Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-04-05, 02:25 PM	God we seem swamped with these. OK the party tried to get into an evil temple where 1313 children (all bound and gaged, all aged 5 or less) were being held for sacrifice (mind body and soul) to an evil deiaty by havin gtheir heats pierced by specially unsanctified crossbow ammo (the dieatie's favourate sactifice method.). They get to the altar when the silance spell they used to hide Sir Clank-a-lot gives out, and now cannot re-cast the spell without alarming the evil clerigy and deamons. They try anyway and get found out, and when he realises what is happening the Arch cleric declares "Use the ceremonial ammunition on the children! They cannot save them all!" Realising that is fact the most they can save is about 8 the paladin THROWS A 6D6 NECKLACE OF FIREBALLS BEAD INTO THE ALTAR PIT!!! His argument is "better dead than sacrificed." What do you think?
Guy Humual 05-04-05, 02:32 PM	:OMG! .
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-04-05, 02:37 PM	:OMG! . So.... is that yes or no?
Escef 05-04-05, 02:38 PM	So, instead of trying to find a way to save as many as possible, he blows them up? I understand where his line of reasoning is, but it is un-Paladinly. (I would have tossed it so to get as many of the executioners without harming the children.) The act was neither evil intentioned nor chaotic. However, it was wrong, despite his intentions. I'd say this is call for a temporary removal of Paladin abilities, until an Atonement has been fulfilled.
Guy Humual 05-04-05, 02:46 PM	The answer is, of course, that the player should have done is gotten up from the gaming table and said “good night, and good bye. You won’t be DMing for me ever again.”
snowlynx 05-04-05, 03:00 PM	He needs to atone, yes, as Escef has said. In addition, he probably needs to understand that the death of the children was not an acceptable side effect for killing the bad guys. This needs to be part of the atonement. He shoudn't, of course, be punished for his failure to not save the children....it sounds as if there wasn't much the party could do (though I might have tried to strip mr. clank's armor so that the party could go in a bit quieter....had I been a party member.)
LukiLoki 05-04-05, 03:06 PM	Sorry, but that's so Chaotic it's Chaotic Stupid. And we're "swamped with these", IMO, not necessarily because hapless players don't know how to play paladins, but because DMs LET players who don't know how to play paladins play them, and then proceed to put them in :censored:ed up situations like this, where high prime numbers :rolleyes: of 5 year olds are about to be sacrificed to the god of fat free foods or whatever the :censored: I mean, give the poor guy a break. Ease him into the moral dilemmas a little, before busting with stuff that would keep Kant up at night. Edit:I know, I know, it's not prime. sue me, Einstein
CzarGarrett 05-04-05, 03:06 PM	The answer is, of course, that the player should have done is gotten up from the gaming table and said “good night, and good bye. You won’t be DMing for me ever again.” Agreed. Also, in the time not playing D&D, I might suggest furthering ones understanding of the English language as not to be quite as difficult to read next time.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-04-05, 03:16 PM	Ok, let me explane somthing. He brought it on himslef. 1. The party knew agout the cult BEFORE they started to kidnap children 2. The party had acsess to a "movable door" an item I invented to, more or less, save the children. 3. The party followed the 2nd lot of children to the cult, but decided to "wait untill the sacrifice because then we will get everyone." 4. They had acsess (although they never used it) to the buleprints of what was now the cult's home which show a secter passadge near the altar. 5. Silance only petered out because they spent half teh duration (at least) muching about searching for traps on a door that they could have serched BEFORE casting the spell. 6. The cleric (caster of silance) has silent spell and a high enough slot for a silent silance. 7. This is the Paladin players 4th majour adventure, although 1st as a paladin. Ok with you?
snowlynx 05-04-05, 03:22 PM	It's your game, and your setting. You have the right to do as you please with your world, unless it greatly upsets the players (not the characters.) If sacrificing children to some god pays off in your world, then it pays off in your world, and cults will do it. Presumeably, the Paladin knew the world was that messed up before he joined as a Paladin, correct? Really, you just have to figure out what's going on in-game....and in-game, he has clearly done something that requires atonement.
jasper 05-04-05, 03:23 PM	Lose of paladin benefits and such a spanking from his boss. Sounds like new group who did not get the clues also. So next time hint to do a check on what they got in inventory or send mr paladin a dream.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-04-05, 03:25 PM	It's your game, and your setting. You have the right to do as you please with your world, unless it greatly upsets the players (not the characters.) If sacrificing children to some god pays off in your world, then it pays off in your world, and cults will do it. Presumeably, the Paladin knew the world was that messed up before he joined as a Paladin, correct? Really, you just have to figure out what's going on in-game....and in-game, he has clearly done something that requires atonement. You seen confused. He killed the children so that they would NOT be sacrificed (the condition in which they are sacrifieced is a ceremonial crossbow bolt through the heart). Better dead that sacrifieced (ie no life OR soul.)
Escef 05-04-05, 03:27 PM	After a little thought, I will say the DM put the PCs in a really bad spot. First of all, that is an outrageously large number of children. It is pretty difficult to hide the fact that you're keeping over a thousand people captive. That altar must be overflowing with flesh if all the children are there. The ones in the bottom of the pile probably were crushed to death or suffocated long before the PCs got there. The PCs were put in a truely absurd situation. If there were fewer children, say a dozen, they would have had better options. Mind you, hostage situations are always tricky. I sprang a hostage situation on my players once, the bad guys demanded the PCs surrender or they'd start killing hostages. The PCs attacked and in response the some of the bad guys started firing at the hostages. (My players seemed rather surprised that it wasn't a bluff.)
pres_man 05-04-05, 03:30 PM	First thing I would ask is, if the children were killed by the ceremonial ammunition, would their souls be condemned for all eternity? And if so, did the paladin know this? If the answer is yes to both questions (or just the second question) then I say the paladin would lose his abilities temporarily, until he saw someone for atonement, with some kind of quest involved with helping the families of the children. Basically he tried to protect innocent souls by taking innocent lives, though typically this is an insane position to take in this case it might have made sense. If the answer to both questions (or just the second one) is no, then strip all abilities and make it extremely hard for him to atone. You don't save children by killing them, that is sick and wrong. Edit: Sorry, I think I misunderstood, I thought he threw the beads to hit the guys and kill some of the kids as well. If he just killed the kids, then regardless of the above questions, put the smack down on him and make it extremely hard for him to atone.
snowlynx 05-04-05, 03:31 PM	Eh, my post was in response to all these folks that don't seem to like the situation that was set up; I know he didn't sacrifice them himself for a god. They were killed in some sort of evil temple; do they really get their souls back? I agree that the situation was bad, but I don't know...I don't think what the paladin did weas excusable despite the situation.
LukiLoki 05-04-05, 03:33 PM	Really, can we just have a sub-forum called "What's a Railroaded Paladin to do?" and turn the DM board back over to interesting discussions of the Art of Dungeoncraft and other matters Game Masterly? It's getting old, and they're all pretty much the same.
Lord Ian Stark 05-04-05, 03:51 PM	Really, can we just have a sub-forum called "What's a Railroaded Paladin to do?" and turn the DM board back over to interesting discussions of the Art of Dungeoncraft and other matters Game Masterly? It's getting old, and they're all pretty much the same. Very true. What do you think? What the heck do you think we are thinking? This is rediculous. 1300+ kids and they all but 8 die in one round before the Paladin can stop the attackers? Well no friggen duh it's called a "railroad." How the hell did the neiboring communities not have a clue about 1300+children missing and there must be an entire Army of these guys to be able to kill 1300+ kids with crossbows in a round. Um yeah I know, we'ill send a party of 4 or 5 adventurers in to kill an Army and save 1300+ children and expect all to be cool. :rolleyes: Besides what good is a 15 foot radius blast of a fireball when there are thousands upon thousands of enemies and children around? This is the stupidest thing I have heard on here in quite some time. I think you should get the "posting castration" penalty. ;) The answer is, of course, that the player should have done is gotten up from the gaming table and said “good night, and good bye. You won’t be DMing for me ever again.” :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :w00t:
snowlynx 05-04-05, 03:54 PM	I think the reason why there are so many paladin threads has something to do with the fact that everyone has a differnet idea of good and evil; furthermore, in play, it turns out nobody has never done an evil deed in their life; there are just some situations that are not win-lose. I have played as a Paladin in two games: one was merely dungeon crawls, in which it was fine; the other was a highly social game which involved a good deal of roleplaying, and was serverly limited by the DM's ideas of what characters counted as evil. I woul have never played a Paladin if I'd thought I'd be gong into a situation where I'd pledged to follow the king and the king had decided to use his own children's safety in some high stakes game with wizards. I think Paladin is just one of those classes where some DMs need to put out a warning: do not play Paladins in my game, you will regret it. If the DM fails to do this, and intends on putting tough situations in his game, the players may be very unhappy if they play a paladin (unless they were intending on falling.) I'm sure Paladins work in some games and not in others.
Aubri 05-04-05, 03:56 PM	If he had a necklace of fireballs in hand, why didn't he attack the badguys? He certainly should have been able to clean up the badguys before they could make 1313 attacks--over two hours, divided by the number of sacrificers. (By the way, 1313 is not prime. 13 * 101 = 1313.) I could understand killing one of the last few kids, ruining the ceremony by a couple of souls. I can't understand doing it right off the bat. Paladins are all about noble sacrifice, not killing kids so they can run away and save their own butts. 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army (http://www.skippyslist.com/skippylist.html) 54. "Napalm sticks to kids" is not a motivational phrase.
Cantankerous 05-04-05, 04:02 PM	Ok, massively overdone as it was, it raises a decent question, so let's change the scenario a bit. There are 13 children all tied to stakes in a ceremonial circle which the 13 evil acolytes are all faced towards, their crossbows cocked, waiting for the proper time to send these childrens souls to the belly of their bloody and insatiable deity. The party gets into roughly the situation outlined above. The children are all one or two hit points each and the Paladin has got a longsword with a Fireball spell in it, which he then uses on hearing the command to fire. Ok peoples, debate away. Isshia
LukiLoki 05-04-05, 04:04 PM	Edit:I know, I know, it's not prime. sue me, Einstein Your reading skills ain't up to your arithmetic.
Lord Ian Stark 05-04-05, 04:05 PM	Ok, massively overdone as it was, it raises a decent question, so let's change the scenario a bit. There are 13 children all tied to stakes in a ceremonial circle which the 13 evil acolytes are all faced towards, their crossbows cocked, waiting for the proper time to send these childrens souls to the belly of their bloody and insatiable deity. The party gets into roughly the situation outlined above. The children are all one or two hit points each and the Paladin has got a longsword with a Fireball spell in it, which he then uses on hearing the command to fire. Ok peoples, debate away. Isshia You hear that? I think it's getting louder. Oh it's the sound of the train on the railroad you just posted. :P Kill there leader and maybe the guys will get nervous and flee. Use the fireball on him but make it so the blast doesn't hit any children. Then it's up to fate what happens next. ;)
Gurv 05-04-05, 04:07 PM	Really, can we just have a sub-forum called "What's a Railroaded Paladin to do?" and turn the DM board back over to interesting discussions of the Art of Dungeoncraft and other matters Game Masterly? It's getting old, and they're all pretty much the same. I quite agree. The paladin had two choices here. 1) Allow over a thousand innocent children die as a sacrifice to an evil god, or 2) Cause them to die in a non-sacrificial manner. Option 2 seems like the better option, since whatever the sacrifice of the children was going to do (damned them or complete an evil magic, or whatever) would have been worse. Since there was no option other than evil acts, it is obvious that the DM should lose his powers. It is possible that the players made some bad choices, and didn't use the resources given to them. Then again, things look a lot different when you don't know everything in the DMs notes. Most DMs would be amazed at how difficult their own adventures might be for themselves to get through if they didn't have all the knowledge in front of them. Pointing out that the party cleric could have memorized a silent silence pretty much sums it up as railroading to me: such a thing would never have occured to me as worthwhile when going into a situation like this. I would have memorized something more useful in my 3rd level slot.
Escef 05-04-05, 04:07 PM	Kill there leader and maybe the guys will get nervous and flee. Use the fireball on him but make it so the blast doesn't hit any children. Then it's up to fate what happens next. ;) Toss it with a quick prayer and hope the powers of good intervene and split the fireball amongst the enemy archers?
Head_PC 1 05-04-05, 04:12 PM	I have to agree with Lord Ian on this one.
LukiLoki 05-04-05, 04:15 PM	Since there was no option other than evil acts, it is obvious that the DM should lose his powers. :D sigged.
pres_man 05-04-05, 04:18 PM	Let us not forget even if the kids were helpless (chained up and couldn't move), there is still no guarantee that the shots will hit. The only way to guarantee that is for the archers to be within 5' and coup de grace (sp?) them.
Cantankerous 05-04-05, 04:19 PM	You hear that? I think it's getting louder. Oh it's the sound of the train on the railroad you just posted. :P Kill there leader and maybe the guys will get nervous and flee. Use the fireball on him but make it so the blast doesn't hit any children. Then it's up to fate what happens next. ;) Oh come on Ian. It's not always easy decisions that the Paladin faces. If it were, any idiot could be a Paladin. I like your solution though. It's about what I would have done running a Paladin in that situation, except that I'd have tried to center the fireball to get as many of the acolytes as possible without getting any of the children... that way a few might have been saved if the acolytes hadn't paniced at the death of the High Priest. Isshia
Sybill 05-04-05, 04:21 PM	Now, a couple of things. Other people have mentioned this, but HOW do they expect to kill over a thousand people in less time than it takes the party to get a turn? Secondly, how do they expect to kill over a thousand children before the children themselves get a turn? These children are probably, little hit points and attacks aside, going to fight for their lives. And if there is absolutely NO WAY, no matter what, for the party to save more than 8 out of a thousand, well, that's just not right. Also, well, no matter how many fireballs detonate in one square, they still shouldn't fill an area big enough to house a thousand and more people. These things aside, killing innocents to save many is wrong. According to the RAW, the cause does NOT justify the means. Your choices then, are to look at why this happened at all. If you simply railroaded them, and gave them no other option, then you need to look at yourself, not your paladin. Just because their moves were not tactically sound, that's not an evil act in itself. But it's your world. If you feel the paladin should have to atone, well, nothing we say can stop you from thinking that. *cough*railroadingisstupid*cough*
White_Fox 05-04-05, 04:22 PM	First of all, I'd like to say that I don't agree with all the people who have come in here only to say that the DM was 'railroading' the Paladin. True, in the situation described initially, the Party pretty much had no real choices available to them. However, bear in mind that this situation was the 'big confrontation', the point at which the party had already made their decisions as to how to confront the problem, and now had to deal with the consequences of their planning. If the party had just been exploring an evil temple and happenend upon this scene, then yes, that would be railroading, and I couldn't really blame the party for whatever they did. But if I understand Venom correctly, this cult had been serving as an adversary to the party for some time, and they were aware of it's existence and intentions long before the situation initally described. It was thier choice to attempt a major assault during the ceremony itself, not the DM's. As someone who plays Paladins very frequently, I'd say that the Paladin did commit an evil action. Not by throwing the fireballs - while that was very, very cold, and I have difficulty believiing a true Paladin would be capable of such an action, I can see why he did it. I would argue that to a Paladin, the 'death' factor is not nearly as important as the 'afterdeath' element. By allowing the cultist to sacrifice the children, he allows them to enter a soulless void far worse than death. By taking their lives at his own hand, he commits a grave sin, but allows the children the chance to enter into the loving fold of whatever diety he worships. For that action, I don't believe his diety would revoke his powers or force him to atone. I should point out though, that the Paladin would probably force himself to atone, and be far harsher than his church would have been, considering the wieght that action would place upon his soul. It's the kind of thing I doubt a character would ever recover from, and could become a very interesting story point. However, aside from the 'fireball' incident, I say the Paladin would still be severly reprimanded by his Church and Diety. Not for killing the children, but for allowing the situation to arise in the first place. That the Paladin not only knew that innocent souls were being held by a dark cult, but that these were children as well, and did not take immediate action goes against the very core of what he stands for. If a Paladin knows that a single child is in jeopardy, that Paladin had better draw his sword and kick down the front door. Even if he's only level one, lost his armour, is recovering from grievious injury, and the people holding the kid happen to be a coven of Red Dragons. He might call for back-up first, since he's most likely going to be torn into indistinguishable shreds of wet flesh, but there's no way he'd stand around waiting for it. A Paladin protects and defends the innocent, even when that isn't the wisest or safest course of action. especially when it isn't the wisest or safest course of action. So if this was my campaign, I'd rule that the Paladin has major mental issues from his actions (and if they weren't enacted by the character, I wouldn't let the player be a Paladin) and a serious reprimand from his orginization for allowing the situation to degenerate.
Vharuck 05-04-05, 04:24 PM	Willing to commit heinous acts to achieve his goals. Evil. Ta-da!
Lord Ian Stark 05-04-05, 04:31 PM	First of all, I'd like to say that I don't agree with all the people who have come in here only to say that the DM was 'railroading' the Paladin. True, in the situation described initially, the Party pretty much had no real choices available to them. However, bear in mind that this situation was the 'big confrontation', the point at which the party had already made their decisions as to how to confront the problem, and now had to deal with the consequences of their planning. First of all even if the party was of EPIC levels I don't see how a few people could kill thousands of evil cultists in what must be a HUGE temple. Then those few are actually expected to save 1300+ children when obviously the evil guy in charge of all this would know there will be good adventurers or better yet, AN ARMY of Good adventurers coming to stop them. From what the DM has said it is obviously poorly designed and there is no way of winning the scenario without heavy casualties to children and your party members, if not an entire TPK to boot. If you don't think this is a railroad then I assume your games are just as wonderous.
