Kevin Andrew Murphy's page

Ezrenaeus wrote:

On another note, to regain a familiar, after losing it, in D&D Next requires a "minor ritual" of about half an hour... I have no idea if that is fluff or a hint of ritual magic rules. (In PF it requires 200gp and an 8 hour ritual after waiting a week.)

The other thing about familiars is that they are explicitly summoned creatures. You can summon or dismiss them with an action. The minor ritual doesn't replace the familiar after losing it as it does in PF, but resummons the original.

This will lead to even riskier use of familiars, since there is no long-term risk.

That's what I thought too. Now, instead of the wizard's cat being something to be protected, it's instead the go-to choice for suicide missions.

This is basically an awkward patch. Having it be summoned like a pokemon is likewise dull.

The other thing I looked at was the stats for the medusa. They're listed as LE, but have an unreasoning hatred for all other life, which sounds rather CE in my book. They also might wander around talking madly to their statues, which sounds more insane than actually evil. And then, instead of any folklore, there's ass-pull "mythology" about them maybe being descended from some woman who the gods cursed for vanity or maybe there's some other origin myth, just make sure you make them all cardboard evil, m'kay?

It's everything I hated about the 4e MM and more. Meh.

Scent isn't sonar or radar. Sonar and radar are sonar and radar.

Scent is the ability to smell things and to track that scent. Wind affects it. Masking scents affect it. Certain pungent scents disable the Scent ability the same way that vision can have the Blinded or Dazzled condition.

I generally don't think about it much because people don't use it much. However, if they do, I'm going to have it work like Scent should work, rather than having a dog have a magic geiger counter implanted in its nose.

The reason the scythe is a horrible weapon is because it's a farming implement designed for harvesting grain, not beheading goblins. Yes, they're picked up by farmhands to use against invading goblins because most people don't bring their greatswords to the wheat fields, and they're also fun to be picked up by the occasional animated scarecrow. And of course they're appropriate to priests of death gods who go with a Grim Reaper motif. But a god is a god.

But let's say we go with another death god, or goddess in this case, but rather than styling herself up like the Grim Reaper, she goes in the mode of Atropos, the fate who cuts the thread of life, with a big wicked pair of iron shears. Her priestess wants to dress just like her goddess, and wants to use a big-ass pair of iron shears as her weapon. And she wants them to do greatsword damage.

At a certain point as a GM, you have to go "Um...no." A big sharp pair of scissors can be used as a weapon, but it's generous to let them even be used as a dagger. And you can forget a greatsword. Similarly, you don't see seamstresses using daggers to cut thread and you don't see farmers whacking down grain with a greatsword.

This is not to say that some weapons aren't simply too weak and should be improved, but that's a GM call, not a player one.

Reskinning magic items is something a GM can allow to the players because it doesn't change anything in the mechanics. A headband of intellect uses the same slot as a bicorne of intellect, a wimple of intellect, a crown of intellect, or even a highly ironic dunce cap of intellect. I'd let players create any of these if their characters had the right skills. If a player, however, wanted to make shoes of intellect and even tried to give me some justifying bluster about them being "smart shoes," I'd say "No," because that's not just reskinning, that's changing the slot so as to get a mechanical advantage.

I can understand wanting your character to make a fantasy fashion statement, but unless they're highly enchanted, your scissors should not be doing greatsword damage. Same thing with your scythe. Similarly, unless they're enchanted, chainmail bikinis to not grant the same armor bonus as full chain. If enchanted? Sure. Magic can do lots of things.

The one trouble is that rods of metal and mineral detection can detect lead, but this is easily gotten around by using lead everywhere--lead pipes, lead rain gutters, and of course lead-based paint can be used everywhere. In a previous campaign, I made a very careful point that all of the pawnbrokers--the main magic items dealers as well as fences for the thieves--had carefully lined the walls of all their shops with lead foil, making it so that adventurers with Scry couldn't just browse their wares from their crystal balls and figure out what to steal. If you wanted something from their "special vaults," you had to come in and ask about it.

I'd be surprised if Golarion didn't have a hollow earth scenario going on, since that's just too much fun not to deal with.

That said, I'd think the lhaksharut are more ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-pound-of-cure guys who think it's more important to stop small breaches from becoming large ones than focusing all their efforts on stuffing a giant cork into Krakatoa. Basically an army of little dutch boys looking for dikes to stick their fingers into.

The World Wound, as awful as it is, is relatively stable--something which must chafe the Abyss no end, since nothing says chaos like a known location and dimensions.

Fixing it? Well, the last one was formed when a god died. Presumably a new god being born could fix it, so the lhaksharut might be maneuvering a likely candidate towards the Test of the Starstone with his/her first miracle being the healing of the World Wound and either founding a new kingdom or restoring the old one.

Alternately, it may need to be lanced like a boil, releasing enough demons to relieve the pressure and allow it to be healed. Or, and this would be sneaky but sensible, the lhaksharut could work to enlist the help of someone who could fix this problem by making it her problem. If they shored up the World Wound on three sides such that the demons would do a mass invasion to the Realm of the Mammoth Lords then go thundering straight on through to Irrisen? Imagine how cross Baba Yaga would be to come back and find that her beautiful winterland was crawling with pesky demons. She'd soon put a stop to that. Sure, she might keep a few frost demons around if they amuse her, but they'd hate her iron fist, and she'd go sew the World Wound back up with her most potent witchcraft.

Admittedly this would mean Baba Yaga tripling the size of her realm, but so long as it didn't feature a permanent planar rift, the lhaksharut wouldn't much care.

This assumes Baba Yaga is a match for the Abyss, but given her reputation, I think that's a safe bet to make.

My suggestion is that they be keyed into the story of the chaining of Rovagug which all the gods participated in, save of course Rovagug and those who didn't exist at the dawn of time. Have the lance be from Erastil and styled to look like one of his antler points. Make them all of Azlant craftsmanship, relics of that lost land, or maybe Thasilonian, and say they were made for the champions of each god.

The Neutral one is an amulet with the spiral of Pharasma. It's appears to be an old amulet, classic in its appearance, like a thousand other old holy symbols of the goddess which were, in fact, made in its image. I'd make it out of faintly greenish fossil ivory scrimshawed with Pharasma's spiral. It's something everyone would overlook because it's so common compared to the beauty and ostentation of the other eight artifacts.

For example, the LN should be a golden key for Abadar, blinged out with every jewel possible. Equally ostentatious is the CN dagger of Calistria, which would be a dagger of venom with the blade in the shape of the wasp's torso and sting, the guard in the form of its wings, and the hilt in the shape of the head with the jeweled eyes being the pommelstone. Give it the dancing property for extra fun so it can fly around stabbing people with venom.

And so on. Look through the gods, pick out 9 in keeping with the legend and what you want--NG should be Sarenrae while LE should be Asmodeus--and make the items.

Having it presented as a magic item lets those who don't have continual flame on their spell lists -- such as, for example, alchemists -- still be able to make a magic floating glowing rock via Magical Artisan + Craft Wondrous Item. And then there's the bizarre legacy logic problem where those with craft arms and armor are able to put the "and it glows!" property onto swords for free.

The casters charging for every spellcasting service is a bit of a legacy problem as well. IMHO, the same way that clerics sell holy water at the cost of the component, wizards guilds should sell everburning torches at the cost of the component. Makes for good PR and quickly fixes the pricing discrepancy.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

There's the old 3.5 spell Amanuensis that does just that. It's not open content, but it's perfectly good for house games.

Speaking of Amanuensis, is there a Pathfinder spell that duplicates it to some extent? I could have sworn there was, but I could be going insane too...

There are two options. The fancier one is to use the rare "Steal Book" spell from Dave Gross's novel Prince of Wolves. It was written up in Kobold Quarterly #14 on p. 13 according to the Golaropedia, and is a 3rd level Divination spell for Sor/Wiz, Witch, Inquisitor & Bard.

The cheaper and easier to use option is to cast Unseen Servant and give the Unseen Servant a blank book, a book to be copied, a quill, a penknife, an inkwell, and instructions to copy one to the other. Looking at the text of the spell, this should be easily done for any regular text so long as the DC of copying is no more than 10. Depending on the work and the level of the caster it may take multiple castings, but it would certainly save a wizard the tedium of copying non-magical texts.

It is not a stretch to have the wizard have the servant take dictation either or even to work as a stenographer, so long as the DC of transcribing something was no more than 10.

If you look in the free web fiction, you'll see that the story The Seventh Execution has a wizard with his hands wreathed in magical blue fire. I'm certain you'll find more if you read through the stories.

While the power sources may be different, however, the end result is the same and the mechanism is the same as well. Some power turns an engine which in turn turns the wheels that runs the car along the ground.

Spellcraft generally doesn't look at what the power source is. It studies the mechanism of the spell to see what the end result will be.

Let's say we've got a wizard, a sorcerer, a bard, and a cleric. The first three are arcane while the last is divine. All of them can cast Hold Person. One expects the wizard is saying arcane phrases while making mystic gestures, the sorcerer is doing the same thing but with a more organic and personal style, the bard is strumming power chords on his lute while singing "Stop! In the name of Love!" and the cleric is raising his holy symbol and thundering, "By the power of -INSERT GOD'S NAME HERE-, I command thee, hold!"

Spellcraft lets the various casters recognize the foreign magics by means of analyzing the words, gestures, and material components used. This is done to let the casters counterspell spells as they recognize the effects, especially if they have that same spell memorized or otherwise available.

