Post/Author/DateTime	Post
paulb104 10-13-05, 01:41 PM	Hey :) I'm at an impasse and am not sure how to proceed. I'm posting here to, at least, hopefully confirm that the reasoning that brought me to the impasse is correct. To give an honest opinion, you need to understand the situation if not in full, then at least clearly. So let me apologize now, ahead of time, for the length of this post. My campaign has eight players. Each has one good aligned pc that is low level. They had just finished a fairly complicated dungeon and were pretty much out of supplies. While heading to a large city that they've never been to, they were attacked by sixteen bandits. All the bandits were commoners, 3hp each, neutral alignment. The party subdued (read knocked unconscious) all but one male, which they questioned. He told them that his fishing village was taken over by a demon lord that forced them to rob travelers of gold and valuables, which they had to give to it. The players correctly understood from further questioning that the life, the will to live, has been removed from the entire village. Not magically, but by pure evil oppression, plain and simple. They decided to continue to the city, restock, get a good nights rest and go to the fishing village either the next day or the day after (depending on availability of purchasable items). When they arrived at the city (early afternoon), as a group they Gathered Info about the city itself. They found a place to eat and sleep that also served exceptional wine, also whose owner was murdered the previous night during a burglary. Eventually they met the mans daughter, learned that the criminals were looking for any secrets about the wine, and promised her that they would help solve the murder case. She herself didn't know the wine secrets, but gave them pc's a map she found that leads to the source of the wine. The road passes through a tiny village, and further down that road to the west is the fishing village, whereas the murder story trail went east at that point. Two of the pc's are Paladin's of Freedom. For those of you who don't know, these are Chaotic Good paladins. They happened to make their pc's without the knowledge that the other player was doing the same - actually, the players hadn't even met yet. Once they received the map I mentioned the demon lord, clearly saying that they should consider choosing between the murder of one man against the oppression of thirty or forty villagers who have been forced into thievery and have completely lost their livelihood (fishing). Some of the players wanted to go to the village and others to follow the murder. A vote was taken and they decided to follow the wine story. They spent two days in town, resting, doing research and shopping. Then they left the city following the map to that tiny village. When they arrived there I again compared the welfare of two score people against the secrets of special wine and the murder of one man. One of the paladins is a player who has continually played D&D since 1978 (one year longer than I have). He said that they made a promise to the woman to help, but they didn't actually offer any help to the bandit that they questioned, so therefore the promise to help comes first. They took a vote, again, and decided, again, to follow the wine story first and the fishing village second. This is where the red flag appeared in my mind. According to the rules, a Paladin of freedom is chaotic good, dedicated to liberty and free thought. Their code requires that they respect individual liberty, help those in need (provided they do not use the help for lawful or evil ends), and punish those who threaten or curtail personal liberty. (This is copied from the online SRD.) IMHO that is enough 'proof' that by not going to the aid of the fishing village first and freeing them from the tyranny of the demon lord, the two paladins have willingly committed an act (while not evil) that is against their alignment. Further, I've been doing some looking around on the net, about alignments and moral codes, and found these statements of particular interest. All came from various websites in describing Chaotic Good. * promotion of personal responsibility and civil rights * will actively work to bring down unjust rulers and organizations and to liberate the oppressed * hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do * opposing all that oppresses the people * making it possible for people to be freed from the oppressions I feel that paladins of freedom should have undeniably believed that helping the village is more important than learning the secret of some wine. In fact, I was very surprised that when they questioned the bandit and learned the story, the two paladins of freedom wanted, right at that moment, to go to the village and free the oppressed, thereby forcing the other pc's to convince them that they needed to rest and restock their equipment. There are two reasons I added the second scenario (the murder) before they 'completed' the first (the demon lord). The first is that some of the players have been playing only Living Campaigns for a few years and