RPing around a party member whose motivation is to you kill and only you?


Advice

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So, I'm playing Reign of Winter and our current party is
-Human Paladin (me), under the god Austri, looking to travel to preform the ritual to create some sacred steel as noted in Austri's page, that happened to be in the first town during travels. I was heading into the mountains to do this, so I had cold weather and survivalist gear anyways. The paladin goodness to help caught me in the story.

-Dwarf Monk and Half-Elf Bard who are a traveling band. Bard is vocalist (for now) and guitarist with the monk being a drummer. They play speed metal.

-Half-Elf CN Druid that is currently "only" trying to protect her woods.

-Rogue that missed the starting session, and will be a "reformed" bandit from the woods. He is Chaotic Evil and currently not with the party.

So, out of character the Rogue has stated his 'true' motivation is to kill a paladin, since the other things he has done as a Bandit/Rogue have been too easy. His motivation that he tells the party is that he was cut out of phat loot from his bandit brothers and wishes to gain back what he needs.

I'd rather not like to cry for GM help (since he likely wouldn't do anything anyways), and try to do things basically solo, since my current party members aren't on the best standing starting out. Detecting evil won't do much, since yes he is evil, but Paladins can work for the greater good and work alongside Evil creatures if it helps (which iirc, I have to sorta do anyways in this campaign with the ice witch). I can't openly engage him in combat, since that wouldn't be something a paladin or a LG character would do, specifically since the Rogue has yet to say anything about his true motivation to anyone else in the campaign.


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Relevant

Nitpick- at low levels the rogue wont detect as anything (level 5 at the soonest)

The rogue player sounds like a dick, although cannot actually say.

The first question is are you okay with PvP? Someone is probably going to end up upset over it.

If not then you absolutely talk to the GM and the player, it is (in my opinion) incredibly bad form to create a character with the explicit purpose of murdering another player character. In my opinion such a player should be told to stop or leave the group.

If you are ok with PvP then it becomes a question of how he's going about trying to kill a Paladin (who presumably is your character). Your description of his motivation makes it sound like he's looking for a challenge which is fortunate as there's not much you can do if he slit's your throat in your sleep but such an act probably doesn't constitute a challenge.

The best thing you can do in my opinion besides being healthily paranoid is to build bonds with your other allies so if the rogue decides to fight / try and off you they are more likely to back you up / inform you of the Rogue's plots.

As you mentioned you cannot just attack him outright as you have no justification, so another thing you could do is interact with him and ask him in character about his motivations / aspirations and hopefully get a in character clue as to what he's planning.

Personally though i'd just speak to the GM about it.

Sovereign Court

Or you can go the opposite, he's looking for a challenge so don't be a challenge. Get knocked down a couple of times when he first joins the party, and maybe he'll focus his efforts on a real challenge. Like the bad guys.


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Drop a rank in perform strings or sing and join the monk/bard duo. Sacred Steel would be a great name for a speed metal band. Your CHA should be enough to sell it the rest of the way.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Does you campaign have an overall mission yet? If so, the rogue could decide to postpone his goal of killing the paladin until after the BBEG is defeated -- in the meantime, he is studying his "enemy" and gaining the power needed for his ultimate goal.

Then his attempt to kill the paladin would be an epilog to the overall campaign that may or may not actually be played out.


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Why would your character even allow the rogue to join in the first place? Being "cut out" from his share of bandit loot is hardly "reformed". Your character has no motivation to keep him around and plenty of motivation to give him a kick in the ass to send him packing.

Just tell the rogue to get lost, and if he picks a fight, kill him. Then tell the moron playing him to make a new character, one that would actually work with a group.


As a Player, I'd just kill him first. I'm a Paladin, he's an Evil Rogue, it isn't rocket science. Like already mentioned, he isn't reformed, he's just not happy with the amount of money he's taken from murdered people.

Then I'd tell to pick something less stupid. I do PvP constantly in my group, but just about never with the intent to kill. Its mostly just characters that enjoy fighting having practice bouts, only time killing was on the table was when we were playing a pirate game and agreed before hand that bloodthirsty pirates *might* betray and kill each other, though even then they didn't.

Playing a character with the express goal of killing another player is a dumb idea. The entire purpose being to stop someone else from having fun. That's one of the only 'wrong' ways to play this game I know of.


