christopher myco's page

Everyone is ignoring the fact that Odin was worshipped as a lawful of God. He was never worshipped as anything else. His non lawful side was like, oh, when Odid was young he did blh blah, The actual God the norse praised was lawful. It is perfectly reasonable that the norsemen would want thier king, to have been wild and crazy in younger days, but wise and lawful in his older days when he was king..

The problem everyone is doing is there are giving equal wait to temporal actions which is silly. It's like saying Malcom X should be NE because he spent most of young life in prison. Or saint paul should LE becuase he was saul before and took great pleasure in torturing christians, or than Satan should be Lawful Good because he was the highest Angel for a longer time than he was satan.

For a diety esp, it needs to be how the God was worship, when he was worship and what time period. The fact is ODIN is never worshipped as anything other than the lawful aloof king, because all his non laful actions are referred to as being past events.

Of course the sorcerer cried out in pain, he's a girlie-man... But seriously...

And the damage was non-lethal, though he did claim that he broke some ribs. (see first statement :P)

The problem boils down to this, if there is a problem: the striking down of the unarmed woman pleading for her life and her lovers life. No-one had any doubt about them being evil. This issue is out of the question. It's the actual slaying of the unarmed, already surrendered more than once, woman. By a cleric of Gorum.

I have an idea of in-game consequences, not neccessarily faith/deity-related.

I think the action is either "wrong" or evil. But... how evil, if that's the case. And mind you. We only have access to the campaign setting, not those fancy other books about gods and magic... (But I'll be happy to get a copy, though my birthday is not until August.. :-P)

Sorry for not partisipating... was unattentive of the thread for a mere moment and suddenly it grew ;-)

Without God's and Magic you cleric maybe could swing it. The act seems evil to me, only because what reason excatly did the cleric have to fight? The fight served no purpose other than bloodshed. The cleric acted more like a cleric of destruction than battle.

Chaotic neutral just means you favor disorder and tend towards good. The Cleric Started a fight, he had no chance of losing, for no real purpose, I'm not sure how that ties in with Gorum. Gorum battles with a purpose, usally to take something he wants or because someones opposes him, but it's never mindless bloodless, which is important because that the line where he is seperates from rogvog. What purpose did the cleric have for fighting, except to satsify his bloodlust. I would not say the cleric is evil, because it should take more than one act to shift to evil. But i would say the act was clearly chaotic evil whose only purpose was the destruction of two lives, because i dont see any other reason for it, other than bloodshed. and i would say that is not in the spirit of what Gorum wants his priest to be, it seems much closer rogvog. I would say unless the cleric could come up with a reasonable answer as to why he forced a fight on two naked thieflings, completey unprepared for batttle, what benefit other than killing them did he get? . I would say, the cleric remains CN, his amor and blade begin rust, and needs to cast an atonement spell to regain his spellcasting abilily. Not only did he dishonor his God but he in actions Venerated the Most hated God and claim it was done in the honor of his patron diety, I can't think of a bigger insult to Gorum.

christopher myco wrote:

Lawful stuff...

Well mate, I know myth, I've studied it, and for you to say Zeus is VERY lawful breaks it up for me. He was NEVER portraited as lawful in any of his stories, he has done lawful things, yes, who hasn't? But he IS ruled by his emotions, that's not lawful.

Regarding Odin, as I stated earlier, you can paint him as non chaotic, not anymore by the way, but that's FAR from lawful. And for the Record, Ragnarok is NOT the end of everything, and he knows it, it's end of the old and restart of mankind and Gods alike.

It seems to me that your perception of the Myths is acurate, the only problem is what is chaotic and what is lawful.

