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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aurondarklord" data-source="post: 6042604" data-attributes="member: 6667464">Oh dear, I seem to have failed to notice a bunch of stuff in a spoiler tag.  I'm an idiot.  I apologize, JamesonCourage, I was not intentionally avoiding your question.Covering those issues first, and the questions you raise with Cedric's lawful alignment, point for point,1: Does Cedric honor tradition?  No, he does not.  Evidence appears to show that Cedric does not ascribe any particular value to traditions merely because they are traditions.2: Does Cedric respect and obey authority?  Yes, but not blindly.  He respects the authority of the High Lord, prayer is his first activity in the morning, and he takes better care of his holy symbol than he does of himself.  He and Father Shikuna appear to have great mutual respect.  All we know about the incident with the high priest is that there was a person who tried to alter his God's scripture to suit HIS personal idea of what the religion should be like, presumably to give himself an excuse to cast out Cedric, and the High Lord revoked his powers for attempting to do so.  Considering that knowingly vandalizing scripture to reflect your opinions over those of your God constitutes blasphemy, heresy, and probably schism if he'd managed it, I can very easily see a pissed off God revoking powers or even smiting the offender.  Whether Cedric was even directly involved in this incident is unclear, and certainly nothing about it reflects on Cedric's attitude towards authority, merely that the High Lord at one point endorsed Cedric's views over those of someone in a position of authority.  Another instance of grating writing, but not a bad reflection on Cedric's lawfulness.  Cedric is obedient to LEGITIMATE authority, and the biggest and most important authority, and the SOURCE of the legitimacy of all other authority, at least all other spiritual authority, as presented in the fiction, is the High Lord, who Cedric respects and obeys.3: Is Cedric honorable?  Considering this has been the primary subject of our debate, I'm gonna say you've heard my opinions here.4: Is Cedric reliable?  Cedric will always be there when you need him, regardless of how exhausted he is or how he feels, he will come when duty calls, the story about the dying old man and him delivering a baby right after paints him as Captain Reliable, and his personal habits seem to be run like clockwork.  I view it as almost objectively proven that Cedric is reliable.So my personal lawful behavior tally is 8/9Does Cedric have any of the listed down sides of a lawful alignment?  No, you're right, he's not demonstrated a single one on that list.  He's 0/4.  But all of those say that lawful characters CAN have those traits, not that they MUST.  I don't think it's reasonable to suggest, or the developers intentions, that a paladin must have the NEGATIVE potential aspects of lawfulness, if anything those traits tend to be part and parcel of lawful neutral and lawful evil characters.  Does Cedric consciously promote lawful behavior?  I don't know, the fiction does not specifically address his attitudes on the subject, but the RAW only says the a paladin must BE lawful, not that he must consciously promote lawful behavior, so this is irrelevant in my opinion.  Cedric may have a live and let live attitude towards order and chaos, he himself is lawful, but he's content to let chaotic people be chaotic if it works for them.  This merely suggests he's not so arrogant as to believe that what works for him is THE ONE TRUE PATH for everyone.  The alignment of the High Lord is never definitively stated, if Cedric is a lawful good paladin in service to a neutral good deity, something very possible under the RAW and possibly suggested to be the case here (since Bob the celestial horse comes from Elysium, this might imply the High Lord reigns there and is thus neutral good), such an attitude would make perfect sense.Now, point for point on Cedric's chaotic behaviors checklist:1: Does Cedric follow his conscience.  Yes.  But I would have a great deal of trouble thinking of a paladin who doesn't.  Conscience seems like a necessary element of the class's mentality to me.2: Does Cedric resent being told what to do?  No.  Cedric follows the tenets of his faith without issue, and lives in service to the High Lord.  He resents being told he's wrong by a naive kid who doesn't actually understand the rules he's trying to enforce, that's a different circumstance and does not show Cedric as resentful of being told what to do IN GENERAL.3: Does Cedric favor new ideas over tradition?  I grant that Cedric does not seem to ascribe any particular value to tradition because it's tradition, but neither is he shown to ascribe any greater value to new ideas because they're new.  