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| Mauther01-20-07, 01:44 PM | I know these things are kind of a matter of personal preference, and usually I handle them myself but this one's got me a little spun about. A three person party encounters a Marut (Inevitable tasked with enforcing life/death). The party tried and failed to stop it from killing an NPC who was using a relic to resurrect civilian victims of raiding orcs. He killed the healer and the most recently resurrected then set off to re-decease the other 30 odd civilians (farmers and their families). As the Marut approached a town, the party felt guilt tripped into helping the commander of the city watch attempt to stop it, they failed. In their defense their main goal was to prevent the commander from dieing, and they did. The Marut passed through the town without incident since the city had expelled the risen, and it will now inevitably overtake them and kill the civilians. The party pretty much understands the situation, I don't believe there is any real misunderstanding. They know what a Marut is and understand its objective. They know that while its not evil, that it is merciless and tireless. They realize the risen were innocent victims of violence who are now fleeing for their lives and will certainly die if no one helps. They know there is no other help for the risen since the PCs are the most powerful characters in the area. The party is unclear on two points: they don't know for sure if killing the inevitable will prevent another Inevitable from appearing to kill the risen, and I think the players have greatly overestimated how tough a Marut is (they had bad dice rolls against it, and ended up attacking it one-on-one). The code problem arises with the players actions. The CG player has fought it twice and gotten his ass handed to him on both occasions. The NG character is obviously conflicted but is still trying to stop the Marut (he's not willing to die for the cause however). The Paladin however has yet to attempt to stop it. He watched in one encounter, played medic for the watch commander in the second encounter, and his plan is to follow the Marut and essentially give last rites to the fallen and bury them after the Marut is through. He's decided that the Marut's lawful mission trumps the circumstance of the innocent civilians. While I think that's a legal (if stretching) arguement for a Lawful Good PC, I don't think it holds up to a Paladin's code. I don't think the player is being cowardly, but I do think he is failing to match up to the requirements of the class. If in the next encounter he does not try to stop the Marut, I'm planning to bar him from Paladin till he accomplishes an attonement (as per the class description). Is this too harsh? Is this act of ommission, reasoned as it is, enough to mark a critical violation of his code of conduct? |
| Radijs01-20-07, 01:59 PM | Phew! That is a toughie. I had to get the MM to see what they where exactly but I'm guessing that the PC's see the inevitable a little diffrent then that. At least the paladin. The description of the inevitable has a relevant part in it: "Everyone dies eventually." and it also says that inevitables are beings who enforce the natural laws of the universe. My guess is that the paladin is thinking that the villagers broke one of these ultimate laws when they where resurrected and the inevitable is here to enforce this ultimate law which if this is true not evil but good. But this inevitable must be broken or something because these villagers haven't broken that universal law. When their time is up they will die and most will probably die sooner because of illness and injury. Brining it back down to the paladin, he is truly doing what he believes is right and here I'd think it would be a bit of a stretch to rob him of his powers. After all how could a creature sent by the elemental plane of law be wrong? |
| Sarella Starshine01-20-07, 02:00 PM | Well, I will prob get flamed for saying this, but this paladin should be stripped til he atones. A paladin does good by following a strict code. They are not Lawful first then Good, they are Good then Lawful. The only thing in thier code that says anything about obeying laws is they must obey those of legitamate authority. And I seriously doubt any paladin would consider a legit authority one that would hurt/kill innocent beings due to circumstances beyond thier control. |
| EvilVegan01-20-07, 02:19 PM | My guess is that the paladin is thinking that the villagers broke one of these ultimate laws when they where resurrected and the inevitable is here to enforce this ultimate law which if this is true not evil but good. No if it is enforcing the ultimate law it is neither good nor evil, it is lawful. That being said the paladin is not doing a good act by letting the innocent villagers get murdered AGAIN. Would he have attempted to stop the raiders that killed them in the first place? If the answer is no your player needs to not be a paladin. If the answer is yes, then he needs to stop the Marut from causing the same exact thing to happen. Also, the villagers aren't the ones who broke the law. The healer was. And doing so was (it sounds like) a good act. The Paladin is GOOD first and lawful second. That's why they can break the law axis and still get their abilities back but never break the good axis. It is also just that the innocent were brought back to life. The paladin should be willing to fight an army of maruts to defend the innocent who were slain by evil! WTF?! |
| Radijs01-20-07, 02:27 PM | Sarella and EvilVegan, You're right. I think that the inevitable shouldn't have appeared though. It makes little sense. |
| Neutronium_Dragon01-20-07, 03:50 PM | Before you start stripping powers, make sure that the player is aware of the above: That Good trumps Law for a paladin. This is particularly true if you're dealing with newer players who may not grasp the nature of the paladin's code (which, let's be frank, can be daunting even to experienced players). Another thing to keep in mind: Failure to act is a problem for a paladin. Failure to succeed is not. If the paladin is unable to stop the thing, or has genuine cause to believe that he can't (especially if he tried to fight the thing and was beaten down), he's not going to land in trouble for that - paladins aren't required to be stupid or suicidal; if he can't stop the marut, then doing his best to mend the damage afterwards (such as by performing last rites, as mentioned) is an appropriate course. |
| tsuyoshikentsu01-20-07, 03:54 PM | This is interesting. In my opinion, Good does not trump Law. Also, Law does not trump Good. Both are perfectly acceptable paths to follow. I think the thing to ask right now is: what deity does he follow? Since there's a Law vs Good ideal here, and the Paladin is required to adhere to both, the deity should be the one with the answers. For instance, Pelor would probably want him to stop the Inevitable; St. Cuthbert would say he's doing exactly the right thing. |
| Free198301-20-07, 04:04 PM | Wow, I know I don't want to get involved into this, but you can try to explain the following to me: A paladin does good by following a strict code. They are not Lawful first then Good, they are Good then Lawful. The Paladin is GOOD first and lawful second. That's why they can break the law axis and still get their abilities back but never break the good axis. I've never read anything about the good-evil axis being higher than the lawful-chaotic axis and frankly, I don't buy it. You can't separate them. It's not like a character is trying to assert the situation by first defining what is the good thing and then defining what is the lawful thing. Such decisions are always made simultaniously (sp?). Of course you can break down every moral dilemma into two parts (one good-evil, one lawful-chaotic), but it's not because you can do this, that you have to do this. So the argument of first doing the good thing and then doing the lawful thing doesn't do for me (although it might perfectly do for someone else). In this peticular case, I think the paladin is right. What does he knows about the villagers that got killed. He might be seeing these people as innocent, but hey, for all he knows they could be some devilworshippers that had found their just in getting killed by robbers. Perhaps this isn't true, but the fact that an inevitable is coming down to sort this out, is a serious hint that something is wrong and that it should be fixed. For the moment he has no way to find out whether it is just that this outsider is doing its task and so as a DM I wouldn't strip him of any power until you have given the paladin a chance to find out the truth. This could be a consulation with his god (under the form of an augury, or what's that spell called that tells you: is the following action a good one or a bad one to take) or a talk with a cleric of its deity. But stripping this character of its powers without a heads-up, is too harsh for me. I guess the player will have a lot of fun when he has burried all the corpses, goes to sleep and when he wakes up, finds out that the lay on hands is a no-go. Perhaps I'm too lenient in this matters, but I can't think of any way the player will love to see his powers taken away for something he couldn't have seen coming. Hope this helps, Cheers |
| Andorxor01-20-07, 04:36 PM | Good-evil is heigher for a paladin,because one single evil act make him fall.But he must to lots of chaotic acts to fall from chaotic acts. |
| Free198301-20-07, 05:34 PM | Good-evil is heigher for a paladin,because one single evil act make him fall.But he must to lots of chaotic acts to fall from chaotic acts. Is this your personal opinion or is it written somewhere. You don't really give an argument why good-evil is "higher" than lawful-chaotic. You're just giving me the results of this hierarchy (sp?). |
| Archmage Atrus01-20-07, 06:39 PM | The Marut is clearly going above and beyond its Lawful Neutral duty into Evil territory. The question is what did these individuals do that had the Marut hunting them down to begin with. If it was just their being resurrected - guess what? A standard D&D universe has resurrections and raise dead as the natural course of things. So a Marut that's just out to kill things because they're following the standard laws of the multiverse is simply wrong. Unless, in your campaign, no Lawful deity would ever cast raise dead or resurrection, because it's purely the province of Chaos in that it's screwing with the laws of reality. However, randomly killing civilians for this is still an evil act - even if the Marut isn't evil per se. My question is - is the paladin helping the Marut, or simply failing to stop him? The CoC requires that the paladin "help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends)," and "punish those who harm or threaten innocents." Parse those out. 1) "help those in need provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends." I'll help you out here: "provided they do not use the help for . . . chaotic ends.". If your campaigns follows the above stricture (IE, the Marut really is doing its job because resurrections are a disruption of the 'verse's laws) then the Paladin is under no obligation to help them, so he's not obliged to help. However, if the Marut has gone rogue, then the Paladin should step in and stop it (and you should probably inform him of this after a Knowledge (religion) check before simply taking away his powers.) 2) "punish those who harm or threaten innocents." This requires an interpretation of what is innocent. But, I would argue that innocent means those who are not following evil or chaotic ends. And again, we must look back at the villagers being slaughtered here, as discussed above. Hopefully, this will serve you in your thinking about this paladin's actions. (Personally, I hope this can be gleamed from what I've written, I think the Marut's gone rogue and the Paladin should be able to tell this, because just being raised or resurrected isn't a crime against any universal laws.) |
| Mauther01-20-07, 08:17 PM | [/QUOTE=Archmage Atrus;11240977]The Marut is clearly going above and beyond its Lawful Neutral duty into Evil territory. The question is what did these individuals do that had the Marut hunting them down to begin with. If it was just their being resurrected - guess what? A standard D&D universe has resurrections and raise dead as the natural course of things. So a Marut that's just out to kill things because they're following the standard laws of the multiverse is simply wrong. [/QUOTE] The Marut was called because of the circumstance of their raising. Individual resurrections are not enough to call a Marut, but large scale are. Once summoned, a Marut deals with all of the aspects of the transgression. An inevitable wouldn't be summoned out of Mechanus to deal with a resurrection or a Lich, but once they complete their mission on the material plane, they can stick around looking for other transgressions. Essentially, these individuals didn't DO anything, but they were granted life illegally. If they were just resurrected alone, they wouldn't be in danger, it was the scale and the scope. Killing them isn't random and it isn't punative, it's a restoration of balance. Inevitables balance acts that violate the law. That magic allows something does not stop inevitables from getting involved. I'm open to the possibility that I'm running the Marut too far, but 1) their are campaign specific reasons the Inevitables are coming down this harsh, 2) even if the Marut has gone Frankenstein that doesn't change the status of the risen, and 3) the entire purpose of this encounter was to put the characters on the moral balance. As for some of the other concerns: I don't necessarily believe that good or law trump each other. But the paladin has to try and balance both. My concern in this case is that the paladin has acknowledged that the risen are innocent, but has decided they should die due to the law. He's subordinating good to law, but also failing in the Paladin's code "...help those in need, and punish those who harm or threaten innocents." The characters are well informed of the situation. They have met the risen and have no reason to believe they are anything other than what they appear. They interacted with the first group killed, and actually know (in passing) some of the risen who are fleeing. The group discussed the situation extensively, and the innocence of the resurrected was never in question. It was accepted and understood from the begining that they were average folk who met a violent end were brought back by exceptional means. Another issue we have is his god. He is a paladin of Torm (Forgotten Realms, LG duty, loyalty, obedience, paladins), that's not a job description that lends itself to lenient interpretations of protect the innocent. As I said before, the players discussed this extensively, and amongst themselves hit all of the relevant highpoints in the debate. The players are mature and have been playing one version of D&D or another for 4 or 5 decades between the three of them, so they've got plenty of experience. As far as getting divine guidance, that's up to the PC. He could have asked the head of the local temple to perform a divination (he actually visited the temple, but you don't get the moral advice from a priest of a mercantile god). There are magic items and spells that act as training wheels for alignment, I'm not going to hold the players hand. And while I agree that stripping a character of their powers is a big deal (which is why I brought it up here), I think its part and parcel of playing classes that have RP strictures and Codes/Oathes. I wouldn't necessarily strip a character for a spur of the moment act, but this is a debated and reasoned course. They debated the whole incident upon coming across the relic and the inevitable, saw the inevitable kill the relic's weilder and three people that were raised, and have now had another whole day to consider the implications. If he sits through another massacre, I think that's on his head. Again, this isn't just a case of law versus good. I'd allow a lawful good fighter to sit this out if he was confused about the law/good issue. But in my opinion, paladin's don't get to pick when they defend the innocent, that's the price they pay for all those nifty special abilities. Another question that arises is this: if the failure to act is judged to be a violation of the code and he has to seek atonement, would this count as "acts of a knowing and willful nature" which would require a 500xp cost on the spell? At the level the characters are at, this is kind of a symbolic act (I'll frequently round xp awards up due to the small party size), but I have to admit I was kind of shocked to hear a paladin player announce he was going to stand by and watch a bunch of peasants massacred. Especially considering I've seen this player in other campaigns face off against overwhelming odds because of RP reasons (I believe the best was something along the lines of: "You're the god of war? I worship the god of was and I've never heard of you so you must be a poser.") |
| HerntheHunted01-20-07, 08:52 PM | Imho the Paladin did totally violate his Alignment and Code. Do "The inherent Laws of the Universe" have any meaning to the Paladin? Do the Laws of the Plane of Mechanus count to him? I don´t think so. His/Her Code is Chivalric. Protect the weak! Defend the innocent! Vanquish Evil ! The villagers haven´t done anything wrong, let alone evil. The usage of a Marut was not inapropriate either. They´re send to enforce the Laws of Life & Death and to punish large scale violations. Just this time it hasn´t caught a 1000 years old Lich but innocent villagers. |
| Archmage Atrus01-20-07, 08:53 PM | Another question that arises is this: if the failure to act is judged to be a violation of the code and he has to seek atonement, would this count as "acts of a knowing and willful nature" which would require a 500xp cost on the spell? At the level the characters are at, this is kind of a symbolic act (I'll frequently round xp awards up due to the small party size), but I have to admit I was kind of shocked to hear a paladin player announce he was going to stand by and watch a bunch of peasants massacred. Especially considering I've seen this player in other campaigns face off against overwhelming odds because of RP reasons (I believe the best was something along the lines of: "You're the god of war? I worship the god of was and I've never heard of you so you must be a poser.") I would say no, only because you've specifically set out to screw him out of his class abilities. (No? Then how come you just admitted to the entire purpose of this encounter was to put the characters on the moral balance. it?) Now, if you told him flat out that the character was pretty sure that it was a violation of his Duty to Protect the Innocent (go Torm!) to simply sit back and read them their rites, then its willful. |
| HerntheHunted01-20-07, 08:59 PM | It is the Duty of every Paladin to protect the innocent, as it is the duty of most good characters. (everything IMHO, of course) |
| Mecha_Pope01-20-07, 10:19 PM | It never actually says that good trumps law, but anyone who thinks through it rationaly will come to this conclusion. -Paladins recieve the smite evil ability, not the smite chaos ability -Paladins are prohibited from associating with evil people, but not chaotic. CG and LG can be best friends, but Lg and LE will always be enimiys. Even CN gets along with LG better then any evil alignment, and step-wise, LE is closer to LG -And most importantly, Paladins give off an aura of good, but not an aura of law. In any case, sure the paladin is lawful, but what do the Marut's laws matter to him? Paladins are supposed to oppose laws they don't agree with, not follow them blindly. In addition, if he worships Torm (Go Torm Indeed!) he most likly pays homage to Torm's partner dieties, the other two members of the Triad, Tyr, the even-handed, god of Justice, who advocates justice and fairness for all sentient beings, and Illamitar, the crying god, patron of myrterdom, compasion, and charity. In any case, what the marut is doing may be lawful, but stoping him would also be lawful. Laws conflict, and the paladin must uphold the law that is good. |
| yrogerg01-20-07, 11:48 PM | Okay, I normally take the side that the DM's allowed to interpret the Paladin's Code as he see fits, but in this case, I think you might be taking it a bit too far. The situation you've presented is very, very grey. Assuming the Marut isn't broken or deluded or something, it is not committing Evil acts; a Marut is simply extremely, inhumanly, Lawful. There's certainly an interpretation where interfering in the Marut's dispensation of Law would be a violation of the Paladin's code, as well: By flying in the face the laws of the universe, he is disrespecting a legitimate authority, and promoting a chaotic end, albeit through helping others. So, this is no longer a question of whether the Paladin's Code's being violated; either way, that's going to happen, the only question is whether the Paladin is "grossly" violating the code. To that, I would say no, personally. Again, given the choice of flying in the face of the universe itself, it's hard to say that his failure to intervene is inherently Evil, even if it's not Good. Especially because it's clear that he's still trying to still deal with it in an honorable, respectful manner: He's still playing the medic role in the encounters, honoring his obligation to the other party members and to peripheral NPCs. He plans on ensuring that the bodies of the dead are cared for. It sounds more like the character's solemnly accepting that this is out of his hands, and trying to do as much Good as possible without interfering with the agents of Law. |
| ciryx2k01-21-07, 04:58 AM | My 2 cents: Okay, while the pally is LG and the inevitable is LN, the inevitable is technically commiting an evil act. It is murder. The farmers are defenseless and stand no chance against this thing. They have done nothing wrong nor evil. I proper action for a pally who is wanting to stick VERY closely to the lawful aspect of his alignment would be to confront the inevitable. Try to parlay with it and explain these people have done no wrong and will still die someday. They were wrongfully taken by a random act of violence and that the guy doing the rezzing was merely righting a wrong. However, he should take NO offensive actions unless attacked first. If the inevitable attacks him, he can and should defend himself and is justified by the fact that the inevitable is commiting a needless evil act for the sake of making other's adhere to IT'S version of "the laws of the universe". If a pally stands by while innocent people are slaughtered, he isn't a pally anymore. Pure and simple. |
| CharlieRock01-21-07, 08:41 AM | I think that the inevitable shouldn't have appeared though. It makes little sense. Another thing to keep in mind: Failure to act is a problem for a paladin. Failure to succeed is not. If the paladin is unable to stop the thing, or has genuine cause to believe that he can't (especially if he tried to fight the thing and was beaten down), he's not going to land in trouble for that - paladins aren't required to be stupid or suicidal; if he can't stop the marut, then doing his best to mend the damage afterwards (such as by performing last rites, as mentioned) is an appropriate course. Agree on those points, totally. 3) the entire purpose of this encounter was to put the characters on the moral balance. Then you can't penalize them either action they take. Either your spelling out the morals for the players (and making the entire 'moral exercise' pointless.) Or, your penalizing the morals they have. Both are a power trip. It would be easier for you to tell them how to play and let them roll the dice. The point of a moral exercise in D&D is not to reward or penalize the DMs version of 'Things that are Right'. But to get the players to think in terms of 'would Sir Robin be doing this?'. |
| 1 true DM01-21-07, 08:59 AM | there are 2 ways of interpreting this: 1) the pally must stop all crimes that are "evil" (e.g. murder, robbery etc.) it hears of - even if these crimes are commited by a "good" person or for a "good" cause. thus, he must stop the marut and rescue the villager dudes. 2) a pallys code is defined by the player. "good" and "evil" are viewpoints on life. So, if a palladin commits a crime for the right reasons i.e. "i didnt kill that marut because i would die and by not dying i save countless people in the future" then he hasnt violated HIS code but another paladin could see it a different way. does that actually make sense?? pooky |
| EvilVegan01-21-07, 09:23 AM | A paladin's code is very clear that it favors good over law. "A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act." This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they commit evil they lose their abilities but if they commit a chaotic act they do not. This clearly shows that paladins favor good above law. If you choose to ignore this that's fine, but it is in the paladin's code. "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. " These show which portions of law are most important to a paladin, but even so it makes no explicit mention of losing their powers if they fail to act lawfully or choose to act chaotically. Also paladin's put good and their code above the desires of their deity. So the code is very clear: If the villagers aren't going to use his help for evil or chaotic means he MUST help them. If the Marut is attacking innocents he MUST punish him. The "laws of nature" are not the same thing as "Law". The Marut is a lawful being enforcing a "law of nature" but that doesn't mean it is commiting a good act or even a necessarily Lawful act. You paladin is behaving like a lawful neutral druid. Rewrite his character for him and put him in a yellow, sissy dress while your at it, because he's a coward. |
| CharlieRock01-21-07, 09:47 AM | So the code is very clear: If the villagers aren't going to use his help for evil or chaotic means he MUST help them. If the Marut is attacking innocents he MUST punish him. The "laws of nature" are not the same thing as "Law". The Marut is a lawful being enforcing a "law of nature" but that doesn't mean it is commiting a good act or even a necessarily Lawful act. I'd read the Ecology of Inevitables. They have no feelings and robotically follow orders. The Marut did not decide of it's own to attack any villagers. Something gave it the order. If anyone requires justice for those murders it would be that person (or entity) that made the order. Do you punish a hammer for hitting your thumb? |
| 1 true DM01-21-07, 09:47 AM | he may be a coward but the point is: by not attacking the marut and possibly dying he could go onto save many innocent lives in the future. Therefore, the best possible thing a paladin can do is to not risk his/her lives and help without attacking the Marut i.e. help the villagers run away by providing knowledge of short cuts etc. My way of seeing it is that the better you are at ducking out of combat but still completing objectives without loss of life, the better a paladin you are. If you attack a creature, you are tempting it into commiting an evil act by attacking you back! Which is against the paladins code! so technically, even going into battle could cause you to lose your paladinship. pooky |
| EvilVegan01-21-07, 10:13 AM | I'd read the Ecology of Inevitables. They have no feelings and robotically follow orders. The Marut did not decide of it's own to attack any villagers. Something gave it the order. If anyone requires justice for those murders it would be that person (or entity) that made the order. Do you punish a hammer for hitting your thumb? Ecology? 2nd edition much? :) I read it, they have an intelligence score. If a hammer hits my thumb of it's own volition yes it gets punished. If an intelligent magical hammer is hitting your thumb would you not attempt to stop it? The villagers are still alive. You save them first and then find the bastard who swung the hammer. The Marut would come to kill the person who mass resurrected the village. The villagers themselves are technically innocent and would be excluded from the Marut normally, but could be construed as "accomplices" so it's within reason that he may go rogue and attack them, even though it isn't the person he would have been sent to destroy. And the DM already stated that the Maruts have a reason for acting a bit more viciously. By your logic the paladin shouldn't save people from natural disasters but should instead wait til they're dead, perform funeral rights, and then hunt down the god of storms and kill him. he may be a coward but the point is: The point is if he's a coward he is no longer a paladin. by not attacking the marut and possibly dying he could go onto save many innocent lives in the future. By not attacking the marut (or stopping it without attacking it) he is DEFINITELY allowing innocent lives to end. A paladin doesn't bank on possibilities and doesn't value his own life above innocents and doesn't value one innocent above another, nor one group above another group. Therefore, the best possible thing a paladin can do is to not risk his/her lives and help without attacking the Marut i.e. help the villagers run away by providing knowledge of short cuts etc.I never said he had to challenge the Marut to a 1on1 duel! Get a freaking army in there, this thing is CR 15 and more damaging than a typhoon. My way of seeing it is that the better you are at ducking out of combat but still completing objectives without loss of life, the better a paladin you are.No, that's a rogue with a good heart. A paladin is called by a higher power to COMBAT the forces of evil. If you attack a creature, you are tempting it into commiting an evil act by attacking you back! Which is against the paladins code! so technically, even going into battle could cause you to lose your paladinship. Are you being serious?! It isn't an evil act to attack someone who is attacking you, so a paladin could never lose his paladinhood for "tempting someone to attack him by attacking them first". . . :rolleyes: A paladin would lose his paladinhood for attacking someone without cause, but never for trying to get them to fight him back. |
| Free198301-21-07, 10:14 AM | A paladin's code is very clear that it favors good over law. "A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act." This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they commit evil they lose their abilities but if they commit a chaotic act they do not. This clearly shows that paladins favor good above law. If you choose to ignore this that's fine, but it is in the paladin's code. "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. " Ok, got it. :) |
| EvilVegan01-21-07, 10:23 AM | Yeah I noticed nobody had really answered your question yet. :P |
| Cantankerous01-21-07, 10:59 AM | Not really all that tough to me if I stand in the place of the Paladin: Good ALWAYS trumps Law in the Paladial mindset, but I also realize that Law is a component that is stressed over Good by many legitimate Paladins (check out the Planescape faction "The Harmonium", sometimes called the Hardheads. Lots o' Paladins in it, and what this guy espouses they as a collective would espouse as well. But, if as a DM you believe that BOTH of you were originally on the same page about what the Paladial code requires and this isn't precisely it... dreams are a great way of showing divine displeasure without whipping out the DM beatstick. Another might have a child, the child of one of the folk this Marut is hunting down, screaming, crying, as only a heart broken child can, telling the Paladin that he is Evil for letting this monster kill mommy....again. Let the conscience be his guide. Also, he will soonm be saddled with the reputation as one of the heartless Paladins that so many folk claim (rightly to my way of thinking) are not so different from demons themselves. Bottom line is, before you confront the character with the outcome of his actions, make sure that you aren't beating on the Player because you two were never on the same page as to what the Paladin is. Communication can usually right these problems. If even after the fact the two of you agree on what the Code means AFTERWARDS and it's more in line with what you thought, you can use the scenario above (dreams and confrontation by a victims child) to highlight it to the other Players... just be sure the Paladins Player is ok with it first. Isshia |
