The paladin. A story and a question.

[Shemeska]

I submit an alternative thought experiment. Consider the same situation, but instead of having a ghost as the undead, it's a lich. (And suppose that the paladin's able to kill off the lich just as easily.) In this situation, I doubt that people would be so quick to judge the paladin. I mean, dude, a LICH. They're all evil and undead and creepifying mage-like and stuff.

No difference. A lich isn't a balor/pit fiend/ultroloth/etc, you can have non-evil liches, and they can have perfectly valid reasons for their existance beyond the cliche of 'look icky, be evil, raise undead army'. If the lich is there in the same capacity as the ghost in the OP, aiding/protecting the monestary, the paladin would be just as dumb for attacking it blindly.

 

[CrusaderX]

Except you're forgetting one tiny little thing here. The paladin attacked first, by killing the ghost.

Nope, didn't forget that at all.

 

[Falkus]

Nope, didn't forget that at all.

Then your previous post makes absolutely no sense at all, if you acknowledge that the paladin attacked first.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I see nothing in the spell description to suggest such a thing, only that being also undead is a special case for an evil creature, strengthening it's aura. The spell description is pretty clear: 'You can sense the presence of evil.' It doesn't say 'or undead regardless of alignment'.

Either that or all undead detect as good as well.... Undead show up on all the Detect (alignment) spells.

In my game that would not only be an ex-paladin, he would also be the only dancer at a hemp fandango.

The Auld Grump

 

[CrusaderX]

Then your previous post makes absolutely no sense at all, if you acknowledge that the paladin attacked first.

It makes perfect sense if you view the Paladin as being justified in destroying the ghost. He did exactly what he was supposed to do. If you don't view it this way, your milage may vary.

 

[Heathen72]

Because if so, then the bane of a Paladin's existence aren't demons, devils, or undead, but rather LN foes who can beat on a Paladin all day long without fear of reprisal. :\

Except that then they wouldn't be LN then, would they?

I can understand why the paladin might kill it in a fit of over-zealousness--this is not a "lose your powers moment" for me.

With respect to the rest of your post, most of which I agreed with, killing something in a overzealous fit is exactly the sort of thing that should cause a loss of powers. Paladin's should know better...

***The paladin in this story is an NPC that killed several monks and priests from my character's back story. He is a lawful good paladin of a god that loathes the undead. ***

Addressing the issue of the 'murder' of the ghost only:

Part of the problem is that when you are trying to integrate your background in someone's game 'you need to be wary of making assumptions based on your own cultural bias (or even the rules previous editions!) Nowdays, with Ghostwalk and so on, there are potentially many ghosts that are 'non evil'. And if such creatures are a new additions to the game world, you need to let your GM (and his NPC's!) know about it.

For instance, if you have introduced a Lawful Good deity that preaches the destruction of all undead as evil - then you and the GM had better make sure that undead are almost always evil . Otherwise, that deity isn't Lawful Good, is it? If you decide the deity is LG anyway (moving away from the standard "D&D cosmology") then you have to treat the paladin's actions as within the paramaters of that alignment and hence acceptable.

Alternatively, if you decide that the deity wasn't Lawful Good then the Paladin was either never a paladin to begin with, or your cosmology allows for paladins to exist who aren't LG. In the latter case, it's hardly fair to remove the Paladin's powers.

I am reminded of when we introduced psionics into our campaign. We decided that it had been there all along, and that creatures with Magic Resistance had a degree of Psionic Resistance as well. The same applies here: if you are going to introduce undead into your world that aren't inherently evil you need to decide if they always existed or not. If they did, and the Gods knew of their existance all along, retroactively change their dogma. If they didn't, then the arrival of "good undead" is a major event in the campaign - a real test of faith for the paladin and his entire church. There would be an entire schism in the church with a LG faction defending the rights of "non-evil" ghosts, and a LN faction maintaining the orthodox view.

 

[Felix]

Murder: Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).

Kill: To deprive of life in any manner; cause the death of; slay.

1) the paladin neither killed nor murdered the ghost. The ghost had no life to deprive, and thus was not killed, and murder is a legal term for killing.

2) Rejuvenation means that the ghost is coming back; all ghosts have it. Hard to say the ghost was "killed" when he'll be back in a week.

