When Paladins Go Terribly Wrong

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Re: Re: When Paladins Go Terribly Wrong

In the first example, yes. In the latter case... no. No way in heck. A law that aids in corruption and evil doesn't bind a paladin. The law in question was corrupt, therefor the paladin was not bound by it. Regardless of if the church itself made it (What, you think churches can't be corrupt?).

The Church didn't make it- the founder of the Damidrian Empire and the greatest Paladin in history, Mazrimian I, made the law according to the dictates of his God, Bahamut. According to Bahamut (Lawful Good), those of divine blood (the nobility) have more rights than those who do not posess it- and he gives the power. Slaying a sorcerer of divine blood in good standing with the Imperial Guild of Mages for killing two bargemen was out of line for the Paladin, and more in line with the behavior of a Chaotic Good champion... such as a divine liberator.

By extension, I can't see any god that would have paladins would be for the seperation of justice depending on your social status. And I can't see many paladins being cool with the idea either.

Sure they would- it's more than social status, it's divine right, given BY THEIR GOD. Only slaying another noble or another servant of Bahamut removes this status.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If Bahamut gives the power to those of divine blood, can he give power to evil people? Because, if he can, I don't think that he'd object to paladins hunting down and killing those few evil nobles that exist.

If evil nobles can exist, than the Paladins should be able to hunt them down like anything...


I'd actually let him get away with this for now...

To a foriegner, he may not know that the gypsies were no threat -- he detected evil. It could have been fiends in human form for all he knew.

Of course, he would still have to be repentant, sorrow-ridden, et al for doing it in the first place. Otherwise, you're perfectly justified in stripping him of his abilities. Alignment ain't a relative thing.

Also, what he did amounts to vigilanteism....the same reason superheroes are often on the wrong side of the law...he wasn't working with authorities or in an ordered, organized fashion. He was going above and beyond the law of the land to do what he individually wanted...

Again, the proper repentance could get his powers back...

Perhaps the most grievous wrong he did in this act was to neglect his obligation to protect and defend, to lead by virtue, to champion the causes of the righteous downtrodden. He wasn't trying to convert them (that's what you do to evil sentients), he wasn't trying to stop them from doing something evil (which, even then, would mandate little killing), he was simply slaughtering the guilty. It was corrupt, power-mad, and violent...even if his job is to hunt down evil, why would he slaughter every trace of it? You must fight evil in the heart first of all, and then later in the embodiment. He must also think of how much evil he causes...were his actions going to inspire more hatred and fear and wickedness in those he was fighting?

I would allow him to gain powers back if he was properly repentant, but if he still feels justified, have the church strip him of powers. He's violated the goodness of his faith, in exchange for power, chaos, and violence.

Even fiends are deserving of a chance to repent...that's why the Paladin's Battle Cry is "Mercy to the Repentant!"

 

[Tsyr]

Re: Re: Re: When Paladins Go Terribly Wrong

The Church didn't make it- the founder of the Damidrian Empire and the greatest Paladin in history, Mazrimian I, made the law according to the dictates of his God, Bahamut. According to Bahamut (Lawful Good), those of divine blood (the nobility) have more rights than those who do not posess it- and he gives the power. Slaying a sorcerer of divine blood in good standing with the Imperial Guild of Mages for killing two bargemen was out of line for the Paladin, and more in line with the behavior of a Chaotic Good champion... such as a divine liberator.




Sure they would- it's more than social status, it's divine right, given BY THEIR GOD. Only slaying another noble or another servant of Bahamut removes this status.

...so, basicly, you have a situation where a Paladin has to be injust to follow the wims of his god, who apparently places 1 evil person higher than any number of non-evil people.

Gotcha.

Just for the record, I wouldn't even try to be a paladin in your game.

*edit*

For the record, I disagree with the very premise that a LG god would ever rate 1 evil person higher than any number of other people.

 

[uv23]

Yet another reason to throw out Detect Evil as so much trash.

 

[Arnwyn]

You were in the right on this one - what that character did was evil, and deserved to lose his paladin abilities. (However, like what some others have said, it would be a good idea to clearly delineate what a paladin should and shouldn't do in your campaign.)