Obviously the words used, the gestures made, and the material components can vary, but there's still a certain commonality of form that a person with spellcraft can recognize. It's like taking some medieval woman and dropping her in a kitchen where a 1950s housewife is using all the conveniences and wonders of the modern age. While the medieval woman would probably be taken aback at seeing the blender and the electric skillet, she'd recognize that the first appears to be some sort of glass jug and the second is some sort of griddle, and the eggs the 1950s housewife is cracking into the blender still look an awful lot like the eggs they had in the middle ages, the flour still looks like flour, and while the milk is coming out of a waxed carton instead of a crock, it still looks like milk. Throw a bit of butter in the skillet and the medieval woman realizes, "Oh, you're making crepes." The 1950s housewife may call them pancakes instead, but the medieval woman has used her Craft (Cooking) or Profession (Cook) to reasonably figure out what the other woman is doing well before the batter is even poured into the pan.

Same thing with the wizard watching the cleric and making his Spellcraft. The props may be a little different, the style certainly is, and the power source may be completely different, but there is enough in common with the spells from his spellbook that he can figure out whatever "miracle" this cleric is invoking and how to short circuit it if he deems it necessary.

Honestly a haunted house can be anywhere. It simply depends on the needs of your story.

To have the truly classic haunted house feel, however, you need to have the house be a place that people can't just leave the moment it becomes unpleasant. It should be remote from civilization without any convenient neighbors to run to. People should also be forced to seek shelter there, either from inclement weather, such as a rainstorm, freezing cold, or burning heat, or are trapped there at times due to things like a rising tide in a salt marsh that cuts off the house from the mainland at times.

There also of course has to be the reason the house was built before it was haunted.

The other way around this is to have the house be so grand and valuable people can't just stop living there because of a pesky haunting. Castles and mansions are like this, but so are popular inns.

Dabbler wrote:

You are confusing academic knowledge with working knowledge. Spellcraft is not knowing about magic, it's working with magic. Just as Craft (carpentry) is not knowing about the history of woodworking, it's knowing how wood is worked. A carpenter will not know the age of a cabinet, but he'll know a dovetailed joint and a drawer when he sees them.

I'm curious. If Spellcraft is likened to "working knowledge of magic," then why can any Fighter or Cavalier pick it up? I'm not seeing any requirement of having the ability to cast spells, but how else are you really going to "work" with magic, other than maybe Master Craftsman (which bypasses Spellcraft)?

Spellcraft is basically Music Appreciation mixed with sight reading music. Just because you can sight read music doesn't mean you have any talent singing, nor does it mean you know anything of music history.

Or you can use a baseball analogy. A baseball fan has spellcraft. He can analyze the play-by-play, see how the game is going, and so on. A baseball player actually plays the game. A baseball historian is like the person with Knowledge Arcana, giving you endless lists of batting averages, who won the Pennant race in 1932, and all sorts of stuff that has nothing to do with having the athleticism and training to actually hit the ball.

A fighter or cavalier can pick up Spellcraft if they're around people who cast spells a lot, either their friends or their enemies or both. You learn how to distinguish between the old lady pointing her finger at you and cursing and the old lady pointing her finger at you and throwing a Curse with a capital C. It's the difference between someone loosing a crossbow at you and someone loosing a loaded crossbow at you.

I think, while the painting and art history analogy is good, a better one might be to look at music.

Casting a spell is like singing a song. Some are untrained naturals (sorcerers), some are highly trained if not naturally talented and sing by rote (wizards), and some download their favorite tunes every morning for playback later while lip synching and playing air guitar (clerics). The end result is the same: You hear a song/spell coming out of someone's mouth.

Spellcraft is like having perfect pitch mixed with training in sight reading and writing music. You hear someone singing. You can recognize the notes, and that it's in 3/4 time, and before someone has sung more than a bar, you can recognize that they're singing a waltz.

Knowledge Arcana is like Music History. Music History does not let you know how to read sheet music, nor can you tell a B flat from a C sharp, but you know that "The Waltz of the Flowers," used in Disney's Fantasia, is originally from "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky.

Using Detect Magic with Spellcraft to analyze a magic item without operating it is like using a screwdriver to open a music box to read the pattern of the pins. You open the music box, look at where the pins are and what notes they strike, and you recognize that this music box when wound will play a waltz. Knowledge Arcana is like Music History, letting you know that this particular waltz is the Waltz of the Flowers.

As for Concentration, this is a separate skill because you use Concentration to stay on key when some starts trying to whack you with a sword while you're singing "The Waltz of the Flowers."

If you want to cut down on feat bloat, just make Spellcraft a caster level check. If you're not a caster, you can't do it.

Personally, though, I like it in. That way you can have the wizard with high spellcraft and the sorcerer with low or zero spellcraft or vice versa. The wizard with zero spellcraft is like a paint by numbers painter who knows absolutely nothing of technique but can follow the recipes he's memorized, though he has real trouble learning new ones. The sorcerer with zero spellcraft is the kid with natural talent in painting who would look at you cross-eyed if you talked about forced perspective and so on and would just shrug and say, "I dunno, I just do it." Neither would understand what the other was doing at all.

I'd make it a little more complicated and fun for the adventurers.

What if, for example, the doppelganger is neutral but replaces someone evil?

Think of oh, say, Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life," the LE or NE banker. Have him cackle as he forecloses on widows and orphans and there's not a thing the paladin can do about it because all his wickedness is completely legal.

Then one day he has a change of heart, or at least isn't detecting as evil like before. While not becoming quite Scrooge after his conversion, he's not as generally rotten as before and seems wanting to just blow through his money and have a grand old time.

Heck, if your CN doppelganger doesn't want to kill the evil old SOB, just give the doppelganger an item that does Baleful Polymorph, have him turn Mr. Potter into a chicken, then give him to one of those poor widows rather than foreclosing on her.

Let there be some evil doppelgangers too, but make it so that they're presented more as a traveling band of grifters, some of whom are murderers, but not all of them.

Back in the 80s, I was tired of various friends arguing "which system is superior" and simply told them I was going to run a fantasy game and I wanted them to bring in beginning level characters written up in any system the so pleased. I then put in a bit of easy handwavium that explained all the differing magic systems of the different game systems being the arguments of wizards over the ways that magic truly worked.

I had a D&D character, a GURPS character, a Rolemaster character, something built with an early fantasy version of Champions and so forth. It worked just fine.

While that's an amusing scenario, I could really use some sort of mnemonic device to discern between the two. The criteria you gave would still require me checking the PRD and scratching my head. :(

Spellcraft is to Knowledge Arcana as Painting is to Art History.

If a spellcaster watches another spellcaster at work, they'll understand the technique the other person is using, the same as a painter can understand what another painter is doing by watching them while they paint. The caster understands the techniques to use the various schools of magic the same way the painter understands stuff like underpainting, forced perspective, color balance, and so on.

The person with lots of Knowledge Arcana is like the person with a lot of knowledge of Art History. They can tell you all of the formal names for various things, all the names of the great masters of the art, and so forth. The knowledge doesn't give you any technical skill, but gives you knowledge and perspective to understand the end result.

There are of course overlaps with other Knowledges. If you've got a religious painting, both an art historian and a religious scholar will understand something about it, including the name of a particular saint if he or she was a popular subject of religious icons.

The way I see it, Spellcraft is the way to divine the magical significance of assorted strange gestures, oddly inflected words, and peculiar fragments of assorted grot that somehow come together to weave magical energies and create a spell effect. Knowledge Arcana is knowing the formal name of that magical effect and what might be done about it once it's been put in place.

For example, the party comes thundering through the woods, unexpectedly coming out into a clearing with a tiny cottage, a little old woman with a black cat, and a chicken which the paladin's horse just stepped on. You do not need to make a Heal check to know that the chicken is dead.

The old woman screams, points her finger at the paladin, and says some words in a language you don't understand.

Party: Are we in combat?

GM: You tell me. You can roll initiative if you want.

Party does. Paladin has initiative.

GM: What do you do?

Paladin: Is she casting a spell?

GM: Do you have Spellcraft?

Paladin: No....

GM: Then you don't know if she's casting a spell. All you know is that an old woman is pointing her finger at you and saying words in an unfamiliar language. She sounds angry. She may be casting a spell, she may be cursing you in mundane fashion, or she may be attempting to use Intimidation to threaten you with a lawsuit. If the last is the case, it's not working, because you don't understand what she's saying.

Cleric, Wizard, and Druid: We have Spellcraft. Can we roll?

GM: Go ahead.

(Players roll.)

GM: (to Cleric) You didn't roll well enough to know what the spell does, but you definitely know it's a spell. As a houserule freebie, I'm letting you know that the style of casting is the same as those witches you faces three adventures ago, so you can guess this is witchcraft.

GM: (to Wizard) You fail to identify the exact effects of the magic, but you know it is something of the Transmutation sub-school.

GM: (to Druid) You rolled well. You know that this is a spell that will turn the paladin into a small and harmless animal. The old lady has specified that it it be a chicken, female, and capable of laying eggs. She wants a little red hen like the one that was just killed.

Paladin: But I'm male!

GM: Maybe not for long.

Druid: This seems in keeping with harmonious balance, and also that "Justice" the paladin keeps harping on about. I do nothing to interfere. Do I have to have Knowledge Arcana to know that this is Baleful Polymorph?

GM: Since that spell is also on the Druid class list, I will allow you to roll Knowledge Nature instead.

Wizard: Can I roll Knowledge Arcana?

GM: If the spell succeeds, yes. If it fails, no. Then it's just some transmutation spell that failed or had no obvious effect.

Cleric: Can I roll Knowledge Religion?

GM: You can, but all you'll find is parables about chickens and eggs. Nothing useful as it's not on your class spell list. (To paladin) Unless you want to risk losing your paladinhood over some old granny righteously indignant over the death of her best laying hen, make a Fortitude save, followed by a Will if you fail that.

Rest of the Party: Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!

Quite honestly, when I hear people unable to distinguish between real human sapient beings and evil fantasy creatures, I just shake my head.

