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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 495716" data-attributes="member: 2067">True, the rules don't make allowances for lesser or greater degrees of evil, but they do make many allowances for many many different flavors of evil.I would actually say this isn't always true, or even mostly true. Paladins exist to uphold the virtues of Lawful Goodness (you can have an atheist paladin...). The virtues of Lawful Goodness, while they can include the destruction of all that is evil, normally simply include the destruction of evil *istelf*. This means that the Paladin's qualm with the kid is whatever is making him evil (the harsh family life, the spoiled brat syndrom, etc.), and he must smite what has caused the evil -- fight the disease, not the symptom, sort of thing. With fiends, they are evil *istelf*, not merely something that is evil. They are the cause of and incarnation of wickedness and cruelty. They aren't just creatures who happen to commit evil -- their existence is evil. Thus, smiting them is smiting the disease, not the cause.It's a minor point, but an important one -- Paladins shouldn't destroy all that is evil. They should destroy all evil. They shouldn't destroy an evil child -- they should destroy the evil within that child (unless the child is, itself, some form of evil, such as a half-fiend). Since in something like a fiend, there is no cause for the evil (the fiend isn't evil due to extenuating factors, he's evil because of what he is). the paladin is perfectly justified in reducing it to unpleasant goo.Again -- don't destroy evil things, destroy evil itself. Hell, that might be an important enough point in every Paladin's Code. You don't just hack to bits an evil statue....you get rid of the evil that's causing the statue's wickedness.</blockquote>

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