I do not believe the fiction has shown whether Cedric has this quality or not.4: Does Cedric value his personal freedom?  Cedric lives in voluntary servitude to a deity and a code, this suggests a willing abdication of personal freedom, so no.5: Does Cedric value adaptability and flexibility?  He lives by a code, there is an inherent degree of inflexibility in this premise.  Cedric just seems to know exactly how much room he has to interpret this code, and pushes it that far and no further.  Cedric is never shown complaining about the code being overly rigid, only about others misinterpreting the code as more rigid than it really is.  So I would say this question has not been answered based on the fiction presented.Final tally from my perspective?  1/7 chaotic behaviors demonstrated.From the negative stuff...I don't see Cedric as reckless, I see him as dedicated.  A reckless person charges into battle without stopping to think about whether it's a good idea or he might get himself killed.  Cedric charges into battle after giving considerable thought to his reasons for doing so, and entirely aware he'll likely die.  That's not reckless, that's fighting the good fight and being willing to sacrifice himself.  I also don't see Cedric as resenting his church in general, he just resents a few isolated idiots within said church.Now, the alignment descriptions...I see no objective evidence within the fiction written that Cedric actually believes any of the stuff from neutral good or chaotic good besides the parts that simply relate to GOOD.  I think we haven't really seen Cedric in the kinds of order vs chaos situations that would illuminate how he feels about such things, without having to "read between the lines" to find what you want to find.  As for the description of lawful good, the only problem you had with it was that you don't believe Cedric behaves as good people are expected or required to.  I think he does, he just has a different idea of what those expectations and requirements are than some of the people around him, particularly Magnus.  However, since the High Lord and the presented mortal religious authority, Father Shikuna, seem to agree with Cedric's version of the expectations and requirements, Cedric is in the clear, and thus matches the description of lawful good just fine.Now, onto the newer points in your more recent post...In the real world US military, and most modern first world military organizations, soldiers commit to service for a given period of time, and may not resign within this period.  Even officers, who in most cases may resign, may not do so in the middle of operations or for the purpose of avoiding having to obey an order they don't like.  And yet, the US is a democracy, the rules of our military are developed by social contract between the government and the governed, and this is inherently not tyranny.  It's not as simple as "if you can't resign at will, the government must be tyrannical".  I honestly don't know if that comment skirts too far over the line into political discussion, if I'm out of line I'll happily fix it.The atonement spell says it removes the burden of evil acts "or misdeeds", misdeeds in this case, by being presented as something other than "evil acts" being a blanket description suggested to cover whatever violations of a code of conduct could apply to a given class, including paladins inherently under that umbrella even though the code of conduct is not specifically discussed.And no, in this case I draw a clear distinction between the messenger and the message.  Cedric immediately jumped to obey the orders the messenger was sent to convey, he just reacted adversely to the messenger on a personal level.Answer me this, how respectful of authority does a paladin have to be?  If you don't accept the idea that a paladin can get away with minor intentional violations of the code without falling, must a paladin demonstrate absolute deference to every legitimate authority figure he encounters?  Would a paladin who made a wisecrack about the king to the other members of his adventuring party immediately fall just for a trivial joke?  That seems like an extraordinarily disproportionate punishment.Pemerton, not to be rude but...it seems to me that to reach the conclusion that a basic D&D class is inherently unplayable and disallowed by the rules in a basic D&D setting requires jumping through so many intellectual hoops that you can't seriously believe it was the designers intention.  Perhaps if your notion of what a paladin is requires being so divorced from the RAW, you should seriously consider if you and I, or for that matter you and the designers, are discussing the same class concept here, especially when we're talking in the context of what would be allowed under the RAW.</blockquote>

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