Guy Humual 05-04-05, 05:40 PM	Agreed. Also, in the time not playing D&D, I might suggest furthering ones understanding of the English language as not to be quite as difficult to read next time. Me fail English? That's un-possible! :D Yes it's true: I didn't read my own reply before posting it. I admit it. But in my own defence, I didn't realize that I was going to be graded on my sentence structure or grammar. Seriously, the problem with this scenario is that failure is unavoidable. At this point children are going to die no matter what the heros do. I don’t think anyone should ever be placed in a situation where they cannot prevent the mass slaughter of innocents. That’s just a funny little quirk of mine.
epifreak 05-04-05, 05:57 PM	I think the reason why there are so many paladin threads has something to do with the fact that everyone has a differnet idea of good and evil; furthermore, in play, it turns out nobody has never done an evil deed in their life; there are just some situations that are not win-lose. I have played as a Paladin in two games: one was merely dungeon crawls, in which it was fine; the other was a highly social game which involved a good deal of roleplaying, and was serverly limited by the DM's ideas of what characters counted as evil. I woul have never played a Paladin if I'd thought I'd be gong into a situation where I'd pledged to follow the king and the king had decided to use his own children's safety in some high stakes game with wizards. I think Paladin is just one of those classes where some DMs need to put out a warning: do not play Paladins in my game, you will regret it. If the DM fails to do this, and intends on putting tough situations in his game, the players may be very unhappy if they play a paladin (unless they were intending on falling.) I'm sure Paladins work in some games and not in others. Yeah, with any class that has social limitations as strong as the paladin, it should be a requirement that the DM and player have a little sit-down session, explaining what is expected of a paladin and whether playing a paladin is even the right idea in said situation. Though, here's a dilema. I'm planning on DMing a game next semester, and I've got a friend back home who's coming to my school in the fall and wants to play a paladin. I've warned him that it's an extremely bad idea (I absolutely abhor the class). Now, he wants to play a paladin anyway. Since I've warned him, am I justified in railroading the hell out of him?
Vharuck 05-04-05, 06:04 PM	I really see no railroading here. The players came into a situation. Up to them from there. It's not like they will allow them to do it, but they just aren't able to prevent it. I see railroading as forcing a player to act in a certain way. Obviously, the DM didn't want to force the players to slaughter the kids. BTW, what did you expect the players to do?
Dragon Eye 05-04-05, 06:07 PM	From what the DM has said it is obviously poorly designed and there is no way of winning the scenario without heavy casualties to children and your party members, if not an entire TPK to boot. If you don't think this is a railroad then I assume your games are just as wonderous. Poorly designed or not, to believe that every encounter should have a way to win without heavy casualties (to innocents or to the party) is naive. If a DM forces the players into a situation they cannot win, then yes, that is railroading. If the players CHOOSE to enter/create said encounter, then no, it is not railroading. The OP gave the party free reign to stop the BBEG however they wanted. They choose the path that led them to the "unwinnable" scenario.
Andrew_980 05-04-05, 06:11 PM	If in the world in question a sacrificed person looses their soul and the paladin knew it, killing first may be the greatest mercy possable. what is worse mortal death or eternal damnation?
Vharuck 05-04-05, 06:15 PM	But the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Andrew_980 05-04-05, 06:22 PM	the lesser of two evils is still better. and anyone who loves the "cosmic evil wins" nonsense, i am a rationalist who loves the old days of D+D, when intentions mattered and thought was important
Vharuck 05-04-05, 07:13 PM	I'm not saying that the lesser of two evils is the better. I'm arguing that it's still evil. And sometimes, paladins do find a situation where their hands are tied. It is hard to accept, but it's true.
trodaimionn 05-04-05, 08:41 PM	First let me answer your question. If the souls of the children were going to feed or give power to the evil god, and the paladin was aware of this and acting on this information, then the paladin performed an evil act for the greater good. (Killing innocents is still evil.) Atonement and breast beating is required. If it was just as you described it, I would strip him of his paladin abilities and tell him that his god has a "Don't come back sign!" sign up. Now refer to my questions for you. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!?!?!?!?! In your mind figure out what the party was supposed to do, and then ask yourself did you drop the right hints to get them there. Personnally I do not see how a party of 5 EPIC characters can save every child in the situation you described, let alone some regular characters. Did they have other options, or was this something that was just going to happen no matter what? Did you think there was a way to pull off the rescue, and did your party go about it wrong, or was this the impossible save? I do not like running the impossible save, you are more likely to lose a group to those then to a TPK, combine the two and you have years where noone will play with you. Did the party walk away from this, because even with a maximized range fireball you could not kill every child and cultist in the blast area, at least not with the numbers you described? (1313 children and equal number cultists more then fills a football field, even if stacked like cordwood.) I say go back to your drawing board, and rethink everything, because if you are going to throw something this dire at your party you should have thought it out better.
Orion "The Kid" Evereach 05-04-05, 09:01 PM	In truth, playing a Paladin is not hard at all, i have taken my "Orion" from level 1 to 27 and i have been playing D&D for 8 years now. All you have to do is the opposite of what you want to do, lol. Always remeber that you are gonna have it harder than everyone else. Yea that "drow infant" will grow up and kill you when you are too old to defend yourself, but have a little faith and let it go, pray that you made the right choice, suck it up, and continue saving lives. Even falling from grace..getting back what grace you lost in the face of losing vigilance...this is the stuff that MAKES quests. Its Hard to give up that +3 great sword just to avoid being greedy like you want to OOC, but hopfully your DM is not a meany and will reward you sometime in the future. ;)
Sarella Starshine 05-04-05, 09:27 PM	the act is evil, even though he thought he had the best intrests of the children in mind (better off dead with souls intact than souless), that does not excuse his behavior. the party was total idiots to wait til the sacrifice was about to start to chage the cult. this does not excuse his behavior. the DM gave them plenty of opportunities to destroy the cult and save the children. the players were either too dense or didn't care to follow his clues and use the resources they have. the paladin should have at first mention of the cult, gathered info then stormed the place thereby preventing this senerio in the first place. yes make him lose his powers. have him pray to his god. have his god detail exactly why his powers are lost (he had plenty of opportunities to destroy the cult and save the children BEFORE the ceremony was to be done). have the atonement be semi-severe (something along the lines of spending x ammount of time (where x= the number of children killed, and the ammount of time should be no longer than 2-3 days else he will be spending his entire life atoning) giving reperations to the families of the children that were lost). while i agree this is very poorly planned out (did all 1313 children have to be sacrificed at once?), this is not technically a railroad because the party did have options available to them that they ignored (they admitted to deciding to wait til sacrifice time, the cleric did not prep a still silence spell, they did not use the magic items in thier possesions to thier fullest advantage, etc). playing a paladin should be enough of a challenge for a player. do not punish him any further by give him no-win situations (a no-win situation is evil act vs evil act, and no other options available to him). if you don't want a paladin, just have the *ahem* balls to say so no matter how keen the player wants to play one.
Vharuck 05-04-05, 09:39 PM	In truth, playing a Paladin is not hard at all, i have taken my "Orion" from level 1 to 27 and i have been playing D&D for 8 years now. All you have to do is the opposite of what you want to do, lol. Always remeber that you are gonna have it harder than everyone else. Yea that "drow infant" will grow up and kill you when you are too old to defend yourself, but have a little faith and let it go, pray that you made the right choice, suck it up, and continue saving lives. Even falling from grace..getting back what grace you lost in the face of losing vigilance...this is the stuff that MAKES quests. Its Hard to give up that +3 great sword just to avoid being greedy like you want to OOC, but hopfully your DM is not a meany and will reward you sometime in the future. ;) Huzzah! What's being good if you don't like self-sacrifice? Yes, you sometimes do idiotic things (they seem idiotic to others), but that's what it's like being the good guy.
EvilVegan 05-04-05, 09:55 PM	I don't know if its been said yet, but if I were playing a paladin in this situation, and were around 11th+ level, I would have grabbed one of the crossbows, shot a kid, and attacked my party on my way to becoming a blackguard. I mean, its obvious that you're going to let the bad guys win, so might as well join them.
Lord Ian Stark 05-04-05, 10:09 PM	I don't know if its been said yet, but if I were playing a paladin in this situation, and were around 11th+ level, I would have grabbed one of the crossbows, shot a kid, and attacked my party on my way to becoming a blackguard. I mean, its obvious that you're going to let the bad guys win, so might as well join them. LOL ;)
pres_man 05-04-05, 10:20 PM	Actually if the only two choices were attack the cultists will they kill some of the kids (no way they are going to kill anywhere near all of them unless they got Lee Harvey's crossbow) or kill the kids, the less evil choice is attacking the cultists. Why? Because it is a passive evil "act", the cutlists are the ones doing evil, the paladin is trying to stop it, some evil happens while the paladin tries to stop it. No one, including a paladin, can be held responsible for the evil acts of others. Would he beat up on himself later, sure and probably atone whether he truly needs to or not, "I should have been faster! I should have been able to kill all the cultists before they got the children!" The other choice, actually killing the children himself is an active evil act. Therefore the paladin can be held to blame for every life he himself took. He murdered those children. Paladins never choice allowing evil to occur, unless the only way to stop it is to do evil himself. In those cases, he must do his best to minimize the effect of the evil while doing good.
Always-Late 05-04-05, 10:34 PM	the act is evil, even though he thought he had the best intrests of the children in mind (better off dead with souls intact than souless), that does not excuse his behavior. What? Face it, if this were true, paladin's could never be cops. Because as soon as they find hostage situation they're evil. the party was total idiots to wait til the sacrifice was about to start to chage the cult. ... the DM gave them plenty of opportunities to destroy the cult and save the children. the players were either too dense or didn't care to follow his clues and use the resources they have. the paladin should have at first mention of the cult, gathered info then stormed the place thereby preventing this senerio in the first place. Paladin: "You know, there's an evil cult somewhere. I know! Let's storm their stronghold!" Cultists: "Hey, there's a band of adventurers wanting to storm our stronghold. Person who kills the paladin gets fifty platinum and gets to stick his head on the wall." Seriously, 4 adventurers will have a hard time taking on a cult. In case I was wrong, and the PC's were being stupid, that means that they're incompetent. Incompetence does not mean evil. Paladin: "Oh crud. We did some stupid things. I guess no matter what I do, I'm evil now. Now I have to spend my whole life paying the parents of these kids." Level one character meets level 5 BBEG. Runs away. BBEG kills a person. "Hey, dude! You didn't try to use some screwed half-baked strategy utilizing all sorts of things nobody would ever think of and I did, the DM, because I had weeks to think this up!" You are now chaotic evil! This is just stupid. While I'm on this tangent, use proper English. It's true that the grammar (most of the time) doesn't affect the content, but it makes it a pain to read and it makes you look stupid.
Sarella Starshine 05-04-05, 11:57 PM	What? Face it, if this were true, paladin's could never be cops. Because as soon as they find hostage situation they're evil. a cop in a hostage situation will do his best to talk the hostage takers into giving up the hostages, they will never kill the hostages then say 'they were better off that way'. in no way is negotiating with a hostage taker evil. killing the said hostages before the hostage taker does is evil. Paladin: "You know, there's an evil cult somewhere. I know! Let's storm their stronghold!" Cultists: "Hey, there's a band of adventurers wanting to storm our stronghold. Person who kills the paladin gets fifty platinum and gets to stick his head on the wall." Seriously, 4 adventurers will have a hard time taking on a cult. depends on how big the cult is, how hard the ring leader is, etc. the OP stated that the party knew of the cult before they started kidnapping children. they ignored the cult, then decided that when the children were about to be sacrificed to storm the cult. 1. The party knew agout the cult BEFORE they started to kidnap children 2. The party had acsess to a "movable door" an item I invented to, more or less, save the children. 3. The party followed the 2nd lot of children to the cult, but decided to "wait untill the sacrifice because then we will get everyone." 4. They had acsess (although they never used it) to the buleprints of what was now the cult's home which show a secter passadge near the altar. 5. Silance only petered out because they spent half teh duration (at least) muching about searching for traps on a door that they could have serched BEFORE casting the spell. 6. The cleric (caster of silance) has silent spell and a high enough slot for a silent silance. 7. This is the Paladin players 4th majour adventure, although 1st as a paladin. In case I was wrong, and the PC's were being stupid, that means that they're incompetent. Incompetence does not mean evil. Paladin: "Oh crud. We did some stupid things. I guess no matter what I do, I'm evil now. Now I have to spend my whole life paying the parents of these kids." a paladin is held to a higher standard than everyone else. he cannot claim ignorance or imcompetence as an excuse for doing evil actions. i agree that the group was idiotic for not using everything they had to thier fullest, that still does not excuse the paladin's actions. i never stated that he has to spend his entire life to atone, in fact i made sure that the ammount of time he had to atone for his deeds (assuming that the atonement was spending x ammount of time in service to the parents for every kid that died) was 2-3 years, 5 at the most. the atonement should be strict, but not impossible to achive. Level one character meets level 5 BBEG. Runs away. BBEG kills a person. "Hey, dude! You didn't try to use some screwed half-baked strategy utilizing all sorts of things nobody would ever think of and I did, the DM, because I had weeks to think this up!" You are now chaotic evil! the party had plenty of opportunities to prevent this from happening but utilized none of them. this is not because the party can't see what the DM sees, but because the party either has the collective intelligence of sheep or very very poor tactical skills. not using a magic door to take the children out of the lair before the sacrifice, not utilizing the blueprints of the lair, that does not indicate the DM was being vauge about his clues or that the DM made it too hard for them to figure out stuff, but not being smart enough to use everything at thier disposal to prevent the deaths of the children. This is just stupid. While I'm on this tangent, use proper English. It's true that the grammar (most of the time) doesn't affect the content, but it makes it a pain to read and it makes you look stupid. my grammar and english is usually proper. if i appear stupid to you for not capitalizing, so be it. that's a personal opinion you have about me personally and has no bearing on the topic this thread is about. if i have a few spelling errors, none should be such that my entire meaning can be misconstrued. you did a great start by attacking my arguements and pointed out what you thought was flaws in my reasoning, then you ended with an attack against me (you may not thought you were, but that's how i view it as). if you do not like me or my writing style, please have the decency to send me a PM. i do not mind my statements or my opinions going under fire. i do mind when i personally go under fire.
Aubri 05-05-05, 12:27 AM	Your reading skills ain't up to your arithmetic. Yes, I missed the tiny little text. I'm won't apologize.
Sargon 05-05-05, 12:34 AM	Have you ever been in one of those situations where .. you are just forced to do something you really don't want to? Like you have to pay one bill or another but you really can't pay both... so you have to figure out which one to pay and then figure out how to pay the other one. Thats on of those things that happens, well it can happen IRL I personally try to run things as close to realistic as i can get them.. I've read alot of comments and threads and replys about characters doing totatly outrageous thing.. I think i read one where someone fell like 120ft and lived... becauce they had 130ish hp.. In the really real world.. I don't care what type of Awsome Delta Force Air borne ranger school you went to.. thinks like that kill people.. 1313 babies is alot of babies... that means there are over 2000 people missing thier children.. SO.. If i where missing my little one... I'de hire some adventures and i'de even tag along.. 2000 people missing thier children they really would be an army of people gathering to burn this place down. Also i've noticed that you guys are extremly hard on DM's like suggesting players walk out of games.. becasue of railroading... crappy things happen.. and when you play a paladine or a cleric your faced with desicions like that. So was it evil?.. It was hasty.. and a bad idea. he certiantly poed who ever was to get those souls. And it would way heavily on him as a character and he should lose in positions he had in his church or chapter and be yelled at alot.. and community service.. and a fine... but loss of ability? nah... he had good intent even if it was kinda mad. And i want to see MAster degrees in english for all you skilled labores wo complain that oyu can't read bad grammer... Infact none of you use the english language properly... I know i don't.... But if you really wanna get into about grammer.. i'll start disecting all your post... one comma splice is an automatic F on a college paper... so..
Aubri 05-05-05, 12:47 AM	I agree that the assessment of "railroad" is totally unfair in this situation. However, this sort of thing is where my personal theory of DMing kicks in. My theory is that the DM should always give the PCs an "out". For example, you tell them weeks ahead of time this cult is kidnapping children for vile sacrifice. They decide to disrupt the ceremony itself. Okay, not the wisest course, but whatever. At that point, I feel it's the DM's responsibility to offer another way out; say, the leader is up at a podium, leading the whole thing and that without him the sacrifice won't have any effect. Perhaps there's a ring of 13 priests chanting dark chants, and disrupting them will cause the ceremony to fail. I always prefer to give my players a chance to be heroic if at all possible. Now, if they repeatedly pass up the chances, things get worse every time. But it certainly isn't the end of the world if they decide to wait!
clarkvalentine 05-05-05, 01:16 AM	Poorly designed or not, to believe that every encounter should have a way to win without heavy casualties (to innocents or to the party) is naive. Depends how dark a game the players & GM like. Naive? Maybe, but if the point of the campaign is no more than to kill the bad guy, rescue the girl, and save the world in the most cinematic manner possible, moral grey areas aren't as desirable.
Vharuck 05-05-05, 01:31 AM	So was it evil?.. It was hasty.. and a bad idea. he certiantly poed who ever was to get those souls. And it would way heavily on him as a character and he should lose in positions he had in his church or chapter and be yelled at alot.. and community service.. and a fine... but loss of ability? nah... he had good intent even if it was kinda mad. Whoah! Careful where you throw those boulders of words! If somebody instantly beheaded every person who ever wronged another, and said it was to prevent crime since past criminals are highly likely to commit a crime again, that man has "good intentions." But I'll be damned if he isn't evil.