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You guys forgot. He's the paladin so clearly he'd be in the wrong for confronting the evil guy who wants kill him (since he's not a designated party enemy). As a paladin player he's just supposed to "suck it up buttercup" and deal with this in a way that allows the rogue to commit as many evil actions as desired and halfheartedly defend himself (if at all) when the rogue finally decides to kill him. At least, that's what I've learned on these forums. XD

(Please don't get all upset at me for typing that okay. Its just something I've run into before and thought was funny).

Well since your GM doesn't give a damn (and I doubt this guy will change his character) I advise you to take I Like David Knott 242's idea. Ask the rogue player if he could postpone killing your character until the campaign is over. Party PvP isn't fun in my experience.

Sovereign Court

Alternatively, pump your sense motive so he can't feint you, or use smoke sticks so you have concealment and he can't use sneak attack. Lay on hands should keep you up through non-sneak attacks, and Smite for higher AC. So his only effective option would be to ambush you, and hopefully that's not the "challenge" he's looking for.

But seriously, bringing an intentional disruption to a game with the express purpose of killing another player? Bad form.


Who says once your budding archenemy makes his intent clear (if at all), you can't nobly acknowledge a formal challenge has been made, smack him across the face with your steel gauntlet, and tell him to name his terms! Be sure to demand seconds and a witness to both the terms agreement and the duel itself, hopefully the other party members will show to the duel, and then you beat down a little punk, may not ping as evil depending, but smite still knows WHAT he is...

Or join the speed metal band, that is equally awesome actually. Form a mutual defense contact with your band mates about the tone deaf, musically deficient and jerkish rogue, get some groupies, etc etc.


Firewarrior44 wrote:

Relevant

The rogue player sounds like a dick, although cannot actually say.

The first question is are you okay with PvP? Someone is probably going to end up upset over it.

Yes, he is an ass, but mainly when it comes to Pathfinder. He is fine normally.

I'm fine with PvP, I just wanted to try and create a way in the games terms to foil him. To best him without combat. As that would get him the most frustrated.

DebugAMP wrote:
Drop a rank in perform strings or sing and join the monk/bard duo. Sacred Steel would be a great name for a speed metal band. Your CHA should be enough to sell it the rest of the way.

I said the bard was the vocalist for now. Before I knew about the Monk and Bard playing, my Paladin was smiting people with metal/rock lyrics, saying a line or two before/while striking someone. Working on relationships, but the group is still level 1. Bard said he was willing to take anyone into the band with good musical talent. (Preform skill above his, which his Preform Sing is only rank 1)

HeHateMe wrote:
snip

Rogue has not actually joined yet, and I got a brief summery of how the Rogue is joining, partly due to missing out the first session and partly due to not fitting the party. He is working with the GM to try and fit in, I have not heard the exact details, but I know he hasn't said anything about trying to kill me.

It is less that the GM doesn't care and more of the party is free-ish to do what they want. Also me not wanting him to get involved as that feels like cheating to a challenge.

Xerres wrote:
snip

This post is getting long. If the Rogue has a good enough reason and is actually helpful, a Paladin is willing to work with evil. As stated, the Evil Rogue isn't the party's enemy. Attacking him if he actually blends in will likely turn the party against me.

Sovereign Court

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Get out of that group. That guy seems downright borderline to me.

You don't have to suffer psychos, whether in gaming or IRL


Just pump your armor and chuckle when he can't get through it. Focus on being an AC-based paladin. Get a Ring of Sustenance fairly early, as well, so you can sleep during someone else's watch.


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As people have said, in roughly descending order of priority and usefulness:

1: Ask the PLAYER to lay off the intended PKing, and make a character that's capable of playing well with the rest of the party.
2: Ask the player to hold off until after the campaign's over. (Do not expect him to actually do so - he's JUST PLAYING HIS CHAOTIC EVIL CHARACTER, remember?)
3: Refuse to work with his character, for common-sense reasons. You monster. (For some asinine reason, the JUST PLAYING YOUR CHARACTER excuses only works for Chaotic jerks.)
4: Find out how many innocent people the Chaotic Evil bandit has killed and Smite his ass with HOLY JUSTICE.
5: Never leave this guy on watch alone, and have a backup character ready.


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My guess is that the other player (not the other character), doesn't like Paladins and is purposefully trying to be disruptive.

