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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sammael99" data-source="post: 358405" data-attributes="member: 1157">I don't know if I prefer either, considering how both 1st and 2nd edition have sprouted munchkinism, rules lawyers, etc. In fact, a lot of the designers of 2nd Ed. were sacked and their worked was never published although some of these are to be found under the Apocrypha Rules. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Now I would say that a paladin's behaviour is dependant on his deity and on the game world.Deity : If the law of Talion (the above law quoted from 1st Ed.) is the deity's law, then fine. I don't think that's in line with the canon definition of LG in D&D, but I have no problem with that. I never understood why only good deities could have champions. On the other hand, if the deity advocates compassion, then cold blooded murder, whatever the causes, would be a no-no. Standing by cold-blooded murder would also be a no-no.Game World : How is justice administered in your game world ? We as DMs often tend to paint our modern view of justice into our med-fan universes. Truth is, civil tribunals are a relatively recent notion. In France, until the revolution (1789), the local (noble) ruler administered justice any way that he saw fit. And, in most cases, it probably had very little to do with being "just". So if a paladin has no way of dragging the guilty party to the local noble (because he's pressed with time, for example), he has only a few options : tie and gag the guilty party and hope to pick them up on the way back, or take the matter into his own hands. At this stage I should remind you that the law of talion was not binary : if you had stolen, one or both hands were cut, for example. If you had raped, you were castrated, etc. So killing would not be the only option. All that being said, as a DM of "heroic" campaigns, I dislike unnecessary cruelty preformed by the players, whatever their characters or alignment. Call me sissy <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />, but I find that most often it comes more from the players being lazy than from them playing their characters. After all, it's a very different thing to kill someone unconscious in cold blood than to kill someone in combat. Usually, as a DM, I'll make sure it comes back to haunt the players (sometimes quite literally.) There are many ways of doing this : your character starts having a reputation of cold blooded bastard. People fear him, enemies try to kill him at the first opportunity (no talk, no mercy) and if they get him in a similar situation, they will kill him. Families of the people killed in cold blood hunt them down if they can or try to hinder in any way they can if they're not hard enough to take them on, etc. Let your players know that nothing is done without consequences, especially not killing in cold blood.Now back to Mr. Paladin. Based on what you say of his deity, here's what I would have done : As soon as the combat was over, I would have announced loud and clear that the surviving brigands were to be brought back to justice if that was feasible, or tied and gagged for further justice if not possible. Arguments probably would have occured at this point. Then I would have convinced the guys that one does not take justice into ones own hands.If despite that, the archer had killed the brigand chief, I would have told him that he was evil and guilty of cold-blooded murder. I would have attacked and hopefully subdued him, and brought him back to justice. Maybe the party would have opposed this, maybe not. If they had opposed this, either they would have killed me or not. If they had not, I would have immediately gotten back to the nearest town and gathered a party of paladins of my order to hunt down the murdered and his companions. Anything less than this I would have considered complacency on my part. This is why I only allow paladins in select and appropriate parties when I GM...</blockquote>

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