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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6129379" data-attributes="member: 82106">No, that's not really what I'm saying. You're trying to simplify it down into something absurd but actual play has an excluded middle that you are ignoring. If the player is playing like that, then clearly his character is evil, right? Certainly he's something like an 'anti-hero', he does bad things for good causes, etc. That's cool, why do you have a problem with this! If you want to use something like 4e's Blackguard class for that, instead of the stock paladin class, that's probably a good thing, but you could use the stock paladin. Maybe you'd refluff some things about his appearance and powers, maybe. Of course all the outraged people that he's wronged might come after him or do for him. The church he supposedly represents (if any) might even come after him. Notice that 4e talks about all this stuff too. The DM is totally free to do all of these things. Heck, if the players will go along with it he can have the PC's powers stop working and he could rebuild his character as a fighter too, nothing LIMITS DM power, except the players. The problem is, in your scenario with "loss of paladinhood" rules in place how does that work? The player says "wait a minute, my character works for the greatest good, if I didn't kill those evil merchants society would go to hell and everyone would burn." Is he wrong? What makes your view that he has to be nice to every kitten even if it leads to 1000 people's damnation better than his view that the greater good outweighs a few cruelties? YOUR solution doesn't even allow that debate to happen, the DM just drops his ban-hammer on the paladin's ass and the discussion is over. Its fine if you guys have more fun playing that way, I'm not trying to say its badwrongfun or anything, but just because there isn't a rule that says "the DM judges every action of the paladin and turns him into a fighter anytime he thinks he should" doesn't make paladins into something different. It just makes the interpretation of each specific situation less absolutist.</blockquote>

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