| kelvinaw27301-21-07, 11:33 AM | The code problem arises with the players actions. The CG player has fought it twice and gotten his ass handed to him on both occasions. The NG character is obviously conflicted but is still trying to stop the Marut (he's not willing to die for the cause however). The Paladin however has yet to attempt to stop it. He watched in one encounter, played medic for the watch commander in the second encounter, and his plan is to follow the Marut and essentially give last rites to the fallen and bury them after the Marut is through. He's decided that the Marut's lawful mission trumps the circumstance of the innocent civilians. While I think that's a legal (if stretching) arguement for a Lawful Good PC, I don't think it holds up to a Paladin's code. I don't think the player is being cowardly, but I do think he is failing to match up to the requirements of the class. If in the next encounter he does not try to stop the Marut, I'm planning to bar him from Paladin till he accomplishes an attonement (as per the class description). Is this too harsh? Is this act of ommission, reasoned as it is, enough to mark a critical violation of his code of conduct? You mean he stood there and watched his friends fight it and risk their lives for others? Stripped! Now! A Paladin is GOOD first, LAWFUL second. The Marut is enforcing a foolish law, and to quote Jean-Luc Picard from ST:TNG "There can never be justice while laws are absolute." You don't get more lawful good than Picard, really. The Paladin is duty bound to stop the Marut. Strip his powers until he faces it (but give them back when he does). |
| spectralphoenix01-21-07, 11:52 AM | I'd read the Ecology of Inevitables. They have no feelings and robotically follow orders. The Marut did not decide of it's own to attack any villagers. Something gave it the order. If anyone requires justice for those murders it would be that person (or entity) that made the order. Do you punish a hammer for hitting your thumb? If someone else keeps hitting people with a remote-controlled hammer, and you have no idea who or where they are, do you try and stop the hammer? The Paladin need not punish the marut, he needs to stop it. If he can convince it to stop (unlikely, but possible) that's just as good. |
| Free198301-21-07, 11:58 AM | You mean he stood there and watched his friends fight it and risk their lives for others? Stripped! Now! A Paladin is GOOD first, LAWFUL second. Ow man. You might be 200% right, but we have a huge problem here that some people have touched already but that a lot of people are missing here. As a DM you have to be on the same page as your players for things like this. If you are not, you might be 500% right and with your righteous DMpowers you can strip the paladin of his powers in less than a second, but the only result will be a very dissappointed/frustrated player and I can guarantee you that that is not the example of fun. Whatever you do, don't strip him from his powers, unless you're sure he's interpreting the paladin's code the same way you are. If you are not sure, tell him in game (dream, cleric NPC, augury,...) or out of game, but don't screw him over for thinking something else. Cheers |
| Cantankerous01-21-07, 12:00 PM | Ow man. You might be 200% right, but we have a huge problem here that some people have touched already but that a lot of people are missing here. As a DM you have to be on the same page as your players for things like this. If you are not, you might be 500% right and with your righteous DMpowers you can strip the paladin of his powers in less than a second, but the only result will be a very dissappointed/frustrated player and I can guarantee you that that is not the example of fun. Whatever you do, don't strip him from his powers, unless you're sure he's interpreting the paladin's code the same way you are. If you are not sure, tell him in game (dream, cleric NPC, augury,...) or out of game, but don't screw him over for thinking something else. Cheers Amen. Isshia |
| CharlieRock01-21-07, 12:46 PM | If an intelligent magical hammer is hitting your thumb would you not attempt to stop it? The villagers are still alive. You save them first and then find the bastard who swung the hammer. As a matter of survival, yes. As a matter of justice ... technically, no. And as Spectralphoenix points out, stopping the hammer is always an option (and the recommended one, at that). But for other issues besides 'justice'. Preservation of life (or something), I'm sure; but not necessarily as justice. |
| pres_man01-21-07, 12:54 PM | Let's remember that the OP said that the entire group had discussed the issue, this is not just the DM deciding what is "right and wrong" on his own. Yes the paladin is wrong. The reasons are simple. First off the inevitable may be acting as LN but the paladin is lawful good, and even if you don't think good takes priority for a paladin (it does by the way), still he is not being both lawful and good. Secondly, an inevitable's code is not the paladins code. This thing must destroy anything it sees as going against "the circle of life", that is not the paladins code, and in this particular situation is actually in conflict with the paladin's code. Similiarly there is a LN creature in the MMIII called a justicator that attacks chaotic creatures on sight. He hates all chaotic creatures even celestials. To take some of the suggestions here it would seem that a paladin could not attempt to stop this creature even it was hacking apart a CG angel, that I think is crazy. Also avoiding conflict is not the paladins way. There is nothing wrong from withdrawing from conflict if you are badly injuried and likely to be killed, but never to try to stop someone harming innocents because maybe he might get hurt is not like a paladin. All combats have risk, the paladin could roll all 1's with their foes rolling all 20's, in that situation a 1st commoner kobold could kill a 20th level paladin. Let us also remember an inevitable is not alive, it is a construct not even a living construct like a warforge, the people it is killing are. It is clear that in order to be LG, i.e. "acts as a good person is expected or required to act." And to show a "respect for life" he's got to try to stop this thing. Now if the inevitable had shown up before they were raised and said, "Don't raise these people it is against the laws of nature, their time is up." Then the paladin might then have reason to back it up. But once they were raised and alive again, his responsibility was to try to protect them. Almost forgot, I would suggest having an adolescent child (possible future paladin and potential squire for this paladin) rush out in front of the inevitable with a simple farming tool and tell the thing he will not allow it to harm any more innocents. If the paladin allows the inevitable to slay this young person, then take his powers away as he allowed an innocent to die for something he should have been doing. |
| spectralphoenix01-21-07, 01:01 PM | Also avoiding conflict is not the paladins way. There is nothing wrong from withdrawing from conflict if you are badly injuried and likely to be killed, but never to try to stop someone harming innocents because maybe he might get hurt is not like a paladin. All combats have risk, the paladin could roll all 1's with their foes rolling all 20's, in that situation a 1st commoner kobold could kill a 20th level paladin. But neither is a paladin required to throw his life away in a fight he can't win when his sacrifice won't change the situation. Otherwise no paladin would ever reach 2nd level - they'd all be forced to go and fight the largest source of evil in the region: Iuz, Manshoon, the Lords of Dust, whoever. Note that in this particular situation it sounds like the paladin could win, but if he doesn't think the fight is winnable, you can't expect him to fight it (since if he loses the inevitable will just keep going.) If he thinks the fight is winnable but risky, yes he still has to fight. |
| pres_man01-21-07, 01:08 PM | But neither is a paladin required to throw his life away in a fight he can't win when his sacrifice won't change the situation. Otherwise no paladin would ever reach 2nd level - they'd all be forced to go and fight the largest source of evil in the region: Iuz, Manshoon, the Lords of Dust, whoever. Note that in this particular situation it sounds like the paladin could win, but if he doesn't think the fight is winnable, you can't expect him to fight it (since if he loses the inevitable will just keep going.) If he thinks the fight is winnable but risky, yes he still has to fight. This is no different then an orc barbarian, that defeated the paladin's companions one on one. Just because he could defeat them, does not mean he could defeat the paladin, the paladin has yet to even try his strength to judge the inevitable's abilities. Also noone is suggesting that the paladin should try this alone, he is lawful, organized resistance should be his bread and butter. He has companions who have proven themselves loyal (which he is surprisingly not doing at the moment) as well as organizations he could get help from. Frankly his actions have a hint of cowardlyness to them. Maybe, I don't know this might be a crazy idea, he actually seeks out someone with some knowledge, find out the things strengths and weaknesses and if he is even capable of having a chance to beat it (get somebody in communication with his deity or outsiders of his cause). EDIT: Also the paladin is not claiming that he can't beat it, he is claiming that there is nothing wrong with what it is doing. Those are two totally different things. If he couldn't beat it he should seek out some that could or try to find a way to beat it. But instead he follows it around and condones what it does. |
| CharlieRock01-21-07, 01:18 PM | I still think this was a nutjob marut. :smirk: |
| Urithair01-21-07, 01:49 PM | I agree that the Marut seems to have overstepped his bounds, which implies that Primus is loosing it (not a good sign). The Maruts will only try to stop 'raise dead' incidents unless it is "repeatedly or on a massive scale", so I don't think that 30 odd villagers count as 'massive'. Also, as the villagers were not the transgressors, they would not be targeted by the Marut, not by any stretch. The Maruts seek to stop those who try and cheat death, not those who benefit from someone else trying to cheat death. If the person doing the raising had a history of this, then it's understandable that a Marut would target them, but the villagers wouldn't even register on it's radar. |
| Solian01-21-07, 02:12 PM | If you believe in fate, then it might have been fated for the Villagers to die and the Marut is right in what he is doing. And therefore so is the paladin. The paladin must respect authority (and therefore it's laws, even if he disagrees with it), and the authority here seems to be the Marut, and the universe' Laws he is enforcing and so the Paladin should not be stripped of his powers. |
| ciryx2k01-21-07, 02:29 PM | there are 2 ways of interpreting this: 1) the pally must stop all crimes that are "evil" (e.g. murder, robbery etc.) it hears of - even if these crimes are commited by a "good" person or for a "good" cause. thus, he must stop the marut and rescue the villager dudes. 2) a pallys code is defined by the player. "good" and "evil" are viewpoints on life. So, if a palladin commits a crime for the right reasons i.e. "i didnt kill that marut because i would die and by not dying i save countless people in the future" then he hasnt violated HIS code but another paladin could see it a different way. does that actually make sense?? pooky The Book of Vile Darkness goes into this a lot. It's the difference between what they call Objective Evil vs. Subjective Evil. If you wanna get into the whole morality issue and are over the age of 18, I'd definately pick up BoVD and BoED. |
| ciryx2k01-21-07, 02:37 PM | If you believe in fate, then it might have been fated for the Villagers to die and the Marut is right in what he is doing. And therefore so is the paladin. The paladin must respect authority (and therefore it's laws, even if he disagrees with it), and the authority here seems to be the Marut, and the universe' Laws he is enforcing and so the Paladin should not be stripped of his powers. One bad thing about law, it has to be interpreted. Anything that is interpreted is inherently flawed. Look at the U.S. government. We have 3 branches of government with various powers between them all. There are thousands of people in D.C. that are involved in our law making and upholding process and yet over two centuries after this government was formed, the Supreme Court is still trying to figure out what it all means. The point is, Paladin's put Good before Law. Law can easily be twisted and abused to promote evil (IE: A Lawful Evil alignment), but while Good may be worked over, the Good is much more resistant to being Evil (IE: I've never seen a Evil Good alignment). Also, it has been covered that a Paladin would never kill anyone who has not commited an evil act. This is covered in the BoED. It covers several issues dealing with this subject. |
| pres_man01-21-07, 02:38 PM | If you believe in fate, then it might have been fated for the Villagers to die and the Marut is right in what he is doing. And therefore so is the paladin. The paladin must respect authority (and therefore it's laws, even if he disagrees with it), and the authority here seems to be the Marut, and the universe' Laws he is enforcing and so the Paladin should not be stripped of his powers. Then a paladin should not try to stop a Justicator, from MM3, for killing waves and waves of elves because they were CG. The Marut's laws are not the paladins laws. It is interesting to note that the one class that is the most tied to the "natural order", the druid, can reincarnate people. Hello! If bringing someone back was so "unnatural" how can druids do it? |
| Free198301-21-07, 03:42 PM | Law can easily be twisted and abused to promote evil This might be slightly off track, but it seems like you are interpreting law as a codex. Law is much more than that. It is also: honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority and reliabiliy. On that matter, I don't thing that a paladin being lawful and being in a LE city, should cause problems. The paladin has its own autorities. So I'm inclined to say that the "laws" of the Marut can conflict with the "laws" of the paladin and that the paladin should respect its own "laws". Let's remember that the OP said that the entire group had discussed the issue, this is not just the DM deciding what is "right and wrong" on his own. Yes the paladin is wrong. The party pretty much understands the situation, I don't believe there is any real misunderstanding. They know what a Marut is and understand its objective. They know that while its not evil, that it is merciless and tireless. They realize the risen were innocent victims of violence who are now fleeing for their lives and will certainly die if no one helps. The Paladin however has yet to attempt to stop it. He watched in one encounter, played medic for the watch commander in the second encounter, and his plan is to follow the Marut and essentially give last rites to the fallen and bury them after the Marut is through. He's decided that the Marut's lawful mission trumps the circumstance of the innocent civilians. While I think that's a legal (if stretching) arguement fo a Lawful Good PC, I don't think it holds up to a Paladin's code. I don't think the player is being cowardly, but I do think he is failing to match up to the requirements of the class. Yes Mauther has seen his/her group discussing this issue. He/she is well informed about the players decisions and it seems like he/she is convinced that the paladin is acting against his code. Now to the real question: Should the paladin be stripped from its powers? I say no. Yes, I agree, the paladin is violating his code. You all made your point very clear and I agree. But, in this case, it seems like the player of the paladin doesn't see his behaviour as violating his code. Of course we expect from a player that he knows all about his character and we also expect most of the times that a player knows the game mechanics of its character. And I think we can all agree that the paladin's code is part of the game mechanics, or at least part of the game related to the player and thus should be known to the player. But, does it looks like the player knows what its code is? Does it seems like the player is breaking his code intentionally? I think not. I think he is mistaken about the code, but I think he's not doing this willfully. Now you may judge that the player should know what he is doing, but I for one am wondering why this player is mistaken about the code. Could it be that the DM has made a mistake in this case? It seems like the player isn't aware of the feelings/judging of the DM. I don't think a player would run into the DM about the paladin's code (well, most sensible players wouldn't). So, are we to blame the player? Are we? I say that you, as a DM, should somehow inform the player that he isn't following his code. You, as a DM, have the final decision on what the code of the paladin consists of in your world and in your game, but you have to inform the player about your expectations. So no stripping in this case! I've seen a few good examples to handle this in game, like the suggestion to bring a little kid on to the scene that will try to stop the Marut. I suggest you try to bring your player up to speed about what you think is the "code of the paladin". Whether you do this in game or out game, doesn't really matter, as long as you do it. Hmm, it seems like I got a little carried away. I hope nobody takes offence, it sure isn't my intention. And Mauther, I hope this helped ;) Cheers |
| Mecha_Pope01-21-07, 04:08 PM | Taken from the srd Those who use magic to reverse death aren’t worthy of a marut’s attention unless they do so repeatedly or on a massive scale. Inevitables are single-minded in pursuit of their quarry, but they are under orders to leave innocents alone. Accomplices to their prey are fair game, however, which sometimes creates conflicts within their programming. Opps, looks like someone needs a memory wipe! Thats one broken Marut. In addition, this would depend on DM ruling of course, Maruts, being constructs, very well may have no souls. If this is the case, if the Paladin kills it, even unprovoked, it would be no more evil than laying the smack down on a lump of tar. This is an oppertunity for the Paladin to be let of his leash! In any case, as a follower of Torm, Torm's laws matter, not the laws of Mechanus. Because of this, the Paladin should get his powers striped. If the player didn't take the time to read the dogma of his chosen diety, the diety that determins weather or not he gets all his nifty powers, thats his problem. FRCS's got a whole paragraph on each member of the triad, and anyone who at least skims through them would know how a paladin of Torm should be acting in this situation. The paladin may be lawful, but the multiverse contains a nearly infinate number of sets of laws. This isn't law vs. chaos, this is the Triad's law vs. the law of Mechanus. The laws of Mechanus should mean nothing to the Paladin. |
| pres_man01-22-07, 02:41 AM | ...snip... I think he made clear what they have discussed more in post #12, specificly: My concern in this case is that the paladin has acknowledged that the risen are innocent, but has decided they should die due to the law. He's subordinating good to law, but also failing in the Paladin's code "...help those in need, and punish those who harm or threaten innocents." The characters are well informed of the situation. They have met the risen and have no reason to believe they are anything other than what they appear. They interacted with the first group killed, and actually know (in passing) some of the risen who are fleeing. The group discussed the situation extensively, and the innocence of the resurrected was never in question. It was accepted and understood from the begining that they were average folk who met a violent end were brought back by exceptional means. As I said before, the players discussed this extensively, and amongst themselves hit all of the relevant highpoints in the debate. The players are mature and have been playing one version of D&D or another for 4 or 5 decades between the three of them, so they've got plenty of experience. ... I wouldn't necessarily strip a character for a spur of the moment act, but this is a debated and reasoned course. They debated the whole incident upon coming across the relic and the inevitable, saw the inevitable kill the relic's weilder and three people that were raised, and have now had another whole day to consider the implications. If he sits through another massacre, I think that's on his head. It seems pretty clear that the DM things the player should have had ample chance to understand the paladin's role with the discussions the group has had on this issue. The paladin's player just does not agree for whatever reason. Well as Spaceghost says, "You can lead a horse to prune juice, but you can't make him drink it, nor should you want to." |
| Pyritefoolsgold01-22-07, 03:45 AM | In your setting, should the Paladin feel subject to the laws of Mechanus? If not, he should know that. Law, unlike Chaos, is a complicated thing, and a Paladin's training should have included quite extensive lessons on good and evil, law and chaos, what they are and what to do about them. |
| Cantankerous01-22-07, 07:34 AM | Those who use magic to reverse death aren’t worthy of a marut’s attention unless they do so repeatedly or on a massive scale. I don't know about you, but I'd certainly think that 30 qualifies as repeatedly. Prosecutor: "But your Honor, when he supposedly slipped he knocked the man down and broke his arm." Judge: "That doesn't sound so dire. Accidents will happen." Prosecutor: "But, your honor it happened 30 times ...in a row." Judge: ... sigh... "Guilty. Next case." Isshia |
| alangriffith01-22-07, 08:10 AM | I don't know about you, but I'd certainly think that 30 qualifies as repeatedly. The point being that the villageras didn't raise anyone at all, and each villager was only raised once. No-one is saying the Marut should not kill the healer who raised the villagers, they are quetioning why it is killing all the raised villagers as well. The bit about innocents lower down the text you quted clearly implies it should be leaving the villagers alone. |
| Stormbrand01-22-07, 02:57 PM | If you believe in fate, then it might have been fated for the Villagers to die and the Marut is right in what he is doing. And therefore so is the paladin. The paladin must respect authority (and therefore it's laws, even if he disagrees with it), and the authority here seems to be the Marut, and the universe' Laws he is enforcing and so the Paladin should not be stripped of his powers. If you believe in fate, it changes nothing - fate is neither lawful nor good. Bad things happen to good people, THAT is fate and also what a paladin lives to oppose. |
| Mecha_Pope01-22-07, 05:28 PM | 30 may seem like alot to you, but on an EXTRA-PLANER scale, it's hardly a blip on the radar. I mean come on, how many beings are in the multiverse? Torril, Greyhawk, Sigil, Eberon, Krynn, whereever Ravenloft is, uh.... Hollow World, ect. In addition to all the elemental, alignment, and energy planes, plus the ethereal, astral, and shadow. Thats an almost infinate number of beings, why should 30 people being rezzed show up at all? It shouldn't. |
| DmofAlterak01-22-07, 07:15 PM | As a player of paladins and LG characters here is my advice: The paladin should be doing all in his power to stop the merut and there is 'no way' that the lawful side of the creature should 'trump the fate of the civilians' this is ludicrous. Any decent paladin should do all in his power to stop the thing. The only way I can see his actions being reasonable is if he thinks there is no chance of stopping the creature and it would be a waste of his potential to do good should he needlessly sacrifice himself even then the situation should be giving the paladin a royal pain as he tirelessly searches for a solution. |
| CharlieRock01-22-07, 07:20 PM | But, does it looks like the player knows what its code is? Does it seems like the player is breaking his code intentionally? I think not. I think he is mistaken about the code, but I think he's not doing this willfully. Or, it could be the player is just being too cautious. You'd get the idea reading a few of these threads that DMs purposely make situations that are all grey and foggy ,morally speaking, just to drop a paladin at the first instance. Some DMs are. Now, having seen those threads (or worse played with those DMs) the player senses what is going on here. And what really went on ? This is a transparent 'moral dilema/exercise'. Does the Pally go for Law or Good. We've set these two normally intrinsic sides opposed. Pally tries to stay neutral. Law gets it's job done. Some people are healed, others laid to rest (properly). That's about as much 'down the line' as you can get. The pally doesn't want to step between these two forces, gosh forbid he veers off the path of 'true paladinness'. Secondly, a lot of players don't memorize the MM1. I play with a guy who has been playing for about a year. Would he know (for sure) that a Marut isn't some sort of 'good monster'? Nopers. All these 'gotcha' DMs taking powers off one class. Now your getting paladin players who are paralyzed into inaction. It was bound to happen. |
| Mauther01-23-07, 06:52 PM | Wow, thanks for all the replies. I especially appreciate all of the people who managed to stay on topic and address the actual issues instead of shooting off topic about how mean DM's have been to them. Couple things, just in response to comments that have been made. I agree that the Marut is being Draconian in its enforcement of the rules, however, that's what Inevitables do. Once dispatched they pursue relentlessly. When giving the players the old results of their Knowledge checks, I even got to drop the old line: "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever..." (Win a cookie if you know what that's from/ difficulty rating 2 out of 5). What some people are failing to realize, is that the Marut's pursuit of the risen is secondary. Basically, they're the broken glass after a car crash. In the real world, the city won't come and clean broken glass out of the street because its not a real big deal. But if crews are called to the site of a crash, they will clean up the glass as part of the accident cleanup. These risen are not being pursued because they were raised, they are being pursued because they are part of the transgression. If an Inevitable was dispatched to pursue a thief, it would also retrieve the stolen item. These risen are nothing more than another component of the original transgression: illegal resurrection. What some are apparently forgetting is that Inevitables are about law, not justice. That these people are innocent in the good/evil sense, or that they are not raising dead themselves is irrelevant, they are the trangression. Additionally, some people have expressed concern about the magnitude of the resurrections not being enough to call an Inevitable. There are a couple of components to this. First there were actually 60+ people resurrected over 2 days, without the normal and prescribed costs (diamond dust, experience, etc). The relic that allowed this usually works by exchanging one life for another (it can cast Resurrection or Destruction once per day without cost, additional uses get complicated), the operator ignored that stricture for his own reasons. The Marut's have a history with this object, and responded when it surgaced again. Additionally, some people are forgetting the theological ramifications of raising dead in a campaign world like Forgotten Realms. Souls are a resource for the divine, anything that allows those resources to be taken outside of the established rules is a big deal (planar-wise). The Marut was dispatched to inform the person weilding the relic to stop (he wouldn't) and to warn his what would happen if he didn't. The players saw this final portion. The PC's have attempted to negotiate (that's a nonstarter with the Inevitables), and they did look at spiriting away the risen (that just delays the Inevitable since a Marut never stops). The players rightfully concluded that that the only way to save the humans was to stop the Marut. As I said, this isn't an issue of the players not being aware of what a Marut is (they weren't at the time, but they did the right thing and educated themselves in game), and it isn't a case of the character or player being cowardly (if I thought that was the case, I wouldn;t have posted this question). I do believe this is a case where the player has weighed each side and decided this is the proper course, a decision I unfortunately disagree with. The twist in this case is that a wrong decision (if it is in fact wrong) has a mechanical result by the rules. Now I'm sorry that some people think the situation is unfair, or that the mechanics are not proper. For better or worse that is the situation I created and the players find themselves in. |
| Mauther01-23-07, 07:15 PM | One other quick thing. I really do want to say I'm sorry to all of those people who feel I should take the player aside and tell him he's about to violate his oath. I hope that some day, you get a chance to play in a game where the DM allows you to actually play your character, succeed or fail on your own choices, and in general play like an adult. If all you have gotten to play is games where the DM constantly signs off on your every decision, you've been sorely missing out. If you've been playing games where every opponent your good character encounters is a diabolically evil madman dripping the blood of virgins, I hope you actually get a chance to play a "role" game where you get to actually make decisions beyond what spell to use to kill this monster. In my experience (and this may not apply to the people in question), people who complain about ethical questions or moral decisions are the same players who complain when their Exalted wizard gets chastised for killing 30 villagers while battling a vampire. If a player doesn't want to be concerned with morals or ethics, don't play good and don't play lawful, and for the love of Torm, don't play lawful good. But their are certain classes (and even races) that have RP requirements. Making the players confront those requirements is not only part of the game experience, its also a matter of game balance. The Paladin's code of conduct is as much a matter of game balance (if not as well delineated) as the Frenzied Berserkers rage, a Lycanthrope's change, or a Kensai's oath. The constraints imposed by the code are as much a part of the class as lay on hands or the divine mount. So please keep the comments on the matter at hand and not as a basis for complaining about whatever perceived injustices you've been carrying around since your own paladin was unfairly punished for decapitating a school boy who was cutting class (truancey is clearly NOT a good act and certainly chaotic, and so entirely deserving of punishment). |
| freeholder01-23-07, 07:22 PM | Give him the evil points he deserves Otherwise give gim the choaotic points he deserves However let him transfer gis Paly levels to those of any other combat class at no xp expense Palys are not people, they're illusions nobodies a paly |
| High Octane01-23-07, 08:09 PM | Law can easily be twisted and abused to promote evil.Even the devil can quote scripture, if it suits his purpose. |
| Gedrin01-23-07, 10:22 PM | Do paladins loose their status for protecting those who are part of the corruption of the universal laws of life and death? Yeh, generally they do. Do paladins loose their status for failing to prevent the deaths of innocents? Yeh, generally they do. In this case it appears the paladin has failed, for he has faild to simultaneiously uphold the universal laws of life and death, while at the same time protecting innocents from suffering. I'm not saying those aren't mutually exclusive in this situation. In fact, I think the paladin failed at an impossible task. I think the presence of the Maurt indicates a gross violation of the universal order of life and death. It is quite possible that the paladin interpreted the presence of an enforcer of cosmic order as a sign the universe itself was against the actions at hand. Law itself wanted these people dead. I would agree that Good is first and Law is second. It is worth noting that in this case the paladin erred on the side of upholding the cosmic order of life and death in the face of a grave violation (as evidenced by the Inevidable). |