wanted to remind them that modules don't always end in completion in less than four hours, and the second is that I was hoping to instigate some fun role playing. The two paladin players would have said something like 'they need us RIGHT NOW!!!!!' and all the other players saying 'but we have no food, no potions, no scrolls, low on projectiles, a rust monster destroyed one players armor and anothers main weapon' and so on. So to come full circle, and to be specific: Am I correct in that the paladins were wrong? Am I making too big of a thing out of this, the alignment? One paladin is 2nd level, the other is 1st level, and both have paragon class levels (different races, also done without the knowledge that the other was taking paragon). I'm thinking of loosely following the Ex-Paladins rule, which is that if a paladin ceases to be [chaotic] good, or who grossly violates the code of conduct, they lose all paladin spells and abilities. They may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin though can regain abilities and advancement potential if violations are atoned for. Since they're so low level, I might restrict the Lay On Hands to half normal, Detect Evil to maybe twice per day, and deny Divine Grace completely. If I understand the Atonement spell description, and if I am justified about all of the this, then a cleric or druid would cast the spell on the paladin, and the spellcaster must intercede with their deity. This requires the spellcaster to expend 500 XP in order to expunge the paladin's burden because the paladin had "deliberate misdeeds and acts of a knowing and willful nature." Granted, it also says that many casters first assign a subject of this sort a quest or similar penance to determine whether the creature is truly contrite before casting the atonement spell on its behalf. I could simply use this as a side quest, whether for the entire party or for each paladin to do solo. I've been working on small scenarios centering on each pc anyway, with the paladins obviously needed to 'earn' their special mount so this wouldn't be a stretch. Should I make them atone for their choice now AND make them quest for their special mount as before? Yes, I know this is a long story, and a lot of questions, so thank you for reading everything and thanks in advance for any responses!!!!!! Paul
weasel fierce 10-13-05, 01:44 PM	It depends on interpretation of alignment. Talk to your players about it, or have them receive menacing dreams and visions. If they persist, they'll realize their paladin powers may be failing them, if you feel they were violating their ethos
pres_man 10-13-05, 02:08 PM	Yes! Another paladin, rob their abilities thread! Ok, let's try to be serious now I mean we are talking about CG paladins, :rofl: ha ha ha. Oh my sides are hurting, sorry, really I'll try to be serious. Ok, so a CG character is arguing that a promise is more important then doing what's right. Honoring a promise at the cost of doing greater good is a lawful trait not a chaotic one. Now having said that, the bandits admit that they are under no magic control to act as bandits. They could choose to act otherwise, escape, rebel, etc. So the paladins could see the villagers as currently acting under their own free will and therefore there is no great demand to intercede on their behalf. Currently I see both choices as legitmate and choosing either should not cause a paladin, any paladin, to lose their abilities. One choice is better then the other, but neither is bad. I would say give the paladin's some bad dreams of people being whipped and forced to work. That's about all you need to do.
paulb104 10-13-05, 02:29 PM	Now having said that, the bandits admit that they are under no magic control to act as bandits. They could choose to act otherwise, escape, rebel, etc. So the paladins could see the villagers as currently acting under their own free will and therefore there is no great demand to intercede on their behalf. From questioning the bandit, the players did correctly assume the the will of the entire village was drained not by magic, but by oppression. However, the players *do not yet know they assumed correctly* and know there is a possibility that the loss of will could be magical.
Leewei 10-13-05, 02:50 PM	The paladins are level 1 and 2. The demon is effectively dominating an entire village. Under that circumstance, I think it's completely understandable that the PCs go for the challenge they feel capable of handling, and hope that the village holds up. As a general rule, even minor demons need powerful magic to combat. While bless weapon does a lot to offset this, neither paladin has access to this spell yet. In my mind, a strict code of conduct is completely at odds with any chaotic alignment. The idea of a game mechanism requiring behavior of that nature from a CG character is plain silly. Since CG paladins are allowed in your game, however: These guys are exercising their best judgment and doing the right thing that they think they actually have a shot at pulling off. Don't penalize them for trying to level up a bit before gunning for the bigger challenge.