Always-Late 05-05-05, 01:46 AM	a cop in a hostage situation will do his best to talk the hostage takers into giving up the hostages, they will never kill the hostages then say 'they were better off that way'. in no way is negotiating with a hostage taker evil. killing the said hostages before the hostage taker does is evil. Okay, I'll make a more similar one. Some hostage takers plan to rape and torture some people, and then kill them in the most horrifying way possible. You can 1. Let them be raped and tortured, or 2. Let them die a quick death. Evil actions must be directed at people, and if the people want to die (which is probable) then it isn't evil. depends on how big the cult is, how hard the ring leader is, etc. the OP stated that the party knew of the cult before they started kidnapping children. they ignored the cult, then decided that when the children were about to be sacrificed to storm the cult. I believe it was a temple full. a paladin is held to a higher standard than everyone else... A soldier who has committed gross imcompetence is tried for gross imcompetence, not treason, even though soldiers must achieve higher standards than the average person. Sorry about that last part - I guess I was sorta ****** when I was writing the post. It's not directed at you specifically. [[EDIT]]: Wow. That's absolutely incredible. The filter doesn't allow the word pis-sed through. I don't believe I've violated any part of the board terms.
Loren Pechtel 05-05-05, 02:00 AM	Oh come on Ian. It's not always easy decisions that the Paladin faces. If it were, any idiot could be a Paladin. I like your solution though. It's about what I would have done running a Paladin in that situation, except that I'd have tried to center the fireball to get as many of the acolytes as possible without getting any of the children... that way a few might have been saved if the acolytes hadn't paniced at the death of the High Priest. Isshia But the fireball might not have been enough to kill the acolytes--we don't know how many hp they had. It was only a 6d6 blast, 21hp average, 10.5 if they save. If they are even second level you would likely get survivors who could then sacrifice children. I'm not at all sure the Paladin did the wrong thing. It basically comes down to how bad is death vs how bad is being sacrificed to the evil deity. He certainly was dense, though. Once the situation is safe I would be inclined to have the ignored blueprints come flying from wherever they are and hit him in the head. The damage would take him to say -8. The plans then fall open with the passage glowing.
Loren Pechtel 05-05-05, 02:09 AM	a cop in a hostage situation will do his best to talk the hostage takers into giving up the hostages, they will never kill the hostages then say 'they were better off that way'. in no way is negotiating with a hostage taker evil. killing the said hostages before the hostage taker does is evil. But in RL hostages aren't being sacrificed to an evil deity. Dead is the worst possible state. Therefore there's normally no issue of killing to avoid a worse fate. However, there's something close to it. You can have the situation of a sniper having the bad guy in his sights and having to sit by and watch him kill an innocent because shooting the bad guy would cause more innocents to die. There's also an incident from WWII where the allies bombed a prison camp they knew contained allied POW's. I don't know what went into it but they considered it the best option--the bombing allowed some of them to escape.
Loren Pechtel 05-05-05, 02:13 AM	Okay, I'll make a more similar one. Some hostage takers plan to rape and torture some people, and then kill them in the most horrifying way possible. You can 1. Let them be raped and tortured, or 2. Let them die a quick death. Evil actions must be directed at people, and if the people want to die (which is probable) then it isn't evil. Or the example I used elsewhere. It's 8:40 on 9/11, you're in an F-15 over New York. A trustworthy source tells you what's going down. You'll have to kill a few hundered innocents to stop it but it's still the right thing to do. [[EDIT]]: Wow. That's absolutely incredible. The filter doesn't allow the word pis-sed through. I don't believe I've violated any part of the board terms. Yeah, the board filters anything remotely offensive. Understandable but annoying when even the mature forums filter the clinical terms.
Vharuck 05-05-05, 02:24 AM	Or the example I used elsewhere. It's 8:40 on 9/11, you're in an F-15 over New York. A trustworthy source tells you what's going down. You'll have to kill a few hundered innocents to stop it but it's still the right thing to do. Real life examples of touchy subjects that occurred are generally not well-received or encouraged. Yes, the paladin probably did save those souls from torment (maybe, you don't know and neither did he). Yes, he might have stopped the evil ritual. He still killed innocents. Welcome to the fact that good sometimes has its hands tied.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-06-05, 10:14 AM	I really see no railroading here. The players came into a situation. Up to them from there. It's not like they will allow them to do it, but they just aren't able to prevent it. I see railroading as forcing a player to act in a certain way. Obviously, the DM didn't want to force the players to slaughter the kids. BTW, what did you expect the players to do? I expected them to not get into that situation!!! I envisadged maybe 20 kids, a few cultists + a Leutennant at CR rtheir ECL+1, and a great hook of "track down the cult leader." Killing him was to be their "epic qualifier." I also expected them to get in/out by a secret passadge and maybe have NPC help. By the time they made those dumb desicions I HAD to play it through, or else they players get the messidge "play like morons and the DM will go easy on you."
nightwing 05-06-05, 03:30 PM	I think many people are WAY too hard on paladins, as though they are some sort of super-being who must always make the correct decision, formulate the best of all possible plans, and execute they're plans with perfect precision. That's totally bogus. Paladins are people who are constantly faced with deciding, "What's the BEST thing to do in the situation I'm in NOW? Nevermind the mistake I made 5 minutes ago that got me into this mess. Now that I'm here, what do I do?" They are fallible, human, error-prone, just like everyone else. More than anything, INTENT is the key. In the OP's scenario, the paladin certainly made a lot of mistakes up until the point in question. He didn't get the DM's "hints," he didn't plan very well, their plan went wrong half way through, etc. These faults are not worthy of loss of status. It may be reason for getting seriously chewed-out by the paladin's superiors for not thinking harder, etc, but not for atonement/loss of status. The party goofed, obviously, in several ways. However their INTENT was always good. Now, because of the mistakes, errors in judgement, etc. that they made earlier, the party finds itself in a real pickle. (NO! THEY WERE NOT "RAILROADED!" Why do people yell "Railroaded!" as soon as they're faced with a tough situation?) Many innocents' lives are at stake, it looks like many will die no matter what. We may assume that if they are sacrificed, their souls are eaten by the evil god. This certainly *should be* a factor in how the paladin chooses to handle his situation. There are still a few sketchy details: How many cult members/demons are there? Can the party actually kill or drive them all off? Is the party clearly outmatched? As someone already pointed out, killing thousands of people with crossbow bolts will take quite a while, unless there is a like number of people doing the killing. A single fireball would not be capable of taking out 1313 people. Assume that they are crammed shoulder to shoulder in a pit, 25 people per 5' square: 1313/25=52.52 5' squares. As per the diagram at the back of the DMG, a 20' radius spread covers 44 squares, thus, many will survive. Also, how are the cultists shooting them in the heart if they are down in a pit packed shoulder-to-shoulder? If the situation is really as dire as it seems (that is, there are perhaps hundreds of cultists with crossbows ready to fire, and numerous demons ready to stop the characters from interfering), I can see why the paladin would make the decision he made. Better to redeem the peoples' eternal souls by killing them than to let their souls feed some evil demon's/god's power. ...and if this is *truly* the case, the paladin should not be punished (except as I noted above about the exceedingly poor planning). However, my guess is that the DM in this game has not been very realistic in setting up this scenario. As already stated, collecting 1313 people, keeping them all alive, without a single one getting away to tell where to find the others, is a MONUMENTAL task. Furthermore, any group large enough to accomplish this would have an awful time keeping it secret. Anyone sending a force in to deal with the cult would not likely send a group of 4 in to face a group of hundreds+demons, regardless of character level. A paladin should only be stripped for intentional, deliberately evil intent. I don't see that in this case. I just see poor planning and execution by the players, and poor scenario development by the DM.
Circon 05-06-05, 04:22 PM	Now what's that quote for the highly reccomended Paladin abilites... Well, I can't find, but as best I can remember, somebody proposed that Paladins should have the following at all times: There Is Always A Way (EX) In any situation where all paths seem wrong, the Paladin may instantly realize which course(s) of action will not contravene his moral code. (If none exists, the DM is required to provide one or be proved an *******.) Know Morality (EX) The Paladin may meditate on an act for a moment to discern the morality of committing it. House-rule? Certainly. Should all DMs be required to include this? MY LG ALIGNMENT YES! The player is not a paladin, has not had training in ethical dilemmas, is not a holy warrior, (does not have the power to smite evil,) is not held to a moral code, etc, etc... so it is not the player's job to moral-code his way out of stupid DM situations! Adding those two abilities would eliminate a large number of these Paladin threads.
Vharuck 05-06-05, 05:25 PM	So DMs are more knowledgeable of moral ethics than the players? We're human too. I think that lack of knowledge (no offense) is shown when people come here and ask questions like this. It shows they are seeking the knowledge they lack. And yes, paladins are held to a higher standard. You realized what you were getting into when you picked the class, it details this right in the class description. Sometimes, a paladin must bite the bullet.
Circon 05-06-05, 05:45 PM	And yes, paladins are held to a higher standard. You realized what you were getting into when you picked the class, it details this right in the class description. Sometimes, a paladin must bite the bullet.Uh... lose-lose, evil-evil situation... the occasional a-hole DM who intends to strip the paladin of class abilities NO MATTER WHAT he does... you don't seem to have gotten the point here. It's an impossible standard, not a higher one. The abilites I mentioned are there to show that a (very high) standard must exist, as opposed to none or impossible. Also, I can't recall anything about the players being held to a higher standard.
Vharuck 05-06-05, 05:51 PM	Also, I can't recall anything about the players being held to a higher standard. Really? Maybe I should call my friend and tell him he doesn't have to scale the Himilayas to speak to the monk after his paladin PC sneezed at a fancy dinner. :P Just playing there. Anyways, I hold the character to a higher standard. That's why I only punish the character. Really, I'll try to make the punishment fun for the player (defeat the ogres guarding the ancient temple or some such). And yes, DMs who do this excessively on purpose with a player who does not like it are a-holes. Just like DMs who use night assassins while their PCs are sleeping every night are a-holes, but not the usual DM who does it once or twice when it fits. The problem with the high standard is that players (and their paladins in particular) tend to not take them. :D
Sarella Starshine 05-06-05, 07:22 PM	Okay, I'll make a more similar one. Some hostage takers plan to rape and torture some people, and then kill them in the most horrifying way possible. You can 1. Let them be raped and tortured, or 2. Let them die a quick death. Evil actions must be directed at people, and if the people want to die (which is probable) then it isn't evil. you mean that the cops won't even bother to try to talk to the hostage takers but will kill the hostages because the cops belive that there 'no chance of survival' of the hostages? killing innocents (aka the hostages) is evil, no matter what type of convoluted circumstances you apply to the situation. it may be a 'lesser evil' but its still evil. cops in the situation above (hostage takers going to kill hostages regardless) will try to take out the hostage takers and try to leave the hostages unharmed. the cops will try various scenarios using the every little bit of information and resources they have available to them to come up with a plan that will minamize the loss of innocent lives (the hostages), and maximize the incarceration (sometimes death) of the hostage takers. which, according to the DM, the party did not do. the party didn't come up with a plan that would minamize the loss of innocent lives (the children) and maximize the incarceration (in this case probably the death) of the cult (more specifically the leaders). the plan they did come up with did not utilize all the information and resources they had. so, when faced with a situation they could have easily prevented (hince the term 'railroading' does not apply), the paladin acted in a way he thought was 'best', which was killing innocent kids, which is 'evil' dispite what ever background, set-up, situation, etc. i am being leniant by allowing the paladin to be able to atone for his actions. since this situation could have been very easily avoided, the god/godess of the paladin can have every right to slap that paladin upside the head and tell that paladin off and make him lose his powers forever. I believe it was a temple full. that still says nothing about the total numbers. a small temple can be considered 'full' with less than 20 members, while a large one can easily have a couple of thousand. no where does it say that a lawful good paladin HAS to go charging into a temple of evil cultists without gathering information about numbers, leaders, etc because said temple was full of evil cultists. and if people assume that is how paladins should work should stop watching Dudley Doright. no where does it say that lawful good = a person with less intellegence with a sheep that blindly goes and chases after evil. However their INTENT was always good. good intentions does not make an act good. if that were so, then there will never be any acts because everyone could claim that thier intentions behind the act were good, and come up with the reasoning for it. i would hate to explain to the family members of the children that did die why you didn't rescue thier children earlier. at the very least, the party should no longer be welcomed in that area of the world.
Dynneroth 05-06-05, 08:58 PM	The whole time I was reading through these posts I was thinking, "Stop feeding the troll! It only encourages him." Now here I go. The OP wants to place it all on the back of the Paladin. Fine, but that Paladin has a player behind him, and it doesn't matter how much the players screwed up. It's the Paladin that is getting the short end of the stick. Yeah, make the atonement fun. Whatever. I've played many paladins in the past, and I did not go into it thinking, "OK, I know I'm going to screw this up, but how fun will the adventure be get back to what I wanted to do be in the first place?" I'd tear the character sheet in half, eat pizza, and watch Seinfeld reruns. And I probably wouldn't play D&D with that group again.
Cantankerous 05-07-05, 01:37 AM	But the fireball might not have been enough to kill the acolytes--we don't know how many hp they had. It was only a 6d6 blast, 21hp average, 10.5 if they save. If they are even second level you would likely get survivors who could then sacrifice children. I'm not at all sure the Paladin did the wrong thing. It basically comes down to how bad is death vs how bad is being sacrificed to the evil deity. He certainly was dense, though. Once the situation is safe I would be inclined to have the ignored blueprints come flying from wherever they are and hit him in the head. The damage would take him to say -8. The plans then fall open with the passage glowing. If it doesn't get them, the Paladin isn't responsible for that. He's done the best he can, which is all that can be expected from any Paladin in any situation. A good DM doesn't hound a Paladin for failures he didn't cause. If he causes them, then he DOES get the responsibility for his failures though. It's really as simple as that. Isshia
Cadfan 05-07-05, 03:22 AM	First, lets ground this for a moment- From the SRD: 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. The SRD is the RULES. Anything you use beyond this is from flavor text. All we're going on here is whether the paladin committed an "evil act." That's it. That's easy to decide if your campaign is about killing inherently evil, rampaging orcs, and hunting through dungeons for inherently evil rampaging undead. But if you're going to put the characters in more complex moral situations, you're going to have to be a little more sophisticated here. There's a classic moral question. Assume you're on a train, and its hurtling down a track with 5 people tied to it. You, and only you, can press a switch that will reroute the train down a track with only one guy tied to it. There are no other options. So, inaction means 5 people die. Action means you directly kill 1 person. Which is better? This is the sort of problem cruel DMs like to inflict on Paladins. The biggest problem is there's no answer. Some religions will tell you that its more wrong to actively kill someone than it is to let innocents die through inaction. Other religions and moral codes will tell you that you should prevent as much harm as possible overall. Unless you've cleared with the Paladin's player which one he's going to use, you really shouldn't punish him for picking one or the other. Both are supported by various real world systems of morality and of religion. Some religions would call one choice evil, some would call the other evil. Its basically forms of moral authoritarianism versus forms of moral utilitarianism. Don't pick and choose whichever one you need to use to screw the paladin. And don't surprise him by telling him "Guess what! You believe in moral authoritarianism! Too bad you didn't know that! Now you're powerless!" after he's already made his decision. As an afterthought, stupid isn't evil. If the paladin screws up and makes things worse, but was acting in good faith, he hasn't committed an evil act. This isn't saying he can do whatever he wants then insist that he has good intentions, you can call him on his obvious lying if you need to. But treat it like you would a normal, real life moral decision. People do in fact make choices which they think are morally right, but, in retrospect, were probably morally wrong. But if they didn't know all the facts at the time, the act itself, the choice, wasn't wrong. It was written earlier, Ok, let me explane somthing. He brought it on himslef. 1. The party knew agout the cult BEFORE they started to kidnap children 2. The party had acsess to a "movable door" an item I invented to, more or less, save the children. 3. The party followed the 2nd lot of children to the cult, but decided to "wait untill the sacrifice because then we will get everyone." 4. They had acsess (although they never used it) to the buleprints of what was now the cult's home which show a secter passadge near the altar. 5. Silance only petered out because they spent half teh duration (at least) muching about searching for traps on a door that they could have serched BEFORE casting the spell. 6. The cleric (caster of silance) has silent spell and a high enough slot for a silent silance. 7. This is the Paladin players 4th majour adventure, although 1st as a paladin. Ok with you? All the clues the party didn't think to use correctly don't have anything to do with whether their acts were evil. A not very smart party isn't automatically an evil one because they make bad decisions. So we can delete points 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. The only issue is knowing about the cult before the kidnappings, and waiting until later so they could "get everyone." I don't know enough to know whether it would have been practical for the PCs to attack right away. Maybe there were other monsters that needed slaying, who knows. If they spent their time drinking beer or whatnot and ignoring the cult, then punish them- but in that case the paladin should be punished EVEN IF HE SAVES THE DAY IN THE END, because he let evil get away on his watch. If he spent the time fighting evil skeletons, then he just prioritized incorrectly in retrospect. Not an evil act. Just a mistake. As for the waiting later, I take this to mean that they waited until later so they could save all the children instead of just half. This isn't evil. Normal people might do this. They might say, "I'm confident I can save everyone with plan B, although if it goes wrong there's bigger risks. I'd rather try to save everyone than simply let some people die and not even try to save them." That's not inherently evil, and the morality of the decision doesn't change based on whether it works or not.
Bikkusu 05-07-05, 07:35 AM	God we seem swamped with these. OK the party tried to get into an evil temple where 1313 children (all bound and gaged, all aged 5 or less) were being held for sacrifice (mind body and soul) to an evil deiaty by havin gtheir heats pierced by specially unsanctified crossbow ammo (the dieatie's favourate sactifice method.). They get to the altar when the silance spell they used to hide Sir Clank-a-lot gives out, and now cannot re-cast the spell without alarming the evil clerigy and deamons. They try anyway and get found out, and when he realises what is happening the Arch cleric declares "Use the ceremonial ammunition on the children! They cannot save them all!" Realising that is fact the most they can save is about 8 the paladin THROWS A 6D6 NECKLACE OF FIREBALLS BEAD INTO THE ALTAR PIT!!! His argument is "better dead than sacrificed." What do you think? As stated in several other posts the players did have other options and chose not to use them. But in the first post you say the crossbow ammo is the deity's favorite method of sacrifice, but not the only method of sacrifice? Would that not mean that the paladin's act accomplished the goal of the cult, only quicker and more effectively? :confused: To me it seems that paladin just earned more favor with that evil deity and should have the story taken in that direction to adapt to it.
