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To go with the currently running thread on poorlly played paladins. We all know about bad paladins, the ones that have given the class such a bad reputation with many gamers.
But what about the other half of the problem? What bad experiences have you had or witnessed, where another player or a GM goes antisocial upon seeing that someone has the nerve to play a paladin in their presence?
Whether it's "guy who rolls Chaotic Evil as soon as he finds out there's a paladin in the party", or the make-the-paladin-fall saboteur", or the sadistic "no-win situation, no third options allowed" GM's that aim to railroad paladins into falling, there are some folks that seem hellbent on giving even the most well-played and party-friendly paladin(and sometimes just good-aligned PCs) grief.
So, just let it all out. :) It's therapeutic.
Why does it matter if your companion is beating a witness? It's your code, not the other way 'round. If anything, isn't that a chance play Good Cop/Bad Cop?
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The witness was not evil and could have been completely innocent for all we knew. Could not allow my burly fighter companion to beat information out of him. Not cool.
But why? You're not administering the beating.
/as a player of burly Fighters past, I always sent the Paladin (if one was present) on a coffee run before I commenced to beating the witness.
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The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.
That's why. Also, to trot out another old horse...
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
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"What makes a man turn neutral ... Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?" - Zapp Brannigan
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Sadly, Clark, the only way I know to make that work without kicking the douchebag out of the group is to separate the party. I don't mean having the paladin go out for coffee while his companions torture and maim a prisoner. I mean actually splitting up the group so the paladin never even knows the prisoner is being tortured and maimed. Even this can only be a temporary fix though as I've met players who were so devoted to ruining the paladin player's fun they actively worked to undo or corrupt any good deeds the paladin peformed. At that point, I wouldn't blame any good-aligned PC for either exacting justice in person or going to the local authorities to see the offending character(s) is stopped.
I'm not sure what it is about paladins that makes some people so spiteful, but I've noticed the same people usually turn out to be sadistic and cruel when they play paladins themselves.
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I find the most common problem that paladins face arises when the GM and the player have different concepts on how strict the paladin's code is, and neither party is aware that there's a disconnect until it is too late.
Case in point: I played in a game where one of my party members was a paladin, one of the last of his order. The GM decided he wanted to test the paladin to find out how committed he was to his code, and, naturally, it had to be a secret test. He created a scenario where a village was under a dragon attack, and the group had to save the town. However, the whole thing was an elaborate ruse by the forces of evil - one of the last good dragons was attacking buildings, taking care not to harm too many people, for...some reason that escapes me. (It made sense at the time, I believe.) The dragon had been hit with an illusion spell somehow, that made it look like one of the chromatics (red, if I recall). Naturally, the idea was to see if the paladin could see through the ruse, and not end up killing the dragon.
That didn't happen, so the paladin was stripped of his powers. This led to some bad blood between the two, and the game ended shortly after that.
There were several other issues involved in this as well. The paladin had to turn a blind eye to the evils perpetrated by some of the other members of the group - some were members of a group that was involved in necromancy and demonology, while others were foul blood sorcerers. There were some neutral people as well, but it was not an ideal situation for the pally.
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I'm not sure what it is about paladins that makes some people so spiteful, but I've noticed the same people usually turn out to be sadistic and cruel when they play paladins themselves.
"Idealism is for kids! Cynicism is for mature adults who know who the real world actually works! What do you mean it's evil to wipe out the entire race?! The book says they're evil! It's a game!"
Sadly I've run into that guy. Even more sadly, he wasn't twelve years old at the time.
/as a player of burly Fighters past, I always sent the Paladin (if one was present) on a coffee run before I commenced to beating the witness.
Remind's me of The Gamers. On topic never played a pali.
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Luckily I havent had this problem myself in recent years, as my last group's DM reflavored Paladins to be Templars, the militant arm of their church. Required being the same alignment as the deity. I actually quite liked that fix...
However, one of my earliest games with 3.X, and the reason I never played a paladin again until my most recent DM, was particularly... Unenjoyable. See, the DM had a strict rule of at game start, no one was allowed to know what everyone else was. This was mainly due to cutting down on the group asking, during character creation, things like "who has healing?/who has what languages?/who has what spells?" and taking all the mystery out of the game. I rolled up a LG paladin, three others rolled up NG (fighter, cleric, and bard I think), and we had one CG (a rogue), and one N wizard. A mostly heroic party...
As the game progresses, people are doing quite heroic things. Then after a few sessions, my character, whom had to keep his identity a secret due to some underhanded dealings going on back in his Order, finally wound up revealing that he was a Paladin with some good ol' fashioned smitey goodness (... Until then they had thought I was a multiclass Cleric/Fighter or something... Hadn't had the chance to SMITE! yet). Spit hit the fan.
