Neuronin's page

I think we're beginning to zero in on your problem: you expect the new code to be some cureall for bad players and GMs to never exist in any game ever.

Thanks for the reply! This is...kind of a jump from my meaning, however. I don't believe it's really possible to militate against incompetent DMs or bad-faith players of all sorts. Inevitably, either through mistake, malevolence, or laziness, you'll end up in situations where the paladin's code is unfairly used against them.

My ideal solution would just be a sidebar explaining that the code should be used for roleplaying and worldbuilding opportunities in general, and specifically as a guide for removing the paladins powers when they've gone far over the threshold of acceptable conduct; not an excuse to ruin a player's day for not being, personally, a perfect paragon of moral uprightness (or some as some sort of 'lesson' about the unrealisticness of striving for moral excellence and the supremacy of seeking victory by any means necessary).

I've been watching White Wolf games and other products fail to teach people to not be jerks for a long time, though, so I don't expect that to have much effect. Again, the solution (turning a paladin's code into a mathematized 'program', like RoboCop) cannot accomplish this, and it dilutes the essence of the class as well.

Golarion defaults to Pathfinders and wandering mercenaries (the 'hobo' is really the important part of muder-hobo for this purpose, the PCs might be from any nation or culture and may differ from each other and the locals wherever they are, it's a game about atomic individuals not people deeply enmeshed in social obligations), it's a really different setting and probably not one that can support games about honor.

I'm not so sure about this assertion. The games Pathfinder is descended from are hardly free of being about wandering adventurers and mercs-for-hire, and they never needed to adulterate the concept of 'honor' to better serve the kids of the 80s, 90s, and aughts. I think it's more of an attempt to refine an obviously fraught subject, and an attempt about which I am skeptical.

The problem has been that over the years many a GM has used alcohol, medicine and the like as a 'gotcha!' moment for a paladin in an excuse to have them fall.

That's obviously a bad GM call, and I'm totally against it. Avoiding bad GM calls, however, is not a great excuse to say it's cool for capital-G Good Guys to put basilisk venom on their spear before they do battle with Lord Fauntelcrotch's Skull Raiders, but they ALSO have the Power of Pureheart simultaneously.

Coincidentally, that's why I'm skeptical about the new oath hierarchy: it's there to cut down on bad GM calls, but it doesn't CHANGE bad GMs, it just makes a legalist element out of what was previously a moral code. Bad GMs (and folks who just plain hate goody-two-shoes stuff) will still find a way to screw paladin players, and you've potentially introduced a world of utilitarian 'badass' paladins in exchange for...not terribly much.

The point is, IF there exists a world in which violence is a task undertaken by the virtuous (which the Pathfinder world is), and there is no fundamental difference between using a Corrosive War Pick, a Vial of Acid, or a bottle of poison in regards to how in pain and dead you make someone, why is one of those things more honorable than the other? IF one of those things is more honorable than the other, what does being honorable even mean? To a paragon of Lawfulness and Good, if honor is arbitrary, why is it important to the class's identity?

We've circled around this argument several times, and you handily skip over the cultural context, the historical arguments, and the literal mechanics of the thing each and every time. If you're capable of pretending that poison does not carry significant real-world stigma (and that the game and game worlds are not a disassociated phantasm completely unrelated to and outside the bounds of popular conceptions of morality and ethics), that's your perspective.

If you've got a fundamental aversion to the concept that 'honor' holds any value because the means all lead to a dead foe (which, in the context of real-world ethics and actions, I largely agree with), then that's a personal problem. It doesn't change what paladins were, have been, and what I feel they should be (and, since we're getting LG paladins based on the elder editions as a starter, I'm not alone).

'The ends justify the means' is almost literally the antithesis of Paladin Classic. They're based upon mythic and fictional chivalric knights. They have a fairly simple, fairly loose code that asks a small amount: don't lie. Don't cheat. Be faithful. Be trustworthy. Dosing someone with arsenic or tranquilizers 'because, hey, they're gonna die anyway!' should not fly for a character who's power LITERALLY comes from virtue and purity. The class depends on a higher standard. If you dislike that, if you find it trialsome...fine! Play a fighter. Play a rogue. Play a acid-storm throwing wizard! But, for a paladin, the dog doesn't hunt.