| pres_man01-23-07, 11:04 PM | Do paladins loose their status for protecting those who are part of the corruption of the universal laws of life and death? Yeh, generally they do. Actually no they don't, unless you provide some actually evidence. Here is some that doesn't appear to support such a stance: 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. Nothing in there about protecting the "Universal Laws of Life and Death", but there is a lot about being lawful good, protecting innocents, and punishing those that harm them. Lawful Good, “Crusader”: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. Again, nothing about protecting any "Universal Laws", but a lot about being good, speaking out against injustice, and having compassion. “Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others. Wow, being good apparantly is about respecting life, not respecting some vague "Universal Laws of Life and Death". But please if you do have some evidence to support the idea that they have to, I would be glad to see it. |
| Palin the Wizard01-24-07, 01:08 AM | The paladin is, in my opinion, acting Lawful Neutral and not Lawful Good. He hasn't performed any Evil acts--yet--but failing to protect innocents is serious. All-in-all, I'd say this one is tough. At the end of the day, I'd probably give the player a very hefty reminder where his duties are--most likely by simply removing his abilities for a day. If he fails to heed that warning, he falls. |
| Caver45101-24-07, 01:33 AM | I feel compelled to offer my two copper pieces on the matter. I think the majority of us here feel the same way that I do, which is that the paladin has strayed from his code for various reasons. It is clear to me that the paladin is duty bound to protect the innocents to the best of his ability, even it means his own death in the process. The paladin is bound by the laws of HIS god first, and his country second. He is not bound to uphold the laws of any other deity, and that includes the laws of nature. He's not a freaking druid, he is a paladin. But an even bigger problem in my mind, and one of my hot topics when it comes to paladin arguments in general, is his lack of action or conviction. Paladins are, if anything, fanatics. They don't sit by idle. They act with unwaivering decisiveness and conviction. I see this all the time. As soon as the paladin has a moral conflict, they immediately step aside and let others do the work, while they "tend to the wounded" or offer words of encouragement. Sometimes they half-heartedly try to talk their friends out of committing some atrocity, but in the end they just sit by. Paladins simply don't sit by and watch injustice, with pained expression and heavy heart. THEY ACT. If this paladin believes that the marut's mission is good and just, why isn't he helping the marut slaughter the villagers? Because he KNOWS that would be an evil act. He knows it would be against the law of the land AND the law of HIS god. Yet he sits by and watches the marut slaughter the innocents, something he knows in his heart is wrong. And how about the paladin's companions? THEY tried to stop the marut. Why didn't the paladin stop his comrades from attempting to hinder the marut's "just mission?" Why didn't the paladin strike his companions down for their transgression against this "authority"? Because the paladin knows his companions were right, and to do so would be an evil act. And yet the paladin does nothing. A paladin picks a side, hopefully the right one--and if there is question in the paladin's mind, he can always ask his deity for a sign--and then fights for that side with all the passion his heart can muster. To the death, if need be. This whole "the paladin sits out the fight because he believes the fight is wrong" thing is utter bull. A paladin doesn't have the luxury to sit out a fit, and for that reason alone he has already fallen. That's my opinion. -Caver |
| Always-Late01-24-07, 01:37 AM | Here's why: When an Inevitable shows up, everybody esentially goes, "yep, the heavens have ordained this. Who are we to get in the way?" The Paladin is probably uneasy with obstructing divine vengeance, as he sees it. Of course, I havne't read most of the thread, so feel free to tell me I'm dumb. |
| Bengal01-24-07, 01:53 AM | The problem here is arising from lack of clarity in the Paladin's purpose, at least to my mind. Have the player write out his paladin's vows on his character sheet, or a separate sheet of paper. All of them. By hand. This will ensure that he takes a moment to think about each and every vow, and will solidify precisely the ideals that he must uphold in order to remain a paladin. In this situation, the Paladin has chosen to uphold the wrong law. There's a law against killing people. The Marut is breaking this law. It's not a universal law, it's much more mundane, written on the books of the local magistrate. He's not upholding that law, and he's not upholding good either. The only thing that the paladin can do without committing either a chaotic act OR an evil act is to uphold the law against murder. Manslaughter is what is going on now. He has the power to defend these people, and he isn't doing it. Defending innocents is mentioned very explicitly again and again in literature relating to paladins, both within the SRD and in general fantasy. No Paladin worth his salt would EVER let 30 innocents be killed in this fashion, even if his sovereign king or the high priest of his order commanded it. |
| ciryx2k01-24-07, 03:25 AM | "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever..." (Win a cookie if you know what that's from/ difficulty rating 2 out of 5). Terminator 1 |
| CharlieRock01-24-07, 03:33 AM | Terminator 1 Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). The interrogation room scene. His next line (I think) was 'Let go of me!' as a police officer drags him away from ranting at the camera. |
| Stormbrand01-24-07, 03:51 AM | Manslaughter is what is going on now. And womanslaughter, and childslaughter. Terminator 1 Terminator, the most appropriate comparison for inevitables. In future, I will explain inevitables to newbies as a T800 with spellcasting. I feel compelled to offer my two copper pieces on the matter. I think the majority of us here feel the same way that I do, which is that the paladin has strayed from his code for various reasons. It is clear to me that the paladin is duty bound to protect the innocents to the best of his ability, even it means his own death in the process. The paladin is bound by the laws of HIS god first, and his country second. He is not bound to uphold the laws of any other deity, and that includes the laws of nature. He's not a freaking druid, he is a paladin. But an even bigger problem in my mind, and one of my hot topics when it comes to paladin arguments in general, is his lack of action or conviction. Paladins are, if anything, fanatics. They don't sit by idle. They act with unwaivering decisiveness and conviction. I see this all the time. As soon as the paladin has a moral conflict, they immediately step aside and let others do the work, while they "tend to the wounded" or offer words of encouragement. Sometimes they half-heartedly try to talk their friends out of committing some atrocity, but in the end they just sit by. Paladins simply don't sit by and watch injustice, with pained expression and heavy heart. THEY ACT. If this paladin believes that the marut's mission is good and just, why isn't he helping the marut slaughter the villagers? Because he KNOWS that would be an evil act. He knows it would be against the law of the land AND the law of HIS god. Yet he sits by and watches the marut slaughter the innocents, something he knows in his heart is wrong. And how about the paladin's companions? THEY tried to stop the marut. Why didn't the paladin stop his comrades from attempting to hinder the marut's "just mission?" Why didn't the paladin strike his companions down for their transgression against this "authority"? Because the paladin knows his companions were right, and to do so would be an evil act. And yet the paladin does nothing. A paladin picks a side, hopefully the right one--and if there is question in the paladin's mind, he can always ask his deity for a sign--and then fights for that side with all the passion his heart can muster. To the death, if need be. This whole "the paladin sits out the fight because he believes the fight is wrong" thing is utter bull. A paladin doesn't have the luxury to sit out a fit, and for that reason alone he has already fallen. That's my opinion. -Caver Excellent, I am in full agreement. Paladins don't do half-measures. Something is either right (and should be supported), wrong (and should be opposed) or exists outside his purview. Since there are body counts involved, he doesn't have the luxury of ignoring it. A character who could be crippled with indecision so would never have answered the call to take up the sword for justice. Mere existance as a paladin requires taking a side. You do raise an excellent question though, what has the paladin done to determine his duty in the matter? Communion? Consulting his priests? Give him the evil points he deserves Otherwise give gim the choaotic points he deserves However let him transfer gis Paly levels to those of any other combat class at no xp expense Palys are not people, they're illusions nobodies a paly 1, 2 & 3 I agree with. 4, not so much. How I live my life would be a fair model for a paladin, since my first thought for any decision is to act with honour and compassion in all things. Secondly, a lot of players don't memorize the MM1. I play with a guy who has been playing for about a year. Would he know (for sure) that a Marut isn't some sort of 'good monster'? Nopers. Does it matter if the Marut is appointed by higher forces? What it is doing is wrong. It doesn't matter what the creature represents, it needs to be stopped. |
| Amon_WinterfallIV01-24-07, 04:02 AM | Okay, The pally's got a problem. I'm not liking the Paladin's actions, but I think that one crucial piece of info has been missing-- does the PC know where the DM stands on this issue? While most people would see this as murder and wrong, Pally doesn't detect evil here, and recognizes that a higher purpose is at work here. 30 people die, but weren't they supposed to die? The Paladin needs answers and must act in full haste to do something meaningful here, but the real problem is this-- respectable forces greater than the Paladin might be at work here, and they might be good forces, for all the Pally knows. What illicit deal has been made here? Another problem is that even killing the Marut won't stop the inevitables. I tend to agree with the Paladin Suicide-Pact view, that RAW Paladins invariably get themselves killed in a noble cause. There are also very few paladins IMC. For the sake of the game, don't take away a Paladin's powers without warning and without meeting the reasonable person standard. |
| Lina_Inverse01-24-07, 04:22 AM | A paladin must respect legitimate authority, which objective law most definitely is, as he is a follower of such. However, he may not perform evil acts. An interesting point is this, not preventing evil is neutral not evil. Therefore the paladin was correct in respecting authority, as he would have been even if he performed evil(though he would have lost powers either way then.) The best possible action, would be convincing the marut that the guiltily was the ressurector and not the ressurectes, who were the victims of the crime. That would not be an incredibly tough diplomacy roll in all honesty. I also find it annoying how many of you don't understand that a paladins Vows trump his deity. If the vows and deity conflict, he must always follow the vows or lose paladin status. |
| CharlieRock01-24-07, 04:33 AM | Does it matter if the Marut is appointed by higher forces? What it is doing is wrong. It doesn't matter what the creature represents, it needs to be stopped. Actually, it would matter. If the player thought it was a 'good monster' then killing it would be bad. The player might have thought that some sort of diplomacy check was all that was needed, but sadly lacked that skill. The player could be very much wrong in this assumption. But, I'm not in the business of making player's decisions for them. I would recommend telling the paladin in-game that one is 'supposed' to protect the innocent. Like, a celestial slap on the back of the head. I would also recommend more intelligent use of Inevitable. |
| Andorxor01-24-07, 04:35 AM | Mechanus isn't a legimate authority on prime. |
| Koji01-24-07, 04:48 AM | Fighting is not the only way to solve a problem. A good paladin would be praying for guidance here. Perhaps his god can call off the Marut if the Paladin can complete some quest in time. Maybe the god lets the paladin know that while the law is important, it is often merciless, and mercy is the greatest virtue of all. If he's a paladin of Ilmater, he should be offering up his life in exchange for the lives of the innocent. I'm sure Ilmater would back him up on that and the Marut would consent to the exchange. If he's a paladin of St. Cuthbert or Helm, perhaps he has been placed before the Marut by divine providence, as a test of his faith. Should he interfere too heavily with the Marut's workings, he may have to atone. Paladins obviously vary by god. If he worships a more benevolent god, he may err on the side of mercy. If his god is more stern, he should follow that just the same. Remember that as the DM, you play the god that guides the little knight's actions. It is his faith that tests him, and it should be his faith that guides him. |
| CharlieRock01-24-07, 04:52 AM | Mechanus isn't a legimate authority on prime. Could be (campaign dependant). But, that is a miniscule, nit-picky issue. Really, though. Would a player know this? If they did, would their character? I do, but that's because I read Dragon magazine. My character would have to get his own issues ,though. |
| Archmage Atrus01-24-07, 07:28 AM | It strikes me that discussions like this is exactly why the word "grossly" is placed right in front of the word "violates" when determining whether the Paladin fails. "Grossly" implies "totally obvious to anyone." I think we can all agree that the Paladin isn't doing anything evil, and is in fact acting fairly Lawful Neutral. And there's nothing about "Cannot act Lawful Neutral." (Only a stricture about being Lawful Good, but I seriously doubt you would change his alignment only for this.) It all goes back to my primary operating theory: Paladins should never lose abilities because the DM wants to be a dick; and they should never permanently lose their abilities unless both player and DM agree to it. No player of a paladin (Unless he's completely clueless, which means he's operating under a clueless DM) would ever (willingly) grossly violate the Code. Every once in a while, they screw up and kill the wrong guy in a haze of battle fever, or mistreat someone in their zeal for truth or whatever. Sure, it happens, players aren't perfect - but that's why there's an atonement cost that's pretty cheap. As to the OP - your high and mighty theory about playing under a DM who will let you live and fall under your own actions: I hope you one day play under a DM that wants your characters to succeed and grow beyond your own measly preconceptions. I hope one day you'll have someone in your life to show you that there's a better way to do things than your own. I hope one day you can grow to the maturity that sometimes we have things to teach our fellow brothers and sisters, and that sometimes they have something to teach us. More importantly, I hope some day you realize that the characters we play are not ourselves, and that they know more (sometimes) than we do, and that is what Knowledge checks are for. If the character has a chance of knowing something the player should (Like, for example, what kind of an act would damn him for eternity,) the player should have that chance of knowing too. |
| Free198301-24-07, 07:42 AM | Wow, thanks for all the replies. You should have known that any thread with paladin in its title would get the attention of a lot of players :D I do believe this is a case where the player has weighed each side and decided this is the proper course, a decision I unfortunately disagree with. I don't think the situation is unfair, or the Marut is going rogue, but you are going to punish your player for a decision he took and you don't agree with. You should ask yourself why the player isn't agreeing with you?. Does he know that he will loose his paladin powers by following his decision? There is no problem at all if the player decides that his character is willingly and consciencely breaking his code and is prepared to face the consequences. That would be a helluva player and you may salute him for me :clap:. But the actual question is: Does the player realizes he's breaking his code? Perhaps he understands the code differently than you. In that case you owe it to your player to tell him what the code is about. Your player will be very dissappointed when you ground him if he thought he was doing alright :(. If your player shares your view on the code, I'd say "go ahead, strip him", but if this is not the case, then you should really reconsider. Cheers |
| Andorxor01-24-07, 07:49 AM | Why should someone think that a extraplanar power,which has no real interest in the prime,beside the breaking of some selfdefined laws,is a legimate authority? |
| MindLich01-24-07, 08:01 AM | He should get stripped of his powers by this. The reason being that he is accomplishing the lawful part of his code, but the greater good comes first, and those innocents are that, innocents. He should save them, if not he should figure out the concecuences. Please, only give him a warning and explain him his code. Probably it is a misinterpretation of the code by the player, not an intentional violation. |
| Cantankerous01-24-07, 08:50 AM | The point being that the villageras didn't raise anyone at all, and each villager was only raised once. No-one is saying the Marut should not kill the healer who raised the villagers, they are quetioning why it is killing all the raised villagers as well. The bit about innocents lower down the text you quted clearly implies it should be leaving the villagers alone. Here we have something that is called in juresprudence: "the fruit of the poisoned tree". Basicly it means that you (or others) aren't allowed to profit from your deeds in abrogation of the law; in essence the items get confiscated, or in cases where this is impractical, they get destroyed. And no, the text does NOT imply those that were raised were the innocents, but rather their neighbors, children, whatever were. In other words you can't burn the house down to get the father hiding inside when there are six other people in there with him. THEY are the innocents. Remember, the Maruts are EXTREMELY legalistic. They don't care one whit for good or evil, but only that the balance is maintained. Their decisions will be the epitome of BLIND legalism, devoid of mercy or compassion. Isshia |
| Shriven01-24-07, 09:23 AM | <condescending rant about 'moral dilemmas' and 'facing RP requirements'> I have no problem with moral dilemmas per se. I have a problem with moral dilemmas where the DM has already decided what the correct answer is. They turn the game from- 'Ooh, a moral dilemma. Let's all explore this moral quandary from our characters' perspectives so we can have fun roleplaying' to- 'Ooh, a moral dilemma. Let's all try to second-guess what the DM has already decided is the right answer, so we don't fall.' Seriously, if the DM is going to impose their own moral solutions on such problems, they might as well be playing on their own. The paladin's code is there to promote interesting roleplaying opportunities, not to mechanically balance the class or allow the DM to whack a player who doesn't fit their moral perceptions. /rant. |
| Boraxe01-24-07, 09:42 AM | I don't think the player is being cowardly, but I do think he is failing to match up to the requirements of the class. If in the next encounter he does not try to stop the Marut, I'm planning to bar him from Paladin till he accomplishes an attonement (as per the class description). Is this too harsh? Is this act of ommission, reasoned as it is, enough to mark a critical violation of his code of conduct? The paladin is not playing his part. It doesn't matter if the foe is good or evil. Nowhere in the paladin's code or teh D&D alignment system does it say that good cannot fight good. The paladin's priority here should be to protect the innocents. The Marut may represent the inevitability of death but by his nature, and his passel of healing and protective spells and abilities, the paladin fights against that inevitability. I am sure we are all familiar with the Edmund Burke quote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." In essence, the paladin's raison d'etre is to fight against that, to do something where others do not in order to prevent evil from flourishing. This PC's inaction is altogther un-paladinlike behaviour. To stand by and let this happen is simply wrong. If I were DM he would recieve some kind of clue that the powers-that-be are not pleased with his inaction. If it happens again after than he should fall until he attones for his inappropriate behaviour. |
| Cantankerous01-24-07, 10:02 AM | But Dave, there are alternate and still correct ways to play the Paladin. You can over use the "protect the innocents angle" to force a Paladins Player into all kinds of no win situations as well and because of THAT the DM should not FORCE the Paladin to act in any given manner that he (the DM) and the Player did not agree on before hand. You "could" invoke that protect the innocent thing in an evil Empire, stating that the Paladin who does not act to protect the innocent, irregardless of the situation, is to be stripped of his powers until he Atones. That's ludicrous and makes the class wholely unplayable. You can not use RAW absolutes in judging the Paladins actions, but ONLY those agreements as to what is meant by the RAW as is worked out ahead of time between the DM and his Player. Isshia |
| kintire01-24-07, 10:11 AM | A paladin must respect legitimate authority, which objective law most definitely is, as he is a follower of such. It seems to me the only problem comes from this statement, which is false. A Paladin is Lawful Good. That absolutely does not mean that he is both Lawful and Good. He does not believe that you have to follow both the dictates of Mechanus and the dicates of Elysium: He believes that Celestia is where its at. Lawful Good is an ideology of its own, not an uncomfortable blend of two purer ones. This means that the Paladin is absolutely not obliged in any way to accept the authority of a Marut. A Marut comes from Mechanus, which is the font of an ideology the Paladin rejects. Mechanus is a joyless law, lacking any goals worth pursuing; a blankly mechanistic bureaucracy. A Paladin will oppose its agents and seek to limit their influence, although may be better disposed to them than more distant alignments. But "better disposed" will mean "holding out more hope for their conversion" not "accepting their point of view". And if they are committing evil acts, the Paladin will have no compunction in destroying them. |
| Boraxe01-24-07, 10:14 AM | But Dave, there are alternate and still correct ways to play the Paladin. Absolutely, I'm just giving my take on it just as, I assume, others give theirs. Persoanlly, I think that most people make paladins a lot more complicated than they need to be. It is like adding that one extra bit about the paladin's code short-circuits common sense. IMO people need to stop overthinking it so much and just play the damned game. |
| CharlieRock01-24-07, 10:43 AM | I have no problem with moral dilemmas per se. I have a problem with moral dilemmas where the DM has already decided what the correct answer is. They turn the game from- 'Ooh, a moral dilemma. Let's all explore this moral quandary from our characters' perspectives so we can have fun roleplaying' to- 'Ooh, a moral dilemma. Let's all try to second-guess what the DM has already decided is the right answer, so we don't fall.' Seriously, if the DM is going to impose their own moral solutions on such problems, they might as well be playing on their own. The paladin's code is there to promote interesting roleplaying opportunities, not to mechanically balance the class or allow the DM to whack a player who doesn't fit their moral perceptions. /rant. But Dave, there are alternate and still correct ways to play the Paladin. You can over use the "protect the innocents angle" to force a Paladins Player into all kinds of no win situations as well and because of THAT the DM should not FORCE the Paladin to act in any given manner that he (the DM) and the Player did not agree on before hand. You "could" invoke that protect the innocent thing in an evil Empire, stating that the Paladin who does not act to protect the innocent, irregardless of the situation, is to be stripped of his powers until he Atones. That's ludicrous and makes the class wholely unplayable. You can not use RAW absolutes in judging the Paladins actions, but ONLY those agreements as to what is meant by the RAW as is worked out ahead of time between the DM and his Player. Isshia Shriven and Cant-kor stole my thunder here. Either a moral exercise is an opportunity to think about your character and role-playing difficult decisions, or the DM is on a power trip rewarding those whose views coincide with his. The reward should come in the form of reinforced in-depth characters. |
| Free198301-24-07, 10:45 AM | You can not use RAW absolutes in judging the Paladins actions, but ONLY those agreements as to what is meant by the RAW as is worked out ahead of time between the DM and his Player. Isshia Amen to that ;) |
| wrecan01-24-07, 11:23 AM | One other quick thing. I really do want to say I'm sorry to all of those people who feel I should take the player aside and tell him he's about to violate his oath. I hope that some day, you get a chance to play in a game where the DM allows you to actually play your character, succeed or fail on your own choices, and in general play like an adult.And I hope some day you learn not to respond to criticism with infantile condenscension. The point of the matter is that if the DM (that's you) and the player have not discussed in detail what the paladin's code is, then it is wrong for a DM to slap a PC for violating this unwritten code that the player is supposed to magically extract from your brain. In such circumstances, it's perfectly valid, and some would say, a sign of maturity and -- dare I say it -- friendship, for the DM to tell the player what his character's code demands. Remember that the player only sits in the character's shoes for a few hours a week, at most, while the PC is, theoretically, a paldin all the time. I find it incredibly unjust to slap a player for not knowing the paladin's code as well as the PC himself does. Which is not to say the PC didn't err, but as others have said, the fault lies with you for not having discussed the code with the player before the game even began. Having screwed that up, it was incumbent upon you to have the discussion as soon as a problem presented itself, such as before he violates the code you imagine he should be bound do. Failing that, punishing the player for his character violating a rule the player didn't know about (but should have been informed) is the height of arbitrary DMing. The Golden Rule of DMing any class with a moral restriction (bard, barbarian, cleric, monk, paladin, druid) is that the PC should not be punished for violating the moral code until after the DM and player have discussed what that code entails. The question is only heightened for paladins because they receive so little leeway. |
| Free198301-24-07, 12:05 PM | And I hope some day you learn not to respond to criticism with infantile condenscension. Let's not get hostile ;) The point of the matter is that if the DM (that's you) and the player have not discussed in detail what the paladin's code is, then it is wrong for a DM to slap a PC for violating this unwritten code that the player is supposed to magically extract from your brain. Amen to that too :D |
| wrecan01-24-07, 12:50 PM | Let's not get hostile ;) I generally try to remain even-handed. Nevertheless, I wish he hadn't accused those who disagree with him of not "play[ing] like an adult." |
| Free198301-24-07, 01:40 PM | I generally try to remain even-handed. Nevertheless, I wish he hadn't accused those who disagree with him of not "play[ing] like an adult." Most flame-wars begin with people thinking they are acting even-handed. Best way to prevent hem is to do better than your counterpart. Though I agree that Mauler places his gaming style above other gaming styles, which isn't really the nicest thing to do. |
| wrecan01-24-07, 02:16 PM | Best way to prevent hem is to do better than your counterpart. Point taken. I apologize to Mauler for calling his reponse to criticism "infantile condescension." |
| pres_man01-24-07, 02:20 PM | I would generally agree with wrecan, CharlieRock, Shriven, Cantankerous, and others that a DM should discuss issues with a paladin before effecting some kind of in game consequence. Yet in this case, I have to disagree. The standard rules clearly say a paladin must protect innocents and stop those that would harm them, it is as clear as saying a (medium) greataxe does 1d12 damage. If the player wants to a paladin that has other responsibilities and not these, i.e. a houseruled version of a paladin, that is the player's responsibility to discuss it with the DM, not the other way around. Also this is not a moral dilemna in the slightest. Paladins must protect innocents and stop those that would harm them. The inevitable is harming innocents and the paladin has already agree to this fact (see the DM's posts). Thus by default the paladin must try to stop him. No dilemna what-so-ever, this is not the DM deciding how the class should work, it is how the class is designed to be. Also let us remember, it is impossible to kill an inevitable, just as you can't kill a car (except maybe K.I.T.T. ;) ), it is a construct, not even a living one like a warforged. So all you can do is destroy it. If there is a decision between destroying a construct and saving innocent lives, or not destroying a construct and allowing innocents to be killed, I fail to see how a paladin could be confused in the slighest. |
| CharlieRock01-24-07, 02:56 PM | just as you can't kill a car (except maybe K.I.T.T. ;) ), Michael, we're in trouble. :cool: |
| Necrosis01-24-07, 03:17 PM | I had trouble readign through this thread but its a intresting puzzle :). As has been said previosuyl, 1) If you rule hes in violation-You have to gvie some kind of heads up to the pally that he is about to knowly break his code, he would know even if his player doesn't! Just in case this hasn't been mentioned 2) What about letting the villagers die for the greater good? Unblanceing the soul balnce of the material plane is undoubtable a chaotic, almsot evil act since it could a) stop new souls manifesting, b) prevent others from entering their various afterlives!! There will be good and compelling reasons why the invetable was dispatched, DM-make some up that fit! :) If law is the greater good for the many, some would say it trumps indivduals goods actions. |
| pres_man01-24-07, 03:47 PM | Let me say that I definitely agree that a sign should be given to the paladin before the hammer falls. I personally as a DM prefer to lead by example. So for myself, I would create a situation where a woman and her child were killed by the inevitable, in clearly a cruel fashion (having a sword run through is not the most peaceful way to leave the mortal coil). While the paladin is doing the rites, another paladin (lower level) shows up sees what was done gets righteously angry. "What kind of monster would kill an unarmed woman in such a vicious way! ... And her Child! Where is the beast, the God's vengenous shall be on it by my hand, or I shall die trying! Come warrior draw steal and laydown your prayers, we will pray together once the FIEND is vanguished!" He then spurs off after the inevitable whether the paladin follows or not. With other NPCs shouting praises to him and giving the paladin disapproving looks if he does not follow to aid. |