In fairness, I do think that before a lone player brings a Paladin (or any character with extremely strong moral positions, but Paladins are the obvious) to the table, they should discuss that with the group and make sure that all the PCs will be able to work together. Even if your characters are not going to start out already being a team, part of planning for a game includes making sure at the PCs are at least capable of working together. I usually try to make sure all the PCs are within a couple steps of each other. A player that starts a game after the others, should make sure his character is compatible with the party.

Obviously that didn't happen here. You have a couple of ways in which you can proceed.

First is, clarify the groups stance on PvP, what is expected as far as being a team etc. etc. If that results in something that you feel is incompatible for a Paladin, it wouldn't be inappropriate to ask to remake your character.

Second, assuming PvP is going to happen, and you decide to continue playing the Paladin, then in character your Paladin (assuming he knows the rogue's background, which he probably does) should keep an eye on him. If he behaves badly, you will probably have to try and convince the other characters to kick him out of the group (the character, not necessarily the player) or, if they are all gung-ho on keeping with an evil character, you will probably have to leave. Hopefully this can be done before the character murders you in your sleep.

If his character leaves, you will probably be repeating the process again with the next evil character he makes.

If your character leaves (or is murdered) you have the option to fight fire with fire, going into the usual madness of PvP or decide that you don't want to participate in this sort of thing, and tell the other players you will be happy to play with them in a future game with ground rules that are more supportive of a team based cooperative activity.

Of course, you can skip over several steps and jump to the last one at any time. Basically though, unless the group as a whole puts a stop to anti-social behavior, or you enjoy that sort of thing, there really isn't any way to 'win' this one.


Paladin Code of Conduct wrote:
Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

My suggestion: as soon as you observe him engaging in obviously criminal or evil activity, turn him over to the authorities and let them deal with him. You don't have to wait until he hits 5th level and starts detecting as evil.

Shadow Lodge

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Run away, and never come back.


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Are you a zealous and rightous paladin, killing evil to make the world a better place to live in?

Or are you a merciful reformist, trying to redeem evil people and live by example?

In either case, why would you choose to travel with a character you know is even, and you know is planning to kill you?

If you can't talk the player out of this stupidity, your choices are to leave the game, or to take action. Might be an interesting twist to simply have the evil character arrested for their crimes. Hard to be in an adventuring party when you're doing 5 years hard time for thievery and assault.


Snowlilly wrote:
Paladin Code of Conduct wrote:
Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.
My suggestion: as soon as you observe him engaging in obviously criminal or evil activity, turn him over to the authorities and let them deal with him. You don't have to wait until he hits 5th level and starts detecting as evil.

Yep, PvP is likely going to be forced, here. The alternative is to fall. Then killing your character will be easy.

The best solution is to handle this out of character, but if an in-character method is needed, I say get in good with the other charismatic Good characters. Join the metal band. Make your paladin too fun for anyone to have a beef with without looking like an ass. Then smite evil and go to town if the other player presses the issue.


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I am maybe a bit stern on this issue, but I would ask the posterior headgear playing the rogue to change his concept. If not I would smite him session one. Just saving everyone's time that way. Perhaps his next character won't be designed for maximal party disruption.


Get magic item that has a 1 use spell that does a lot of damage to evil only alignments and set it to trigger when you die. That way if he kills you he will die to and you do not really have to even do anything about it.
Ask your GM to keep said item on the sly and or simply to give the item to you as a reward for something.

As a side note I was playing an NE PC way back in D&D 1 days and the party kept on wondering why I was die'ing when people cast area spells against evil creatures. After a time my saves got better as there was about a 3-4 level difference between my PC and the average level of the group.
But it was funny for quite some time and I had to be very careful of where I was standing.

MDC


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SorrySleeping wrote:


DebugAMP wrote:
Drop a rank in perform strings or sing and join the monk/bard duo. Sacred Steel would be a great name for a speed metal band. Your CHA should be enough to sell it the rest of the way.

I said the bard was the vocalist for now. Before I knew about the Monk and Bard playing, my Paladin was smiting people with metal/rock lyrics, saying a line or two before/while striking someone. Working on relationships, but the group is still level 1. Bard said he was willing to take anyone into the band with good musical talent. (Preform skill above his, which his Preform Sing is only rank 1)

I've seen enough bands that have 2 singers or lots of backing singers. Perform (Wind) might be good too, so you can either play a war horn in combat or a tin whistle for fun, and start rocking out like the Dread Crew of Oddwood.

