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

[Seule]

Well, it's not stupid, but it's the only paladin-loss I've ever seen.
The primary god of the campaign was LE, masquerading as LG. When the Paladin discovered that her god was evil, she renounced her Paladinhood. She later was accepted by another, actually good god, and regained it. Suitable roleplaying was done by all.

--Seule

 

[Seule]

Well, it's not stupid, but it's the only paladin-loss I've ever seen.
The primary god of the campaign was LE, masquerading as LG. When the Paladin discovered that her god was evil, she renounced her Paladinhood. She later was accepted by another, actually good god, and regained it. Suitable roleplaying was done by all.

--Seule

 

[Altalazar]

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

Well, Both are interesting, but you are correct, this was mostly about stupid things paladins have done, it isn't too hard to fit stupid DMing of paladin loss into there.

 

[Ferret]

It nearly came down to the paladin loosing his paladin hood, he left a dieing halfling to ward off a portal. I made him to do this, because the character was playerless.

 

[tleilaxu]

a paladin in my group passively participated in an armed robbery of a horse two days after he joined the paladin order. it was the quickest career ever.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Do you remember Lareth the Beautiful from RtTToEE? In order to not spoil more than absolutely necessary to tell the story...

Spoiler

One side of Lareth's face is disfigured so he is no longer as beautiful as he once was. The paladin in question picks up that Lareth is evil with his detect ability. Lareth is motionless and unarmed, sitting defenseless in a chair. Yet the paladin decides that Lareth must be punished for being evil and shouts "I smite his face where he isn't disfigured."

Of course Lareth dies immediately and... Bye-bye paladinhood.

 

[tetsujin28]

So the guy kills an evil cleric and loses his paladinhood for it? Doesn't make sense.

I'll tell you mine. My 2nd level paladin was adventuring with a bunch of idiots. "How big a bunch of idiots?" you might ask. I'll tell you. Such a big bunch of idiots that they had a CN cleric of Azathoth with them. That's right, Azathoth. This idiot cleric went around the dungeon with a bunch of chickens (25 at the beginning, IIRC). Anyways, the chickens kept attracting monsters. The paladin gets angry, gets into a fist-fight with the cleric, and pops his frickin' head off (old school D&D critical hits -- you gotta love 'em). Dead cleric, no more paladin. The end.

 

[MarauderX]

Paladin was asked to take part in a robbery with a thieves guild raid on someone's home in order to gain some information, without being duped, tricked, coerced, forced, or blackmailed. The paladin was supposed to watch over the sleeping owner to make sure he didn't wake up. The theives broke some things and were noisy, so the owner woke up. Before he could raise an alarm the paladin sliced his head clean off. The theives just ran after that, as they figured it was a joke on the party all along, and were just trying to get the paladin & crew in trouble and out of the guild's way. The owner was the 'head' of a respected rich merchant who was the largest donor to his church. Double whoops.

 

[Squire James]

Of course Lareth dies immediately and... Bye-bye paladinhood.

That sounded like stupid paladin, though "stupid DM" might apply as well if the paladin had reason to know who Lareth was and what he did. Then it's sorta like, "You killed that poor defenseless drow wizard who was out of spells and carrying a walking stick. Bye bye paladinhood!"

 

[tetsujin28]

"And good riddance!" would have been my group's reply ;-)