The Ethics of the Paladin
- Thread starter Dias Ex Machina
- Start date
Going back to the train example, I think an interesting dividing line between a paladin level person and a normal good guy is that the paladin considers informed inaction (not pushing the guy over, knowing it will save 5 people) to be a deliberate action (killing 5 people).
Most people can't live with that kind of burden, but then, paladins aren't most people. This, of course, means that paladins *often* commit actions that are locally evil but globally good, because to do otherwise would be to commit global evil.
You then get a very scary group of (somewhat tormented), merciless paladins. A good founding reason for an order of such paladins (which would also help explain the anti-disease powers) would be quarantine enforcers.
Most people can't live with that kind of burden, but then, paladins aren't most people. This, of course, means that paladins *often* commit actions that are locally evil but globally good, because to do otherwise would be to commit global evil.
You then get a very scary group of (somewhat tormented), merciless paladins. A good founding reason for an order of such paladins (which would also help explain the anti-disease powers) would be quarantine enforcers.
hamishspence
Adventurer
third party option, from Quintessenial Paladin II
:First, a customizable code, covering many possible dilemmas, as well as a standard code.
:Second, definitions of how big a violation is, and what happens, rather than the straight You Fall, it is You lose some powers for a short time,in the case of minor ones.
:Third, mitigating factors. Break a minor rule to keep a major rule, not as bad. Or technical breaches being defined as less bad, when breach is kind of thing only a really narrow reading of it would pick up.
It's the only 3rd party source I ever bought, but it does give a lot more detail on the Code, major tenets, and minor ones.
:First, a customizable code, covering many possible dilemmas, as well as a standard code.
:Second, definitions of how big a violation is, and what happens, rather than the straight You Fall, it is You lose some powers for a short time,in the case of minor ones.
:Third, mitigating factors. Break a minor rule to keep a major rule, not as bad. Or technical breaches being defined as less bad, when breach is kind of thing only a really narrow reading of it would pick up.
It's the only 3rd party source I ever bought, but it does give a lot more detail on the Code, major tenets, and minor ones.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
So as Firelance was joking about, placing characters in such situations as to force them to make such a decision with only TWO options, both breaking a class rule, is pretentious and sloppy. Whenever I see it in a movie or read it in a book, it feels very forced, eventually bringing armchair quarterbacking into play with an easy solution available the writer doesn't think of that circumvents these choices. They say it’s a theoretical construct, but being theoretical without real-world application renders it null and invalid. ON the subject of authority making a decision, it comes to the impact of the decision. If a Paladin is the highest authority on a lifeboat doomed to sink, there are many options, the most obvious one is to leave it to volunteers (which is known to actually happen). When it finally comes to it, a Paladin would give his own life to save another, despite the fact his own presence is more valuable on the ship.
There are rarely only two options. On an episode of Criminal Minds (a show I used to watch and now despise), a killer would tie up a married couple and force the husband to a choice: kill his wife and life or both of them die. In every situation but one, the couple was murdered. In the end, the husband did not kill his wife, the psychopath did it (except for that ONE exception).
Back to the Paladin topic again, I was against defining a rule system about vows, breaking them, and atonement because it endorsed a specific system of procedure. Every Paladin would have to follow this procedure. It wasn't specifically saying Christianity, but it still felt like a specific concept a paladin may not wish to endorse. I don't want to play a character who has to flay himself with whips at any point during a campaign. The class as proposed by my contributors was defining what they thought was "fun" and "interesting.” One could claim I was doing the same, but at least I didn't define rules about loosing your abilities. I just said in lots of words, "You're a hero. Be a hero. Don't sully this one." That last one was a direct quote. Don't tarnish the ideals of knightly virtue. If you want to play the Punisher, then roll a fighter. If you want a good paladin with a spotty past or borderline personality, then be prepared for the role playing, because its a role playing event, and it should not be corrupted or defined by rules telling you how your character should be played at this critical moment.
Oh, and by the way, Green Slime, we are not shying away from controversy. We do have a fanatical paladin in our next book, but does not gain any of the abilities of our other paladin. Further, you can choose Muslim and Christian as religious paths for cleric, so we know some negativity is coming our way regardless. I turned away from the other paladin, not because of controversy, but because I thought it was dumb. I wanted our code to be basic. I didn't want vows unless the player wished it. It deals with values or a personal morality, not one dictated by a faith or be the laws of a knightly order. The paladin is a paladin because he wants to be, not because of the power it flaunts. Our Paladin, for example, has several abilities that protect and buff other players, but not the paladin. One ability is the bodyguard shield where he takes all the damage inflicted on another nearby target. Stuff like that. When I said we re-wrote paladin, we did it from the ground-up. Nothing survived from the old book.