Eventually the rogue will clash with the group and decide to start a solo band. With luck he'll make it big in Minkai and will eventually thank you for launching his career.

Otherwise, maybe the rogue will lighten up again and opt to specialize in dirty tricks. It wouldn't be terribly surprising if the the bass player tends towards low blows.

(In other words, be a team player. Help make the party feel like a party and the problems should highlight themselves.)


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The other option is to wait until he does his first evil thing, then kill the character. Typically, players that just want to be disruptive don't go about it intelligently. He'll probably do some crazy evil thing "cause lol". When that happens, just have your pally pounce on the rogue and kill him. Paladin vs Rogue in melee is a sad mismatch.


HeHateMe wrote:
The other option is to wait until he does his first evil thing, then kill the character. Typically, players that just want to be disruptive don't go about it intelligently. He'll probably do some crazy evil thing "cause lol". When that happens, just have your pally pounce on the rogue and kill him. Paladin vs Rogue in melee is a sad mismatch.

As a non-stick in the mud Paladin, that doesn't exactly work. If he is an idiot about it and attacks one of us, sure. I'm currently worshiping Austri, who is LG, but domains are Artifice, Earth, Good, and Strength. Working with evil is something allowed within the Paladin's ethics, when working for the greater good and not having a good that challenges that.

Reinforcing the band might be a good idea if the party can convince the Druid to come in somehow.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

My advice is to wait it out.

Never be alone with the character. Get a ring of sustenance as mentioned above. Make sure to smite him on the first round of combat. Hell, smite him the first time you see him do something evil. It lasts forever.

When it comes down to it, if he manages to kill you, and the party does nothing then well... make a new character and accept it.

This is all assuming that regardless of this crazy unrestrained idea to mix a chaotic evil and uber lawful good character in the same party you choose to remain in the group and not seek a new party elsewhere (which is what I would do).

One thing I suggest, if you choose to make another character with this group, is to not make a retaliation character. If his attempting and succeeding to kill your character doesn't break up the group then a cycle of retaliation characters certainly will.

Also a quick note, even for a non-stick in the mud paladin, seeing this guy commit an act of heinous evil in your presence most certainly does work as a reason to at least arrest his character.

Working together is a two way street.

(Not trying to start an alignment argument. I suppose an IMHO is appropriate.)

Scarab Sages

ROFL. Rogue vs. Paladin. That's TOTALLY going to end well for him. Work to reform him, show him the error of his ways, and forgive him for his misdeeds. If he refuses forgiveness and repentance, and attempts to kill you, smite him. It's not like he can, anyways.


Since the OP is apparently OK with PvP and this sort of telegraphed treachery, why not see how good the rogue's player is with it? Have the Paladin take a break for a few sessions - say they're sequestered to pray or something, and bring in your 'backup character', whose family was brutally murdered by bandits and they're seeking revenge.... :D

Hey, fair's fair.


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If this were any sort of fair match, I'd be telling you to just tell the guy to stop being a limp dicked little shit and cut this nonsense out.

As-is, a fight between a Rogue (an EVIL Rogue at that) and a Paladin is such a laughably stupid concept I'd be tempted to stick around and whup his ass on the regular just to laugh about it later.

Just remember to cast Keep Watch every night instead of sleeping.


rkotitan wrote:
Never be alone with the character. Get a ring of sustenance as mentioned above. Make sure to smite him on the first round of combat. Hell, smite him the first time you see him do something evil. It lasts forever.

Smite Evil only lasts until the target is dead OR the Paladin rests, which Keep Watch acts as normal rest, so it would not keep active forever. Otherwise that'd be a bit too much of an ace in the hole.

However, I didn't realize Smite Evil added to my AC versus the target, making this a very one sided match. Thanks for all the advice peeps, if the Rogue does manage to kill me, it pretty much has to be now. We are level 1, have no healing at all yet, and I'm at 3HP after a zombie managed to hit me for an impressive 9 damage. I don't know how, but it did.


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I say hack him into sauce at the first sign of aggression toward you. Use every paladin ability you have access to.

Scarab Sages

Yeah, once you hit second level any chance he had is basically gone. Every level you both gain is an advantage in your favor.