| Cantankerous01-24-07, 03:55 PM | I would generally agree with wrecan, CharlieRock, Shriven, Cantankerous, and others that a DM should discuss issues with a paladin before effecting some kind of in game consequence. Yet in this case, I have to disagree. The standard rules clearly say a paladin must protect innocents and stop those that would harm them, it is as clear as saying a (medium) greataxe does 1d12 damage. If the player wants to a paladin that has other responsibilities and not these, i.e. a houseruled version of a paladin, that is the player's responsibility to discuss it with the DM, not the other way around. Also this is not a moral dilemna in the slightest. Paladins must protect innocents and stop those that would harm them. The inevitable is harming innocents and the paladin has already agree to this fact (see the DM's posts). Thus by default the paladin must try to stop him. No dilemna what-so-ever, this is not the DM deciding how the class should work, it is how the class is designed to be. Also let us remember, it is impossible to kill an inevitable, just as you can't kill a car (except maybe K.I.T.T. ;) ), it is a construct, not even a living one like a warforged. So all you can do is destroy it. If there is a decision between destroying a construct and saving innocent lives, or not destroying a construct and allowing innocents to be killed, I fail to see how a paladin could be confused in the slighest. That's all well and good, if you've defined what an innocent is. If an innocent is merely a non-combatant then you've got the Paladin held to an impossible standard. If it is any person not directly capable of defending themselves in a given situation, ditto. What exactly makes an innocent. Here we also go back to the "fruit of the poisoned tree" arguement and also to what it means to be a Paladin. Are ALL Paladins saintly? Not according to alot of official (if non-Core) WotC sources. Again, the Harmonium is rife with Paladins who would stand aside and say a simple prayer for those who are about to die. While it may be unfortunate, they may not be "innocents" and certainly are not to the Marut that is killing them off. Personally, I couldn't imagine running a Paladin who thought or acted that way... but it has official precedent so it NEEDS to be properly delianated ahead of time. The Player can NOT be expected to read the DMs mind and THIS does have precedent. If it isn't hammered out ahead of time, the DM shouldn't simply whip out the beat stick now. He should NOW discuss it with the Player so that in the future there are no such misunderstandings, but he should not expect the Player to exercise telepathy. Isshia |
| pres_man01-24-07, 03:59 PM | That's all well and good, if you've defined what an innocent is. If an innocent is merely a non-combatant then you've got the Paladin held to an impossible standard. If it is any person not directly capable of defending themselves in a given situation, ditto. What exactly makes an innocent. Isshia Except that no matter what definition of "innocent" we are using, the paladin in this game has already admitted that the people being killed are it, innocent that is, according to the DM. The paladin is not saying that they are not innocent. So my reading of the rules, if they are innocent (which the paladin does accept in this case), then the paladin has to defend them and stop those who would harm them. Now if the paladin was arguing that they weren't innocent, sure I see your point, but that doesn't seem to be the paladin's argument. |
| Cantankerous01-24-07, 04:12 PM | Except that no matter what definition of "innocent" we are using, the paladin in this game has already admitted that the people being killed are it, innocent that is, according to the DM. The paladin is not saying that they are not innocent. So my reading of the rules, if they are innocent (which the paladin does accept in this case), then the paladin has to defend them and stop those who would harm them. Now if the paladin was arguing that they weren't innocent, sure I see your point, but that doesn't seem to be the paladin's argument. Where'd he say that? I must have missed it. Isshia |
| Boraxe01-24-07, 04:20 PM | Quick solution: DM says "Dude, these people are innocents and you're a paladin. Get your ass in there and defend them you freakin' wuss or you're gonna lose all your paladin powers." That should about cover it. ;) |
| kelvinaw27301-24-07, 04:24 PM | I will qualify mny statement from earlier, that the paladin should be stripped. The marut's authority is meaningless. It is currently killing innocents, an evil act. This does not make the marut evil, but it's actions are. from this: As I said, this isn't an issue of the players not being aware of what a Marut is (they weren't at the time, but they did the right thing and educated themselves in game), and it isn't a case of the character or player being cowardly (if I thought that was the case, I wouldn;t have posted this question). I do believe this is a case where the player has weighed each side and decided this is the proper course, a decision I unfortunately disagree with. The twist in this case is that a wrong decision (if it is in fact wrong) has a mechanical result by the rules. The paladin has clearly made an ethical choice: that although the marut is doing evil, this is in accordence with law, and thus should not be halted. The paladin has decided that innocence of any crime is no defence against punishment, in effect. To my mind, this changes his alignment to lawful neutral. As he is no longer lawful good, he must lose his powers as a paladin. However, this is atonable, in my view, if he becomes LG again he should be able to regain his powers. Having a child with a sickle (commoner 1, fledgeling paladin) rush out and try to prevent the marut slaying their mother, for example, is a good demonstration that the paladin is in the wrong. Finding the bodioes of others who tried to stop it slaying their families should make the point that the marut isn't just killing the resurected - it is killing any and everything in its path. I don't know about you, but stopping a mindless killing machine definitely comes under required duty for a paladin. |
| pres_man01-24-07, 04:32 PM | Where'd he say that? I must have missed it. Isshia No problem, he said it here: My concern in this case is that the paladin has acknowledged that the risen are innocent, but has decided they should die due to the law. He's subordinating good to law, but also failing in the Paladin's code "...help those in need, and punish those who harm or threaten innocents." The characters are well informed of the situation. They have met the risen and have no reason to believe they are anything other than what they appear. They interacted with the first group killed, and actually know (in passing) some of the risen who are fleeing. The group discussed the situation extensively, and the innocence of the resurrected was never in question. It was accepted and understood from the begining that they were average folk who met a violent end were brought back by exceptional means. Now of course we aren't actually hearing from the paladin player himself, so this might not be accurate, but that is all we have at the moment (Mauther, you might suggest to the paladin that he come and give his "side"). |
| Cantankerous01-24-07, 04:32 PM | I will qualify mny statement from earlier, that the paladin should be stripped. The marut's authority is meaningless. It is currently killing innocents, an evil act. This does not make the marut evil, but it's actions are. from this: The paladin has clearly made an ethical choice: that although the marut is doing evil, this is in accordence with law, and thus should not be halted. The paladin has decided that innocence of any crime is no defence against punishment, in effect. To my mind, this changes his alignment to lawful neutral. As he is no longer lawful good, he must lose his powers as a paladin. However, this is atonable, in my view, if he becomes LG again he should be able to regain his powers. Having a child with a sickle (commoner 1, fledgeling paladin) rush out and try to prevent the marut slaying their mother, for example, is a good demonstration that the paladin is in the wrong. Finding the bodioes of others who tried to stop it slaying their families should make the point that the marut isn't just killing the resurected - it is killing any and everything in its path. I don't know about you, but stopping a mindless killing machine definitely comes under required duty for a paladin. This isn't the case here from the quote you referenced. It said only that: I do believe this is a case where the player has weighed each side and decided this is the proper course, a decision I unfortunately disagree with. Which would actually seem to indicate the direct opposite. The Player thought that by the rules he was following the proper course of action. Why? It seems likely that the why is "because what the proper course was" was never actually discussed, so the DM really IS demanding that the Player read his mind and when the Player couldn't, he was being penalized for it. That seems VERY cut and dried. Isshia |
| UniversalSnip01-24-07, 04:41 PM | I haven't read through the whole thread (just the first page,) but some people seem to believe the marut has neccesarily gone berserk, or rogue, or is being commanded by someone evil. If you commit both good and evil acts according to the law's view of the situation, that is lawful neutral. LN is not LG. If the law is overtly evil, you are LE if you follow it; but LN law is -also- not LG law. Neutral law would call for both good and evil acts. The marut is perfectly within its functions to do this. |
| pres_man01-24-07, 04:45 PM | The marut is perfectly within its functions to do this. Right (to an extent), it is the paladin that is malfunctioning (being LG but acting LN). |
| Boraxe01-24-07, 04:50 PM | IMO whenever law and good come into conflict the paladin should err on the side of good. |
| Stormbrand01-24-07, 05:09 PM | 2) What about letting the villagers die for the greater good? Unblanceing the soul balnce of the material plane is undoubtable a chaotic, almsot evil act since it could a) stop new souls manifesting, b) prevent others from entering their various afterlives!! There will be good and compelling reasons why the invetable was dispatched, DM-make some up that fit! :) If law is the greater good for the many, some would say it trumps indivduals goods actions. How is slaughter of the blameless the greater good? About unbalancing the soul balance, says who? No evidence reinforces your claim. And how would it make a difference? By what logic would it have effects? Paladins are not druids, they are against balance, they just prefer it to evil. Finally, the Paladin mentallity is violently opposed to "doing evil for the greater good." In a paladin's mind, you CANNOT do good by doing evil. |
| Cantankerous01-25-07, 01:30 AM | No problem, he said it here: Now of course we aren't actually hearing from the paladin player himself, so this might not be accurate, but that is all we have at the moment (Mauther, you might suggest to the paladin that he come and give his "side"). Yep, in this instance you're right. I had missed that. If the guy acknowledges that they were innocents and still stands by and does nothing, not even just trying to get them out of the Maruts path, then he's beyond the pale by his own admission. Isshia |
| Mauther01-25-07, 02:52 AM | I should start of by admitting I probably (no, certainly) over reacted in my second response. Several of the responses either implied or outright stated that I shouldn't punish the character because the whole situation was caused by me powertripping or getting my rocks off by lording over my players. That's more than a little insulting to me since a) I'm playing with my friends and your basically accusing me of abusing my friends based on a portion of a single incedent, b) I've got about 2 decades experience gaming (I started far too young and kept going far too long) frequently as DM, GM, ST, ref, etc... and your accusing me of being unprofessional, and c) I'm an adult and your accusing me of acting like a spoiled adolescent. While that's an explanation for why I responded as I did, it's not an excuse. If I had a problem with your perceived tone, it doesn't excuse me doing it back; so sorry. Suffice it to say, I and several of the posters have different views over how to DM. I view the manner they are advocating as one step above railroading, they view mine as requiring the players to make difficult if not impossible decisions without sufficient information (they would probably have a more colorful description for mine). They've probably had a poor experience with a DM who plays my way, I certainly have had problems with DM who run they way they are advocating. Its obvious we would never game together succesfully, but that's ok. That really is a discussion that could take up another whole thread, and I'm sure already has a couple of times. Suffice it to say, the style I am running is the accepted method of our group. Let's leave it at that. That being said, let's get down to brass tacks. Please proceed under the assumption that the following are true. I know not everyone will agree with the specifics, but this is what the players in game have agreed as a consensus: The resurrected are innocent. The Inevitable is functioning properly. The characters and players have had sufficent time to research and discuss the situation. The characters know the Marut will relentlessly hunt and kill every individual it views as part of the transgression. The relevant points about "protecting the innocent" and "law not equating to Justice" have been made in character. The players have already witnessed the Inevitable's method of setting things straight (ie: blunt force trauma to a seven year old boy). The players have already been presented with the arguement in game (via the watch commander) that Mechanus Law need not agree with righteous/good law. Additionally, please also bear in mind the following which I am taking as granted (either from experience with the player or due to my position as DM: The paladin is aware of the paladin's code as described in the PHB. The characters have access to divinations (both via their PCs and through NPC contacts in the immediate vicinity) that would shed further light on the subject or the moral consequences. The paladin's actions are not based upon cruel or malacious intent, so there will be no alignment shift, and if powers are removed an atonement would definetly be possible. Killing the Inevitable is not the only way to save the ressurrected. Two ironies, I should point out. When I said I intended this as a moral exercise, I wasn't refering to the paladin. I frankly never imagined a paladin accepting a construct bludgeoning a child to death. The dilemma was intended for the other two characters. They hemmed and hawed back and forth about all sort of philosphy (law vs good, law of the universe vs law of the land, law vs justice, the importance of death vs the value of life, etc), the paladin made his decision in less than a minute and never looked back. Also, this whole arguement may be moot as the party cleric is intending to go at the Marut with a pocket full of Dismissals, mathematically he's got about a 50/50 chance to beat its SR, and a 50/50 chance to beat its will save each time. And, as an aside, if this was some sort of power trip or screw job, I would have hit the characters with the old "demonic-looking creature getting ready to kill a puppy" routine, where the PCs kill the demonic looking creature who is actually a rare celestial being, and the innocent little puppy turns out to be Vaxraz the Unholy Prince of the Abyss. |
| Red1201-25-07, 03:04 AM | (oops double post... stupid server reset....) |
| Red1201-25-07, 03:05 AM | I agree entirely with Cantakerous, CharlieRock, and the numerous others who I have not the motivation to list. I believe this to be a breakdown of communication between the DM and Player. A Paladin should never unknowingly lose his powers. If he does, it is caused by either (and often several) a ) DM putting the Paladin in a no-win situation b ) Not defining what is a part of the Paladin's code BEFOREHAND c ) DM putting forth his own Moral judgement on any given situation and expecting his players to know and agree with this In any of these cases, it is the DM's fault. It's the DM's obligation to not cause or do any of the above. No way around this. A player SHOULD KNOW when he is breaking his code. If it is undefined, then it should be explained (well, tim, saving the innocent is much more important than upholding some laws from some plane. A paladin with your code would feel obligated to...) Ask the player if he thinks he is following, or wants to follow the code. If he believes he is and wants to, then its your obligation to let him know he's breaking it. If he wants his character to break the code, its a non-issue. If the player wants the paladin to be going through a "moral dilemma" then it is pretty much an *atonment* deal. I remember playing in a game when I was playing a suspicious type character, the brother of a baron. He had written in his diary he thought the barony was being misshandled, and he listened in on his brothers conversation from behind a door. The next thing I know, I'm being beheaded for treason. I was given no warning that my actions would bring about a death sentence. (If I had known that, I wouldnt have done it...) Both the DM and the Player of the Baron (a fellow PC) gave me no indication that I was on the fast track to a noose for my actions. To this day, I still feel a bit cheated with that character. Perhaps it is where I get my urge to try and get everything in stone before hand... So yeah, if the player wants to be a paladin and thinks he is acting in proper code (and you think he is not) then you must tell him what the proper course of action to remain on the good with the code is. Failing that, and you have condemned yourself to the infinate plane of DM *******s ;) |
| Mauther01-25-07, 03:08 AM | Here we have something that is called in juresprudence: "the fruit of the poisoned tree". Cantankerous, I meant to thank you for using that phrase. I was trying to use it in my post, but all I could remember were "poisoned" and "fruit" and I knew it wasn't "poisoned fruit." Additionally I did want to thank everyone for your comments about the dilema. While I still have a hard time seeing how those actions don't constitue a violation of the code, you have shown how that course of inaction could be taken without it being a complete balk on the moral/ethical question. While I haven't been convinced that the action doesn't constitue a "gross violation" of the code, you have demonstrated that it does not rank as "deliberate misdeed" or "acts of a knowing and willful nature." |
| Cantankerous01-25-07, 03:51 AM | Hi Mauther. First, your welcome. Second, I agree with you now. As I said to Pres-man, I missed the part about the Paladin's admittance that the raised were innocents. At that point, with more than just a few, I'd have to say that it indeed IS a gross violation of the Code. Unfortunately earlier all I had remembered from your earlier posts were: I do believe this is a case where the player has weighed each side and decided this is the proper course, a decision I unfortunately disagree with. and took that to mean that as is all too often the case, a lack of communication was the core reason that he had decided that this WAS the proper course of action. There was no intent on my part to accuse YOU of power tripping. I did say that such actions, defrocking the Paladin because the Player can't read the DMs mind, were power tripping. If an interpretation of the Code IS agreed upon ahead of time, there is FAR less room (not none, but that's the nature of communication unfortunately) for error on either part. Isshia |
| Free198301-25-07, 04:20 AM | I guess you're right Mauther and as the paladin knows they are innocent, knows that he laws of Mechanus don't apply, he should also know that he should stand up against the Marut. Your last thread gave a lot of information to back the case of stripping up ;), so you're in your right to strip the guy (although I would give him one last warning, but that's just me and as you said, certain playing styles are not above other playing styles). Hope you have a good gaming session, Cheers |
| CharlieRock01-25-07, 08:45 AM | What is this paladin player thinking? Does he just hate rolling dice? Sometimes a player may let the 'player vs. DM' mentality subvert communication essential to good game playing. If the player has all the data, but still makes a :uh-huh: decision, they are up to something (or really don't know the rules.) Does the player know what fallen means? All I know is, I thought I knew what this thread was about, until I got home from work. :D P.S. Seems like the problem was solved before it was posted. Just not wholly admitted to. |
| EvilVegan01-25-07, 11:04 AM | So are we all agreeing that the paladin needs to be placed in a yellow, sissy dress and demoted to druid? Seriously though, I've DMd for at least one paladin recently who willingly fell to a neutral status as part of his character's development. He became more of a force like a Marut at this point. But as a side note I DIDN'T take his powers away. I changed them, because secretly his powers stopped coming from the forces of good and started coming from the God of Death. So his character always thought he was doing good, but actually killed several innocents because they had come back to life. There were outside circumstances for all of this as well, but it made a neat story. |
| pres_man01-25-07, 02:11 PM | I agree with the others. At this point you should ask the player if they intend on having their paladin fall, they may. Also I understand your desire not lead your players around by the nose but in this case I think you need to separate the player from the character. The player should be informed as to the consequences of their character's actions. I know it should be obvious, but so should the consequences of a character with a 8 STR, no ranks in jump, below 30' speed, and trying to jump over a gap 25' wide. Not everybody reads the rules or remembers them, sometimes the DM has to give them a bit of reminder. "You know from previous experiences the farthest you have ever jumped was 13 feet, you'd probably know that 25' is probably outside of your range." |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 03:26 PM | How is slaughter of the blameless the greater good? About unbalancing the soul balance, says who? No evidence reinforces your claim. And how would it make a difference? By what logic would it have effects? Paladins are not druids, they are against balance, they just prefer it to evil. Finally, the Paladin mentallity is violently opposed to "doing evil for the greater good." In a paladin's mind, you CANNOT do good by doing evil. In responsne I'm suggestting by protecting the innocents hunted by the inevitable, you may actually be harming other innocents yet unborn AND harming the souls of the hunted innocents themselves. While this would be aborahnt to a free will loving chaotic good character, a lawful good charater should be less horrfified. The universe has laws for a reason!!! |
| Boraxe01-25-07, 03:56 PM | In responsne I'm suggestting by protecting the innocents hunted by the inevitable, you may actually be harming other innocents yet unborn AND harming the souls of the hunted innocents themselves. What a load of pseudo-philosophical bunk. Paladins are warriors, not philosophers. Their duty and oath is to protect the innocent, not let them get slaughtered cos some frakking construct says it's for the greater good. It doesn't matter one fig what the future may hold, in the hear-and-now the Marut is killing innocents and the paladin's duty is to protect those innocetns. There is no dilemma, there is no question, and there is no conflict of interest. Any paladin who does not get this is not a paladin. While this would be aborahnt to a free will loving chaotic good character, a lawful good charater should be less horrfified. The universe has laws for a reason!!! No, this is equally as horrifying to any good character. Note to self: in future all BBEG will desgin evil killer constructs to look like Marut so that paladins will let them kill innocents. |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 04:14 PM | Laws are generally for good reasons. Is this law one of them? The Paladin must at least consider this question before interfering with one of the ultiamte devices of blind justice! He knows these peps should be dead but have avoided death-they choose to returen to the material plane despite knowing they had died. He also knows that this may have had some consequences (the celestial realms and afterlives are real and meaniful in DnD, not phlysiphical claptrap). All of these raise doubts on what is the good action. Protect the obvious innocents or consider the other potential innocents that the law may protecting (usally laws are enacted to protect someone weahter an indvdual or society). Fianlly paladisn are warriors of good and law, that doesn't give them the right to blindly kill evil people and hide behind their code. They know that the obvious blunt decsion may well be the wrong one, so they can't blindly wade in sword a swinging. There may be more to it than they know (considering a invetiable has shown up, its quite likly). The key points -Are these innocents (they did choose to returen from their places in the celestial realms)? -If they are innocents, will breakign the law that condeams them do other damage-is this a law that exsists to protect others? The presecene of the inevtiable suggests it may. |
| pres_man01-25-07, 04:30 PM | Laws are generally for good reasons. So laws written by lawful evil societies probably are for "good" reasons as well? |
| Boraxe01-25-07, 04:32 PM | Laws are generally for good reasons. Is this law one of them? The Paladin must at least consider this question before interfering with one of the ultiamte devices of blind justice! He knows these peps should be dead but have avoided death-they choose to returen to the material plane despite knowing they had died. He also knows that this may have had some consequences (the celestial realms and afterlives are real and meaniful in DnD, not phlysiphical claptrap). All of these raise doubts on what is the good action. Protect the obvious innocents or consider the other potential innocents that the law may protecting (usally laws are enacted to protect someone weahter an indvdual or society). Paladins are not priests and they are not philosophers, they are warriros. Their duty is to prevent evil and protect innocents in teh hear-and-now, not to fart around with "potential innocents" and other such claptrap. Paladins are not fence-sitters, they do not debate about cosmological potentialities, they act. A paladin who does not get this is not a paladin. Fianlly paladisn are warriors of good and law, that doesn't give them the right to blindly kill evil people and hide behind their code. They know that the obvious blunt decsion may well be the wrong one, so they can't blindly wade in sword a swinging. There may be more to it than they know (considering a invetiable has shown up, its quite likly). No, but it does give them the right to protect innocents from evil actions no matter what the alignment of the actor. A paladin who fights a marut that is killing innocents is not acting "blindly." The key points -Are these innocents (they did choose to returen from their places in the celestial realms)? -If they are innocents, will breakign the law that condeams them do other damage-is this a law that exsists to protect others? The presecene of the inevtiable suggests it may. - Yes - That is for philosophers and scholars to decide. The paladin's duty is to protect the innocent and that is what he should do. Any paladin that does not get this is not a paladin. All of this junk advocating paladins sitting by while innocents get slaughtered cos it might serve a greater good really brings home to me how many people simply do not understand paladins. |
| pres_man01-25-07, 04:40 PM | All of this junk advocating paladins sitting by while innocents get slaughtered cos it might serve a greater good really brings home to me how many people simply do not understand paladins. Hah! It is you my friend that do not understand paladins! A paladin should not only allow innocents to be slaughtered, but should actually do the slaughtering themselves. Why you might wonder? Well if they are good, by killing them you send them to the celestial realms before they can be tempt to fall. If they are neutral you keep them from being tempted and going to the abyssal planes, (I don't run games with "innocent" evil beings so I won't address that situation). So paladins begin running everyone through! Send the good to the celestials, send the evil to the abyss, everybody else to whereever! ;) |
| Palin the Wizard01-25-07, 05:07 PM | All kidding aside, pres_man, that would make a fine Blackguard. |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 05:24 PM | paladisn are warrior hippies touched by the gods-h@ll yes they are phylisophical. They judge otehrs actions and right evil in the world-therefore they are well aware of -Conseqeunces of actions (these are what they judge daily) -Greater goods So undoubtable they would apply these standrads to their own behaviour (remember they apply them to others daily). So any paladin must at least stop to consider what are the consquences of my actions? What is the greater good? Which choice is the good one? They can't jsut protect any innocent automatically regardless of consquences for everytihng else in the universe. To do so would be irresponsible and bordering on evil! |
| Boraxe01-25-07, 05:34 PM | All kidding aside, pres_man, that would make a fine Blackguard. Actually, satire aside, that pres_man's bit wouldn't be a bad description of how a paladin could, over time, become a blackguard without even realizing it. |
| Boraxe01-25-07, 05:35 PM | paladisn are warrior hippies touched by the gods If that is what you think then you really do not grasp paladins in the slightest. |
| Free198301-25-07, 05:39 PM | They can't jsut protect any innocent automatically regardless of consquences for everytihng else in the universe. To do so would be irresponsible and bordering on evil! Well, I might be tempted to follow this argumentation (stop me Pres & Borax :D), but in this case the OP and DM told us that the paladin is aware that these people are innocent AND that there isn't any law or higher principle in play. The players even discussed it among themselves and the paladin knows that they are innocent and that the marut is not the incarnation of some higher good. Your points might be good, but in this specific case, you just got yourself in trouble ;). Cheers |
| Tiberia01-25-07, 05:40 PM | I disagree with Necrosis the Greater Good as espoused by Xena is a Chaotic Good doctrine. Baby has Plague, either kill the baby or the whole town dies. Lawful Good is a list of thou shalt nots including thou shalt not hurt the innocent. Consequences of actions is Chaotic. Lawful is doing the right thing and having faith that right action leads to right consequence. Paladins must protect any innocent they meet. |
| Palin the Wizard01-25-07, 05:52 PM | Actually, no. Lawful characters accept the sacrifice of the one for the needs of the many; Chaotic characters do not. "Killing the baby for the greater good" is Lawful Neutral at best--and it is probably Lawful Evil. |