Suffice it to say, I worry about the human race when I read about what masquerades as Good.

I can distinguish between real human sapient beings and evil fantasy creatures just fine. My trouble is separating the "Why X race is Evil" arguments for fantasy creatures from those used to stereotype and malign real human sapient beings. Especially when a lot of those same arguments were used by the same authors who wrote a lot of the fantasy fiction we're basing our games upon as well as some embarrassingly racist stuff.

Honestly, it's incredibly hard to find a piece of late 19th/early 20th century literature that's not dripping with Social Darwinism.

And to have 21st century gaming where the humans are basically viewed through a modern lens but the orcs, gnolls, goblins and so forth can naturally be born "bad" or "stupid" or what have you?

A lot of things are pretty much arbitrary. A snake with a woman's head is a naga which is an aberration. If you have a woman who's a snake from the waist down, she's a lamia matriarch, who's a magical beast, unless she has eight arms, in which case she's a maralith who's a demonic outsider. If you've got an otherwise normal human with snakes in place of her hair, she's a medusa, who's a monstrous humanoid.

Quite honestly, when I hear about people massacring babies of any sentient race, I'm reminded of the description in Ishi, The Last of His Tribe, where the Gold Rush miners ran around killing everyone, even the children, of the Yahi tribe, proclaiming, "Nits will be lice!"

I can think of many words to describe this, but suffice it to say that the action depicted is not Lawful Good.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

He was concerned that they were all chaotic evil and hated everywhere. I countered by pointing out lines in the book where they are among the races who come to the markets of Katapesh. Obviously the Pactmasters of Katapesh don't hate them. The Charua-Ka's gold is as good as anyones.

Yeah, I'm not buying it--at least, not for my game. I can't see this small piece of evidence as being enough to overturn all of the rest of the text that talks about how these charau-ka are brutal savages who love the taste of human flesh.

I've never denied that there are exceptions in the literature and in source material. But those exceptions are very few and very far in-between; that they're aberrational. That's all I'm saying.

If you want to make those exceptions more the norm in your world, please, don't let my distaste for it deter you. If your players want to play special "monstrous" characters, that's up to you all to decide. But that's not the default position of the material or the way people play.

Well humans love the taste of human flesh too. From everything I've read on the subject, long pork tastes just like regular pork except just a little bit more tender and sweeter. In fact, somewhere back in my anthropology studies, I have the notes from an anthropologist from New Zealand who talked to an old cannibal who remembered the taste of human flesh and told him that it tasted just like the SPAM the anthropologist had brought, which lead to the conversation.

Humans just have this cultural taboo about eating human flesh, but they love the taste just fine.

As for aberrations, I just checked the business in the Inner Sea Guide about Katapesh and it mentioned Gnoll slavers under the list of free sorts you can find in the markets and "intelligent apes from the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse" under the list of possible slaves.

So lets say you have a bunch of gnoll slavers go to the Mwangi expanse, find a Charua-Ka tribe, and capture the lot of them, dragging them back in chains to the slave markets of Katapesh. The warriors are sold as savage ape men for gladiatorial pits, the few old ones to traveling carnivals who want to be able to show off a "savage ape man" in their sideshows without too much risk, and the young are sold to be servants and such, including any babies, such as one a pregnant Charua-Ka delivered shortly after arriving in Katapesh.

So let's say we've got some vain young noblewoman who's out on the grand tour and she can't decide between an exotic servant boy or a pet monkey, then she's presented with the chance to buy a baby Charua-Ka. It's so cute!

And so she takes it back to Taldor and raises it up as her pet, only to find that it can actually speak, and while it's easy enough to spin a story where it eventually grows up and one night in a fit of screaming rage it kills the whole household, we can also come up with stories where it instead grows up as a sheltered pet, or even wishes to prove itself above its brute origins and makes a point of being as learned and intellectual as possible.

Heck, we could say that this happened with all of the Charua-Ka infants and toddlers sold by the gnoll slaver and come up with a different story for each one.

Which is not to say that there aren't horrible anthropophagous tribes of Charua-Ka running around the Mwangi Expanse, but if you're in the drawing rooms of Taldor and a Charua-Ka enters the room, your expectation should be that it's milady's exotic servant boy or the eccentric master's adopted son. And apart from it's ability to enter a shrieking frenzy and being extremely good at catching and throwing things, it will act as intelligently as any civilized man.

In my Pathfinder game, we recently had to deal with this. One of the players wanted to bring in a new character but not have it be one of the standard races. Due to plot points I had set in motion, I suggested he play a Charua-Ka, one of the ape men of the Mwangi expanse.

He was concerned that they were all chaotic evil and hated everywhere. I countered by pointing out lines in the book where they are among the races who come to the markets of Katapesh. Obviously the Pactmasters of Katapesh don't hate them. The Charua-Ka's gold is as good as anyones.

Which is not to say that there isn't a great deal of friction elsewhere in the world. Chelish colonists are fighting a war of expansion into Mwangi expanse and the Charua-Ka are fighting back. Most of the Charua-Ka worship the ape demon Angazhan but so far as I'm concerned this is the same as most Cheliaxians worshipping Asmodeus: a third have drank the Kool-Aid, a third are good at doing lip service, and the last third are busy worshipping other gods under the table.

Consider, oh, say, the Cult of the Dawnflower. It's well established as a hidden religion in Taldor. Now imagine a bunch of Taldan explorers, many of them secret Dawnflower cultists and missionaries, strap on their pith helmets and mount an expedition to the Mwangi expanse. While there, the are captured by the Charua-Ka, killed, and reincarnated as new Charua-Ka, there to worship the ape demon Angazhan! Which is a nice plan except that Dawnflower cultists are really good at hiding their religion and giving lip service to another. And give them a little time to do missionary work among the Charua-Ka?

It should also be pointed out that Sarenrae is the goddess of Redemption. If the cult of the Dawnflower is not actively trying to infiltrate every evil race on the planet, they're not doing it right. Which is not to say that you're going to run into tons of gnoll paladins, but there are liable to be a few, the same as there are human cultists of Lamashtu.

I'd suggest you look up the spell Sympathetic Wounds in Gods & Magic. It lets a cleric of Zon-Kuthon do a version of Shield Other where they transfer their own wounds to the target.

More palatable but still problematic. Atonement requires you finding a minimum 9th level cleric of your religion with a hole in his schedule. If you're on a quest or anywhere where 9th+ level clerics aren't just hanging out on the streetcorners, ready to give you absolution at a moment's notice, you're a little screwed. And even if you do find a priest, quite honestly the Atonement spell is a scam waiting to happen. Get some penitent rube who can no longer Detect Evil willing to come in and blow 2500 for "offerings" and "rare incense" to get forgiveness for his sins? All it takes is a good Bluff and Knowledge Religion check to fake being a holy man of any particular faith. Tell him that before he can truly atone and be forgiven in the eyes of the Divine Whomever, he must do some reasonably difficult holy quest or pilgrimage, and by the time he gets back, you'll be long gone along with the 2500 GP he paid for the "rare incense."

Honestly, you think a paladin has enough skill to know the difference between rare incense and the cheap stuff?

Admittedly this would be a cruel trick to play, but then again it could be entertaining if the false priest managed to grant real absolution, since the atonement is actually up to the god, and if they hear fervent prayers mixed with proper theology?

Of course there are other ways to get around this. Previous campaign I did I had Pardoners running around like from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, selling assorted holy relics, including indulgences, which are basically scrolls of Atonement in a variant form. The paladin (and later grey guard) had really pleased the Pope, so was granted a fairly large stack of these for his quest. If there was any sin he needed to atone for, he just needed to go through the stack, find the indulgence in the right denomination, and sign his name to it.

I could see the Church of Abadar going wild for this sort of thing. Great moneymaker for the church, and a logical way for the god of merchants to deal with his paladins.

Of course, great until the inevitable counterfeiting ring started printing indulgences with Abadar's name on them.

Ah, I think I've found some of the source of the confusion/contention. The 3.0 version of the Atonement spell has this line in it: "Restore Class: A paladin who has lost her class features due to unwillingly or unwittingly committing an evil act may have her paladinhood restored to her by this spell. Note: A paladin who willingly and deliberately commits an evil act can never regain her paladinhood."

The bolded "Note" was removed from 3.0 to 3.5, but no mention of this rather significant change is made in the free 3.5 D&D Accessory Update PDF, thus leading to a lot of these discussions.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

Killing ticks is not an honor duel. They do not get to name champions to fight in their stead.

I'm going to make my silly reply before I make my serious one.

Silly: Yes they can. They can summon their patron deity, The Tick of superhero parody fame! Spoooooon!

Serious: I'm impressed you're defending the Paladin at such length and detail. As someone with an interest in the Paladin class, you have my thanks.

Though this isn't your fault, I am kind of discouraged these sort of topics seem to keep coming up.

Paladins are a symbol of hope and virtue, but they remain mortal. I wouldn't hold actual Good Outsiders, embodiments of Good as a concept and philosophy, to some of the strict measures some people seem to apply to Paladins. The notion some seem to hold to of stripping Paladin class features over one or two modest violations of the code seems excessive, and... honestly Not Fun from a game design perspective.

Actually, one of the situations you cited about a Paladin breaking a law to save a healer's life has an interesting resemblance to an old video game, Final Fantasy IV (aka Final Fantasy II in earlier translations; long story). You actually start the game playing a Dark Knight who used to work under a Lawful Good king whose actions are becoming Lawful Evil. The Dark Knight initially obeys, but begins questioning these decisions. He eventually leaves the king's service, and 'atones' in spectacular fashion; after a lengthy quest to prove he truly wishes to set things right he emerges as a Paladin!

Granted, this was written by a Japanese staff back in the early 1990s and there may be little bits of culture dissonance on the finer points relative to what western audiences expect... but the basic story has some interesting parallels to points you're discussing.