Just coz I love waying in on Paladin threads:

SorrySleeping wrote:
I can't openly engage him in combat, since that wouldn't be something a paladin or a LG character would do, specifically since the Rogue has yet to say anything about his true motivation to anyone else in the campaign.

I feel like this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a Paladin is. If a LG Cleric went and smacked down an evil Rogue, no one would have a problem with it, but if a Paladin does it it's somehow out of character?

Remember that Clerics are the ones who lead the congregation and clean the temples and do all that peacful spread-the-love junk, Paladins have one - and only one - job: Murder the enemies of their god(s) (I'm exaggerating here). Paladins are the military arm of the church, they should be more willing to take that sword and do some smiting (they actually have an ability called "Smite Evil" after all.

Speaking of Smite Evil:

SorrySleeping wrote:
Smite Evil only lasts until the target is dead OR the Paladin rests

...

SmiteEvil wrote:
The smite evil effect remains until the target of the smite is dead or the next time the paladin rests and regains her uses of this ability.

You absolutely can have this up 100% the time ... or I guess 99.99999999% of the time, since you'll regain your smite evil & then you have to use a swift action to activate it, so I guess the rogue has between the moment you wake up and the swift action you use to activate it.

I assume that'd be an initiative check, but also massively meta-gaming. If they're meta-gaming that much you can just smite & kill them the instant you see them and it's basically the same thing.

Edit: Oh that AC bonus you get from Smite Evil is a deflection bonus too, so it's totally active when you're asleep.

Also, I just actually read rkotitan's post. You said you were trying not to start an alignment argument, so I'm really sorry if I end up dragging your name into one =P


It isn't that I'm not willing to instantly smite an Evil Rogue, it's the fact that if he is forgiven by the party and somewhat accepted, it would be a stupid action for me to blow him away randomly, since he'll likely be asking for forgiveness or something. I try to avoid being on the stupid side of the alingment. (Unknown to most players alingment has three axis, law to chaotic, evil to good, stupid to smart)

As for smiting him every day, that could work, but it would only build tension, and something the paladin would eventually give up when the rogue appeared to no longer be a threat.

The problem is this. If the rogue plays stupid, none of this matters, he does evil stuff beyond what I can work with, and I smite him. Of the rogue plays smart, he'll either kill me the second he shows up while I have 3 hp or wait for a vulnerable moment down the line, should one appear.

All this talk is about the latter, since if the rogue plays stupid, there isn't a problem, only a dead rogue and a rerolled character.

Scarab Sages

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Refusing to grant mercy to an evil character that is a known murderer isn't an evil act, it's justice. Just because he asks for mercy, does not mean you need to grant it. And Paladins only work with evil to overcome a greater evil, only for the duration of that fight, and still may need to atone afterwards. This is a dick move from the rogue player, pathfinder is supposed to be a cooperative game. Since you are accepting the terms of the game, if you want your character to live take first action and bring in the bandit for trial. If he refuses, the sword. If your party forgives him, then they need to take sides. Either way, this situation will not be resolved until one of you are dead, and best get over with quickly.


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Three words:

Ro. Sham. Bo.


Don't let the rogue know how many HP you have left, or how many uses of your abilities you have left... EVER. There is no mechanic in game for determining that information. If you have to discuss it with other members of the party to receive healing, do so in a language his character doesn't know, and/or use paper messages to convey that information OOC to the healer so that he can't wait for a metagame advantage to ambush you.

Also wear Red Dragonscale armor so the bad guys can't see you bleed, and get that rogue some brown leather armor, for obvious reasons.

Also, you don't have to wait until any particular level to detect that the rogue is evil. From Detect Evil as per the PRD:

Quote:
Creatures with actively evil intents count as evil creatures for the purpose of this spell.

His intention to slay a lawful good paladin for any reason is in no uncertain terms an evil intention... So unless he wears a lead nighty 24/7 he'll be lit up like an evil little yule tree. Regardless of his claims of reform.

This may just be my 2nd edition roots talking, but a paladin's ability to detect evil is well known and I dare say universally trusted. You don't just wake up one day and say "I'm going to go to paladin school", you were called to you position by the Gods themselves, and the masses generally don't argue with that. If the paladin claims something is evil, than everyone in the party should believe that it was evil... until the paladin smote it. With or without any other proof (being detected as evil by a paladin is proof enough for most parties.