| kelvinaw27301-25-07, 07:14 PM | This isn't the case here from the quote you referenced. It said only that: Which would actually seem to indicate the direct opposite. The Player thought that by the rules he was following the proper course of action. Why? It seems likely that the why is "because what the proper course was" was never actually discussed, so the DM really IS demanding that the Player read his mind and when the Player couldn't, he was being penalized for it. That seems VERY cut and dried. Isshia I think you missed my point. Because he has decided this is the proper thing, and the DM (and most people on this thread) disagrees with him, he has ethically moved his own alignment. He can argue all he likes, when the gods (ie the DM) disagrees, you are up the creek without the proverbial paddle. The player might think this is appropriate, the paladin might think he is following the code, but if the gods disagree, he is in the wrong. It sounds like this has been discussed between the two, and the DM has made plain what he thinks the paladin's code requires. The player has disagreed, now comes the consequences. Ultimately the DM has to rule when a character like a paladin is acting out of their alignement or code, or there is no point having them. That is what the paladin's code is there for. The player has stated his case, and it is not (in the DM's opinion) correct. It's a bummer, but the DM has to be the final arbiter of such things - otherwise you will have lawful good paladins acting chaotic evil and saying 'It's my interpretation of the code that no-one is innocent, therefore everyone is guilty so I can kill them.' Yes, that's a silly and extreme example, but can you see my point? The DM has to judge the action in the end. He has listened to the player's opinion, but does not agree, and it is the DM's view that counts. |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 07:16 PM | Well, I might be tempted to follow this argumentation (stop me Pres & Borax :D), but in this case the OP and DM told us that the paladin is aware that these people are innocent AND that there isn't any law or higher principle in play. The players even discussed it among themselves and the paladin knows that they are innocent and that the marut is not the incarnation of some higher good. Your points might be good, but in this specific case, you just got yourself in trouble ;). Cheers The paladin knows that they are innocent by the laws of the local town watch and that these have jursistriction over the laws of mechanus. BUT this dosen't make the laws of mechanus nesscrially unjust or wrong, the law may exisit to protect those who can't protect themselves. The point I'm tryign to make is that hte paladin must at least consider that the law may be right. It might not be, but he must think about it and judge, not to do so could mean he does inadvertant evil to the celestial realms and other innocents. Lawful good does not equate to nice, it equates to doing good rather than evil, in the case of drowning the innocent baby to prevent plague wipeing out the entire community, this a hidghly lawful good selfsacrficeing action (espcailly if its your baby). |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 07:21 PM | P.S. the paladins deftinyl count as hippie god touched warriors. This is not mutally exclusive with been a warrior of god or any of their other aspects, but they have a hippies streak in them, with their global bortherhood of paladins been able to recgonise each other etc (from the PHP description) They also deal with theology and celestial beings in a practical everyday way (see their mount for instance). The defitnyl would be able to comprehend extra planer consqeunces beyond their immediatte actions. |
| Palin the Wizard01-25-07, 08:24 PM | Lawful good does not equate to nice, it equates to doing good rather than evil, in the case of drowning the innocent baby to prevent plague wipeing out the entire community, this a hidghly lawful good selfsacrficeing action (espcailly if its your baby). Full stop. No. Wrong. Killing a baby to prevent plague isn't Good. At best, it's Neutral. If it truly is to prevent the death of the entire community, it's Neutral, as the baby doesn't threaten anything itself, it's the plague that does so. |
| kelvinaw27301-25-07, 08:31 PM | Full stop. No. Wrong. Killing a baby to prevent plague isn't Good. At best, it's Neutral. If it truly is to prevent the death of the entire community, it's Neutral, as the baby doesn't threaten anything itself, it's the plague that does so. I agree. The GOOD action is to quarantine yourself and the baby and try to nurse them through. If you fail, you fail. If you get the plague yourself, it is worth the risk to try to save one innocent life. Killing the Baby is the LN option. Shooting the person with the plague trying to break out of the quarentine is LG, burning the town with everyone in it 'to be sure' is LE. I also agree that this Paladin could easily decline into Blackguardhood without realising. Just Take Elena Fathhold - she started LG, then slowly slid to LN, and finally LE - but she still thinks that she is LG, and that all the sacrifices (of other people) she has had to make to get where she is will ultimately be worth it. |
| Necrosis01-25-07, 09:14 PM | hmm good point but Alas a solution with a nice LG middle road to take isn't goign to help us to much in this current dead or alive problem=unless the paladin is particually imagintive (such as leading the souls of those hunted by the invetiable to a celistial plane were they can exisit happily) A more helpful example would be to consider the ethicla delimia if quaratine is impossible (e.g. magically contagious disease after a breif incubation period) it becomes the LG decsion to knock the baby off or to take far far away from all human contagion and abandon it! An abhorant act that saves many others is still a good act? MaybeGood, Maybe Neutral, I'll concede the point :). But this doesn't change the debate-I still contend that the paladin MUST consider the greater good when acting, or they could inadvertantly harm many others. Most of the time its a no brainer, a demon is eating your daughter-thats just evil and should die! So I feel strongly that the PC is this thread's example hasn't gone to far off the rails since interveneing with an inevtiable could well be consdered an act that could harm many other more less innocent beings. Good Laws protect innocents by their very nature, is the inevtiables law a good law (despite been from a lawful Neutral plane, the law could still be a good law!)? This question must be answered well for the paladin to interfere! |
| Palin the Wizard01-25-07, 10:11 PM | Not at all. The paladin doesn't need to ponder the deeper ramifications of his actions beyond what he knows to be true... especially not on a multiversal scale; that would make it impossible for him to exist. "If I kill this evil man, maybe I am killing someone who will actually become a great force of Good in the future, but if I don't kill him, maybe I am, indirectly, killing someone who will become a great force of Good in the future..." This is what he knows: The Inevitable is killing innocents. It is within his Code of Conduct to protect innocents and to stop those who harm them. Since he does believe that they are innocent, this is a no-brainer. |
| Mecha_Pope01-25-07, 10:52 PM | The Marut's law isnt for the greater good though, not for celestia, or mechanus, or anywhere. Inevetables don't act for the greater good, they act for the greater NEUTRAL. They are the pinicle of blind law, not justice, but just plain law. They don't enforce law for the greater good, but law for the sake of law itself. The enhabitants of mechanus are like computers, without a complex set of code and rules, they wouldn't know what to do, or even how to exist. And so Mechanus becomes an enormous beurorocy, cold and efficiant. Then they look out at the universe, and say, "Look at all this messy chaos out here, does not compute" and so they set out to force the rest of the universe to comform to thier tightly bound codex of rules. This has nothing to do with the greater good, but with Mechanus' Ultimate Law, and the prime directives of the inevetables. AND warrior hippie is an oxemoron. Hippies are peacenicks, and the best alignment for a hippie would be Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. |
| pres_man01-25-07, 11:44 PM | Good Laws protect innocents by their very nature, is the inevtiables law a good law (despite been from a lawful Neutral plane, the law could still be a good law!)? This question must be answered well for the paladin to interfere! Since it is harming innocents, even to protect other innocents perhaps, this proves it is not a good law. It may not be evil, but it is not good. Especially since people are not "terminated" in a "humane" way. It is not like the inevitable shows up and says, "You should be enjoying your eternal rest, lay down now." And the person peacefully drops dead. No, it has to violently kill them. The fact that it is doing so to innocent people (at least to the paladin's admitted understanding of that term) proves the laws it is working under are not the paladin's "laws" (being LG and not LN). By the way if a golem was sent out by WeeJas instead, would we be having this debate? I mean she is LN, shouldn't the paladin bow to her view as well as the Inevitable. |
| Jell_Moo01-26-07, 12:00 AM | I have to br honest and say that I have seen some really far fetched interpretation of "fact". To start with, there is nothing in the PHB that states that the Paladin must view "Good" as more important than "Law". I can see how some people can reach that conclusion, but it is little more than opinion. It is not a fact. Allow me to add a hypothetical that may not directly relate to the OP: Suppose we have a Paladin that is in the same position as the Paladin is in in the OP's story. Now suppose that this is a Paladin of St. Cuthbert. In this case we have a good man who fights evil, tries to right wrongs and essentially better the world. However, he is also very tied to personal honor, has an extremely rigid personal code, obeys superiors without question, and pursues justice above all else. Now, suppose that he encounters this Inevitable attacking the villagers. DM asks for a Knowledge: The Planes roll (pally happens to have 2 ranks or so) and he makes a decent roll. The information that the DM hands him is: "This is a creature from a plane of pure Law called an Inevitable that sent to serve the purpose of Law by a higher authority." Does it not make sense that maybe, just maybe the Paladin could be taken aback? Suffer a crisis of faith? And what does the Paladin do? Help gather the vilagers and flee the creature. The Paladin, from his view, is in a no win situation. He cannot stand idly by and watch what he perceives as innocents die. He cannot battle what very well might be an agent from his god. What is the correct course of action? Also, remember that ultimately, what we have is a conflict of interpretations between a player and a DM. This is the main reson that Paladin questions pop up so often around here. The CoC is rather vague and open to interpretation. Everyone has a different idea of a Paladin should be, and often times this causes this sort of conflict. This is exactly why it is very important for the DM and the player to sit down before the game begins, and hammer out an agreement of what the Paladin's code does and does not entail. They need to be on the same page in this regard. If it turns out that their view is way different, it may then be in the player's best interest to play another class. Oh, and as to the OP's issue: I would not cause the Paladin to fall. Granted I don't know the whole story, but from what I can see, the Paladin did what he thought was best, he did legitimately try and save these villagers, and I have not seen anything resembling an overtly evil act. Of course this point is mostly moot due to the subjective nature of the CoC... :) |
| pres_man01-26-07, 12:20 AM | To start with, there is nothing in the PHB that states that the Paladin must view "Good" as more important than "Law". I can see how some people can reach that conclusion, but it is little more than opinion. It is not a fact. Well there are the common facts of the RAW that the paladin gets Detect Evil not Detect Chaos, Smite Evil not Smite Chaos, in the code it states a paladin cannot associate with evil beings not a paladin cannot associate with chaotic beings, a paladin falls for a single willfull evil act and not for a single chaotic act. Still not convinced, ok, how about this, a paladin must be Lawful Good, what does it mean to be Lawful Good. Lawful Good, “Crusader”: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. Acts as a good person should, not as a lawful person should. A lawful good person acts good in a lawful fashion, not lawful in a good fashion. So there is, yes circumstancial evidence to support the belief that at least for a paladin Good takes priority over Law, and the fact that there is no circumstancial evidence or any evidence at all to support the idea that they are treated the same or that Law takes priority over Good would seem to lead to a logical assumption induction that for a paladin it is good first, law second. |
| kelvinaw27301-26-07, 12:52 AM | I agree. Everything I have read stresses good first, lawful second. But even Lawful Neutral could oppose this Marut - although it is following A law, it is not necessarily following the CORRECT law. One point I would like to raise, having observed the marut in combat, it should occur to the paladin (or anybody) that a concerted assault may well be required, rather than piecemeal attempts. This is another feature of Lawful characters - they organise! They also plan ahead - perhaps using one of the innocents being hunted as a lure to entrap the marut. But instead this guy is making excuses ... perhaps he is not so much in agreement as afraid to disagree? |
| Shaftiel01-26-07, 01:56 AM | First off, I've got to say that your campaign sounds awesome. I honestly think moral dilemmas >> dungeon crawls every time. All the stuff about the "official code" is pretty much irrelevant - it's flavor text that good DMs play with all the time. So is the "official" balance between the Lawful and Good aspects. What matters is that you have clearly explained what you expect in your campaign, the situation is clear to the player, and he made the wrong decision. Not the worst possible decision, but the wrong one nonetheless. He should lose his abilities and go get an atonement. And don't feel bad about it; if it wasn't supposed to happen now and then they wouldn't have such detailed rules for it. -Shaftiel |
| sinrae_kinesti01-26-07, 03:38 AM | Mauther. i should very much like to hear the final outcome of your descision. i personaly as a Dungeon master would ensure the paladin knows he is stepping out of line but i think that blasting a 7 year olds face off is a clear enough indication that it's not going to negotiate. (by the way your quote is from terminator in case noone else answered it) I also dont know anything about your group other than what you have told the forum. an experienced player may be trying to lose his paladinhood so that he can become a blackguard. (makes perfect sense to me) do as you will with your player group it is your game and none of these people will be at your gaming table when the final die is cast. have fun with your game |
| Jell_Moo01-26-07, 07:35 AM | So there is, yes circumstancial evidence to support the belief that at least for a paladin Good takes priority over Law, and the fact that there is no circumstancial evidence or any evidence at all to support the idea that they are treated the same or that Law takes priority over Good would seem to lead to a logical assumption that for a paladin it is good first, law second. Bolded for emphasis. That's just it, it's an assumption. Nowhere in the Paladin write-up does it say "The Paladin, when the line is drawn and all chips are down, should favor Good or over Law. Does the assumption have a decent reasoning? For sure. It still isn't a fact though, it's a personalized interpretation. |
| kintire01-26-07, 08:26 AM | That's just it, it's an assumption. Nowhere in the Paladin write-up does it say "The Paladin, when the line is drawn and all chips are down, should favor Good or over Law And that is because the question is meaningless. The Paladin favours the Lawful Good line. The Law line is the Lawful Neutral ideology, the Good line is the Neutral Good ideology. When the line is drawn and the chips are down the Paladin should pay not the slightest attention to either. The information that the DM hands him is: "This is a creature from a plane of pure Law called an Inevitable that sent to serve the purpose of Law by a higher authority." Does it not make sense that maybe, just maybe the Paladin could be taken aback? Suffer a crisis of faith? No, not the slightest. Why should a Lawful Good character care in the slightest for the opinions of a Lawful Neutral outsider? He already knows it is the exemplar of a flawed ideology, and this is just an example of what can go wrong if you follow Law untempered with mercy. The Paladin should feel reaffirmed in his faith in the ideology of the Seven Mounting Heavens, perhaps briefly pity those led astray by the illusionary certainties of the Clockwork Nirvana... and then trash the murdering Marut. |
| EvilVegan01-26-07, 08:58 AM | That's just it, it's an assumption. Nowhere in the Paladin write-up does it say "The Paladin, when the line is drawn and all chips are down, should favor Good or over Law. Does the assumption have a decent reasoning? For sure. It still isn't a fact though, it's a personalized interpretation. It is not an assumption. It is the correct interpretation of the rules as they are written. A paladin cannot do evil. A paladin can do chaotic. If you cannot do the opposite of good but can do the opposite of lawful you are restricted to good and are not restricted to lawful. If you are restricted to good and are not restricted to lawful, you FAVOR good over law. In addition to favoring good and being totally restricted from evil, the code goes on to say exactly which lawful acts a paladin favors above others (honor, honesty, legitimate authority, etc), but is still not as restrictive as the good/evil portion of the code. There is no assumption. There is correct logical interpretation from language presented. His use of the word assumption is equivalent to assuming 2+2=4. There is no other correct assumption in this case. |
| pres_man01-26-07, 09:21 AM | There is no assumption. There is correct logical interpretation from language presented. His use of the word assumption is equivalent to assuming 2+2=4. There is no other correct assumption in this case. Right, I wrote poorly, it should have been logical induction (or is that deduction?) not logical assumption. Of course it is not unusual for someone to focus on one word out of place and ignore the entire rest of the argument being presented. |
| Boraxe01-26-07, 09:24 AM | They can't jsut protect any innocent automatically regardless of consquences for everytihng else in the universe. To do so would be irresponsible and bordering on evil! Not only can they do this they have taken an oath to do this. That's what paladins do. Sorry to say but your arguing against this core tennet of the paldin's code illustrates a quite incompletely understanding of the class on your part. |
| Boraxe01-26-07, 09:29 AM | I have to br honest and say that I have seen some really far fetched interpretation of "fact". To start with, there is nothing in the PHB that states that the Paladin must view "Good" as more important than "Law". I can see how some people can reach that conclusion, but it is little more than opinion. It is not a fact. I don't think anyone claimed that was a "fact" per se. For my part I stated that if law and good come into conflict the paladin should err on the side of good. Nothing more. It isn't like he is put in front of two doors, one labelled "law" an the other labelled "good," and told to pick one, these are far more nebulous concepts and rarely clear-cut. |
| Shaftiel01-26-07, 09:29 AM | *Sigh* It is not an assumption. It is the correct interpretation of the rules as they are written. A paladin cannot do evil. A paladin can do chaotic. Well, I disagree with you, but look at it this way: according to the SRD: Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit... Okay, not that tough to avoid doing this. In fact, the paladin in question hasn't done any of this, so he's okay so far... Chaotic characters follow their consciences... Wow! So a character who makes a decision based on what "feels right" is Chaotic! Looking at these two examples, it should be obvious that it's pretty easy to avoid performing an evil act but almost impossible for a non-robot (or inevitable) to avoid performing a chaotic one. Thus the way the paladin's code is worded - it's to account for the way that the alignments are described. -Shaftiel |
| Boraxe01-26-07, 09:33 AM | Bolded for emphasis. That's just it, it's an assumption. Nowhere in the Paladin write-up does it say "The Paladin, when the line is drawn and all chips are down, should favor Good or over Law. Does the assumption have a decent reasoning? For sure. It still isn't a fact though, it's a personalized interpretation. As is everything, but some interpretations are far more logical and correct than others. For example, in this case that, all things being equal, good outweighs law for the paladin. |
| Boraxe01-26-07, 09:36 AM | Why should a Lawful Good character care in the slightest for the opinions of a Lawful Neutral outsider? He already knows it is the exemplar of a flawed ideology, and this is just an example of what can go wrong if you follow Law untempered with mercy. The Paladin should feel reaffirmed in his faith in the ideology of the Seven Mounting Heavens, perhaps briefly pity those led astray by the illusionary certainties of the Clockwork Nirvana... and then trash the murdering Marut. Well said! :clap: |
| CharlieRock01-26-07, 10:24 AM | Actually, no. Lawful characters accept the sacrifice of the one for the needs of the many; Chaotic characters do not. "Killing the baby for the greater good" is Lawful Neutral at best--and it is probably Lawful Evil. Well, many alignments can perform this act. The justifications would be the main variance. It could be CN: "I don't want the plague!" It could be NG: "There's no other way?" :weep: *THUNK* It could be LN: "I'm sorry. There are no exceptions to those born with the 'mark'. It could even be LG: "We've tried everything. Better luck in the next life, kiddo." Without going into too many details (on a subject unrelated to the thread at that ;)) a lot would be on the player as to how they portray their character doing this kind of action. That's why I proscribe no penalties for moral dilemas. However a character that is played as just *thunking* away is leaving me to interpret the morality on my own. And I'm not a good DM for that kind of thing :evillaugh |
| Boraxe01-26-07, 10:34 AM | It could even be LG: "We've tried everything. Better luck in the next life, kiddo." Paladin: "Mark or no the child has done nothing to warrant this. I will take it away that your village may live in peace. If plague is to strike it will take me alone." |
| Cantankerous01-26-07, 10:37 AM | I think you missed my point. Because he has decided this is the proper thing, and the DM (and most people on this thread) disagrees with him, he has ethically moved his own alignment. He can argue all he likes, when the gods (ie the DM) disagrees, you are up the creek without the proverbial paddle. The player might think this is appropriate, the paladin might think he is following the code, but if the gods disagree, he is in the wrong. It sounds like this has been discussed between the two, and the DM has made plain what he thinks the paladin's code requires. The player has disagreed, now comes the consequences. Ultimately the DM has to rule when a character like a paladin is acting out of their alignement or code, or there is no point having them. That is what the paladin's code is there for. The player has stated his case, and it is not (in the DM's opinion) correct. It's a bummer, but the DM has to be the final arbiter of such things - otherwise you will have lawful good paladins acting chaotic evil and saying 'It's my interpretation of the code that no-one is innocent, therefore everyone is guilty so I can kill them.' Yes, that's a silly and extreme example, but can you see my point? The DM has to judge the action in the end. He has listened to the player's opinion, but does not agree, and it is the DM's view that counts. What are you going on about? |
| Palin the Wizard01-26-07, 10:38 AM | Well, many alignments can perform this act. The justifications would be the main variance. It could be CN: "I don't want the plague!" It could be NG: "There's no other way?" :weep: *THUNK* It could be LN: "I'm sorry. There are no exceptions to those born with the 'mark'. It could even be LG: "We've tried everything. Better luck in the next life, kiddo." Without going into too many details (on a subject unrelated to the thread at that ;)) a lot would be on the player as to how they portray their character doing this kind of action. That's why I proscribe no penalties for moral dilemas. However a character that is played as just *thunking* away is leaving me to interpret the morality on my own. And I'm not a good DM for that kind of thing :evillaugh Performing a Lawful Neutral act doesn't make you Lawful Neutral. Performing Lawful Neutral acts consistently does. |
| CharlieRock01-26-07, 10:43 AM | Performing a Lawful Neutral act doesn't make you Lawful Neutral. You know, that is a good point. I was putting a spin on it (and fell off in the process.) Edit: Oh, see now your going to ninja the post ,eh :P |
| Qwicksilver01-26-07, 10:59 AM | Hmm... After chopping through 5 pages of long text, I'm here to add. It seems that people are thinking in maybe two or three different ways: The first is, the DM wants to stress his interpretation of morality over the player with the strictest codes of morals because in the DM's mind, that's what is obviously true or he's being a dick. The second is, the Player is perhaps aware that he's wrong in his own mind, but is holding back also for selfish reasons. The third is, the Player isn't aware that he is doing "wrong" and is doing the next best thing to "right" in his mind. I personally have seen the second (albeit a non paladin), and i can imagine that the first is just as bad. Ok, so the first, I'm convinced, is untrue because the DM from all posts seems to be a generally level headed, story oriented, judicious DM. Furthermore, I think his posting on this site and willingness to keep following up also point to the fact that he himself sees what he needs to do but perhaps doesn't want to do it. The second, i'm convinced is untrue due to the fact that it seems the DM is playing with a well experienced player who he has had ample time to know the eccentricities of and he would have seen it coming if the guy is the "i'm going to bend the rules to benefit my character" person. The third seems untrue also due to the PCs level of experience and number of times the party has gone over this. He may, however, still be just doing the next best thing to "good", which is not good enough for a paladin. All in all, I say it's splitting hairs, however still important. Someone mentioned the god or something coming into a dream. I think that's a good idea (I prefer in game solutions to out of game ones). Furthermore, I think perhaps in our less religious world, we're forgetting how important prayer is and was, and a Paladin who is sufficiently wracked with moral agony would probably pray on it and get a good answer. If it comes to banning his powers, I'd wait until this encounter with the Marut is completely over, so he can atone faster and without incident (also so his character has been given every available chance to do good). This "evil" is perhaps partially willing, but let's give the paladin the benefit of the doubt and forgive him for having moral dilemmas and not automatically knowing the answer to every situation. I'd say he didn't know he was doing evil, but he is doing it none the less. Penalize him but in the most expedient way possible. |
| EvilVegan01-26-07, 07:54 PM | *Sigh*Really that tough to understand? No need to sigh, it's rude. Well, I disagree with you, but look at it this way: according to the SRD:You may certainly disagree. There are people out there who disagree with "2+2 = 4" also. "Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit... " Okay, not that tough to avoid doing this. In fact, the paladin in question hasn't done any of this, so he's okay so far... "Chaotic characters follow their consciences... " Wow! So a character who makes a decision based on what "feels right" is Chaotic! Way to quote only that which you feel is relevant and ignore everything else is relevant! Such as neutrality and the code for paladins and EVERYTHING I said. "Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit. " AND "Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. " "Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. " So let me 'splain it for you so that you don't have to sigh so much. A paladin is required to be LAWFUL GOOD. They CANNOT do evil. They CAN do Chaotic, as you yourself just proved (THANKS!) This alone shows that they FAVOR GOOD OVER LAW. To go further a paladin is required to be lawful good. As such they are required to "tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties" (those things being actively lawful) and "protect innocent life, show altruism, respect life, and show concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others." (these being actively good). A paladin can be passively chaotic (such as following his conscience over tradition and law.) A paladin cannot be passively evil (such as by letting an innocent person be killed in front of him without attempting to defend them). As such a paladin must actively and constantly strive to be good and must attempt to remain lawful as far as he doesn't break his code or fully shift his alignment (he can "follow his conscience" as often as he likes as long as he also defers to legitimate authority). In other words, ACTIVELY GOOD, PASSIVELY LAWFUL, NEVER EVIL, SOMETIMES CHAOTIC. Looking at these two examples, it should be obvious that it's pretty easy to avoid performing an evil act but almost impossible for a non-robot (or inevitable) to avoid performing a chaotic one. Thus the way the paladin's code is worded - it's to account for the way that the alignments are described.You are completely incorrect. First of all your "examples" show that a person can be NEUTRAL, not GOOD, by avoiding commiting evil acts. Nothing you presented shows that a character would be lawful good by not killing people. Conversely a lawful good person would become evil if they started killing innocent people. The paladin's code shows that he can smudge on chaos and not on evil. Your examples show what neutrality is and have nothing to do with a paladin. THE MOTHER****ING END. *sigh* |
| Jell_Moo01-26-07, 09:37 PM | No, not the slightest. Why should a Lawful Good character care in the slightest for the opinions of a Lawful Neutral outsider? He already knows it is the exemplar of a flawed ideology, and this is just an example of what can go wrong if you follow Law untempered with mercy. The Paladin should feel reaffirmed in his faith in the ideology of the Seven Mounting Heavens, perhaps briefly pity those led astray by the illusionary certainties of the Clockwork Nirvana... and then trash the murdering Marut. Re-read my example. In my example the Paladin is a Paladin of St.Cuthbert, a Lawful-Neutral deity with a penchant for justice. He does not know that the Exemplar is a representative of a flawed ideology as his Knowledge check reveals little more than it is an extra planar creature devoted completely to Law. In this case is it not possible for a Paladin to wonder what is the proper course of action? Protect a group of villagers who may or may not be innocents, or not interfere with a being that may or may not be an agent of his god. Originally posted by EvilVegan It is not an assumption. It is the correct interpretation of the rules as they are written. It is an assumption, perhaps an educated one, but that does not make it correct. There is no Rules as Written in this case, so the term is not really applicable. If there were RAW, it would clearly state "A Paladin is always Good before Lawful". It does not state this. I can see how somebody can come to this conclusion, but that does not make it RAW. A paladin cannot do evil. A paladin can do chaotic. If you cannot do the opposite of good but can do the opposite of lawful you are restricted to good and are not restricted to lawful. If you are restricted to good and are not restricted to lawful, you FAVOR good over law. In addition to favoring good and being totally restricted from evil, the code goes on to say exactly which lawful acts a paladin favors above others (honor, honesty, legitimate authority, etc), but is still not as restrictive as the good/evil portion of the code. That is very round about reasoning. Look at it this way: A Paladin must remain Lawful Good. If either one is violated, then the PAladin technically "falls". A Neutral Good Paladin is in the same predicament as a Lawfil Evil Paladin in this regard. Also note that the CoC says: "...help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends)..." Can that be considered an indication that the must balance both Law and Good? There is no assumption. There is correct logical interpretation from language presented. His use of the word assumption is equivalent to assuming 2+2=4. There is no other correct assumption in this case. Of course there is an assumption. Of course there interpretation. The reason for this is that the Rulebook does not flat out say what you claim. You have come to what you claim is a logical conclusion and presented items which support your theory. I acknowledge and respect that. But you cannot claim it as pure fact because that is simply not the case. A pure fact would be saying that a core Paladin has a d10 for hit points. I can prove that the Paladin has d10 for hit points. I can quote a direct page number and reference to support it. However, you cannot prove what you are claiming as a fact, you can only offer supporting evidence for your claim. Originally posted by pres man Right, I wrote poorly, it should have been logical induction (or is that deduction?) not logical assumption. Of course it is not unusual for someone to focus on one word out of place and ignore the entire rest of the argument being presented. The reason I am addressing that is because it is the only issue I have with your statement. If you want to say something like: "In my opinion, the Paladin must honor Good before Law" or "When I DM, I make it clear to players that Paladins are Good first and Lawful second" then I have no issue at all. Your opinon and insight are valuable and warranted. However, when people start passing off their opinions and interpretations as RAW, then I have a problem. Originally posted by Boraxe. As is everything, but some interpretations are far more logical and correct than others. For example, in this case that, all things being equal, good outweighs law for the paladin. I can see your point on the matter, but at the same time, I dislike the idea that one person's interpretation or idea is viewed as "more correct" than another's in this regard. At best, there is circumstancial evidence. There is no direct line of text that I can find which seems to indicate that the Paladin follows Good ahead of Law. I've seen the arguments made, and maybe I agree with some them, but at best they are educated opnions, and not facts. Passsing them off as facts can be dangerous when done carelessly. |