Honestly, the redemption quest is an old staple of courtly romance and paladin fiction. The quintessential paladin story is the grail quest, and the only three paladins who succeeded were Sir Galahad, who was so pure as to be inhuman; Sir Percival, who raised innocence to the level of a special ed disability; and Sir Lancelot, who was trying to atone for having an affair with his best friend and liege lord Arthur's wife.

Thankfully Pathfinder did away with the twaddle from 3.5 about paladins who sin becoming to sullied to ever be paladins again. Now all it takes is an Atonement, and all an Atonement takes is sincere regret and that being accepted by the relevant god.

As for Atonement, I think that the 2500 GP of rare incenses and offerings for a willful violation should be looked at as an "average retail price" rather than a set value where forgiveness for murdering twelve virgins costs the same as it does for only one. Moreover, I think the confessor should set some penance for the transgression, making amends if possible, tithing some portion of worldly wealth or going on a quest if not. And the penance would also be appropriate to the god. One would expect that Abadar, for example, would be big on the tithing angle as well as doing an exact accounting on the number of GP required for amends for any particular sin, both to himself as god and to any parties injured by the fallen paladin's action. Shelyn, on the other hand, would probably just want flowers and artwork, though then again those cost money too.

Quite honestly, I don't give my villains metagame knowledge about the PCs. A group of PCs rides up, all of them on horseback, one of them a cavalier, the rest with the regular 75 GP riding horses. The wicked witch does not suddenly go, "Ho ho ho! A cavalier! Let's see you use all those fancy ridin' feats you've got when Mr. Ed turns into Mr. Hamster! Baleful Polymorph!"

There may be a witch. She may have Baleful Polymorph. But she doesn't know what class people are, she doesn't know what level people are, and she sure as hell doesn't know what their saving throws are either. She'll go with her best guess of whoever looks most dangerous or least reasonable and turn them into a hamster.

If there's an area of effect monster like a gorgon, sure, I'll let the horses save the same as everyone else. But that can be fixed with stone salve.

As for targeting familiars in combat, it may be good tactics but it's bad form, earning you the enmity of witches and wizards everywhere, regardless of alignment. Ditto burning spellbooks. A house rule, certainly, but one that I find both flavorful and good for plotting. Book-burners and familiar-killers are viewed with an almost unspeakable scorn, and even a white witch or wizard would do nothing to save someone who did such a thing from righteous vengeance. At least the way I run magical society. Keeps the familiars and the spellbooks safe, and also explains why the non-magical classes have learned not to do such things.

Courtly romance and chivalry isn't exceedingly modern.

And with killing the evil courtiers, being evil generally isn't illegal. With courtiers, it's almost in the job description.

If a paladin kills an evil courtier who was not in league with the succubus, is he still being lawful?

Kevin, the problem with the truthfulness kindness problem and the fat little princess is that you so heavily weigh giving offence. If the paladin tells the truth, she is fat, he has told the truth but been un-kind. You think that warrants him to fall. He did however, just tell the truth, which is indeed a part of his code. So he should fall for following his code, even if he does something that causes offence? If the paladin opts for silence, that too can cause offence, should he fall then too? It is not a part of the paladin code that they cannot cause offence by being truthful. As I said above, show me where for this specific example, do not try and bring in knightly codes from Earth into this, we are talking paladins in pathfinder or Golarion.

"Honestly, this isn't even Rule 0. This is playing the gods in character. The judgement of the sin is going to depend on the priorities of the patron."

This is good, now you are getting away from yourself and appreciating how the elements of the fantasy world would see it. If a god/goddess doesn't care much about offending little girls, as long as you stay the course of good, do your main duties you are fine. You present this offence like a slippery slope, truly there are more important things for a paladin. Ending evil as opposed to passing your flattery check, jeez.

Again with the "ending evil." How precisely are you suppose to "end evil" unless you're in the World Wound which is basically playland for subtlety-impaired paladins? Yes, we can all agree that a twelve-headed acid-spewing ginormous demon thingy is evil -- it's got everything but the "Smite me!" T-shirt -- but if you need your evil that obvious, your paladin with his "detect evil" is basically doing a reprise of Counselor Troi saying, "I sense great anger from them, Captain" as the Klingons are about to fire photon torpedos. Really? We needed an empath to tell us that?

Sometimes evil is more subtle than a monstrous demon trying to commit suicide by paladin. Sometimes evil disguises itself, appearing as something beautiful and wholesome, or just petty and banal. I mean, think of a succubus. Everyone expects that she might appear as the King's new trophy wife, acting sweet and wholesome even while corrupting everything and everyone, but that's almost a little too obvious. Who would suspect her to instead take the guise of the palace mean girl, and even if the paladin finds her out, what's he going to do? Take out his big sword and try to kill a twelve-year-old girl? "Save me! He's gone mad!" How many innocents can you get to spit themselves on his sword before you sprout batwings and vanish in a puff of hellfire?

As for the problem of Truthfulness versus Kindness, if you were dealing with Shelyn as your patron, an insecure girl asking a question about her beauty would be exactly the sort of testing moment Shelyn would be interested in, and the thing she would be interested in is not whether you cause offense but whether you cause hurt. Tell her that in the Mwangi Expanse, plump is beautiful, and they even have fattening huts there for their brides. (Or at least they do in some parts of Africa, so close enough for the fantasy analogue.) Or if you do make a verbal misstep and cause hurt, what exactly do you do about it?

Yes, I know. Real evil. But if your paladin can't cope with an insecure little girl crying because the mean girls made fun of her figure, exactly what are you going to do with the same little girl when her beloved mommy comes back as a vampire and you have to whack off her head? You're supposed to be a shining beacon of goodness, not just an assassin who specializes in killing evil.

My opinion as a GM, is that while killing or stealing the cavalier's horse can be fun for a high drama moment in a campaign, it's like destroying or stealing the wizard's spellbooks. It gets very old if it's a weekly event, so you have to have a gentleman's agreement to keep this plot point off the table. Even if the whole party has been captured and stripped naked by the goblin cannibal headhunters, the horse and spellbooks will be completely safe and it's easy enough to come up with handwavium to keep them safe. Yes, the goblins hate horses and spellbooks both. So much, in fact, they've been keeping them safely locked up for the goblin chieftain's wedding feast when they will make a bonfire of the spellbooks and roast the horse over it! But the wedding isn't for three weeks, so they're perfectly safe until then.

Killing the horse or burning the spellbooks is that one "very special episode" you can do once in a campaign. Ditto shattering the fighter's heirloom sword or the loss of any other significant character prop. You get to do it one time and it better be done for an important plot reason. Otherwise it's off the table.

I agree, except that from my standpoint, the "minor situation of offense" is very often the major one.

Paladins are an ideal, but they're a fairytale ideal, and you can hardly read a fairytale where the poor beggar begging for a crust of bread isn't in fact an angel or a saint or the paladin's god him or herself coming in disguise to test him. If you fail a minor test of Charity, how can you be expected to succeed with a major one? And even if the beggar is in fact a real beggar, this doesn't mean the paladin's god or his agents aren't watching.

And, to be perfectly honest, Hell and its agents are watching too. One of the running threads of all of the paladin stories is how the forces of Hell are watching every paladin with glee, setting up tests and moral dilemmas so they can make him fall.

The business of the silly insecure fat little princess is one of these. It's a textbook test of the virtues of Truthfulness versus the virtue of Kindness. It may have been arrange by Heaven, manipulated by Hell, or just come about organically, but even so, Heaven and Hell would still be watching.

The only things we're dickering about is whether the "and so forth" in the Paladin's code is meant to include Kindness, Charity, and a host of other virtues, and whether Truthfulness can ever be relaxed if Kindness, the Protection of Innocents, or any other virtue depends upon it.

I say that it can be, depending on the situation, since in Pathfinder--unlike 3.5, which I Rule Zeroed away--the source of paladinhood depends on gods rather than a nebulous quasi-sentient force of Lawful Goodness that acts like a giant idiot computer program. With Pathfinder? Gods and their minions, a whole heavenly host of angels, saints, and other divine beings bearing a strong resemblance to medieval Catholic theology.

Since there are sentient beings in charge of overseeing a paladin, one assumes they're somewhat smarter than a computer program and moreover have some leeway in judging any particular act, and also have their own value system. Consequently my contention that NG Shelyn would place a higher value on Kindness than Truthfulness, whereas LN Abadar would value Truthfulness as a higher virtue than Kindness. LG Iomedae would then glare at both of them and coldly inform them that Honor is a higher virtue than either of these. Sarenrae would then contend that Mercy is the highest virtue, so if they're truly penitent, she redeems fallen paladins all the time, since she's the goddess of redemption.

Honestly, this isn't even Rule 0. This is playing the gods in character. The judgement of the sin is going to depend on the priorities of the patron.

Like this a lot, but would like to see the list of magical herbs expanded with their uses as power components for spells, as well as prices both to sell these herbs and to buy them in town for those characters who aren't herbalists but want to use them.

Would love to see this done up as an article for Wayfinder or any other magazine.

Maybe that's the problem: I'm arguing RAW, which happens to coincide with my preferred interpretation of the paladin archetype, but we're in General Discussion, where RAW need not even make an appearance unless people want it to. Suffice it to say that I like your paladin and would gladly play it or in a game with it. I just like mine more, and believe that, intended or not, it aligns better with the printed text of the Core paladin. I feel that your interpretation jives better somewhere between mine and that of the Grey Guard prestige class from 3.5 (which is more relaxed still). And I like all three.

