the treasure "

The wizard screams "Again?! Every time we defeat someone, it is either 'He used an evil spell, burn his spell book' or 'his magic items are evil, smash them!' That stuff is not cheap and neither were those Greater Boots of Speed you love so much. if your share of the rest of his stuff doesn't cover the sword, THOSE are getting sold.

Destroying the sword without discussing the matter with the party is a CHAOTIC act. Lawful people plan and organize, and have bylaws for this kind of thing.

From a DMing perspective, if we go to the extreme and make EVERY bad guy use EVIL items, them logically they will get destroyed and the party will never get any good gear. So the DM has to take this into account, especially if it happens a lot.

From a party perspective, taking actions that affect the whole party without discussing things with the party is an act against the party. It also trends toward chaotic activity, which is very anti-paladin behavior.

I would suspect that a good party will agree to destroy an obviously evil item. But they may not likely accept one person making the decision to do so, and following through without their input. After all, there may be special methods needed to destroy the item, and Sir Smash-a-lot may have set that back (or some items may explode when destroyed by Paladins).

 

[Henry]

The paladin represents law. Since when does the law pay for anything? They normally steal what they want from the people.

The paladin represents lawful GOOD. It's a hallmark of evil for the strong to prey upon the weak. While they might not pay full value, a lawful good church or government would pay SOMETHING for property they received. Heck, a Lawful Evil government or church might pay something, too, but more likely they'd find a loophole to screw someone through.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

BTW, what would the DM do to the paly if the evil magic was NOT destroyed? And the spellbook?

I'd end up have said evil items, if not destroyed, come back and bit the party in the backside. The evil magic items would be used against the party later, and cause much problems. Same with the spellbook. If they were kept, they would causes curse/alignment problems for the characters that kept them.

But I am rather intense that way. In my opening speech to a new gaming group I tell the players to think of me, the GM, as a paladin, and that the social mores of the world are set up with that in mind, and to design characters that fit that kind of world.

 

[Choranzanus]

Now depending on the 'godly' tenets of the faith, even the LG Clerics of that faith know the benefit of working with those of 'less' faith. There is nothing inherently evil in selling tools of evil. Their actual use would do that. Are you saying a Paladin would chastise a Fighter for changing his Longsword +1 for the Longsword +1 Unholy Flaming (completely unintelligent)? If this is the case, why in so many treasure hoards or even wielded by bad guys are there Holy Weapons? Why didn't they destroy them least 'good' got a hold of them.

Yeti

I have actualy done exactly that!
Of course, it helped that I was not paladin, but chaotic good, so I was determined to
"convince "other party members at swordpoint. But they have given up quickly.
I don't understand why church should have a monopoly on doing this kind of things, you don't have to be a paladin to do this.

Otherwise I think that this should be normaly roleplayed in character.

I don't think it is good idea to carry this kind of things with you "just in case". Especially if you are going to the "castle of evil fighter" or something all the time. Basically you are acting as a delivery service for evil guys. I don't think I am invincible just because I am the hero of the game.

 

[frankthedm]

Magic Items that are evil are to be destroyed. They're not loot, they're enemies. If they were sold, they would only cause more evil. To make a profit out of this is to become evil yourself.

The poll results seem to mostly agree with this outlook.