Almost immediately afterwords, the party started to do more and more evil things. That CG character rapidly started being CE. Suffice to say that long story short it wound up with three dead PCs, in the middle of a dungeon, with no rogue to get the rest out of the rapidly filling water-room trap... Good times were had by most, but there was much bad blood between the Rogue player and I afterwords, as he took the whole thing as a personal assault. Seeing as he was the main lease holder and half the rest of the group were roomies with him in their apartment, I resolved not to trouble them further and excused myself from the group two sessions later....
Personally though, a Paladin can only take so much before smiting the rogue that is constantly prodding them to fall, in the face, with a triple nat 20. What confounds me is he had stated he was alright with PVP between the characters to enhance the story. Not my fault my dice loved me...
That reminds me. I need to find that d20.... And a new group.
That reminds me. I need to find that d20.... And a new group.
lol!
I posted about this in one of those "worst DMs ever" threads, but I'll post it again (trying to keep it short):
There was a DM (let's call him Trey) who was terrible for many reasons I won't get into here. One player had a Paladin, and on this particular day the Paladin's player wasn't present. So Trey, who loved to have ridiculously difficult battles (read: verging on a TPK with at least half the party in negatives literally every combat) as well as large party sizes (to facilitate said difficult battles), assigned the paladin to be played by another player (let's call him Brent) in the normal player's absence. Also, Trey had it in for Brent and got into many arguments at the table over non-issues pretty much every session.
So we run into some sort of ridiculous homebrew spider-zombie monster thing with a couple dozen homebrew sticky skeletons (yes, a couple dozen- and they were powerful enough to take the entire party to kill a single one, not to mention their 300+ hp spider zombie leader. We were 5th level at the time- did I mention this was a random encounter?) and after a long battle where death seemed certain, we decide to flee. Everyone had a speed of 30 except for the paladin, who (due to heavy armor) had a speed of 20. So Brent, seeing that 1. the Paladin is going to die anyway because he can't run away as easy as the rest of us, and B. knowing that paladins seem to love to sacrifice themselves to stay behind and hold off the enemies so the rest of the party can escape, decides to do just that- he says the paladin is going to stay back and hold the line to give us a (slim) chance to survive.
Well, Trey will hear none of that. He insists that Brent isn't playing the other player's character correctly, and a huge fight (out of game) breaks out because of it. Eventually Trey sees reason (or so we thought) and through a pouty face he tells us that we manage to escape, but without the poor paladin. (I think someone expressed disinterest in being the one to bear the bad news to that player next session.)
Well, we somehow get back to town, having successfully fled from our first random encounter since we set out. As soon as we enter the town gates, who do we see standing there waiting for us? It's the paladin, of course! Somehow he beat us there. And he wasn't hurt at all. And he was wielding a +5 sword and enchanted mithral plate mail. And, as befitting the typical code of any valorous paladin who successfully sacrifices his life saving the rest of the party and is then somehow granted magical equipment way beyond his Wealth By Level for no apparent reason, he then proceeds to attack Brent's character (who, for the record, had literally no part in the decision to leave the paladin behind- the player made that decision, not the character, who- if I'm not mistaken- was unconscious at the time). Even though Brent's character does literally nothing to fight back, and even drops his weapons.
Well, rather than let this apparently misguided paladin murder our teammate in cold blood, the rest of the party joined in (all the while Brent's character was cowering in fear) and the rogue managed to score some sort of a lucky crit/sneak attack and killed him. Oh, and all of his phat l00tz magical gear exploded in a flash of holy energy, according to Trey.
I wish I was making this up, by the way.
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The problem is not with the paladin class, but the people at your gaming table.
If those people aren't problem-children who need a smack/hug, then the Paladin choice is as valid as any other class.
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Ah, Paladins... and their not-so-holy accomplices.
Once more singing the praises of my group/GM...
I managed to run for TWO YEARS in a party with a Paladin of Tyr while being the neutral/evilest rogue I could be.
I wasn't trying to make him fall, or even to draw his attention. We ALWAYS argued IC about the morality of this-or-that option, and I always let him win the arguments... I just slipped back in my role as rear guard and slit the captured (Evil bastards working for the Zhentarim) prisoners' throats and collected my rope... to be handed out again when the next batch surrendered.
The PLAYER of this Paladin knew I was playing an evil character: the CHARACTER suspected I was evil, but he was usually the front line and I always made sure to be on my very best behavior when inside that critical sphere of evil detection... and was always a staunch supporter of the group of adventurers we were with. Our CHARACTERS never agreed on anything of import, and yet managed to support and aid each other on many a field of battle.
