Paladins are Lawful Stupid


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DM_Blake wrote:
Just curious, but why isn't the paladin the party leader?

There's more than one sort of leader, especially in an adventuring party. The cleric will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with religious issues, divine magic, party healing, etc. The rogue will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with traps, interacting in urban environments, etc. The wizard will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with arcane magic, obscure magical lore, etc.

On the point of paladins not being suited to being followers, go look at any type of leadership book or training. One of the key factors of being a successful leader is being a good follower. Successful leaders are willing to admit they are not the best at everything and will delegate to/learn from those who are. Poor leaders often fixate on authority and position as the determining factors of decision-making ("I'm the boss, so just do it my way").

Generally, the paladin can act as either the obvious leader or as the moral compass. In many respects, the paladin can be more effective as the moral compass than as the obvious leader. It allows them to lead by example (generally the most effective way), rather than ordering people "do this, don't do that." Even as a moral compass, the paladin will often have more influence over the party's decisions in key moments than the obvious leader.


DM_Blake wrote:


Just curious, but why isn't the paladin the party leader?

A million points of Charisma, the perfect set of leadership skills, and the (typically) pompous superiority that usually goes hand in hand with all the "chosen ones" who rise into important positions within prominent churches.

On the counter point, paladins are not suited to be followers. First, a paladin will lose everything. Power, dignity, respect, etc., if he strays from Lawful Good, so there is almost no way he could follow anyone who isn't Lawful Good. Second, even other Lawful Good allies may have different goals and objectives that the paladin's church doesn't support, so following someone of a different faith is questionable. That leaves following only LG members of the same faith; anything else is reckless (and recklessness is the path to chaos...)

I'm not trying to imply that paladins must lead, but they sure are suited for it, and stupid or not, they're not well suited to taking direction from anyone else who isn't a ranking member of the same faith.

Yeah, everything I just said can go right out the window in any campaign as the paladin and the DM see fit. I'm just curious at how it worked out that your group's paladin...

The paladin follows a nobleman who is presently LN, but who tends to choose good, such that he will likely become LG by the paladin's influence. He is also a paladin of Altua (we're not using Golarion), a goddess of nobility, so it makes sense that he would respect and follow a true noble. And he is not the primary healer because the party has a super-dedicated cleric healer.

We also don't play paladins as necessarily "members" of their churches in any specific sense (it depends on the god: some have larger and/or more organized churches than others). In fact, my whole cosmology doesn't really work with conflicting churches, so this doesn't really come up.

Finally, while the party is Good, several are chaotic. But that doesn't have to fly in the face of LG; we understand CG simply to mean that those good people don't feel beholden to law and/or authority in order to good. But it doesn't mean they HAVE to break the law to be CG!

Anyway. That's how our group does it.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

My Favorite Paladin character:

The Party -- Yes, it was one of those groups of people. The one guy who wanted tremendous power and was willing to do whatever the situation permitted to get it. He was trying to find a vampire to turn him undead when I joined the party. The other players were better, but only by degree.

So, I decided the party needed a Paladin to play off.

Sedrick -- Back when dragons ruled the world, Sedrick was a "reptillian" [savage species template, +1 LA] human, one of the servants of the great Silver wyrm Hoomenai. In conflict with the followers of the great Black wyrm Trogalos, he was blasted by a spell and sent eons into his future: the "current day" campaign setting.

And he's appalled.

The Great Wyrms have passed on. Oh, current dragons are nothing to sneeze at, but they're nothing compared to the Mighty Ones. And the remnants of the people he knew are now vanished or, as with the "lizard men" and his fearsome foes, the "troglodytes", degenerate into nothing more than savages. And there are all these ... primates.

So, he continues being a paladin. It's a personal conviction, a tribute to his forgotten master. But it's not something that he would think to impose upon his mammalian allies. "It's a reptillian thing; you wouldn't understand."


I played a Paladin only once. He was actually lawful/stupid, for real. I think he ended up getting turned into a vampire after only a couple of adventures. Wasn't quite the shining beacon that he was supposed to be.

A buddy of mine had played one who has since become known as the cowardly paladin. After the entire group got wiped out by a Lich, he ran away and ended up jumping headlong into a portal...which turned out to be a Sphere of Annihilation.

Good times. :)


First let me preface this by stateing I do not in anyway shape or form enjoy paladins. I play wizards or clerics for the simple reason that I am a munchkin and enjoy having a charecter that can decimate entire nations at higher levels. I was challenged as a role plyaer to play a paladin so I did.
I rolled crappy stats and was looking to suicide the charecter asap.
I played him as a true noble paladin in the fact that he treated peasents as they should be never letting them forget their station or his.
I tried so hard to go out valiantly I charged the orc encampments. I charged the boss.
I did whatever I could to be noble and heroic and my friend playing the bard wouldnt let me die, HE wanted to suicide his charecter first so he'd heal me, I would heal him and no matter how hard we tried neither of us could die. Finally the DM said enough after 4 levels of this he let me roll a wizard and my buddy go back to being a rouge.

The only other time that I played a paladin was at a convention and we were all paladins that became fighters after I convinced the party to make a deal with the vamipres and be on our mary way. Instant loss of all pallyness.

Some players simply do not have what it takes to be a paladin. I am one of them, but thats ok I am not allowed to play rouges anymore after killing all the other party members and making a HUGE profit from an evil atrifact. Oh well back to playing wizards or clerics.


Best Paladin I ever played with had to deal with me and another player both being rogues(CG, but thieves nonetheless). When we acted in our roles of "freelance wealth distribution consultants" we just hid it from him. He kept us mostly on the straight and narrow, but we were good in all senses.

He was not the party leader. I'm not even sure I'd call him the moral compass for the party. But he was just a real nice guy, everybody liked. So we all tried our best to not upset him. If you've read the Dresden Files, he's a bit like Michael. He was humble and just did what needed to be done without looking for glory or recognition.


Dragonchess Player wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:
Just curious, but why isn't the paladin the party leader?
There's more than one sort of leader, especially in an adventuring party. The cleric will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with religious issues, divine magic, party healing, etc. The rogue will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with traps, interacting in urban environments, etc. The wizard will often be the leader when it comes to dealing with arcane magic, obscure magical lore, etc.

That's not really the definition of "leader" that we're talking about here.

You're talking about who goes in front, or who deals with the one specific challenge we're facing at the moment. That definition, while possibly correct "yes, the rogue is leading the party past the trap" is not what we're discussing here.

What we're looking for is the definition of leader as they person who makes decisions for everyone, who decides where we go and why, or at least, who moderates the discussion and accepts input/votes from the members and then takes charge and enforces those decisions. Also, who speaks for the party with one voice when the party needs representation in a conversation, etc.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

On the point of paladins not being suited to being followers, go look at any type of leadership book or training. One of the key factors of being a successful leader is being a good follower. Successful leaders are willing to admit they are not the best at everything and will delegate to/learn from those who are. Poor leaders often fixate on authority and position as the determining factors of decision-making ("I'm the boss, so just do it my way").

Generally, the paladin can act as either the obvious leader or as the moral compass. In many respects, the paladin can be more effective as the moral compass than as the obvious leader. It allows them to lead by example (generally the most effective way), rather than ordering people "do this, don't do that." Even as a moral compass, the paladin will often have more influence over the party's decisions in key moments than the obvious leader.

Even in a utopian group (country, culture, organization, or adventuring party, etc.) where everyone is equal and nobody is in charge, there are still situations where decisions must be made that affect everyone.

Those decisions can be put to a vote, or can be discussed and debated, but ultimately, someone has to say "OK, thanks for all the input, and the results of your voting/debating/etc. say we should do the following thing, so let's get started right away."

That guy is the leader, and those voices/votes he listened to may very well be moral compasses. There may even be multiple moral compasses pointing multiple directions.

When an adventuring group walks into town, and the sheriff meets them and asks them who they are and what they're doing in town, everyone can babble at once until the sheriff tells them to hush, or one voice in the party can speak up and offer introductions and explain what the party is doing.

That guy is the leader. He speaks for the party when everyone blurting out their own piece of a conversation is impractical.

Both of those leadership roles are exceptionally well suited to paladins. Likewise, paladins, at least in my view, are poorly suited to letting anyone else assume those roles and just meekly going along with it - too much is at risk for the paladin, including his class abilities, his esteem, maybe even his very soul, to allow such a thing.

At least that's my take on paladins, their alignment, their importance to their deity and their church, their own self-esteem, their charisma, their wisdom, and their class restrictions. When you bring all of that together, there is little room for a paladin to follow anybody who isn't a higher-ranking church member of the paladin's faith.


klofft wrote:

The paladin follows a nobleman who is presently LN, but who tends to choose good, such that he will likely become LG by the paladin's influence. He is also a paladin of Altua (we're not using Golarion), a goddess of nobility, so it makes sense that he would respect and follow a true noble. And he is not the primary healer because the party has a super-dedicated cleric healer.

We also don't play paladins as necessarily "members" of their churches in any specific sense (it depends on the god: some have larger and/or more organized churches than others). In fact, my whole cosmology doesn't really work with conflicting churches, so this doesn't really come up.

Finally, while the party is Good, several are chaotic. But that doesn't have to fly in the face of LG; we understand CG simply to mean that those good people don't feel beholden to law and/or authority in order to good. But it doesn't mean they HAVE to break the law to be CG!

