The Paladin killed someone...what to do?

[Old Fezziwig]

Ideally, this would mean a Paladin class that recieved other abilities when he Falls. Using these abilities should make it harder and harder to act Lawful Good, and cause the Paladin to spiral into Blackguard. (I can't think of any that would do this.)

Fair enough, although I'm not sure that a paladin that falls should necessarily be granted other abilities (the code's part of the deal of playing a paladin, at least as the class is set up).

That said, I wouldn't object to a slower, more gradual stripping of abilities — maybe starting with the highest level ability the PC possesses, so a 5th-level paladin that breaks his code would lose access to his mount until he atoned and incur another loss for each transgression until he was nothing more than the Warrior or until he was a Blackguard. Particularly egregious violations could result in losing two special abilities. It's still a penalty, but not as harsh as losing everything permanently right away (although I am a bit partial to that, too).

 

[LostSoul]

Flexor said this far better than I did. That was my issue with the implications of the previous post — that dramatic roleplaying somehow was tied into game mechanics.

My opinion is that it is not necessarily tied into mechanics; that is, you can have dramatic roleplaying with any system. But some mechanics promote dramatic roleplaying, and others do the opposite. I believe that the Paladin class does the latter.

The Star Wars d6 system did this, to an extent. If you got Dark Side points, and you were a Jedi, your character would suddenly experience a nice boost in power. So there was a great temptation to go over to the Dark Side, even though there was a chance it would mean retiring the character (as he Falls and becomes and NPC).

The Paladin offers abilities only if you make the Lawful Good choice. There's not much temptation built into the mechanics there - the obvious answer is to always make the Lawful Good choice.

You can get around this by having a good DM and players, but really, the mechanics could be better.

 

[LostSoul]

That said, I wouldn't object to a slower, more gradual stripping of abilities — maybe starting with the highest level ability the PC possesses, so a 5th-level paladin that breaks his code would lose access to his mount until he atoned and incur another loss for each transgression until he was nothing more than the Warrior or until he was a Blackguard. Particularly egregious violations could result in losing two special abilities. It's still a penalty, but not as harsh as losing everything permanently right away (although I am a bit partial to that, too).

I think that is a good solution, because then the Paladin has an obvious choice to make, each with consequences. He can break the code and get the benefits of doing so, but he also loses an ability - but not so much as to make his character ineffective. Or he can maintain his adherance to the code and lose the benefit that came with whatever action could break it.

edit: I realize as I type this that some of my earlier post were trollish - saying the Paladin class is poor design, etc. I guess I wanted to steer the discussion away from opinions on the matter of alignment and towards the game mechanics and the PC/DM dynamic.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

That's awesome. I think it's hard to do, based on how D&D works (with its emphasis on combat and the nature of the CR/XP system).

I see your point. We switched the game back to 1e about halfway through though so I may have avoided most of the major problems. But a Paladin losing all thier abilites and turning into a regular fighter is not small thing in any event.

 

[Numion]

Right. I don't know about this — this is veering too closely into a "kill them all, let the gods sort it out" philosophy. Finding out if the halfling's actually evil before killing him is a little bit more than a mind game, especially if he's bound and helpless. I don't know. I'm going to have to go with the other side of this coin. I think the paladin, who should be held to a higher standard than most folks, had the opportunity to investigate a slight bit more, and he wasted it, veered into pure wrath. I think it's a great response, in that it could set off an entire series of scenarios, but I do think that it wasn't very paladin-like. I also think I'm rambling a bit, though...

I'm not down for "kill them all, let the gods sort it out" either. I'm just saying that it's unreasonable to expect Paladins to sort out the apparent evildoers motive before he can take action. That's not how the PHB protrays Paladins. They don't even have Sense Motive as a friggin' class skill! If someone looks like they are committing heinous crimes, a Paladins foremost duty would be for his Code, and stop the evil.

Only reason I can think for prolonging the Halflings evil ways would be for the purposes of interrogating information on targets for further punishment and Smiting, similar to your thoughts But thats just different Paladining techniques and outside his code and this whole issue of power-yoinkage.

 

[Voadam]

I think killing a helpless prisoner who may or may not be evil, in a situation where there is no threat to the paladin or anyone else in keeping him alive qualifies as a gross violation of the "honor" section. The only questions I see here are how much paladiny goodness to remove, what he has to do to get it back, and if the player should get a warning first.

Under RAW once the DM determines there is a gross violation then the paladin loses all powers and spells, no warning.

"A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate."

The only question I see under the RAW is whether the action knocks the paladin out of LG, whether it is evil, or a gross violation of the code. If no to all three then no mechanical effect. If yes to any of them then loss of paladin stuff.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The Paladin offers abilities only if you make the Lawful Good choice. There's not much temptation built into the mechanics there - the obvious answer is to always make the Lawful Good choice.

You can get around this by having a good DM and players, but really, the mechanics could be better.

That's fair enough — you might actually even have me halfway convinced that there's a problem with the RAW paladin (not too hard to do, actually, as it's got some legacy issues that bother me).

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I'm not down for "kill them all, let the gods sort it out" either. I'm just saying that it's unreasonable to expect Paladins to sort out the apparent evildoers motive before he can take action. That's not how the PHB protrays Paladins. They don't even have Sense Motive as a friggin' class skill! If someone looks like they are committing heinous crimes, a Paladins foremost duty would be for his Code, and stop the evil.

Only reason I can think for prolonging the Halflings evil ways would be for the purposes of interrogating information on targets for further punishment and Smiting, similar to your thoughts But thats just different Paladining techniques and outside his code and this whole issue of power-yoinkage.

Ok Numion, I understand which side of this you are coming from, but even you have to agree that it wouldn't take that long to detect evil on a subdued halfling. It's not like he had to make a snap decision in the middle of a fight. In this case, even if the halfling was evil, it may have been more prudent to keep him alive for information (unless speak with dead is what the goal was).

Had he detected evil, found the halfling evil and executed him, I would not have an issue.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Only reason I can think for prolonging the Halflings evil ways would be for the purposes of interrogating information on targets for further punishment and Smiting, similar to your thoughts But thats just different Paladining techniques and outside his code and this whole issue of power-yoinkage.

True enough. Although I still think the phrase "halfling's evil ways" is probably a bit far along in this scenario — none of us, save the GM, really know what's going on with the halfling as far as his habitual evilitude or lack thereof. But, yeah, this is about style, and not really the substance of the issue at hand, which is the loss of powers in this particular campaign.

Edit: Check that -- as I think about it, I'm not sure the two issues are all that separable here, but it's something to think about as I start a new campaign.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Had he detected evil, found the halfling evil and executed him, I would not have an issue.

I'd agree with this as well. The action might have been enough for some sort of reprimand from the clergy/his deity, but not enough to lose his powers.