In the end, I didn't want any rules dictating oaths or costs and punishments. It should be handled by the DM and player. The player should know what they are getting into by choosing the class.
There are rarely only two options. On an episode of Criminal Minds (a show I used to watch and now despise), a killer would tie up a married couple and force the husband to a choice: kill his wife and life or both of them die. In every situation but one, the couple was murdered. In the end, the husband did not kill his wife, the psychopath did it (except for that ONE exception).
Back to the Paladin topic again, I was against defining a rule system about vows, breaking them, and atonement because it endorsed a specific system of procedure. Every Paladin would have to follow this procedure. It wasn't specifically saying Christianity, but it still felt like a specific concept a paladin may not wish to endorse. I don't want to play a character who has to flay himself with whips at any point during a campaign. The class as proposed by my contributors was defining what they thought was "fun" and "interesting.” One could claim I was doing the same, but at least I didn't define rules about loosing your abilities. I just said in lots of words, "You're a hero. Be a hero. Don't sully this one." That last one was a direct quote. Don't tarnish the ideals of knightly virtue. If you want to play the Punisher, then roll a fighter. If you want a good paladin with a spotty past or borderline personality, then be prepared for the role playing, because its a role playing event, and it should not be corrupted or defined by rules telling you how your character should be played at this critical moment.
Oh, and by the way, Green Slime, we are not shying away from controversy. We do have a fanatical paladin in our next book, but does not gain any of the abilities of our other paladin. Further, you can choose Muslim and Christian as religious paths for cleric, so we know some negativity is coming our way regardless. I turned away from the other paladin, not because of controversy, but because I thought it was dumb. I wanted our code to be basic. I didn't want vows unless the player wished it. It deals with values or a personal morality, not one dictated by a faith or be the laws of a knightly order. The paladin is a paladin because he wants to be, not because of the power it flaunts. Our Paladin, for example, has several abilities that protect and buff other players, but not the paladin. One ability is the bodyguard shield where he takes all the damage inflicted on another nearby target. Stuff like that. When I said we re-wrote paladin, we did it from the ground-up. Nothing survived from the old book.
In the end, I didn't want any rules dictating oaths or costs and punishments. It should be handled by the DM and player. The player should know what they are getting into by choosing the class.
My first impression of your Paladin PrCl is that it has one of my favorite game design features: flexible mechanics.
Your design that lets a player choose to either have a spell progression or an Exalted progression is potentially quite elegant. My only concern is the baggage that "Exalted" may carry with it. Are you tying into the BoED/BoVD with this?
As for the fluff- you might want to take a look at what Monte Cook did with the Oathsworn. A monk-ish class, the PC must have an oath that he must ever strive to achieve, or become powerless. While you contemplate that there may be various different kinds of Paladins, it really helps from a gaming perspective if both the DM & the Player have a good understanding of where the Paladins boundaries lay because a Paladin is defined by his restrictions, much like an Oathsworn, or even Wu Jen. Having the Player & DM cooperate to draw up a code for the Paladin will do much to smooth waters later on.
Your design that lets a player choose to either have a spell progression or an Exalted progression is potentially quite elegant. My only concern is the baggage that "Exalted" may carry with it. Are you tying into the BoED/BoVD with this?
As for the fluff- you might want to take a look at what Monte Cook did with the Oathsworn. A monk-ish class, the PC must have an oath that he must ever strive to achieve, or become powerless. While you contemplate that there may be various different kinds of Paladins, it really helps from a gaming perspective if both the DM & the Player have a good understanding of where the Paladins boundaries lay because a Paladin is defined by his restrictions, much like an Oathsworn, or even Wu Jen. Having the Player & DM cooperate to draw up a code for the Paladin will do much to smooth waters later on.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Dannyalcatraz said:
Wow...thanks, Danny. I appreciate the praise. We approached Ranger like this as well. We will be posting that soon and you are invited to give me your thoughts on that. We wrote up Ranger a bit differently but it still has the same idea.
I will answer your query in haste...right after you explain what BoED/BoVD is.
As for Oathsworn, you just quoted my contributor that pitched the rejected paladin. Its not that I am totally against the idea of Oaths, I just did not agree with the huge penalties and fluff behind losing your Paladin abilities, which was the root of the pitch. Considering how complicated our Paladin was already, I decided to leave that up to the DM. I just felt like adding a huge rule system controlling a Paladin's actions was unnecessarily encouraging a fall from grace, which I did not want to encourage. Plus Oathsworn had been done, and I really wanted ours to be unique.