Anyway. That's how our group does it.

This is very nice.

Of course a palidin would defer to the leadership of a good and just nobleman. He wouldn't be lawful if he didn't. When a noble says jump, the common folk (even most clergy) ask "how high" on the way up.

How interesting to have a noble in the group; I bet that's lots of fun.

Churches don't really have to be "in conflict" to be conflicting. It would be hard to imagine Charlemagne following a buddist monk's directives.

I like that your group knows the difference between LG and CG, and how that reflects on legal issues. Many people are not clear on that.


DM_Blake wrote:

When an adventuring group walks into town, and the sheriff meets them and asks them who they are and what they're doing in town, everyone can babble at once until the sheriff tells them to hush, or one voice in the party can speak up and offer introductions and explain what the party is doing.

That guy is the leader. He speaks for the party when everyone blurting out their own piece of a conversation is impractical.

Both of those leadership roles are exceptionally well suited to paladins. Likewise, paladins, at least in my view, are poorly suited to letting anyone else assume those roles and just meekly going along with it - too much is at risk for the paladin, including his class abilities, his esteem, maybe even his very soul, to allow such a thing.

At least that's my take on paladins, their alignment, their importance to their deity and their church, their own self-esteem, their charisma, their wisdom, and their class restrictions. When you bring all of that together, there is little room for a paladin to follow anybody who isn't a higher-ranking church member of the paladin's faith.

That sounds like a party speaker. I've been in plenty of groups with no real party leader. They worked fine.

And I just do not see why a Paladin MUST be a leader. Call it a difference of opinion I guess. I've seen plenty where they just went along doing good. As long as the party did not conflict with their goals and ideals all was well. Just remember that following someone does not mean BLINDLY following someone. As the saying goes... "Have faith in G-d. All others pay cash." for a great example, check out Fakey's play-by-post "A False Hope". Abe rocks, but is not a party leader per say.

It's a very restricted class. Fun to play if you can do it and as we've seen, some can't). So I hate to see them limited even more by preconceptions.


Why is it unlawful to follow the directives of someone who isn't lawful? In our 3.5 game, I'm the party leader, and I'm a NG bard.

Best paladin story... Well, our group's paladin is, according to my DM, one of the worst munchkins in the world. He never roleplays. He once even bought poison for the lizardfolk neutral ranger. He was pretty close to losing his pally powers when suddenly, he changed. It was like an illumination. He actually started roleplaying. We were on our ship, the Sea Kobold,(That's the name because I employed 65 kobolds to work for us on the drakkar, and I'm trying to set them on the path of good, one speech and gift at a time.)and we saw a sinking merchant ship. The paladin and me jumped aboard, healed the merchants, and got them back onto our ship, with their gold. This is the surprising part. The CG wizard goblin decided those merchants didn't need that money, so he tries to take it. The paladin goes: "You shall do no such thing!" And grapples him. Our jaws dropped. That was his greatest paladin moment. And, we couldn't believe he had actually roleplayed. So, I'd like to thank the paladin class for making a roleplayer out of a munchkin.


Kevin-Éric Bouchard wrote:
Why is it unlawful to follow the directives of someone who isn't lawful? In our 3.5 game, I'm the party leader, and I'm a NG bard.

Nobody's saying that it's "unlawful to follow the directives of someone who isn't lawful" - at least I'm not saying that.

But I did say that it would be unlawful to NOT follow orders of a just and good ranking noble. In societies that recognize nobles, those nobles are usually the law. If a duke tells a paladin (or anyone else) to do something, then that person had better do it. Not doing it is breaking the law - unlawful.

Now, true, some societies might be set up where nobles are just figureheads with zero legal authority. And some nobles may be overtly corrupt or evil. And some nobles, even those who are trying to be good and just may issue directives that are bad, perhaps even evil in nature. And again, some nobles are so petty, esquire for example, that nobody really needs to follow their directives because they are not empowered as the law of the land - even their own land.

Those are cases where a paladin wouldn't be obbligated follow the noble's orders unless he deemed that doing so was the right thing to do by his own set of ethics.


DougErvin wrote:
A good role model for a paladin is Balian in Kingdom of Heaven.

The Balian who slew an unarmed priest, or the one who was schtupping another man's wife?

That film's Balian was for the most part a man of conscience and nobility, granted ... but he was no paladin.

Interestingly enough, the historical Balian of Ibelin (who does not in the least resemble Bloom's character as portrayed in KoH) swore to Saladin in the aftermath of Hattin that he would never take up arms against Islam again ... and then promptly defended Jerusalem against the man who'd spared him.

Saladin, though, forgave him.


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Hi. I've been lurking on these messageboards for years now, without ever daring to post. I love some of the stories you people tell... but sometimes I find those stories too brief and sketchy for me to understand. There's a paladin story I would love to tell. I never did so, because in typing it up, I would feel compelled to ramble on about it in detail, for thousands of words. But now, seeing that thread title, I succumbed to temptation. And that includes telling a lot of background material, just so that you'll appreciate the incredible irony of what ultimately happened.

By the way, this story contains spoilers for the module "The Speaker in Dreams," and major, MAJOR, !!!MAJOR!!! spoilers for the adventure "Green Lady's Sorrow," from Dungeon magazine, issue #35. I didn't conceal them with spoiler buttons, because they are too fundamental to the story, so you'll have to consider yourself forewarned.

In my early years of GMing, when I gave up fudging die rolls, I came up with a substitute cheating technique: give the PCs some NPC allies, and if the PCs are having trouble, let the allies "think up" an idea to help. This was a last resort, to be used only if the party was about to get slaughtered, and the players couldn't think of any ideas themselves.

Many years passed, and I lost touch with all my players, except one. So he and I decided to play D&D one-on-one. Since we wanted a 4- or 5-PC party, he played 2 characters and I played another 2. That's right; I had NPCs as PCs. Of course, that's not quite fair; being the DM I knew secrets the player didn't. So I let the player make all the major decisions. One neat thing about the setup was that my PCs could serve as NPC allies. If the party was having trouble, I could have one of my PCs "think up" an idea to get the party out of trouble, if the player didn't think of it first.

Actually, it was kind of funny to play a character who didn't know what I, as a DM, knew. Sometimes, I would have one of my characters make a prediction. "I just KNOW that such-and-such is about to happen." I would always have such predictions proven wrong within a second. I often played that way just because it amused me.

More years passed, as my friend and I continued to game, and we made an observation: My cleric characters were annoying. They often based decisions on their religious convictions, not on practicality. Furthermore, they kept spouting religious talk which the player grew sick of hearing. Whenever the party considered doing something that looked dangerous, the player said "Let the cleric try it." Seriously.

So when we were playing "The Speaker in Dreams," and it happened that my cleric character got killed, my player had a request. "I'm tired of clerics for now. But we need a little bit of healing power. Maybe the cleric's replacement could be a fighter, with just a FEW levels of cleric?"

OMG!!! What a perfect setup!!! All I had to do was let the PCs rescue Alein, the female paladin in "Speaker in Dreams" who had been captured, and have her join the party! A paladin was just like the "fighter with a dash of cleric" we needed!

So I did that. And I wondered. A paladin is a religious type, too. Would the player find her annoying as well? Only time would tell.

So as the months passed, I established that the paladins of that land were not so squeaky clean. Alein belonged to an order which was important in the governing body. I loosely based my campaign world on Greyhawk, so I named the PCs' land the Viceroyalty of Ferrond. (Later in the campaign, the PCs would help Ferrond to declare independence of the Aerdy empire and become the Kingdom of Furyondy.) Ferrond bordered an evil kingdom called Iuz, with which there was an uneasy truce. Ferrond knew that Iuz would take any opportunity to weaken Ferrond, no matter how it violated the truce, so Ferrond also did all it could to deceive Iuz, violating the truce whenever it could possibly do so secretly. And this order of paladins, too, believed in deceiving evil forces whenever necessary.

One day, when my player was planning to lie to some evil NPC, he gave me a leery look and said "Alein doesn't have some code of honor against lying, does she?" I replied "There are some orders of paladins with such a code, but Alein's isn't one of them." The player replied "Good," and we moved on. Also, whenever the party was facing threat that looked too deadly, and it was clearly time to make a strategic withdrawal, the player would say "I suppose the paladin has a code against cowardice in the face of the enemy." I would reply "No, she's not suicidal. She doesn't feel that fighting a battle she could never win would help the greater good." The player would reply "Good," and we moved on. Okay, so the player seemed fine with Alein. Everything was hunky-dory.

Meanwhile, I was flipping through old "Dungeon" magazines, and found the adventure "Green Lady's Sorrow." It was fascinating! The premise was that a green she-dragon's fertile eggs had fallen into a crevasse too small for her to squeeze through. Below, the eggs got stolen by a bunch of monsters from the Elemental Plane of Fire. It seems that an efreeti got pulled into a "hedged prison" version of a Binding spell, and many other fiery monsters had gone there with him. So now the dragon, whose name was Pzyruxal, needs to recruit some adventurers, such as the PCs, to retrieve her eggs. Of course, once the dragon got her eggs, she would find some excuse to kill the PCs anyway.