I am pretty confident that if I have a player that wants to play a paladin of Sarenrae, bringer of Mercy, and she wants to be a studied physician as well, bringing people medicines and healing when she can and ease their suffering when she cannot, I am not going to make her fall for administering poisons to the dying that she cannot help, or who ask her for that mercy. Maybe some of you would, but it would be rather pointless of Paizo to try to force me to interpret the gods of the world I am GMing exactly one specific way, instead of just putting out some general ideas and letting each game take the form that suits it best.

You could just use your dagger. Warriors in the field used misericords to put suffering knights out of their misery in antiquity and throughout fiction . That said...personally, I don't hold it against anyone to provide quietus to the doomed through medical aid. Nor do I believe that a prohibition against using poisons includes alcohol, medicine, potions, et cetera. That hardly justifies sliming your weapon with blue whinnis paste and getting away with it because it's 'honorable' now.

See, the issue is you're using real world opinions on poisons to justify them being dishonorable in a fantasy game world.

This line of reasoning doesn't really hold water. 'It's a fantasy, therefore real world rules, history, and mores are irrelevant' falls apart when you look at the fact that this is a game where, for instance, gravity is real. Where swords are usually forged by smiths from iron treated with carbon. Where diseases exist and are a scourge upon the populace. Dragons (a historical concept based, likely, upon hyperbolic descriptions of African crocodiles) exist. Magic swords (a mythological concept originating...right here! In our irrelevant world!) exist. But it's not a complete flight of fancy where people are full of taffy, clouds sing songs, and you can see through walls by removing your eyes and stretching them into periscopes.

I have another old book, the AD&D 1e Wilderness Survival Guide, which discusses this eloquently in a section entitled 'Realism vs. Fantasy'. I'll quote in brief: 'An Earthlike campaign world has some advantages over a "freeform" environment or one that is deliberately created with unearthly features. First, both you and your players are naturally familiar with the features of the planet we live on; when you say "mountain", they know what you mean. But if you create a world where "Mountains" are made of wood (for instance), your players are going to ask questions and you're going to have some explaining to do. Are these wooden mountains slippery? Do they burn? Can the characters get splinters if they're not careful? For every "unrealistic" question that players come up with and you are forced to address, the players' suspension of disbelief is strained a little further. When it gets strained too far, players become preoccupied with the fact that, after all, they're "only" playing a game -- and role-playing falls by the wayside in favor of an artificial "contest" between the players and the world they're trying to understand."

All of this is, in a way, beside the point: it is a fantasy, based in popular modern swords and sorcery genre fiction, and the concept of a virtuous and good hero who struggles against human failings towards something greater is WELL within that genre. You may not like it. That's fine! Again, I point you to the ten or so other classes. But the argument that including elements of chivalric and moral fiction is 'unrealistic', that disallowing poisons in the name of 'honor' is a slippery slope to inquisitorial torture and activities we'd consider criminally barbaric is a step beyond what I hope is obviously intended by this thread.

How do you feel about the fact that the standard pathfinder paladin gets a class feature on level 5 that lets him summon a celestial spirit to turn any weapon into a flaming weapon as a standard action?

I prefaced my reply to that earlier with 'personally'...I'm personally uncomfortable with that. Not even against it! I offered circumstances where I, personally, think that's various weapon qualities would be appropriate...but I'm not arguing that that's should be an uncrossable line, like poison. Interestingly, a review of that section shows that flaming and flaming burst are on that list of weapon qualities...but corrosive and some sort of envenomation ability are not,

Also, on the subject of 'poisons are not considered dishonorable in Golarion'...they were considered dishonorable enough to be a paladin code violation LITERALLY until this post for the playtest mentioning this change.

What about the honor of the humble Crab?!

...I'll be on the Wall.

I'll bring it up again, how are poisons different or worse than bane weapons or slaying arrows?

To be completely fair, I agree. I've never been comfortable with paladins using things like flaming weapons, corrosive weapons, et cetera. Playing a paladin, I'd personally look askance at a weapon like that, only comfortable with using a flame tongue against regenerating creatures or malevolent ice elementals and such. And I'd be deeply uncomfortable with humanoid bane weapons and their ilk...though I'd be comfy with undead bane or outsider (demon/daemon/etc.} bane ones, since those creatures are almost universally evil and stocked with resistances and powers.