The trouble is is that RAW can get into nonsensical situations if you follow the exact letter of the RAW like a computer program. Like my example of the paladin losing his paladinhood over a code violation for using poison to save orphans from giant ticks. How many times would that come across Iomedae's desk followed by nagging Commune spells from the clerics who administered Atonement before she decides the RAW is stupid and paladins shouldn't lose their powers for using bug killer on vermin. Killing ticks is not an honor duel. They do not get to name champions to fight in their stead.

As for the rest of it, I've been playing since 1st edition and my approach to the rules of any edition is as suggestions for how to play these sorts of characters, especially when you come to elastic clauses like "and so forth" in the paladin code. Thinks like "and so forth" are cues for the GM to use his imagination and logic or look to commonly available sources such as previous editions, historical sources like the Song of Roland or Catholic theology, and so on.

I will admit that I do like the Grey Guard class, though I do think it's a different thing than what I'm talking about.

But getting back to the "and so forth." Speaking as someone who has written game rules, language like that is used both to save space and to keep the interpretations from being too limited.

You are arguing against the wisdom of the Paladin's position, not the validity of it being his position.

It's as if you've decided that the Paladin is stupid and since he's stupid you must point out it's stupid so that the Paladin will no longer be stupid. The problem is twofold. One, it's not stupid. Maybe wrong, but not stupid. I've illustrated multiple reasons why not and in multiple ways. You using these terms is a thinly veiled attack on me. Either I'm an idiot and a moron for proposing these notions or I'm not. Take your pick. I'm more than happy to pick up that gauntlet, but I'm going to assume that's not where you wish to take this conversation. But two, even if the paladin's position is stupid, you've not shown why it's not the case that it is his position.

And yes the analogy is equivalent. In both cases, the rock and the marriage, he would be acting against the interest of the multitude for the sake of the one. The difference is that in the first case, he seems to know it, and in the second case he doesn't. But in neither case does that fact matter. Both cases are about the paladin taking a submissive role to legitimate, rightful, Good authority - even when they make decisions that the Paladin can (in the case of the marriage) understand or can't (in the case of the rock) understand or doesn't (in the case of the court) agree with.

I think the trouble here is that we're arguing about the paladin's inflexibility, his inability to ever admit that he was wrong or mistaken or his faith was misplaced.

I mean, look at the "legitimate, rightful, Good authority" business. I'm not saying that such an authority cannot exist--I'd certainly like it to--but how does a paladin know it when he sees it, and what happens when this "legitimate, rightful, Good authority" makes a mistake, or worse, over time becomes somewhat less good, if not downright evil? Those orphans that were going to be placed in foster homes? They were sold into slavery. The prisoners who were going to be ransomed? Well, they weren't willing to pay our price, so we killed them. We couldn't find the witch responsible for the plague so we just burned every grandmother we could find in the hopes we'd get her eventually.

And we're not even talking about a formerly Good authority that's forthright and open about its slide into evil. It might be nice if the former Good King X-- publicly announced his new devotion to Asmodeus, but it's a lot sneakier to just sell the orphans to the slavers under the table and if it's found out, claim that you were wickedly deceived. Blame the execution of the war prisoners on a prison riot. The dead grandmothers? Forge evidence of a grand conspiracy of evil witches, and if anyone has proof positive that you can't discredit that their grandma was innocent, plead that you are "only human" and hide your evil behind a mask of humility and crocodile tears. And if some paladin or similar busybody tries to "Detect Evil" on you? Either use Misdirection magic, or just do the expedient of making sure the Good King on the throne really is good. Just have him deceived as to what his government is really doing so he can deceive the paladin in turn.

How much has to be rotten in the state of Denmark before the paladin stops supporting it unquestioningly?

So where does "I follow the wise and just decrees of Good King X--" shade into "I was only following orders"?

Just because someone is good does not mean that they are wise, and just because they are good and wise does not mean they cannot be mistaken or misinformed.

At some point a thinking person has to compare what they are told with what they are seeing with their own eyes. This isn't arrogance or chaos. This is admitting they may have been misinformed, deliberately or accidentally, or even concluding that the law, which they had formerly thought just and/or wise, is in fact unjust and/or foolish.

As for the salt-of-the-earth common sense defender of good and right versus the scholarly broadminded well read worldly guy, they are not only political stereotypes but also personifications of the middle ground fallacy and as such I wish them to both die in a fire. I would like my ruler to be a well-read individual who also possesses common sense, is at once broadminded and a defender of right and good, and I don't think this is an impossibility either. Individuals are not point-buy characters.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

Your paladin is an idiot and so is his supposedly "wise" king. The dying girl is also lacking in sense, though likely she can be excused because she's...

Well, considering I'm the one who wrote the paladin and the King, I can only perceive that you're using that term "idiot" towards me. Of course, that makes me question the target of its applicability. I wasn't trying to describe a perfectly viable situation, but rather the scenario of a law (like your six-leaved clover) where the consequences are not known. In truth, if such a rock were to exist, the King would probably have the rock well-guarded and anyone who came for it repulsed and perhaps told why.

The purpose of the example is to show the notion that not everyone sees themselves with the same hubris you suggest is appropriate for someone not an "idiot" (that their judgment is superior to another's or to another group). Someone who would look at these scenarios, descibed in single-paragraph form, and nitpick them is overanalyzing the form and not paying attention to the substance.

Let's just say the King didn't explain his reasons to the Paladin because he was afraid the Paladin would be tempted by the power available in the well. A power that could put him on par with the Gods might even corrupt a Paladin. Maybe he didn't think he should lie, either, because he knew this Paladin was loyal and righteous. It's irrelevant. And that's the point. A Lawful Good person doesn't put himself and his opinions and his thinking and his beliefs above that of those he considers his righteous authorities. And that's the point. And maybe the King didn't know there was a valid use for the rock. Or maybe he didn't have time to explain any further, because an emergency existed in the realm and that had to be dealt with. All of this is irrelevant.

You may not like it. You may think it's stupid. You're also probably not Lawful Good.

The problem with the six-leaved clover is the perfect example of why people in positions of power should be very careful about the laws they make--as some people uphold the law exactingly, especially when they have faith in the wisdom and righteousness of those in power.
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

The paladin who lets the healer die because of his blind trust in his idiot king would quickly be an ex-paladin in my game...

As is your choice. It's rather clear to me that I wouldn't play a paladin in your game. I don't like the notion of playing a Lawful Good character and being told I must play him Chaotic Good, because that is your reasoning here.

Deontologists have a legitimate argument, whether you like it or not, regarding upholding the Law of a Good and Just rulership. The rules support such characters, clearly. What if the paladin were an idiot in truth (like Int 7) and he was told the reasons, but couldn't remember (or even remember that he was told--he was distracted in the moment by a shout and the King's explanation was lost)? Should he ignore the law or his duty, then? Or what if he was smarter (like Int 12), but he couldn't understand the reason for they were subtle, but no less severe? Should he ignore the law or his duty, then?

If I misinterpreted your usage of the word "idiot", please forgive me.

My usage of the word "idiot" was to my perception of the king and his laws, simply given the situation, especially the paladin who reveres the king for his "wisdom and goodness," despite the fact that the only thing the paladin can detect supernaturally is evil.

The paladin knows the king to be non-evil and I'm assuming assumes the king to be good as well, judging by the kings actions and acts, popular public opinion and whatnot. The wisdom of the king? Unless the paladin has a "detect wisdom" power, this is again a matter of the paladin's perceptions of the king's actions, public opinion and so on.

But let's cut away from your king and on to Ozma. She's got the same public reputation of being wise and good, but she's equally much an idiot. She was having a problem with evil magicians, so she banned all magic except for that done by the Wizard and Glinda, then for good measure, banned the collecting of all common spell components. While this may have had the desired consequence of cutting down on the number of wicked witches and evil magicians, it's also encouraged rampant disrespect for the law. Dr. Pipt, the Crooked Magician--a brilliant magical researcher and alchemist, and neutral as they come--pretty much blew the law off. This is indeed a common theme throughout the books.

In any case, Ozma ends up pardoning Ojo for his crime of picking the six-leaf clover and lets him keep it for making the potion that will unpetrify his uncle. This is good, certainly, but it would have been wiser and more good to have crafted the law with specific exemptions. But as you say "The problem with the six-leaved clover is the perfect example of why people in positions of power should be very careful about the laws they make--as some people uphold the law exactingly, especially when they have faith in the wisdom and righteousness of those in power."

My contention is that the enforcer's faith in the wisdom and righteousness of those in power is misplaced, and similarly those in power sometimes have a misplaced expectation of common sense on the part of their enforcers.

The other trouble with the law is that it is generally the work of generations. You may have a Good and Just ruler who is also Wise and all the other desirable things, but he's inherited a body of laws crafted by many others, some of whom were neither Good nor Just, and some of whom weren't very Wise either, and while the Good Wise Just king has tried his damnedest to strip all the Evil, Unjust, or just plain Idiotic laws out of the books, it's entirely possible something slipped through the cracks. Indeed, it's probably inevitable, and that's why corner cases should be brought in for judgement.

Beyond that, however, there's the problem of the paladin enforcing the law without understanding it. Yes, he may have faith is the wisdom and goodness of his rulers, but faith in something doesn't make it necessarily so. And if a paladin commits an evil act due to misplaced faith...?

Let's say there's a plague in the village. People are dropping like flies and the good king whom the paladin believes to be wise tells the paladin that he has good information that the plague has been caused by a witch, and as he has outlawed all witchcraft in his kingdom, she must be stopped so the village can be saved!

So the paladin goes off, finds an old lady in a cottage with a bubbling cauldron and all sorts of queer vials of preserved animals, overturns the cauldron, smashes all the vials, kills the witch's hissing black cat familiar, and drags her back to face the king's justice while she claims she's not a witch, she's an alchemist, she was working on a cure for the plague, and the paladin killed her pet cat!