What made this so incredible was the decision the PCs would have to make. The adventure pointed out that some PCs might have ethical problems with helping an evil monster. The adventure even specifically mentioned that a paladin, especially, would have a problem with it! I could easily imagine the defiant words Alein would hurl at Pzyruxal upon hearing the job offer. I rejected the adventure at first, for that reason...

...but then I thought about it some more. What would the player do? Would he accept, or refuse, the job? I just HAD to find out! I still hesitated, because the last time I had done an adventure like this I screwed up big time. I'm just not a very good DM. Still, the business of putting the players in a situation where you don't know what they'll do is one of the main reasons I play RPGs in the first place. I HAD to do it, despite the risks.

So I studied the adventure. Once, as I was doing so, my daughter, who would have been 4 or 5 at the time, asked me what I was reading. I described the adventure to her, and she guffawed. She exclaimed "Of COURSE you don't trust an evil monster!"

Holy spit. She was right. And if a 5-year-old could figure that out, surely my player, who had a knack for calling the right shots, could do so too.

So I reviewed all the 3E rules for what would follow. The dragon would try to snatch one of the PCs and hold her hostage. (Of course, it would have to be Alein, because she would act like she might not help anyway.) If that failed, the dragon would try to bomb the PCs with boulders. How would all of this turn out if I were using AD&D mechanics, for which the adventure had been written? I have no idea. But in 3.0, which I was using, Pzyruxal would almost certainly fail in these attempts, unless I would make some really unlucky die rolls, and the PCs could just move on to the next adventure.

Finally, I got around to running the adventure. It began when the dragon tested the PCs' mettle by flying over them, to see if they could resist her Frightful Presence ability. The paladin's Aura of Courage ability proved useful, giving the PCs a bonus for this, so they passed with flying colors. Yes, Alein was proving herself very useful. Surely my player would have no gripes with her now!

Then Pzyruxal described the job to the party. And to my surprise, the player accepted! He was lured by the promise of the dragon's treasure hoard, especially by the single most valuable item in it, a frost brand. "No problem," the player said.

So I launched the dialogue that I had imagined earlier. The paladin bursts out "*I* have a problem! My job is to protect Ferrond! And you want me to help an evil dragon?! And for what purpose - to free her children so she can raise them to prey on OUR children one day?!"

The dragon responded as suggested in the adventure text. "If you like, I'll promise that I'll take my children out of your territory."

Alein sneered. "Even if I trusted you to keep such a promise - which I don't - do you think it will console me to know that you'll prey on innocents in some OTHER land?!"

When the player insisted on taking the job, the paladin expressed her disapproval, but added "Still, you're my friends, so I'll do all I can to help you."

The player was immediately suspicious. Was Alein planning to betray them? As they head to the mountain where the eggs were, the player half-heartedly suggested "Maybe we could help her on condition that she'll give up killing, and turn to doing good instead?"

Alein snorted. "If you trust her to keep a promise like that, I have this castle in Greyhawk I'd like to sell you."

So the party goes into the hot caves, meets fiery monsters, gets badly burned, and brings some of the eggs up to the dragon. Pzyruxal inspects the eggs, and cries; one of the eggs got hard-boiled, and the baby inside was now dead. The player actually felt bad for her! Still, more eggs were still all right, and there were still more to fetch.

The player then bargained with the dragon. "Listen, there are dangerous fiery monsters down there. If we're going to search further, we need a good weapon to fight them."

The dragon agreed to fly to her horde and fetch the frost brand. While she was gone, the paladin snatched the hard-boiled egg, and put it in her pack. When the player expressed his disapproval, Alein shrugged. "The dragon obviously doesn't want it. What's the harm?" (In fact, Alein had some secret, but half-baked [hah!] plan. She knew that Pzyruxal would kill the party upon getting the eggs. She figured that maybe she'd get a chance to substitute the hard-boiled egg for the last one, and when the dragon came up with an excuse to attack, then she could reveal that the party still had the last egg, and Pzyruxal wouldn't dare attack them, then. This plan would never have worked, but who know what circumstances might change by the time the adventure was over? Maybe some lucky break would turn up.)

So Pzyruxal gives the party the frost brand, by far the most powerful weapon the party had ever had, and here's an incredible piece of irony: The frost brand goes to the person who could use it best. That's right: Alein.

The surprises in this adventure weren't over yet. When the party encounters the efreeti, whose name was Jafar, Jafar was angry to be disturbed at first. Then suddenly he got friendly, and the party was suspicious about why. The reason was that Jafar realized the party found a way into the hedged prison, so he could find a way out. The party was hoping to lead Jafar out, so maybe he and the dragon would turn on each other. What SHOULD have happened was that Jafar, in gathering up his servants and pets in the caves, would have found that the party had killed some of them. He should have made an unreasonable demand of retribution from the PCs, and when the PCs refused, he should have attacked them. But it didn't happen that way. By sheer coincidence, in the random choosing of which tunnels to follow, the party happened to reach Jafar's room before encountering any of the servants or pets. So Jafar had no gripes with them. He followed their directions right out of the crevasse, and encountered the dragon. And just as the player had hoped, Jafar and his companions attacked the dragon. The dragon won, hands down, killing Jafar. She was one bad mother!

By this time, I was feeling nervous. The party was almost finished gathering the eggs, and the dragon would surely slaughter the party. I just had to save the party. So I remembered my old technique of using an "NPC" to give the party valuable information. I made Alein tell the party that the dragon would betray and kill them. I felt I was cheating this way, using my PC as a voice for my DM omniscience, but I figured "what the heck."

And... the... player... exploded.

He started ranting to the paladin about how he had never liked her, nor her narrow-minded, intolerant ways. He said that the dragon had always shown perfect faith, delivering what she had promised. Alein? Hadn't. By pocketing the egg, she made it clear that she was planning to betray them.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I felt horrified and elated at the same time!

On the one hand, I felt offended that the player hated my character so much. On the other hand, it was fantastic that this incredible subplot was developing! Usually, the player didn't like the "roleplaying" aspect, and just wanted to kill monsters and take treasure. He often hated that acting in character would interfere with those more practical goals. Now, he was roleplaying in a way that was detrimental to the party's very chances of survival... AND HE DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT!!! THE PARTY WAS MARCHING TO ITS DOOM LIKE A LEMMING AND THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO TO STOP IT!!! EVEN CHEATING WASN'T WORKING!!!

I must be fair to my player. It wasn't his fault, I soon realized. I often had my characters say "I just KNOW this is going to happen," and promptly have their predictions proven wrong. How could I blame him for thinking that Alein was wrong about this?

So Pzyruxal gets the last egg (although the party erroneously believed that there was one more left to find) and says "Oh, by the way, there's one more little matter to clear up."

The player got nervous. "Um... what is that?"

The dragon breathed corrosive gas all over the party.

Now, like I said, I don't fudge die rolls anymore. I roll attacks, damage, saving throws, etc. in plain sight of the player. And by sheer luck of the dice, the PCs survived! (Though some just barely did.)

And this player knows when to hold 'em, knows when to fold 'em, knows when to walk away... and this was definitely time to run! The party fled into the crevasse. Hey, the whole premise of the adventure was that she couldn't fit in there! It seems pretty obvious now. The dragon raged, roared, tried to cause a cave-in down there... but ultimately had to give up. Bringing her eggs to a safer place was more important to her than killing the party.

Alein didn't say "I told you so." She didn't say "I hope you've learned your lesson. Never trust an evil dragon. In fact, never trust ANY evil monster or character powerful enough to kill you." There was no need. I'm sure the player learned his lesson.

The campaign went on for many more adventures. Every now and then, when my player considered doing something overly dangerous, and said "Forget it. I'm afraid my character will get killed," I would laugh and say "That's right. If anyone gets killed, you would want it to be Alein."

And the player would say "No! I don't want her killed! I LIKE her now!"


By the way, have I broken some Paizo messageboard rule of etiquette involving post length?


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Aaron Bitman wrote:
By the way, have I broken some Paizo messageboard rule of etiquette involving post length?

No, I don't think so. There a posts which are much longer than yours.

--
So, where did I put this blasted key?


DM_Blake wrote:
leader talk

Groups I've been a part of typically switch leaders often, maybe several times a session. It's a matter of who is most impatient.


DM_Blake wrote:
Kevin-Éric Bouchard wrote:
Why is it unlawful to follow the directives of someone who isn't lawful? In our 3.5 game, I'm the party leader, and I'm a NG bard.

Nobody's saying that it's "unlawful to follow the directives of someone who isn't lawful" - at least I'm not saying that.

But I did say that it would be unlawful to NOT follow orders of a just and good ranking noble. In societies that recognize nobles, those nobles are usually the law. If a duke tells a paladin (or anyone else) to do something, then that person had better do it. Not doing it is breaking the law - unlawful.

Now, true, some societies might be set up where nobles are just figureheads with zero legal authority. And some nobles may be overtly corrupt or evil. And some nobles, even those who are trying to be good and just may issue directives that are bad, perhaps even evil in nature. And again, some nobles are so petty, esquire for example, that nobody really needs to follow their directives because they are not empowered as the law of the land - even their own land.

Those are cases where a paladin wouldn't be obbligated follow the noble's orders unless he deemed that doing so was the right thing to do by his own set of ethics.