I tried looking for the old class, but came up empty. Suffice to say, it did mention self-flagellation.
Thanks again for the praise. You noticed how some of the abilities help others but not the paladin. "Last Stand" was what I was most proud of--to ignore all damage sustained for a certain number of rounds, but then forced to take it all when the time is up--I like that.
BoED/BoVD = Book of Exalted Deeds & Book of Vile Darkness.
Well, it is part and parcel of the legends of the "Paladin" in general. To reach the pinnacles of valor they do, they gain their power through their deities, and their deities can visit harsh punishment upon those who stray. (Though very few actually fall...)
For those who only have "faith" and not a deity as such, straying from their code makes them question their faith and themselves, and this wavering prevents them from tapping into their hidden reserves of power- kind of like a mental block.
Well, it is part and parcel of the legends of the "Paladin" in general. To reach the pinnacles of valor they do, they gain their power through their deities, and their deities can visit harsh punishment upon those who stray. (Though very few actually fall...)
For those who only have "faith" and not a deity as such, straying from their code makes them question their faith and themselves, and this wavering prevents them from tapping into their hidden reserves of power- kind of like a mental block.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Dannyalcatraz said:
Firstly, our group has a lot of genuine affection for Vile Darkness (the BOOK!!). It’s well written and chooses fluff over balance, while we consider Exalted Deeds a tad overpowered. We avoided taking any inspiration from BoED.
Second, I see your point and you make it well. However, you noticed how we took "GOD" out of the class. I know, it seems like sacrilege (heh), but hear me out. Our game, though containing deities, keeps them silent and hidden. There are no divination spells and there is even a clerical path available to the atheist. To open up a bit on our setting, being set on Earth, Amethyst deals with human faiths like Christianity and Islam, so it was important to us to have god as unproven as he is...today. Knowing that, you can see why we wanted to distance any hard-line faith from Paladin. Most would be religious to be sure, but we didn't want a hard set of rules demanding that.
Arkhandus
First Post
Hm. I tend to make a few specific paladin codes, but they're typically in the form of oaths. They cover the standard paladin stuff, and sometimes more, but don't force the character to behave as a robot.
If I had my old computer hooked up to the internet again yet, I'd post my two or three different paladin codes for Rhunaria, each of which requires slightly different things from the paladin but allows for a reasonable range of behaviors and personalities. I've got a code for human paladins in the Majestic Kingdom of the Gilded Throne, a separate one for paladins from the Theocracy of Riza, another for dwarven paladins of the Ur-Dalechron Hegemony, and another for halfling paladins of the un-named halfling homeland in Rhunaria (halfling paladins there are known as Vale Protectors, since the halfling lands are in a big valley).
In some cases, I tend to play/DM paladins as having to follow Kantian ethics; no evil is permissable, not even a small evil for the sake of the greater good. Each evil act could lead a paladin towards being a bit less strict about avoiding evil in general; each one could weaken his resolve against evil; and eventually, it might lead to him accepting moderate or even horrible acts of evil as necessary for the sake of the greater good. To the point where he finds he's no longer a paladin and hasn't been for some time, because he allowed himself to err a little, then a little bit more, then a little bit more, on and on.
But most of the time, I have some leniency, even if I'm not using my alternate paladin codes. Paladins aren't omniscient or omnipotent, after all.
If I had my old computer hooked up to the internet again yet, I'd post my two or three different paladin codes for Rhunaria, each of which requires slightly different things from the paladin but allows for a reasonable range of behaviors and personalities. I've got a code for human paladins in the Majestic Kingdom of the Gilded Throne, a separate one for paladins from the Theocracy of Riza, another for dwarven paladins of the Ur-Dalechron Hegemony, and another for halfling paladins of the un-named halfling homeland in Rhunaria (halfling paladins there are known as Vale Protectors, since the halfling lands are in a big valley).
In some cases, I tend to play/DM paladins as having to follow Kantian ethics; no evil is permissable, not even a small evil for the sake of the greater good. Each evil act could lead a paladin towards being a bit less strict about avoiding evil in general; each one could weaken his resolve against evil; and eventually, it might lead to him accepting moderate or even horrible acts of evil as necessary for the sake of the greater good. To the point where he finds he's no longer a paladin and hasn't been for some time, because he allowed himself to err a little, then a little bit more, then a little bit more, on and on.
But most of the time, I have some leniency, even if I'm not using my alternate paladin codes. Paladins aren't omniscient or omnipotent, after all.
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