Seriously, WTF am I doing wrong?

I don't know much about the actual doctrines and rules paladins must follow. What I do know is that, as a gamer if my paladin happens to fall at the start of the game from what I regarded as a minor filler quest, I would be in a paranoid city. Then I would probably believe that having a paladin would be more of a trouble than it's worth and just roll a new character... probably an amoral barbarian.

However what taltamir said about having new options to end the quest seems like a good way to role play as a paladin without driving gamers insane.

 

I was kidding. Ever read OoTS?

Well, it's not just drinking. It's a compulsive drunken orgy to determine who can get wasted more. I'm sure most people would agree that it isn't exactly lawful, especially if you do it randomly on someone's suggestion.

 

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Some complicated thing where the party gets credit for the quest without doing the drinking contest, but not the Fall-Causing reputation.

Quick fix: Remove the incovenient fall due to the gaining of a chaotic reputation that is repugnant to at least one lawful church.

 

Yes, change it. As it stands you cannot determine WHICH member of the party is drinking... so the whole thing is moot, a paladin should never fall because the FIGHTER participated in a drinking contest. A paladin who believes he should drink shouldb't fall either (especially not dwarves)
A longer fix would be to include "completion" of quest via moralizing speech.

There is no IN GAME church that frowns in drinking, dwarves, etc...
And it is a dick move regardless, its moralizing and preachy for a game to do something like that to a player. The most common response I got when discussing this in other forums was "if a game did that I would play a different game, if a mod group did that I would not use their mod"... its a total dick move. If you personally believe that drinking is EVIL and should make your paladin fall you would never participate in the contest in the first place and thus will not notice. If you do not believe that and play the game and it TRIPS you like that then you rage quit, and for good reason.

Possible Change A:
disabling falling from drinking contest.

Possible Change B:
Disable falling from drinking contest, allow people to complete said quest by refusing to participate because drinking is wrong.

Possible Change C:
A Consistent POSSIBLE reworking that I personally disagree with but that you might pursue:
1. Make it so that the paladin does not fall if others drink
2. Make it so the paladin does fall if he personally drinks
3. If the Paladin is a dwarf OR follows gods that don't frown on drinking he shouldn't fall even if he personally drinks.
4. Fix all the OTHER worse then drinking cases so that the paladin falls when he does them to make falling consistent throughout the game for paladins. - currently unworkable and a huge undertaking.
While I disagree with this one, it is at least consistent and somewhat viable, but until it can be implemented in full then paladins should simply not fall from drinking.
EDIT (I almost forgot to mention): 5. WRITE DOWN THE PALADIN CODE! IN THE CLASS DESCRIPTION!
It should specify in the paladin class description that "stealing is chaotic but not evil", "killing evil is good", "drinking is chaotic", "drinking in excess is grossly chaotic and potentially evil", and so on (if you intend to make those actions "fall-able")

Since C is not currently workable it should go to B or A... While I do not agree with C, C is the only "plausible" and "internally consistent" method for which it allows falling. If you HAVE to make paladins fall for it, at least go that route. But while I disagree with it and its downright unpopular it is at least a legitimate (unpopular but legitimate) course of action (only reason we didn't get a slew of people from other forums here to say so is because they got scared away by the maleware warning from chrome; I suggest you read the thread I linked for a general appreciation of what people said about it). It also means nobody in their right mind will play a paladin.

 

Well, I DID link to their forum where I started a thread to discuss this...
I love OOTS, I love how paladins are very human there... the one "stick up her butt" paladin fell hard while the rest drank, entered relationships, made little white lies (telling "stick up her butt" paladin they can't spend the newyears with her when she was being so casually verbally abusive and derisive, etc (not all of them though... some disagreed with the lying more then others though).

 

BTW, we really need a game option where paladins cannot fall, period.

Such an option 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.
Actually, I would go so far as saying such an option should be on by default... where you have to select "allow paladins to fall" in TFE-X 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.

 

I already talked about the paladin morality issue in the other thread, so I'll just comment on...

I'm not a modder, but it doesn't seem that ToEE is designed for individual reputations. I mean, if you have a five-person party and just one of them kills the kid who gives you directions at the start of the game, the whole party is considered Butchers of Homlett.

 

At the time all forum threads triggered a malware warning, currently just under half do, while many do not.
Oddly, I never saw it when trying to download anything.
This last two posts were the first 2 posts ever that didn't require me to click through such warning (it displayed every single time i go to this thread)

That seems to be the main problem... its possible to keep it while not being too jarring if some other modifications are made to make the whole thing consistent. But who has the time and capability to do as such?

You are more then welcome.

 

No. Until the time, if the modders are willing, there is a new fall system developed for TOEE, no quick-fixes are necessary. It would be great to make it better, but as of now it's not a big deal, and not even permanent, so it isn't much of a problem.

 

Just so we are clear and I understand you... are you saying the band aid solution of paladins not falling for that quest until a better solution can be coded should not be implemented.
And that until a modder can completely rewrite falling in TOEE, that a paladin should fall if someone ELSE in their party drinks?

 

Reputations in TOEE go for the whole party, that's just how it is. In PnP the pally would probably feel the need to barge in and stop his party from such horrible behaviour. TOEE is limited like that, though. What I'm saying though, it's not that big of a deal, and there's no reason to fix something that isn't badly broken when there are other things for modders to work on.