Where it really get's complicated is a decent, good, stubborn, completely incompetent ruler. Now stick the paladin in there, and have the Baron order his army to assault the orc horde in the rain (hamstringing the cavalry, the archers (wet bowstrings suck), and the footmen (mud is nasty to fight in)). On top of all this, have them attack an entrenched location with higher ground.

All of which is unnecessary because the King is on his way with his army, and the Baron only needs to keep the Orcs bottle up until reinforcements arrive.

Now you've really got a nasty situation for the Paladin. If he lets the Baron (again, he's a good guy, he's just very zealous and believes the gods will give him victory against the orcs who are evil) do his plan, the Baron's men will get slaughtered, and the king's troops will arrive tired and be attacked by a rested and ready horde. If he doesn't obey orders, he's breaking the law of the king and his rightful vassal (remember, the Baron swore an oath of loyalty to the Duke, and the Duke to the King, and the King to God). It's a lose-lose situation for a Paladin. All he can try to do is talk the Baron out of this foolish plan, but if he can't, he's going to be in trouble no matter what.


mdt wrote:

Where it really get's complicated is a decent, good, stubborn, completely incompetent ruler. Now stick the paladin in there, and have the Baron order his army to assault the orc horde in the rain (hamstringing the cavalry, the archers (wet bowstrings suck), and the footmen (mud is nasty to fight in)). On top of all this, have them attack an entrenched location with higher ground.

All of which is unnecessary because the King is on his way with his army, and the Baron only needs to keep the Orcs bottle up until reinforcements arrive.

Now you've really got a nasty situation for the Paladin. If he lets the Baron (again, he's a good guy, he's just very zealous and believes the gods will give him victory against the orcs who are evil) do his plan, the Baron's...

Quite the conundrum indeed.

But you forgot one recourse that the truly LG paladin would fall back upon.

He would realize that this situation was set up by a truly cruel, evil DM and he would focus all his righteous wrath on the DM and smite him until begs for mercy and rewrites a point of salvation into this evil scenario.

DM: wipes the blood off of his oft-smote face Uh, a royal messenger from the king just arrives in the nick of time. He, uh, says the king instructs the baron to delay his attack until reinforcements arrive or be found guilty of treason. The baron grudgingly obeys. cough Now can someone call 9-1-1?


DM_Blake wrote:


Quite the conundrum indeed.

But you forgot one recourse that the truly LG paladin would fall back upon.

He would realize that this situation was set up by a truly cruel, evil DM and he would focus all his righteous wrath on the DM and smite him until begs for mercy and rewrites a point of salvation into this evil scenario.

DM: wipes the blood off of his oft-smote face Uh, a royal messenger from the king just arrives in the nick of time. He, uh, says the king instructs the baron to delay his attack until reinforcements arrive or be found guilty of treason. The baron grudgingly obeys. cough Now can someone call 9-1-1?

haha,

See, problem with that is, I'm bigger than all my players except 1, and that 1 enjoys it when I do the evil GM bit. Add in the fact I fight dirty, and that I sit next to the knife rack in the kitchen when we play, and I'm safe from the LG paladin. :)


I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.


Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

I can't disagree, here. Lawful isn't blind obedience to authority, or at least, it doesn't have to be. Otherwise there would be no revolutions, and some, like England's, were quite peaceful.

Nor can we forget that there's a second half of the equation: goodliness, and if the paladin's supposed to be the epitome of what is good and right and just...that throws a wrench in there, doesn't it? :)

I'll hope for some more stories illustrating that. :) Not that we haven't had them--I'm just greedy.


Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

Hmmm... in a historic setting, the order of things is probably thought of as god-given, including the hierarchy in a feudal system. So, you might have the situation that disobeying your superior can be construed as upsetting the divine order of things. Depending on the religious tenets of the particular faith, this can be a grave crime - a god of rulership would see this as a grave, perhaps even mortal sin.

Stefan


SquirrelyOgre wrote:
Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

I can't disagree, here. Lawful isn't blind obedience to authority, or at least, it doesn't have to be. Otherwise there would be no revolutions, and some, like England's, were quite peaceful.

Nor can we forget that there's a second half of the equation: goodliness, and if the paladin's supposed to be the epitome of what is good and right and just...that throws a wrench in there, doesn't it? :)

I'll hope for some more stories illustrating that. :) Not that we haven't had them--I'm just greedy.

mdt wrote:


Where it really get's complicated is a decent, good, stubborn, completely incompetent ruler. Now stick the paladin in there, and have the Baron order his army to assault the orc horde in the rain (hamstringing the cavalry, the archers (wet bowstrings suck), and the footmen (mud is nasty to fight in)). On top of all this, have them attack an entrenched location with higher ground.

All of which is unnecessary because the King is on his way with his army, and the Baron only needs to keep the Orcs bottle up until reinforcements arrive.

Now you've really got a nasty situation for the Paladin. If he lets the Baron (again, he's a good guy, he's just very zealous and believes the gods will give him victory against the orcs who are evil) do his plan, the Baron's...

Hmm... a story illustrating a similar situation.

I think I faced a spectacularly worse version of this situation during the campaign I mentioned on the first page. Again, this is based on the Iron Kingdom campaign setting, so I will probably have to explain several terms.

Dr. Belmont, being a Warcaster, ended up leading a Warjack battlegroup (Steam powered pseudo-golems mindlinked to a Warcaster) and a contingent of Long Gunners (Riflemen armed with repeating Long Rifles) as the vanguard of a large relief force to an embattled town which was being attacked by a large Legion of Everblight force (A savage force of dragonblighted elves and orgun)alongside his party.

When they arrived, it was not only raining, but the town had effectively fallen and the the surviving troops had been pushed back to a new defensive line at the periphery of the town. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, there had not been time to evacuate leaving many civilians in the hands of a race with a nasty tendency to torture and mutilate captives.

That effectively left us with:
a) The depleted defense force which had failed to hold the town
b) A contingent of Warjacks low on fuel with no access to a refueling dump
c) A contingent of fresh infantry completely unsuited to street to street fighting and who ran the risk of wetting their powder in the rain

versus an opponent with:
1) An enemy specialized in close combat.
3) Savage conditioned beasts trained for war which, while possibly tired from the previous assault, nullified the impact of my Warjacks

The local commander (who also technically outranked us) was advocating an all out assault to liberate the civilians, which while an order motivated by a motivation to do good was not the smartest thing to do given that if the gamble failed (as it was likely to do, the peripheral hold of the town would be lost completely likely resulting in a siege to retake the town).

So we tried to talk him out of the idea and failed spectacularly when the Skorne started cutting up a civilian within sight of the defensive line to draw us out. There was no choice really.

As a Paladin, I was motivated by duty to the chain-of-command and to protect those who could not protect themselves, but I had a duty to best serve the realm, my faith and the men under my command.

As a group, we went from tent to tent explaining the situation to both the men and the sergeants. We told them of the impending orders the commander was going to issue. We told them that their officers (the party) would stand with them in the end regardless of their choice, but ultimately, the final choice lay with the men who would fight and die in the assault and that though Belmont would walk as a 'God-of-War' amongst the ranks if they so chose to, the decision was no longer his to make.

When the order went around and the commander brought the contingent together, the men refused to carry it out. As the commander began to bluster, there was a particularly powerful scene where the party ranger came forward and explained that unknown to the party (which was true), her husband was on the other side of the lines and now in the hands of the enemy (which was also true) and that regardless of what he was feeling now, she had it worst, but she would stand with the men regardless.

Either way, despite multiple attempts by the enemy to goad the troops into leaving the lines, we held the outskirts until help arrived, then led the push into the town. (Just on a note, the Ranger never found saw her husband again)

Might not have been the most LG decision I've made to undermine a legitimate authority, but it just felt right and naturalistic at that point to place the final decision out of his hands in the hands of those who would make or break the situation.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

mdt wrote:


Where it really get's complicated is a decent, good, stubborn, completely incompetent ruler.
Now you've really got a nasty situation for the Paladin. If he lets the Baron do his plan, the Baron's men will get slaughtered, and the king's troops will arrive tired and be attacked. If he doesn't obey orders, he's breaking the law of the king and his rightful vassal. It's a lose-lose situation for a Paladin.

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios."

Sure would be great if the paladin knew somebody who could change the weather.

Sczarni

Chris Mortika wrote:
mdt wrote:


Where it really get's complicated is a decent, good, stubborn, completely incompetent ruler.
Now you've really got a nasty situation for the Paladin. If he lets the Baron do his plan, the Baron's men will get slaughtered, and the king's troops will arrive tired and be attacked. If he doesn't obey orders, he's breaking the law of the king and his rightful vassal. It's a lose-lose situation for a Paladin.

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios."

Sure would be great if the paladin knew somebody who could change the weather.

Very simple solution here:

Paladin takes military command of the Baron's forces. Marches out into the rain (funny how visibility goes to hell right quick) and vanishes from sight. The Baron (most likely) will NOT be accompanying the assault force, so will be unaware of the following:

Pally-boy halts the column .5-1 miles from the originating destination, digs in, and prepares defenses. If he has access to a Druid/Cleric/Wizard who can Control Weather or something similar, all the best, make the camp a dry spot and begin to prep the battlefield. If not, no loss, simply make camp and ready defenses.

Tells the Baron: I WILL listen to your orders, and follow them to the letter, but I will NOT make militarily stupid decisions, simply because you're an idiot.

