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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Mhoram" data-source="post: 3891441" data-attributes="member: 4789">And one where I GMed, and my wife was the player:Set up:The game was 1st edition D&D, but we had a bunch of house rules, including taking XP penalties to gain special abilities of other classes (loosely based on an old Dragon Article for basic D&D, and the second edition XP Pen thing for clerics). We had also seen Darksun, and liked the idea of added classes (changing the Avignon to something a little less weird), and I had been working on taking the Saint template in Dragon and making it one of those added classes. In the game we ran that Elves had a culture that was Asian - a mix of Chinese imperial approach, and Japanese honor system - they were the people that used Katanas, and had samurai and ninja and monks. The wife's PC was an Elven Paladin, and he had done some XP penalities for some samuria and kensai abilities (Paladins of Athena, god of Tactics and Defensive war - and Athena is at war with Ares).So the character is somewhere around low twenties in level (the solo game had been running from '85 to the mid nineties. The wife played the perfect paladin - never made a wrong moral choice, always followed code, was pleasant to strangers, gave money to the needed, kicked evil's butt... And the wife comes up and says "I want to run a fallen paladin plot with Thonolan"I just sat there stunned.The Story:Fallen Paladin? With this character? So I think about it for a while, and come up with something that I think will work. I run an adventure that puts the Paladin into one of those circumstances that petty GMs love to put Paladins in - there were only two choices, and both of them would make him lose his Paladinhood. So he does the right thing, and loses his Paladinhood. He goes to atone, and is told by the Cleric that the Goddess won't do it - the spell doesn't work - he goes into the center temple to talk to her statue, which can animate and talk back with a bit of her consciousness (20+ level paladin, he has before). Nothing.So he goes Mercenary. Very despondent - he was a paladin of a Virgin Goddess, and lets himself do things he hasn't done that way before, becomes something of a drunkard (he felt that his goddess turned her back on him), and the mercenary company he hooks up with are a big mix of alignments. The leader is evil.So the wife plays him through this for a number of levels, lost his paladin abilities, but is still a fighter, and still has a number of his XP Pen stuff that makes him much tougher than just his level would indicate. There are tensions between the leader and Thonolan, and factions develop, with a number of the group wanting Thonolan to take over. He is thinking about it. He's also drifted fairly Neutral (with good tendencies). The leader of the group is got a huge contract. They go to the meeting place - a temple of Ares. They were hired to do some atrocities. Thonolan balked. The leader faced him down. Thonolan fought him. New leader. The cleric in the group healed Thonolan.Thonolan turned to the priest and told him the deal was off. The priest then wanted the seed money he had paid (a lot of money) to be paid back, instantly. The previous leader had kept that (which annoyed some of his old supporters). The group didn't have the cash. They said so, the priest started casting a spell, and was slaughtered by the group en mass.His dying breath he called on his God to appear.He did.We used the 1st ed DDG writeups for the god's avatars. And we ran that if a god's avatar was killed, he couldn't physically manifest on that plane for 101 years. So actual manifestations were fairly rare.Ares turns towards Thonolan, and tells him that he will forgive the killing of the priest if he joins him and becomes an Anti-paladin at his current level.(yes I presaged the whole blackgaurd idea from third edition). Thonolan actually thinks about it for a while, then tells him, in a firm voice no. Never. He holds onto that much of his previous attitude. So Ares goes a little berserk (as is his wont) and says "Then you die"* The fight happens. Rolled in the open, and Ares is focused on killing Thonolan, so doesn't use his teleport powers, he wants to beat him down. Thonolan uses great tactics, and very good use of his extra abilities. Meanwhile the rest of the company is fighting off the rest of the temple staff and guards. And the cleric does hit Thonolan with one Heal in the middle of the fight.He ends up killing Ares.Ares is dead as is everyone at the temple, and about half the mercenary company (surprisingly the "evil half" hmmm). Ares cannot manifest on this plane for 101 years. Huge deal. Thonolan is at single digit hit points.Athena appears. And walks over to Thonolan with pride in her face, and small tears in her eyes. She then tells him her plan - She knew that if one her major paladins fell, Ares would try to recruit him. So she caused this in his life, so that he could get close enough to Ares to kill him (Goddess of Tactics, this kind of thing fit perfectly with her abilities). She was immensely proud, that although it looked as if she was abandoning him, he remained true to his faith. Thonolan, an amazing tactician himself sees exactly what she did. She restores his Paladinhood personally, but he cannot advance as a Paladin anymore, he is now a Saint (using the rules ideas we were working on that I mentioned earlier).The wife roleplaying his fall into despair, and acceptance of his new lot in life was amazing to behold, and the joy the character felt when his god returned to him was one of the best moments I've seen played.* Okay so I was channeling Star Wars.</blockquote>

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