| Mecha_Pope01-26-07, 11:42 PM | The rules also never state that when you die, you no longer eat, sleep, talk, walk around, and fight. It just states that your hp is at -10, you stop breathing, your heart stops, and your soul leaves your body. By your reasoning, a player would have a legitimate argument if he said his dead charicter gets right back up and starts fighting. Nor does it say that you need legs to move, or eyes to see, or lungs to breathe. Behold, Morgrod, the wizard, who slides along the floor at sixty feet per round! Your not making a constructive argument, your just purpously frustrating people by poking holes in the rules for munchkins to crawl through. By not accepting the logical, correct solution, you dont do anything but create an endless, silly debate. The rules are so vauge because the publishers didn't feel that they had to waste seven hunred pages writing every fact of reality and interpretation of alignment. They figured that we'd use our brains. |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 12:04 AM | The rules also never state that when you die, you no longer eat, sleep, talk, walk around, and fight. It just states that your hp is at -10, you stop breathing, your heart stops, and your soul leaves your body. By your reasoning, a player would have a legitimate argument if he said his dead charicter gets right back up and starts fighting. Nor does it say that you need legs to move, or eyes to see, or lungs to breathe. Behold, Morgrod, the wizard, who slides along the floor at sixty feet per round! You are being intentionally obtuse in this case. There is a huge world of difference in arguing the spiritual and philosophical nature of a class as opposed to requiring the game offer a definition of "Dead". Your not making a constructive argument, your just purpously frustrating people by poking holes in the rules for munchkins to crawl through. By not accepting the logical, correct solution, you dont do anything but create an endless, silly debate. The rules are so vauge because the publishers didn't feel that they had to waste seven hunred pages writing every fact of reality and interpretation of alignment. They figured that we'd use our brains. How on earth am I not making a constructive argument? Munchkins??? What on earth are you talking about? This is exactly what I am arguing about though! You are claiming that the opnion that Good outweighs Law in the mind of a Paladin is "logical and correct". This leaves out the possibility that it is not. This leaves out the possibility that they are of an equal level of importance, or that Law can be viewed as more important than Good. I am not creating a "silly debate" on the matter. I am raising the point that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong. I am raising the point that a different interpretation is just as valid. I am raisding the point that touting something as "fact" just because you believe it to be true does not make it so. |
| Mecha_Pope01-27-07, 12:22 AM | Your argment relies solely on the fact that, despite overwhelming evidence, it never actually says in the all holy player's handbook, which has to tell us everything, or else we suddely become incapable of rationial thought, doesn't specificly say that. So yes, it is as silly as arguing that your dead pc can still fight. It may never actually be a "Fact" but neither is gravity, or the atomic theroy, and yet nearly all of our knoledge of physics and chemistry hinge on these principals. The only real "Fact" is that there is a almost universal consensus on these boards, which are made up mostly of intelegent people, supported by an overwhelming body of evidence that good does indeen trump law. It is possible to argue against this, but it won't change peoples minds, there is no significant amount of evidence to cite that good and law are balanced, it won't solve the problems of anyone coming here for advice, and indeed, will create a whole mess of new problems. |
| malisteen01-27-07, 12:40 AM | I'm sorry if this has already been brought up, I kind of skipped some... Did the paladin know that if they stopped that one Marut, another would not be sent after it? If he's under the impression that Saving these people would be an impossible task of battling an infinite succession of inevitables then he should not be required to do so. A paladin should never be required to undertake what he legitimately belives to be an impossible task. Next, if the player actually believes that his paladin is following the code then you need to discuss this with him, whether in or out of game. If he believes he's being lawful good then you aren't punishing the character for falling from grace, you're punishing the player for having a differant moral outlook then you, and that's a good way to alienate and drive away players. If you require a Paladin to maintain both cosmic law and cosmic good, and then specifically set out to craft a situation in which they are in conflict, then you're just picking on him. A paladin's abilities are not nearly so powerful that you should be trying to cheat him out of them. If you set up a morally ambiguous situation, then you can't pretend that the 'right' answer is obvious. Yes the paladin is supposed to offer help to the innocent, but only if that help does not advance evil or chaotic ends. You have created a situation where the continued lives of these people might in and of themselves be viewed as chaotic ends on a cosmic scale, and if that's the way the paladin is seeing it I'm not sure he's wrong in refusing to save them. I would agree that he should try to help the people against the marut, but as a DM I would make sure that he knew the task was possible, and as a friend I would make sure that I'm not punishing him because we have differant moral foundations. A fall from grace should be a slow, gradual thing that builds up over time. Unless the paladin is performing an explicitly evil act, it should take more then one questionable decision for a paladin to fall. At the very least, if you do take his powers you should give him swift access to the cheap version of atonement, so that he can get on with saving those people, already. If the cosmic answer for him not helping them is the removal of his ability to help them (without a ready means of regaining that ability) then something is wrong with the cosmos. I will say, though, that this is a very interesting role-play situation. I love ethical dilemmas. I just wish they weren't so often used specifically to trick paladins out of their already weak class features. |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 12:41 AM | Your argment relies solely on the fact that, despite overwhelming evidence, it never actually says in the all holy player's handbook, which has to tell us everything, or else we suddely become incapable of rationial thought, doesn't specificly say that. So yes, it is as silly as arguing that your dead pc can still fight. It may never actually be a "Fact" but neither is gravity, or the atomic theroy, and yet nearly all of our knoledge of physics and chemistry hinge on these principals. The only real "Fact" is that there is a almost universal consensus on these boards, which are made up mostly of intelegent people, supported by an overwhelming body of evidence that good does indeen trump law. It is possible to argue against this, but it won't change peoples minds, there is no significant amount of evidence to cite that good and law are balanced, it won't solve the problems of anyone coming here for advice, and indeed, will create a whole mess of new problems. Perhaps it is because I have yet to see this "overwhelming evidence" that I am having an issue. I have seen some evidence, sure, but overwhelming? I don't think so. I think that people are reading what they want to read, and stating what they feel the Paladin is as a fact. I might even agree with the notion that to the typical Paladin, Good outweighs Law. But to say that it is 100% true with no room for doubt and to think otherwise is foolish? 100% no. Universal consensus on these boards? Hardly. There isn't even universal consensus in this thread. I have been around these boards a fair while, long enough to know that there isn't universal consensus on anything. Of course, the Paladin's CoC is one of the most conetious topics that shows on the boards, and for good reason. WotC decided to use it to try and balance the class (which really doesn't need it as it isn't all that powerful anyway... but that's another topic), and then went ahead and made the CoC very, very vague. So, since I seem unable to convince you that your belief is not fact, and I doubt you will convince me that it is, I suggest we simply agree to disagree on the matter. :) |
| pres_man01-27-07, 02:49 AM | Re-read my example. In my example the Paladin is a Paladin of St.Cuthbert, a Lawful-Neutral deity with a penchant for justice. He does not know that the Exemplar is a representative of a flawed ideology as his Knowledge check reveals little more than it is an extra planar creature devoted completely to Law. In this case is it not possible for a Paladin to wonder what is the proper course of action? Protect a group of villagers who may or may not be innocents, or not interfere with a being that may or may not be an agent of his god. Well logically the next step would be to compare the things actions to the teachings of St. Cuthbert, nope. Next learn if they even come from the same plane, again nope. Any other LN deities that this particular paladin has no responsibility to, yup Wee Jas as an obvious example. Also paladins can't choose to follow LN actions instead of LG actions and expect to stay a paladin for long, irregardless of what deity they show respect to (paladins get their abilities from deities as much as rangers do). It is an assumption, perhaps an educated one, but that does not make it correct. Actually I think you are using the term incorrectly (I might be wrong though). If I said, "Let us assume that Good comes before Law for a paladin. Now let us see what kind of results we could deduce from this." That would be making it an assumption. That is not what is going on here. Instead individuals are looking at the actual "facts"/text and then inducting a conclusion from, that is the general conclusion is drawn from the specific examples (examples => conclusion). To assume it was true we would be trying to draw specific examples from an assumed general idea (assumption => examples). There is no Rules as Written in this case, so the term is not really applicable. If there were RAW, it would clearly state "A Paladin is always Good before Lawful". It does not state this. I can see how somebody can come to this conclusion, but that does not make it RAW. But it is the most logical conclusion to draw from the RAW. You have failed to prove a more logical conclusion to draw. That is very round about reasoning. Look at it this way: A Paladin must remain Lawful Good. If either one is violated, then the PAladin technically "falls". A Neutral Good Paladin is in the same predicament as a Lawfil Evil Paladin in this regard. Ah, but what does it mean to be Lawful Good. Does it mean being totally Lawful and totally Good? Not according to the RAW, according to the raw a LG person acts as a GOOD person is expect to. Also note that the CoC says: "...help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends)..." Can that be considered an indication that the must balance both Law and Good? Bravo! Now we are getting somewhere. Finally some evidence that can support a position that they are at least equal. Though (and I am not sure if this is an actual rule in English or not being not that interested in the actual mechanics) I have this intuitive feeling that if things in a list aren't made in Alphabetically order then they usually are listed in order of higher priority to lower. But again, I have no evidence to prove that view, only my intuitive feel. Maybe some of these more educated folks can correct me or back me up if I happen to be right (I wouldn't put much on that though). Of course there is an assumption. Sure there is, that is that the most logical conclusion in any situation is the most likely to be correct one. If you want to say something like: "In my opinion, the Paladin must honor Good before Law" or "When I DM, I make it clear to players that Paladins are Good first and Lawful second" then I have no issue at all. Your opinon and insight are valuable and warranted. However, when people start passing off their opinions and interpretations as RAW, then I have a problem. We are not talking about my opinion though in this case, we are talking about what can be logically inducted from the material in the core rules. Now if you really wanted to debate the issue the strongest course would be instead of saying that it is only opinion (thus implying that someone is just pulling stuff out of their bum), is instead supply a different conclusion that could be inducted from the same material. Here I'll help. Looking at the rules for paladins and what it means to be Lawful Good, we can say this for certain. Paladins hate evil more than they hate chaos. This does not necessarily mean they value good more than law, just look at St. Cuthbert. He is LN, yet does not tolerate evil in his ranks. His lack of tolerance for evil does not mean he places good above law, clearly he does not since he is LN. So from the material we can not draw the conclusion that Good is more important than Law to a paladin, but what we can draw is that evil is more intolerable than chaos for a paladin. Universal consensus on these boards? Hardly. There isn't even universal consensus in this thread. Well actually once it was pointed out that the paladin accept that the victims were "innocent" (whatever definition they were using in that game), then almost everybody accepted that the paladin was working outside of his code. Of course, the Paladin's CoC is one of the most conetious topics that shows on the boards, and for good reason. WotC decided to use it to try and balance the class (which really doesn't need it as it isn't all that powerful anyway... but that's another topic), and then went ahead and made the CoC very, very vague. Well, I would have to say my experience has been quite different. Sure in a very general way you could say it is about the code, but from my experience it is more about what does it mean to be innocent (are the raised innocent? are baby orcs innocent? can someone be evil and be innocent? etc), what does it mean to be good (can you eat meat or does that mean you are not respecting life?)? If you detect as evil naturally (no tricks) are you worthy of being smited irregardless of what you are doing at that particular moment? To what extent do paladins have the right to meet out justice? This are things that effect the code sure, because the code is based on many of these. But it usually isn't the code itself but the basis of most of these other issues that are the real problem. |
| Sarella Starshine01-27-07, 11:21 AM | What people seem to be forgetting that the OP has clarified in a later post: while this scenario is to have been a moral dilemma, it was NOT for the paladin. The OP had figured that the paladin would go in and defend the innocent villagers, since that seemed to be habitual for the paladin based on earlier games. It was the OTHER players who were having the debates: When I said I intended this as a moral exercise, I wasn't refering to the paladin. I frankly never imagined a paladin accepting a construct bludgeoning a child to death. The dilemma was intended for the other two characters. They hemmed and hawed back and forth about all sort of philosphy (law vs good, law of the universe vs law of the land, law vs justice, the importance of death vs the value of life, etc), the paladin made his decision in less than a minute and never looked back. Also, the OP has stated what the players knew based on the resources they had access to and were able to research and had agreed with what was occurring: The resurrected are innocent. The Inevitable is functioning properly. The characters and players have had sufficent time to research and discuss the situation. The characters know the Marut will relentlessly hunt and kill every individual it views as part of the transgression. The relevant points about "protecting the innocent" and "law not equating to Justice" have been made in character. The players have already witnessed the Inevitable's method of setting things straight (ie: blunt force trauma to a seven year old boy). The players have already been presented with the arguement in game (via the watch commander) that Mechanus Law need not agree with righteous/good law. and the DM (OP) has assumed the following based on what the player has done previously (or through his position as DM): The paladin is aware of the paladin's code as described in the PHB. The characters have access to divinations (both via their PCs and through NPC contacts in the immediate vicinity) that would shed further light on the subject or the moral consequences. The paladin's actions are not based upon cruel or malacious intent, so there will be no alignment shift, and if powers are removed an atonement would definetly be possible. Killing the Inevitable is not the only way to save the ressurrected. Basically, the paladin has decided that in this case, Law must come before Good, despite the fact that the Law in this case is hunting down people whose only transgression is the fact that when their souls were asked if they wanted to be brought back, they said 'yes'. The people here aren't saying that Law is not important when it comes to the paladin, but that since most of the paladin's abilities are directed towards fighting Evil (smite evil, detect evil, etc), and not towards fighting Chaos (detect chaos, smite chaos), that the focus of the paladin is to promote Good, but in a Lawful fashion. And that protecting the lives of people who are innocents is a Good thing, despite the fact that the Law says that they must die for their 'sin'. |
| Mecha_Pope01-27-07, 01:12 PM | STOP SAYING FACT!!!!! I never once claimed that what I said was a fact. What I said was more of a theroy, a widly accepted idea suppored by a substantial body of evidence. I respect your right to an oppinion, but if your going to debate it with me, then please get a better argument then, "You can't prove that it's true for sure, so that means that it must be wrong" In any case, I even if law and good are equil, I still dont think that the laws of Mechanus should matter at all to the paladin. And even though St. Cuthbert is LN, he is much more human than the inhabitants of Mechanus are. He still has emotions, he can feel pitty, tell the difference between good and evil, and neutrality (with the exceptions of balance dudes, like TN druids) generaly prefer's good to evil. He may be LN, but he has a human mind, and I doubt that he could bring himself to start slaughtering innocents, who have commited no crime, and in fact were the VICTOMS of a crime. Of course, I don't know much about the Greyhawk dieties, so I may be off. I just assumed that St. Cuthbert would be more or less the same as his closesest FR counterpart, Helm. |
| Palin the Wizard01-27-07, 03:32 PM | Re-read my example. In my example the Paladin is a Paladin of St.Cuthbert, a Lawful-Neutral deity with a penchant for justice. He does not know that the Exemplar is a representative of a flawed ideology as his Knowledge check reveals little more than it is an extra planar creature devoted completely to Law. In this case is it not possible for a Paladin to wonder what is the proper course of action? Protect a group of villagers who may or may not be innocents, or not interfere with a being that may or may not be an agent of his god. A paladin doesn't have to follow a deity. A paladin follows good first, lawful second, and his deity whenever the deity acts in accordance with the above. A paladin doesn't fall for not obeying his deity, he doesn't fall for performing Chaotic acts as long as they do not grossly violate his Code of Conduct--he falls for committing any Evil act willingly. It is an assumption, perhaps an educated one, but that does not make it correct. There is no Rules as Written in this case, so the term is not really applicable. If there were RAW, it would clearly state "A Paladin is always Good before Lawful". It does not state this. I can see how somebody can come to this conclusion, but that does not make it RAW. It's not an assumption. It's a literal reading of the rules. It clearly states that a paladin cannot perform Evil acts. It doesn't mention Chaotic acts. It clearly states that a paladin gets Smite Evil. They do not get Smite Chaos. They get Detect Evil, not Detect Chaos. They radiate an aura of Good, not Lawful. There is absolutely no question about this. Paladins are Good first, Lawful second. The Lawful-Chaotic axis doesn't care about Evil. You can dance around it however much you like, it doesn't change facts. |
| EvilVegan01-27-07, 04:36 PM | To put it very simply. Paladins are good. Lawful only indicates how they are good. They aren't good in a chaotic manner. They are good in a lawful manner. They aren't lawful in a good manner nor are they lawful and good in equal manner. Were they lawful as much as they are good they would radiate an aura of Law and an aura of Good, they would be able to smite Chaos as well as Evil, and they would be unable to perform Chaotic acts without immediately falling. You can claim these are "assumptions" all you want. They are not. They are fact and they are clear. The paladin is Good and as a subset of good they espouse mostly Lawful values, like honor, respect for authority and tradition, righteousness, justice, etc. They also may be Chaotic at times, and may even be required to be chaotic if the lawful choice would be Evil. Such as when a legitimate authority is improperly ordering the harm innocents. The paladin code is very clear that they save the innocent, even though it is a chaotic act (as long as the innocents aren't going to go out and do evil/chaos). They may then be required to attempt to reason with the authority and convince them of their wrong (a lawful act, judging others, and a good act, allowing them a chance to redeem themselves) but the initial act of saving the innocent would be chaotic and have absolutely zero effect on a paladin's abilities or violation of his code. In other words a paladin is required to be chaotic when the lawful choice is evil. A paladin is never required to be lawful when the good choice is chaotic. You can't show anything to the contrary that Law trumps Good. You can't prove that law is equal to good. All you can show is that they are required to be both lawful and good at the same time, but this does nothing to show which of these axises are Favored or that neither is favored. Favor is shown by class abilities and restrictions. RAW very clearly show that Good is Favored. You can ignore this if you want. You can focus only on the alignment section of a character's description and claim it is the end-all/be-all of that character's flavor/favor. You can house rule that paladins are equally lawful and good. That doesn't make me wrong. |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 04:40 PM | Well logically the next step would be to compare the things actions to the teachings of St. Cuthbert, nope. Next learn if they even come from the same plane, again nope. Any other LN deities that this particular paladin has no responsibility to, yup Wee Jas as an obvious example. Also paladins can't choose to follow LN actions instead of LG actions and expect to stay a paladin for long, irregardless of what deity they show respect to (paladins get their abilities from deities as much as rangers do). Actually, I could see St. Cuthbert taking such drastic action if the situation warranted. Mind you, I am far from an expert in the teachings of the deity, but he has always seemed to be grim and unyielding to me. Remember, in the example the Paladin has no idea if this is in fact a village of "innocents". Also, the act of learning whether they are from the same plane could be difficult and time consuming. If the Paladin does not know (his knowledge check was not high enough) and no one elese he trusts can answer the question, he is again left with choices for course of action. A Paladin who does choose to worship a deity will get his spells from that deity, just as a Cleric would. True, a Paladin need not do so, but in this case the Paladin does. At any rate, my argument is that in this case, the answer is not (at least in my opinion) cut and dry. Actually I think you are using the term incorrectly (I might be wrong though). If I said, "Let us assume that Good comes before Law for a paladin. Now let us see what kind of results we could deduce from this." That would be making it an assumption. That is not what is going on here. Instead individuals are looking at the actual "facts"/text and then inducting a conclusion from, that is the general conclusion is drawn from the specific examples (examples => conclusion). To assume it was true we would be trying to draw specific examples from an assumed general idea (assumption => examples). Perhaps the term "assumption" isn't ideal. I apologize for that. Educated duduction maybe? I completely agree that people are putting forth and educated and well thought out argument. My beef is with the fact that people are claiming it as being 100% absolute truth, with no room for debate whatsover. People are using the information available to come to a logical conclusion, but as it is not explicitly stated one way or another in the PGB, I believe that it does leave room for debate. But it is the most logical conclusion to draw from the RAW. You have failed to prove a more logical conclusion to draw. Ah, I think I see the issue, and it is my fault. I am in no way arguing against the conclusion. I am not trying to say that Law trumps Good, or that they are equal. My one and only points is that there IS room for debate in the matter, and that it isn't a 100% proven fact that Paladins favor Good over Law. If I have indicated otherwise, then I am sorry. Ah, but what does it mean to be Lawful Good. Does it mean being totally Lawful and totally Good? Not according to the RAW, according to the raw a LG person acts as a GOOD person is expect to. Well there are two components involved, one drawn from a serperate alignment axis. The difinition of Lawful Good also includes items such as "...tells the truth, keeps her word..." which are Lawful traits, not neccessarilly Good ones. Bravo! Now we are getting somewhere. Finally some evidence that can support a position that they are at least equal. Though (and I am not sure if this is an actual rule in English or not being not that interested in the actual mechanics) I have this intuitive feeling that if things in a list aren't made in Alphabetically order then they usually are listed in order of higher priority to lower. But again, I have no evidence to prove that view, only my intuitive feel. Maybe some of these more educated folks can correct me or back me up if I happen to be right (I wouldn't put much on that though). I have absolutely no idea what order the items are listed as, or if there even is an intended listing and they are not just randomly put together. My guess is that they are listed in order of importance, but I couldn't say for certain. Heck, it may have been an editor that layed it out that way without giving a thought to any sort of gamer conceived "order". Sure there is, that is that the most logical conclusion in any situation is the most likely to be correct one. For the longest time, the logical conclusion was that the Earth was flat. Turns out it isn't. Hardly the same thing I know, but the best example I can think of. :) The point is, that even though something can be widely held as true, it does not leave out the possibility of argument or of debate. We are not talking about my opinion though in this case, we are talking about what can be logically inducted from the material in the core rules. Now if you really wanted to debate the issue the strongest course would be instead of saying that it is only opinion (thus implying that someone is just pulling stuff out of their bum), is instead supply a different conclusion that could be inducted from the same material. Ah, but it is your opnion (or somebody's opinion at any rate). The reason is because you can give examples of how you formulated your deduction, you can give exact steps as to how you came to this conclusion, but in the end, there is no direct quoted indication that it is fact. I believe that you have very eloquently stated your case, and that the evidence you put forth is very strong. BUT, I also think that there is room for debate on the subject. Here I'll help. Looking at the rules for paladins and what it means to be Lawful Good, we can say this for certain. Paladins hate evil more than they hate chaos. This does not necessarily mean they value good more than law, just look at St. Cuthbert. He is LN, yet does not tolerate evil in his ranks. His lack of tolerance for evil does not mean he places good above law, clearly he does not since he is LN. So from the material we can not draw the conclusion that Good is more important than Law to a paladin, but what we can draw is that evil is more intolerable than chaos for a paladin. YES, that is exactly what I am talking about. The fact that there IS room to argue other aspects. The fact that there IS a debate to be had. My point is not that I disagree with the conclusion of Good outweighing Law, I think it's likely true, I disagree with the fact that some people are touting it as being true to the point that one would have to be braindead to believe otherwise. THAT is what my issue is. Well actually once it was pointed out that the paladin accept that the victims were "innocent" (whatever definition they were using in that game), then almost everybody accepted that the paladin was working outside of his code. I actually don't think we have enough information to assume the PAladin was outside of the CoC. Without the player playing the Paladin to bring his side of the story to light, I am very hesitant to make such a declaration. Well, I would have to say my experience has been quite different. Sure in a very general way you could say it is about the code, but from my experience it is more about what does it mean to be innocent (are the raised innocent? are baby orcs innocent? can someone be evil and be innocent? etc), what does it mean to be good (can you eat meat or does that mean you are not respecting life?)