Tells the men: I value your lives as more than simple counters to throw away by blundering around.

Tells himself: I listened to righteous authority to the extent that it was RIGHT, didn't upset the order any more than I had to (no public "relieving of duty" BS), and still have a chance to do good with regards to this battle/my men.

all around, very Good, very Lawful, and ultimately more interesting than a simple suicide march in the rain.

Paladins can be sneaky, tricksy bastards when the need to be; they just have to be sure of their motivations and actions 100%. But hey, that's why you're playing a pally anyways, right?

As far as the Feudal God-King-Noble-Vassal-Serf idea; the Paladin actually TALKS to his deity on a regular basis, and is commonly granted direct divine intervention. That Noble does not have a more direct link to the God than Mr. Shiny Armor, unless he also is a Cleric/Paladin/Druid of the same faith. At least, that's how I envision the situation.

-t


Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

Lawful does not include the ability to disregard law, ignore legal authority, and make your own rules because you serve a higher calling.

That's quite chaotic.

The ends justify the means, even if the means include breaking the law, is never a valid path to follow for a LG character, especially one who will lose all his power and ability if he strays.

So unfortunately, while what you say is true, that his god made him a paladin so he can make things right, he still has to do so lawfully, which means obeying the law rather than making his own law whenever he disagrees with the real law.

Sometimes, "making things right" might mean he does his best to vanquish a horde of orcs in the rain despite the suicidal nature of the situation. Trust in his god to see him through.

Or maybe the attack isn't going to happen until morning, so he has the rest of the day and night to find another solution. Call in favors from his church. Offer payment to some local adventurers to raid the orc camp and eliminate their leaders and shamans. Whatever.

But in the end, the lawful paladin is going to need to obey the rightful authority of the Baron.


SquirrelyOgre wrote:
Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

I can't disagree, here. Lawful isn't blind obedience to authority, or at least, it doesn't have to be. Otherwise there would be no revolutions, and some, like England's, were quite peaceful.

Nor can we forget that there's a second half of the equation: goodliness, and if the paladin's supposed to be the epitome of what is good and right and just...that throws a wrench in there, doesn't it? :)

I'll hope for some more stories illustrating that. :) Not that we haven't had them--I'm just greedy.

Revolution isn't lawful. It's the exact opposite. Disobeying the law in ordedr to destroy the legal entity that makes the law and replace it with your own legal authority is just about as unlawful as you can get.

Now, if the current legal authority is evil, destructive, harmful to the people, then good citizens have to decide between good and law. And if the revolution against such a corrupt (read: unlawful) and evil authority is well-intended and their aim is to establish good and fair laws throughout the land, it becomes possible for a LG paladin to side with the rebellion, assuming that lies also within his church's directives - he will be establishing a much needed righteous legal authority rather than allowing the corrupt legal authority to continue doing harm.

It also helps if the rebels have a rightful heir to the throne on their side - almost every successful European rebellion throughout history included such a claimant to royal birthright.

As for goodliness throwing a wrench in there, no, not really.

No paladin can ignore half of his alignment and use that to justify actions that go against the half he's ignoring. Willing behaving in a chaotic fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's good is not LG. Nor is willingly behaving in an evil fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's lawful.

It's funny how a paladin has two alignment axes, but the majority opinion among players is that it's OK for a paladin to ignore one but never ignore the other:

1. Would you allow a paladin to slaughter whole villages of innocent men, women, and children, performing unspeakable acts of torture and villainy, because a king orders it? Would you as a DM allow him to remain a paladin? Of course not. That would be evil. But it would be Lawful Evil, so the paladin is only violating half of his alignment, and he's doing so because he is obeying the other half.

2. Would you allow a paladin to violate legal authority, disregard the laws of the local governor and the kingdom, run around and do whatever he pleases, stealing wealth and possessions from known evil villains, breaking and entering the thieve's guild without a properly issued right/warrant, and make his own laws, as long as he is serving good and helping people and "doing the right thing because it's good"? Most DMs would allow this, despite the fact that it is chaotic. But it would be Chaotic Good, which is still good, and most DMs I've known are often OK with that.

I don't see anywhere in the paladin class descriptiont that says "Paladins must be LG, but while they must always be good, they can choose whether or not to be lawful - sometimes it's OK to be Chaotic as long as Good is served".

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

The Gaming Den folks presented the germ for a Paladin dilemma that I thought was interesting.

A peasant named Lurgi comes to you, saying he as robbed and asking you to be his champion, if you should think his cause just, in winning his property back.

The items stolen: a suit of dwoemered armor and a reasonably powerful holy sword, items won by Lurgi's great uncle, a fighter of some reknown.

The thief: a paladin.

The reasons behind the theft: "Look, it's an open secret that this fellow and his family have been displaying the sword Fidelius and the armor above their mantle. And the legions of the High Priest Vagaunt are on the march in these lands. I simply walked into the farmstead and took the war-tools. Vagaunst's minions would have set fire to the place after draining the spirits of the family to power their Soulmounts.

"The sword and armor are powerful. Dangerous. And far beyond the means of a turnip farmer to keep safe. In return for the items, I pledged my honor and strong arm to protect his baron's lands --even though other realms might need me, too-- and to give my life for his and his family's, if that were necessary."

I think that would make a fun conflict.


psionichamster wrote:
Very simple solution here:

Maybe, maybe not.

psionichamster wrote:
Paladin takes military command of the Baron's forces.

Only if the Baron gives him that command. Historically speaking, the nobles running the show were often camped out on a hilltop near the battle observing the action, sometimes sending in new orders via messenger or banner. Being the commander does not automatically grant the right to disobey the noble leader who is the ultimate authority in charge of the military forces.

psionichamster wrote:

Marches out into the rain (funny how visibility goes to hell right quick) and vanishes from sight. The Baron (most likely) will NOT be accompanying the assault force, so will be unaware of the following:

Pally-boy halts the column .5-1 miles from the originating destination, digs in, and prepares defenses. If he has access to a Druid/Cleric/Wizard who can Control Weather or something similar, all the best, make the camp a dry spot and begin to prep the battlefield. If not, no loss, simply make camp and ready defenses.

Not if his orders were to attack. "Vanishing from sight" is not permission to disobey a direct order.

Laws are not meant to be enforced only when the legal authority is watching.

It is not OK to rob a bank just because no cops or judges are looking. It is not OK to kill a man just because no cops or judges are looking. And it is not OK to disobey the Baron's orders just because he isn't looking.

psionichamster wrote:
Tells the Baron: I WILL listen to your orders, and follow them to the letter, but I will NOT make militarily stupid decisions, simply because you're an idiot.

If "the letter" included attack the orc position, then setting up camp somewhere else is definitely not following the orders "to the letter."

Now we have added lying to the disobedience. This paladin is falling fast.

psionichamster wrote:
Tells the men: I value your lives as more than simple counters to throw away by blundering around.

Very nice. His good streak is showing. A neutral commander might value his own glory more than the lives of the men, and an evil commander might value the blood and carnage more than the lives of his men.

psionichamster wrote:
Tells himself: I listened to righteous authority to the extent that it was RIGHT, didn't upset the order any more than I had to (no public "relieving of duty" BS), and still have a chance to do good with regards to this battle/my men.

Is it up to the paladin to decide if it is "RIGHT"? Is he making this decision based on Good, Law, or both? It better be both, or he's in trouble.

The publicity of his disobedience is irrelevent to his god or his faith or his code. It might save him from a legal court marshal, it might save him from becoming an enemy of the Baron and being run out of the kingdom, but simply because he chooses to disobey rightful authority out of the public eye doesn't absolve him of that disobedience.

psionichamster wrote:
all around, very Good, very Lawful, and ultimately more interesting than a simple suicide march in the rain.

Very good, not very Lawful at all, and more interesting without a doubt. But this army is being led by a fallen paladin rather than a paladin.

psionichamster wrote:
Paladins can be sneaky, tricksy bastards when the need to be; they just have to be sure of their motivations and actions 100%. But hey, that's why you're playing a pally anyways, right?

When you say 100%, do you mean 100% Good AND 100% Lawful? Because this is not evident from your post.

psionichamster wrote:
As far as the Feudal God-King-Noble-Vassal-Serf idea; the Paladin actually TALKS to his deity on a regular basis, and is commonly granted direct divine intervention. That Noble does not have a more direct link to the God than Mr. Shiny Armor, unless he also is a Cleric/Paladin/Druid of the same faith. At least, that's how I envision the situation.

Talking to your god does not give you the right to disobey mortal law. If that law is corrupt (read: unlawful) and it only serves itself at the expense of the people, then arguments can be made that the law needs to be changed. This is a slippery slope for a paladin, but there can be room for changing the laws and/or replacing the corrupt authority.

But not on a whim. Not on the fly. Not at the paladin's sole discretion.

And the original Baron-Army-Orcs-Rain scenarion specifically stipulated that the Baron is good, just, and rightfully in charge, but just not very bright - none of which gives the paladin justification to disregard him as the legal authority.

Shadow Lodge

Steven Tindall wrote:

I tried so hard to go out valiantly I charged the orc encampments. I charged the boss.

I did whatever I could to be noble and heroic and my friend playing the bard wouldnt let me die, HE wanted to suicide his charecter first so he'd heal me, I would heal him and no matter how hard we tried neither of us could die.