Gedrin 10-13-05, 03:08 PM	It seems that the choice is: A: Bring a murderer to justice. B: Get rid of a demon. Those both look like things good guys would be doing. The fact that chaotic characters follow their own whims and feelings about who should be helped...not really a surprise. Also, the fishers aren't exactly winning candidates to be helped. After all, a group of people, days away from the village, are acting on demonic orders, and planned to go back to their horrid town. Not only are these villagers not trying to help themselves, they're not even looking for outside help. Heck, when confronted by holy champions of liberty, these guys have to be beaten down and questioned before they'll even mention the issue. That's to say nothing of the fact that they've given over command of their actions to an evil force. I get that they're just normal guys, and they shouldn't be ruled by a demon, but they're not doing anything to help themselves. On the other hand, the girl who's father was murdered has at least been looking around and trying to find out what's up. Not only does she seek the help of the PC's, she is able to provide them a map that will aid them in their travels. In the end, either choice is valid. I suppose you could hold loyalty to a promise of aid as a Lawful Act, and thus a violation of a CG'ers...not code...no real formal oaths...what is it they've violated exactly? The spirit of CGing? Both acts would be good. The PC's, on personal judgement, have decided to go one way and not another. Keeping a single promise is hardly an overwhelming act of Lawfulness. Of course, this is chaotic thought. Things are different for every person and situation. Maybe if the PC's thought it would in fact be a greater good to help the village, and then chose to obey the promise, it would be a Lawful act... You could have one CG'er who thinks he must obey the promise, even though helping the villagers is the better act, and he'll fall. The other CG'er just thinks the helpful girl is a bigger priority than villagers need to "want to be free" before they can be helped, he's fine. Same actions, different thoughts, both good, one's a lawful act. Just as a LG Paladin would loose his powers for purposefullying acting Chaotic, the CG Paladin who kept his word would loose his powers for keeping a promise. LG falls for Chaotic. CG falls for Lawful. Makes sense, right? No. But I didn't allow CG Paladins.
Millennium 10-13-05, 03:19 PM	This is why I have trouble with the idea of non-Lawful paladins... Ahem. Despite the depressing amount of poor role-playing surrounding the class, paladins are Lawful Good, not Lawful Stupid. Similarly, paladins of freedom are Chaotic Good, not Chaotic Stupid. They are not bound to take on a demon lord at first or second level, when they have no chance to survive make their time. Chaotic paladins would be particularly adamant about not going into a situation you know can't handle. A more appropriate response would be to raise an army, find more powerful paladins, or otherwise get help to defeat the demon lord. But either way, following their hearts would be very much in tune with a Chaotic alignment. In any case, this is why I prefer using the Holy Liberator prestige class in place of the Paladin of Freedom. It preserves much of the paladin's flavor (and many of the class abilities stack on top of ex-paladin levels if the character was previously a paladin who changed to CG), but it does so in a manner which makes more sense for a Chaotic Good alignment. In particular, although Holy Liberators can still Fall for committing evil acts, they have no other code of behavior beyond that.
Lord Ian Stark 10-14-05, 12:53 AM	I agree with the notion of "as long as they are going to do both quests they're fine." I don't like DM's that want to yank a Paladin's abilities at every chance of you micro-managing how they should act. If the Paladin's God did this in the real D&D world, there would be very few Paladins running around with the ability to actually use there abilities. Obviously the Paladin's are eager to help get to the bottom of both situations. However you said they are Lvl 1 and Lvl 2. If they were to not follow the group and go off trying to do something by themselves, they would surely die and that wouldn't help anyone. So please don't screw the Paladins because they are following their group and not doing everything you think they should do to a T. If it bothers you that much, pull the Paladin players aside and tell them how to run thier characters. Also tell them if they don't run them your way you will make them just plain fighters. (AKA strip abilities) If the Paladins havn't given you their code or even have backgrounds, perhaps you should ask for them IMO.