Palin the Wizard 05-07-05, 09:01 AM	A paladin should only be stripped for intentional, deliberately evil intent. Is that so? Let's look at the Code of Conduct: "A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act." Even a paladin can commit an evil act willingly without realizing it's an evil act and with the very best of intentions in mind. He'd still lose his powers.
Feriin 05-07-05, 09:06 AM	I have read this thread for a little while now. I still see some of you do not get it. The Paladin Murdered Innocent Defenseless Children. (Paladinhood lost , never to get back again) He can not Atone for this no matter how much he wants to. I see its the same people for the most part that can't seem to understand what a Paladins code of honor means that has this problem. Since some of you guys can't tell how paladins should behave I suggest you never let anyone play one in your campaign ever.
Circon 05-07-05, 09:53 AM	I have read this thread for a little while now. I still see some of you do not get it.<snip>I see you still don't get it. Much of this is about poor DMs putting Paladins in lose-lose situations where the choices are 1) evil by action, or 2) greater evil by inaction. Your saying He can not Atone for this no matter how much he wants to.really annoys me at this point, because I don't believe DMs should have the right to remove paladinhood with moral dilemmas any time they feel like it. Tell me, what is the right thing for the paladin to do in a lose-lose case? Demand that the player wrack his brain to discover a solution? Sorry, not all of us have above 10 INT... Since some of you guys can't tell how paladins should behave I suggest you never let anyone play one in your campaign ever.Thank you, and I'll make sure to never play one in your campaign, because you seem to be fond of kicking puppies and players who have the temerity to even attempt to stand for what is good and true. Reposting above ability, reworded to omit "DM" from text:There Is Always A Way (Ex) In any situation where all paths seem wrong, the Paladin may instantly realize which course(s) of action will not contravene his moral code. (If the predicament in question has no solution, the Paladin receives a theophany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophany) or similar intervention revealing the least damaging course, which must then be followed.)
clarkvalentine 05-07-05, 10:42 AM	Since some of you guys can't tell how paladins should behave I suggest you never let anyone play one in your campaign ever. What dull paladins you must DM for. Maintaining one's moral compass in the face of ambiguity and grey areas - including how to handle lose-lose - are what being a paladin is all about, if I were to GM one.
Lord Ian Stark 05-07-05, 11:05 AM	If you have a player that doesn't know how to play a Paladin then either coach him as a DM when he is playing one or don't let him play one at all. All these Paladin posts on here are either inexperienced DM's or inexperienced Player's attempting to play a Paladin. When those of us who have played the game for awhile answer your questions, the inexperienced don't agree and want to play it there own way. So why even post?
Cadfan 05-07-05, 11:48 AM	I don't think the problem is that people "don't know how to play a paladin." I think the problem is that the DM is forcing his moral code on the players. The DM doesn't know how to DM for a paladin. Use the train car example, where you're in a train car barreling down a track towards 5 people tied to the rails, and you have only 2 choices- push a button and change to a track with one person tied to the rails, or don't push the button. Action means that you've affirmatively killed that one person. Were it not for you, he would have lived. You killed him. He was an innocent. Inaction means you stood by while 5 people were killed. You declined to save 5 innocent lives. I, personally, honestly think it would be evil to NOT push the button, and to let 5 people die instead of 1. But I understand that some people, say, some people who play characters who are paladins, may have a different view. It would be cruel of me to punish them for living up to their moral code, but not mine, where the moral code at issue is at least a reasonable one held by many people in the real world.
Palin the Wizard 05-07-05, 11:57 AM	Feriin, RAW states that a paladin can atone, even if he commits an evil act. It doesn't matter how evil the act is. That said, a paladin should never resort to committing an evil act (as doing so will ensure that he's no longer a paladin, until he atones), no matter the situation. Ian, I must say that I disagree. It's not just inexperience, though that of course has a part. The reason for all these paladin threads are that the players (or the DMs) are misunderstanding the concept of a paladin. If you've misunderstood that, it doesn't matter how much experience you have.
Lord Ian Stark 05-07-05, 12:01 PM	Ian, I must say that I disagree. It's not just inexperience, though that of course has a part. The reason for all these paladin threads are that the players (or the DMs) are misunderstanding the concept of a paladin. If you've misunderstood that, it doesn't matter how much experience you have. I agree with that. Most of misunderstanding comes from inexperience whether that inexperience is the D&D game or reading comprehension. But not all of it can be chalked up to inexperience as you have stated.
nightwing 05-07-05, 04:42 PM	Is that so? Let's look at the Code of Conduct: "A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act." Even a paladin can commit an evil act willingly without realizing it's an evil act and with the very best of intentions in mind. He'd still lose his powers. Well, I think most people realized my point, but you missed it. To clarify, "intent" suggests an "act" was committed for a purpose or reason. *If it truly was the case* that the OP's paladin had only two available choices (1. let the children be killed and loose their eternal souls, and 2. kill the children to save their souls) then he chose correctly and should not be punished for that "evil" act. In my view, he has chosen the most merciful course of action. Note however that, as I already stated, he may be severly reprimanded for allowing the situation to get that bad. And yes, the parents of those children may never understand or forgive the choice he made, and he many never be welcome in that area again, but he should not lose his status.
clarkvalentine 05-07-05, 04:53 PM	Even a paladin can commit an evil act willingly without realizing it's an evil act If the paladin doesn't realize it's evil, can his choice still truly be described as "willing"?
jukar 05-07-05, 05:50 PM	I have a few questions for anyone who wants to take them- First of all- WHY CAN'T ANYONE PLAY A PALADIN DECENTLY? For God's sake, it's only lawful good, it's not that complicated a code to follow. It's not like it's the book of Leviticus, it basically boils down to one statement- Work towards the greater good and uphold order in society. Secondly, what sort of thrill do DMs get out of these campy, 60's Batman-esque scenarios where they put a Paladin between bad choice A and B? "Which will you save, Batman? The girl, or the Boy Wonder? MWAHAHAHA!" It's cheesy as all get out. There are literally millions of paths for a story to take, but if the party has a Paladin, it seems that it inevitably comes racing to this dreadfully overdone scenario. It's cliche, it's hokey, it's not good storytelling. I don't mind railroading even, I like a little structure and I can accept that the DM wants the story to take a certain direction, but this sort of stuff is outright ridiculous. The more of it I read, the more I am convinced the Paladin should be moved to Prestige Class Land, where random goons and their DMs with their goofy supervillainy fetishes aren't as able to readily continue the ongoing rape and defamement of what should be a very cool class.
Bikkusu 05-07-05, 10:47 PM	I have a few questions for anyone who wants to take them- First of all- WHY CAN'T ANYONE PLAY A PALADIN DECENTLY? For God's sake, it's only lawful good, it's not that complicated a code to follow. It's not like it's the book of Leviticus, it basically boils down to one statement- Work towards the greater good and uphold order in society. Yes, because there is definately only one way to play a paladin. Secondly, what sort of thrill do DMs get out of these campy, 60's Batman-esque scenarios where they put a Paladin between bad choice A and B? "Which will you save, Batman? The girl, or the Boy Wonder? MWAHAHAHA!" It's cheesy as all get out. There are literally millions of paths for a story to take, but if the party has a Paladin, it seems that it inevitably comes racing to this dreadfully overdone scenario. You got Penguin's laugh down, but it's usually Joker that puts Batman in those situations. It's cliche, it's hokey, it's not good storytelling. I don't mind railroading even, I like a little structure and I can accept that the DM wants the story to take a certain direction, but this sort of stuff is outright ridiculous.Yes, giving the players lots of options, magic items to help, and a map with a secret tunnel on it, then having the players ignore them is really bad DMing and ridiculous. The more of it I read, the more I am convinced the Paladin should be moved to Prestige Class Land, where random goons and their DMs with their goofy supervillainy fetishes aren't as able to readily continue the ongoing rape and defamement of what should be a very cool class.Maybe it's because you didn't read enough that you started to rant about things that didn't pertain to this and not keep to the topic of, "Do you think what the paladin did was evil?"
Lana "Silvertongue" 05-07-05, 11:56 PM	Look at the origional situation. Fireball only has a 30 foot radius, impossible to get that many in that small of a location. So, we didn't lose more than 60 out of 1313 kids. Secondly, your looking at a party of four. Was there other options? Or was the thought that the greater good was the death of 30 to the possibility of 12 going onto a soulless existance. That is a moral choice. Would the diety rule in his favor, not you personally. If so, then the act was not evil but the best possibility at the time. Now, your going to have to atone to the families, because you are a paladin. Also consider the experience of the group as a whole. If the groups leader isn't the Paladin, was he simply following the leader and thus doing proper roleplay by following the inexperienced one. You really need to sit your players down and discuss their mistakes. Also place emphsis on tactics. This may take time or active work on your part. I'd also hold off on major moral delimmas for a periof of months.
Dynneroth 05-09-05, 02:49 PM	There's a classic moral question. Assume you're on a train, and its hurtling down a track with 5 people tied to it. You, and only you, can press a switch that will reroute the train down a track with only one guy tied to it. There are no other options. So, inaction means 5 people die. Action means you directly kill 1 person. Which is better? This is the sort of problem cruel DMs like to inflict on Paladins. The biggest problem is there's no answer. Some religions will tell you that its more wrong to actively kill someone than it is to let innocents die through inaction. Other religions and moral codes will tell you that you should prevent as much harm as possible overall. Unless you've cleared with the Paladin's player which one he's going to use, you really shouldn't punish him for picking one or the other. Both are supported by various real world systems of morality and of religion. Some religions would call one choice evil, some would call the other evil. Its basically forms of moral authoritarianism versus forms of moral utilitarianism. Don't pick and choose whichever one you need to use to screw the paladin. And don't surprise him by telling him "Guess what! You believe in moral authoritarianism! Too bad you didn't know that! Now you're powerless!" after he's already made his decision. As an afterthought, stupid isn't evil. If the paladin screws up and makes things worse, but was acting in good faith, he hasn't committed an evil act. This isn't saying he can do whatever he wants then insist that he has good intentions, you can call him on his obvious lying if you need to. But treat it like you would a normal, real life moral decision. People do in fact make choices which they think are morally right, but, in retrospect, were probably morally wrong. But if they didn't know all the facts at the time, the act itself, the choice, wasn't wrong. Back to the question of the train. I know this is just my opinion, but my view of a paladin is that he would not choose to push the button to switch the track. He would do everything in his power to stop the train, including sacrificing his own life and quite possibly the lives of his comrades to save the lives of innocents at that moment. I know this is very simplistic of me, but let's say that the train was powered by the paladin's life force and it would immediately stop if he were dead. He, without hesitation, would ask one of his group to kill him and if none would, he would end his own life by whatever means would have the greatest likelihood of quick success. Choosing either track is not an option for the paladin, only stopping the train is.
Cadfan 05-09-05, 03:53 PM	See, all I'm saying is, that's a perfectly good way to play a paladin. Its just not the only way to play a paladin. And if the DM has a particular type of paladin he insists on, he needs to tell the player in advance, before the player tries to be a different, but still ok, version of paladin, and loses all his powers as a result. If what the PC is doing is ok for at least some paladins of some gods, the player shouldn't be ambushed.
Vharuck 05-09-05, 03:59 PM	I'd tear the character sheet in half, eat pizza, and watch Seinfeld reruns. And I probably wouldn't play D&D with that group again. And I'd wave goodbye and tell you to leave the angst at home. Bad things happen.
Aubri 05-09-05, 04:04 PM	I see you still don't get it. Much of this is about poor DMs putting Paladins in lose-lose situations where the choices are 1) evil by action, or 2) greater evil by inaction. No, that's not really the case. Up until he threw the fireball, everything can be written off as stupidity. However, when he actually attacked the children, that IS an evil act, no matter what you say. There is no evidence I've seen that every child would definitively have died had he attacked the cultists instead. The train analogy doesn't hold up. He had many, many possible courses to take. Nobody could ever say it was evil for the paladin to wade into nigh-hopeless battle with the cultists, hoping to save at least some of the children in the process. EVEN IF HE FAILS, he's stuck to his morals and his code. A paladin isn't responsible for failure, only for failure to keep his code. If they all die anyway, that really sucks, but who knows? Maybe it would have made a difference if the fireball had been aimed at the cultists instead! It seems to me that this paladin acted in cowardice as well as committed murder, hoping to disrupt the ceremony by killing kids instead of putting his own life on the line to defend them. Whether the situation was "fair" is totally irrelevant at this point; paladins rarely get a fair fight--that's the nature of evil. It takes incredible guts and dedication to be the only guy giving the other a break, even when he takes advantage of you, even when it makes the playing field unfair. THAT is what it means to be a paladin. Dyn has it exactly right--the paladin denies the nature of the trap, even at the cost of his own life. Hell, look at Spiderman (the movie)--the Green Goblin puts him in a quandary between his girl and the cable car full of kids, and he choses to save both through heroic effort and despite great physical pain. In a lot of ways a paladin IS a comic-book superhero! Can you imagine Superman or Batman killing the hostages, then grinning at the Joker and saying, "What're you going to hide behind now?" All the "Golden Age" superheroes stuck to exactly this kind of code. They were taken advantage of time and time again, but always won through in the end.
Cadfan 05-09-05, 04:48 PM	"Nobody could ever say it was evil for the paladin to wade into nigh-hopeless battle with the cultists, hoping to save at least some of the children in the process. EVEN IF HE FAILS, he's stuck to his morals and his code." How do you know his moral code prioritizes lives over souls? If the children died in the ritual, their souls were lost. Better souls saved than lives saved. That's not so far out. Plenty of real world religions think or have thought that way. Maybe his moral code does prioritize lives over souls. But if the DM hasn't told the player this, then its not fair for the DM to punish the player when the player doesn't know. "Hell, look at Spiderman (the movie)--the Green Goblin puts him in a quandary between his girl and the cable car full of kids, and he choses to save both through heroic effort and despite great physical pain." What if that isn't possible? That's an easy thing to write into a book or a comic book because the author controls everything- the hero, the villain, the weather, everything. So the author can include miraculous third choices that simultaneously save everyone. The player isn't an author, and is limited to the choices the DM implements. Reading the above story, I don't see where the paladin's player could have metagame thought, and concluded that the DM was going to allow him to perform some sort of miraculous, heroic act that would save everybody. Were I the player, I think I'd have believed that the DM was quite serious about having the children get sacrificed, and about me having little ability to prevent it.
eudas 05-09-05, 06:19 PM	Paladin definitely loses powers. Paladin may shift alignment. Paladin definitely requires atonement. Alternatively, if you want this player to stop playing a paladin (due to unsuitability for the class), you may tell him that the paladin is excommunicated from the order for this act, and to roll up a new character (a non-paladin, non-LG one). eudas
pres_man 05-09-05, 08:22 PM	How do you know his moral code prioritizes lives over souls? If the children died in the ritual, their souls were lost. Better souls saved than lives saved. So here are a few choices: -Action: Do absolutely nothing. Result: Lives and souls of all kids lost. -Action: Try to kill all kids first. Result: All lives lost, some souls saved. (this is making the reasonable assumption that a fireball couldn't kill all the kids instantly) -Action: Defeat the cultists. Results: A lot of lives lost, but some lives and souls saved (the OP said that a number might be saved, whether that should have been 8 or 800 depends on the setting/realism that I'm not going to get into). Here's the point, you save a life, you save a soul. There is no choice between lives or souls. It is just a choice of numbers, lose 500 souls or lose 200 souls? Personally I have a problem with paladins making moral decisions based on numbers. Like the train track thing. A paladin who chooses to switch the tracks is basically saying that 5 lives are more valuable then 1 life. Yet how does the paladin actually know, what if the 5 were mental vegatables and the other was a person who could heal millions. Should that even matter?
Aubri 05-10-05, 10:44 AM	How do you know his moral code prioritizes lives over souls? If the children died in the ritual, their souls were lost. Better souls saved than lives saved. Another part of the code says "the ends doesn't justify the means". Doing a greater good (saving souls) through an evil act (murder of innocents) is unacceptable. What if that isn't possible? That's an easy thing to write into a book or a comic book because the author controls everything- the hero, the villain, the weather, everything. So the author can include miraculous third choices that simultaneously save everyone. The player isn't an author, and is limited to the choices the DM implements. As I said, the choice is to attack. There can't be THAT many cultists... and if nothing else, his party can start freeing kids while he holds back the badguys. A high-ish level paladin should be able to hold back a number of enemies if they have to roll a 20 to hit him. (I'm assuming here that the cultists are reasonably low level. If there's that many above 1st level, then we have another problem to discuss.