That is just awesome.


Chris Mortika wrote:

The Gaming Den folks presented the germ for a Paladin dilemma that I thought was interesting.

A peasant named Lurgi comes to you, saying he as robbed and asking you to be his champion, if you should think his cause just, in winning his property back.

The items stolen: a suit of dwoemered armor and a reasonably powerful holy sword, items won by Lurgi's great uncle, a fighter of some reknown.

The thief: a paladin.

The reasons behind the theft: "Look, it's an open secret that this fellow and his family have been displaying the sword Fidelius and the armor above their mantle. And the legions of the High Priest Vagaunt are on the march in these lands. I simply walked into the farmstead and took the war-tools. Vagaunst's minions would have set fire to the place after draining the spirits of the family to power their Soulmounts.

"The sword and armor are powerful. Dangerous. And far beyond the means of a turnip farmer to keep safe. In return for the items, I pledged my honor and strong arm to protect his baron's lands --even though other realms might need me, too-- and to give my life for his and his family's, if that were necessary."

I think that would make a fun conflict.

Except the paladin/thief is not a paladin any more. He broke the law. He stole. Unless somehow he lives in a place where the rightful authorities have enacted laws that say "Go ahead and steal whatever you want from anyone you want; Theft is not against the law". I doubt such a law has been passed (and if so, the other paladin is not the least bit obligated to help this farmer).

So the decision is simple.

The paladin should consider it a valid cause to hunt down the ex-paladin/thief who stole the items. Whether or not he does is another issue - maybe he's on a more important mission.

But there is no conflict here.

Me, I would go after the fallen paladin and try to retrieve the items and also try to helpt that paladin find atonement to return to paladinhood. It sounds like this kingdom needs more paladins to fight this evil legion. That paladin might even gain atonement by returning the items then pledging himself to the defense of the farmer and his lands and holy relics.

Of course, I'd also try to diplomatically impress upon the farmer the need to donate or loan those relics to the authorities who can use them and keep them out of evil hands.


Dragonborn3 wrote:
Steven Tindall wrote:

I tried so hard to go out valiantly I charged the orc encampments. I charged the boss.

I did whatever I could to be noble and heroic and my friend playing the bard wouldnt let me die, HE wanted to suicide his charecter first so he'd heal me, I would heal him and no matter how hard we tried neither of us could die.
That is just awesome.

Actually, I found it to be sad rather than awesome.

Two players who were somehow talked into laying something they didn't want to play and who found no enjoyment from the game they were playing.

Sad.

Shadow Lodge

"Aaron Bitman' wrote:
AND HE DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT!!! THE PARTY WAS MARCHING TO ITS DOOM LIKE A LEMMING AND THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO TO STOP IT!!! EVEN CHEATING WASN'T WORKING!!!

Thank the gods above for Fun Wtih Paladins! Made just for DM entertainment!

Great Post.


Stebehil wrote:
Kuma wrote:

I always figured Paladins served their god foremost and any earthly authority second. If the baron is incompetent, then there's no conflict. Your god made you a paladin so that you would have the power to make things right, not so you could muddle along like any old knight following stupid orders.

That hierarchy bugs me too; the baron to duke, duke to king, king to god thing. The paladin serves his god directly, moreso than the king. I can see him bowing to superior clergy, but not to any old king. How about, take the baron to a quiet room and reprimand him soundly for being such an idiot. If necessary, confine him based on the authority of your divine patron and take command until the king arrives. I don't see that as a chaotic mutiny, but as a lawful relief of command.

But then, I'm known for being more than a bit chaotic at times.

Hmmm... in a historic setting, the order of things is probably thought of as god-given, including the hierarchy in a feudal system. So, you might have the situation that disobeying your superior can be construed as upsetting the divine order of things. Depending on the religious tenets of the particular faith, this can be a grave crime - a god of rulership would see this as a grave, perhaps even mortal sin.

Stefan

This was the gist of my original post. If you look back at England, the king was king 'By The Grace of God'. He was divinely chosen by god. So, a Paladin would be in a pickle, since god chose the king, and the king chose the baron. Didn't say the Paladin would necessarily follow the stupid orders, did say he would have a very nasty conundrum that would be a very very very prickly path to walk. More than likely, his conflicting requirements would cause him to break one or more of his oaths, which is a violation that would require an Atonement spell.


DM_Blake wrote:

No paladin can ignore half of his alignment and use that to justify actions that go against the half he's ignoring. Willing behaving in a chaotic fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's good is not LG. Nor is willingly behaving in an evil fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's lawful.

It's funny how a paladin has two alignment axes, but the majority opinion among players is that it's OK for a paladin to ignore one but never ignore the other:

1. Would you allow a paladin to slaughter whole villages of innocent men, women, and children, performing unspeakable acts of torture and villainy, because a king orders it? Would you as a DM allow him to remain a paladin? Of course not. That would be evil. But it would be Lawful Evil, so the paladin is only violating half of his alignment, and he's doing so because he is obeying the other half.

2. Would you allow a paladin to violate legal authority, disregard the laws of the local governor and the kingdom, run around and do whatever he pleases, stealing wealth and possessions from known evil villains, breaking and entering the thieve's guild without a properly issued right/warrant, and make his own laws, as long as he is serving good and helping people and "doing the right thing because it's good"? Most DMs would allow this, despite the fact that it is chaotic. But it would be Chaotic Good, which is still good, and most DMs I've known are often OK with that.

I don't see anywhere in the paladin class descriptiont that says "Paladins must be LG, but while they must always be good, they can choose whether or not to be lawful - sometimes it's OK to be Chaotic as long as Good is served".

Exactly!

I have never allowed anyone to play a Paladin and play only half his alignment. They can do whatever they want, but if they violate any half of their alignment enough, bamph, powers go bye-bye.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons I rarely see anyone want to play a Paladin. The alignment restrictions are severely limiting on your character. Being both Lawful and Good is very difficult, because eventually those two competing masters come into conflict. Often it may come down to praying to your god for guidance and trying to muddle through the best you can and then getting a cleric of your church to cast an atonement for you.

And I don't see a problem with this. No one is perfect, even a Paladin. He can and will get into situations where he screws up, or where he can't satisfy all his competing requirements. When that happens, just like any other mortal, he does the best he can, and trusts his god will forgive him for not finding the perfect solution.

Sczarni

in response to DM_Blake:

In general, I would allow for the Paladin in charge of a group of men to disobey foolish and wrong orders, if not doing so would lead to their death/capture; especially when to do so would result in the loss of a position / failure at a military objective.

This is not to say there would be no repercussions for this, merely that the Paladin is NOT obliged to follow orders that would result in greater evil/chaos. Basically, by throwing away his mens' lives and any chance at success at the objective, this leader(Baron) has shown he is NOT a Good, Just, Moral Authority to be Obeyed. He has proven himself militarily incompetent, and should be removed from command.

But, that is my opinion on the matter, it is obvious you feel more stringently towards the obedience even in the face of immoral orders clause of Law.

To each his own, I would say.

As far as "Lawful Stupid" paladins, I once had a player with a Paladin/Monk in an Eberron game. Not only was he all but useless at the lower levels, he deliberately planned out his advancement so as to be all but unassailable from about level 9 on. I mean, ridiculous saves, fast movement, good AC, and good perception abilities.

He was the party Talker and Public Face of the group, and was almost always able to go first and ask for Parley or Surrender (depending on the situation.) This was VERY useful to me as a DM, as it gave me the opportunity to actually have NPC's interact with the group in more than a "hit you with a sword" manner.

BUT...he was all but useless in melee combat, until the very end of the campaign (about level 14-15 or so). His horses usually did more to win the fights than he did in person.

In fact, as the party was going through the re-written "White Plume Mountain" adventure, he was the only one of them to be killed. In one end of the dungeon, there's a giant crab creature. Huge or Gargantuan, I forget which, this thing is massive and is the Big Bad of this area.

What does he do?

Charges PAST the monster, looking to secure the doohickey they were looking for and skeedaddle. He doesn't care that will provove and AoO, and is unconcerned by the massive claw-monster across the way. Wouldn't you know, he hits with the claw, grabs and constricts. A little bit later, the monster gets to go, and its Claw/Claw/Constrict once again. This time, 2 Paladins drop down, or rather 2 halves of the same one.

He was reincarnated as a Halfling, and was later killed/reincarnated several more times until he came back as human. It was really funny to me and the rest of the party, and we still talk about him to this day.

-t


mdt wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:

No paladin can ignore half of his alignment and use that to justify actions that go against the half he's ignoring. Willing behaving in a chaotic fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's good is not LG. Nor is willingly behaving in an evil fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's lawful.

It's funny how a paladin has two alignment axes, but the majority opinion among players is that it's OK for a paladin to ignore one but never ignore the other:

1. Would you allow a paladin to slaughter whole villages of innocent men, women, and children, performing unspeakable acts of torture and villainy, because a king orders it? Would you as a DM allow him to remain a paladin? Of course not. That would be evil. But it would be Lawful Evil, so the paladin is only violating half of his alignment, and he's doing so because he is obeying the other half.

