How to make an antipaladin fall?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Kind of curious what people can think of for both annoying lose-lose scenarios, and clever moral dilemmas, for evil characters. You know, like what would be the equivalent of the baby monster dilemma for an antipaladin? When does the LE cleric become LN, or even LG, and lose their spellcasting? How might they end up trapped in a situation where any choice they made would be arguably Good? That kind of thing.

I can see why it's less commonly talked about - PCs doing evil stuff is usually when they burn down the town you just finished mapping, kill the quest-giver, and skip town to avoid the murder charges and go kill goblins for fun and profit instead. From a GM perspective, it's a lot more understandable to punish rather than encourage that. Not to mention it's also a lot easier to argue having selfish reasons for doing something good than it is the other way around.

Still, if you were to try to design moral challenges for evil PCs who wanted to stay evil, what would be some good and bad examples of how to tempt them toward goodness?

(This is purely hypothetical because I'm an alignment troll. I don't plan on tormenting my players further.)


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Love. Most fantasy has villains becoming good for love.


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You're an Antipaladin hired by a mercenary troupe do odd jobs for money. The money's good and the work is easy. You stick around and make friends with this rag-tag group of murder hobos.

Eventually, the troupe gets a job that's just too good to pass up. Ends up getting sent into Taldor to assassinate a mutual enemy of your client and the church of Sarenrae, the Goddess of second chances. Things go poorly and your team is slaughtered, and you're on the verge of death.

However, you're given an opportunity. Sarenrae comes to you in your fading moments. She says that you'd have been the last hope of defeating the enemy had you not fallen. She gives you a choice: redemption. You can swear away your evil ways and take a step towards the good and righteous path, becoming Chaotic Neutral in exchange for an impromptu heavenly favor. Or you can die as you were, missing out on the best pay of your life and losing your closest comrades along with it.

The best choice is the compromise: your profane powers in exchange for money and life, your second chance at the hands of the Dawnflower.

As your party rises again, you rise in dim glow, as a Fighter, an Antipaladin nevermore.


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Pitfalls. Perception is not an antipaladin class skill.


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One of the difficulties of persuading evil to good is that evil motivations are simple. Kill, destroy, maim, crush, get money.

What you need to do is induce an opportunity cost that they can't recoup if they don't change their ways.

Making an antipaladin feed the poor and shelter the homeless is that they're probably doing it for some other incentive. They're not acting selflessly, so an alignment shift wouldn't happen.

For example, a Chaotic Evil character can follow the laws and do good deeds in favor of not getting arrested by police and diverting suspicion of crimes away from themselves, but their genuine tendencies are to commit heinous actions of their own will with no regard for morality or ethics.

They have to have something they truly care about. Something they're willing to change for. Goddity mentioned love, but not everyone has that. Generally, an evil character will have themselves. You need to make them choose between themselves and absolutely nothing, but by choosing themselves, you put them in a position where they NEED redemption. Where it's personally in their best interest to become a good human being for real, not as a mask or cover identity.

You need to give them raw incentives for becoming good. One of those things is the promise of "cookies." Generally, this is associated with "Join the Dark Side", but it can just as easily be used by the Light. Putting an Antipaladin in a position to become a stronger Paladin than an Antipaladin is one of the biggest challenges they'll face internally. While struggling with it, they'll be caught in turmoil. Am I doing this for Power? Or am I doing this because I genuinely want to?

If they genuinely want to, they'll get the power. If they're just doing it for the power, they won't get the power.

The reverse is a much easier road. A paladin falling to the Dark Side doesn't care.

Quote:
You're telling me I just have to murder some Younglings and I'm in?

Even if they're doing it just for the power, that's the point. Even if they're not doing it for the power, they've fallen. There's no excuse for committing that heinous act.

You've got a long road ahead of you for forcing antipaladins to rise.


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It IS easier to fall than it is to climb, after all.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

if they became friends with someone and genuinely did not want to see harm come to them, risking themselves to help them.

evil characters tend to be very personal, so they would have to find some personal object that they wish to protect, and would do so even beyond self-gratification.


One methods depends on how connected they are to the character and how mature the group is. If they are the type to distance themselves then they can go along with a lot and just roll with the absurdity of it.

Otherwise you can test how far they are willing to make an evil character go by introducing truly evil NPC allies and make them aware of what an exemplar of chaotic evil is all about, torture, rape, sacrificing children in front of there families for dark rituals, making parents beg.

