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

[demiurge1138]

My biggest paladin story doesn't have to do with how a paladin fell, but with how one didn't.
The game in question took place in a rather elaborate homebrew where the four last remaining Bastions of Good were fighting (and losing) a lengthy war of attrition against the Shadow Kingdom. The four cities were protected by massive arcane "shield generators" powered by magic items. So parties of adventurers were sent into the cruel and dangerous world in order to recover lost magical items to preserve the cities.

Enter the players. The players of particular import were mine, and a paladin played by a guy who, for all that names-have-been-changed, I will call D. my character was true neutral, dedicated to the mission, and was also a graverobber with no qualms about eating the flesh of deceased sentient beings and who collaborated with ghouls on at least one occasion. but he hated to take lives, and only dealt subdual damage in combat.

The paladin, on the other hand, was everything a paladin shouldn't be. His idea of paladining was waving a sword and saying "It is a quest!" in a bad Sean Connery impersonation. Really. He had no sense of mercy and would kill anything "because it was evil". He would torture bugbears for information (again with the bugbears!), attacked a troupe of ghouls I had already convinced to let us pass, and had tried to slaughter a family of sleeping duergar "because they were evil". And, worst of all to my character, he kept magic items hidden from our patron that could have been used to save lives for his own personal glory (a +2 longsword comes to mind).

Worst of all, he didn't lose anything. Not a spell, not a lay on hands, not even a warning to be a bit more paladin-ly. And, what bothers me still, my character, whose hatred of the false paladin grew as my irritation did, was forced by the DM to work with Shadow so that he could work against the paladin. And , even after I had finally failed to get rid of him in a non-violent means, swallowed my pride, RPed a scene of pathos over my hatred of bloodshed and finally killed D's false paladin (with the DM's permission, mind you), the DM brought him back with a literal deus ex machina.

Suffice it to say, I didn't go back to that group.

Demiurge out.

 

[Epametheus]

I can think of two paladins that were rather bad at being paladins, but their players (they were actually both in the same campaign) were just dumb, and thus their behavior was excused on that grounds. They were pretty much just fighters with cool powers. My group is actually pretty lax about enforcing alignment, but the smarter players actually do it right anyways.

That scroll test is a neat idea. The fact the questionable paladin came across a farm as messed up as that and the player didn't recognize it as a test indicates that he really shouldn't have been playing a pally.

 

[Endur]

In older versions of D&D, the GM was supposed to "JUDGE" the Paladin's code of conduct. In older versions, the Paladin had all the abilities of a Fighter and all the benefits of a Paladin in exchange for a slighly slower exp progression and the various restrictions of the Paladin's code.

3e changes that. In 3e, the Fighter class is balanced against the Paladin class even without considering the ramifications of the Paladin's code.

 

[kingpaul]

3e changes that. In 3e, the Fighter class is balanced against the Paladin class even without considering the ramifications of the Paladin's code.

I thought they took into account the LG-only alignment when they did their balancing equation?

 

[shilsen]

Just remembered one I think I've been repressing. This occurred when I was DM-ing for the first time, in an existing group I'd just joined, so I admittedly let them get away with things I shouldn't have, and that may have encouraged the player.

Anyhow, it was a 2e game, and the party included a paladin who dual-wielded a longsword and a battleaxe They were exploring an underground compelx and had already encountered a few nasties when the party rogue stops to listen at a door. The paladin decided it would be really funny to boot the rogue through the door, sending him sprawling at the feet of the giant zombie on the other side.

I quit on that group when the paladin player's brother turned up for the next session with a flask of whiskey.

 

[Hardhead]

I thought they took into account the LG-only alignment when they did their balancing equation?

A 3e design principle was that you're not supposed to get mechanics bonuses for RP hinderances.

Of course, in 3.5, they've changed their mind (see: Book of Exalted Deeds) so there's no telling what'll be in 4th edition.

 

[Altalazar]

In older versions of D&D, the GM was supposed to "JUDGE" the Paladin's code of conduct. In older versions, the Paladin had all the abilities of a Fighter and all the benefits of a Paladin in exchange for a slighly slower exp progression and the various restrictions of the Paladin's code.

3e changes that. In 3e, the Fighter class is balanced against the Paladin class even without considering the ramifications of the Paladin's code.

