What *is* it about paladins that makes people nutty, anyway?

[ThirdWizard]

I based my decision on the alignment in question, and what that alignment itself dictates. I'm not gonna read a thread that's 500+ posts long to formulate what I'd do. Way too much time to read people argue back and forth the same points they said on page 1 all the way through page 10+ whatever it is now.

But, see, you made a very large factual error in your recounting of the thread you were referring to. You're adding things to make the Paladin more in the right. You can't close your ears and sing lalalalalalala and pretend it was as cut and dry as you're making it. Well, you can, but when such glaring errors in how you perceved the campaign events and what actually happened occur, it only exhasperates the thread to go on and on.

If you understood anything from my post, is that D&D, as structured, is a game of absolutes and universal forces. Anything else added to the game is from the individual players, and each group is different. But, if a DM is gonna ask the question: Should I strip my Paladin player of his powers because of "whatever situation" came about that causes him to question this? then its clear that he's adding more to the game than what the game is intended to handle.

You mean because "whatever situation" isn't in the RAW?

If the Paladin did not commit an evil act, he did not break the tenants of his code and the alignment and therefore should not be stripped of his powers.

There you go. One person says "The Paladin did an evil act." Andother goes "It wasn't evil." And the thread goes on and on. You can't just preemptively say it isn't evil like that.

The game, of course, is D&D. D&D is a game of absolutes. Evil is evil.

And, when a Paladin commits an evil act in the cause of good, it is still an evil act. It is very simple. The problem is that we all see it in a different light. In my mind, that paladin committed an evil act, no question about it, because the halfing's guilt wasn't even probable. I know that if that happened in my campaign, then odds are good that the halfing wasn't in on it. His actions were indicative of someone who was actually innocnet in my campaign. The origional poster wouldn't say one way or another, so that's all I had to go on.

Likewise, if a paladin happens across an orc in my campaign and slays the orc, he just fell as surely as if he had killed a human or elf he happened upon. That's just how it is in my game. And, when a paladin thread comes up where that is the situation, you'll be able to lay odds that that's the oppinion I'll carry along with me. Just like someone else will say that doing so is obviously a good act because orcs are always evil in their campaign.

 

[Greylock]

In Reply To #1

me/throwsinmytwocents


Paladins are boring.


hth

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Likewise, if a paladin happens across an orc in my campaign and slays the orc, he just fell as surely as if he had killed a human or elf he happened upon. That's just how it is in my game.

If the player is either a n00b or he didn't know you ran orcs and others as fully realized beings as opposed to being 100% like their MM entry (which is to say, evil), then that's your failing as a DM for not recognizing a potential problem...minor and correctible, but your fault.

(In my campaigns [much like yours, it would seem], Orcs (and other humanoids) are people too. So if you just slay an orc or drow as he crosses your path without so much as a "Stand and Deliver!", you've just committed a murder.)

If, on the other hand, the player knows that Orcs/= evil in your campaign...strip that Paladin!

 

[Acid_crash]

You mean because "whatever situation" isn't in the RAW?

There you go. One person says "The Paladin did an evil act." Andother goes "It wasn't evil." And the thread goes on and on. You can't just preemptively say it isn't evil like that.

And, when a Paladin commits an evil act in the cause of good, it is still an evil act. It is very simple. The problem is that we all see it in a different light. In my mind, that paladin committed an evil act, no question about it, because the halfing's guilt wasn't even probable. I know that if that happened in my campaign, then odds are good that the halfing wasn't in on it. His actions were indicative of someone who was actually innocnet in my campaign. The origional poster wouldn't say one way or another, so that's all I had to go on.

Likewise, if a paladin happens across an orc in my campaign and slays the orc, he just fell as surely as if he had killed a human or elf he happened upon. That's just how it is in my game. And, when a paladin thread comes up where that is the situation, you'll be able to lay odds that that's the oppinion I'll carry along with me. Just like someone else will say that doing so is obviously a good act because orcs are always evil in their campaign.

What's RAW? I have no clue what this means.

You are right about one person saying one thing and another saying another... unfortunate it happens a lot, but you are right on that. Then arguments happen and nothing gets solved and life goes on anyway and all this argument shouldn't be happening and we should be gaming instead and having more fun instead of arguing.

Then, if the original poster didn't say one way or another to the situation poster presented, then what we debate is all based on false information, and therefore anything we say could potentially be wrong.