Invested players will have a limit and turn on there dark allies for being evil which can give them a chance to realize what being an anti-Paladin means, you would have needed to tolerate these things.


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NoTongue wrote:
will have a limit and turn on there dark allies for being evil which can give them a chance to realize what being an anti-Paladin means, you would have needed to tolerate these things.

Not at all. An evil character can find certain other evil actions disgusting or bad and still be perfectly evil, in the same way that a lawful character doesn't suddenly stop being lawful just because he jaywalks or something. An antipaladin who butchers a rapist because he thinks that's gross is totally within his code.

The only risk is if he's doing it out of a legitimate concern for the wellbeing of the victim.


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You can be a murdering cannibal and still hate rape. It's degrees of evil, not an all or nothing.


Time. As a paladin honor will fall seen reality and compromise. An antipaladin will fall because of toil. He is gonna take time an antipaladin is still mortal with emotion. Being a tool of a deity is suffering and no alone is truly alone. One day, he will start to care and act for something other than himself... And than he will fall.


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Bandw2 wrote:

if they became friends with someone and genuinely did not want to see harm come to them, risking themselves to help them.

evil characters tend to be very personal, so they would have to find some personal object that they wish to protect, and would do so even beyond self-gratification.

A chaotic evil person can have something or someone they want to protect beyond self-gratification.

Plenty of chaotic evil characters are obsessives. IE The girl who is so protective of her boyfriend she kills any girl who gets close to him.


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This is just an idea I had, and it only works for arrogant people who think that they can do anything.
Challenge them to be good. Redemption is hard. Being good is hard.Ha someone who tells them that the reason they're evil is because they're too scared to be good. Being a mighty warrior is easy. Being a mighty good warrior, now that's a true challenge.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
johnlocke90 wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:

if they became friends with someone and genuinely did not want to see harm come to them, risking themselves to help them.

evil characters tend to be very personal, so they would have to find some personal object that they wish to protect, and would do so even beyond self-gratification.

A chaotic evil person can have something or someone they want to protect beyond self-gratification.

Plenty of chaotic evil characters are obsessives. IE The girl who is so protective of her boyfriend she kills any girl who gets close to him.

obsessive protection is self-gratification though, they're not protecting them they're attacking over people who get close to them. that's my point, you want to protect the person not your thing. I'm saying they would have to actually legitimately care for the person and that would/could slowly make them break out of evil. For instance eventually stopping or controlling your urges to do bad things so that it doesn't complicate the friend's life.


Axoren wrote:


As your party rises again, you rise in dim glow, as a Fighter, an Antipaladin nevermore.

That's a better deal than being an Ex-Paladin... a Fighter with no bonus feats.


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Kaladin_Stormblessed wrote:

Kind of curious what people can think of for both annoying lose-lose scenarios, and clever moral dilemmas, for evil characters. You know, like what would be the equivalent of the baby monster dilemma for an antipaladin? When does the LE cleric become LN, or even LG, and lose their spellcasting? How might they end up trapped in a situation where any choice they made would be arguably Good? That kind of thing.

I can see why it's less commonly talked about - PCs doing evil stuff is usually when they burn down the town you just finished mapping, kill the quest-giver, and skip town to avoid the murder charges and go kill goblins for fun and profit instead. From a GM perspective, it's a lot more understandable to punish rather than encourage that. Not to mention it's also a lot easier to argue having selfish reasons for doing something good than it is the other way around.

Still, if you were to try to design moral challenges for evil PCs who wanted to stay evil, what would be some good and bad examples of how to tempt them toward goodness?

(This is purely hypothetical because I'm an alignment troll. I don't plan on tormenting my players further.)

I thought of one. Put the antipaladin in a situation where he repeatedly has to cast Good aligned spells to survive. This will turn his alignment to neutral and cause him to fall.

For instance, he is surrounded by summoned devils that want to kill him and the only way to stay safe is to use the conveniently placed Wand of Protection From Evil.