As it turns out, she is right--she's not a witch, she is an alchemist (and that's not illegal), and she was working on a cure which is now ruined. And the paladin murdered her pet cat. And because he poured out the cure, everyone in the village dies.

So, how's that faith in the king's wisdom doing now?

If Urgathoa doesn't have devourer clerics already, she will after reading this thread.

What part of "devourer" would the goddess of undeath and gluttony not like?

I, the paladin, ascribe no moral value to lifting rocks. However, I am told by the King who I revere for his wisdom and goodness, "It is decreed that no one shall pick up this green and purple rock." Now, sometime later, a girl is about to die. She's a sweet and good girl who has a natural power that courses through her that sustains her life. That power has also healed many sick and hurting people who she has touched. Only, for some reason, she is dying; the power within her is dying. She points at a rock and says, "Please, good warrior of Serenrae, bring me that rock. It contains the elements I need, while here in my circle of magical runes, to reinvigorate my life." The rock she weakly points to is the rock the King told me not to pick up.

What do I do? I am a paladin; I am a champion of the law and of goodness. I must trust in the judgment of my King, even though I don't understand it and think it's wrongheaded and capricious. I say, "My lady, I may not. I would give you my life, if you can use it. But to bring you that rock violates the Law. Is there not some other way I can save you? May I not bring you to the rock? May I not find another rock of similar power? May I not..." No? I cry as she dies in my arms. I yell at Serenrae. I yell and blame my King's decree. But never, unless I grow weak of heart, do I touch the rock.

I wrote and deleted so much more. I thought this example might suffice to illustrate the distinction that inherently exists in your hypothetical situation. Saving the girl is like moving the rock in the third imagining. I trust in the judgment of my God first and my church second and in my King third, and lastly and in some distant place, in my own. I don't have personal codes. I don't have personal laws. I follow the laws and codes of something greater than me, because I trust in their inherent goodness.

Your paladin is an idiot and so is his supposedly "wise" king. The dying girl is also lacking in sense, though likely she can be excused because she's dying and delirious.

The situation we have here has been described before, and even in fantasy. Check this out:

Ozma turned to Ojo.

"Did you pick the six-leaved clover?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "I knew it was against the Law, but I wanted to save Unc Nunkie and I was afraid if I asked your consent to pick it you would refuse me."

"What caused you to think that?" asked the Ruler.

"Why, it seemed to me a foolish law, unjust and unreasonable. Even now I can see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover. And I—I had not seen the Emerald City, then, nor you, and I thought a girl who would make such a silly Law would not be likely to help anyone in trouble."

Ozma regarded him musingly, her chin resting upon her hand; but she was not angry. On the contrary she smiled a little at her thoughts and then grew sober again.

"I suppose a good many laws seem foolish to those people who do not understand them," she said; "but no law is ever made without some purpose, and that purpose is usually to protect all the people and guard their welfare. As you are a stranger, I will explain this Law which to you seems so foolish. Years ago there were many Witches and Magicians in the Land of Oz, and one of the things they often used in making their magic charms and transformations was a six-leaved clover. These Witches and Magicians caused so much trouble among my people, often using their powers for evil rather than good, that I decided to forbid anyone to practice magic or sorcery except Glinda the Good and her assistant, the Wizard of Oz, both of whom I can trust to use their arts only to benefit my people and to make them happier. Since I issued that Law the Land of Oz has been far more peaceful and quiet; but I learned that some of the Witches and Magicians were still practicing magic on the sly and using the six-leaved clovers to make their potions and charms. Therefore I made another Law forbidding anyone from plucking a six-leaved clover or from gathering other plants and herbs which the Witches boil in their kettles to work magic with. That has almost put an end to wicked sorcery in our land, so you see the Law was not a foolish one, but wise and just; and, in any event, it is wrong to disobey a Law."

The difference here is that while Ojo's attempt to save his uncle from being petrified doesn't have a ticking clock, the dying healer does. One also assumes that, as in both scenarios, the legal authority who made the law, and is in the position to make exemptions or suspensions, isn't convenient to wherever the quandary is happening. In Oz, the only two licensed practitioners of magic are the Wizard and Glinda, being in the Emerald City and the southern Quadling country respectively--not very convenient to the rest of Oz. In the scenario with the rock and the healer? Obviously the king who made the decree isn't there.

And it should be stressed that while the law was undoubtedly passed for a good reason, that doesn't make the law inherently good in and of itself. If the healer dies, an evil thing will definitely occur. If the rock is taken? Well, the law will be broken, yes, but it may be that the law was passed for a six-leaf clover situation, to keep the magic rock from being used for evil purposes. If the king were there in such a situation, he would surely permit the healer to take the rock.

Then again, the magic rock might be the power crystal that's charging the warding circle keeping the great peril in the vault of doom and taking it out would be a very bad thing, though it would still save the life of the healer.

In any case, the wisdom of the state is clearly questionable for making such laws without the reasoning behind them being clearly known. Likewise, the goodness of the state is also questionable for not providing sufficient channels for people to use things for legitimate purposes.

The paladin who lets the healer die because of his blind trust in his idiot king would quickly be an ex-paladin in my game, no matter how much weeping he did about needing to uphold the law because the inherent goodness of law. It would be like someone withholding lifesaving medication from a dying person because it isn't their name on the prescription bottle. And, it should also be stressed, there are usually laws that cover such things. If you need to break a law to save a life, you are expected to, and indeed there are laws that will charge you with criminal negligence if you don't.

Emotional harm is incredibly subjective, and emotional harm a very modern and questionable term is not used in the code of conduct or ex-paladin section. The problem with emotional harm is that the "victim" is able to claim all manner of major hurt from even minor comments, as we see today. You are binding too much of morality now, to this holy warrior of fantasy. Fantasy Golarion is not our world with its pc language and willingness to consider almost anything harm. In fact in your earlier example, you claimed that if the paladin doesn't lie and breach their code, they can be willfully and actively causing harm. What a tangled mess you are draping around the paladin! You can't concentrate on the emotional harm issue, without the glaring problem of what a paladin actually does. Kill demons, foul spellcasters, their servants, smash apart violent, sentient undead. This all involves emotional harm too you know. No one likes being smited, their door kicked in, being hit, taking damage, shouted at, told to convert and surrended etc etc. The paladin is first and foremost a warrior of light, they are not a warrior of niceties. Small breaches in decency and niceness are just that, minor and given the cosmic battles in play, insignificant.

.......

Very preachy. It also is not in the forces of good's interest. It is very easy to be considered unkind by other humans. They get offended quickly and passionately, even if one doesn't do anything wrong, or you didn't lie effectively, or at the right time. If paladins lost their powers for any act of unkindness, how many paladins do you think there would be? No. These are just your views. Paladins fight to bring about a better future, causing offence doesn't come into it, and rightly so. Because a paladin trying to bring law, order and a safe sanctuary to a troubled region could easily offend all manner of chaotics, neutrals, even other lawfuls with what they say, suggest or act to bring about. Using violence brings a lot of passionate opinions after all, including condemnation, even if you do end evil, even if you save people they might not see it that way.

Sensitivity to others and not giving offense is honestly not a modern concept. Check out this listing:

The Knights Code of Chivalry was part of the culture of the Middle Ages and was understood by all. A Code of Chivalry was documented in 'The Song of Roland' in the Middle Ages Knights period of William the Conqueror who ruled England from 1066. The 'Song of Roland' describes the 8th century Knights of the Dark Ages and the battles fought by the Emperor Charlemagne. The code has since been described as Charlemagne's Code of Chivalry. The Song of Roland was the most famous 'chanson de geste' and was composed between 1098-1100, describing the betrayal of Count Roland at the hand of Ganelon, and his resulting death in the Pyranee Mountains at the hands of the Saracens. Roland was a loyal defender of his liege Lord Charlemagne and his code of conduct a description of the meaning of chivalry.

The Knights Code of Chivalry and the vows of Knighthood

The Knights Code of Chivalry described in the Song of Roland and an excellent representation of the Knights Codes of Chivalry are as follows:

To fear God and maintain His Church

To serve the liege lord in valour and faith

To protect the weak and defenceless

To give succour to widows and orphans

To refrain from the wanton giving of offence

To live by honour and for glory

To despise pecuniary reward

To fight for the welfare of all

To obey those placed in authority

To guard the honour of fellow knights

To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit

To keep faith

At all times to speak the truth

To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun

To respect the honour of women

Never to refuse a challenge from an equal

Never to turn the back upon a foe

Of the seventeen entries in the Knights Codes of Chivalry, according to the Song of Roland, at least 12 relate to acts of chivalry as opposed to combat.

Really, this is not a modern concept or modern sensitivity. This is something codified a thousand years ago.

Certainly, there is wiggle room. You're supposed to avoid the "wanton giving of offense." Not all offense, just doing it wantonly.

The truthfulness? Yes, it's there. So is honoring and respecting women. So is avoiding "meanness" which is another word for cruelty.

The "ironclad laws of morality and discipline" referred to in the Core Rules paladin introduction? This is one of them.

Certainly it's not the only one. Let's look at another.

The chivalric virtues of the Knights Code of Chivalry were described in the 14th Century by the Duke of Burgandy. The words he chose to use to describe the virtues that should be exhibited in the Knights Code of Chivalry were as follows:

Faith

Charity

Justice

Sagacity

Prudence

Temperance

Resolution

Truth

Liberality

Diligence

Hope

Valour

The Knights Code of Chivalry as described by the Duke of Burgandy.

That has some different items, but still has the same basic idea.

I'm perfectly fine with having fantasy paladins coming up with some different code from those above, but there should still be similarities and it shouldn't be just whatever the player makes up at the moment, especially since it's the GM and not the player who plays the god or goddess and says what's okay with them.

