What is the dumbest way you've seen a paladin lose his paladinhood?

[Altalazar]

In responding to another thread, this question occurred to me, to recap what I put there:

Back when I was in my single-digit years, I attempted to solo-run L1 - The Secret of Bone Hill - my friend played a paladin, and for some strange reason my 8-year-old brain decided to make a bugbear there LG, even though they are always evil. The bugbear tried to give flowers to the paladin and the paladin, ignoring the true nature of this bugbear, killed it.

So no more paladin - my friend was rather upset and tried to argue that bugbears are always evil, so it is always ok to kill them. I really forget most of the details. All I recall is the paladin killing the flower-child bugbear and then arguing about the ramifications.

I can still see the Bugbear, walking up the hill (bone hill?) the castle in the distance, flowers in hands, a sheepish, crooked-tooth, bugbear-sized, **it-eating grin on its face, right before those delicate flower petals were splashed with blood...

Which got me wondering, what is the dumbest way you've seen a paladin lose his paladinhood? That above is mine - it is an image I can never get out of my mind whenever I think of paladins "losing it," so to speak.

I'd be curious to know not only how it was lost, but what happened afterwards - did they get it back? Did they become blackguards? (If it is 3e) In my case, that character was forever after a fighter, though that only amounted to a few more adventures.

 

[Dinkeldog]

In the ToEE computer game, my Paladin lost her paladinhood because she let someone else compete in a drinking game.

 

[Altalazar]

In the ToEE computer game, my Paladin lost her paladinhood because she let someone else compete in a drinking game.

That ALMOST sounds like a contradiction in terms. Was there risk of poison or something???

 

[WayneLigon]

In the ToEE computer game, my Paladin lost her paladinhood because she let someone else compete in a drinking game.

I was going to reply, but there's no topping that.

 

[Xagunder MacFaileas]

Many years ago, I was in an adventure where the party found a trapdoor in some stable. It was locked, and as we had no thief in the party (ah, they were called thieves back then, weren't they...), the paladin decided to mount his warhorse and smash through the trapdoor with it's hooves.

DM decided that the horse broke both front legs. On a wooden trap door. It was not magically reinforced so I'm not sure how this happened. But, the DM ruled that the paladin was needlessly crewl to his mount, and so lost his paladinhood.

 

[tetsujin28]

Man, that's a lame DM ruling if I've ever heard one

 

[kingpaul]

I a friend of mine was running a paladin/cleric in a game several years ago. During the adventure, the found an evil-aligned sword owned by major bad guy. Bad guy was defeated. Paladin said something along the lines of "This sword needs to be destroyed". Paladin then picked up the sword, prayed to their deity to aid them in destroying the sword. DM said sword was broken, but also stripped the paladin of their paladin-hood because they knowingly picked up an evil weapon.

 

[Altalazar]

I a friend of mine was running a paladin/cleric in a game several years ago. During the adventure, the found an evil-aligned sword owned by major bad guy. Bad guy was defeated. Paladin said something along the lines of "This sword needs to be destroyed". Paladin then picked up the sword, prayed to their deity to aid them in destroying the sword. DM said sword was broken, but also stripped the paladin of their paladin-hood because they knowingly picked up an evil weapon.

That gets my vote as the most brain-Damaged DM ruling on paladins I've ever seen. At least you could ATTEMPT to make some sort of argument about the horse...

 

[Altalazar]

I a friend of mine was running a paladin/cleric in a game several years ago. During the adventure, the found an evil-aligned sword owned by major bad guy. Bad guy was defeated. Paladin said something along the lines of "This sword needs to be destroyed". Paladin then picked up the sword, prayed to their deity to aid them in destroying the sword. DM said sword was broken, but also stripped the paladin of their paladin-hood because they knowingly picked up an evil weapon.

That gets my vote as the most brain-Damaged DM ruling on paladins I've ever seen. At least you could ATTEMPT to make some sort of argument about the horse...

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

This is going from "Stupidest way a paladin lost his paladinhood" to "Stupidest reason the DM invoked to strip the paladin of his paladinhood"...

AR