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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tovec" data-source="post: 6122840" data-attributes="member: 95493">This, definitely this. I would add a couple of minor provisos but this is a very good start.From where I am sitting, it makes perfect sense for a few things to be required if playing a paladin with a code that is enforced, in any sense.1. That it be understandable and explainable why they lose powers, if they do. This applies to the character, in game, and the player, out of game. They should see a fall coming, unless they are directly tricked. They should know that killing X person is a bad thing to do and they should accept it if they do it. This should cover cases of paladin vs. the evil-babies. The DM and paladin should have an understanding if it is the right thing to do to kill them, or not. And if it is not and the paladin does do it then there should be a way to atone.2. Atonement, as per above, should not be a spell that is easy to get, making it senseless. I would love to see an act of reparation be atonement. It would be something I would write into the losing section itself, saying things like shidaku did; if you steel you need to repay and so on.3. I would delay falling to be true and unrepentant contradiction to the code, not simply failure to adhere to it. Meaning, if you steel you need to repay. If it was necessary for you to steel to accomplish some other good then that is understandable but you still need to repay. If you do not feel like repaying then you fall. As a paladin you recognize that repayment is due and so failure to do that necessary thing, to make amends, is the problem. Now, if you willingly murder someone for fun you fall immediately. But that has more to do with giving your deity the middle finger.4. I would have a difference between a fall (loss of powers and class) and an  infraction (where they are sort of on probation). Most of this applies  to the infraction. Infraction could have different kind of side effects, loss of mount or smite or lay on hands or something, whereas fall loses you everything. I do not know exactly what those should be yet, that probably depends on the powers they get and what would not completely gimp them. Fall would be closer to the oldschool (at least 3e oldschool) fall where you lose everything and either start over, fully atone (long process and story in itself), or become a blackguard (again in 3e terms).Once again, I would say all of these things should go in a sidebar or section right along side but not directly included in the paladin. Something like specialty wizards in 3e. That way, when you reference it in the description of the paladin, that they can fall and to refer to the sidebar, that people can easily figure out how that works. It also means that if people want to say screw that and ignore that section they can without feeling they are ignoring the core rule of a class - like spellcasting for a wizard.</blockquote>

Verification