The LG gods and their associated LN and NG gods are basically in agreement as to what's lawful and good, and only quibble about priorities and what's ranked over what. Shelyn likely ranks Kindness and Beauty over Truth. Iomedae almost certainly ranks Truth over Kindness and doesn't even rank Beauty as a virtue unless you're talking inner beauty. After all, there are an awful lot of pretty succubi out there, so beauty is no guarantee of goodness or righteousness. And even Shelyn would agree that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty.

I'm looking over the code of conduct, and it says they do not lie. It is a minor breach, but not a major breach since it isn't a greatly evil act. So the lie to the little fat girl question has been answered. If you can find something that the paladin must always take great pains never to offend or hurt the feelings of someone, I will listen. Provide page numbers please.

Sure. Here we go:

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies 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 "and so forth" is the elastic clause of the paladin's code. The code of what is honorable is not limited to a short list of virtues such as Truthfulness, Fairness, and an aversion to ignoble weapons such as poison, but those are mentioned to give examples so that a common sense examination of any particular set of virtues and sins will put the virtues on the "do" list and the sins on the "do not" list.

Take, for example, Bravery and Cowardice. Does it say anywhere that paladins must be brave and can't be cowardly? And isn't this whole "cowardice" thing a subjective perception anyway? If you say that your paladin is bravely making a strategic retreat from the possessed chipmunk that ran out of the Worldwound, why shouldn't your GM believe you? And who is this Iomedae who's looking down from the clouds and frowning at you? Who is she to judge? Show me where, specifically, it says a paladin must be brave and can't be cowardly or I can't pardon my own sins or simply declare they're not sins to begin with?

Honestly, this very quickly becomes silly. Paladins, with their whole "Aura of Courage" power that they get at third level and even broadcast this immunity to fear to their allies, are obviously supposed to embody the virtue of Bravery/Courage and not the sin of Cowardice. This is not a stretch. It's common sense. You don't get to pretend the "and so forth" doesn't exist.

But if you're unclear on what the "and so forth" in the code means, turn to the introduction of the paladin class and read what it says about paladins:

Through a select, worthy few shines the power of the divine. Called paladins, these noble souls dedicate their swords and lives to battle against evil. Knights, crusaders, and law-bringers, paladins seek not just to spread divine justice but to embody the teachings of the virtuous deities they serve. In pursuit of these lofty goals, they adhere to ironclad laws of morality and discipline.

So, as to the question of whether Kindness is a virtue and Cruelty is a sin, if you go to the list of "virtuous deities" that paladins can serve, you've got Shelyn, the Eternal Rose, goddess of Beauty and Kindness, who opposes her brother, Zon-Kuthon, god of Torture and Cruelty.

Now I suppose you could say that your bawdy crude joking paladin doesn't worship namby-pamby nicey-good Shelyn, but instead serves Iomedae, the Inheritor, bad-ass righteous crusader chick. In fact, that's even how he prays to her, "O bad-ass righteous crusader chick, bless me!" She's a warrior, she knows barracks-room humor, and she's not offended at all by being called "chainmail chick." It's probably not made it onto the church's official list of holy names, but everyone knows who you're talking about.

So lets look at the virtues chainmail chick--ahem, Iomedae--embodies.

Iomedae(pronounced ahy-OH-meh-day) is the goddess of righteous valor, justice, and honor. Having served as Aroden's herald, she inherited many of the Last Azlanti's followers upon his death, and continues to espouse the ideas of honor and righteousness in the defense of good and the battle against evil.

History

As a mortal, Iomedae was a Chelish human who led the Knights of Ozem in the Shining Crusade against the forces of the Whispering Tyrant. In the fall of 3832 AR, Iomedae, was the last mortal to pass the Test of the Starstone and ascend to godhood. Her actions took the notice of Aroden. She became his herald, replacing the slain Arazni. She served him in this capacity until Aroden's death in 4606 AR.
Relationships

Iomedae views Abadar, Cayden Cailean, Erastil, Sarenrae, Shelyn, and Torag as the equivalent of allies. She harbours a grudge against Pharasma, for keeping secret the demise of Aroden. With the exception of Asmodeus, she never associates or parlays with evil gods or fiends. Even with Asmodeus though, Iomedae treats him with extreme caution, and never in more than an advisory role.

Now, if you look at this description, Iomedae is not the goddess of Kindness, but she is the goddess of Honor, and she is allied with Shelyn, goddess of Kindness--and she's also opposed to all the evil gods, including Zon-Kuthon, god of Cruelty.

Now comes the question of "What Would Iomedae Do?" (WWID) when faced with the situation of the fat insecure little princess and the whole sugarcoated court that's really more of Shelyn's province than her own. But Shelyn wasn't available, or more to the point, none of the courtly romantic gallant paladins of Shelyn were available either. All that was available to root out evil in the pretty sugarcoated court was the bawdy crude crusading knight of Iomedae who's really great at smacking the evil spawn that crawls out of the Worldwound but kind of sucks at this court intrigue stuff.

What Iomedae would do is she would soldier up. Honor demands that she help an ally, even if the situation is unfamiliar, awkward, or strange. Evil is evil and needs to be opposed no matter what the battlefield, and while she's much more comfortable laying the smackdown on some demonic monstrosity that crawled out of the Worldwound, some demons are subtle. There might be a disguised succubus tempting folk with lust, charming them, and having them do her evil bidding, or it might be Jealousy, the Green-Eyed Monster, whispering in little girls ears and encouraging them in petty cruelties which will culminate in some grand tragedy. And Iomedae's paladin? Same thing. Soldier up, bucko. Here's Shelyn's checklist of the virtues she embodies, and while they may not be Iomedae's cardinal virtues, she still thinks all of them are a good idea, and are certainly better than their matching sins which will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

So as to the question of whether all paladins must be Kind, if you look at Iomedae, you'd think she might be brusk, disciplined, military in her precision with no time for mollycoddling, expecting folk to have a stiff upper lip because don't you know there's a war with evil and we're in it. But Cruel or Envious? Never. Same with her paladins. And if dealing with those suffering from emotional wounds or scarring, Iomedae might be awkward with such unfamiliar territory, but would do her best because that's what honor demands and she is the most honorable of goddesses.

She doesn't expect any less from her paladins, nor will she tolerate anything less.

Kevin, are you confusing nice with good?

It seems you are sure that a champion of good must always be nice and do what is decent? There are bigger things in play in a fantasy setting. Real evil to fight and counter. What if the paladin was a bawdy, rough joking knight before they went paladin? Will their non polite character doom them? Must they end their old selves and always be nice, always worry about causing minor offence? This seems off.

Ah, the "Into the Woods" dilemma. Indeed, nice is different from good.

Except when it isn't.

As I see it, a paladin is expected to be a paragon of all virtues, a shining beacon of goodness and hope. While the paladin's code can be based on the various historic codes of chivalry, most of those can be boiled down to the Golden Rule and the Wiccan Rede. If you cross "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" with "An it harm no one, do what thou wilt," you've got some basics of a moral compass.

Being a bawdy rough joking knight doesn't doom you, but it does if your bawdy rough jokes stray from merely causing offense to actively causing emotional harm and then you brazenly continue on your path, arrogantly denying the validity of the harm you've caused. This is a textbook illustration of the Sin of Pride.

If you want "Real evil to fight and counter," then the Seven Deadly Sins have to be at the top of that list, especially when you live in a world when these sins can take physical form as sinspawn.

Lust is also one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Precisely why are you telling bawdy jokes?

Certainly the dumb little princess in her sugarcoated world doesn't seem like a likely innocent to protect--surely the "real evil to fight and counter" must be lurking somewhere else--but if the Sin of Envy isn't working overtime in that court, with Covetousness and Wroth as backup dancers and cameo appearances by Gluttony and Pride, then you're not looking.

The Seven Deadly Sins are Lust, Gluttony, Covetousness, Sloth, Wroth, Envy, and Pride. They're countered by the Seven Heavenly Virtues, namely Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility.

The insecure little princess is asking about whether she looks fat because she's under assault from the Sin of Envy, personified by all the girls at court who envy her higher noble status and work their damnedest to crush her self worth by making her aware of ugly facts like the fact that she is fat. The paladin's brutal honesty is something she's been steered towards by their machinations.

Envy is countered by Kindness. If the paladin had been kind, he could have tempered his truthfulness with some honest praise of some other feature and then segued into some parable of Shelyn about inner beauty being true beauty and how the only way one can counter envy is with kindness.

Now admittedly this isn't being a holy knight smacking down evil monsters with a big sword, but if the Sin of Envy is planning to possess the most envious person at court, transforming them into a sinspawn, there can be some actual smackdown, the whole thing made more tragic with the knowledge that moments before, this vile creature had just been a stupid jealous girl conspiring to destroy the dumb little princess.

Beating things with a sword is all well and good, but any fighter can do that. For a paladin to be any sort of champion of good, he's going to have to be embodying all of the virtues, or at very least trying hard and admitting his failings. Being unkind to the insecure little princess in her fake sugarcoated world because you want to fight "real evils" is playing right into the hands of the Sin of Envy, not to mention Wroth and Pride, because the paladin feels that he's more virtuous for fighting "real evils," angry that he has to deal with such foolishness as insecure noblewomen, and also a small bit envious of their "sugarcoated" existence because they've never had to face "real evil."

So would I pull the paladin's paladinhood for being unkind? In a heartbeat. I'd then let him deal with the Envy sinspawn as an object lesson, then after that let him visit a cleric for an Atonement where the cleric would tell him about the Virtue of Kindness, as embodied by Shelyn, and how such inner beauty is the only thing that can triumph over Envy.

The bug heresy. I like it. Poor paladin.

"Crushing the spirit of an innocent girl? That's an evil act, and that's the sort of thing a paladin should lose his paladinhood for."