Cadfan 05-10-05, 12:15 PM	"Another part of the code says "the ends doesn't justify the means". Doing a greater good (saving souls) through an evil act (murder of innocents) is unacceptable." But if you believe that its also wrong to not act when a good could be accomplished, that just leads to paradox. Think about it. 1) It is wrong to kill innocents. 2) It is wrong to not act, when, by acting, I could save souls. 3) If I want to save souls, I must kill innocents. 4) If I want to not kill innocents, I must not act. 5) Therefore, my head explodes. (And no, the paladin can't get around it by acting in a way that doesn't kill innocents, but also don't work. He can't just whip out a deck of cards and play solitaire or something in the hopes that this will be somehow useful.) You can't just assert that there's always another way. Several people have suggested that there always should be another way, but that doesn't mean the DM is going to give you one. Most paladin conundrum threads turn up when the DM has very clearly let it be known that there is not another way. And I don't think its very paladin-like to just deny reality by stamping one's feeties and throwing a temper tantrum. "I WILL NOT BELIEVE THAT THERE IS NO GOOD OPTION! I WILL NOT! WILL NOT WILL NOT WILL NOT!!!" *paladin falls on ground and kicks and screams *paladin denies reality and does something which, in his little world of denial, seems like a good idea, but actually leads to an even worse outcome than if he'd kept his head and made a tough choice pres_man- As far as game fairness issues go, its cool if you think a paladin should not make decisions like that by numbers. I disagree. I think that a paladin, given the choice between, say, rescuing a kidnapped little girl, and rescuing a whole school full of kidnapped little girls, all things being equal ought to pick the option with the most people saved. But I think both views of a paladin's code of honor are legitimate for at least some paladins of some gods. So, when I'm working out a paladin's Code of Honor, I'll probably put something in like "greatest good for the greatest number." You don't have to do that. The key is that if both options are legitimate possibilities, the player shouldn't be ambushed by a DM who has fixated on just one of them, and not told the player.
pres_man 05-10-05, 12:46 PM	But if you believe that its also wrong to not act when a good could be accomplished, that just leads to paradox. Think about it. 1) It is wrong to kill innocents. 2) It is wrong to not act, when, by acting, I could save souls. 3) If I want to save souls, I must kill innocents. 4) If I want to not kill innocents, I must not act. 5) Therefore, my head explodes. Except #3 is not correct, it should say, If I want to save the most souls, I must kill innocents. But that is true in general. I mean if you only care about saving souls it would be best to kill someone as soon as they detect as good, so there would be no chance they could fall. There was another choice that saved some souls (and the lives that go with those souls as well), that was to attack the cultists. This route does save some souls and allows the paladin to act honorably and in a good fashion. I think that a paladin, given the choice between, say, rescuing a kidnapped little girl, and rescuing a whole school full of kidnapped little girls, all things being equal ought to pick the option with the most people saved. But usually all things are not equal, nor can a person know that all things are equal. How can a paladin know that the girl he sacrificed to save the others wouldn't grow up and save thousands, while the girls he did save might grow up to be evil cultists. In that case he would have actually do less good by choicing by simple numbers. Besides, going by straight numbers it is more "good" to exterminate all "evil" humanoids, followed by the neutral ones. Leaving only the "good" races.
Swiss619 05-10-05, 12:55 PM	Originally posted by Venom of the Yuan Ti Ok, let me explane somthing. He brought it on himslef. 1. The party knew agout the cult BEFORE they started to kidnap children 2. The party had acsess to a "movable door" an item I invented to, more or less, save the children. 3. The party followed the 2nd lot of children to the cult, but decided to "wait untill the sacrifice because then we will get everyone." 4. They had acsess (although they never used it) to the buleprints of what was now the cult's home which show a secter passadge near the altar. 5. Silance only petered out because they spent half teh duration (at least) muching about searching for traps on a door that they could have serched BEFORE casting the spell. 6. The cleric (caster of silance) has silent spell and a high enough slot for a silent silance. 7. This is the Paladin players 4th majour adventure, although 1st as a paladin. Ok with you? Before I say what I’m going to say, let me clarify some things: 1. The number of children involved was ludicrous, as was the notion that they could all be sacrificed before the party could conceivably act. (Unless the opposing force was so large that it was ludicrous the party could combat them.) 2. That this many living people could be contained in a 40 ft diameter area is also silly. 3. And to answer the asked question, I concur with those who say an atonement is in order. That being said, let me debunk the whole “railroading” argument: read the post by Venom of the Yuan Ti! The party made some stupid, stupid choices. They could have moved earlier, they could have found out the location by other means (spells) – they could have brought hirelings to rescue the hostages while they attacked the guards. The bit about how the decision they made was poorly executed by itself kills the railroading theory. Look, railroading is bad when it happens, but not every “no good options” situation that arises is the fault of the DM! We have countless threads about how players do stupid things! It bothers me when the DM takes the blame by default, before the situation is even analyzed! God people, there were railroading condemnations of the DM in question before anyone even asked him to explain HOW they ended up in this situation! Please, for the sake of civilized discourse, try to reserve judgments until you at least have enough information to base one on. Here ends the rant.
Aubri 05-10-05, 02:10 PM	But if you believe that its also wrong to not act when a good could be accomplished, that just leads to paradox. Think about it. I have to wonder which part of "the ends doesn't justify the means" you have trouble with. In no case, ever, period, is it not an evil act to murder innocents. What may or may not happen to their souls is IRRELEVANT to that fact! The paladin's code doesn't say "always act for the greater good", it says no evil acts, period, paragraph! You can't just assert that there's always another way. Several people have suggested that there always should be another way, but that doesn't mean the DM is going to give you one. Most paladin conundrum threads turn up when the DM has very clearly let it be known that there is not another way. And I don't think its very paladin-like to just deny reality by stamping one's feeties and throwing a temper tantrum. This is a strawman. You've invented the situation that the DM offers no alternatives, which was not at all the case here. As I keep saying, even at the last extremity there WAS an option, and that is to attack the cultists. True, he may fall in valiant battle, but I don't think any paladin in the universe expects to retire at a ripe old age. If they do, they're in the wrong line of work. If you want to take the easy way out, you don't become a paladin. If you can't do what's required of you once you're in, well, there's this rather nice PrC in the Dungeon Master's Guide... Please, for the sake of civilized discourse, try to reserve judgments until you at least have enough information to base one on.:clap:
Calico Jack Drake 05-10-05, 02:23 PM	Option 3 for the train analogy The paladin waits until the last second and then throws the switch causing the train to derail and stop short of killing any of the people on the tracks. He throws the switch knowing he is going to die in the resulting derailment but he sacrifices himself doing all that he can to save the others. Without getting into the logistics of the OP scenario, the Paladin could/should have charged into the midst of the cultists and dropped the necklace where it would do the most good. Assuming any of them are still standing, the paladin could take up a position where anyone trying to reload their crossbow was subject to an AoO. Same for anyone then attempting to fire the crossbows. Meanwhile, the rest of the party starts shuttling the children out of there. Even if the paladin dies, he did so knowing he did everything he could to save the children. If the cultists get init, he won't be able to stop them from firing the first volly. But he can save every last child Humanly Possible and not suffer any loss of abilities. Part of the porblem was looking at it as a save everyone or save no one scenario. Sometimes the dice are against you and you can't get that first swing off... or you miss before the BBEG can push the Big Red Button. Any DM will accept that. But lofting fireballs into save the children by killing them was evil. Life is to be protected per the definition of LG even at your own expense. The paladin loses his abilities and must atone through a near-epic quest considering the circumstances.
mercurial67 05-10-05, 03:42 PM	I still see some of you do not get it. The Paladin Murdered Innocent Defenseless Children. (Paladinhood lost , never to get back again) He can not Atone for this no matter how much he wants to.Why does everyone claim killing innocent children is always an evil act? It depends ENTIRELY on the circumstances. Someone walks up to you and hacks your arm off because they think it is funny. That is an evil act. A doctor cuts your arm off to save your life. That is not an evil act. If in the world you are playing in the soul/spirit/whatever is greater than the physical body, ending someone's life (destroying the physical body) to save their soul can never be ONLY an evil act. Period. I would even argue many paladins would have no problems what-so-ever doing that because they KNOW their god exists and they KNOW what happens when you die in good graces. Remember, this is a game world where people KNOW their gods are real. There is EVIDENCE of what happens when you die. Heck, you can even return from death. Think of it in these terms: There is a railroad track with a fence on each side which fits perfectly. There is a gate on each side of the track. 1313 children are all lined up on the track with a train coming (evil diety sacrifice). The gate on your side of the track (game world) is shut & you can't figure out how to open it. You have a way to open the gate on the other side (after life) though. If they leave on the other side of the track though, they can not return to the side you are on. What do you do? That is the situation as the paladin sees it. If they die by normal means, they continue their existance, just not on the material plane. If the "train" runs them over, it's over for them completely. No rebirth or whatever happens in the afterlife. As for the actual situation, 1313 children is WAY to many. Sounds more like the final requirements to awaken an ancient evil so powerfull it would consume the world, not a big sacrifice to an evil god. To me it sounds like the paladin found a way to "save" the children. It may not have been the ideal solution. The paladin wouldn't even need to feel bad for what he did in my opinion. Does a doctor feel "bad" when the only recourse is to amputate? He might not be happy about it, but he does it anyway and goes on to treat other patients afterward. Using the doctor analogy, if a doctor does something he shouldn't (such as amputating an arm when a shot of pennicilin would do the job) the doctor's license will get yanked and he can't practice medicine anymore. So did the paladin commit an evil act or knowingly break his code? According to the options left to him, he didn't.
Cadfan 05-10-05, 04:06 PM	Calico- Lets say you try option 3. The DM says, "That's incredibly unrealistic. That doesn't work at all. Trains have safeties on them to prevent that switch from being thrown while the train is overtop the switch. Well, by trying to take some sort of bizarre third choice that doesn't make any sense, you railroaded yourself into the choice of 5 people dying." The "just pick the third choice" idea works fine in books, which are basically D&D games where the DM controls both the players and the monsters all at once. It doesn't work so well otherwise. Aubri- Seriously, dude. According to (imho) most coherent moral philosophies, inaction is not much different than action. That is, you can reword most moral questions into two different questions. Is it moral to kill innocents (the means) to save souls (the ends)? Is it moral to allow innocent souls to go to hell (the means) to keep my hands clean and sleep better at night (the ends)? The paladin who allowed innocent souls to go to hell in order to not have to "dirty his hands" by committing a distasteful act should be, in my opinion, instantly stripped of his paladin-hood. Paladin or not, he's clearly a less worthwhile person than the party's chaotic good rogue. But the real question, of course, is what the paladin's god thinks about this. Hieroneous might demand that the paladin fail spectacularly in a noble but obviously doomed effort. Pelor might think that to be ridiculous, and insist that the paladin preserve innocent souls even at the expense of his own sense of moral purity. In fact, Pelor might feel that preserving the innocent so massively outweighed the paladin's moral purity that a paladin who put his own moral squeamishness in front of the souls of a thousand children might end up smited dead on the spot. With that in mind, again, reasonable people can disagree. That's all I'm saying. A reasonable paladin is possible with either moral position. And for a DM to ambush the player with just one interpretation of a previously undefined moral code when other moral codes are possible, is DEFINITELY wrong. As for the DM allowing alternatives, I am taking it as self evident that an enemy which can kidnap and trap over a thousand children all at once wasn't going to be meaningfully affected by one round of combat. That's certainly what the player thought, at any rate. And I bet he knows more about it than either you or I. Mercurial- exactly. Souls outweigh lives in a fantasy world where the afterlife is a known factor, not speculation. Clearly the paladin thought that whatever would happen to these children if they were sacrificed was even worse than death, and I'm inclined to trust his judgment of the campaign world he plays in.
nightwing 05-10-05, 04:36 PM	@mercurial and cadfan: You guys rock. I couldn't agree more. Kudos to you both.
Palin the Wizard 05-10-05, 04:47 PM	Well, I think most people realized my point, but you missed it. To clarify, "intent" suggests an "act" was committed for a purpose or reason. *If it truly was the case* that the OP's paladin had only two available choices (1. let the children be killed and loose their eternal souls, and 2. kill the children to save their souls) then he chose correctly and should not be punished for that "evil" act. In my view, he has chosen the most merciful course of action. Note however that, as I already stated, he may be severly reprimanded for allowing the situation to get that bad. And yes, the parents of those children may never understand or forgive the choice he made, and he many never be welcome in that area again, but he should not lose his status. I understood your point perfectly. It's simply wrong. If the paladin commits an evil act willingly (such as killing these children by throwing a fireball in their midst) with good intent (saving their souls from being sacrificed), he will lose his powers and need to atone, according to the RAW. If the paladin doesn't realize it's evil, can his choice still truly be described as "willing"? Yes, he can. The paladin in my above example might not realize that killing these children (even for the sake of their souls) is evil, and he commits the evil act willingly. Why does everyone claim killing innocent children is always an evil act? It depends ENTIRELY on the circumstances. I challenge you, good sir, to find a case in which killing innocent children is not an evil act. (Hint: You won't be able to.) A "lesser evil" is still evil. --- Cadfan, there's a very important point you're forgetting. Pelor is NG. Heironeous is LG. Paladins are LG. Pelor doesn't have a code he needs to follow. --- Another thing, people: Inaction means no action. That's utterly neutral. It's not an act a paladin can usually take, of course--but it is far better than committing an evil act (lesser or not).
Calico Jack Drake 05-10-05, 04:50 PM	Part of this problem was the introduction of souls into the equasion. Without the use of the Book of Vile Darkness, souls rarely come into play in a typical D&D campaign. In this case and context, though, souls were the "coin" the evil cultists were attempting to spend. Now the paladin had to make an instantaneous decision about something the player may never had considered within the context of his character or the game even though the character would have been brought up with and evolved his beliefs through life and experience. That being said... Strictly within the write up for alignements and even within the essays in both the Books of Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness, good attemps to preserve Life, not souls. The paladin's first thought should have been for the lives of the children not for the protection of their souls. After all, in a cosmology where pantheistic dieties wander around and have coffee, the paladin's god could demand the souls lost. Let the Deities deal with the souls, the characters need to worry about the lives of the people they are trying to protect. In those same essays and in the game in general, good and evil are black and white. There is no wiggle room. Killing a person or creature unprovoked is an evil act. It's RAW. The intention of the killer is irrelivent (so's my spelling :P). The children did not provoke the paladin into the attack, he cannot argue he killed them to save their lives (again, let the dieties deal with the soul issue), he did an evil act. He deserves the loss of his powers and to do a major atonement. I would not shift his alignment unless he did something like this again; then it's irredeamible. An alignment shift and permenant loss of power is not something to be done lightly. That one is almost impossible to come back from. -CJ
clarkvalentine 05-10-05, 04:51 PM	Yes, he can. The paladin in my above example might not realize that killing these children (even for the sake of their souls) is evil, and he commits the evil act willingly. I'd dispute that. "Willingly" implies that he makes an an informed, deliberate decision, and decides to commit evil. Another thing, people: Inaction means no action. That's utterly neutral. That is a position that's quite debatable. I think what this discussion does illustrate is that in matters of morality - even fantasy morality - there will always be disagreement. Personally, I think this makes Paladins more interesting to play.
Palin the Wizard 05-10-05, 04:57 PM	I'd dispute that. "Willingly" implies that he makes an an informed, deliberate decision, and decides to commit evil. Willingly means he does it without being forced to do it. A succubus can seduce a man into doing evil willingly, for example. He might not exactly be thinking about what he's doing... But it's still evil. That is a position that's quite debatable. No, it's not. Complete inaction, for lack of a better act, is neutral.
clarkvalentine 05-10-05, 05:02 PM	Willingly means he does it without being forced to do it. Your definition. Not necessarily everyone's. No, it's not. And yet here we are, debating it. Complete inaction, for lack of a better act, is neutral. "for lack of a better act" - Well, that muddies the water a bit, doesn't it? What's a better act? Who defines it? There will always be disagreement in matters of morality. No amount of arm-folding "This is the way it is" declarations will change that.
Palin the Wizard 05-10-05, 05:36 PM	You are misunderstanding the case in question. This has nothing to do with morality, per se; it has to do with whether or not the paladin acted correctly according to his code of conduct. While the code of conduct will, in most cases, prove to be the most moral thing to do, sometimes it is not--as evidenced here. I completely agree that people will always disagree when arguing morality. "A better act" was supposed to mean "any act aside from inaction". I would certainly like to hear an argument as to how "inaction" can be anything aside from neutral.
Lord Ian Stark 05-10-05, 05:37 PM	:crazy:
Aubri 05-10-05, 05:38 PM	Aubri- Seriously, dude. According to (imho) most coherent moral philosophies, inaction is not much different than action. That is, you can reword most moral questions into two different questions. NOBODY is suggesting inaction. You must not be listening, or something. Is it moral to kill innocents (the means) to save souls (the ends)? Is it moral to allow innocent souls to go to hell (the means) to keep my hands clean and sleep better at night (the ends)? No, and no. The paladin couldn't possible have killed ALL the kids with the fireball--it was my perception that he killed 20 or so in order to ruin the ceremony. But in any case, no, he may NOT kill the kids to "save" them. That's Stupid Evil thinking. In any case, yes, kids getting sacrificed = bad. Saving souls is a worthy goal, but not when you do it with unworthy means, any more than it would be proper for the paladin to poison the cultists, to steal money with which to construct a cultist-killing weapon, or to lie to another group to fool them into fighting the cultists. Noble ends does not justify evil means, and that's that, souls or whatever be damned (so to speak)! If the paladin thinks his actions were proper, that's what Atonement is FOR! If they were totally evil in motive, he wouldn't be ALLOWED to atone! But the real question, of course, is what the paladin's god thinks about this. Hieroneous might demand that the paladin fail spectacularly in a noble but obviously doomed effort. Pelor might think that to be ridiculous, and insist that the paladin preserve innocent souls even at the expense of his own sense of moral purity. In fact, Pelor might feel that preserving the innocent so massively outweighed the paladin's moral purity that a paladin who put his own moral squeamishness in front of the souls of a thousand children might end up smited dead on the spot. Now you're just making stuff up. With that in mind, again, reasonable people can disagree. That's all I'm saying. A reasonable paladin is possible with either moral position. And for a DM to ambush the player with just one interpretation of a previously undefined moral code when other moral codes are possible, is DEFINITELY wrong. This was in no way an "ambush", in any case.
