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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 1164809" data-attributes="member: 2013">Random thought...When I think of a Paladin, I think of the story of Jonah.The paladin is called to rid the world of evil.  There are two ways to do this, and should be used in the following order:1.) Call upon evil to repent.  If this works, the amount of evil in the world goes down AND the amount of good goes up (resulting in a "double bonus" for the forces of good).2.) Smite evil.  If this works, the amount of evil in the world goes down but the amount of good does not go up.Now, back to Jonah... as the story goes, Jonah gets called by God to go to Nineveh and tell the people, "repent or be destroyed."  Nineveh repents and is not destroyed.  (Jonah gets rather miffed at God, since he was hanging out in the shade of a gourd outside the city limits, waiting for the fireworks when God nuked Nineveh for being evil).How does this relate to paladins?Paladins should always offer the chance for evil to repent FIRST.  If evil repents, the paladin's job is done - and it's a "double bonus" job.  If not, then the paladin gets to be the tactical nuke. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />This means that paladins, while not pacifists, must NEVER use lethal force as the weapon of first resort.  It is in the "bag of tools," it's just never the first tool they pull out of that bag... though when dealing with antagonistic forces, it's probably weapon 1a... it might go something like:SCENARIO 1:Paladin: "Surrender and repent!"Evildoer: "I surrender.  I'm sorry.  I will repent."Paladin: "Oh... okay."(Jonah-esque Paladin): *thinks to self* "Dangit, and I was gonna enjoy kicking his pasty butt."SCENARIO 2:Paladin: "Surrender and repent!"Evildoer: "No." -- or -- *fires spell/weapon/whatever*Paladin: "Allrighty then!" *starts hacking merrily away as the divine tactical nuke*So while a paladin may call upon you to repent with a sword in his hand, ready to fight after an instant or two, he ALWAYS gives his opponent that instant (hence the need for Divine Protection in the form of Divine Grace since unscrupulous opponents will use that instant to try to kill him).--The Sigil</blockquote>

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