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You make Antipaladins fall the same way you make Paladins fall. You conflict their personal desires with their mission, you put them into fights where the easiest way out also violates their code of conduct, you make their mission to stay true to their morals an uphill battle. And you can't ever make anything easy. For a Paladin, an easy situation is choosing between saving a burning hospital and stopping a petty thief. For an Antipaladin, an easy situation is choosing between murdering some rich guy to steal his stuff and getting an opportunity to punt a pig. It becomes harder when, as the Paladin, you know the petty thief is going to kill your orphan cousin Pete's uncle/adoptive father. As the Antipaladin, the hard choice is if you know that the rich guy has also been magically aiding your ailing tiger mom/evil boss who would probably send a few death squads after you if she knew you betrayed her. Or at least send them after the genuinely likable NPC paladin you've spent the last several sessions trying to corrupt, if your mom can't find you.


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The Sideromancer wrote:
Pitfalls. Perception is not an antipaladin class skill.

I was going to say "trip him when he isn't looking, heavy armor can be difficult to maneuver in". But I'm just being unhelpful. Sorry All.


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Tie him to a chair and cast Protection from Evil on him until he turns Good.


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^So THAT'S what the Spanish Inquisition was ranting about . . . .


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My Self wrote:
you put them into fights where the easiest way out also violates their code of conduct

I honestly don't see how you can do that with an antipaladin. Their code is literally "Do whatever you want as long as it furthers your own dark ends". Seeing how that can be as simple as 'surviving' and any action is justifiable with the right intent, the easy way out is never wrong.

Quote:
As the Antipaladin, the hard choice is if you know that the rich guy has also been magically aiding your ailing tiger mom/evil boss who would probably send a few death squads after you if she knew you betrayed her. Or at least send them after the genuinely likable NPC paladin you've spent the last several sessions trying to corrupt, if your mom can't find you.

That's a tough choice but it doesn't really make the antipaladin fall, either. It has pretty much nothing to do with that, actually.

The best way to make a paladin fall is to convince, trick or otherwise force them into using a wand of protection from evil. One casting is all they need to fall because aligned spells are aligned actions. Course, that requires they have UMD, but it's still your best bet.


swoosh wrote:
My Self wrote:
you put them into fights where the easiest way out also violates their code of conduct
I honestly don't see how you can do that with an antipaladin. Their code is literally "Do whatever you want as long as it furthers your own dark ends". Seeing how that can be as simple as 'surviving' and any action is justifiable with the right intent, the easy way out is never wrong.

So make them do it for the wrong intent. Send a Luke after your Darth Vader. Darth Vader doesn't try to tempt Luke to the Dark Side primarily because Luke has the potential to be a powerful Sith Lord and asset. He does it because he's Luke's dad, because he loved his wife and (probably) loves his children, and for other various reasons that are not evil or unusually selfish. If he were bound by the Antipaladin code (LE variants included), he would have fallen (risen?) at the end of the 6th movie when he betrayed his boss and sacrificed himself to save his son. If, in that same moment Vader had instead killed the Emperor so that Vader could become the next Emperor, or for revenge, or simply because this was the best shot Vader could get, he would be consistent with the Antipaladin code.

I suppose if you have incredibly one-dimensional murderhobo Antipaladins with no depth, backstory, relationships, human concerns, etc., it would be more difficult to make them fall than incredibly one-dimensional unintelligent stickler LG Paladins.


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swoosh wrote:
The best way to make a paladin fall is to convince, trick or otherwise force them into using a wand of protection from evil. One casting is all they need to fall because aligned spells are aligned actions. Course, that requires they have UMD, but it's still your best bet.
Code of Conduct wrote:
An antipaladin must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean that an antipaladin cannot take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must always be in service of his own dark ends. An antipaladin’s code requires that he place his own interests and desires above all else, as well as impose tyranny, take advantage whenever possible, and punish the good and just, provided such actions don’t interfere with his goals.

If he performs good acts because he was tricked, he's not doing it willingly. If he performs good acts because he has to to survive, he's not doing it altruistically.

Should he be forced to cast enough [good] spells simply to survive, then the ends to which he is casting them should be enough evil to counter his actions; if nothing else, his personality and mindset aren't straying from the straight and narrow (twisted and crooked?), so any fluctuations in alignment should sort themselves out.

I definitely like "love" as an answer, though. If there's any force in this world or any other that could make somebody see another person as more important than themselves, it's love.

...I also like "pitfalls" as an answer purely due to snark factor.


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Saethori wrote:
I definitely like "love" as an answer, though. If there's any force in this world or any other that could make somebody see another person as more important than themselves, it's love.

Make a bad one good, mmm... make a wrong one right...


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Have a Reincarnated CG Druid hang out with him and consistently plant good thoughts into his head. If the antipaladin kills him, he just shows up in a new body. Eventually he'll get sick of having to kill him, and will just ignore his advice. But given time, it'll start to get through.