I was exceptionally careful not to allow myself to be implicated in anything worse than fixing a card game, so that he wouldn't need an atonement for adventuring with me... helps that the GM was willing to take the five or ten minutes running my sneaking away to do Evil -- REALLY sneaking off, not just saying 'holy sh*t, the Pope' and pointing.
It was hard work, but I was really proud of successfully running my version of evil alongside a PAINFULLY noble paladin, without staining him with my vileness.
So I guess this is really the wrong thread... just reminded of Old Times, reading about all the Paladin stuff.
I hate when intelligent and thoughtful play spoils what should be fodder for a mindless rant. How are people supposed to complain now Alitan?
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Um, I guess you can complain about my intelligent and thoughtful play spoiling fodder for a mindless rant?
>blinkblink<
:P
i've never been in a game with a paladin myself, not even one with a paladin NPC, but from what i've seen on the boards theres something about paladins that seems to bring out the worst in people.
Ironic, when you think about it.
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And while I'm here, let me plug Elizabeth Moon's trilogy the Deed of Paksenarrion as an excellent presentation of a Paladin as they're meant to be: shining warriors of the light against evil. Noble, humble, compassionate... and hell on wheels when it comes to combating the agents of evil powers.
Alitan's tale should be a lesson to all - watch that slinker in the back, eh? lol
Truley, though, you've inspired me. Now I'd really like to take a Dexter-type Rogue into a game, and see how long he could avoid detection.
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Alitan's tale should be a lesson to all - watch that slinker in the back, eh? lol
Truley, though, you've inspired me. Now I'd really like to take a Dexter-type Rogue into a game, and see how long he could avoid detection.
Well, it's like this, see...
We were infiltrating Zhentil Keep (Forgotten Realms) -- which is a terrible idea in the first place. And since our GM was playing the mooks as reasonably intelligent, when it became obvious that trying to hinder our optimaxed party would get them killed, they started surrendering.
Leaving us with SQUADS of disarmed, tied-up, but NOT GUARDED 'prisoners' in our rear... a recipe for disaster. Corpses are easier to hide than live soldiers, and less likely to escape/alert the other guardians.
So I'd argue with the paladin that they work for one of the most notoriously-evil organizations in the world, they're agents of evil, we should be killing them, they signed on to be killed by heroes, etc. And would be voted down by the abysmally-naive party. At which point I'd huff, 'Fine. Here, use my rope.'
Then go back, kill 'em, stuff 'em into closets and privies, and retrieve my rope. To be handed over AGAIN at the next mass surrender. Hilarious. I didn't have a bag of holding or anything... I handed that rope over a DOZEN TIMES during the course of this infiltration. One or two players caught on, but none of the characters ever did.
And, by the way, we escaped without any of the prisoners sounding the alert. My work there was done. Successfully.
Evil=good, in this case.
Protip: Jerks play jerk characters.
Protip: Jerks play jerk characters.
Should I be taking this personally?
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All that stuff about prisoners and whatnot
I wasn't playing a paladin, but I did have a LG cavalier in one game where the GM was the one killing all of my prisoners...actually, come to think of it, he killed anyone I tried to spare from death.
A few examples...
The party had discovered some wights trying to kill a soldier so I rode in and quickly cut the guy's bindings while my pony kicked one of the wights in the face. I order the soldier to fall back to where our cleric is standing and the GM tells me the dude gets up and runs off deeper into the undead-infested tomb without even a "thank you." I curse and chase the soldier down, hoping to catch him before he runs into more wights, but I'm informed I'm too late. Inside of one round, this guy somehow cleared 100 feet of winding tunnels and a trap to be killed by a pair of ghouls.
Later, I capture a kobold I actually intend to let go if he's cooperative in pointing me in the direction of his boss. I put him on my pony after healing him to a couple hit points and tie him up. An hour later, I'm informed the kobold has died from "the rough conditions of being tied up on the back of a pony."
Even later, I rescue a kid from a giant constrictor. The kid tells me his village sent him into the jungle to kill something as a test of his manhood. He says wasn't given any weapons, armor or training of any sort. He's basically a gimped level 1 commoner. Well, I decide I'm going to go have a word with the kid's village about child endangerment so I tell the kid to stay next to me as we head back to his home. Along the way, we run into a Yellow Musk Creeper and its plant zombies.