1. zues is not ruled by emotions, he is very lustful, and very tricky, but for its not unlawful for zeus, because its not unlawful for him to have flings and trick moral women. You keep applying our modern rues for fidelity which didn't apply to men. There is nothing choatic about zeus. If you ready the tragadies, the illiad, etc, zeus is the epitome of order. The entire function of zeus is to give order to the world.

to break almost any law one must knowly break that law. you can't do some unlawful unless you know it's unlawful. it's not unlawful for zeus to have flings. if zeus were ruled by emotion he would never have punished his favorite son herules.

I would suggest you read more stories, because unless zeus is chasing after women he is protrayed extemely lawful. When he punished prometheus, when he punshied hercules, in the illiad, in the story of the three ages of man, in the creation story, when he gives law to man. In many of tragadies, in the story of phersephone, in the stories where he gives a mortal his word, and he always keeps it.

Generally it is easy to identify law/chaotic Greek Gods because thier personalities merge with thier domains

ZEUS - lawful- god of law and Justice
Athena- lawful - goddess of wisdom and the just war

The actual chaotic gods had inherently chaotic domains
Ares-the god of battle- the greeks considered him particulary capricious becuase the tide of battle was capricious and the few stories about him tend to demonstrate that inherent capricous nature

Aphrodite- goddess of sexual love/love- by far the most choatic greek good- again the stories about her all warn of her caprious nature.

Hercules- chaoctic, a by product of being the strongest and stepmom out to get you.

Odin- for odin ragnorok is the end of everything for him. some gods will survive, but he, won't, most everyone he's love wont' He knows he not going to win, he's no different from us. At the end of day death is going to win, entropy is going to win, We fight death, and we fight entropy everyday, that both are inevitable, we are not more chaotic because we choose to fight and truth only delay inevitable outcomes.

darth_borehd wrote:

Xum wrote:

darth_borehd wrote:

christopher myco wrote:

Odin is at the very least Lawful. He is the king, and all the rules and custom of the Gods flow from him. Also he is the source of law and Justice for his people.

Remember much of his questing occured when he was a young God and did not have the responsibities of being King.

Good points. I changed his alignment to Lawful Good.

Sad mate, I don't see him as Lawful at all. On this boards it's easy to get someone to say anything is lawful, anything that has ANY code ends up being lawful here, and it doesn't make any sense.

Odin abandons Asgard several times to walk the earth, his thirst for knowledge is such that he lives it all behind to achieve it, his "rules" are broken by him most often than not and the most important thing is, he is TRYING REALLY HARD to break DESTINY by stopping ragnarok and avoiding it. HE KNOWS that's the way things should be, and yet, he's fought against it his whole life, and done all the chaotic stuff he could think off to do it.

He isn't lawful, not in a million years. Next thing people will say is that Zeus is lawful too... geez.

You proved that it requires more thought. I'm considering going back now to NG, but I will leave it as is for a while.

If anybody else has any thoughts, please post them here.

Aside from that beautiful work, really, I'm impressed.

That is not correct. He fights against ragnorok because it means the death of everything, fighting a fight you cannot win to save everyone is not chaotic. it is heroic, esp when it means the death of everything there is a differenc. Again Odin wandered when he was was young God, this is when he met Loki. However when he became the king and older, he was VERY LAWFUL, at that point it became LOKI and Thor who did most of the Adentureing. Almost every story containing the olde Odin is him laying down law or passing Judgement. Yes Odin was Chaotic in his youth, when he lost his eye, but that's not where he ends up, and in the totality of the stories about him, and the history of the norse people, he is venerated far more as the law giver, while the stories of his youth are more who he used to be, and in fact that aspect of the choatic wander passes to thor.

ZEUS is extremely lawful, just because he has flings does not make totally chaotic. Is his Zeus who determined how the gods should interfere with the trojan war. It is zeus who first gives law to man. It is zeus who would come disquised as a traveler to judge the lawfulness of man. It is zeus who determine who should marry aphordite in a lawful matter. It is zues who imposes punishment on hercules, even though he loves his son because hercules violated the rules.