All that said...those are rare magical items worth THOUSANDS of gold pieces usually found in treasure hordes or other places, not like nightshades and the runoff of night soil. Those magical weapons are not famously wicked and commonly underhanded tools (nobody would call someone a 'filthy acid-sword', where as a 'slinking viper' is in common use). Much like the (to my mind, rather absurd) argument about the common availability of magic scrolls and devastating spells, it takes no skill or training to use poison. Spouses historically use it to quietly get rid of their unwanted counterparts, heirs to inherit from their ancestor quicker. They're not renowned for secretly using a scroll of cone of cold or a wand of lightning bolts to do it. It's a little more blatant, and it requires an uncommon level of training and skill to pull off.

@OP: Awesome. So I'll put down my poison and you'll put down your greatsword, and we'll both beat each other to death with our bare hands like civilized creatures?

No, you can keep your poison and I'll keep the sword. But if you're a paladin and you smear it on your weapon to win a fight, you should lose your powers. The argument about 'if you REALLY wanna be fair then Fox no items Final Destination' misses the point completely, and is neither persuasive nor worthy.

Personally, I feel like the 'best good' is Neutral Good, as it's supposed to represent a desire for Good without deference to authority or a abrogation of responsibility in pursuit of freedom.

And, I stress, alignment (the 'lawful stupid' argument) is only a small part of what makes Paladin Classic what it is. The first D&D book I ever bought was the Complete Paladin's Handbook, which is one of those great old yammering books that's half rickety old 2e rules and half compendium of historical information and fantasy tropes about knights. Much of the book is spent investigating the MEANING of a paladin's code, expanding the 'be lawful and good and don't do chaos or evil' in ways that the best of gaming supplements (and fictional guides in general) pull off.

That's why Susano-o and Heracles and Rustam and Ilya Muromets and such are all fine examples of paladinhood (even if not 100% flush with Paladin Classic)...mighty, often divinely empowered, known for virtue...but they all make mistakes, fall from grace, and either die ashamed or seek redemption (or die and get redeemed by divine fiat, thanks Skydad). Without that central struggle between virtue and vice, that ability to fall from grace and struggle back to the light, that potential for overweening pride that costs the hero everything...the class loses something essential.

Ultimately, it seems quite silly to try and force some vague idealized image of medieval chivalry on a fantasy society when it makes such little sense.[

A). I should think societies in general would, indeed, restrict the sale and availability of destructive spells and such. Indeed, I can point to numerous settings and products where the regulation of magic is part and parcel of the place, often times even a central element. Waaaay back when I started playing as a kid, our DM was always scrupulous about depicting the differences between freebooting about the savage frontier versus trying to make do in civilization, where we had to pay taxes, obey laws and strictures, and either turn in or hide our thieves' tools and weapons. I personally really enjoy that sort of play, and I don't think I'm alone.

B). We're talking about inherently silly premises. I don't think attempting to ground a fantasy in something approaching reality is silly...it's not strictly necessary, but I'd rather play a world-depicted-in-game than a game-depicted-as-world.

C). Also, again...the force towards fantasy goody-good chivalry isn't just coming from me. It's built into the class. Take a look at the iconic paladin. Take a look at another iconic paladin. Keep looking. They LITERALLY get a magic horse as a class feature.

Thanks to everyone for their replies! I've found them to be thought-provoking, challenging, and interesting.

Someone earlier asked if a hunter using poisons against prey is a depraved, evil person...I don't think so. I think there is a moral complexity to interactions between creatures at various levels of awareness and sentience (especially in the context of a fantasy game with simultaneous airs of antiquity and creatures that are definitely as intelligent and moral as a human being). But I still don't think a paladin should be doing it.

Raven Black above summed it up well, unaided by my throwing around of the term 'Evil act' vis a vis poisoning earlier: it's not just about alignment, it's about honor and virtue, EXCESSIVE honor and virtue. A (classic) paladin isn't just Lawful and Good, they're bound by a strict code of conduct that, if breached, causes them to lose their abilities, their status. Their powers LITERALLY stem from being gooder than good and fairer than fair.

A lot of the arguments I see break down to 'what if the greater good is served by getting dirty?' The answer, for paladins is, 'so'? They don't get to cut corners. They get all sorts of fancy powers and prestige. In exchange, they agree to do things on the up-and-up, potentially suicidally. Do it right or don't do it at all. Better to die a hero and live in shame. Is this the most utilitarian code of conduct to adhere to? No. If you want that...again, there's a whole wealth of classes that don't, and shouldn't depend on that. But the paladin's whole gimmick DEPENDS on that.