I think we, as ENworld, should swamp the "Sage" (tm) with hundreds and thousands of examples in order to get something remotely resembling a useful non-interpretive definition of what a paladin can and cannot do. maybe things would be clearer?.... naw...

Speak for yourself. The last thing I want is the Sage/WotC/whoever to try to tell me how a paladin should act. I can do that quite fine on my own, thank you very much. Hopefully most DMs can as well. [All IMO, of course.]

 

[jgbrowning]

Speak for yourself. The last thing I want is the Sage/WotC/whoever to try to tell me how a paladin should act. I can do that quite fine on my own, thank you very much. Hopefully most DMs can as well. [All IMO, of course.]

I view it this way. If we all were playing a ranger's track ability differently wouldn't we all want clarification on how its done? I view the paladin's code and morality an integral part of the class and like all parts of every class it should, IMHO, not be open to vastly different interpretions.

But i know what you mean, that's a role-playing aspect of the class as opposed to a rules aspect of the class, and many people don't like any "official" stance on role-playing. One of the reasons why i don't like the paladin (as well as druid and monk) is that they have "rigidly defined" role-playing codes as the core part of their class, but those codes are subject to every DM's interpretation.

Its not unfeasable to have a paladin that believes killing any evil, of any varying degree, at any time, is still killing evil, and therefore a good act. It may not be the supposed first choice, but it can easily be interpreted as being a valid choice.

If most of the people that play the game dont think what the paladin in the first post did is "right" for a paladin, why shouldn't we have a more codified explination of the class concept? Its needed.

and that's all i'll say on the paladin to avoid hijacking this thread any more.

joe b.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I figure the Sage was swamped with tens of thousands of suggestions on paladinhood years ago.

 

[D-rock]

I don't think a paladin should ever kill something just because its evil. The evil thing whould have to demonstrate that it was in the imminent act of commiting something evil or had commited an evil act before, and killing was the only reasonable way of stoping it again. And if the evil creature never broke any laws and never hurt anybody (unlikly in a lot of situation I know) they shouldn't be killed by a paladin for thinking differently. I would never let a paladin assume that just because something is evil that it has done something to deserve death. At the bear minimum they would have to go out of their way to find out what it did, and still be held to killing as a last resort. I would let detect evil work normally, but I wouldn't let it become an excuse for starting a hackfest, well not without concequences anyway.


By the way this is a little of text but dosn't this title seem like it belongs to a telivision show.......tonight on Fox "When Paladins go Terribly wrong"

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I generally agree with this, but I'd make exceptions for individuals radiating strong or overwhelming evil. Since any such person is either a level 21+ villain (unlikely--and if this is the case, the PC would probably have heard of them; Greater Boneheart members and hierarchs of the horned society aren't exactly anonymous), polymorphed demons or devils, high level (10+) blackguards, or at least moderate level (5+) clerics of evil deities (who don't get to be 5th level without doing some really really bad stuff; Cthulu cultists don't gain xp by meating for calimari potluck after all), I would think that intense evil is justification for smiting.

On the other hand, since strong evil covers such a range of possibilities (lvl 5 cleric to level 49 necromancer), any paladin who began smiting strong evil indiscriminately in my campaign would soon end up dead. . . .

I don't think a paladin should ever kill something just because its evil. The evil thing whould have to demonstrate that it was in the imminent act of commiting something evil or had commited an evil act before, and killing was the only reasonable way of stoping it again. And if the evil creature never broke any laws and never hurt anybody (unlikly in a lot of situation I know) they shouldn't be killed by a paladin for thinking differently. I would never let a paladin assume that just because something is evil that it has done something to deserve death.

 

[Ratama]

Re: Re: Re: When Paladins Go Terribly Wrong

According to Bahamut (Lawful Good), those of divine blood (the nobility) have more rights than those who do not posess it-

Tyler, you apparently are a little unclear on the concept of Lawful Good; the god you are describing is Lawful Evil, not LG. Do you even know the meaning of the word justice (one of the cornerstones of LG?)

Oh, well.