The Paladin killed someone...what to do?

[tonym]

Cripes! I seriously doubt the Original Poster has a "Paladin Code" that insists every paladin use detect evil every time before killing somebody in the city limits.

Therefore, it follows that if a paladin in his campaign witnesses an act that he--a trained paladin--deems evil, then it is entirely his option whether or not he detects evil on the offending person. A paladin is considered wise enough to make that decision, I think.

In our scenario, the paladin did just that. The halfling participated in a crime and compounded his wickedness by refusing to cooperate with the investigation. By the halfling's actions, he provided sufficient information to the paladin regarding his 'likely' alignment, and the paladin killed him.

Did the paladin make a mistake about the halfling's alignment? Seriously, it doesn't matter. A paladin can make mistakes, just like a paladin can kill evil people and decide to skip the whole detects evil rigamarole. It's totally his call.

I'd have to say any DM who punishes a paladin for this kind of thing is likely interested in punishing a PC for his (the DM's) own amusement, or he (the DM) misunderstands the rules about paladins. The RAW clearly support the paladin. Paladins can act chaotic on occasion--like this one did.

If you want to strip the paladin of his powers for all of his accumulated questionable acts, wait until he does something much, much worse than this. His killing of the seemingly evil halfling shouldn't be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

There, the defense rest its case.



Tony M

 

[jdrakeh]

Lethal no. But if the Paladin is ignoring evil before his own eye he is going to fall due to inaction allowing evil to spread.

He could have easily detained the halfling until the authorities arrived to deal with the situation, applying law as written - but instead decided to murder him in cold blood. Unless two wrongs really do make a right, I'm entirely unconvinced that murder was the best or only option available to the Paladin.

I still see any argument that advocates murder as the only justified response to those that wrong a Paladin as being an open advocation of vigilante justice which, IMHO, does not at all adhere to the Paladin's Code or required alignment. In retrospect, I haven't seen a single argument on this thread that convinces me otherwise.

'I'm a Paladin. If people piss me off, I can kill them. It's my right as a warrior of god!'

I am not seeing the Lawful Good in that.

[Edit: What I do see in that argument is a justification of right to murder by way of religious affiliation - and is that not unjust? The exact same argument was made during the Crusades... and later deemed unjust and in error by The Church.]

 

[Voadam]

The only answer I can give to that is: when I read the OP's description of the incident, I immediately thought: "So what's the problem?"

My immediate thought was it didn't seem evil or a gross violation of the code so no problem. But having read a few paladin threads before I said to myself "I bet a bunch of people will have a problem with it. I'll bet some say it is an evil act or gross violation, or that paladins are held to a higher standard."

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I'd have to say any DM who punishes a paladin for this kind of thing is likely interested in punishing a PC for his (the DM's) own amusement, or he (the DM) misunderstands the rules about paladins. The RAW clearly support the paladin. Paladins can act chaotic on occasion--like this one did.

Alternatively the DM may roleplay the Deity that the Paladin is servant to and find that killing a helpless creature was dishonorable. Alternatively, the DM may place paladins on a pedestal and expect a certain standard to be kept (represented by the code that the PC follows). Alternatively, if the DM views that the act in question was evil then they will likely strip the Paladin of their abilities immediately.

The RAW are vague in this regard - thus why these Paladin threads get the amount of attention that they do. To say that a DM who does not follow your line of thinking (which in case you had not realised, I don't) is a: punishing the PC for his own amusement or b: misunderstands the rules regarding paladins, is a little out of step. Remember, a messageboard like Enworld gets a lot of opinions, most of them particularly valid. Be careful when blanketing a whole section of dissenting opinions like you have. Just because someone disagrees with your summation does not mean that as a DM they're vindictive or ignorant.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[jdrakeh]

AThe RAW are vague in this regard

As I said earlier, this is the real issue here - the RAW are next to entirely useless when it comes to resolving situations like this, as they're open to a wide variety of wildly different interpretations as a result of being vaguely worded (again, as threads like this demonstrate). In the end, resolving a situation like this relies purely on a given GM's interpretation of the vaguely-worded rules. It's all about parallax, baby.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Stalin, Nero, Ghengis Khan, Hitler, the Inquisitors, serial killers . . .

As soon as I saw this, I was tempted to do a massive rant, but as the moderators have warned about staying on topic, I'll just post a link instead.
http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780609610626

It's the description of a book, but it sums up Ghengis Khan's actual history quite succinctly. I'm so sick of people who think Temujin was evil, let alone hitler evil....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, what the OP posted:

The paladin (married, with a pregnant wife) was called down to the street in the middle of the night by a messenger: a halfling who said he had a message but then hemmed and hawed about what it was -- then tried to scamper off. The paladin grabbed him -- and then learned that just after he left his room, someone had assaulted his wife. The paladin asked a couple more questions, at which point it became clear that the halfling was involved in the assault.

(emphasis mine)

So, all the comments about:

Various Posters
Dealing out death on suspicion isn't justice...

No reasonable suspicion of guilt - only allegation and suspicion...

and the like are off base. He ascertained that the Halfling was involved in the kidnapping.

Lastly, the halfling wasn't killed breaking and entering; he was found to be in league with home invaders, rendered helpless, and subsequently executed.

In any jurisdiction, he is a co-conspirator, and can be convicted of kidnapping (an evil act). He is every bit as guilty as the people who dragged off the Paladin's wife. As I mentioned, the crime involved a home invasion at night- about as heinous a crime as was imagined in the ancient world, short of murder.