Think of it this way...name some great fictional/mythical heroes who depend on weapons dosed with toxins, see if they match up to the concept of a paladin. Bellerophon was mentioned! That's a pretty good example (mighty warrior, magic horse, slays monsters). Of course, what is the next thing to happen to Bellerophon after the chimera's defeat?

That's why I bothered to make the thread: the blog explicitly says that it's removing poisoned weapons from the consideration; as long as it's used 'honorably' (I.E. slathered on a weapon in a face-to-face fight). I don't agree that that can ever be 'honorable', and I protest. You don't even have to make your case with tranq-guns and war criminals who HAVE to be poisoned or they'll drop a boulder on an orphanage...it's being built into the system.

I find that disgusting and against the very spirit of the class. The original paladin, which PF2's shares a closer lineage with than even the current 5e paladins, was a 'prestige' class, where great powers were a reward balanced by high stat requirements and a rigid code of ethics. The 'power level' of the various classes has gone up (to the good, I think) but the paladin's basic concept remains: a strictly moral and ethical hero drawing strength from their own virtue. The idea of them just being able to dose their enemies with wyvern venom, and the argument that 'fair's fair, fight with dogs and get dirty' is repellent to me, and deleterious to the LG base paladin as a whole.

If we can't agree that putting a lethal toxin on your weapon is a vile, depraved act, then I think that's a gap we're not going to bridge.

If we can't agree that putting a dulling extract on a weapon is a dishonorable, craven act, then I think we're a bit closer (it's certainly a degree more gray than shooting someone up with greenblood or something), but still fairly far apart.

Again, look at the archetypal paladin. Look at MOST paladins. The image of the white knight is a vital part of the imagery. As it happens, as soon as 3e rolled around and I could make a competitive Acrobatics-using paladin, I did. But playing like paladins haven't been and won't continue to be strongly associated with knights-in-shining-armor to try to fit in an excuse for a sideways concept where 'tranquilizer darts are OK, therefore Squire Johnny is allowed to gash somebody with shadow essence' is a rhetorical trick I don't credit.

The chief problem I have is not merely a moral one, it's an aesthetic one. It's a character who literally gains their power from virtue and honor. Using a poisoned blade is never going to be honorable (no matter how many plot devices or 'but what ifs' you lade on), so it should be off the table (and, if the paladin fails willingly, punishable by atonement).

I personally have never liked the idea of a paladin using a flaming weapon, or an acid weapon, or an freezing weapon(I bring up, again, the AD&D1e prohibition against flaming oil)...but, again, lightning and blizzards are not the famous, cowardly weapons of skulks and murderers. The 'holy' quality exists for a reason.

The couatl thing...c'mon, folks. Like the tranquilizer darts, the mine carts full of nuns that can ONLY be stopped by throwing a poison bomb, etc...these are wormy attempts to evade the main point. It's an LG monster that doesn't even have arms! It's not intended to be a PC, and it's certainly not intended to be a warrior-at-arms guided by a chivalric code of honor, one of who's most notable abilities is getting a special horse/sword/shield.

And I'd argue that any Paladin not willing to use poison on, say, a serial killer of children in order to save one of his victims is not worthy of being called a Paladin. Saying 'My personal honor is more important than innocent lives' is a pretty unpleasant attitude when examined.

It's not just about 'personal honor'. It's about the basic themes of the class, the archetype: a paladin is a divinely inspired champion of what is ethical and moral. If you immediately jump to moral grayness and ends-justify-means shenanigans because ~the consequences are too great if I don't!~, where does it stop? As it happens, I'm not particularly fond of the hierarchy of deeds thing...I recognize the desire to neutralize the famous 'paladin falls button' situations, but turning it into a program that you can bend seems liable to rob it of vital force and storytelling opportunity.

You seem singularly lacking in imagination in regards to what Paladins can be like. Many are literal 'knights in shining armor' but some are only such a thing in a metaphorical sense.

A). The paladin is the class that gets legendary proficiency with armor, so I'm not alone.

And I'd argue that any Paladin not willing to use poison on, say, a serial killer of children in order to save one of his victims is not worthy of being called a Paladin. Saying 'My personal honor is more important than innocent lives' is a pretty unpleasant attitude when examined.