Basically, have a 'shoulder angel' who he can't permanently get rid of feed him positive morals until he starts unconsciously being less evil.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Tyinyk wrote:

Have a Reincarnated CG Druid hang out with him and consistently plant good thoughts into his head. If the antipaladin kills him, he just shows up in a new body. Eventually he'll get sick of having to kill him, and will just ignore his advice. But given time, it'll start to get through.

Basically, have a 'shoulder angel' who he can't permanently get rid of feed him positive morals until he starts unconsciously being less evil.

this works up until the antipaladin finds a way to >bind< the druid.


True, but that'd take a while, hopefully longer than it takes to redeem the antipaladin.


Bandw2 wrote:
Tyinyk wrote:

Have a Reincarnated CG Druid hang out with him and consistently plant good thoughts into his head. If the antipaladin kills him, he just shows up in a new body. Eventually he'll get sick of having to kill him, and will just ignore his advice. But given time, it'll start to get through.

Basically, have a 'shoulder angel' who he can't permanently get rid of feed him positive morals until he starts unconsciously being less evil.

this works up until the antipaladin finds a way to >bind< the druid.

. . . Or the Druid gets corrupted or just gets bored and goes away.


Great thing about NPCs is that that's up to the DM. Frankly, I think a druid would have the tenacity to tough it out.


One of the stereotypical falls is love turning to jealously possessive. The reverse would make a fairly natural rise.

"No one but I can break my toys" --> "I won't let you damage what's mine" --> "I won't let you hurt them" --> "I will protect these people"

The other would be looking for a more challenging fight. After "saving" a few towns so they could fight the BBEG their motive shifts more towards fighting the BBEG to save the town.


Tyinyk wrote:

Have a Reincarnated CG Druid hang out with him and consistently plant good thoughts into his head. If the antipaladin kills him, he just shows up in a new body. Eventually he'll get sick of having to kill him, and will just ignore his advice. But given time, it'll start to get through.

Basically, have a 'shoulder angel' who he can't permanently get rid of feed him positive morals until he starts unconsciously being less evil.

For some reason, druids cannot be CG.

PRD, Druid wrote:
Alignment: Any neutral.


Neutral good still works. It slipped my mind, because my GM always removes alignment restrictions.


To make an anitpaladin fall you would need to motivate them to do something willingly and altruistically good. It's very easy for evil to justify doing "good" for ulterior motives.

I'm currently playing a Tyrant Antipaladin (LE archetype) in Hell's Vengeance. I still fall if "he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean the tyrant can't take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must always be in service of his own dark ambitions. A tyrant's code requires that he place his own sinister goals above all else, respect rightful authority even as he twists its loopholes to his own ends, impose tyranny, and punish all those who dare dissent."

My character has been fairly "nice" to people because he is trying to stop a rebellion from happening in Cheliax. The whole you catch more flies with honey than vinegar thing. I might be outwardly nice, but in truth I still have sinister goals. My character is just smart enough to know that using a heavy hand and murdering everyone along the way isn't necessarily the best way to achieve my goal of ending rebellious tendency and getting all the peasants to fall in line. My goal is to keep the status quo of the tyrant's boot on the neck of the proletariat, I just hide it from public view a little bit better than some. And really, that's not even my end goal. My end goal is to do that, because it's in service to Queen Abrogail and by pleasing her and serving her well I can rise in power to a position of great power and authority.

In short, it's very difficult to "force" an antipaladin to fall and lose their powers, because it's pretty easy to justify nearly any actions in character by using them as part of your greater darker plot and goals.


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Show him kitten videos until he emits an involuntary, "Awwwww."


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johnlocke90 wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:

if they became friends with someone and genuinely did not want to see harm come to them, risking themselves to help them.

evil characters tend to be very personal, so they would have to find some personal object that they wish to protect, and would do so even beyond self-gratification.

A chaotic evil person can have something or someone they want to protect beyond self-gratification.

Plenty of chaotic evil characters are obsessives. IE The girl who is so protective of her boyfriend she kills any girl who gets close to him.

Remember, Yandere-Chan is not a good person.

She's a monster.


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Cute puppy overdose.