Cardinal Teplin 05-10-05, 07:35 PM	Part of this problem was the introduction of souls into the equasion. I suspect that is the crux of the problem. The implication of the evil ceremony is that the children being sacrificed have their souls somehow lost or forever condemned. This creates a contradiction within the campaign world. Either one's afterlife depends on one's deeds and alignment, or on the circumstances of one's death. This campaign appears to have both. The paladin, judging that the children were lost, tried to give them the best death he could. Within the context of the campaign world as presented, this makes a certain amount of sense. If life is basically a routeing shed whereby your soul's ultimate destination depends at least in part on what company you run into, then killing people before they can be corrupted is consistent with the game world. You then have a choice. Is it more important to preserve life, or to stop souls being lost? The basic problem is that any form of permenant soul stealing or destruction of soul really blows holes in a morality system, because it introduces the idea that the manner of your death is more important than whether or not you live. Given that, killing people to save their souls is sensible, and logically speaking you've paved the way for holy genocide. The problem is not that the DM posed a moral dilemma that the player couldn't answer. The problem is that the DM posed a moral dilemma that the DM hasn't yet answered (based on the information we have). Are souls ultimately more important than lives? The answer needs to be no. What I would strongly suggest is that, at the very least, preserving life is good in and of itself, and that mass murder is evil, even if done for good reason. Assuming that, then the paladin did wrong, and needs to atone. Big time. The paladin has erred. Instead of treating good as a cause in and of itself, he has treated as an allegience, a side to supported, and little more. He has taken it upon himself to work out the best way to place the souls of others and in doing so fallen away from the Code of conduct that he was supposed to be following, that embodies the principles and values he is supposed to uphold. As ways to fall, it's one of the classics - getting so wrapped up in thwarting evil that you lose sight of being good. Nietzsche wrote books on this. This kind of moral failing is the stuff of heroes. Killing thousands of children needs to be an evil act. If it isn't, then all sorts of horrors creep in.
Cardinal Teplin 05-10-05, 07:44 PM	There will always be disagreement in matters of morality. No amount of arm-folding "This is the way it is" declarations will change that. Unfortunately, that statement is itself a matter of morality. Deciding (arbitrarily) whether or not moral questions can or can not be definitively resolved is in itself a statement on the matter of morality. You might well feel that they can't be definitively resolved, but that claim is no less an 'arm-folding declaration' than to state that they can.
Calico Jack Drake 05-10-05, 07:47 PM	Well said Cardinal :clap:
clarkvalentine 05-10-05, 07:54 PM	Unfortunately, that statement is itself a matter of morality. Deciding (arbitrarily) whether or not moral questions can or can not be definitively resolved is in itself a statement on the matter of morality. You might well feel that they can't be definitively resolved, but that claim is no less an 'arm-folding declaration' than to state that they can. Not really. All I'm making a statement about is agreement about morality, a position which I think is supported very well by this very thread. This has little bearing on whether an objective morality actually exists. It very well might - but people will never agree on it even if it does.
Vharuck 05-10-05, 08:30 PM	Why does everyone claim killing innocent children is always an evil act? It depends ENTIRELY on the circumstances. I forgot why I love these threads, until I saw this.
Insane Pixie 05-10-05, 08:41 PM	Complete inaction, for lack of a better act, is neutral. "Good Sir Knight! The Dark Lord Bob demands that a child be sacrificed, or he shall slaughter the entire village!" "Well, then, I guess its time to do nothing."
Nightgaunt 05-10-05, 09:42 PM	I think what this discussion does illustrate is that in matters of morality - even fantasy morality - there will always be disagreement. Personally, I think this makes Paladins more interesting to play. :weep: Even if nothing good will ever come from a paladin thread, at least this made me smile...
pres_man 05-10-05, 10:52 PM	"Good Sir Knight! The Dark Lord Bob demands that a child be sacrificed, or he shall slaughter the entire village!" "Well, then, I guess its time to do nothing." Which is of course totally evil. Now if the Good Sir Knight had instead said, "Oh does he! Well, we'll show him, let's kill all of the kids first, then we'll see what kind of sacrifice he gets." Now that would be totally good to the extreme. :rolleyes:
Sybill 05-11-05, 02:24 AM	Why does everyone claim killing innocent children is always an evil act? It depends ENTIRELY on the circumstances. :rofl: Ok, I'm not even going to comment on this one. But, people seem to be forgetting about the LAWFUL aspect of a paladin's code. And according to legitimate authority, which probably is not evil either, this is definitely NOT lawful!!! I mean, think about it, if this happened today, and you murdered hundreds of children to save their souls (happens all the time by cultists), you will go to jail. This means that the paladin will have broken his code. Whether or not it was good, it was unlawful, which also makes up a portion of the code. Paladins follow a code based on goodness AND lawfulness. Don't forget it.
Palin the Wizard 05-11-05, 03:16 AM	"Good Sir Knight! The Dark Lord Bob demands that a child be sacrificed, or he shall slaughter the entire village!" "Well, then, I guess its time to do nothing." Which would be a neutral act, even if it doesn't make the least amount of sense. The knight has committed no evil. Letting an evil adversary be to do what he wants is not evil (else most commoners who doesn't fight back against 'The Dark Lord Bob' would be evil).
The_Elder 05-11-05, 03:36 AM	Sounds like a railroad to me......1313 kids adn how meany cultist??? Even if the party didnt think....its a sham Atonment...yes, but light (maby his order pays for it) and get on with it The_Elder
Cardinal Teplin 05-11-05, 07:22 AM	Not really. All I'm making a statement about is agreement about morality, a position which I think is supported very well by this very thread. This has little bearing on whether an objective morality actually exists. It very well might - but people will never agree on it even if it does. <Shrug> I don't see that changes the problem I identified. Leaving aside any declaration for or against objective morality and you're still making a declaration of whether such morality can ever be agreed on. Noting that people tend to disagree is one thing - maintaining that agreement can never be reached is quite another, and every bit as much an 'arm-folding' declaration as the one you condemn.
Andrew_980 05-11-05, 07:55 AM	a man once said that all it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing. doing nothing is an act. it is what made the differance between gandi living or dying, they could not just do nothing and let him die of starvation (evil wouldn't care enough and they may have been borderline good). they didn't say screw him we are not doing anything to him and his followers, why should we care?
Palin the Wizard 05-11-05, 08:02 AM	"All it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing." Yes, that's true. However, I don't see how it has any impact on the discussion at hand. Evil thrives when good does nothing, that's obvious as there's no obstacle anymore. But if good men do evil deeds, evil thrives even more. The obstacle has not only been removed; it's been turned into speed.
Cadfan 05-11-05, 12:01 PM	If you guys are going to insist on these sorts of unrealistic moral codes, you shouldn't allow real world moral conundrums into your game. *Roosevelt gives the order: "Commence the bombing. We can't afford to let those weapons factories continue their production, or we'll lose the whole eastern front." *the paladin on his war staff: "Actually, sir, our bombs only have an accuracy to about within a football field. There are innocent families with children near those factories. We would be dropping such a volume of bombs that following your order surely will kill them." *Roosevelt: "I know, and it weighs heavy upon my conscience. But this war is an evil thing, and we must not permit it to go on any longer than necessary. A swift end will surely save more lives, and ensure our victory over this horrible, despotic regime." *paladin: "I'm sorry sir, but ordering the dropping of those bombs is ordering the deaths of german children. That would be a terribly evil act. I cannot allow you to do that." *Roosevelt: "It has to be done, for the greater good of mankind, though I take no pleasure in it." *paladin: "I am truly sorry, sir, but if you are willing to commit such an evil act as infanticide, you are simply not a legitimate authority." *paladin beheads Roosevelt* *paladin to rest of war staff: "Consider that order countermanded." *war staff: "YES SIR! PLEASE DO NOT BEHEAD US SIR!" *Nazis: "WOOHOO!" *Nazis: *wins* *paladin going to a nazi prison camp: "Better a defeat in battle than failing to uphold my moral values." *all non aryans, who are also in nazi prison camps: *disagrees*
Vharuck 05-11-05, 12:07 PM	I feel like a super-villain for saying this, but: You seem to be under the false pretense that by being good you are guaranteed to win. Good is avoiding underhanded and questionable tactics. If those are the only way to win, I have some bad news for you...
b6 05-11-05, 12:36 PM	we also must recall that paladins are NOT consequentialists. a paladin cannot say, "if i act in an evil way but the results are all good, then i may do so." no. it doesnt work that way. even if these actions would bring about incredible benefits and rewards to all around him, he would not act in such an evil manner. it would be unthinkable to him. this is the heart of the problem, then. a paladin will not commit an evil act if there is any other option, including his own death. he might not be able to aid his cause any more in such a case, but still he would not have sullied his reputation or dropped to the level of filth he is combating. a true paladin would die and allow others to die before committing an evil act. or else he could commit such an act, beg forgiveness, and Atone. that is what Atonement exists for, after all. most people forget that. :rolleyes:
clarkvalentine 05-11-05, 12:55 PM	<Shrug> I don't see that changes the problem I identified. I think that there's ample support on this very thread suggesting that agreement is not going to happen, but OK.
Vharuck 05-11-05, 01:18 PM	a true paladin would die and allow others to die before committing an evil act. or else he could commit such an act, beg forgiveness, and Atone. that is what Atonement exists for, after all. most people forget that. :rolleyes: I agree totally here. Think about it this way: though our bombs did end the war with Japan, do we really look back and say, "We are proud of that?" I sure hope not. A paladin would want a tainted victory less than a pristine defeat. Also, Atonement isn't the end of the world. Yes, you are human. Yes, you make mistakes. That's why you Atone. I'm not going to change the CoC because, "Hey, we're just human." I will use the Atone option to better help paladins act more paladin-like (or heck, they can become Blackguards).
pres_man 05-11-05, 01:22 PM	If you guys are going to insist on these sorts of unrealistic moral codes, you shouldn't allow real world moral conundrums into your game. *Roosevelt gives the order: "Commence the bombing. We can't afford to let those weapons factories continue their production, or we'll lose the whole eastern front." *the paladin on his war staff: "Actually, sir, our bombs only have an accuracy to about within a football field. There are innocent families with children near those factories. We would be dropping such a volume of bombs that following your order surely will kill them." *Roosevelt: "I know, and it weighs heavy upon my conscience. But this war is an evil thing, and we must not permit it to go on any longer than necessary. A swift end will surely save more lives, and ensure our victory over this horrible, despotic regime." *paladin: "I'm sorry sir, but ordering the dropping of those bombs is ordering the deaths of german children. That would be a terribly evil act. I cannot allow you to do that." *Roosevelt: "It has to be done, for the greater good of mankind, though I take no pleasure in it." *paladin: "I am truly sorry, sir, but if you are willing to commit such an evil act as infanticide, you are simply not a legitimate authority." *paladin beheads Roosevelt* *paladin to rest of war staff: "Consider that order countermanded." *war staff: "YES SIR! PLEASE DO NOT BEHEAD US SIR!" *Nazis: "WOOHOO!" *Nazis: *wins* *paladin going to a nazi prison camp: "Better a defeat in battle than failing to uphold my moral values." *all non aryans, who are also in nazi prison camps: *disagrees* 1st off the paladin loses all abilities by commiting murder (he could have used other means to take command). Beyond that the analogy isn't really relavent since at least the direct target is the military infrastructer, not the civilians. A better analogy would be a paladin that said, "The nazis have brainwashed the children into believe what they have done is right. There for it would be better for everybody, including the children to kill them now. So we plan to bomb all the schools when the children are in class first, then deal with the military."
Head_PC 1 05-11-05, 01:43 PM	God we seem swamped with these. OK the party tried to get into an evil temple where 1313 children (all bound and gaged, all aged 5 or less) were being held for sacrifice (mind body and soul) to an evil deiaty by havin gtheir heats pierced by specially unsanctified crossbow ammo (the dieatie's favourate sactifice method.). They get to the altar when the silance spell they used to hide Sir Clank-a-lot gives out, and now cannot re-cast the spell without alarming the evil clerigy and deamons. They try anyway and get found out, and when he realises what is happening the Arch cleric declares "Use the ceremonial ammunition on the children! They cannot save them all!" Realising that is fact the most they can save is about 8 the paladin THROWS A 6D6 NECKLACE OF FIREBALLS BEAD INTO THE ALTAR PIT!!! His argument is "better dead than sacrificed." What do you think? Damn straight! That paliden is sweet. Give him bonus xp! Better yet, give him xp for every child and attacker he killed doing that! And make him exalted! He's a hero who can clearly take initiative, stopping all those terrible sacrifices the only way he could! In the blink of an eye! Sweet!
Cardinal Teplin 05-11-05, 01:49 PM	Yay! A Nazi reference. I win my bet! On a more topical note, yes, according to the strict definition of the Code bombing innocent civillians would be a violation. So too, depending on the circumstances, would beheading Roosevelt. Upholding Good and Law should be more important to the paladin than winning a war. If that means defeat, that means defeat. Moral: Paladins make great field commanders and lousy generals. It's fairly easy to argue that the paladin, with his fantasy morality and upholding Good and Justice, does not actually work in practical terms. It's easy to construct a cynical world where good is self defeating and justice is a hollow joke. It's also easy to argue that dragons are vastly unrealistic, and could never fly. But this is a fantasy world. Idealism needs to be possible. Impractical maybe, but possible. The problem is not 'real-world' conumdrums, but the very unreal problem that the DM has to decide whether actions are ultimately good or bad, something that no real world moral conumdrum has to come to terms with.
Aubri 05-11-05, 02:31 PM	I agree totally here. Think about it this way: though our bombs did end the war with Japan, do we really look back and say, "We are proud of that?" I sure hope not. A paladin would want a tainted victory less than a pristine defeat. I agree with the sentiment in most cases, but I think that, in the most extreme of cases, a paladin might choose to perform an evil act with the full knowledge that he can "never go back". Of course we're talking about world-saving action here, for example if the original example's kids were being sacrificed to release an archfiend into the world and were, say, suspended over lava. (Yeah, the situation would be pretty lousy from a DM perspective, railroad blah blah blah, but I'm in storytelling/RP mode right now.) In a case like that, I could see the paladin in final extremity killing the hostages to spoil the ceremony, knowing he's sacrificing something potentially more valuable than his own life to stop the cult. In the train analogy, he's wrinkling his nose and pushing the button. Time to start taking Fighter levels... :fight!: This sort of ex-but-not-fallen-paladin would make an interesting NPC, I think.
Aubri 05-11-05, 02:36 PM	Moral: Paladins make great field commanders and lousy generals. ... But this is a fantasy world. Idealism needs to be possible. Impractical maybe, but possible. :clap: on both counts! For the Roosevelt case, the better example might be the decision to drop the nukes on Japan. As you say, real world military politics don't mesh well with real world idealistic morality, much less fantasy idealism. If paladins could be generals, we'd never have wars because they couldn't concience sending those soldiers out to die!
mercurial67 05-11-05, 03:19 PM	Why does everyone claim killing innocent children is always an evil act? It depends ENTIRELY on the circumstances.I challenge you, good sir, to find a case in which killing innocent children is not an evil act. (Hint: You won't be able to.)I believe I actually presented a good case. Remember, this is not real life. This is D&D. If the campaign world in which the game exists in includes "life after death", then a person's life includes the life of their soul. “Good” implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help othersThe scenario presented indicated the children's souls would be destroyed thus completely ENDING their life in all forms. The paladin mearly changed the children's lives from one on the material plane to their diety's plane. If there was no concept of an afterlife or it was just theoretical in the game, then the paladin was in the wrong & should have done everything to save as many children as possible. This is why EVERYTHING depends on the campaign world. Personally, I told the paladin in my campaign any time he thought about doing anything I considered iffy because the paladin knows more about how things work in the world than the player. Someone who is playing a paladin should have to worry they may make a mistake while playing their character. If someone WANTS to play a paladin that slips, they can choose to do that, but if they want to play a straight & narrow paladin, they need to be told when they might fall of the path. At the very least they should be given a knowledge(religion) roll to determine if they know the consequenses. But, people seem to be forgetting about the LAWFUL aspect of a paladin's code. And according to legitimate authority, which probably is not evil either, this is definitely NOT lawful!!! I mean, think about it, if this happened today, and you murdered hundreds of children to save their souls (happens all the time by cultists), you will go to jail. This means that the paladin will have broken his code. Whether or not it was good, it was unlawful, which also makes up a portion of the code.You don't loose your status for knowingly committing an unlawfull act. The code requires you to "respect legitimate authority" and that is it. A paladin must be lawfull good, but one non-lawfull act does not make you non-lawfull. For a paladin, the hierchy of laws would fall as follows: His god, his country, his own. If his god required him to save souls before lives, then he WOULD be lawfull in performing that act. For any morality issue like this, it MUST depend on the campaign because the DM has to create the morality system for the world. You CAN'T impose the morality system of our world because we don't have magic, mystical beasts, monsters, & gods walking the earth. I forgot why I love these threads, until I saw this.Yeah, a healthy debate about something which doesn't REALLY matter can be loads of fun!
Vharuck 05-11-05, 03:24 PM	I agree with the sentiment in most cases, but I think that, in the most extreme of cases, a paladin might choose to perform an evil act with the full knowledge that he can "never go back". Of course we're talking about world-saving action here, for example if the original example's kids were being sacrificed to release an archfiend into the world and were, say, suspended over lava. (Yeah, the situation would be pretty lousy from a DM perspective, railroad blah blah blah, but I'm in storytelling/RP mode right now.) In a case like that, I could see the paladin in final extremity killing the hostages to spoil the ceremony, knowing he's sacrificing something potentially more valuable than his own life to stop the cult. In the train analogy, he's wrinkling his nose and pushing the button. Time to start taking Fighter levels... :fight!: This sort of ex-but-not-fallen-paladin would make an interesting NPC, I think. I believe in this type of paladin as well. Heck, I played this type because I thought of a good backstory for it (he wasn't really fallen, but he was convinced he should be so he never used his own spells and explained his other powers in ways that make him seem unworthy). What we are doing is listing what a paladin could do and still remain within the bounds of the CoC. Not what is best. A paladin who violates his CoC because it will greatly benefit in the end did something nobley, but still violated his CoC. I'm not kicking him while he's down, but merely enforcing the rules that are far above him and his flawed logic.
aaron3579 05-11-05, 03:33 PM	This is just another case of ends v. means. In the case of a paladin, the ends can never justify the means. He killed innocent children; that's the end. There is no wrestling with mens rea required. It's too bad, but such a paladin (played strictly by the core rules) loses his paladinhood, and that's the bottom line.
