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

[okuth0r]

i have had 2 instances, though no loss paladin ability, and one is a ethics complain.

in a long term campaign i was running there was a paladin (2e) who in this adventure came across a +1 two-handed sword. normally useing a sword and shield he started using the twohander. the party later came into combat with a devil (or daemon, same thing). it was the last to fall and i decided to do soemthing special (i would throw in odd tidbits with magic weapons having some absorb creature kills making them more magical.) so i told the party basically this.
"As the massive sword strikes the final blow to the demonic creature you see it begin to twist, pulling from your grip it twirls and as it does it looks like the deamon is slowly sucked into the blade. once the daemons body is gone the blade swivels hilt up and imbeds itself a foot into the floor" (the floor was perviously discovered/described as ":diamond hard crystal" it was a floating castle in the coulds)
the paladins next words "I pull the sword free" not loosing his paladinhood, his soul was flung from his body as the daemon in the blade took over.

my compaint was a campaign i regretfully played in for a year. a Lawfull good Dwarven Paladin of moradin (non regular gorup, some showed up all the time, me, others were in and out. so players were from 4 to 12 in each game)

we had killed something big and were checking the treasure. now character wise if he didnt need it, didnt want it. but one was taking everything. when done they had 7 items the rest had 0-2. so taking that dwarves (especailly ones of moradin, leaders in dwarven socieity) i thought it fair to teach the character a lesson.
the new (at that time) compleat spell books had a spell, Bestow Minor Curse. with the curse that made him give away worldly posessions. i cast the spell, the dm then mentions "oh, this is says (in a small footnote) only cast by evil characters, you loose all access to spells." no warning, no bad feeling, nothing. my attonement was to make pots and pans for the dms character/npc town. i still dont understand the whole thing. also my characters next purchase was a Phlyactly of Faithfullness.

 

[Orius]

And this thread has me wondering just why people who don't want to follow the code of a Paladin would ever decide to play one (not that this is the only way dumb paladin tricks happen - as this thread has shown).

One word -- munchkinism.

Simply put, the players want all the powers that the paladin has, but they don't like dealing with the restrictions.

 

[Altalazar]

One word -- munchkinism.

Simply put, the players want all the powers that the paladin has, but they don't like dealing with the restrictions.

This is certainly a valid possibility in 1e/2e, but since the class is now balanced in 3e, regardless of restrictions, this should eliminate munchkinism from the equation. So if Paladins are no longer more powerful than fighters, why would anyone play one without a character concept that matches?

The paladins I've seen played have benerally been based on long, thought out character concepts that pretty much made it impossible for any of the dumb things seen here to happen (and they never have - the bugbear example was just a fluke of youth).

 

[MerakSpielman]

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.

It's been said before and warrents saying again, the primary problem that arises is when the player and the DM have different visions of how a paladin should behave. The Code of your particular paladin should be worked out in advance, with all the restrictions clearly laid out. I further think that all Codes should be subtly different, emphasizing the god or mission the paladin serves.

I don't want to sound like a marriage counceler, but communication is the key.

Attached is the Code I wrote a few weeks ago for a Paladin of Ehlonna.

 

[ledded]

It's been said before and warrents saying again, the primary problem that arises is when the player and the DM have different visions of how a paladin should behave. The Code of your particular paladin should be worked out in advance, with all the restrictions clearly laid out. I further think that all Codes should be subtly different, emphasizing the god or mission the paladin serves.

I don't want to sound like a marriage counceler, but communication is the key.

Attached is the Code I wrote a few weeks ago for a Paladin of Ehlonna.

I agree. The game I'm in now is much more mature than the game I mentioned earlier, and we've never had a problem with a paladin acting outside of his code. We also are a little more flexible with paladins, essentially their code being restrictive but differing for the different types of paladins you run across (wood elf paladins are a bit different, in our game, from the stereotypical knight-errant type, or a paladin from a barbaric halfling race). Each one can have widely differing ideas of what is "good" (as we humans tend to do in real life). As long as your particular code is hammerred out pretty well with the DM, you have a little flexibility from what is in the book, but it's still a very strict lifestyle. It all depends on the communication... if you dont work it out with the DM ahead of time, rule 0 is in effect.

I once had a paladin who killed a prisoner that we had taken in front of the whole party, which freaked them out pretty well. However, he was the man of the god of justice, and also the acting Reeve since war had recently overtaken their little town and the Reeve had been killed by the invaders. By law, the sentence for various crimes that he had seen the guy commit or heard him admit to was death, so by strictures that he was governed by he was duty-bound to pass judgement and put him to death. However, the other players didnt know this, and really freaked out when (while trying to distract the paladin and discuss the various nasty things to do to this prisoner who had just days before sacked their little village) the paladin just walked up, stared at him for a few moments (detect evil) and put him down like a dog.

 

[Florian]

Well, one campaign I played in ages ago while stationed in NC had a DM who told the paladin player that his character, a 4th-level paladin, lost his paladinhood for organizing and participating in an ambush against a mob of ogres and hill giants that were ravaging the countryside. Apparently the DM expected the paladin to stand in the middle of the road and challenge the mob to single combat.

That DM wouldn't have been a guy by the name of Tom Gustin, would it?

 

[Imperialus]

Not a paladin but back in 2nd ed one of the guys in my group was a Ranger. We were chaseing a band of hill giants into this forest that they had been useing as a hideout and this character came up with the brilliant idea that if he set fire to the forest we'd kill the giants. It worked but he wasn't a ranger for much longer.