In certain jurisdictions, he could even be granted a death sentence (if kidnapping is a death penalty crime)- usually in ultraconservative theocracies. Try this scenario in, say, Teheran, where sharia (laws based on the Quran) is the law of the land. Islam typically draws no distinction between religious and secular life, so sharia covers not only religious laws, but many aspects of daily life...and it has been interpreted to allow for the execution of kidnappers.

People have pondered whether he detected evil before killing the halfling, to determine whether he was being forced into acting as he did.

I ask, how many times does a GM force a Paladin to detect evil before killing opponents in more traditional scenarios, like guarding a temple of evil? After all, the guard may be a conscript; he may just have taken the job to pay to feed his starving family; he may have a child being held hostage by the High Priest of Evil. In short, the guard of a temple of evil may not neccessarily be evil. Does your GM make you detect evil on those guys before attacking?

Remember- Paladins use Detect Evil at will as the spell (PHB p44). That, friends, takes time.

If the GM doesn't make the Paladin DE on everyone he's considering killing- especially those known to have either comitted or aided and abetted evil (like our halfling decoy)- then its a non-issue here.

His next (logical) choice was to turn the halfling over to the city authorities, question him some more, or do something else (like, unfortunately, snapping the guy's neck).

Exigent circumstances say otherwise- he had to decide whether to act for himself, or wait for the authorities to arrive. Given that he'd have to either send a messenger of his own, or trot the halfling to the closest watchmen himself, it may have taken hours for the appropriate authorities to show up, and in the meantime, an innocent is in peril, the trail is growing cold. Unlike most of us, the Paladin is uniquely equipped for meting out justice all by himself.

He had to decide right then whether to take action or delay, considering what the halfling's actions would be if freed, or what the others would be doing to his wife.

 

[Numion]

I ask, how many times does a GM force a Paladin to detect evil before killing opponents in more traditional scenarios, like guarding a temple of evil? After all, the guard may be a conscript; he may just have taken the job to pay to feed his starving family; he may have a child being held hostage by the High Priest of Evil. In short, the guard of a temple of evil may not neccessarily be evil. Does your GM make you detect evil on those guys before attacking?

I agree with you. If the case of the squeezed Halfling was taken in the context of the typical day in the life of a D&D Paladin, it isn't that serious.

And there are dangers involved if the DM requires the Paladin to ping each and every Smite candidate with Detect Evil. Before long the ping is going to become the only thing that's required for the Paladin to kill someone, and the Paladin could just detect and smite evil like some medieval radar-guided missile launcher. That's against the Code.

 

[Sejs]

(If it isn't over, maybe we need another Paladin trial, hmmmm?)

Hello Torm,
I was thinking of calling the twelve paladins again once more myself...

*nod*

Happy to serve again if needed.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I'm not the biggest fan of alignments, but this game was set up to be as close to "by the book D&D" as possible (I was new to the area, did not know any gamers, and wanted the campaign to be "common ground"). That said, the game has been running 5 years, so some shades of grey are inevitable.
...
The player is an excellent roleplayer and a good sport; however, the paladin has definitely exhibited borderline chaotic (not evil) behavior in the past. This will figure into What Happens Next.
...
It's a campaign where Good and Evil have more or less objective definitions (e.g., slavery = evil), but the campaign has gone on long enough that some greyness has seeped in. Evil people do not see themselves as good, although they may justify their actions using other criteria.
...
He would probably take it well, but this character has also had a lot to deal with (much not his fault). I will be talking to the player to get a better idea of where he stands on this. Enjoyment of the game is paramount, and while I must remain true to the world, I don't want to ruin the game for anyone.
...
I haven't yet but I will -- this only happened two days ago and I wanted to give him a bit of time.

My concern is that the player's initial comments were to the effect that he knew he was going outside the bounds of the paladin's code, but he had made the decision to do that when his family was involved. However, this was in the heat of the moment, so I am not sure if that was really his thought process.
...
No. This was not a "follow the paladin's code or the world suffers" scene. He may well have to make that choice at some point, but not this time.
...
I trust the player. I don't know how he currently feels about the situation, as I haven't talked to him since the night of the session. I will be speaking with him this evening.
...
There is an element of that in paladins. I think that paladins are a fairly masochistic class choice, but that can make them uniquely interesting to play.

It's impossible for a paladin to figure out the motivations of all evildoers -- and even a paladin has to balance upholding the law vs. doing what is good. However, in this particular instance, the need to follow the law was perhaps stronger than normal (i.e., they were in the middle of a "good" city rather than fighting for their lives in a dungeon). It seems to me that the chaotic element is stronger than the evil element of the act. Interestingly, I had forgotten that the book paladin code is not so strict about chaotic acts, which gives me something to think about.
...
I took Wulf's question as rhetorical -- I rarely expect a particular outcome from any roleplaying scene. In a more narrow sense: at the time, during the scene, I did not expect the paladin to attempt to kill the halfling. If I had been guessing, I would have expected him to beat him up, express anger, and question him. I don't consider what the paladin did to be out of character, though it may have serious consequences for the character. I was a bit surprised at his actions, to be sure, and thought that posting the situation would provide new perspectives and inspirations for what to do -- which it definitely has!

After reading all that, I've come to the conclusion that this is a neat role-playing expeirence that has started to bloom here. I'm sure you're going to handle it well, and it'll be a fun time.

Best of luck, and salutations sir!