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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6042123" data-attributes="member: 42582">This could be framed not in terms of harm but in terms of courtesy or honour. What I mean is, to infer from "I would wrong X by refusing to grant quarter" to "I would harm X by refusing to grant quarter" is already to make assumptions about the relationship between wronging and harming that I think are at odds with the romantic ethos of paladinship.That said, I wouldn't expect the Book of Exalted Deeds to be clear on this. In my view, at least, coherent moral philosophy has never been a prominent feature of D&D's alignment rules!As I've said, it presupposes that refusing quarter is wrong. It is an open question, though, whether the wrongfulness consists in harming, or in something else.There is also a further question of how the wrong is to be analysed - as a breach of duty to the person who is offering surrender, or as a failure of virtue on the part of the paladin.My own view is that a paladin works best when the wrong is analysed by reference to the paladin's virtue, with the duty (if any) being a duty owed to the gods (or, if you prefer, the principles of LG) to uphold that virtue.First, on a tangential point - it seems to me to be highly arguable that good ought to be polite and well-mannered.  Courtesy is related to respect, and respect for others is meant to be one of the animating concerns of the good.But putting that to one side, I think that you are right to identify this as an issue. But my take on it is different from yours. In my view, what you've shown here is that the Planescape-style cosmology of 2nd ed AD&D and 3E is, at its core, incompatible with the existence of paladinhood.That's not to say that paladins must be naive in the ordinary sense - they need not be gullible; they can be aware that many of those who promise to repent will in fact sin again; etc. But they have to have faith.It seems to me that there are two ways the broader framework of the game can respond to that need for faith. It can vindicate the paladin's faith - but as you've noted, the Planescape cosmology doesn't do that. Or it can support the player of the paladin in grappling with what his/her faith means - but the traditional D&D paladin rules (and its alignment rules more generally) don't support that, because they put the GM rather than the player in charge of deciding what is or isn't permitted for the paladin.I think the Planescape setting brings with it an implicit evaluative framework - a type of somewhat nihilistic, even cynical, relativism that upholds individual belief and essentially non-rational conviction as the pre-eminent, perhaps the sole, value. Debating the merits of such an outlook would be in breach of forum rules. I think it has clear affinities to the outlook of a lot of science fiction and pulp fantasy (REH, Lovecraft). But I don't see that it leaves any room for the non-deluded paladin.</blockquote>

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