Palin the Wizard 05-11-05, 03:49 PM	If you guys are going to insist on these sorts of unrealistic moral codes, you shouldn't allow real world moral conundrums into your game. *Roosevelt gives the order: "Commence the bombing. We can't afford to let those weapons factories continue their production, or we'll lose the whole eastern front." *the paladin on his war staff: "Actually, sir, our bombs only have an accuracy to about within a football field. There are innocent families with children near those factories. We would be dropping such a volume of bombs that following your order surely will kill them." *Roosevelt: "I know, and it weighs heavy upon my conscience. But this war is an evil thing, and we must not permit it to go on any longer than necessary. A swift end will surely save more lives, and ensure our victory over this horrible, despotic regime." *paladin: "I'm sorry sir, but ordering the dropping of those bombs is ordering the deaths of german children. That would be a terribly evil act. I cannot allow you to do that." *Roosevelt: "It has to be done, for the greater good of mankind, though I take no pleasure in it." *paladin: "I am truly sorry, sir, but if you are willing to commit such an evil act as infanticide, you are simply not a legitimate authority." *paladin beheads Roosevelt* *paladin to rest of war staff: "Consider that order countermanded." *war staff: "YES SIR! PLEASE DO NOT BEHEAD US SIR!" *Nazis: "WOOHOO!" *Nazis: *wins* *paladin going to a nazi prison camp: "Better a defeat in battle than failing to uphold my moral values." *all non aryans, who are also in nazi prison camps: *disagrees* You are not listening. As I said, it's not about moral codes. It's about paladins keeping their code (that so happens to be mostly moral). It is NOT an absolute moral code, though. There might be paladins out there who would sacrifice their paladinhood to do something they aren't allowed to--such as killing a single innocent to save millions of others, as was discussed in a different thread a while back--but they would lose their powers, despite acting in the interest of the greater good. Maybe it seems like an unnecessary punishment, but that's how harsh the paladin code can be. The paladin in your example should have protested, yes, and would have refused to carry out the order, but no more than that. mercurial67: Sorry. Read the description of good and evil (found in the PHB) again. '"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.' '"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.' Saving someone from a fate worse than death by killing them is evil. It completely lacks respect for life. Listen to yourself, man. You are saying that it's not evil to kill innocent children. Innocent children! Like someone else said earlier, that act needs to be evil for us to be able to enjoy this game.
jasper 05-11-05, 04:12 PM	Back to train and 5 or 1. With no other choices, and with no code of honor or god mentioned by the dm before I roll init I make a god call. And hope my god is home and does not have his answering machine on. if no luck there. Push the button and save 4 lives. Not 5 because one person is going to die at least either way. Then atone and either pay wereguild or go on quest to get a raise dead scroll to bring back the railroad pizza.
Cadfan 05-11-05, 04:36 PM	First, the killing roosevelt part was meant to be sarcastic hyperbole. The fact that the paladin would be forced to opt to lose world war 2 rather than win it was not. So lets not get hung up there. Although a decent case could be made for killing him after the children died, and by this Board's view, Roosevelt was a murderer. Paladin's are supposed to kill those, I believe? Second, if killing innocent children needs to ALWAYS BE EVIL, regardless of known consequence, in order for us to enjoy this game, I think we need to also agree that the DM should never put players in a moral conundrum like this, else we not be able to enjoy the game. A lot of the time, moral issues are glossed over in D&D, and this is ok. The goblin and orc army attacking your world's version of Helm's Deep is inherently evil, and you can kill it with no feelings of guilt. Its not like a human army. There's no point where you find out that the siege weaponry you just fired at them and the strike team raid you carried out, just killed a couple hundred innocent women, children, and camp hanger ons, none of whom were evil, all whom were just trying to get by, like would happen against a human army. You don't have to worry that the enemy soldier you just killed was a father of a child, who will now grow up an orphan and perhaps turn to evil as well- the enemy soldier was an orc, and the monster manual says orcs are Evil, so that's that. His kid was going to be evil either way. We abstract and create genuine monsters that can be treated like genuine monsters, instead of like people with all the moral complexities that entails. That's probably a good thing. I wouldn't enjoy a game where I repeatedly had to kill actual people with histories, families, and ambiguous moral leanings. But if my dungeon master PUT ME INTO a game like that, I wouldn't want to be constrained with a comic book sense of morality. A comic book sense of morality works because its a comic book. Deus ex machina, or heroic and timely bursts of strength and willpower, solve all problems. I don't think you can rely on that in D&D. Your character has the abilities it says on the stat sheet. If those limit you to certain options, but the DM is consistently having miraculous saves by outside forces solve complex moral problems for you, then that's not fun. You're no longer in control of the action. Yes, I know it says no willfully committing an evil act. And also there's a short description of "good" in the SRD. But admit it, that description is vague. "Respect for life?" From a guy who kills things with a sword all day? Obviously there's some qualifications to that respect for life thing. Hey, it says "evil" is "killing others." Ever done that, paladin? Killed someone? I think there's clearly some nuance involved. Look at Spock, and the Vulcans. Lawful good, all the way through. And their code of honor? "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Sounds like lawful good consequentialism to me. So all I'm saying is that there's no ONE TRUE CODE OF CONDUCT for a paladin. Players: work one out for yourself, and get the DM to approve it. That way you'll know what your code of conduct says, when suddenly you're in a combat situation and you have no time to consult your periapt of faithfulness, and you need to make a moral judgment- "Do you save the girl, or the children, spiderman! Muahahaha!" and you need to make that judgment NOW. DMs: Help the player develop a code of conduct, or write one for him. If you haven't specified what the player's code of conduct is, be really, really careful about punishing them for violating it. If at least some reasonable paladin of some gods could do what they did and have it be ok, then let it go, or give them a takeback. Then give them a talk after the game so it doesn't happen again. If the decision they made was reasonable to at least some paladin (not necessarily what YOU would have done, or what YOU would do if you were a paladin), then its really not fair at all to punish them for doing it. The player in a moral conundrum situation is probably going to think, "whats the morally best thing to do?" He/she is not going to think "what does the *Official Holy Text of the Church of My Deity* say is the right thing to do?" This is because that book does not exist in reality, and they have obviously not read it. In each campaign, it exists mostly in the mind of the DM. So don't punish them for not knowing chapter and verse.
ForgottenImmortal 05-11-05, 05:09 PM	DM who can't decide the morallity of an act should not run paladins. You must be smarter than the equipment you are trying to oprerate. I have spoken.
Head_PC 1 05-11-05, 07:00 PM	You are not listening. As I said, it's not about moral codes. It's about paladins keeping their code (that so happens to be mostly moral). It is NOT an absolute moral code, though. There might be paladins out there who would sacrifice their paladinhood to do something they aren't allowed to--such as killing a single innocent to save millions of others, as was discussed in a different thread a while back--but they would lose their powers, despite acting in the interest of the greater good. Maybe it seems like an unnecessary punishment, but that's how harsh the paladin code can be. The paladin in your example should have protested, yes, and would have refused to carry out the order, but no more than that. mercurial67: Sorry. Read the description of good and evil (found in the PHB) again. '"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.' '"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.' Saving someone from a fate worse than death by killing them is evil. It completely lacks respect for life. Listen to yourself, man. You are saying that it's not evil to kill innocent children. Innocent children! Like someone else said earlier, that act needs to be evil for us to be able to enjoy this game. Would it be evil to kill them? He couldnt save them, couldnt stop the sacrifices (which somehow were able to happen instantly) So what does he do? He can let them all die, to be damned eternally to the cause of empowering an evil diety, while he runs in to die afterwards, because he "respects life", or he can kill them all (probably attackers included) quickly, stopping the ritual, even if the children couldnt be saved. If he had any faith in his diety, he would know the children would be sent to the heavens of his god, rather than have their souls damned from the sacrifice. What makes more sense? Respect of life, or respect of Spirit, when death is unnavoidable?
pres_man 05-11-05, 08:04 PM	Paladin and a cleric are walking down the street. A woman with two children is walking the other way. Paladin: What about them? Cleric: (mumbles and focuses on the woman and the children for a few seconds) She is, but they aren't, probably not old enough yet to understand. Paladin: Ok. (runs his sword through the woman, kids start screaming) Don't worry kids, just saved your mom's soul, there was a chance that in the future she might have turned evil, but we got her while she was good. You be good too and in the future we might save your souls as well.
nightwing 05-11-05, 09:33 PM	If I were about to be "sacrificed," and thus have my immortal soul eaten by an evil diety, and a nearby paladin was powerless to stop the "sacrificer" in time, I would be very happy if he would have enough courage to kill me and send my soul to be with my god. If he refused to kill me, and thereby allowed my soul to be devoured, I'd be very angry. His inaction would *not* be "neutral" as some loony suggested, it would be cowardly. I believe killing me would be the *only* decent thing to do. It does not make *any* sense to punish a paladin for doing the decent thing. It would *not* be murder or evil, it would be a blessing. In fact, it would be the HONORABLE, LAWFUL, and GOOD thing to do. Whether I am a poor defenseless child or a poor defenseless adult makes no difference. I hope posters on this thread won't give pres-man's latest goofiness the dignity of a response.
b6 05-11-05, 09:41 PM	i think we all also need to recall what the phrase "respect for life" really means. it means that the paladin has a proper respect for life and appreciates it, likes it, promotes it, and might even try to protect it. it means he will not take a life without due cause. it does NOT mean that he is always under obligation to protect it. it is one thing to respect life and another to place it above all other perogatives. a paladin can have an enormous respect for life and allow 60 innocents to die. he certainly won't like it (being that he respects their now-ended lives), but he just as certainly won't commit an evil act to stop their deaths. to a paladin, being righteous and good is above all. even if that means the "good guy" dies and the world ends. at least he won't have committed an evil act, and hey... maybe his god will notice and realize that he should have helped out more.
pres_man 05-11-05, 10:41 PM	I hope posters on this thread won't give pres-man's latest goofiness the dignity of a response. And why is it goofy? Do you think that the rapture is goofy? Isn't that in effect what it is suppose to be? Take the good people leave the rest? So what's wrong with a paladin and a cleric doing so in a fantasy game? How is that goofy? We're talking about saving souls here man, not lives. Is it goofy not to want to take risks with people's souls? Every day that a good person lives, is another day they could be tempted and their soul lost to the abyssal planes forever. That's a heck of a risk. Why do you think the random roll chart for NPCs has evil NPCs at so much higher %? Because all the good people keep getting killed to save their souls. That ain't goofy my friend.
Palin the Wizard 05-12-05, 01:09 AM	If I were about to be "sacrificed," and thus have my immortal soul eaten by an evil diety, and a nearby paladin was powerless to stop the "sacrificer" in time, I would be very happy if he would have enough courage to kill me and send my soul to be with my god. If he refused to kill me, and thereby allowed my soul to be devoured, I'd be very angry. His inaction would *not* be "neutral" as some loony suggested, it would be cowardly. I believe killing me would be the *only* decent thing to do. It does not make *any* sense to punish a paladin for doing the decent thing. It would *not* be murder or evil, it would be a blessing. In fact, it would be the HONORABLE, LAWFUL, and GOOD thing to do. Whether I am a poor defenseless child or a poor defenseless adult makes no difference. I hope posters on this thread won't give pres-man's latest goofiness the dignity of a response. Keep the insults off, will you? We can discuss this topic without them. His inaction would be neutral. He is not committing an evil; the man he's powerless to stop is. There's a very obvious difference. If inaction is evil in your game, all commoners who failed to stop evil must now be evil. "Courage" and "cowardly" really doesn't matter here. Is it cowardly to respect life and refuse to take innocent lives even if it means the end? What's "courageous" about the taking of innocent lives? I never said it would be 'murder'. Murder means unlawful killing. But "good"? Never. Not for a paladin. Yours is a moral code that will only exist outside that of a paladin. Would it be evil to kill them? He couldnt save them, couldnt stop the sacrifices (which somehow were able to happen instantly) So what does he do? He can let them all die, to be damned eternally to the cause of empowering an evil diety, while he runs in to die afterwards, because he "respects life", or he can kill them all (probably attackers included) quickly, stopping the ritual, even if the children couldnt be saved. If he had any faith in his diety, he would know the children would be sent to the heavens of his god, rather than have their souls damned from the sacrifice. What makes more sense? Respect of life, or respect of Spirit, when death is unnavoidable? Killing innocent children, regardless of the cause, is evil. It is less evil than sacrificing them to an evil deity. But it is still evil.
Carn Vandoril 05-12-05, 06:56 AM	Paladins, I like paladins! And so after a rough debate, several days.. what is our conclusion? The action taken by the paladin, decided in 6 seconds, gave all of us a moral debate on paladincode for hours-days! So please.... don't punish the paladin for making a splitsecond descision he thought was the best thing to do... because even WE ALL as DM'S can't agree?!! 1. His intentions were good and evil had to be stopped. (feeling) 2. He had little to no choice.(circumstance) 3. On the scale of evil acts, he chose the lesser evil.(so nr 1. is clear) 4. Doing nothing would be unbearable and neutral. (and could be:'willingly allow evil get his way'). 5. It's not clear what the lawfulgood sollutions is (the DM didn't explain if there was any). My solution? I think the paladin would allready roleplay a 'big trauma', but maybe even reward him for taking a really tuff decision. Ofcourse he should swear to make the BBEG pay for the loss of the children.
Palin the Wizard 05-12-05, 08:16 AM	Your interpretation of the time passed is wrong. Hours? Certainly. Days? Doubtful. I doubt people spend more than 5-10 minutes on a post here. That's much more than we'd spend if we were meeting in person.
Andrew_980 05-12-05, 08:46 AM	what logic could lead a person to think that allowing another to suffer when you could easily stop it is anything but evil. if an adult walks up to a 6 year old beating an infant with a stick and just shugs and walks away is as evil if they were the one whipping. they could have, at almost no risk, done something to help and chose not to, that is NOT good. good is willing to take action to prevent evil and help others. your "just watching" guy is neutral, he doesn't care enough to be good
pres_man 05-12-05, 09:00 AM	5. It's not clear what the lawfulgood sollutions is (the DM didn't explain if there was any). Except the OP said: They try anyway and get found out, and when he realises what is happening the Arch cleric declares "Use the ceremonial ammunition on the children! They cannot save them all!" Realising that is fact the most they can save is about 8... So there was obviously a choice that would save the lives of some of the children. Both the BBEGs and the PCs knew this, that at least some of the kids could be saved. So the paladin made his choice based solely on numbers (try to save all the souls and none of the lives instead of trying to save some of the souls and lives). The LG choice is the second one, try to save as many lives as you can. And maybe the dice rolls go your way, maybe you think of something that the DM didn't realize you could do, and you save a lot more than you thought you could.
b6 05-12-05, 10:17 AM	So there was obviously a choice that would save the lives of some of the children. Both the BBEGs and the PCs knew this, that at least some of the kids could be saved. So the paladin made his choice based solely on numbers (try to save all the souls and none of the lives instead of trying to save some of the souls and lives). The LG choice is the second one, try to save as many lives as you can. And maybe the dice rolls go your way, maybe you think of something that the DM didn't realize you could do, and you save a lot more than you thought you could. exactly. the bottom line is that the Paladin should not have acted in an evil way, and killing (however many) innocent children is an evil act. he should lose his abilities, be able to Atone, and get on with the game.
nightwing 05-12-05, 10:29 AM	No, sorry. We're talking about saving SOULS, not lives. If we were talking about saving LIVES, I would tend to agree with pres_man and company. However, anyone living in a world where the existance of the gods is proven and self-evident and the existance of the soul is undisputed MUST agree that the SOUL is more important than the body. The Good, Lawful, and Honorable thing to do is to protect the soul at the expense of the body. Allowing a soul to be killed (which you say is neutral, but I say is evil) is much worse than killing a body (which you say is evil, but I say is good IN THIS CONTEXT). I'm done posting here. I've said all I can say. Thanks for listening (reading). :)
Xill-Lord Psionic Might 05-12-05, 10:37 AM	that a heroic act if your paladin is a terrorist, but you have to remember the paladin was based on the knights of the round table, i think thats an evil act by that yard stick, even if he had good intenions he has to atone deffinitly!
Palin the Wizard 05-12-05, 11:14 AM	No, sorry. We're talking about saving SOULS, not lives. If we were talking about saving LIVES, I would tend to agree with pres_man and company. However, anyone living in a world where the existance of the gods is proven and self-evident and the existance of the soul is undisputed MUST agree that the SOUL is more important than the body. The Good, Lawful, and Honorable thing to do is to protect the soul at the expense of the body. Allowing a soul to be killed (which you say is neutral, but I say is evil) is much worse than killing a body (which you say is evil, but I say is good IN THIS CONTEXT). I'm done posting here. I've said all I can say. Thanks for listening (reading). :) "Allowing a soul to be killed"? When are you "allowing a soul to be killed"? Am I allowing a traffic accident to happen if I don't stop people from driving above the speed limit? Come on. You cannot, by inaction, cause something. You simply fail to stop it which is quite different. It is not evil to fail. It is, however, evil to kill people--even to stop them from being sacrificed. It's stopping a greater evil by committing a lesser evil, which is completely unacceptable to a paladin. The Good thing to do here would be to save them. The Neutral thing would be to ignore them. The Evil thing would be to kill them. It is not that difficult to see. Killing innocent children, no matter what the reason, is evil. Sure, saving their souls is good--but it's a good end by evil means[/í]. what logic could lead a person to think that allowing another to suffer when you could easily stop it is anything but evil. if an adult walks up to a 6 year old beating an infant with a stick and just shugs and walks away is as evil if they were the one whipping. they could have, at almost no risk, done something to help and chose not to, that is NOT good. good is willing to take action to prevent evil and help others. your "just watching" guy is neutral, he doesn't care enough to be good It is unmoral. It is certainly not good. It's completely disgusting. Despite this, it's a neutral act. It's not specifically [i]his fault. He doesn't have any impact on the situation at all. He could have influenced it in a positive direction (helping the infant) or a negative direction (helping the 6-year old). He chose neither.