3) These monks, who have been around a ghost (who posesses the "Rejuvenation" ability) for so long choose not to say, "Oh, he'll be back, let me tell you why you should not have done that..." and instead attack. The monks bring a paladin into their monastery, and without preparing him or attempting to accomodate his status as an anti-undead warrior, march a ghost in front of him. This is pretty bloody careless. (This sways the Evil/Not Evil debate in no way, but it is an observation I thought I'd bring up.)

4) When attacked, it is not evil to protect yourself. If there was an evil deed here, it is destroying the ghost, and not protecting himself from hostile monks.

This paladin believes (because he's been taught it by the church) that undead are anaethma to all things Good. If you have a relativistic morality system (though I disagree with them, some folks do have them in their games) then this is all the vindication he needs. Not Evil.

If the game has an Absolute Morality, then it is up to the DM to determine the Truth: is an undead's existance [Evil]? This is not a question of if the undead character is evil, but rather if the presence of a Negative Energy Powered "life" itself constitutes something [Evil]. If yes, then the paladin is in no way guilty of having committed an evil act. If no, only then might the paladin have committed an evil act. Only the campaign's DM can answer this question, and further debate without the answer is fairly well spurious.

NOTE: An undead character may be something other than [Evil] while at the same time the very fact of his existance be [Evil]. This is reconciles Ghosts of any alignment with the fact that they all detect as Evil for spells like Detect Evil.

 

[Kristivas]

First off, many people have brought up the paladin's Detect Evil ability. I'm sorry to say, Detect Evil can be subverted and any paladin beyond level 3 should have learned that. In this scenario, it's easy for me to understand the mindset of said paladin.

1. His god loathes undead. Even if they're not evil undead, perhaps the god's faith dictates that any being prolonging it's life (or unlife) through unnatural means must be clensed, because it's just not natural.
2. Knowing that Detect Evil isn't the end-all, be-all way of spotting every single bad guy and can be thwarted, perhaps said paladin thought his ability was duped when he saw the evil (in his eyes and the eyes of his faith) ghost and those that would harbor such a vile being of corruption. Again, it's the views of his faith that undead are loathesome.
3. He was attacked by the monks for performing his sacred duty to his god. They didn't try to reason with him, they just got down to it. I would wager most lawful neutral monks wouldn't fly into such a rage that they would attack a man who was obviously connected to some faith adept at destroying undead (which usually means good alignment). These monks did and that's well within their right what with seeing their friend torn apart molecule by molecule in holy fire, but the paladin probably stopped viewing them as LN once they attacked.

Would I make him lose his powers? No, not unless he went room by room, killing all who dwelled at the monastery without mercy. If he did, however, then he pulled an Anakin Skywalker (tuskan raider slaughter) and fell from grace right there.

I would fit it into the story that it would now be his responsibility to protect the village. If the townspeople are killed before he learns about them, or can be reached or what-have-you, then it would be his job to hunt down the goblins and avenge the slain folk.

It would also be his responsibility to answer any challenges called upon him by those seeking to avenge the slain monks and priests.


...This story actually brought back a lot of memories. A guy in my campaign used "following his god's word and fighting evil" to try and get away with some heinous stuff. I was never a big fan of using Lawful Good as Lawful Anal-retentive. I read through the story twice, though and could justify the paladin's actions.

 

[WayneLigon]

First off, many people have brought up the paladin's Detect Evil ability. I'm sorry to say, Detect Evil can be subverted and any paladin beyond level 3 should have learned that. In this scenario, it's easy for me to understand the mindset of said paladin.

Other than Undetectable Alignment or Antimagic Field, what can subvert a Paladin's ability, or the spell Detect Evil? They don't get save against it, though SR works against the spell-like ability the Paladin has.

 

[Kristivas]

Other than Undetectable Alignment or Antimagic Field, what can subvert a Paladin's ability, or the spell Detect Evil? They don't get save against it, though SR works against the spell-like ability the Paladin has.

I would say those two things are enough.

Imagine being brought up in the paladin's world. Taught that ALL undead are unnatural, evil, and should be clensed to preserve the natrual order of things. Add to that the knowledge that there are spells out there (even if there are only two, but maybe more) that can subvert your ability to detect evil foes.

Then the monastery. A lush green oasis on a snow-covered mountain? There's obviously magic involved. Who's to say the place isn't covered with Undetectable Alignment?

Then you throw in the ghost, an undead entity whom the paladin has been told is evil and unnatural and should be destroyed. Add all of this together and I would say you have a paladin just doing his job.