2. Would you allow a paladin to violate legal authority, disregard the laws of the local governor and the kingdom, run around and do whatever he pleases, stealing wealth and possessions from known evil villains, breaking and entering the thieve's guild without a properly issued right/warrant, and make his own laws, as long as he is serving good and helping people and "doing the right thing because it's good"? Most DMs would allow this, despite the fact that it is chaotic. But it would be Chaotic Good, which is still good, and most DMs I've known are often OK with that.

I don't see anywhere in the paladin class descriptiont that says "Paladins must be LG, but while they must always be good, they can choose whether or not to be lawful - sometimes it's OK to be Chaotic as long as Good is served".

Exactly!

I have never allowed anyone to play a Paladin and play only half his alignment. They can do whatever they want, but if they violate any half of their alignment enough, bamph, powers go bye-bye.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons I rarely see anyone want to play a Paladin. The alignment restrictions are...

I disagree with that assessment, not because I want Paladins to weasel out of important role-playing decisions but because a top centric Lawful aspect neglects the concept of the social contract and that ultimately the failure to fulfill a ground up perspective also leads to a breach of law.

In the 'Men-in-the-Rain' example, the Paladin commander has not only a duty towards the chain-of-command, but as a military commander, has a lawful duty towards his men that he will lead them and they will serve him on grounds that he will not needlessly place them in a situation where their sacrifice will be in vain.

A Paladin who blindly follows his lords orders is ultimately jeopardizing the latter part of his duty in much the same way as his lord is doing so. Under such circumstances, the Paladin's DUTY is to ensure that the chain-of-command is over-ruled as by failing the his duty towards his men, the lord has failed in his function as a feudal lord and the Paladin's duty towards Law AND Good dictates that he should not follow this unlawful command despite his superior's rank.

There will be obvious repercussions to acting in such a fashion, obviously, and duty dictates the Paladin face them rather than shield himself from the circumstances. Unless obviously a gross violation of the code, in my opinion, the deciding factor is not the Paladin's course of action, merely how he/she picks up the pieces afterwards.

The Why is very often just as important as the how.


mdt wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:

No paladin can ignore half of his alignment and use that to justify actions that go against the half he's ignoring. Willing behaving in a chaotic fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's good is not LG. Nor is willingly behaving in an evil fashion and claiming he's doing it because it's lawful.

It's funny how a paladin has two alignment axes, but the majority opinion among players is that it's OK for a paladin to ignore one but never ignore the other:

1. Would you allow a paladin to slaughter whole villages of innocent men, women, and children, performing unspeakable acts of torture and villainy, because a king orders it? Would you as a DM allow him to remain a paladin? Of course not. That would be evil. But it would be Lawful Evil, so the paladin is only violating half of his alignment, and he's doing so because he is obeying the other half.

2. Would you allow a paladin to violate legal authority, disregard the laws of the local governor and the kingdom, run around and do whatever he pleases, stealing wealth and possessions from known evil villains, breaking and entering the thieve's guild without a properly issued right/warrant, and make his own laws, as long as he is serving good and helping people and "doing the right thing because it's good"? Most DMs would allow this, despite the fact that it is chaotic. But it would be Chaotic Good, which is still good, and most DMs I've known are often OK with that.

I don't see anywhere in the paladin class descriptiont that says "Paladins must be LG, but while they must always be good, they can choose whether or not to be lawful - sometimes it's OK to be Chaotic as long as Good is served".

Exactly!

I have never allowed anyone to play a Paladin and play only half his alignment. They can do whatever they want, but if they violate any half of their alignment enough, bamph, powers go bye-bye.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons I rarely see anyone want to play a Paladin. The alignment restrictions are severely limiting on your character. Being both Lawful and Good is very difficult, because eventually those two competing masters come into conflict. Often it may come down to praying to your god for guidance and trying to muddle through the best you can and then getting a cleric of your church to cast an atonement for you.

And I don't see a problem with this. No one is perfect, even a Paladin. He can and will get into situations where he screws up, or where he can't satisfy all his competing requirements. When that happens, just like any other mortal, he does the best he can, and trusts his god will forgive him for not finding the perfect solution.

You and I seem to think a lot alike on this one.

Me, I'm not too harsh on the paladin, or the paladin's player. I see my role as the DM to help act as the paladin's conscience. My player and I may not see entirely eye to eye about the right course of action, so if he asks me, or if I see him undertaking an action that would be punitive for him, I'll speak up and say "hey, this is the wrong way to handle this."

At least once. But that doesn't mean I'll tell him the right way. He thinks up a plan, and I will offer a pass/fail condition from his conscience.

I'm also a bit forgiving as a paladin's god. If the poor paladin is in a no-win situation and does the best he can, I don't think his god will strip him of his powers on the spot. Paladins serve their gods and get stuff done. Ex-paladins don't. It's in the god's best interest to keep his paladin in service, as a fully-powered paladin, and maybe get the paladin to perform some sort of service to "rededicate" himself after his transgression.

Of course, that's a bit dependent on the magnitude of the transgression and the availability of better choices.


Perhaps part of the trouble that comes from playing a paladin is the alignment system. Discussions like the above are fairly typical in the DnD atmosphere--we run into them quite often, and they're part and parcel of playing the game. I think what it generally proves is that there's no single interpretation.

When playing a paladin, myself, I always sit down with the DM and ask what their interpretation is. They're the one running the game, after all. Maybe a new thread could be: my alignment system, and this is why I run it this way.

I'm always saddened that the monk and barbarian don't get similar treatment--the monk's version of Law is frequently taken in play as being more personal, I think. I'd like to see them discussed in such a thread in detail, too. How have you handled it as a player? As a DM?

So--could we post our stories here, and perhaps move the other to a different thread? :) One in which I will happily contribute to? I didn't want to interrupt earlier, but it seems if I don't, we're going to go wandering again.

Dark Archive

DM_Blake wrote:
I'm also a bit forgiving as a paladin's god. If the poor paladin is in a no-win situation and does the best he can, I don't think his god will strip him of his powers on the spot. Paladins serve their gods and get stuff done. Ex-paladins don't. It's in the god's best interest to keep his paladin in service, as a fully-powered paladin, and maybe get the paladin to perform some sort of service to "rededicate" himself after his transgression.

And there's the vast majority of 'problems' with these sorts of situations. The DM goes out of his way to put the Paladin in a 'gotcha' alignment trap situation, just to mess with him, and then says, 'HA ha!'

It's just messing with the player, which fall under the 'don't be a dick' rule.

It was much worse back in the days of the Paladin-Cavalier, when the character was required to be of higher social standing to the rest of the party, and encouraged by the flavor text to regard the rest of the party as henchmen to be ordered around. That situation was so bad that it's been decades, and none of my regular gaming group will go near the class because of the memories of TPKs and lost friendships brought about by arguments about what a Paladin would do if you killed his prisoner or interfered in his 'honorable fight' or took an item of treasure that he decided was 'his.' (I can remember three campaigns, with completly different people in them, in different states even, that ended when the Paladin decided that his code of conduct applied to the rest of the party, and attacked them for doing something he disagreed with.)

In 3.5, the Paladin class is not super-powerful, unlike the 1st edition Fighter-plus-a-bunch-of-powers Paladin, and so I see no balance need at all for the code of conduct or super-strict 'alignment violation' penalties (nor the loss of class features upon alignment change or multiclassing restrictions on Monks, Bards or Barbarians, for that matter, and I could care less for the Druid ones!). It's flavor, and like too much salt, it's flavor I can do without.

Some Paladins are gonna be all 'greater good' and do things that make others flinch. Other Paladins are gonna be all 'by the book' and stand by and watch horrible things happen, but do nothing, because they feel compelled to 'do things right.' And when they *really* screw up, that's what Atonement is for. Mistakes happen.


Set wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:
I'm also a bit forgiving as a paladin's god. If the poor paladin is in a no-win situation and does the best he can, I don't think his god will strip him of his powers on the spot. Paladins serve their gods and get stuff done. Ex-paladins don't. It's in the god's best interest to keep his paladin in service, as a fully-powered paladin, and maybe get the paladin to perform some sort of service to "rededicate" himself after his transgression.

And there's the vast majority of 'problems' with these sorts of situations. The DM goes out of his way to put the Paladin in a 'gotcha' alignment trap situation, just to mess with him, and then says, 'HA ha!'

It's just messing with the player, which fall under the 'don't be a dick' rule.

My post inspired this response?

I thought I was pointing out that I give paladins (and their players) quite bit of guidance to avoid the alignment traps and some leeway when they can't.

I guess it goes to (once again) prove that two different people can see the same words and derive completely different meanings from them. Oh how this world would be so much a better place if all of us simply read/heard what is written/spoken without shading it with our own inferences...

By the way, that's not an attack on you, but a non-specific lamentation about the human mind in general - which is why I am glad I am a tarrasque.

Dark Archive

DM_Blake wrote:
Set wrote:
It's just messing with the player, which fall under the 'don't be a dick' rule.
My post inspired this response?

Yes, if the DM does like you do, and doesn't 'set traps' for the Paladin player, then these sorts of discussions become moot. I went on to describe how I also would prefer to give some leeway, rather than set up the antagonistic 'gotcha' game that some of the upthread examples provide, which literally seem to be setting the character up to fail.

I was agreeing with you, and pointing out that much of the problem is people *not* acting like you.

Obviously I did a crap job of it. :)


I played a Paladin long ago (about 15 years), he was a Paladin of Tyr in the FR setting, with Rolemaster rules. I have forgotten many details of it all by now, but a few were worth remembering.

