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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6041119" data-attributes="member: 6668292">That's fair, and informative. We're all just voicing our opinions anyways.This is an interesting question, and considering this thread's history, I don't feel bad at all going off on this tangent.Basically, the Jedi Order itself might strive to be Lawful Good, but I do not see the Knights themselves as generally Lawful Good. The Jedi Order has laws, and is rigid; the Knights (and Masters, etc.) routinely stretch or break those laws (they're only guidelines! really!). Most post-Empire Jedi are much more individualistic than not, so even if they observe a lot of laws, I'd probably place most of them at Neutral on the Law-Chaos axis (I'm thinking of people like Corran Horn, Kyp Durron, etc.).(I'm not as well acquainted with the Old Jedi Order, so there are probably examples of Lawful Good there.)Based on just the Hobbit, I have no idea if Bard is Lawful or not. As far as "is the shot dishonorable", I'd say it was, yes. Again, it's subjective, but it'd be like kicking the crutches out from someone that needed them to stand... but if that killed them instead. And it's not the killing that's dishonorable, it's the bypassing the fight that is. Do many Paladins struggle with this in my game (when I ran a 3.5 game)? Sure they did. I mean, it defeats Evil that much more safely and efficiently. But that's part of walking the Paladin line.Yeah, it gets a little awkward when setting starts deciding stuff, but it's necessary (since setting generally decides "honor" and all that). I mean, using poison is listed under "honor", and so it seems assumed that this is always a matter of honor in a default 3.5 world. So is "cheating", which, again, I likened to sportsmanship and bypassing a fight.Well, actually, that's not always the case. It's kind of like sports. Some people "play to win, no matter how they win" and others "play to win" with sportsmanship in mind. The same goes for war. This could simply be the difference between "honor" and "dishonor" in combat. That is, those who have rules call it "honor" (no poison, etc.), and must follow these rules, and those who break them are labeled "dishonorable".I think of the Paladin's code as a self-imposed limitation, not one based on agreement between parties. So, on this point I'll disagree. But the Paladin must uphold his code at all times. In such a situation, I see a Paladin either doing his best to stop the Evil (and failing), or accepting a fall from grace to stop the Evil (by a dishonorable act for the Greater Good). He can, of course, get Atoned, stay a feat-less Fighter, or turn Blackguard. It's a hard situation for them, and I'd imagine that Paladins have philosophical debates on which is better (to fall and Atone to save innocents, or to go into a situation and knowingly fail to attempt to uphold all of the code).Advantage is not the same as "bypassing" the fight. If the Paladin's armor made him literally invulnerable to the Rogue, then it would probably be dishonorable to fight him with that armor on. And, in the first example, the Paladin could bring his ranged attack on ranged enemies without any loss of honor.But will you "lose needlessly" in some situations? Sure. I mean, that's the situation that even Cedric walked into! He knew his side was going to lose, and that he was going to die needlessly. Do I think the Paladin needed to be there? No, I don't. But sometimes that's the case; as a Paladin, you abide to a code that limits you. I mean, if using poison was the only thing that would weaken an enemy enough to maybe beat it, it should be used right? To a Paladin, the answer is no. The same goes for cheating, lying, and the like. Perfectly reasonable weapons of war are outlawed here; of course the Paladin has it harder.Well, I cited the definition, so you'll forgive me if I still disagree.I'm going to tackle these one at a time, because they don't seemingly all have the same answer.As for this situation, yes, he should use what he can, but not his ranged weapon if it'll bypass the fight (if the enemy can clearly take it, I'd consider it fair game). Disarm the enemy, pick up a rock, hit him with your crossbow, use your gauntlets; do something.Probably not, no (if there are no other stakes, then no, he's not).No, since no combat has occurred. It's not "cannot bypass all places where combat might take place." It's "in a combat, not use a weakness so powerful that the combat itself is simply skipped due to that weakness."A Paladin doesn't need to fight like this, but often will. The reason being, simply, that others will "cheat", "use poison", "lie", and the like. He can try to see through the lies, he can try to not be poisoned, he can try to not be cheated, but he cannot make up for that disadvantage. He will always be at a disadvantage to anybody that capitalizes on the idea of "all's fair in war (mostly)". It's already ingrained into the Paladin class. It is a handicap.It probably was dishonorable, yes. Which, again, people in-game probably argue at length on whether or not that matters! That's the difference between a Lawful Good Fighter (or Cleric, even), and a Paladin. You can be Lawful Good and act with dishonor occasionally. It won't push you to Neutral Good, necessarily. The Paladin in the same situation would likely be Lawful Good still, but he'd lose his powers (again, from where I sit).Because normally (and from the fiction, it looks like), it basically set the enemy up to be completely defenseless, from which point he was slaughtered. The fight was bypassed by hitting that weak point. Hopefully my post up to this point shows why I see this as "dishonorable".Ah, but that's not what I was talking about. Again, I hope my post has made that more clear.Avoiding unnecessary bloodshed I'm okay with. Stealth I'm okay with (probably most of the time). The "ravages and afflictions" I'm not okay with, and I know I'm not the only one. Those are poison. But, if I accepted the book (I used the Core 3), then yeah, I'd likely have to accept them.As an aside, I just wanted to say thanks for the interesting, civil, and thorough posts to me. Considering you've had just 3 posts, I feel pretty special. As always, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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