Should CRPG Paladins be completely exempt from falling?

CRPG DnD Games need an option to make paladins unable to fall.

that would basically "trust" the player to roleplay his alignment honestly and will not penalize him/her for the developers disagreeing with s/he considers to be just and morally right.

I would go so far as saying such an option should be on by default... where you have to manually select "allow paladins to fall" to even GET the option of falling based on what the game thinks of your action rather then what you yourself do.

People play games to have fun, not be slapped in the fact with the moral convictions of a game developer. Paladins are weaker then fighters, barbarians, and rangers (stronger then monks though).

Anyone playing a paladin plays it because they think it is cool and want to roleplay a person dedicated to justice. People have varying concepts of what justice and righteousness and good are, and its not the place of a video game to "correct" them or "punish" them due to it when they are playing.

 

The game isn't moralizing to the players. Do you seriously think that anyone at Troika or Co8 has an agenda against drinking and inserted this quest to convert people to his concept of righteousness? Come on.

ToEE makes a variety of classes available. One of them is an individual who's devoted himself completely to his faith, forsaking comfort and personal gain in favor of spiritual pursuits. One of them is also a master of stealing from others and stabbing them in the back. Neither walk of life is advocated or condemned, they're simply made available.

Imagine, if you will, an RPG set in modern times with eleven modern-day professions as ToEE has eleven fantasy ones: soldier, biochemist, investment banker, stripper, taxi driver, rabbi, landscaper, football player, singer, chef, and undertaker. What you are doing is essentially choosing to play as a rabbi, then getting unbelievably PO'd because you lose your station for going out and eating a big pork dinner.

 

Actually I was specifically NOT referring to the drinking quest... that one is treated fine in its own thread.

I seriously believe that no action a person takes as a paladin in ANY CRPG (not just TOEE) should cause him to fall unless he specifically enabled such an option. "hardcore mode" so to speak.

As for modern time equivalent... fine. A game where you may play a rabbi who has magic powers. Do anything that the game developers disapprove (and guess what, not a single one of them is a rabbi IRL or even a jew, or even that familiar with jewdaism, and the game is full of errors and misrepresentations of the faith)... do anything that they disapprove of and you lose all magic powers...

Perfect example... option to get married... get married and you lose all your powers for no longer being celibate. (in jewish tradition rabbis are STRONGLY encouraged to marry and have a loving intimate relationship with their spouse and have children... it is believed that a person cannot lead a community or advise anyone about such issues with 0 experience in the matter).

I would be pissed as hell in a game that made my rabbi-wizard (kabalist) lose all his kabbalah powers for such a thing.

 

Like you said, though, a healthy married sex life isn't something Judaism is opposed to. Eating pork is. It would be stupid for a rabbi-wizard to have to strike the "rabbi" from his resume for having sex with his wife, but perfectly reasonable for him to get kicked out of the synagogue for bringing in some franks and having a hot dog eating contest.

Concerning the falling of paladins in general, it seems WotC agrees with you, because 4e paladins can no longer fall. In the context of ToEE, however, I don't think it makes sense to excise a major element of 3.5e paladins.

 

Paladins do have advantages, and they are partly balanced by the restrictions. I won't argue whether they should or shouldn't be allowed to associate with evil characters, just state that it is a big part of the character class.

The Atonement spell exists for a reason, too; it doesn't have to be permanent. Why the fuss?

inb4 Miko Miyazaki

 

So a pally in TOEE would be unable to attack anything non-evil? The game just wont allow it? Ex: A pally tries to attack Jarro and a text box comes up and says 'That is not how your were brought up to act.'?

I think its a bad idea. The thing I love about TOEE is that you can do anything, but there are consequences.

 

It's in RAW, the CRPG is an adaptation of RAW, no reason for falling to not exist. TOEE is already lax on paladins as is, for example you can have evil characters in the party etc. In fact, I would love to see MORE chances for Paladins to fall in the game.

It's a balance issue. I mean, remove behaviour and alignment restriction, and you get an overpowered class with lots of bonuses and barely any drawbacks.

 

Actually I dont think you can have evil members in the party, at least not PCs... maybe NPCs.

 

I guess you could also have undead working with a paladin, if you have a neutral cleric PC who chose the rebuke ability instead of turning.

 

May need double-chacking. Unless something changed in 5.7.0 which I skipped, I recall having a pally in same team with an evil PC, 5.5.0 I think. Start as NE and you can have an LG pally and a LE other chara.

 

Unless he is a (I am not sure what the english word is for it, reformist? a sect of very liberal reinterpretation) who believes that certain rules were made not because they were anathema to god but because they were necessary at the time. For example pigs who are corralled together will eat each other droppings and thus all of them have parasites. Among other issues.
So not eating pork in a pre industrial society is very wise and healthy. While eating pork in a modern western society with our medical advances and individual corrals for the pigs is perfectly acceptable. Those sects also have female rabbis and perform gay marraiges. etc.

Lets take it a step further... what if it is a rabbi of that sect or at least a member of that sect who plays the game and gets penalized for not following the rules of another sect which are the only rules in the game? (And they are not explained in detail or in full)

No, he will just kill jaroo and not fall.

underpowered class, paladins are underpowered compared to their peers. Only monks are worse then paladins. "cool" and fluffy abilities does not make you powerful.

besides, that is all the more reason to not have it there... consistency.

Paladins shouldn't fall in CRPGs because:
1. The inability to be given a chance to explain your reasoning.
2. A game should not pass moral judgement but seek to entertain
3. Different people have different ideals of what is "good" and what is "evil".
4. Scripting errors are bound to occur.
5. it unfairly penalizes people for playing a paladin, an already weak class.
6. It only targets paladins while exempting other classes (I have never seen a wizard lose his spellbook or spell component pouch in a DnD game, but paladins can fall)
7. Creating a consistent implementation is highly impractical, and I have never seen one; in TOEE you can adventure with an evil party and do evil things as long as they don't have a fall script attached.
8. A CRPG can only give a few premade responses to chose from, limiting your selection of options, so that an ideal option might not be given and the closest one frowned upon by the game.
9. Moon logic on the part of writers.

 

While I'm not sure about everything taltamir said, I do agree that I personally don't find paladins all that useful either. I usually think paladins are more hassle than they are worth. Maybe good folks here can make the whole falling out of grace thing more consistent with PnP and make few interesting quests made specifically for paladins to make them worth the whole trouble? Maybe the quest rewards can be useful (but not overpowered) equipment for only paladins.

 

Paladins - underpowered? Haha, very funny.

 

Now you're just quibbling.

I, personally, have no problem with eating pork. I definitely have no problem with sex. However, Orthodox rabbis are prohibited from eating pork and Catholic priests are prohibited from having sex. If I played as a rabbi in a game that made them available, I would expect there to be repercussions for eating pork but not for marital sex, and if I played as a priest I would expect there to be repercussions for having sex but not for eating pork.

The alternative that you suggest - that CRPGs should never implement the morality of classes that have a structured belief system, for fear of passing moral judgment - make rabbis and priests functionally the same, with their diverse faiths reduced to window dressing. In short, it makes things less interesting.