Sir Garvin knew that the adventurers he was about to meet had a place in the greater scheme of things, but they were a ragtag band nevertheless. In their first adventure, he set the tone while exploring some dungeon where Drow lived - a number of Drow attackers cast a darkness over the party to prepare an attack. Sir Garvin countered with a spell of holy light, blinding the drow so much that they were helpless, standing right in front of him and covering their eyes with their hands. He swung his two-handed sword in one great arc, beheading the four drow all at once. Killing the helpless? Sure - they are not helpless for long, and there were many more of them. The other members of the party saw this, and were cowed, so much so that they made my paladin more or less the leader.

Much later, we found a book filled with black magic spells, which one of our band would have liked to have (a warlock), but I destroyed it instead, and did not hear a single word of protest. Things like this happened several times, IIRC.

Stefan


Set wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:
Set wrote:
It's just messing with the player, which fall under the 'don't be a dick' rule.
My post inspired this response?

Yes, if the DM does like you do, and doesn't 'set traps' for the Paladin player, then these sorts of discussions become moot. I went on to describe how I also would prefer to give some leeway, rather than set up the antagonistic 'gotcha' game that some of the upthread examples provide, which literally seem to be setting the character up to fail.

I was agreeing with you, and pointing out that much of the problem is people *not* acting like you.

Obviously I did a crap job of it. :)

Oh, my bad then.

See, there we go, either way, two people see the same words and get totally different meanings.


DM_Blake wrote:
Revolution isn't lawful. It's the exact opposite. Disobeying the law in order to destroy the legal entity that makes the law and replace it with your own legal authority is just about as unlawful as you can get.

Not sure if I agree entirely with the interpretation of Lawful here.

Then again, I'm sure lots of people disagree on which of the various interpretations of Law vs. Chaos is correct, and my opinion is just that, an opinion.

I tend to favor the old 1st edition viewpoint on Law vs. Chaos, instead of Lawful meaning "I follow the law" it was "I believe laws are a good way to accomplish my goal of X" where X was either the greater good of the many over the few (Lawful Good), the maintenance of the status quo and the balance of good vs evil (Lawful Neutral), or the improvement of your own position (Lawful Evil).

Going by that definition, a Lawful Good character would find it perfectly reasonable to cast off a corrupt and evil ruler in order to found a more just society that supports the masses.


DM_Blake wrote:

You and I seem to think a lot alike on this one.

Me, I'm not too harsh on the paladin, or the paladin's player. I see my role as the DM to help act as the paladin's conscience. My player and I may not see entirely eye to eye about the right course of action, so if he asks me, or if I see him undertaking an action that would be punitive for him, I'll speak up and say "hey, this is the wrong way to handle this."

At least once. But that doesn't mean I'll tell him the right way. He thinks up a plan, and I will offer a pass/fail condition from his conscience.

I'm also a bit forgiving as a paladin's god. If the poor paladin is in a no-win situation and does the best he can, I don't think his god will strip him of his powers on the spot. Paladins serve their gods and get stuff done. Ex-paladins don't. It's in the god's best interest to keep his paladin in service, as a fully-powered paladin, and maybe get the paladin to perform some sort of service to "rededicate" himself after his transgression.

Of course, that's a bit dependent on the magnitude of the transgression and the availability of better choices.

Yep. As I said, the guy has to do the best he can and trust his god will understand he did his best. If he did the best he could, and there were no good choices, only less bad ones, then his god doesn't strip his powers, but that doesn't mean the Paladin isn't going to have issues (from the example scenario, if he leads the attack and succeeds, he get's some glory, followed orders, but his god is probably not happy he didn't talk the guy out of it, the king is pissed cause he expected the Paladin to be the Baron's military advisor, etc. If he attacks and fails, he's either dead or captured, and the king and baron are both pissed. If he lies about obeying the orders, his god is pissed at him for lieing, his baron is pissed at him for ignoring orders, and while the king might be glad he didn't get anyone killed, he can't back a subordinate lieing to the Baron, bad for chain of command.)

Honestly his best option, IMO, would be to 'hand in his resignation' to his Baron. "Sir, in all honor, I cannot obey your order. I believe it to be tactically unsound, and while I have the utmost respect for you as a ruler, it is unfortunate that in this instance, I cannot follow your lawfully given order. I will submit to whatever punishment you deem fit, but I beg you do not give that order to my replacement." The fact that the Pally is willing to walk away in chains should convince a good (but tactically incompetent) baron to rethink his situation. The Pally is probably out of a job, but he's the only one inconvenienced.


Brodiggan Gale wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:
Revolution isn't lawful. It's the exact opposite. Disobeying the law in order to destroy the legal entity that makes the law and replace it with your own legal authority is just about as unlawful as you can get.

Not sure if I agree entirely with the interpretation of Lawful here.

Then again, I'm sure lots of people disagree on which of the various interpretations of Law vs. Chaos is correct, and my opinion is just that, an opinion.

I tend to favor the old 1st edition viewpoint on Law vs. Chaos, instead of Lawful meaning "I follow the law" it was "I believe laws are a good way to accomplish my goal of X" where X was either the greater good of the many over the few (Lawful Good), the maintenance of the status quo and the balance of good vs evil (Lawful Neutral), or the improvement of your own position (Lawful Evil).

Going by that definition, a Lawful Good character would find it perfectly reasonable to cast off a corrupt and evil ruler in order to found a more just society that supports the masses.

Yep, that's pretty much what I said too.

"Corrupt" by its very definition is unlawful. If the corrupt legal officials are following the law, then they are not corrupt at all.

So if they are corrupt, they are lawbreakers and viallains, even if they are not evil.

Corrupt offials/rulers need to be replaced by lawful ones (at least any Lawful individual would certainly think so). Thus a paladin would be willing to undertake that task. But of course, the paladin must be absolutely sure that there is corruption, and Detect Evil won't necessarily help him even one bit. And he surely can't take the word of the people, or take the word of the guy who wants the job, or really take anyone's word for it except maybe a higher authority in the government structure or his curch, and even that should be taken with some effort to find his own proof.

The sticky part is figuring out who should replace the corrupted ruler when the task is done. Not just anyone. Not even anyone the paladin thinks is going to do a good job. It really helps to have someone with a birthright claim to the title to step in, or to have a higher secular authority handle the replacing.


I have recently been informed that I am now infamous for causing this paladin story, which might be lawful stupid for some but was pretty cool in my book.

The party are engaged in a protracted battle against an evil cleric and his minions. They can raid with impunity, but earlier in the campaign one of the cleric's evil minions managed to kill the paladin. She set his corpse up where the party would surely find it on their next foray. The paladin was impaled on his own sword and, because this is the kind of person she is, castrated.

Raise dead is not regeneration, so when they raised the pally, he was a eunuch. They have no access to regeneration, so he's stuck that way. It's smelly and unpleasant, but he'll live. They kill the minion, but she does not have his bits. She passed those up to her boss, who uses them to help him scry on the party. Thus he's able to ambush them himself, watch their tactics, arrange other ambushes, and generally be two steps ahead of them.

After seeing the scrying sensor a few dozen times, the party realize that he's using the bits 'o paladin. They don't know exactly where he is or where he keeps his tackle box, so stealing the paladin's precious back isn't an option. Likewise, they don't have any good anti-scrying measures.

The paladin has sworn himself to the cause of stopping the evil cleric. The fact that he's being unwittingly used to hinder that cause is perilously close to breaking his oath. But he can't abandon the group because that would amount to the same thing. Either would make him a liar. He's also sworn to protect the nearby civilians, so he'd be an oathbreaker three ways.

We have a druid in the group. He can reincarnate. The paladin decides to sever the link between himself and his parts by committing suicide and coming back with a whole new body. It's the least worst thing he can think of, since going on as-is compromises his oath too. So he does it and the druid reincarnates him.

But the druid has been cursed by the evil cleric's god and is going slowly insane. Everybody knows this. He's manifested a few strange powers and had some physical changes. So the paladin is placing his soul in the hands of a cursed, likely damned druid and that druid's divine power of now-questionable provenance.

The paladin grits his teeth and does it, because if he can't keep his word his soul isn't any good anyway. The mission is more important than his personal salvation. He came back as a female (I rolled for sex) Hellbred (Tyrants of the Nine Hells). And he's got a version of the same curse the druid has now. I figure a paladin's soul is one of his most important possessions, so to put it all on the line to keep his word is pretty damned heroic.

The player was pleased. He wanted the choice to have serious consequences, and he got them.


DM_Blake wrote:

Yep, that's pretty much what I said too.

"Corrupt" by its very definition is unlawful. If the corrupt legal officials are following the law, then they are not corrupt at all.

Ah, perhaps I shouldn't have used the word corrupt (since it does imply law breaking). Unjust might have been a better choice.

Even if everything those in power are doing is legal, I don't think that (necessarily) makes opposing them unlawful, even opposing them violently, if their actions are unjust or actively harmful to those under their power. In my opinion Lawful vs. Chaotic isn't about always following the law as written or always opposing it, it's more nuanced than that.


Samnell wrote:
Icky stuff about paladin bits

Yikes!

Now get that paladin to play for Rosie O'Donnell's team and not only will she have no connection to her former bits, but she'll actually have a repulsion...

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