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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMScott" data-source="post: 1797736" data-attributes="member: 11734">Do they do whatever they want, or what they feel needs to be done when following a higher calling? Having Paladins meekly kowtow to any law a society thinks to pass kind of eviscerates their righteousness, IMHO - the law a Paladin follows is the True Law, handed down by whatever deity is responsible for their paladinhood, and clearly trumps any mortal government's law. A Paladin who's not in conflict with the sort of shifting ambiguous laws a typical human government sets up isn't really trying hard enough <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> . Of course, that True Law will likely mandate behaviour that a Paladin's player might want to avoid at least as often as it allows the PC to play a little loose with government regulations.I wouldn't go that far, but I think it's a good idea to sit down with your players and work out what the truly good/evil/lawful/chaotic acts are. I'm a fan of having only a few actions that are definitively and objectively of a particular alignment. Everything else is judged subjectively, in an ends-justify-the-means sort of way. So PCs can't just do anything they want, but so long as their ultimate goals are appropriate and they're not crossing any of the major lines, other transgressions can be overlooked.I also think it's a good idea to let players know up front what all the objective alignment-changing actions are - in a typical D&D world where the gods talk to their clerics on a regular basis, gray areas are unlikely. Moral quandaries are more likely to be of the "can I steel myself to perform the will of my god even when it goes against my own best interest" variety than of the "I have to choose carefully or my alignment will change" variety.The justification should be separate, but so long as it can be justified by the character I'd let it go. Players are supposed to have fun running their characters, not have the DM run their characters for them. If the justification is weak and they end up changing alignments, then c'est la vie. Changing alignment isn't usually a huge punishment (nor even a particularly big deal) in 3E, and for the classes that are exceptions the player should have plenty of warning when their pattern of behaviour threatens their status.</blockquote>

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