That's an interesting angle - what it would mean is that even if a Paladin is played badly, it won't cause game balance problems.

But that still shouldn't excuse it. I suppose Clerics also have to watch their step - cleric of light serving the forces of darkness might have difficulties (though not in my campaign, interestingly enough - that is another story).

 

[TiQuinn]

I've been pretty ambivalent about paladins in the past, but I'm of the opinion now that all the class is good for is

A) Acting as a magnet for Rat-Bastard DMs.
B) Giving the cleric a reason to use that Atonement scroll he's had lying around.

 

[Voadam]

I thought they took into account the LG-only alignment when they did their balancing equation?

Nope, the designers have stated they balanced the classes mechanically without the alignment or RP restrictions of the classes, so if you removed alignment from the game the classes would still be of equal utility (as a design goal). The paladin code, monk, barbarian, bard, and paladin alignment restrictions and cleric divine attachment to a god or force are there for the default D&D flavor, not for balancing the classes.

 

[EntropyDecay]

My story is of a paladin nearly losing his paladinhood in a game I dm'ed, but the player managed to get his character killed shortly after his misbehaviour.



[Small spoilers for the beginning of the Dungeon adventure The Jackals Redemption!]



First the in-game situation:
The characters had travelled to a small town because they had heard rumors of six-armed, red-skinned devils that kidnapped the local peasants one by one. They arrived at the outskirts of the village shortly before noon, just in time to see another raid of these "devils" who attacked a farmer and his family. The party tried to help the peasants, but the monsters managed to grab the six year old son of the farmer and planeshifted away with him. They promised the farmer and his wife to do everything they could to get their son back and rode further into the town.
There they were greeted by the scared mayor who told them that over twenty persons were missing since the monsters began their kidnappings and that most attacks happened during the night. First they only came once every few nights, but now they attacked nearly every night and sometimes even during the day. The paladin (of Heironeous) swore that he would do anything he could "to stop these foul beasts and free the people that are still alive".
The party managed to learn that the first sightings of the creatures fell together with the disappearence of a local mage named The Jackal whose tower had started to shift into another plane and back every two minutes since he was gone. They decided that these three events had to be linked in some yet unknown way and that they tower would probably bring them to the plane in which the devils had their lair (and their prisoners). So far, so good. The time was now one hour after noon, they had given several promises to do everything they could to help, they had several clues which waited to be investigated (mainly the strangely shifting tower) and the party resources (hitpoints, spells, etc.) were nearly full.
They decided that they would spend the rest of the day in the tavern to get some rest and start their investigation on the next morning. Despite the fact that there would probably be another attack during the night. Despite all the promises they had given to help as soon as possible. Without a plan to prevent further kidnappings during next few hours. The paladin didn't even object once to all this! He just decided to get some well earned rest after a few days on a horseback.
During the night (in which more peasants were kidnapped) the paladin had a dream in which he stood before a huge avatar of Heironeous who looked with sad eyes down on him before turning his head away. After that the paladin awoke.
[He had not lost anything, the dream was just a first warning from his disappointed god to respect the path of paladinhood he had chosen. He wouldn't even have gotten the dream if he had at least tried to to convince the others to help the peasants NOW instead of tomorrow.]

The player was totally annyoed and started to make comments about his "stupid god" and that "Heironeous would be an a**hole"... I tried to stay calm and asked him if that was what his characters saying or thinking. He denied that, but in the next half hour he always tried to say something bad about the "stupid Heironeous", all out-of-game of course. I was THIS close to kicking him out of the group (told myself that maybe he had a bad day or something) and started planning to bring his character into a situation where he had to either prove he was worthy of the paladinhood or lose all his abilities forever.

Next thing that happened was that in a following battle against a Narzugon devil he seemed to forget all of his abilities (lay on hands, smite, spells) and just attacked round after round without penetrating the (3.0) damage reduction. When he was at about 12 hp from a maximum of 72 hp, a critical hit made short work of him. The player wasn't actually trying to get rid of his character, but in his anger he managed to forget everything that his character was able to do.

So in a way he managed to lose his paladinhood in a dumb way: Getting himself killed in a stupid way just because of a dream.

Entropy