All of this being said. I've played any number of evil characters, and generally prefer to do so. Because what kind of soft hearted good person goes out and kills members of other sentient races for their "phat loot". However, being evil doesn't mean you have to eat babies, it means that you choose to act in your own self-interest above all else. If I were a chaotic evil rogue who thought myself a reformed bandit, and I knew the party contained a paladin, I'd be keeping myself in line. Dying on day one of my adventure is not in my best interest, waiting until I'm left alone and pocketing some treasure before it's counted totally is though.

Scarab Sages

Cantriped wrote:
Don't let the rogue know how many HP you have left, or how many uses of your abilities you have left... EVER. There is no mechanic in game for determining that information.

Actually, there is a slayer talent that will let you know how many hp your studied target has. This is a rogue and not a slayer, but there is a mechanic for it.


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Wait until he inevitably slips up then kill him. Make sure to be stronger than him at all times, make sure to be careful never to be within the one hit death zone in terms of HP.

And when he knackers it up, as he already has by letting you know OOC, destroy him.

What else can you do really. He's made his bed, he can lie in it while he bleeds to death.


As soon as you hit level 5 detect evil and smite him dead, if he does anything that gives him away as evil before that smite and kill. Get a wand of Keep Watch asap, it's on your spell list, then you can stay up on watch all night every night and still get the benefits of sleep, that way he can't strike first, if you're in any way suspicious of him or anyone else or just in dangerous territory it's a perfectly logical in character purchase.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Personally, I never understood PVP in an RPG. If you want to PVP just play a war-game or miniatures or something else.

I would just ignore him. If his character says something challenging to you just ask the cleric "Why is the rogue on the ground having a seizure, is there anything you can do for him?".


Imbicatus wrote:
Actually, there is a slayer talent that will let you know how many hp your studied target has. This is a rogue and not a slayer, but there is a mechanic for it.

Didn't know about that one! Thanks for the correction.


Without knowing more the Rogue's excuse to attempt to kill you is just that an excuse for what seems like a problem player to screw with the campaign by killing you. Chaotic Evil in a group of Nuetrals is still a problem. The alignment is not a party friendly alignment. The fact the GM is allowing it is something I'd like to know why. Nuetral and Lawful Evil can and will work with a group Chaotics don't play well with others.
Lawful good wants for a perfect society. They attempt to capture and rehabilitate evil. However they can and will kill to protect themselves. Now regarding Paladins they seek out Chaotic Evil to destroy. If they believe they can rehabilitate they may consider it but once weapons are drawn they won't hesitate to kill. So if you suspect he is a threat you can kill him without any repercussions save a butt hurt player.
Paladins are a powerful class but have some restrictions. Most players are willing to work together to allow a player to play one. They are fun to play and most other players can have fun with one in the group.


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Sounds like your crew likes betrayal and inter party intrigue.

If you believe him to be evil in character and find his leaving banditry to be not a sign of repentance. Then lift your hammer announce your intentions and smite. Give him his chance to kill a paladin.

"You are a coward and a liar. Your crimes call out for justice. In the name of Austri the reckoning has come."

I mean its that or he coup de gras you in your sleep.


Low-level paladin vs low-level rogue? Yeeeeeeeeah... let him try to PvP you, then smite and cut him down. All in all, don't worry about it. Just have your character feign sleeping for about thirty minutes or so before actually going to sleep, never accept gifts from the rogue, and do not let him near your supplies.

I had a compatriot like the OPs rogue friend in one of my games. He was a CE rogue/cleric to my CG barbarian/brawler. He said very nearly those exact words OOC and IC was quite obviously a cleric of some sort of demon. Well, his cleric had an IC fling with my barbarian and one day tried to sacrifice my barbarian while he slept. Bad move, because he already did not trust her and had been waiting a while before actually going to sleep for real for the last month before this. So he put her in a grapple, knocked her out with nonlethal damage, and threw her off the cliff. I'm sure the question arises about why did he sleep with a crazy cultist in the first place? Well, I may have based him on a more tribal, savage version of Geralt of Rivia who fights with his bare hands.

The DM was a little unhappy with me, but I would have been unhappy if my barbarian got coup de graced in his sleep too. He should have curbed our friend before he even made a crazy demon worshiper in the first place and DEFINITELY should have reigned him in when he started openly talking about the sacrificial thing. He didn't, so everyone but him and the newly-butthurt friend said that it was the right way to handle it.

