Paladins

A few final points.

One, think of how errant police officers are handled in today's society. A cop that errs may be suspended or given desk duty. It takes a real problem for them to lose their badge (Hollywood movies notwithstanding). Paladins that err should receive Signs or Omens, maybe lose a power for a day or two as a warning. Falling should not come out of the blue; the pal should have had some forewarning that they are heading downhill. To fall, without any warning, should require an act of incredibly shocking depravity.

Two, how will dropping 90% of his paladins help a deity? It sounds like a petty 13 year old DM who gets off on killing his players. Paladins are there to protect those who can't protect themselves, and fight those that others cannot fight. If a god drops a paladin and then a town is killed by demons, whose fault is that? Why worry about Evil killing paladins when gods are doing a far better job at decimating their ranks?

Three, deities are neither omniscient nor omnipresent. Neither are their Celestial Servants. They are not going to be aware of every single thing a paladin says/thinks/does. They should also have some measure of trust in their champions, enough that they don't feel the need to watch them every single second. Neither should paladins be so concerned about surveillance that they are constantly fearful of ceiling servants watching them masturbate. I mean really, if a god is glued to the screen, watching for any little mistake, then guess what... they're going to find one. If you look long enough, you can find flaw with anyone.

And lastly, aren't gods themselves supposed to embody the nobler aspects of mankind, to inspire by example? Where is the compassion, the mercy? Paladins are mortal, and are going to make mistakes.

Remember, to err is human, to forgive divine.

[To Ted, to answer your question: paladins support their god, gods should support them back. If in doubt over a situation, a paladin should not fall. If the typical player would be surprised at falling over X, then X should not cause falling.]

 

umm isn't that a loss of his/her powers

Paladins are an interesting class because of code of their conduct and alignment restrictions. In relation to alignment, law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability and good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. In a culture similar to the Mayans and Aztecs where ritual human sacrifice was an important thing (or else the world would end) a paladin would not take part even though it was a "law of the land". IMO being true to thier personal code of conduct, morals and religious law would come first before anything else.

If a travelling paladin saw a child drowning in a river and had been told that when the child grew up he would become a great evil, he would still try to save the child, then he would try to raise the child in a way that prevented him from becoming that great evil.

There are not many people in real life that I think could be paladins, most are either to chaotic or to non-good. There is one person I know who would make a good paladin though. She has joined the army as a medical officer, when another friend asked her why she would want to join the army in this day and age she responded "So I can make a difference". If she was in the situation where things were kinda fuzzed like they are in this scenario and knowing that the blessing came from an evil priest (Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.) she would decline and probabley disassociate herself from those that did receive the blessing in question.

btw wouldn't a blessing from hextor go something like "Oh great hextor who's power is unquenchable, bestow a portion of that power on [insert name here] in the form of a blessing so that [insert personal pronoun here] can bring discord, war and tyranny to those who resist your might."

 

Uh, yeah...

This is something which generally doesn't enter into our gaming scenarios. It's carrying the whole thing a bit far. Seems like you want to get all of the benefits & have none of the penalties. Cujo's got the right take on it. No paladin would lower their standards to the point of accepting help from a source that was questionable, to say nothing of outright evil. Applying such odd rationalizations to the imagined transgressions doesn't help the issue; they confuse it.

 

Well, we agree to disagree.

And in case you didn't get it, my comment there was a joke based on a (well-known?) net picture. Here's one location:

http://catwack.com/index.php?action=top&page=3

which has spawned many spin-offs:

http://catwack.com/index.php?action=top&page=56
http://www.flickr.com/photos/endustry/493923241/
http://ccnewhobbie.ytmnd.com/
http://www.ytmnd.com/keyword/ceiling cat

 

put it this way, would you engage in an activity which might be legal or might get you a lengthy year jail term/large fine (for example the importion of firearms or chemicals some of which are perfectly legal and others which are banned). And just so you know "I didn't know it was against the law." is not a valid legal defence (in New Zealand atleast) and I'm pretty sure the gods don't care for that one either.

 

i dont think we should give our law system and police as examples to paladins. no holy warriors of justice and goodness live today. our law systems are somewhat strange. we should look on paladins as more like old knights and devoted crusaders on the front line, not like political templars.

 

Perhaps we're operating under different assumptions here. To me, a paladin falling should be a near-irrevocable thing. I feel it should be difficult to become a paladin, very difficult to fall, and nearly impossible to be redeemed. Maybe others here are seeing falling for a minor thing okay, because they need simply do a quest or two and they've atoned.

No matter how I wrap my head around it, I simply cannot see paladin status as a delicate thing. I cannot see how the world is helped by paladins falling left and right. Are the people helped by seeing pals fall? Are clerics helped by having pals fall? Are pals encouraged by seeing other pals fall? Is evil not emboldened by seeing pals fall? Is having a dearth of pals available helpful to the community at large? Yes, you don't want to have low standards, but what good is it to have impossible standards that nobody can live up to or maintain?

