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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1390833" data-attributes="member: 15470">I'd echo that advice. I'm playing a paladin in one campaign, and one of my favorite parts of it was spending several hours explicitly writing up my paladin's personal Code, bearing in mind my diety's beliefs - balancing mercy with justice, balancing honor with intelligence, etc. After spending a long period with it, by myself, I ran it over with my GM, who went through it point by point.We each have a copy of the Code, 2-3 pages or so, and my GM has since done an excellent job of working character development by presenting me with dilemmas, points in which one point of my character's Code is in conflict with another, and forcing me to choose between them - sometimes as a "test", in which he has a "right" answer in mind, and other times just to push the character's development.I agree with a number of the others, that a permanent and instant loss of paladin-hood is far too harsh; a single mistake, no matter how egregious, shouldn't negate a lifetime of service. I particularly like the way my GM has given me "warnings" if I was transgressing: "When you make your morning prayer, you feel cut off from your god. You notice that you haven't recovered any of your spells, also..." That left me wondering whether I had smite, saving throws, lay on hands, etc... and no way to find out until I needed 'em!Providing ways to atone is cool... and if you do it right, it can be fun for both you and the paladin. Try to paint the quest for atonement as part of the character development. If he truly loves paladin-hood, he'll be into that... and if he doesn't, then "fighter" is a better class for him.It sounds like there was a lot of emotion involved. (Note, his negative reaction may have been to the way you said it... letting him "discover" what's wrong is much easier to take than saying, "You what? That's it, you're no longer a paladin!") If that's the case, I'd say - have a one-on-one conversation with your player before your next session. Outline what you were thinking; outline what his diety is thinking; make it clear that those are different. Tell him that it doesn't have to be permanent, and see if he's into atonement. Make sure you do not have this conversation in front of the others - and let him vent a little, if he needs to, without getting defensive about it.If you're into "forgiveness" and are regretting your decision - remember that you're the GM, here. You don't *have* to follow the rules explicitly - you are, after all, role-playing the god in question, who grants or withholds the paladin's abilities. You can certainly let some of his abilities "creep back" to achieve what you feel is a better balance of infraction to punishment. Did he acquit himself well in fighting the blue dragon? Does his character "pray" in apology? Does his character seek out a high priest of his diety to beg atonement? Any of those gives you a plot-hook way to start awarding back paladinly virtues.</blockquote>

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