My Self wrote:
Darth Vader

That's not the easy way out, though. That was a conscious and very difficult decision that culminates in the antipaladin voluntarily choosing to fall. That's pretty far from 'make it so the easiest way out violates their code'

Quote:
I suppose if you have incredibly one-dimensional murderhobo Antipaladins with no depth, backstory, relationships, human concerns, etc., it would be more difficult to make them fall than incredibly one-dimensional unintelligent stickler LG Paladins.

No need to get pissy about it though.


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swoosh wrote:
My Self wrote:
Darth Vader

That's not the easy way out, though. That was a conscious and very difficult decision that culminates in the antipaladin voluntarily choosing to fall. That's pretty far from 'make it so the easiest way out violates their code'

Not just choosing to fall, but sacrificing his life for his son as well. He knew that making the choice he made meant he wasn't going to survive the consequences.


Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
swoosh wrote:
My Self wrote:
Darth Vader

That's not the easy way out, though. That was a conscious and very difficult decision that culminates in the antipaladin voluntarily choosing to fall. That's pretty far from 'make it so the easiest way out violates their code'

Not just choosing to fall, but sacrificing his life for his son as well. He knew that making the choice he made meant he wasn't going to survive the consequences.

It's not supposed to be an example of the easy way out- it's an example of less-than-evil desires conflicting with actually evil ones. The easy way out would be deliberately turning a blind eye to the 1st level Paladin squad that is helping out the townspeople under your tyranny, even though you could wipe them out alone with a moderate amount of effort. Without any grander plans or ulterior motives, ignoring the Paladins is definitely the easy way out, even if they will never be strong enough to seriously threaten you.

swoosh wrote:
Quote:
I suppose if you have incredibly one-dimensional murderhobo Antipaladins with no depth, backstory, relationships, human concerns, etc., it would be more difficult to make them fall than incredibly one-dimensional unintelligent stickler LG Paladins.
No need to get pissy about it though.

Not mad, just stating a fact. We're thinking about how to make hypothetical Antipaladins fall, so we have to consider all sorts of Antipaladins.

Though I suppose a Helm of Opposite Alignment would work...


swoosh wrote:
My Self wrote:
Darth Vader

That's not the easy way out, though. That was a conscious and very difficult decision that culminates in the antipaladin voluntarily choosing to fall. That's pretty far from 'make it so the easiest way out violates their code'

Quote:
I suppose if you have incredibly one-dimensional murderhobo Antipaladins with no depth, backstory, relationships, human concerns, etc., it would be more difficult to make them fall than incredibly one-dimensional unintelligent stickler LG Paladins.
No need to get pissy about it though.

Yeah, that's not making Vader fall at all though, that was choosing to fall. Vader made a willing choice to save his son and kill the emperor (despite knowing it would probably kill him) because he made an inner choice to be good. But you can't "force" a character to do that sort of thing. An evil character that wants to be evil can't really be forced to fall. Vader could have killed the emperor for his own benefit, to subsume his role as leader of the empire and further tried to convince Luke to follow in his foot-steps.


Claxon wrote:
Yeah, that's not making Vader fall at all though, that was choosing to fall. Vader made a willing choice to save his son and kill the emperor (despite knowing it would probably kill him) because he made an inner choice to be good. But you can't "force" a character to do that sort of thing. An evil character that wants to be evil can't really be forced to fall. Vader could have killed the emperor for his own benefit, to subsume his role as leader of the empire and further tried to convince Luke to follow in his foot-steps.

You can't force a player to make their paladin/antipaladin fall, but you can set up a situation where a developed character will almost certainly choose the option that makes them fall.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

are we looking for a situation in which all possible actions are good aligned? is that it?

some hypothetical situation in which the antipaladin can only make a good aligned action, not even to survive, where the only real way out is to do something good?

because at that point I think the antipaladin can simply choose to do nothing.

I mean seriously, this is gona be hard, because I think at any given point the antipaladin has the option to just kill everyone.


Bandw2 wrote:

are we looking for a situation in which all possible actions are good aligned? is that it?

some hypothetical situation in which the antipaladin can only make a good aligned action, not even to survive, where the only real way out is to do something good?

because at that point I think the antipaladin can simply choose to do nothing.

I mean seriously, this is gona be hard, because I think at any given point the antipaladin has the option to just kill everyone.

Not all *possible* actions need to be altruistic and truly good. Only all of the actions the Antipaladin wants to take.

Scarab Sages

Oh, I know this one! Take away her blanket!

No, wait, that's how to make antifreeze....


