What does the paladin do when...

[KenM]

I'd try to stop the sorcerer, kill him and the the child, know it is the bigger threat, then try to save my wife. If the wife could not be saved, I would prey to my God, If I have been a faithful paladin, then my god will raise my wife and let her still have children (god of fertility and family). If The wife dies, then I renounce my god and go though the kingdom rapeing as many women as I could, seeing how "fertile" the other women of the kingdom are.

 

[La Bete]

[B I'll ride shotgun in that truck with ya, La Bete. [/B]

Yeeeee-hah!

10 extra points if you get the other player who is actually playing the sorcerer/assassin/cavalier/cleric (female dark elf of course)

 

[mmu1]

Ask the DM if he's writing a story, or running a game, because I don't like quite that much Deus Ex Machina in my D&D.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Is this meant to be an ethical puzzle or an actual game scenario?

If it's an ethical puzzle, then I have to choose between:
A) Saving my wife, but possibly starting a demon war.
B) Abandoning my wife to save my son, and possibly avert the war.
C) Attack the mage, effectively ignoring both wife and child.

I'm already embroiled in an ethical puzzle in another thread, so I'll pass.

If this is supposed to be an actual scenario, I attack the mage. There's no chance in heck that I'd be able to "cut off the mage's hand just as the pendulum swings away" from my wife, and I can have the both of them resurrected anyway. And if I take my eyes off the mage for a split-second, he's likely to drop a Meteor Swarm on my buttocks.

 

[Damon Griffin]

I know it's no-win. I just want to know what YOU'd do if you were the paladin in this position.

Give the DM a choice: Either his next words are "And then you wake up..." or this is the last game session I ever play with him as GM.

I've had it with power-mad DMs who don't care whether or not their players are enjoying the situations their characters are placed in...as long as the DM is enjoying himself, it's all good. In past campaigns, I've had to put up with my characters' parents being the targets of assassination plots, being dragged into religious wars that I (as a bard) cared nothing about, having my home village suffer over 50% mortality from an orc horde whose only purpose was to chase us 1st level PC out of town, and more.

Yes, bad things happen to good people. Yes, the game would be boring if nothing bad ever happened to the PCs. Yes, you need conflict to tell a story. But this isn't the DM's story. It's interactive. And that means you don't get to place characters in no-win situations not of their making, not with stakes as high as you describe. Doing so removes all control of the PC's fate from the player's hands, which oversteps a DM's bounds.

Putting the paladin in a moral dilemma is fine, but it would not, for example, be okay to set him up in a situation where he must choose between two courses of action, both of them clearly evil, so that he's going to end up "fallen" and in need of redemption by the end of the session no matter what he does.

 

[Cedric]

Save the child, kill the mage, get his wife resurrected...buy her roses and a nice dinner, along with a week at the royal palace for r/r.

Cedric

 

[Valicor]

Marry the sorceress and start a new family. Nah
seriously though Save the kid. It prevents the ritual and is a symbol of family in its own right.

 

[RigaMortus]

Charge the sorcerer in an attempt to save the child. Why? Because the spell requires the blood of the child. If the child can be saved, the spell is ruined. Also, it could be argued that the greater good is served by saving the child vs. saving the mother, and while it is obvious that the paladin is frelled, what he attempts must be made ... he cannot give up.

Next I'd call out to my gawd for support/intervention/guidance.

Then I'd shove my longsword up the sorcerer's rear.

Finally, I'd morn the passing of my wife.

Joe2Old

/agree

 

[Olive]

greatest good for the greatest number. kill the evil mad guy.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hmm. I don't mean to go off on a tangent/hijack, but I have to say that this sort of thing is the reason I heavily restrict Resurrection magics in most of my campaigns (except the truly high-magic ones).

An ethical dilemma like this--leaving aside, for the moment, whether or not it's fair to the players--should not be easily resolved by saying "Ah, let her die, you can resurrect her later." That just strips the whole thing of an enormous amount of its inherent drama.

Nor do I necessarily believe this is the mark of a bad DM as some others have suggested, though it very easily could be. Some players enjoy ethical dilemmas, and the roleplaying challenge of the no-win scenario. So long as the DM knows that's the kind of group he's got, there's no problem.

I think it's also safe for a DM to use even if his group isn't of that variety--in select circumstances. To end a major story or a campaign on this note would, indeed, be unfair to the PCs. I think it would be okay to use a tactic like this at the beginning or middle of a story, however, as a means of upping the dramatic potential.

Still, if the players don't enjoy it, don't do it. That's certainly simple enough.