C'mon, it wouldn't crush her spirit, it is just an uncomfortable truth. If the paladin opts for truth he isn't being a courtier, but he shouldn't lose his paladin abilities. That is just a bit silly, although I did like your tick example.

So being just slightly cruel with an uncomfortable truth is not cause for loss of paladinhood but saying something kind but insincere is? A rather bizarre double standard.

But I'm positing more a case of the terribly insecure sheltered and not too-bright girl who, once she realizes she's been surrounded her whole life by lies and insincere flattery, leaps out of the tower window in a grand gesture of teen angst--and if you don't think that's possible, look at high school suicide rates.

I'm also thinking about a paladin being so high-and-mighty and preening about his virtue that he inadvertently causes great harm. A sin of omission rather than commission, but a sin all the same. If an innocent comes to a paladin needing protection but is instead given ugly truth, and this ends up leading to tragedy, is the paladin responsible? If you upheld truth but failed to protect the innocent, even from themselves, then you suck as a paladin.

I'd happily strip the paladinhood of a paladin who when faced with a choice between Kindness and Truthfulness, put Truthfulness on a pedestal and threw Kindness in the dustbin.

I'd ask the GM if stuff from 3.0/3.5 could be imported, get the Book of Vile Darkness, and go to whatever that spell is that lets you summon a little black bag of torture implements. Ditto various torture-themed magic items.

If that's not allowed, just get a book called Mexican Folkways, which should be at your local library, and check out all the traditional Catholic methods of mortifying the flesh, complete with illustrations. Then go look through books of historic torture instruments or search the web for them. Gaming books, for better or worse, tend to skip the most grisly.

Or just check out last week's Game of Thrones. The torture with the rat, the metal pot, and the heated poker? Actual medieval torture. It's also a way to torture someone with what you just have lying around the house, in case you can't afford those fancy choke pears and iron maidens.

He put a gun emplacement on the bridge? Where submarines or just about anything could take out the bridge supports? What sort of an idiot is he.

San Francisco has a great defensive set-up with the mouth of the bay. If you were going to put guns anywhere, you'd sensibly just re-use the gun emplacements from WWII.

And the US has gone medieval, huh? Fortunately I'm gaming tonight with the Prince of the Mists, so I think I'm set.

Since the White Witches of Irrisen don't mind cold, have lots of allies among the frost giants, and also need to import a whole bunch of goods to keep their frozen country going, my assumption is that they have a lot of trade going into their realm as well. Since they've got a war/cold war going on with the Lands of the Linnorm King, it's probably convenient to just use the nearby passage through Icestair in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords rather than just trekking over the back of the glacier, though that's probably an option too. Especially since if the frost giants raid any of the caravans, it's not like they'd have much use for any human-size items from Tian Xia, though these could be profitably traded with their winter witch allies.

Since Irrisen is the Russia analogue, they need to get their smoky caravan tea from somewhere, and that follows the logic of how smoked caravan tea came about in our world as well.

Great point, Digitalelf. I hadn't payed that any mind.

Nathan Nasif wrote:

And Arcadia (the 'Americas'), has been colonized by the Ulfen, Cheliax, and Andor. More of resource camps in the case of Cheliax and Andor I believe.

Huh, is that right? From what I remember the Ulfen were the only ones to have seen Arcadia. Can I get a source on that? Sounds pretty cool.

Is there any info on this "silk road"? I haven't really delved into the fluff of Tian Xia yet. How does Tian trade reach Avistan shores?

Here's the notation from the Pathfinder wiki: Path of Aganhei

The Path of Aganhei is the primary route bridging Tian Xia and Avistan, crossing the Crown of the World. The path was first charted by the Tian-Min explorer Amatatsu Aganhei, who charted it circa 1300 AR;[1] though his maps were thought destroyed, they resurfaced around 4300 AR, dramatically increasing trade between the two continents.[2] It is invaluable to the flow of trade despite its dangers.[3] Passage across the Path is treacherous, often requiring the aid of skilled guides.[4]

The Path is actually two overlapping trade routes, one connecting the Successor States with the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and the Sellen Passage, the other carrying travelers from Minkai to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.[5] The road begins in Hongal in Tian Xia,[3] crossing the Wall of Heaven through the Altan Zuud, climbs the High Ice at Ovorikheer Pass, descends back to the Outer Rim at Koumssa Gap, and enjoys relative safety as it passes through Hasanaliat and Urjuk before climbing the Rimethirst Mountains.[6] From there it branches, crossing the Stormspear Hills and ending at Kalsgard in the west[7] and running through miles of tundra toward Icestair in the east.[8]

I remember reading about this thing called kin recognition which argues that when we meet a new person for the first time the more traits we see in them that we believe we have (or people important to us), the more positive our first impression. I guess for a gaming business this is relevant because people's first impression is largely influenced by the artwork, particularly the covers. I know for me when I make a character its a lot like seeing myself as a character in a movie so I can see the importance in having iconics and artwork that people see similiarities to them. So surely more diversity in the artwork is better for Paizo.

If I was to play critic with the artwork it would be that there is still a lot of overly scantily clad iconics in the APG and Core. Why any female adventurer would be running about like the Oracle in the APG is beyond me. Female soldiers were body armour and helmets not tank tops when going into dangerous areas.

Also the south pacific is neglected by RPG products. The Aboriginal culture is the oldest living culture in the world and yet I've never seen it or an influence of it in a RPG product. I'd say that this is because of the lack of exposure and expertise by writers, artists and developers to the people and cultures of this corner of the world. I don't know how many of Paizo's stable are outside of the US and UK, but it would be nice to see a little slice of my part of the world in a quality RPG product.

I did a whole aboriginal section back in the early 90s when I did GURPS Wild Cards: Aces Abroad. Long out of print, admittedly, but it was done.

Apart from that, the only other aboriginal thing I remember seeing was the cover of some D&D product where the artist decided that orcs looked like aborigines with glowing red eyes. Probably not what anyone was wanting.

Going by RAW, even if the paladin has "no choice", they will fall. However, they can always atone via atonement; there is no RAW for unforgivable sins in Pathfinder. So it comes down to, is your choice worth the stain on your honor/soul/whatever?

Keep in mind that this is just RAW. A paladin's deity may be (and probably is) much more understanding of such situations. But it behooves a paladin to find a solution, any solution, that does not violate the code.

If the Nazis ask you whether you are hiding any Jews, you're in trouble. Of course, this is a paladin we're talking about. A paladin would say "yes", defeat the now-hostile Nazis, lead the Jews to safety, then return with an army to take out Hitler. The paladin code isn't for the average mortal--it's for a champion of right.

There's a difference between a champion of right and Superman. A 1st level paladin armed with nothing more than an olive fork can't destroy Asmodeus and it's not dishonorable for him to not even bother trying.

And it's important to note that it's "acting with honor" that's on the code and not the sub-examples of ways to act with honor, because it's easy to carve exceptions to those if you just think a little bit.

Let's say, for example, the one about not using poison. Poison-use has recently been moved from the list of "evil" things to the list of "Paladin-taboo" things because poison is not evil so much as it is dishonorable. The classic example is the sword fight from Hamlet where someone poisons a blade. Dueling is supposed to be an honor combat, witnessed by the gods and decided by some mix of skill and divine wishes. Adding poison is cheating, and cheating is dishonorable.

But let's say, for example, the children in the orphanage are infested with giant ticks. If the ticks are pulled out, the children will die, and this even happens if the ticks are killed by most means. How is the paladin to protect the children from death by the giant ticks?

Fortunately, the local druid has made a present to the orphanage, a reliquary helpfully marked IN CASE OF GIANT TICK INFESTATION, BREAK GLASS. The paladin does but inside finds a bottle of poison, along with explicit instructions from the druid of how much poison to feed the chilren so as to kill the ticks and not the kids.

Now if we run paladinhood as an insane punchcard computer, the paladin loses his powers, then goes to the cleric, asks for an Atonement, and is all "Bless me father, for I have sinned" as the cleric asks him about his sin, hears the story of the ticks, the orphans, and the druid's bottle of tick-killing poison.

The cleric will be all "Dude? Seriously? You're having to atone for THAT? It's not dishonorable to use bug killer on bugs. It's what it's for. You're not supposed to poison blades for duels, or people at a dinner party, or god's forbid poison a well, but killing stupid vermin is completely honorable, especially if you're doing it to save the lives of a bunch of innocent kids. Duh." And if this really happened, any cleric capable of casting Atonement is also going to be capable of casting Commune and is going to be asking their god some questions like "Did you really strip of a paladin of his powers for using bug killer to save orphans from giant ticks? Isn't the spirit of the law supposed to be more important than the letter? Are you sure you're not Asmodeus because you sure sound a lot like him?"

Honestly only Lawful Evil champions the letter of the law over the spirit. If you have a code set up by a Lawful Good divinity, the important thing is honoring the spirit of the code, not the precise letter. The business about lying, cheating, or using poison is meant as an example of things that are generally dishonorable, not a checklist of black-and-white morality. If the shy, insecure, and frankly plump princess asks "Does this dress make me look fat?" the paladin does not immediately fall for saying "You look lovely" instead of "As Iomedae is my witness, verily, it does."

Protecting the innocent is also on his list of job requirements, and if it takes a bit of insincere flattery to protect a shy and vulnerable girl, then that's the choice he has to make.

Crushing the spirit of an innocent girl? That's an evil act, and that's the sort of thing a paladin should lose his paladinhood for.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

The choice is clear: the paladin lies.

Then the Paladin falls.

In 3.5, it needed to be a gross violation, but in Pathfinder any violation makes you fall. That is the rule.

Sure, you can get an atonement without issue, but you are fallen Paladin unless you can afford that atonement.

Citation?