? If you detect as evil naturally (no tricks) are you worthy of being smited irregardless of what you are doing at that particular moment? To what extent do paladins have the right to meet out justice? To me, these are some of the problems with the CoC. According to the PHB, the Paladin must follow this Code in order to reamin a Paladin. However, then it goes on to list a very vague CoC that doesn't answer any of these questions. This is why DMs come to the boards on a weekly basis with these kinds of questions. And when a player and a DM have a different idea of any of these items, a problem ensues. This are things that effect the code sure, because the code is based on many of these. But it usually isn't the code itself but the basis of most of these other issues that are the real problem. Oh, there are so many issues involved it isn't funny really. Definine an "innocent". Define an "evil act". You probably could, but that doesn't mean that it will match another person's definition. that is where the problem is. |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 04:51 PM | STOP SAYING FACT!!!!! I never once claimed that what I said was a fact. What I said was more of a theroy, a widly accepted idea suppored by a substantial body of evidence. I respect your right to an oppinion, but if your going to debate it with me, then please get a better argument then, "You can't prove that it's true for sure, so that means that it must be wrong" I use the word "fact" because that is the way the notion is being presented. If somebody comes in and asks a question, and you respond with something along the lines of "Paladins must be Good ahead of Lawful", the you are presenting the item as an indesputable fact. If you say "From the information I've gathered" or "In my opinion" or "The general consensus is" then you are leaving room open for it not to be considered "fact". And I am not trying to debate the issue. That is not my intent. I do not mean to try and prove that Good = Law or that Law> Good. Not my intent at all, and if I have indicated this, I am sorry. My point is to say that there is room for such a debate, that stating your conslusion as being so true that such a debate cannot happen is dangerous. In any case, I even if law and good are equil, I still dont think that the laws of Mechanus should matter at all to the paladin. And even though St. Cuthbert is LN, he is much more human than the inhabitants of Mechanus are. He still has emotions, he can feel pitty, tell the difference between good and evil, and neutrality (with the exceptions of balance dudes, like TN druids) generaly prefer's good to evil. He may be LN, but he has a human mind, and I doubt that he could bring himself to start slaughtering innocents, who have commited no crime, and in fact were the VICTOMS of a crime. But in my example, the Paladin does not know any of this. Remember, the character knows the sum of a Knowledge check. That oddly enough includes what he knows about his own deity. A Paladin without a rank in Knowledge Religion knows only the absolute basics of his deity. Also, these people may or may not be innocents. The PAladin does not have the time to figure this out. He must act, or not act. If he spends the time trying to fogure this point out, he is too late. Would the Paladin try and stop the Exemplar? Probably. Should he? Certainly. But I personally think that there is some room for doubt. There is room for a crisis of faith. Of course, I don't know much about the Greyhawk dieties, so I may be off. I just assumed that St. Cuthbert would be more or less the same as his closesest FR counterpart, Helm. And here I am less familiar with the FR deities. :) I would say that they are likely quite close, if not even carbon copies of one another. Does Helm typically have Paladins, and if so, why do they normally function? |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 05:04 PM | A paladin doesn't have to follow a deity. A paladin follows good first, lawful second, and his deity whenever the deity acts in accordance with the above. A paladin doesn't fall for not obeying his deity, he doesn't fall for performing Chaotic acts as long as they do not grossly violate his Code of Conduct--he falls for committing any Evil act willingly. A Paladin does not have to follow a deity, that is true (baring campaign specifics of course). The question then is: Define an Evil act and define a Chaotic act. I assume that killing a random person would constitute an Evil act, and sure, I think that this is a fair baseline to dtermine that a Paladin falls. Now, what about a Chaotic act? Robbing a bank I suppose. Or could that be considered evil? My point here is that it isn't always clear cut as to what exactly constitues a Chaotic or an Evil act. There is a lot of grey area that causes problems. It's not an assumption. It's a literal reading of the rules. It clearly states that a paladin cannot perform Evil acts. It doesn't mention Chaotic acts. It clearly states that a paladin gets Smite Evil. They do not get Smite Chaos. They get Detect Evil, not Detect Chaos. They radiate an aura of Good, not Lawful. Ok, allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a second: It states that a Paladin cannot perform Evil acts, but mentions nothing of Chaotic. You are taking that to mean that the reverse is true and that Good, therefore must be more important than Lawful. Perhaps that it is not the inference to make, as it may only mean that the Paladin hates Evil more than Chaos, which does not necessarily mean that it preferms Good to Law. Perhaps things like Smite Evil, Detect Evil, and Aura of Good are merely mechanical. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the typical party is more likely to battle evil than chaos, and they outfitted the Paladin accordingly. Or maybe it's still as I previously mentioned, it hates Evil more than Chaos, which does not necessarily mean that it favors Good to Lawful. There is absolutely no question about this. Paladins are Good first, Lawful second. The Lawful-Chaotic axis doesn't care about Evil. You can dance around it however much you like, it doesn't change facts. THIS is exactly my problem. You are stating this as absolute fact when it is not. You have come to a logical and well thought out conclusion, and are completely shutting down any other possibility. You might be right, heck you probably ARE right, but to say that it is absolute truth is wrong since there is no direct quote that can be provided to back it up. |
| Jell_Moo01-27-07, 05:19 PM | Were they lawful as much as they are good they would radiate an aura of Law and an aura of Good, they would be able to smite Chaos as well as Evil, and they would be unable to perform Chaotic acts without immediately falling. These are pieces of evidence that support your claim, no doubt. They do not make it 100% true without room for debate. You can claim these are "assumptions" all you want. They are not. They are fact and they are clear. Assumptions may the wrong word to use. Let me arrange this then: FACT - Paladin has an Aura of Good FACT - Paladin Smite's Evil, not Chaos These are facts. I cannot dispute them. However, I can dispute your conclusion, which is that these prove that Paladins favor Good to Law. Your conclusion is logical, no doubt, but it isn't a fact. The paladin is Good and as a subset of good they espouse mostly Lawful values, like honor, respect for authority and tradition, righteousness, justice, etc. That is untrue. There is no "mostly" involved. They must act with honor and respect legitimate authority just as much as they must avoid an evil act. The CoC states this. Either one indicates a fall. They also may be Chaotic at times, and may even be required to be chaotic if the lawful choice would be Evil. Such as when a legitimate authority is improperly ordering the harm innocents. The paladin code is very clear that they save the innocent, even though it is a chaotic act (as long as the innocents aren't going to go out and do evil/chaos). They may then be required to attempt to reason with the authority and convince them of their wrong (a lawful act, judging others, and a good act, allowing them a chance to redeem themselves) but the initial act of saving the innocent would be chaotic and have absolutely zero effect on a paladin's abilities or violation of his code. This is a catch-22 where the Paladin cannot win. They must protect the inncoent and respect legitimate authority. In this case, the Paladin will most likely violate one part of his CoC. Either he will neglect to protect the innocents, but respect legitimate authority, or he will protect the innocents but neglect to repsect the legitimate authority. Either way, the Paladin has violated the CoC. In other words a paladin is required to be chaotic when the lawful choice is evil. A paladin is never required to be lawful when the good choice is chaotic. That is not true. Suppose the Paladin must save a baby. The only way to do so is to lie (a Chaotic action). In this case, the Chaotic action of telling a liew has violated the CoC, just the same as if the Paladin had not saved the baby, menaing he had allowed harm to come to an inncoent. You can't show anything to the contrary that Law trumps Good. You can't prove that law is equal to good. All you can show is that they are required to be both lawful and good at the same time, but this does nothing to show which of these axises are Favored or that neither is favored. Favor is shown by class abilities and restrictions. RAW very clearly show that Good is Favored. RAW shows nothing of the sort. IF it did, it would state that "Paladins favor Good to Law". RAW means Rules as Written, not Rules as Interpreted. Your interpretation is sound, your conclusions logical, but they are not RAW. You can ignore this if you want. You can focus only on the alignment section of a character's description and claim it is the end-all/be-all of that character's flavor/favor. You can house rule that paladins are equally lawful and good. That doesn't make me wrong. It doesn't make you wrong. It also doesn't make you right. |
| ShadowDragon868501-27-07, 05:23 PM | I have a quick-n-dirty, generic "Guideline" for Paladins, that I have always espoused. I call it the GGLS system. Basically it's a hierarchy of how things rank in importance to aid in resolving moral problems like this. It stands for: Good God(dess) Law Smite Evil This means that, in the hierarchy of Paladin things, Good is his absoloute and unshakable moral compass. Nothing but nothing comes before following the ideals of Goodness, not even a direct order from his or her Goddess (from whom I will note that a Paladin does NOT draw their powers). Second is God(dess). This means that, unless they wind up in confliction with the Paladin's Goodness, the stipulations of a Paladin's deity come first. Once those stipulations are satisfied, then it is time to be Lawful. Obeying the laws of the land, etcetera; though I should note that a pattern of unchivalrous behavior will eventually shift a Paladin to NG, which will make him an ex-Paladin in any event. However, this is not an excuse to behave like a LN dickwad: Good still comes first. Finally, his responsibility to Smite Evil. The Paladin may Smite the wicked, but only if in so doing he does not violate any of the other strictures. IE: Smiting Big Bubba the Evil Demon-Lord is okay, but smiting Jackass Joe the profiteering farmer is not. In this case, we don't have to look further than the first stipulation: It is not Good to allow the innocent to die, and no, performing Last Rights does not absolve you of having allowed them to die. Therefor, the Palain has a duty, an obligation, to combat the Marut and save the innocent. Also, he should have done so for the original ressurector, as well, since he was innocent of any Evil. |
| Palin the Wizard01-27-07, 05:32 PM | A Paladin does not have to follow a deity, that is true (baring campaign specifics of course). The question then is: Define an Evil act and define a Chaotic act. I assume that killing a random person would constitute an Evil act, and sure, I think that this is a fair baseline to dtermine that a Paladin falls. Now, what about a Chaotic act? Robbing a bank I suppose. Or could that be considered evil? My point here is that it isn't always clear cut as to what exactly constitues a Chaotic or an Evil act. There is a lot of grey area that causes problems. I disagree, but then, I've spent a lot of time here on the forums discussing alignment and what each alignment means. The main problem when an act is unclear with regards to alignment is lack of context. "Robbing a bank" is an action without context. Without context, it cannot be classified as being aligned with any alignment. Why are they robbing the bank? Are they doing it because they need money and have been pushed to the brink? Because they enjoy the thrill of bank-robbing and do it for pleasure, not need? Because they want to hurt the bank for personal reasons? And this simple context often isn't even enough. Ok, allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a second: It states that a Paladin cannot perform Evil acts, but mentions nothing of Chaotic. You are taking that to mean that the reverse is true and that Good, therefore must be more important than Lawful. Perhaps that it is not the inference to make, as it may only mean that the Paladin hates Evil more than Chaos, which does not necessarily mean that it preferms Good to Law. Perhaps things like Smite Evil, Detect Evil, and Aura of Good are merely mechanical. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the typical party is more likely to battle evil than chaos, and they outfitted the Paladin accordingly. Or maybe it's still as I previously mentioned, it hates Evil more than Chaos, which does not necessarily mean that it favors Good to Lawful. They're mechanical effects, and they are flavor. The fact that the paladin HAS an Aura of Good means something beyond that he registers as such when the correct spell is used. You're stalling. THIS is exactly my problem. You are stating this as absolute fact when it is not. You have come to a logical and well thought out conclusion, and are completely shutting down any other possibility. You might be right, heck you probably ARE right, but to say that it is absolute truth is wrong since there is no direct quote that can be provided to back it up. In general, I would agree with you. But this is more than clear enough to state that it IS an absolute fact, just as much as it is an absolute fact that monks are MAD and that wizards are not, and that a 2nd-level spell is more difficult to cast than a 1st-level spell. |
| Amon_WinterfallIV01-27-07, 06:23 PM | This is why Paladins are so darn frustrating to DM for--thank goodness I've never tried... The Paladin either has to be chaotic (Killing a Ultra-Lawful Marut) or Evil (allowing innocents to suffer). Are we sure that there is no third way? What about evacuting the townspeople? What about directing the Marut to a greater violation of its life and death principle? (So that it drops 'Cleaning Glass' and goes to a serious problem) What about Banishing this dude back to Mechanus? I hate these sorts of A or B logical problems, because the world never really works this way. If we agree that trashing the Marut isn't the Lawful thing to do, logically he can neither destroy it So a third way is required... If you can't third way, then you lack free will and can't be held responisble for at least one of the outcomes. |
| Palin the Wizard01-27-07, 07:43 PM | There's nothing Chaotic about killing a Lawful creature. Just because two creatures are Lawful does not mean they agree on what being Lawful is about. The entire Blood War harps on this (only with regards to Evil and not Law). You don't see thousands upon thousands of demons and devils doing Good actions merely because whom they kill are Evil, do you? |
| Amon_WinterfallIV01-27-07, 08:50 PM | There's nothing Chaotic about killing a Lawful creature. Just because two creatures are Lawful does not mean they agree on what being Lawful is about. The entire Blood War harps on this (only with regards to Evil and not Law). You don't see thousands upon thousands of demons and devils doing Good actions merely because whom they kill are Evil, do you? No, but the point of the inevitables seems to be to attack chaotic behavior without regard to good or evil. You don't become good by killing evil creatures--good is the hardest alignment in D+D to obtain. However, the three other alignments in D+D-- Lawful, Chaotic, and Evil, can definitely be earned by killing opposing views. When you destroy an outsider with a descriptor of some sort, you are acting against the force of that descriptor. Killing the Marut is a chaotic act. It deprives Primus of one of his foot-soldiers of law. The whole Blood-War example smacks of a red team/blue team attitude towards good and evil, which [Shouldn't] model reality. Good is much more than killing evil, but evil may be as simple as killing good. |
| Palin the Wizard01-27-07, 09:01 PM | No, but the point of the inevitables seems to be to attack chaotic behavior without regard to good or evil. No. The point of the Inevitable is to correct what it judges to be imbalances, based entirely on the transgression it was created for. You don't become good by killing evil creatures--good is the hardest alignment in D+D to obtain. However, the three other alignments in D+D-- Lawful, Chaotic, and Evil, can definitely be earned by killing opposing views. When you destroy an outsider with a descriptor of some sort, you are acting against the force of that descriptor. No alignment is any "harder" to be than any other. Good is just as easy as Evil. And destroying an outsider with an alignment descriptor doesn't make that action of the opposite alignment, otherwise demons and devils would constantly be doing Good actions, as they are constantly destroying outsiders with Evil descriptors. Killing the Marut is a chaotic act. It deprives Primus of one of his foot-soldiers of law. It's not a Chaotic act. There is nothing inherently Chaotic about opposing something Lawful. Chaos naturally opposes Law, yes; that doesn't mean that everything which opposes Law must be Chaos. You do not have to agree with Primus and his principles just because you are Lawful. The whole Blood-War example smacks of a red team/blue team attitude towards good and evil, which [Shouldn't] model reality. Good is much more than killing evil, but evil may be as simple as killing good. Good characters can kill other Good characters too, you know--without turning Evil. |
| Mecha_Pope01-28-07, 03:22 AM | Killing the Marut is not a chaotic act, it is, in fact, a Lawful act. In this case, the paladin's law and the marut's law just happen to be different, and in order to uphold the law of his god, the paladin pretty much has to kill the marut. Anyhow, what I've been trying to say is sure, there is room to argue as to weather or not good trumps law, but there is so little room that it's really not worth arguing, and all you'll end up doing is confusing the less experienced, and frustrating the more experienced. And anyhow, if someone asks for advice, I'm not going to help them at all by saying, "Good probibly is more important than law, but there's a chance that it's not" All I'll do is confuse them, or leave them right back where they started. So it's really not productive to myself and the boards in general, to even bother to acknoledge this possibility. |
| pres_man01-28-07, 03:48 AM | Actually, I could see St. Cuthbert taking such drastic action if the situation warranted. Mind you, I am far from an expert in the teachings of the deity, but he has always seemed to be grim and unyielding to me. Remember, in the example the Paladin has no idea if this is in fact a village of "innocents". Also, the act of learning whether they are from the same plane could be difficult and time consuming. If the Paladin does not know (his knowledge check was not high enough) and no one elese he trusts can answer the question, he is again left with choices for course of action. Well I will point that the paladin in this case does BELIEVE the villagers are "innocent". Whether he is right or not is not really relevant from an alignment standpoint since he can only act with good faith. As for the rest, I respond after the next quote. But in my example, the Paladin does not know any of this. Remember, the character knows the sum of a Knowledge check. That oddly enough includes what he knows about his own deity. A Paladin without a rank in Knowledge Religion knows only the absolute basics of his deity. Ok, let me see if I get this. The paladin is unsure of any real details about the inevitable. Maybe it is an agent of his deity, maybe it is not, maybe what is doing is fine, maybe it is not. Well then wouldn't it make more sense to say that in this case the paladin should follow his code, that is protect innocents. When in doubt protect living beings over non-living constructs? I mean he might have been totally wrong about it even being LN, if he has no clue whether it works for his deity or not. Why would he allow it to continue doing something that he would stop any non-outsider for doing? I mean, if that behaviour is generally unacceptable, why would he suddenly start to accept it with little to no knowledge? :schemes: : "I was sent by some LG beings to rape, torture, and murder." :fight!: : "Oh, well normally I would stop that but since you say you were sent by some LG beings, go right ahead." :looloo: For the longest time, the logical conclusion was that the Earth was flat. Turns out it isn't. Actually it wasn't, and most highly educated individuals didn't believe that. For one thing they studied what happened during a lunar eclipse and saw that the shadow from the earth could only be done if the earth was a sphere and not a flat. YES, that is exactly what I am talking about. The fact that there IS room to argue other aspects. The fact that there IS a debate to be had. My point is not that I disagree with the conclusion of Good outweighing Law, I think it's likely true, I disagree with the fact that some people are touting it as being true to the point that one would have to be braindead to believe otherwise. THAT is what my issue is. Yet people who stick their fingers in their ears and sing-song "La La La La". Instead of actually trying to participate in logical discussion are not really help to understand the situation. I actually don't think we have enough information to assume the PAladin was outside of the CoC. Without the player playing the Paladin to bring his side of the story to light, I am very hesitant to make such a declaration. Well as I said, most not all people agreed the paladin was acting outside of his code. This is due to the fact the paladin is supposively believing the people are innocent. Now if the paladin was agruing they are not innocent, then that would be whole other issue. But if the paladin says, "They are innocent." Then by his code he has to try to stop things that are harming them. Also, these people may or may not be innocents. The PAladin does not have the time to figure this out. He must act, or not act. If he spends the time trying to fogure this point out, he is too late. Would the Paladin try and stop the Exemplar? Probably. Should he? Certainly. But I personally think that there is some room for doubt. There is room for a crisis of faith. I would say very little room for doubt. The paladin in this case believes them to be innocent. It is therefore his responsibility to try to protect them. Now if he is wrong, it better to make in an error in favor of life than not. They can always be put down at a later time if it turns out that he was wrong. Also if the paladin believes that killing the people is the right thing to do, then he should be helping to kill them. He can't play it both ways, that it is wrong to kill them, but it is ok for innocent people to be killed. That would be a fine stance for a neutrally aligned character but not a paladin. He should either be protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty. The Paladin either has to be chaotic (Killing a Ultra-Lawful Marut) or Evil (allowing innocents to suffer). Are we sure that there is no third way? I don't think most people believe that it is either chaotic to stop a LN Marut or Evil to allow innocents to be slain. They are just not necessarily acceptable for a paladin (especially the innocents being harmed part). If we agree that trashing the Marut isn't the Lawful thing to do, Why not? Can it be the evil thing to do for a devil to kill a demon? Just because the Marut is following its programmed directive does not mean that direct is appropriate for all lawful beings. |
| Red1201-28-07, 09:54 AM | Think about it with another class with an alignment restriction. The Druid. Lets say a LN druid uses his magic to rebuild and replinish a massive forest after an equally massive forest fire. Lets say a Marut, (a bit of a stretch, but the paladin one was too) sees this as a violation of some kind, and decides to burn the forest back down. Does the druid perform a chaotic act by slaying this Marut? Does he perform an evil act? Is this a good act? No. Would the druid concider this Marut to be a servant of the greater balance? Would he stand by and let this construct wipe out a living, breathing ecosystem? No. He is a defender of nature and a foe of the abberant. The Paladin is a defender of the innocent and a foe of evil. To stand idle and let some construct from another plane, REGARDLESS of where it is from, come and destroy/kill that which you are charged to defend, then you are not acting as your class says you are supposed to. And you should loose your powers. Hell, if a Solar came down and started slaughtering a village (Who knows, maybe its a renegade fanatic solar.), the Paladin should stand up and say "No, this is wrong. I demand that you stop this." It doesnt matter whether it comes from a creature of good/law/chaos/evil. It is an act the paladin should stop at any cost, and to not do anything about it is perhaps a greater evil than joining in. |
| EvilVegan01-28-07, 10:38 AM | These are pieces of evidence that support your claim, no doubt. They do not make it 100% true without room for debate. Rogues favor attacking people sneakily. Wizards favor casting spells. Barbarians favor raging. Fighters favor feats. Class abilities of most classes are what they favor. A fighter does not favor casting spells over feats, otherwise he would be a wizard (or could multiclass). A rogue doesn't favor raging. And a paladin doesn't show equal favor to Law and Good. Favor in this case means "shows more inclination towards one aspect than another." A paladin favors smiting Evil over smiting Chaos. A paladin favors displaying he is Good over displaying he is Lawful. A paladin favors detecting Evil and not detecting Chaos. As far as a paladin's class abilities are concerned there is no mention of law at all (nor of chaos). A paladin will associate with chaotic creatures, even befriend and travel with them. They will never travel with an evil person. They may never perform an evil act. They may perform certain chaotic acts (if not covered by CoC). All class abilities geared towards fighting evil and doing good works. No class abilities for fighting chaos or doing law. CoC stricter on committing evil than on committing chaos. If a paladin truly didn't show favor towards good he would be able to do the exact same things on a lawful scale that he could on the good scale. That's what favor means. You prefer one to the other. Paladin class abilities are all based on GOOD and never mention LAW at all. As a side note I'd also like to point out that the ultimate weapon for a paladin since 1st edition, the Holy Avenger is a holy weapon, not an axiomatic weapon. You keep saying these are assumptions or interpretations or educated guesses with room for debate, but they're not. When given "2 + X = 4", "X = 2" is not an assumption. If you want the Logical approach If a class has abilities that favor one aspect over another that class favors that aspect. A paladin has abilities that favor good. A paladin favors good. The only way to refute this is to show that my premise is untrue. Please do so. These are logical conclusions. A paladin may commit as many chaotic acts as he likes up to the point just before it turns him neutral. A paladin can commit NO evil. Lets look at alignment mathematically. Here are my premises : * You are considered neutral on an axis if your percentage of Good/Evil or Law/Chaotic is between 26% and 74%. * For each act you commit that is alignment based you move a percentage point in that direction. Example. A true neutral druid is 50/50 on the scales. He would need to commit 25 aligned acts to shift from neutral to an alignment. So a paladin starts at 100% lawful and 100% good. Over time he commits 25 chaotic acts that do not break his CoC (such as following his conscience or allowing a repentant, non-evil/non-chaotic criminal to go free instead of turning him into authorities). This paladin is now 100% Good on the Good/Evil scale and 75% Lawful on the Lawful/Chaotic Scale, and retains full paladinhood. Now he commits one single evil act and becomes 99% Good, 75% lawful and immediately falls from grace as a paladin. Conclusion: A paladin favors good over law. Mathematically the percentage of Good a paladin must maintain is 100%. The percentage of Law is only that amount that causes his alignment to remain Lawful as long as he remains within his CoC. Until RAW state: A paladin may smite evil or chaos A paladin may cast detect evil or detect chaos at will. A paladin radiates an aura of law and of good. A paladin may never willingly commit an evil or chaotic act. A paladin may never have evil or chaotic companions. The only logical conclusion to draw from the premises presented is that paladins favor good over law. A logical conclusion is not an assumption. Just as the only logical conclusion to reach when a character is dead is that they can no longer take actions, even though the RAW do not state this. You may claim that this is also an "assumption". You would then be confusing logical conclusions with assumptions. Assumptions are what you make when you don't have enough information to draw a logical conclusion. An assumption would be : "2 + x + y = 5" "X = 2" "Y = 1" These are both possibly correct, but there are an infinite number of answers that are correct. |
| crowclub01-28-07, 11:21 AM | Paladins cause so many headaches for DM's and non-Paladin PC's. Ban Paladins, they suck after level 5 anyway. :mrt: Show me a Paladin 20 and I'll show you 1000 Paladin5/whateverX :clap: Paladins are almost as pants as Knights! :duel: |
| lears_fool01-28-07, 11:32 AM | 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. I really don't see where any of this makes a palladin a problem to a party that's made up of good (or even non-evil) adventurers. It says nowhere that he must make everyone in his party honorable or is 2nd edition style 'lawful stupid', at the bare minimum he's just a noble good guy who some may see as a bit archaic. You can find examples of that in half the books in fantasy literature and they CAN be fun to roleplay and are rarely half the disruption of that chaotic neutral (the 3rd edition version, not the old chaotic psychotic version) rogue. If someone understand the theme of their palladin and they didn't make one that's stupidly disruptive, then they generally can play it in a party without difficulty. I hardly see the code as overly constraining |
| Stormbrand01-28-07, 11:58 AM | Paladins cause so many headaches for DM's and non-Paladin PC's. Ban Paladins, they suck after level 5 anyway. :mrt: Show me a Paladin 20 and I'll show you 1000 Paladin5/whateverX :clap: Paladins are almost as pants as Knights! :duel: Very helpful. :rolleyes: |