Why would gods apply such an excruciatingly high standard for paladins, yet have no standard at all for clerics? What about the rank and file worshippers? How come evil can loot idols, burn temples, slaughter followers, and gods do nothing? Is it because they are too busy scrutinizing paladins, waiting for them to take one wrong step?

It really makes me wonder how these people ever became pals in the first place. Perhaps gamers might benefit from having the paladin be a prestige class, something the player has to prove they deserve. if players can't meet the standards before becoming a pal, then they certainly won't be able to maintain them once they do.

Ultimately though the class has to be something that most gamers can play and enjoy. If you have rules that make the class unplayable (think the Cavalier), then why have the class at all?

 

Lord_Spike:

Isn't smiting someone pretty close to butchering them? Smite Evil is an enhancement to an attack. The Paladin adds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level.

Did I miss something? Is a Paladin obligated to attack all evil on site, or is he oblgated not to help or associate with evil, or evil doers? I've played a Paladin for many years, and unless I've witnessed an evil act that can only be stopped or righted by violence my Paladin, (with high CHA) is to try to convert or teach the evil doers the wrongness of thier ways. In short attempt to bring them out of the darkness and into the light.

again this is just the way I've played my Paladin.

 

Aeroldoth: Ceiling cat is funny as hell; your joke is no longer lost on me. I definetly wasn't familiar with it; and I'm not sure who else around here might have seen it before. Must be something fairly new or utilized in different circles, perhaps. It's too funny for this group to have ignored for so long. :shrug:

As for clerics, they too can fall from grace & be excommunicated from their church & deity. It just doesn't happen so much because of the way people play them. IMO, they see the cleric as devoted to the point of zealotry, and never are tempted to stray from the fold. And all those people looting temples & killing people aren't members of the self-same organization they are defiling. They are its rivals.

In truth, many PC classes can cease to function in the role which the owning player intends...it's just a DM ruling to compel a change to some other function based on performance. It just rarely happens; players of this game are preoccupied on paladins being the ones who fall. My PnP game last week featured an ex-ranger who lost his abilities due to alignment change for his harsh deeds and cruel actions. Instead of a pet wolf, he had a worg - and a heiracosphinx instead of a hippogriff. This guy had become a mercenary, and had no trouble letting his pets chew on people a bit for the mere fun of it.

So, we do agree on some things.

SirChet: I was just funnin' wit ya on the word thing; but I do contend that the paladin's role is to seek out and confront evil. This is usually (but not always) going to result in the use of arms to settle the resulting conflict. Smiting doesn't always kill the enemy, but it sure helps. Skeletor & He-Man in the live action flick is a favorite example of this style of Good-vs-Evil conflict. The Champion of Castle Greyskull with his holy sword never quite manages to slay the evil nemesis, and even offers mercy in spite of all his actions at the end. Treachery is what sends Skeletor falling into the abyss.

 

I dissagree, maybe this should be the case for a fallen blackguard or evil paladin if you're playing with varient characters, but good gods should show mercy and forgiveness otherwise they're just capricious assholes.

I don't see paladin status as a delicate thing either, the way I see it is that the kind of people that would be paladins have a good will power and aren't stupid. I really get the feeling that your are a lier, thief and some kind of deviant for the reason that you seem to have trouble with the idea that it's not particularly hard to not do things like that. Its pretty easy to not do bad things - even small things like theifs of opportunity, its even easier to not do big bad things like murders and rapes and it would be even easier in a world of black and white alignments, where something is either good, neutral or evil by default.

as mentioned abouve, clerics etc can fall etc. The reason Paladins fall isn't because of divine intervention, but rather the god withdraws his divine favour.


Paladins Code of Conduct

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters*, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

*for example getting a blessing from a priest of Hextor.

 

There's a whole realm of cat pictures with funny comments added. Like Ted, I'm a cat person, so I find many of them amusing. I'd share some of my favorites, but I don't want to spam. There's a big collection here for those who want to look:

http://www.dropline.net/cats/

My point exactly.

Now, now, let's not get personal.

I never said that it was hard for pals to avoid evil acts. I said I don't agree with pals falling for slight missteps. More than anything else, the player should have some idea that doing X may cause their pal to fall.

We all come from different cultural backgrounds, and may take it for granted that others think X is good, or at least not bad. Therefore, we may be surprised when someone suddenly drops our paladin for something we were "supposed to know" was evil. In pnp, gamers can discuss the morality of any situation, and a player can always ask a dm if something might be evil before he does it. In a crpg, this is not possible. What this invariably means is that the gamer is forced to follow whatever unknown moral code the designer has, regardless of what the gamer themselves feels, with no option to discuss before or after. None of us like to be railroaded, and even less so down a path we don't agree with for moral or role-playing reasons.

What I would suggest to Ted is that perhaps there be some warning given to the gamer, something to let them know what might happen. I think that falling for something the player may not agree with is not going to increase their fun, which is the whole point, yes?

 

thats true, altho I think there is somehting we can do about it. We could write a paladins code of conduct according to Trokia and Co8, then its in clear black and white.