Meh, we had potions and cure wands, so we did fine until we got a good replacement character.


I think I would say something to the player along the lines of: "Really your character's whole motive in life is to kill a paladin? I'm playing a paladin and frankly this isn't going to be fun for me. I think you've only thought about this from your point of view. A chaotic evil character is a bad fit for a group with a paladin let alone one who's life goal it is to kill a paladin. Really think about this from my perspective. I strongly encourage you to play a non-evil character as I don't think the rest of the group is going to enjoy your character."

Might want to ask the rest of the group that last one before you talk to him.

If he still wants to play the character as is ask him some of these questions: "What are you getting out of playing this character that you couldn't get from a non-evil character? Further did you make this character have the goal of killing a paladin when you heard there was a paladin in the group? You do realize that means one of our characters is going to die at the others hands at some point or your character is going to be imprisoned right?"

If he still insists he's a dick. That being said you can soft kill him.

Allow me to elaborate. He's a rogue and as you probably know they don't live long. In every pathfinder game I played to my memory the rogue has died. You can sneakily push odds in that direction.

First set yourself up as party leader. How you go about this is up to you. Either state it as you being the best choice being a paladin and the group is not getting a long very well so you'd be the one everyone could trust. Or just start sneaking in commands here and there and then introduce yourself as the party leader to an npc one day and see what happens.

Now being party leader isn't a requirement it just makes a lot of the next things easier.

Always send the rogue upfront to scout even if it's not needed. Always try and position anyone who can do healing as far away from him as possible. So marching order rogue/various party members/cleric or healer.

In combat offer to flank with him the most nasty close combat monster in any scenario. It has to be something that could take him out. Sword and board and fight defensively. The plan here being that the big boss gets tired of missing you and getting shanked by him and turns around and full attacks him. That should be the end. If you take two levels of ninja and go invisible that works even better. ;)

Triage of healing, he's always last.

Agro monsters when he's in a bad position. "Yeah I try and stealth." I'm going to assume your paladin sucks at stealth.

Anyways you get the idea. :)


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The GM should be nixing this from the get go.

This is, despite what he will probably say, a player issue, not a character issue, so it should be discussed rationally and maturely with him outside of game time, and it should be explained to him why this is a really bad idea.

Instead of being passive aggressive like Lemartes suggests (which is just going to aggravate the problem), try to sort this out like reasonable mature adults.

If he continues on his 'I get my jollies from ruining the game for everybody else' crap, have a group vote to 'disinvite' him from future games with the group.


Sounds like a BS situation. Drop out. Find a new group in person or online. It's not worth playing a game you're not having fun in when you could just spend a little time looking for a better group and wind up so much happier with people that are trying to play the adventure.


A friend of mine allows evil alignments but only allows Lawful Evil. They can at least be reasonable. They tend to be more disciplined and are a little less, well, murderhobo.


Zhayne wrote:

The GM should be nixing this from the get go.

This is, despite what he will probably say, a player issue, not a character issue, so it should be discussed rationally and maturely with him outside of game time, and it should be explained to him why this is a really bad idea.

Instead of being passive aggressive like Lemartes suggests (which is just going to aggravate the problem), try to sort this out like reasonable mature adults.

If he continues on his 'I get my jollies from ruining the game for everybody else' crap, have a group vote to 'disinvite' him from future games with the group.

I agree it should be nixed from the start by the dm.

Or talk to the player which I also said to try first.

My other idea is perfectly fine if this dink is going to play a stupid character who is actively aggressive. Get off your high horse.


Firewarrior44 wrote:

Relevant

If not then you absolutely talk to the GM and the player, it is (in my opinion) incredibly bad form to create a character with the explicit purpose of murdering another player character. In my opinion such a player should be told to stop or leave the group.

I've really got to agree with this one. I can be fine with evil characters, because even evil characters can have friends. I really dislike campaigns where a player is trying to compete with the GM to be the party's great antagonist.

That said, if nothing has come up in character yet, then it may be an empty threat. Or alternately, I suppose he might try to kill a paladin, but not your paladin. I've had players/characters who have a stated hatred of all paladins, with the exception of the party paladin. "Oh Steve? Yeah, he's got a bit of a stick up his butt, but he's all right."

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