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

[Mercule]

Intelligent items are just more adversaries to a Paladin. Kill it. Maybe the DM'll give you some XP.

The spellbook is probably neutral. Let the wizard take what he can, burn the freaky stuff.

 

[Mercule]

In my games the answer would be 100% yes he would, The party claims rightfully so that a paladin would be expected to cover for such goods before they would ever let them join the group. which is probably why in 25 years of playing D&D that I can only remember gming/playing a paladin once in a non tournament game. As a side note the groups I run grumble about coughing up "party" money to raise slain characters. If the dead can pay thru their own possessions then a raise is a sure thing but o0therwise its a crap shoot.

So, your group pretty much never plays good characters?

Actually, now that I think about it, there's a very good chance that, as DM, I'd de-Good PCs who willingly and knowingly put intelligent corruptors (the sword) back into "play". Especially if they did it out of greed (selling it for a profit).

 

[diaglo]

Those are some really selfish party members

go reread your copy of Monte's Banewarrens d02.

 

[dungeon blaster]

Sure, they can try to convince the paladin to pay for it, but it's up to the player of the paladin to decide if he's going to or not. Also, selling an unholy sword is definitely a non-good act, so I hope these players are not LG. As for the spellbook, did it detect as evil? If so, then I think he has every right to destroy it. If it has a few evil spells in it, but doesn't detect as evil, then I can see that the party wizard might have grounds for recompense.

 

[Orius]

He should pay through the nose. Everyone knows that evil aritfacts have lots of great powers, and if he's going to deprive me of those powers, he'd better pony up.

It'll also help him with any vows of poverty he might have taken as well.

 

[Crothian]

go reread your copy of Monte's Banewarrens d02.

Can't, I gave mine away.

I'm sorry, but if the players are demanding their equal share of everything even stuff that needs to be destroyted they are being selfish. The paladin should declare them as evil, only other evil beings would want these evil items to remain around.

 

[Jack of Shadows]

Hmmm....

There have been some excellent replies already so I'll just add this:

Was the item part of the monsters treasure? If it was then it should be part of the reward for defeating the monster. If it wasn't, and frankly something totally anathema to the party shouldn't be, then the Paladin should be fully able to destroy the artifact without need to compensate the rest of the party.

In instances like this it's really the DM who needs to noodle it. Treasure is built into the CR of creatures as they're expected to have appropriate equipment. So when using a creature that has the something the party should destroy the GM should increase the treasure reward equal to the items sale value using non-game effect items such as gold, gems, art, etc. This means the creature still performs as it should AND rewards as it should without leading to the party feeling cheated.

My two cents anyways.

Jack

 

[Victim]

It really sucks when the paladin burns books detailing evil rituals that the bad guys have probably used. Why bother learning what they've transformed themselves into when you can burn stuff because it looks evil and disturbing? Knowing that one of the enemies can regenerate couldn't possibly come in handy.

Of course, some people in our group also conspired to spirit away nearly 200k in evil items and sell them on the black market before the paladin could destroy them. We had just sacked a town and school of necromancers, so our beloved paladin was planning on destroying almost the entire haul.

 

[dungeon blaster]

Havent' you learned that reading evil books summons the dead? Besides, reading a book and learning how to cast bodak birth are two very different things. Spellbooks rarely give information on how to defeat evil creatures...they are spellbooks, not monster lore books.

Are your characters evil? If so, I can see why you would want to prevent the paladin from destroying useful magic items. Of course, the paladin is not allowed to adventure with evil characters so either the DM isn't enforcing that rule, you all have a means to evade his detect evil ability, or you are not evil and shouldn't be selling evil items on the black market (which is a decidedly evil act).

 

[cmanos]

let the non-pali fighter take the sword and turn evil...then kill him and ask if anyone else in the party thinks the sword should not be detroyed.....