What people who just have a superfical knowledge of the myths don't realize is that zeus has these affairs, because to the greeks only a son of a God could be a true hero. All of Zeus children from these trysts become Hero's and these Hero's go and fight the monsters in the world.

Also to the greeks marriage vows did not exist for the male, for the women yes but not the man, thats why it was ok for odysses to sleep his way home, but not something his queen could do. Other than his flings which are not chaotics acts according to greek law, there is not a single chaotic act that can attrubited to zeus.

christopher myco wrote:

Ross Byers wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Also the code specifically states you have to respect legitimate authority. If they are real diplomats from real governments the paladin has to respect/treat with them. That doesn't mean he has to let them have everything they want, but he can't just go ignoring them cause he wants to.

Just to add more fuel to the fire, that depends on how the Paladin defines 'legitimate' government. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a Paladin might not define rule based on fear and oppression 'legitimate'.

I think as i said before a paladin would do a Saint Augustine and say that an unjust law is no law at all.

Yes however that's a "true Scotsman" argument, which is a fallacy.

For those that don't know what a true Scotsman argument is it goes like this:

Person 1: No Scotsman would ever do "x".
Person 2: I'm a Scotsman and I do "x".
Person 1: Yes well no REAL Scotsman would do "x".

It's false because Person 1 is redefining the term to make his premise correct instead of changing his premise to fit the facts (the fact that person 2 is a Scotsman and does "X").

Not in this case, because Augstine had a very strict criteria for "just" and "law". as long as you have objective criteria for the determination of "just", the arguement would hold.

Abraham spalding wrote:

Also the code specifically states you have to respect legitimate authority. If they are real diplomats from real governments the paladin has to respect/treat with them. That doesn't mean he has to let them have everything they want, but he can't just go ignoring them cause he wants to.

Just to add more fuel to the fire, that depends on how the Paladin defines 'legitimate' government. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a Paladin might not define rule based on fear and oppression 'legitimate'.

I think as i said before a paladin would do a Saint Augustine and say that an unjust law is no law at all.

I do find it odd that the cleric is the only class without a capstone ability, and tad unfair.

Abraham spalding wrote:

They surrendered... see directly and explicitly covered by Gorum... you don't kill those that surrender!

Do you realize that "I surrender, suckers!" will be regularly used against someone with an absolute rule like this?

Do you also realize, that PCs practically by definition are judges, jury and executioners? Often officially too. Do you realize, that this rule either effectively gives villains "completely get away from execution free by saying magic words" card or is completely meaningless and basically just adds a formality before the same result (a dead villain).

EDIT: In certain games and settings this reasoning does not hold water. DnD is not one of them. You're supposed to be dealing with villains through violence constantly. Even (and often especially) if you are a paragon of good. Law enforcement, as a rule, is either nonexistent or too weak to handle said villains. Also, imprisonment works only at low levels.

Again you seem to be ignoring the fact, the rule only applies because this partiuclar pc is cleric, for whom this a rule of his patron Diety.

christopher myco wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I guess we have to wait until AP #35 to get more of an idea what Gorum thinks. I didn't know chaotic creatures cared so much about a fair honorable fight tho...

Gorum is also the diety of valourous combat. there was nothing with valor with the cleric. The thiefling did not refuse to fight, they surrendered, they were outnumbered, had no armor, it would be ridiculous to consider such a fight honorable.

And yet he "laughs at pacifists, especially at the fear on their faces as he chops them apart." What part of that is valourous and honorable?

you do realize that a combatant who surrenders because he does not have a chance at winning is not the same as a pacifist.

A pacifist is a not a warrior or a soldier, paficist have no desire to fight, pacifist oppose the very nature of gorum, pacifist want peace. the thieflings were not pacifist. trying to start a start a fight with people in the act of sex, is ridicolous, espically for a cleric of gorum.

I guess we have to wait until AP #35 to get more of an idea what Gorum thinks. I didn't know chaotic creatures cared so much about a fair honorable fight tho...