I tell the kid, (by now I've decided to name him Pool Boy because the GM never named him) to stay back while we lob fire at the thing. The GM tells me Pool Boy pulls a knife and charges the tree. Despite the GM's best efforts, I manage to save the kid again (albeit with a -7 to his INT thanks to the plant eating parts of his brain.) After several more encounters with a water elemental, an aboleth and a gang of yuan ti, I ask the GM if Pool Boy can tell me how he managed to get through all these monsters with no training and then manage to be nearly eaten by a snake. Naturally, Pool Boy says, "Durrr," because his brain's been partially eaten by a frond, but I think the GM is catching on to my frustration over how ridiculous this is getting.
Somehow, we eventually get Pool Boy home alive and I go give his parents a piece of my mind (only fair since their kid is now missing a piece of his.) The GM tells me their reaction is basically, "So, who asked you anyway?" and the village as a whole doesn't seem to care that he's alive, even after we tell them Pool Boy proved himself in single combat against a giant spider. Pool Boy doesn't even seem to care. The GM tells me he just wandered off without a sound as soon as we got him home.
Finally, there's the village of grippli we saved from the yuan-ti, which was mysteriously destroyed with atomic fire eight hours later.
Basically, every time we tried to save anyone or spare anyone's life, the GM would kill them. Pool Boy is only one to survive, but my guess is the GM had him walk into a quicksand pit filled with mud-breathing scorpions as soon as I wasn't looking.
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I wasn't playing a paladin, but I did have a LG cavalier in one game where the GM was the one killing all of my prisoners...actually, come to think of it, he killed anyone I tried to spare from death.
A few examples...
Cripes.
Misery porn GMs are the absolute worst. If one is going to flat-out prevent the PCs from ever doing anything positive, why should they bother playing in one's game?
I mean....damn. That is just bad GM work.
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Protip: Jerks play jerk characters.Should I be taking this personally?
Of course not. Your character was evil, but he was a team player. That's an important distinction. Nice guys can play jerk characters, but jerks always play jerks.
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Cross-posting since it was an example of bad DMs AND paladin players.
The DM was running an introductory game at the local college, where anyone could come in and roll up a 1st level character to play. There was no overarching plot, just a band of adventurers roaming the countryside encountering creatures and exploring wilderness. The dedicated players had characters in the 5-7th range, and there were plenty of 1-4th characters that showed up randomly.
The DM decided to let another player run one night so he could roll a character and play. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but this player got permission, and then talked to myself and another player during the week. The thing about this game was, no one died. Any time a character went to negatives, the DM said 'you are unconscious'.
The temp DM wanted to change that. And he enlisted our paladins to do it.
Of this group, there were three of us. One player had a straight 6th level paladin, my friend's rogue had been subjected to a helm of opposite alignment and turned LG and started talking paladin levels, while my CG scout had taken his first level of paladin of freedom after traveling with the 6th level paladin for so long.
The session ran normally until the party bedded down for the night. It was then that the paladins each had a dream.
The single-classed paladin was greeted by a beautiful woman, who offered power and....more, if you know what I mean. The poor new player agreed immediately.
The rogue-paladin was greeted with a similar dream, offered a return to his old alignment, power, and more power. As I knew he would, he accepted.
My elven paladin was greeted by a beautiful elf, and offered power and more. However, he didn't buy it. Demanding to know who she was, she morphed into a drow, and attempted to force him to submit. Before rolling the will save, I inquired as to what bonus he got for being part of an order formed and dedicated to fighting against drow. In any event, he made the save and, being unarmed, broke her nose.
The party then awoke in disarray, the paladins having been magically transported out of the encampment, to find goblin spider-riders attacking. Hopelessly outmatched, the low level characters began to fall, the high level characters struggling desperately against the goblins until the new blackguards turned on them.
The battle ended with all but the two blackguards dead, discussing what to do with my unconscious elf. With no way to heal him awake in order to force him to convert, they slew him.
The next session the original DM killed the blackguards with a roc and had a druid reincarnate everyone back to the status quo, minus a few racial adjustments.
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In my experience, Paladins are not the issue at all. It all comes down to Rogue, both the class and the players. It's easy to blame it all on th paladin, but all the stuff about Lawful Stupid is the exact same for Rogues. Rogues are just Nuetral stupid, or Chaotic Stupider. This is really an issue with playstyle, and it is equal portions other players and the DM.
The Rogue, (and sometimes other classes, rarely) seem to see the inclusion of a paladin or sometimes even a cleric or monk, anyone with a code or built in morality restriction, as an excusse to play the most imature, unrealistic "I want to be evil and do whatever I feel like and call it shades of grey", and my personal <anti>code of behavior (see above) should rule everyone else's playstyle. Not only am I going to be so over the top and childish, and set the bar for shades of grey, I'm going to go out of my way to instigate and ruin the other player's fun just so I can feel special and be what a Rogue should be. But, everyone else should just accept that.