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
My Self wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:

are we looking for a situation in which all possible actions are good aligned? is that it?

some hypothetical situation in which the antipaladin can only make a good aligned action, not even to survive, where the only real way out is to do something good?

because at that point I think the antipaladin can simply choose to do nothing.

I mean seriously, this is gona be hard, because I think at any given point the antipaladin has the option to just kill everyone.

Not all *possible* actions need to be altruistic and truly good. Only all of the actions the Antipaladin wants to take.

and as has been pointed out. This would be a hypothetical anti-paladin who would want to take a good action as much as a paladin wants to make a evil one.

they also can;t be tricked into doing it and can't do it simply because it's the best option.

basically, there's no Catch 22, you only fall if you want to be good it seems.


Assuming your Antipaladin is more of a stereotypical murderhobo than a characterized, developed murderous hobo, you cannot get them to fall without use of specific magic such as an Alchemist's Change Alignment discovery or a Helm of Opposite Alignment. However, if they are sufficiently developed as to have other wants, needs, and character traits other than "indiscriminate CE rampage", then perhaps you can generate a conflict in interest between what the code says to do and what the Antipaladin wants to do. Like, as Goddity has mentioned, love.


Saethori wrote:
swoosh wrote:
The best way to make a paladin fall is to convince, trick or otherwise force them into using a wand of protection from evil. One casting is all they need to fall because aligned spells are aligned actions. Course, that requires they have UMD, but it's still your best bet.
Code of Conduct wrote:
An antipaladin must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean that an antipaladin cannot take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must always be in service of his own dark ends. An antipaladin’s code requires that he place his own interests and desires above all else, as well as impose tyranny, take advantage whenever possible, and punish the good and just, provided such actions don’t interfere with his goals.

If he performs good acts because he was tricked, he's not doing it willingly. If he performs good acts because he has to to survive, he's not doing it altruistically.

Should he be forced to cast enough [good] spells simply to survive, then the ends to which he is casting them should be enough evil to counter his actions; if nothing else, his personality and mindset aren't straying from the straight and narrow (twisted and crooked?), so any fluctuations in alignment should sort themselves out.

I definitely like "love" as an answer, though. If there's any force in this world or any other that could make somebody see another person as more important than themselves, it's love.

...I also like "pitfalls" as an answer purely due to snark factor.

However, if he casts it several times, his alignment shifts to chaotic neutral, which does automatically cause him to fall.


Claxon wrote:
swoosh wrote:
My Self wrote:
Darth Vader

That's not the easy way out, though. That was a conscious and very difficult decision that culminates in the antipaladin voluntarily choosing to fall. That's pretty far from 'make it so the easiest way out violates their code'

Quote:
I suppose if you have incredibly one-dimensional murderhobo Antipaladins with no depth, backstory, relationships, human concerns, etc., it would be more difficult to make them fall than incredibly one-dimensional unintelligent stickler LG Paladins.
No need to get pissy about it though.
Yeah, that's not making Vader fall at all though, that was choosing to fall. Vader made a willing choice to save his son and kill the emperor (despite knowing it would probably kill him) because he made an inner choice to be good. But you can't "force" a character to do that sort of thing. An evil character that wants to be evil can't really be forced to fall. Vader could have killed the emperor for his own benefit, to subsume his role as leader of the empire and further tried to convince Luke to follow in his foot-steps.

Vader's saving his son was not "falling" it was redemption. It was rejection of the weakness that had kept him in thrall to Darth Sidious all those years and had robbbed of the Jedi destony that should have been his. It's not the mirror of a Paladin's fall which IS an act of weakness.


I think it is the mirror though. I agree with you that "falling" really isn't the phrase that should be used with an Antipaladin, the phrase should be redemption. And is in my view the opposite of the weakness.

Where the weakness that leads to falling is usually taking the easy road, redemption is the hard road.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
My Self wrote:
Assuming your Antipaladin is more of a stereotypical murderhobo than a characterized, developed murderous hobo, you cannot get them to fall without use of specific magic such as an Alchemist's Change Alignment discovery or a Helm of Opposite Alignment. However, if they are sufficiently developed as to have other wants, needs, and character traits other than "indiscriminate CE rampage", then perhaps you can generate a conflict in interest between what the code says to do and what the Antipaladin wants to do. Like, as Goddity has mentioned, love.

they're an anti-paladin, they're just being an anti-paladin.

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