The paladin. A story and a question.

[erucsbo]

getting back to the original questions:

***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. The monks and priests were all lawful neutral. They did attack him first, but that was after the paladin killed/destroyed/imprisoned the monk-ghost. Did the paladin commit a crime?

According to the monks - yes. According to the paladin (and his god) - most probably not. According to the rules of the land and secular authority? - we aren't given enough information to judge.

What should his punishment be?

Depends on who you ask

Is he still a paladin?

Most assuredly yes, because his state of paladinhood is determined by his god, not the monks, nor secular authority.

Here's the kicker, the temple monks were the protectors of a small village population 40-50. Without the monks the village will most definitely be ravaged by local goblins. Is the paladin accountable for what happens to the village, even if he never knew it existed?***

Is he accountable? - probably not - he was not answerable to the monks (though it depends upon the laws of hospitality that exist in the world), nor the village (especially if not aware of its existence). Accountability requires you to have a legitimate responsibility and/or authority prior to any actions taking place.
Is he responsible? - possibly yes - in the same way that anyone's actions can have unforseen consequences - this does not mean that they should be held liable or accountable.

Remembering that this is from a character's backstory, and that the paladin is an NPC, it really depends upon what happened to the village after these events, and whether or not the paladin (or his church) did anything to help the village.

The "undead always detect as evil" idea is wrong. Read the spell description. The bit before the quoted table says:
Aura Power: An evil aura’s power depends on the type of evil creature or object that you’re detecting and its HD, caster level, or (in the case of a cleric) class level; see the accompanying table. If an aura falls into more than one strength category, the spell indicates the stronger of the two.

Undead is a creature type that affects the aura power level. Evil undead have an evil aura, good undead have a good aura. Detect Evil detects evil auras.

 

[Kristivas]

SS, let us know how it turned out?

 

[Torm]

Quick nitpick. You mean sapient, not sentient.

Quick nitpick back . You presume I don't know the difference. I meant it the way I said it. I should have, however, included a further stipulation that it is "... under circumstances not generally regarded by society as acceptable." Such as self-defense. Or the eating of those aforementioned tasty animals. IM-not-so-humble-O, however, the needless (or insufficiently need-y) killing of those sentients, sapient or not, is still murder.