Sunaj Janus's page

Mikaze wrote:

Any Good-aligned character should have serious issues with this course of action, not just paladins.

All that needs to be said.

I don't see how this is evil. The most that has been proven is that it could be considered chaotic.

Here's the scenario: A mercenary army that the PCs freelance for was hired by a city-state to defend them from an invading force. The mercs successfully defend the city, but when the merc leader goes to collect the army's pay the city leaders renege on the contract and decide they're not going to pay up. The merc leader, extremely angry but not wanting to sack the city, comes up with a different plan: Put together a small commando force to penetrate into the city and abduct the leaders, who will then be held hostage and threatened with execution if they don't honor the contract. Maybe kill one of the city leaders just to show them that the merc leader means business.

1. Obviously, the commando force would be the PCs, except one of them is a paladin. Kidnapping isn't very compatible with the paladin's code of ethics, so I'm trying to think if there's another way to keep the character involved so the player isn't sitting around bored while the other PCs get to play the game.

2. Even if I can find something acceptable for the paladin to do, I wonder if this whole business still isn't too far toward the evil end of things that he wouldn't just leave the army anyway, even if he wasn't involved in the kidnapping in any way.

I'm going to be the Devil's Advocate here and say that it is totally legitimate for the Paladin to do this.

You aren't "Kidnapping" anybody. You are "arresting" him. He ripped you off. If somebody broke a contract and was arrested by the paladin and forced to pay up, it would be legitimate if the paladin were acting on the part of a third party, it is legitimate here.

Yes the commando thing is mildly dishonorable. But it just needs pointed out to the Paladin that any more direct method will lead to much greater innocent casulties, and just make sure you do your best not to kill anybody. You have the resources of the Mercenary army at your disposal, the party should be able to equip itself for the situation.

It's not ransom. You have arrested him, and you are holding him until he pays his debt. Put this into perspective. If you were to do this to anybody else, for the same reason it would be legitimate.

Let's create a simular story. A merchant rips off his supplier and refuses to pay on delivery of goods. So the supplier approaches the paladin to get his money. The paladin arrests the Merchant and forces him to honor the contract or be hung. The merchant being arrested has no real power to do this, so it will fall upon his family to pay the paladin the money in order to secure the release of the merchant. All of this is perfectly acceptable behavior for the paladin. But, if you look at it out of context it is kidnapping and ransom.

If you find that either crafting, buying, or finding items makes them more interesting than the other two it is because you are biased to the point that you are deliberatly ignoring the others.

The party is going to go on great adventures, kill horrible monsters, and do heroic things thoughout the campaign, that is what the campaign is. Magic items serving as plot hooks, or quest items is great for the campaign and the players.

However, it really doesn't matter if the party pries the "Sword of Ogre Decapitation" grasp of a dead lich they have slain, or if they find that they lich had a hidden horde of gemstones that allows them to buy the sword, Or if it they find the pieces of a ancient blade that needs to be put together by a DC 25 Blacksmithing check in the heart of an ancient volcano. It is still achieving the exact thing, and it is how the DM's and player play out the scene that makes the difference, not specifically how they get the item.

Also there is nothing wrong with pulling "common" magic items off of the corpses of enemies, especially humanoid ones. If your party is facing humanoids and other weapon weilding enemies often, after a certain level those items should be frequently minor magic items. Otherwise how could they go against this party of adventurers and the magic items that they have. It's understandable that the world might be full of monsters that are naturally stronger and tougher than the party, but they shouldn't be rutinely be coming across humanoids that can equal them and their one of a kind dwarven blade quenched in the blood of a fallen god with their shortsword that they bought at the local blacksmith.

trap that turns it's target invisibile and mute, and replaces him with illusionary double controlled by BBEG.

I have always felt that spell components that have to cost X gp aren't actually destroyed in the casting of the spell, but are rather used as offerings to higher or extra-dimensional entities for services. So Raise Dead you are making an offering to a celestial or even a demon/devil for a evil character in order for the return of the soul. The outsider then gives it to another as payment for some service or another as they have no real use of such things, and so it eventually returns to the material plane. These keeps the average cost of gemstones fairly common. Also the value is a kind of universal value across all planes found it the core rule book, but any geographical area you might have to pay more or less for it. This is a good way of having it available a little cheaper when that level 3 character dies.