| Jell_Moo01-28-07, 12:00 PM | Rogues favor attacking people sneakily. Wizards favor casting spells. Barbarians favor raging. Fighters favor feats. Class abilities of most classes are what they favor. A fighter does not favor casting spells over feats, otherwise he would be a wizard (or could multiclass). A rogue doesn't favor raging. None of these are truths. Rogues need not favor attacking sneakily at all. They can if they chose, but they do not have to favor this approach. A Rogue can get by without a single rank in Hide or Move Silently. These are generalizations based on class abilities. They may be true, they may not. This is purely a character by character choice. They are not universal. And a paladin doesn't show equal favor to Law and Good. Favor in this case means "shows more inclination towards one aspect than another." Again, maybe it's a generalization? Is it not possible that such a thing be left up to the individual Paladin? A paladin favors smiting Evil over smiting Chaos. A paladin favors displaying he is Good over displaying he is Lawful. A paladin favors detecting Evil and not detecting Chaos. As far as a paladin's class abilities are concerned there is no mention of law at all (nor of chaos). A paladin will associate with chaotic creatures, even befriend and travel with them. They will never travel with an evil person. They may never perform an evil act. They may perform certain chaotic acts (if not covered by CoC). Hating Evil more than hating chaos does not mean liking Good more than liking Law. The two may be related, but they are not directly indicative of one another. These are two seperate things that do not correlate the way you seem to think they do. All class abilities geared towards fighting evil and doing good works. No class abilities for fighting chaos or doing law. Again, this could be simple mechanics put together by the game designers. It's also incorrect if you start to look at the Paladin's spell list. CoC stricter on committing evil than on committing chaos. Not really. They are plenty of Chaotic acts listed there that immediately case a violation of the CoC. If a paladin truly didn't show favor towards good he would be able to do the exact same things on a lawful scale that he could on the good scale. That's what favor means. You prefer one to the other. Paladin class abilities are all based on GOOD and never mention LAW at all. That is you assumption though. You assume this. Paladin class abilities are based mostly on fighting Evil. This is not the same as saying that there abilites are based on liking Good more. You can have a character who is more Lawfully inclined than Good and still hate Evil more than Chaos. As a side note I'd also like to point out that the ultimate weapon for a paladin since 1st edition, the Holy Avenger is a holy weapon, not an axiomatic weapon. 1st edition is mostly meaningless in this. The only difference is the better explained CoC. You keep saying these are assumptions or interpretations or educated guesses with room for debate, but they're not. When given "2 + X = 4", "X = 2" is not an assumption. But that is not what you are saying at all. Your logic is along these lines: Most Paladin abilities are geared towards fighting Evil. The opposite of Evil is Good. Therefore the Paladin must favor Good. You are assuming that connection, which may not be true at all. Does this make your assumption wrong? Not at all, it is likely correct. But it is not 100% fact that cannot be disputed. It is an extrapolation of deductions you have made and a conclusion you have drawn. It is nowehere near a proven mathematical formula. If you want the Logical approach If a class has abilities that favor one aspect over another that class favors that aspect. A paladin has abilities that favor good. A paladin favors good. The only way to refute this is to show that my premise is untrue. Please do so. This is untrue. The Paladin has abilities that focus on fighting Evil, not favoring Good. You are making this assumption, that hating Evil equals preferring Good. I am saying that this need not be true. These are logical conclusions. A paladin may commit as many chaotic acts as he likes up to the point just before it turns him neutral. A paladin can commit NO evil. Also untrue. Look at the CoC. It lists several Chatic acts that the Paladin cannot perform without violating the CoC. Heck, it actually lists specifically more Chaotic acts to avoid than Evil. Lets look at alignment mathematically. Here are my premises : * You are considered neutral on an axis if your percentage of Good/Evil or Law/Chaotic is between 26% and 74%. * For each act you commit that is alignment based you move a percentage point in that direction. Example. A true neutral druid is 50/50 on the scales. He would need to commit 25 aligned acts to shift from neutral to an alignment. So a paladin starts at 100% lawful and 100% good. Over time he commits 25 chaotic acts that do not break his CoC (such as following his conscience or allowing a repentant, non-evil/non-chaotic criminal to go free instead of turning him into authorities). This paladin is now 100% Good on the Good/Evil scale and 75% Lawful on the Lawful/Chaotic Scale, and retains full paladinhood. Now he commits one single evil act and becomes 99% Good, 75% lawful and immediately falls from grace as a paladin. Conclusion: A paladin favors good over law. Mathematically the percentage of Good a paladin must maintain is 100%. The percentage of Law is only that amount that causes his alignment to remain Lawful as long as he remains within his CoC. That is mostly meaningless unfortunately, as it has been left completely up DM fiat as to what "percentage" each act must be. Also, once again look at the CoC. 1 Lie, a chaotic act, is enough to violate the CoC. I think that most would agree that it is harder to avoid telling a single lie, then say, killing an innocent. This could indicate that the Paladin is given more room to move on the Law-Chaos axis simply based on the fact that it is much harder to keep to the straight and narrow, and thus make a player' s life miserable. Until RAW state: A paladin may smite evil or chaos A paladin may cast detect evil or detect chaos at will. A paladin radiates an aura of law and of good. A paladin may never willingly commit an evil or chaotic act. A paladin may never have evil or chaotic companions. The only logical conclusion to draw from the premises presented is that paladins favor good over law. A logical conclusion is not an assumption. Until the RAW states explicitly "If push comes to shove, the Paladin should favor Good to Law" then it is at best an educated conclusion, and not a fact that eliminates all form of argument. |
| Free198301-28-07, 01:09 PM | Until the RAW states explicitly "If push comes to shove, the Paladin should favor Good to Law" then it is at best an educated conclusion, and not a fact that eliminates all form of argument. Yeah yeah, in the end you made you point, but don't you make the same assumption in the end? |
| pres_man01-28-07, 01:18 PM | I think the issue is more fundamental then just the paladin. It is not just that the paladin favors good over law, but that the entire set up of alignment in 3.x favors good-evil over law-chaos. Again, I can't show an exact quote where it says, "Good-evil is more important than law-chaos." But there is a quite a bit of evidence to support it. This chapter covers alignment (a character's place in the struggle between good and evil), ... ... Good and evil are not philosophical concepts in the D&D game. They are forces that define the cosmos. ...[several examples of good versus evil, none of law versus chaos]... ... Most player characters are good or neutral rather than evil. In general, evil alignments are for villians and monsters. In general, I believe that it is quite clear that the current version places the conflict of good versus evil higher than law versus chaos. Heck it even indicates that it is perfectly reasonable for lawful and chaotic types to coexist in a party but that good (or even neutral to a large extent) to not coexist in a party with evil. These general implication of good-evil being more important than law-chaos even extends to other published material. For example there are a pair of text specificly about good and evil (yes, I mean THOSE books, BoED and BoVD), but (at least to my knowledge) there are no books specificly about law and chaos. So when law and good come into conflict, it is keeping with the "spirit" of the current rules to place good first. Now Jell_Moo, I again have a specific question. If the paladin believes that in this case law is more important than good, shouldn't the paladin be helping to slay this "guilty" beings? If the paladin believes they are guilty he should be not only condoning what the inevitable is doing, but also aiding it. If he doesn't believe the people are "guilty" (evidence by his lack of trying to aid in their punishment), but are instead "innocent" then he should be aiding them. So this paladin is either: 1) failing his code because he isn't punishing the "guilty". or 2) failing his code because he isn't protectin the "innocent". The paladin has to believe they are one or the other, so therefore irregardless of which the paladin believes the villagers are, he is failing because he is not acting in accordance with his beliefs. In order to actually not fall it is quite easy: 1) if he believes that the villagers are "guilty", put them down (humanely). or 2) if he believes that the villagers are "innocent", he attempts to protects them (perhaps dying in the attempt). This isn't even some huge meta-physical issue. It is more of an issue of a paladin not acting within his beliefs. This is no different than the paladin that decides to "take a walk" so the CN (really CE, but he's got something to fool his aura, stupid DM perhaps) can "convince" the prisoner to speak. "As long as I don't dirty my own hands, then it is ok." Is a load of crud for any paladin to practice. |
| EvilVegan01-28-07, 02:41 PM | None of these are truths. Rogues need not favor attacking sneakily at all. They can if they chose, but they do not have to favor this approach. A Rogue can get by without a single rank in Hide or Move Silently. Rogues DO favor sneak attacks. They have a class ability called "SNEAK ATTACK". The player may not favor sneak attacks, but this is not the same thing as the mechanics of the class favoring sneak attacks. These are generalizations based on class abilities. They may be true, they may not. This is purely a character by character choice. They are not universal. No. The favor is built into the classes and is generalized and not a choice of the character. The choice of the character is whether or not to level in classes that favor those abilities. Again, maybe it's a generalization? Is it not possible that such a thing be left up to the individual Paladin?It is left up to the individual. They're more than welcome to fall from grace for commiting an evil act. Hating Evil more than hating chaos does not mean liking Good more than liking Law. The two may be related, but they are not directly indicative of one another. These are two seperate things that do not correlate the way you seem to think they do.Actually, yes it does mean that. But more to the point a paladin can't do evil and can do chaotic and specifically says nothing about hating chaos but does show that they hate evil. Not really. They are plenty of Chaotic acts listed there that immediately case a violation of the CoC.There are specific chaotic acts that are forbidden. ALL evil acts are. That is you assumption though. You assume this. Paladin class abilities are based mostly on fighting Evil. This is not the same as saying that there abilites are based on liking Good more. You can have a character who is more Lawfully inclined than Good and still hate Evil more than Chaos. This is wrong. You can't have a character who likes law more than good that hates evil more than chaos. Law is opposed by Chaos. Good is opposed by Evil. If you prefer law over good the corralary of this is that you dislike chaos more than evil. You are attempting to separate features that cannot be separated in D&D. You can have a player who plays his character as if he favors law more than good, but choses to defend chaos before evil, but that would only mean that he favors good (or neutrality). Most Paladin abilities are geared towards fighting Evil. The opposite of Evil is Good. Therefore the Paladin must favor Good. You are assuming that connection, which may not be true at all. The Paladin has abilities that focus on fighting Evil, not favoring Good. You are making this assumption, that hating Evil equals preferring Good. I am saying that this need not be true. Go ahead and ignore Aura of Good. I'm not assuming that they don't radiate an Aura of Law. They don't. The rest of the class abilities further cement the already correct conclusion. Also untrue. Look at the CoC. It lists several Chatic acts that the Paladin cannot perform without violating the CoC. Heck, it actually lists specifically more Chaotic acts to avoid than Evil. Actually it includes infinitely more evil acts. This is because it restricts ALL evil acts and only a few chaotic ones. Every single evil act EVER vs 5 restricted chaotic acts specifically mentioned one of which is still bound to good (respect authority, not lying, not cheating, not using poison, judging evil doers - not chaotic doers). That is mostly meaningless unfortunately, as it has been left completely up DM fiat as to what "percentage" each act must be. Also, once again look at the CoC. 1 Lie, a chaotic act, is enough to violate the CoC. I think that most would agree that it is harder to avoid telling a single lie, then say, killing an innocent. This could indicate that the Paladin is given more room to move on the Law-Chaos axis simply based on the fact that it is much harder to keep to the straight and narrow, and thus make a player's life miserable.Ignore the logic because you don't like the presentation. Good job at focusing on what I wrote and not what it means. Until the RAW states explicitly "If push comes to shove, the Paladin should favor Good to Law" then it is at best an educated conclusion, and not a fact that eliminates all form of argument.Wrong. First, you are saying that I'm saying that the favor is a conscious choice by the paladin, it is not. It is built into the class, just as rage is favored by barbarians and sneak attack is favored by rogues. Second, A player who chooses to favor law and good equally while playing a paladin is more than welcome to do so, but he does not have to because the class naturally favors good. Third, A player could not choose to favor law more than good by willingly commiting evil acts in the name of law without losing his abilities as a paladin. |
| lears_fool01-28-07, 02:59 PM | It still looks to me like most of this argument is backwards. The Code of Conduct actually is pretty vague, far more vague than any good character concept would be. Which means the bulk of these arguments are putting the cart before the horse, arguing hypothesis based on interpretation of the alignments and such without actually applying them to the real world (i.e. a character) When my players make Palladins they have a bit more work to do over a regular player when defining their code (and applying it to the CoC). And in the end the individual palladin's personal code is far more detailed than the CoC would be. And THAT code helps dictate what fits and what doesn't for the palladin far more than a couple of sentence blurb in the class description. |
| pres_man01-28-07, 04:23 PM | When my players make Palladins they have a bit more work to do over a regular player when defining their code (and applying it to the CoC). And in the end the individual palladin's personal code is far more detailed than the CoC would be. And THAT code helps dictate what fits and what doesn't for the palladin far more than a couple of sentence blurb in the class description. Well I hope that for clerics and monks that they have as equally extensive code developed. In fact it is a bit harder for those classes because they have no set rules to springboard off of. Even druids should have a code of some type to keep them in their neutral regions. |
| lears_fool01-28-07, 04:43 PM | Well I hope that for clerics and monks that they have as equally extensive code developed. In fact it is a bit harder for those classes because they have no set rules to springboard off of. Even druids should have a code of some type to keep them in their neutral regions. Well, the Paladin specifically STATES in it's class description that it has a code of conduct, as does the knight. . so for those two classes those codes should be kept in mind when the character is developed. Priests also should have a code that reflects that of their deity, of course. In neither case is the code 'an alignment', which is a useful guide but not something you want to overliteralize. All of this should be part of character development and creation. A well-developed character simply won't be suffering from any of these debates, they will function organically and generally NOT be a problem to play or DM. |
| Mecha_Pope01-28-07, 06:57 PM | Paladins cause so many headaches for DM's and non-Paladin PC's. Ban Paladins, they suck after level 5 anyway. :mrt: Show me a Paladin 20 and I'll show you 1000 Paladin5/whateverX :clap: Paladins are almost as pants as Knights! :duel: I have never heard of anyne having any problem with the paladin untill i joined these boards. Paladins have no problem traveling with any non-evil party, unless the other player are stupid/not playing thier own alignments right. For the last time, the paladin doesn't have any problems that any other good aligned chaicter doesn't have. "Oh noes! Teh paladin in the party wants to put me in jails cuz my CN bard mugged someone HELP!!!!!!11!!" "Your lucky, if he was a CG fighter, you'd be dead. Stop whining because your actions have consiquences" |
| CharlieRock01-28-07, 10:04 PM | It is not just that the paladin favors good over law, but that the entire set up of alignment in 3.x favors good-evil over law-chaos. Because this ain't Warhammer :cool: |
| Mauther01-29-07, 01:36 AM | I initially tried to post this Friday, but I had problems posting to the board... Mauther. i should very much like to hear the final outcome of your descision. i personaly as a Dungeon master would ensure the paladin knows he is stepping out of line but i think that blasting a 7 year olds face off is a clear enough indication that it's not going to negotiate. Well for good or ill its done. And surprisingly, it didn't go down quite how I expected it. The paladin followed the Inevitable, while the other two party members waited in town. They had decided they needed a new spell selection to confront the Marut and so were delaying until the next day, but were goaded into action when the watch commander came out of the stables with a new horse, fresh clothes and a belt of potions (mainly remove blindness/deafness), same conversation those two PCs and that NPC had previously had was presented (its certain death/I have no choice) again. The PCs decided to Wind Walk to overtake the Inevitable. They found the refugees that were still in front of the Marut and urged them onward and gave them some healing to keep them moving. Since the refugees had splintered (the faster left the slower behind, the richer left the poorer way behind), they used the triage logic and leap frogged ahead until they found a group they thought would stay ahead of the Inevitable until after their morning preparations. They then settled down to wait. Meanwhile the Paladin was following the Marut, and tending the bodies after each confrontation (wrap the body in blankets, secure it with rope, mark the location for retrieval and burial at a later time, and a brief blessing). First, was a pair of men over taken (they were injured because they had tried to take some other refugee's horse and so been left by everyone else although none of the PCs ever found out about that). Next was a man and his daughter who had hidden in a copse of trees a mile off the road, then back on the road for an old man (boom, dead). It was well after dark when the watch commander caught up. The two talked, the watch commander never tried to guilt the paladin into joining him, but stressed that his own oath to protect the innocent required him to put himself between the Marut and the fleeing civilians. This was a close as I was willing to go to laying out the situation. The commander asked the paladin to return his sword if he should fall, and identified himself as a follower of Tyr. The commander basically laid out all the parts of the oath as to why he felt he had to go ahead, and it was highly implied he was a paladin (point of fact he wasn't, he was a LN Cavalier whose code of honor was very similiar to a paladin's with a bit of nationalism on top but it still served its purpose). The paladin stated that it was his obligation to tend to the fallen and so he sat back and watched the commander fight it alone and die (although he did last several rounds), followed several minutes later as the Inevitable overtook another group of civilians. The paladin made an impressive series of Fortitude saves to keep pace with the inevitable by walking all night, although two more groups were killed (one party on a wagon drew straws and the losers set off in opposite directions at right angles to the road, unforuntely they were peasants with lower CONs due to ressurection traveling by foot at night cross-country so they didn't get as far as they hoped). Describing these encounters and detailing his reaction took the better part of an hour, so we didn't just breeze through this. So dawn finds the Marut walking past the other character's camp and the party meeting up conveniently for morning prep. The Dragon Disciple meditates, the Radiant Servant prays to the dawn, and the paladin does his morning ritual. The Dragon Disciple (CG) flaps his wings ready to go. The Radiant Servant (NG) begins his daily buff spells. The Paladin (LG, of course) comes to the realization that his paladin abilities aren't working, although his spells and abilities tied to race and other classes remained (he's an Aasimir Cleric1/Paladin5/Hospitaler7 of Torm). The player/character reacted so stoicly to this that I couldn't tell if he was surprised or not. When he presents this development to the other characters, they immediately ask him if he's done anything that might have angered his god, he says no (I notice both of the other players, raise their eyebrows at this). The party decides that they don't really have any time to kill, so they set out after the Inevitable for the climatic confrontation. They overtake the Marut with an exhausted refugee familycoming into view just ahead. They interpose themselves between the outsider and the civilians and prepare to throw down. The problem with fighting Inevitables is they are tough (good ac, attack, damage, SR, damage reduction, fast healing, the works). The good thing about Inevitables is they are predictable. The Marut plodded at a set pace right at the characters (that being the straightest path to its target), the PCs dropped buff after buff after buff (I think the Radiant Servant had the most at 42 spells level worth of spells active at the start of combat). The Radiant Servant drops a Comet Strike (Marut failed the save, takes all of 14d6), the dragon disciple pulls of a true striked, power attacking charge, the Paladiun gets his charge in, and the Marut fails to penetrate the character's Mass Spell Resistance. The Radiant servant drops another comet strike, and the Marut falls over well and truely dead.The players refused to believe it and thought this was a fake Marut and that the real one had looped behind them to get at the civilians, but eventually they accepted that the Marut was actually dead. They waited a bit for another Marut to appear, then convinced the refugees they were near that all was well, or at least as well as they were going to get and that they could return to town. A little bit of humor from this (besides the slack jaws when I said "The Marut collapses in a heap, dead"), the players decided that they were going to let the other refugees that were even farther ahead keep running for their life as repayment for abandoning their fellow refugees. All told, 17 refugees died and 1 Cavalier. The characters returned to town and collected all of the bodies, then the paladin sought out the temple, took his usual abuse from a self important acolyte (think world's *****iest receptionist) before getting the Prior to agree to cast a spell to address the issue. Planar Ally was selected so the character could actually discuss the matter with a represenative and an Archon loyal to Torm was summoned (I went with the 2nd Ed version of a lion headed archon, because the 3rd edition emmissary is a talking,flaming gauntlet and I was not going to roleplay the militant cousin to the Hamburger Helper mascot). The Archon agreed to discuss the issue, and intervene on the paladins behalf if it was deemed justified and the paladin agreed to retrieve a sacred item in repayment (this would also fulfill any quest requirement in Attonement). The Archon walked him through his Hospitaler oath, and both agreed that was clear of any transgression, and they agreed that the paladin had acted honorably as a Paladin (no lieing, cheating, or other subterfuge). Suprisingly, the paladin didn't claim the authority of the Marut as a reason for inaction. They finally got to the part about helping those in need and protecting the innocent and surprisingly here the player kind of hemmed and hawed. The paladin briefly wavered on whether or not the refugees were innocent, but when pressed by the Archon he decreed them innocents. The paladin's defense hinged on self preservation. He didn't believe the Marut was defeatable, and so saw the attempt to stop it as futile (I'll explain at the end why this was a non-starter for the DM). Unfortunately, the party's overwhelming success worked against the paladin on this as the Archon first asked how he defeated the Marut if it was unbeatable, then commended the paladiin of healing from the battle so quickly (only the Marut was injured in the final battle). The Marut also asked him about the commander's actions, and how he reacted to that. There was a bit of give and take, but the Archons position became clear "that the paladin couldn't know whether the Marut was defeatable but that he could/ should have known where his obligation as paladin put him: between the Marut and the innocent." The paladin accepted the judgement, the prior promised to perform the attonement, and the players were introduced to the new plotline: a demonic murder mystery camouflaged as a dungeon crawl, while they still have to worry about an Eye of Gruumush gathering tribes of orcs and outfitting them with high quality weapons. The encounter with the Inevitable was slated as CR15 (base Marut), but I awarded xp as a CR17 encounter due to the roleplay and time involved. Now as to my judgement, this was based partially straight off my own personal interpretation of paladins, but then supplemented by the paladin's own stated reasoning. Personally, I don't think Paladins get to claim self preservation (I can already hear the howls of protest, hear me out there's still room to agree to disagree). Other lawful good characters can declare a fight unwinnable, but I think the paladin's code prevents this. A paladin has to put himself between the innocent and those who would do them harm period-end-stop. They are the archetype of unyielding heroes, they are Horatio on the bridge. First of all, you can never be certain any fight is unwinnable til the fight's been done, and you never know any opponent is undefeatable until you have died trying to fight him and failed. When a paladin starts weighing which fights are too dangerous, it opens up a slippery slope. On the one hand, yes a 1st level paladin shouldn't be able to defeat an epic wizard. But that doesn't mean a) the wizard isn't actually epic and is instead a low level wizard pretending to be an archmage, b)the paladin couldn't get ridiculously lucky (mass damage, continual natural 20's, whatever), or c) the wizard couldn't get ridiculously unlucky (continual natural 1's, draw the attention of other powers, etc). And what if the paladin starts weighing all fights by that criteria (that goblin warrior could be an epic Juggernaut, so I better not risk it). That doesn't mean a paladin is completely suicidal. If a paladin hears about Manshoon the evil epic wizard, he doesn't have to set off to destroy him at level 1. But if Manshoon shows up at his door and tells the paladin he's going to kill the innocent behind the paladin, the paladin can't step aside. So yeah, I fall in the paladins have to sacrifice themselves camp. There are some real good explanations for why paladins don't get to play the greater good card in the Book of Exalted deeds, but I recognize many DMs and players wouldn't necessarily agree with me on that. Luckily, I was saved from having to weigh that explanation by another. Killing the Marut was not the only option. He could have tried to hide them (with sufficient magic it might have worked) he could have helped them flee, he could have donated funds to help them travel faster or farther (purchasing travel aides or even teleports since it takes a hell of a long time to walk from the Shining South the Waterdeep), he could have bought a scroll of Holy Word, Dismissal, or Banishment to send it back to Mechanus, or a scroll of Greater Planar Ally to call a powerful Archon to dispatch the Inevitable. He could have tried to trip the thing continously, anything trying to buy the refugees more time on the road where someone else might be able to help them, or possibly even find refuge farther down the road in a major city where more powerful NPCs might be available. The point is that it wasn't necessarily a choice between inaction and certain death, apparently those were just the only options the player weighed. Burying the dead wasn't the only thing the character could do, it was just the least. |
| kintire01-29-07, 08:13 AM | Re-read my example. In my example the Paladin is a Paladin of St.Cuthbert, a Lawful-Neutral deity with a penchant for justice. He does not know that the Exemplar is a representative of a flawed ideology as his Knowledge check reveals little more than it is an extra planar creature devoted completely to Law. In this case is it not possible for a Paladin to wonder what is the proper course of action? Protect a group of villagers who may or may not be innocents, or not interfere with a being that may or may not be an agent of his god. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If your asking if there are situations where a Paladin may be doubtful as to what to do due to lack of information, that's trivially true. Even then, I'd err on the side of caution: if you save them and they should have died, you can kill them later. If you let them die, and it turns out they should have lived, that's tougher to bounce back from. But I'm basically uninterested in lack of info related dilemmas: they can afflict anyone and are solved the same way (Find Out More). And it doesn't alter the fact; slaughtering an entire village needs a stronger support behind it than "but this thing might possibly be connected to my god in some way! or not..." |
| Boraxe01-29-07, 01:05 PM | I can see your point on the matter, but at the same time, I dislike the idea that one person's interpretation or idea is viewed as "more correct" than another's in this regard. At best, there is circumstancial evidence. There is no direct line of text that I can find which seems to indicate that the Paladin follows Good ahead of Law. I've seen the arguments made, and maybe I agree with some them, but at best they are educated opnions, and not facts. Passsing them off as facts can be dangerous when done carelessly. I don't have a problem with it at all. I know it is the modern vogue to suggest that all opinions are equal and equally valid, but I just don't believe that. All opinions deserve equal consideration, but ultimately some can and are far more correct than others. As another poster pointed out - I think it was pres_man - while the rule specify that a paladin must be LG, this is the extent of the text realting to the lawful portion of the paladin's alignment. There are, however, numerous further descriptions of restrictions relating to the paladin and his relationship to good and evil (can't knowingly consort with evil characetrs, can't do evil acts, etc.). If the lawful component was equally as vital then it should have been given equal consideration in the text. That it was not can lead to only one logical conclusion: that while law is important to the paladin it is less important than is good. Cheers, man. |
| Cantankerous01-30-07, 01:19 PM | Taking this a step further though, a preponderance of decisions that go in a certain manner do not make the weight of that decision heavier than the less often referenced one. To whit: on a certain board, or within the frame of reference of a certain game, there are two statements made. The first, that fire is hot, is continually referenced, while the second, that water is wet, is very seldom refernced. You can not however, conclude based on the scarcity of refernces to water being wet that that statement is any any way less correct than the fire is hot statement. I personally also agree that the Paladin class is set up in this way (Good over Law), and am an adamant opponent of the ascertion that one opinion is as good as another with regard to merit, but you simply can not use scarcity in refernce as a defintive arguement fior any particular cause by itself. Isshia |
| kelvinaw27301-30-07, 01:59 PM | I think the OP made a reasonable call. Myself I would have been tougher on the Paladin, he would have had an almighty ticking off from the Planar Ally and had to do a great deal of Atonement. On the other hand he did fight the Marut inthe end, the one redeeming thing he did. Basically, the Paladin confessed to cowardice by saying the Marut was too powerful. Clearly it wasn't. As to the question of innocence ... it wasn't known for certain that the Marut was LN - it might have been a demon in disguise, after all .... |