Again, I do not buy this argument. Applying a deadly poison will always be an evil act, not to mention cowardly and debase. Also...who's this serial killer who's so dangerous your enchanted axe and evil-smiting ability won't cut it? You're ginning up these situations where, obviously, violent action is justifiable. But cutthroat hard-knuckle Jack Bauer-style ruthlessness should never be an acceptable option for paladins. If one is driven to such acts, they should pay the penalty.

That's why I'm making such a big deal out of this relatively minor, fairly popular excision...it sets the whole thing to tottering. I ask again: what's the point of a class where a code of honor is built in if you can just cross it off with no penalty when it suits you? Why would you want to play this class if you feel like you should have all the benefits of Galahad but get to cheat like Lancelot unpunished when it suits you? Why not just play a cleric, or a fighter with a noble background?

Tranquilizer darts: A). I probably wouldn't imagine that some Lancelot type is spending their time as a zookeeper, this is an edge case to justify an immoral and empty argument. B). A sedative is different from a poison, but you still shouldn't be smearing it on your sword like some scumbag to edge out the competition in a fight.

Quick and painless: if you're using a quick-and-painless poison, what are you using it with? Obviously not some knight's weapon...that's not going to lead to a quick or quiet death. Are you using a blowgun and darts? You're going to make an armored champion of justice armed with a reed and a chemistry kit? This is a thought experiment I don't find compelling

Evening the odds: If you're not willing to risk death against unfair odds without resorting to trickery and crime (and there are almost NO societies that don't consider poisoning a mortal offense), you're not much of a hero. Also, you should probably have some friends? You're a high Charisma adventurer who's probably fairly rich.

Hierarchy of deeds: 'the ends justify the means' is not a particularly convincing knightly argument. Also, dark elves are not a paragon of fair play and heroic action. The poison they use to kidnap people to smuggle them into slavery and sacrifice is not a tool worthy of a hero. If 'save the innocent' or 'protect my friends' can be used as an out for every single possible tactic, trick, or action, then the whole thing is meaningless.

Poison the undead: Getting into ridiculous 'positoxin' territory here. Paladins are well-armed against specifically these foes (you mention holy water, which scorches the unclean through positive-negative interaction, which is violent but hardly dishonorable) and shouldn't need to use a special murder paste or nerve gas as well.

A lot of these are weird edge cases or bad faith arguments that miss a vital point: there is no just society which considers the use of poisons to be anything less than a crime. In Middle Age Europe, poisoning was considered to be proof-positive that you were a witch in league with the Devil! To this day, authorities and courts consider the use of chemical weapons to be amongst the most egregious crimes imaginable. If your shining knight can't do better than scumbag dictators and militarists, why would you want to play one?

There is no 'honorable' way to use poisons. It is almost universally recognized as a severe crime to deploy poison as a weapon, and poison is famously a weapon of assassins, tyrants, and cowards.

I don't mind blackguards and dark knights and such being willing to use it...Laertes in Hamlet sure thought it was a great idea...but if you're going to start off with Paladins as champions of Lawful Good, going out of your way to say it's not a cowardly, dishonorable action to smear a substance intended to cause painful, lingering death (or, in the case of soporifics, dull the senses...like some kind of coward) on your weapon to eke out every possible advantage in a fight is not merely wrongheaded, it's disgusting.

(For what it's worth, in 1st edition paladins couldn't use poison OR flaming oil. Flaming oil is a notoriously famous way to burn down entire forests and townships...not precisely a heroic way to do things, either.)

Um.

Aura stench (30 ft., DC 13, 10 rounds)

For all the ability definitions, see the Universal Monster Rules in the back. Stench is there.

Sheesh. I'm really batting 1000 tonight. Danke schoen!

Why don't troglodytes have their stink ability anymore? That's just about the only notable thing about 'em; now they're just tougher, sneakier kobolds.

Neuronin wrote:

The Skeleton has Bludgeoning resistance, and the Zombie has Slashing resistance. Did these two get mixed up, or what?

Check out the explanation on pg 299 of the Bestiary. The type of weapon listed behind the slash is what negates a critter's DR.

Gah. That was stupid. Many thanks!

The Skeleton has Bludgeoning resistance, and the Zombie has Slashing resistance. Did these two get mixed up, or what?