Personally, I like the way your campaign is played out based on what you said.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

RAW = Rules As Written or Read As Written

 

[ThirdWizard]

If the player is either a n00b or he didn't know you ran orcs and others as fully realized beings as opposed to being 100% like their MM entry (which is to say, evil), then that's your failing as a DM for not recognizing a potential problem...minor and correctible, but your fault.

The rules state that they are "often chaotic evil." Not 100% evil. I don't think "he was most likely evil" is really an excuse to kill. However, yes I do tell them this, and I would repeat it if they decided to attack the orc, because most people get into the mentality of monster = evil.

Then, if the original poster didn't say one way or another to the situation poster presented, then what we debate is all based on false information, and therefore anything we say could potentially be wrong.

Yeah, but it won't stop people from making assumptions. Really, to participate at all we have to do that to a degree. It's just that Paladin threads almost unequivically deal in absolutes. This is evil. This is good. There's little leeway for the Paladin to wiggle in, so the assumptions get blown out of proportion. We might be right based on the information provided, but wrong based on the actual situation. It's just something that I accept and summarily pretend doesn't exist.

Personally, I like the way your campaign is played out based on what you said.

Thanks. It generally comes with the territory of a Planescape game. They ran across a Tiefling Paladin, after all. She couldn't very well yell out "die orc" herself after all. It leads to a much more ambiguous game with regard to who is good and who is evil.

EDIT: I admit I'm very harsh on paladins. That's a preconceved bias as well. At least I admit it!

 

[billd91]

But if you are Agnostic, or if you are an Atheist, it is difficult (not IMPOSSIBLE) to role-play someone who is deeply committed to the divine, and especially so if you are roleplaying a class that is by nature prosetlyzistically and militaristically so. Paladins are the Military Missionaries of their faiths.

On this, I'll disagree. As a serious agnostic (with a heavy anti-clerical streak) I don't have much trouble playing a devout character at all. In some ways, I seem to be able to do it better than a friend of mine who is pretty religious. But then, I've observed religion as an outsider and sometimes that outsider viewpoint produces better results.
I think the really important issue is the ability to find the hooks and play something you are not. In D&D, sometimes that's quite easy to do.

I think the main reason there are so many paladin threads is because of misunderstanding and miscommunication between players and DMs. I don't blame the way alignments or the paladin were written into 3E, rather, I appreciate the leeway in the rules that allows individual campaigns to put their own spin on the class. Of course that leads to a lot of different takes on things in these threads, but it's an RPG so that is to be expected in any thread.

As I see it, DMs and players either have to sit down and hash out what playing a paladin means or the DM has to allow the paladin a lot of benefit of the doubt when these issues come up. The DM should lay out what he considers evil actions, actions outside the code, and let the prospective paladin player know by what criteria he will judge actions not specifically identified. One of the most important things the DM has to explain is just how modernist his views of D&D morality are. Are the relatively recent inventions of human rights, rights of the accused, and so on going to figure into what the paladin must be concerned with? Or will more medieval concepts of justice prevail? Hell, answering those questions would settle a whole lot of paladin threads right there!

 

[Three_Haligonians]

Wow - all the benefits of the Phylactery, and you don't have to have a box stuck to your head!

Luxury!

-Hyp.

You can get that in 3.5 now too!

There's an exalted feat in the PGtF called "Gift of Discernment" which gives you all the benefits of the phylactery.

J from Three Haligonians

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

bild91, you may be the exception or the rule...you just may be a gifted actor who missed his calling.

Most of the well-played Paladins in my personal experience have been played by persons of faith...sometimes not MUCH faith, but believers in some religion or divine being of some kind.

Like I said, difficult but not impossible.

 

[Mouseferatu]

bild91, you may be the exception or the rule...you just may be a gifted actor who missed his calling.

Most of the well-played Paladins in my personal experience have been played by persons of faith...sometimes not MUCH faith, but believers in some religion or divine being of some kind.

Like I said, difficult but not impossible.

If he's an exception, then I have to say that both I, and several other people with whom I've gamed, are exceptions as well. Off the top of my head, I can think of four people I know who have played paladins well--or five, if I can trust my self-assessment of my own paladin-playing skills.

Of thouse four (or five), one is a person of any significant faith. One.

I think, honestly, that it's a mistake to try to draw correlations like this. By definition, any one person's experience is far too limited to serve as any representative sample.