It's like the absolute most hypocritical and childish "come on, your character would do that is just an excuse, because this is what my character would do, times infinity".
Spot on Beckett.
@Alitan, was that Zenthil Keep under control of Bane-worshippers or period when Cyricist were dominanat?
@Beckett: I have one player that always play Neutral Selfish characters, but he plays them quite intelligently, trying to avoid warning others of his misdeeds and usually knows how to cooperate with others for greater personal good.
Of course not. Your character was evil, but he was a team player. That's an important distinction. Nice guys can play jerk characters, but jerks always play jerks.Protip: Jerks play jerk characters.Should I be taking this personally?
Kthanx -- the timing/placement of your post just gave me pause...
@ Drejk
Uh, not certain... lemme think; no, wait -- pre-Ascension for Cyric, so I guess Bane?
We weren't native to FR (thank god, I really loathe that setting); half of us were from Greyhawk and the others from Nehwon, actually. The Zhents just had a semi-artifact we needed to pursue our quest and get back to our spelljamming vessels...
Yeah...the funniest part of Triomegazero's story was that at death's door (0 hp) he opted to run into a grassy area, or forest, whereafter he dropped, dying. He thought it was clever, while the straight Blackguard and I, the Rogue/Blackguard discussed what to do with him, to ask how we were going to find him in the wooded area at night (I think it was night anyway.). I looked at him and said, with glee, 'Detect Good, M-F!'
Honestly though, I think the point of that whole PVP/TPK event was to tick off, or screw with the original DM's campaign. You see, he liked to mess with us...GARDEN GNOMES for god's sake! We had garden gnomes attacking us at one point. So, we opted for a little turnabout on him. Fun game though...kind of miss it. :)
As I recall...when he rezzed us...REINCARNATED us, he had his own *special* tables drawn up. I rolled and suddenly my character was a rogue/binder/ninja/fallen paladin that was no longer human...he was an 18" tall Petal. Later we did a rebuild quest, being a CN Fallen Paladin wasn't going to work, and I replaced the Pally levels with Warlock ones. Hmm, a flying, tiny creature with a 250' ranged-touch attack...I think the DM regretted it after that. Good times, GOOD TIMES!
BTW, Triomegazero, we were 9th level, I still have my character on my laptop.
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Hmmm...there was this one game, where i played a dwarven paladin, and another player player his brother a CN rogue with evil tendencies. He had some redeeming qualities. Anyway, whenever he did something evil, my character berated him and gave him lectures, but never gave up on him. Everybody agreed that we played the parts of loving brothers who didn't see eye to eye. But the GM obviously had other designs. He wanted my paladin to fall and was hoping that the rogue would succeed, but the rogue never wanted his brother to fall. So the GM made my paladin fall with the sleaziest trick available. We were in a burning building and he made me choose between saving a child or it's grandmother. I, of course chose the child and he made me fall because i let someone die in cold blood. Arguments didn't help, so i didn't show up for the next session, or any session GMed by that guy.
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I, of course chose the child and he made me fall because i let someone die in cold blood.
Wow. That, my friend, is a DickDM©.
Wow. That, my friend, is a DickDM©.
Agreed!
And once again, not a fault of the Class, but the fault of a jerk.
Honestly, causing a Paladin to fall for losing a no-win scenario is like telling someone, "Sorry, you're under arrest because some guy two towns over just committed a crime. What's that? You had no way of knowing, nor a way of stopping him? Well, it's still your fault, and you're still going to jail for it."
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To go with the currently running thread on poorlly played paladins. We all know about bad paladins, the ones that have given the class such a bad reputation with many gamers.
I would go further, and say that most stories you hear about 'the disruptive paladin' actually belong in this thread.
"Man, we had a player in one group, who tried to complete the mission!"
"Would you believe it? Some guy I used to play with took issue to me playing a chaotic evil dickwad?!"
You betcha Ultima, thats just extraordinary!
And Snorter that is spot on too, the outrage of a player actually wanting to complete a mission, let alone not even being motivated by sheer greed and power...!
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To go with the currently running thread on poorlly played paladins. We all know about bad paladins, the ones that have given the class such a bad reputation with many gamers.I would go further, and say that most stories you hear about 'the disruptive paladin' actually belong in this thread.
Yeah, but I'm trying to be diplomatic here. ;)
In all seriousness, yeah it does suck to run into gamers that are actually outraged by the idea of someone wanting to play genuinely good characters. Like Good period, not just paladins, though they do have the biggest "kick me" sign on their backs to paint them as griefing targets.