Palin the Wizard 05-12-05, 11:15 AM	No, sorry. We're talking about saving SOULS, not lives. If we were talking about saving LIVES, I would tend to agree with pres_man and company. However, anyone living in a world where the existance of the gods is proven and self-evident and the existance of the soul is undisputed MUST agree that the SOUL is more important than the body. The Good, Lawful, and Honorable thing to do is to protect the soul at the expense of the body. Allowing a soul to be killed (which you say is neutral, but I say is evil) is much worse than killing a body (which you say is evil, but I say is good IN THIS CONTEXT). I'm done posting here. I've said all I can say. Thanks for listening (reading). :) "Allowing a soul to be killed"? When are you "allowing a soul to be killed"? Am I allowing a traffic accident to happen if I don't stop people from driving above the speed limit? Come on. You cannot, by inaction, cause something. You simply fail to stop it which is quite different. It is not evil to fail. It is, however, evil to kill people--even to stop them from being sacrificed. It's stopping a greater evil by committing a lesser evil, which is completely unacceptable to a paladin. The Good thing to do here would be to save them. The Neutral thing would be to ignore them. The Evil thing would be to kill them. It is not that difficult to see. Killing innocent children, no matter what the reason, is evil. Sure, saving their souls is good--but it's a good end by evil means. what logic could lead a person to think that allowing another to suffer when you could easily stop it is anything but evil. if an adult walks up to a 6 year old beating an infant with a stick and just shugs and walks away is as evil if they were the one whipping. they could have, at almost no risk, done something to help and chose not to, that is NOT good. good is willing to take action to prevent evil and help others. your "just watching" guy is neutral, he doesn't care enough to be good It is unmoral. It is certainly not good. It's completely disgusting. Despite this, it's a neutral act. It's not specifically his fault. He doesn't have any impact on the situation at all. He could have influenced it in a positive direction (helping the infant) or a negative direction (helping the 6-year old). He chose neither.
Lana "Silvertongue" 05-12-05, 11:31 AM	But, people seem to be forgetting about the LAWFUL aspect of a paladin's code. And according to legitimate authority, which probably is not evil either, this is definitely NOT lawful!!! I mean, think about it, if this happened today, and you murdered hundreds of children to save their souls (happens all the time by cultists), you will go to jail. This means that the paladin will have broken his code. Whether or not it was good, it was unlawful, which also makes up a portion of the code. Paladins follow a code based on goodness AND lawfulness. Don't forget it. This is just another case of ends v. means. In the case of a paladin, the ends can never justify the means. He killed innocent children; that's the end. There is no wrestling with mens rea required. It's too bad, but such a paladin (played strictly by the core rules) loses his paladinhood, and that's the bottom line. As has been stated a thousand times, yes, the paladin only had the choice between evils. Yes the paladin had to choose between evils. No you shouldn't punish a Paladin (as most dieties wouldn't) for making an action when only options it seemed to the paladin were evil. Gods are omnipitant. Everyone also keeps saying how killing 'innocents' is Unlawful. Remember the hierarchy for a paladins code, God before country. If the diety values the soul then its more important to the paladin to save the soul over the body. Least a soul can be ressurected. If the need is to atone, then have him pay for each of the raise dead spells for the kids. Problem fixed.
arrianna 05-12-05, 11:33 AM	I quite agree. The paladin had two choices here. 1) Allow over a thousand innocent children die as a sacrifice to an evil god, or 2) Cause them to die in a non-sacrificial manner. Option 2 seems like the better option, since whatever the sacrifice of the children was going to do (damned them or complete an evil magic, or whatever) would have been worse. Since there was no option other than evil acts, it is obvious that the DM should lose his powers. I disagree. Not all situations are win/lose. Some are lose/lose. This sounds like one of them. The OP states that "mind, body, and soul" would be sacrificed to the evil diety. That leads me to believe that w/o the ceremonial slaying the souls of the children could reach the afterlife. The paladin, in my opinion, thought outside the box to save the children's souls, as their bodies were already forfeit. After all, how many priests do you know that would rather you stay alive, than stay "saved"? Isn't that the beginning of martyrdom? Granted the party could have used a silenced silence, and perhaps they spent too long searching for traps. We've all made poorly advised descisions both in game and out. Were it my game, and I know it's not, I would give the paladin props for *saving* all the children and exterminating the BBEG at the same time. He took a lose/lose and turned it into a win/lose. No children went to the evil diety, and that is a victory for their families. Just my humble opiion. Take it or leave it.
Calico Jack Drake 05-12-05, 11:40 AM	No, sorry. We're talking about saving SOULS, not lives. If we were talking about saving LIVES, I would tend to agree with pres_man and company. However, anyone living in a world where the existance of the gods is proven and self-evident and the existance of the soul is undisputed MUST agree that the SOUL is more important than the body. The Good, Lawful, and Honorable thing to do is to protect the soul at the expense of the body. Allowing a soul to be killed (which you say is neutral, but I say is evil) is much worse than killing a body (which you say is evil, but I say is good IN THIS CONTEXT). I'm done posting here. I've said all I can say. Thanks for listening (reading). :) And herein lies the crux of the problem. Your personal religious beliefs aside, there is no room in the game (BoVD not withstanding) for the concept of a soul. Saving souls for a better afterlife adds a layer of complexity to this game that can only create problems. Consider... if the coice here is between saving lives or letting them die, the answer is black and white. Save all the lives you can by whatever means necessary. It's a simple question with a simple binary (life/death) answer. If you add a third possible state to the equasion (life/death/soul) you have increased the complexity by an order of magnitude. The answer is no longer be yes/no, life/death or other simple decision a player can make in just a minute or two. Most players are already at a disadvantage because they have no real-life experience with a multi-pantheistic cosmology where direct intervention by a diety is possible. Almost everyone, in that situation, falls back on what they understand which is probably going to be a Judeo-Christian ethic (by statistical numbers). This is not a slam on Christianity and that should most certainly not be read into this simply because I mention the word. Most people are brought up with the idea that saving the soul is a higher calling that saving the life. That's a fine belief for your everyday life where it may or may not have bearing to you. In this game, the decisions should be restricted to simple black and white answers so as to keep the game flowing and not create even further problems with players. As an example, in a previous game the paladin (Lathander, FR) IMC wanted a captured party member to commit suicide and then true res the character. This was the easiest way he could see to rescue the captured party member. When he went to the head cleric in the Lathander church, the head cleric turned him down flat. The head cleric basically said "obviously I have more faith in your abilities than you do". The player actually turned to me at that point and said "You're just trying to enforce your Christian ideals on my god". When real-world religion enters the game, it's time to focus somewhere else. That's why I advise anyone who asks to keep modern religious concepts out of the game. You're much better off looking at a pantheistic society like the Romans for inspiration. You worship and placate the gods you want or need to and let them deal with the greater cosmological questions. It's what they are there for. This thread has taken a definite turn into real world religious issues. Remember that we are trying to help someone adjudicate a ruling on a game issue. The game has specific rules spelled out in an occasionally poorly written rule book. IMO, the PHB section on alignments needs to be quite a bit longer and more definitive. I wouldn't worry about it except that one of the core classes is directly affected by rulings that have to be gleaned from four or five pages of source material. That's one of the reasons I keep going back to the BoED and BoVD essays. Even though the books are much maligned by many poeple on these boards, those essays are a good place to start when trying to make a ruling on what is good or evil in this blakc and white context. They expand on the natures of good and evil and can help make the black and white decisions we should be attempting to maintain. In the end, as was stated earlier, this thread can come to an end if the OP would simply indicate if saving souls was more important than saving lives. If it was, the paladin was absolutely correct in what he did. If it is not or if souls are the domain of the deities then the paladin knowingly performed an evil act and should lose his powers and find a way to atone. Without that crucial piece of information from the OP all we are doing is wasting bandwidth. You have the moral equivelant of Schroedinger's Cat. The paladin is in a state of indeterminancy. Until we have that information, the paladin must be assumed to have performed a good and an evil act at the same time. For what it's worth -CJ
Aubri 05-12-05, 11:47 AM	No, sorry. We're talking about saving SOULS, not lives. If we were talking about saving LIVES, I would tend to agree with pres_man and company. However, anyone living in a world where the existance of the gods is proven and self-evident and the existance of the soul is undisputed MUST agree that the SOUL is more important than the body. I don't have to agree with that at all! Souls in D&D go to their respective plane and eventually either merge with the matter of the plane or--if they're particularly strongly aligned--become an appropriate outsider. Life is what allows mortals to make the choices that determine where they'll go, allows them to change the world (hopefully for the better), and so on. A soul is... not as critical as you might think.
arrianna 05-12-05, 11:49 AM	And herein lies the crux of the problem. Your personal religious beliefs aside, there is no room in the game (BoVD not withstanding) for the concept of a soul. Saving souls for a better afterlife adds a layer of complexity to this game that can only create problems. What about a soul gem? Or the soul sucking power of a demi lich? What's a phylactery for? Why does speak with dead only work on what the person knew in life? That spell even mentions "soul" (doesn't it?). Trap the soul? Soul eaters? Kiira? The mention of the fuge plane (FR specific)? I think reincarnate makes mention of the soul as well. I think it's well established in the core books that souls are an undisputed part of the game.
b6 05-12-05, 11:50 AM	an evil act is an evil act, regardless of context. killing the body is an evil act. killing the soul is an evil act. killing the soul is WORSE, but it is still a wholly evil, act, just like killing that innocent child. it might be better to kill a body than to kill a soul, but that doesnt matter, because both acts are evil. as such, a paladin would dislike and avoid both acts, though his frown would be deeper toward soul-killing. killing the body so that a soul is saved is a better choice, but it is still evil. it is definitely NOT the "right choice." take the paladin's powers, acknowledge that he made a (somewhat twisted but not worst-of-all-choices) difficult choice, and let him Atone. then get on with the campaign.
Calico Jack Drake 05-12-05, 12:03 PM	What about a soul gem? Or the soul sucking power of a demi lich? What's a phylactery for? Why does speak with dead only work on what the person knew in life? That spell even mentions "soul" (doesn't it?). Trap the soul? Soul eaters? Kiira? The mention of the fuge plane (FR specific)? I think reincarnate makes mention of the soul as well. I think it's well established in the core books that souls are an undisputed part of the game. You're right, I stand corrected. The soul as an object does exist but it's passing on to an afterlife or heaven or hell or purgatory or whatever should stay well clear of the game. Once the soul becomes the focus of morality, life becomes unimportant. This is the kind of thinking that can create Crusades or Jihads. IMO, killing someone to save their soul should be considered an evil act, otherwise (taken to the hyperbole extreme) paladins should kill all newborn children before they have a chance to do evil thereby protecting their souls for all eternity since their lives are irrelevant. That's not a game I would find fun and we are talking about game rules and ruling here. Nothing more. -CJ
arrianna 05-12-05, 12:06 PM	. This is the kind of thinking that can create Crusades or Jihads. -CJ You don't like a Jihad? Who doesn't like a good (or perhaps evil) jihad every now and then. C'mon, I could use one right now. :invasion:
Valkyrie 05-12-05, 03:35 PM	The DM and player should have sat down and wrote out the paladin's code of conduct. What are the legitimate authorities that the paladin would recognizes? What are the acts that he must do to keep his paladinship? What practices must he observe and when? Is killing the body good to protect the immortal soul? It could be resurrected, possible to correct the wrong or not by the paladin's code. What his order consider right and wrong will be different depending on the type of paladin that he is. Some acts will only need an atonement and others will lose him his paladinship. Defining all this for the particular character is important for situations like this. The player will know what is right and wrong for this character to do. There is not enough information in this scenario. What level, class and how many are in the party? How many bad guys were they facing? Why could they only save so few? These are needed to better answer anything. The paladin needs to do an atonement at the least. The DM and player need to do a lot more. A paladin is the hardest class to play because of all that they are given. Too many people do not put the effort into the class that it needs. Whether he losses his paladinship depends on who he got it from. By the way did tis save their souls? Just because the God has a favorite way to take the souls doesn't mean that it is the only way. They were in the altar pit when they died after all.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-12-05, 04:33 PM	There is not enough information in this scenario. What level, class and how many are in the party? 12, Paladin, Cleric, Rouge, Sorcerour. How many bad guys were they facing? Why could they only save so few? These are needed to better answer anything. Many MANY low level clerics, quite a few high level ones including the one who I intended to be the BBEG, but as they waited fro the main ceremony when everyone would be there the REALLY powerfull ones were there too. Also lots of Deamons. 8 was, by theri rechoning all they could save by grabbing them and running (one under each arm...) By the way did tis save their souls? Just because the God has a favorite way to take the souls doesn't mean that it is the only way. They were in the altar pit when they died after all. Yes, they had ben informed the sacrifie only ocured if the victim was killed by a single blow through the heart.
jokem 05-12-05, 06:06 PM	Am I allowing a traffic accident to happen if I don't stop people from driving above the speed limit? ----------------- Yes you are. As an ordinary citizen it is not your job to do this, so it is OK to sit back and allow the accidents to happen. If you are a police officer and responsible for enforcing the law, then it is your JOB to stop people from speeding. It can be construed that a Paladin is responsible for enforcing lawful conduct, so there is an arguable parallel there. As to what happens to the Paladin for the fireballs... In game terms the Paladin would probably have difficulty using his powers from then on due to great internal conflict. It depends upon the mechanics of how this affects a Paladin (and a Cleric). If you assume acts out of line with a persons alignment disrupts the connection to the alignment plane and therefore the power of divine spells, then an atonement would be required. If acts out of line with alignment cause emotional turmoil and thus make it difficult to use those abilities, then maybe Atonement might not work. For me, there would certianly be consequences to the Paladin, but it would be from the emotional reason, as my ruling would be that the Paladin was put in a morality trap, and was essentially forced to do something repugnant. The Paladin would probably have to spend time in meditation and prayer to get back to normal.
Paul Hopebringer 05-12-05, 06:45 PM	Is there an anecdotal moral code test out there with no right or wrong answers? (I certainly hope you know what I mean by no right or wrong... please people!) I think it would help a lot of people... myself included... and I love playing as a paladin or cleric and am quite good at roleplaying either. More like the 5-or-1 death deal would be fantastic To sate any curiosity... I would... so... *not allow* that situation to happen to myself... but darn it all... souls are important, darn it! And if I really *really* have to deside on kill or let die, I'm going to kill the poor little darlings and hope I can resurrect them latter. :mad: :( :weep: :( :) I *really* hate neutrality as being an allignment on good and evil. I understand it fully, but "neutral" just disgusts me... I would say neutral is lesser evil, evil is evil, and good is good. Saving souls is the ultimate good, so after you get over the whole "why not go on an infancide rampage and make the world rain red with infant blood", idea you'de realize that, in most cases, you wouldn't be able to succeed in killing *all* of them, so it would be more efficient to let them live, convert them, and have them go on to do what you want them to do. Come on, people, not to mention if you did kill of all the babies, then no new souls would come into existance. I even understand that you might think that souls get recycled... in which case killing the babies does no good at all exept cause pain and suffering for the friends and relatives, and ignores the fact that you were killing the babies to save them eternally... in which case they WOULDN'T GET RECYCLED BECAUSE OF THE WHOLE *ETERNALLY* THING!!! I just thought I would get my yelling done with before I got somebody to yell at :cool: Anyway, please don't forget to get me my moral delimas, as I would be most appresiative of them. :D
Carn Vandoril 05-13-05, 07:09 AM	Palin the Wizard]"Come on. You cannot, by inaction, cause something. You simply fail to stop it which is quite different. It is not evil to fail. But you can only fail when you TRY. Doing nothing is not trying! It is, however, evil to kill people--even to stop them from being sacrificed. It's stopping a greater evil by committing a lesser evil, which is completely unacceptable to a paladin. Right, so a paladin can't kill, ever? Can't spare someone from suffering? The Good thing to do here would be to save them. Ofcourse! At last we agree on something, however the odds are: save 8, damn 1305 kill 1313, damn no one run away, damn 1313 Not an easy discision made by a paladin in a split second! The Neutral thing would be to ignore them. The Evil thing would be to kill them. It is not that difficult to see. Easy as in 6 pages of posting with different opinions in this thread? Killing innocent children, no matter what the reason, is evil. Sure, saving their souls is good--but it's a good end by evil means. It is unmoral. It is certainly not good. It's completely disgusting. Despite this, it's a neutral act. So first it's evil, now it's neutral to watch and do nothing about evil? Neutral act maybe, but balancing NO. Neutral gives you an oppertunity to balance things! It's not specifically his fault. He doesn't have any impact on the situation at all. He could have influenced it in a positive direction (helping the infant) or a negative direction (helping the 6-year old). He chose neither. No it's not his fault, yes he has impact on the situation. He did feel he chose the positive direction. wheter you think it's a mistake is YOUR opion. DM and player should talk about it and the intensions of the paladin. The paladin is trained to do things right. If he did something wrong, his God must interfere (DM). Than things are clear in the future. I wish the OP much wisdom and a clear talk with his paladin.
Andrew_980 05-13-05, 09:14 AM	exactly, to do nothing is NEUTRAL as is the "paladin" that stands and watches instead of doing something. good cannot just watch and say" i didn't do anything" this is what stops the paladin from taking a step back and let the rogue torture for info and deny being part of it
Xaraan 05-13-05, 10:28 AM	I haven't read the six plus pages of posts, just wanted to respond to the original post: That does seem a little messed up. I'm all for giving a paladin leeway in working with the whole honorable thing, as some will know from the other paladin threads, but killing children is not right. They obviously needed 1313 children, so rescuing any of them probably would have stopped whatever was going to happen to them. And there couldn't have been 1313 warriors to shoot each child, so they have to have stood a chance. Even going after the leader might have taken some of the wind out of their sales. And depending on the level of the group. they could always try and rescue any children's souls from wherever they get captured to as the next adventure.
Venom of the Yuan Ti 05-13-05, 10:45 AM	Xarran you may just have given me the answer to my troubles