Gorum is also the diety of valourous combat. there was nothing with valor with the cleric. The thiefling did not refuse to fight, they surrendered, they were outnumbered, had no armor, it would be ridiculous to consider such a fight honorable.

The problem is the premise of the post. Again the morality of the act is not relevant here for the purposes of the cleric. The issue is as has been said many times, is that his action is in direct conflict with his god. Not only that, if read the lore Gorum is not the most tolerant God of Followers who fail him.

every piece of armor or weapon the cleric uses should rust, and he should be required to atone. as everyone has said it's not an allignment thing but a total affront to his diety.

christopher myco wrote:

some of these are really not even close.

robin hood is NG(with strong lawful tendencies). He opposed a ruler he believed did not have the right to rule and swore feality to the righful king when he returned.

Lawful Good - Sir Galahad (paladin)-superman

another bad one I saw was Achilles as CN. first off Achilles is a
Soldier and a hero- at the very least he is lawful. He refusing to fight because the King broke the established Order. His only chaotic act was draggin the body of hector, but then he was brought to see the order of things. Achilles is most likely LN with Good tendencies

CG- the best example i can think of is Hercules, marvel 616 HULK, Wolverine

LE- lawful evil is quite tough,- most tryants, Dr. Doom,Mordred

NE- almost every bad guy, seriel killers, criminals

CE-very tough, not many CE- spree killers,

Achilles may be a hero but he is not a team player. He fights only for personal glory and to be remembered as the greatest. He is in constant conflict with the King and when he doesnt get his way goes crying to Mommy. He fights only when he chooses to and not when ordered. His battle with Hector is done only out of a sense to avenge Patrocles death. Then of course his dishonor of Hectors corpse when he dragged it around the city seven times. What keeps him in the alignment of neutrality is the fact he has some compassion and honor when he returns Hector's body to King Priam.

Every Greek Hero/soldier fought for personal Glory because that you became immortal.(they revisit that idea)so thats just neutral, nothing is implied in that. He clashed with the King because the king is not for honor, which has been the way before of the greeks, remember this war was to supposed to have started out of the honor of an agreement. But instead the king is using it as a means to an end. So achilles was acting very much in order with the tradition of his time, it's the king who had changed everything.

achilles is best described as LN(with good tendenceis)- because in doing great and heroic deeds you will tend towards good acts).

Hercules would never be TN. He is the greeks greatest hero. His whole life is dedicated and defeating evil monsters, and this was before journey of atonement. he was always helpful. his problem was that with the exception of Zeus he listened to no one, he is the definition choatic. his attitude was i am the son of zeus, I am the strongest i killed snakes when i was kid and monsters with my bear hands, unless your zeus you can't tell me what me to do, and i hercules will make it up as i go along.

vikings would never count of barbarian, way toooooo advanced. Vikings are a proffesional army in way "barbarians" arent'. ABarbarian using a shield is just odd. Like a fighter or paladin in a robe using a dagger odd. can be done, but just odd.

cwslyclgh wrote:

the two best examples of NE people I can think of are Gilbert Gecko (Wallstreet) and Eric Cartman (Southpark).

Gordon Gekko you mean? For sure. Awesome character, they're making a sequel to Wall Street ya know!

Others that I can think of:

NG-Samwise Gamgee
LG-Superman
N-Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

Elric is one of the hardest, I'd peg him TN myself but I'm sure tons will disagree.

The problem is, IMO, the more interesting and complex characters can't be nailed down. Either they exhibit symptoms of many alignments or change over the course of fiction. Robin Hood is a good example, through most of the story he is the paragon of CG, but of course yes swears fealty when the rightful king returns.

Tyrion Lannister from ASOIAF is one of my favorite fictional characters, and I honestly can't pin him down. Nor his brother Jaime. Cersei is boil in the bag, basic LE though. Ned on the otherhand is muddled somewhere in the LN/NG spectrum.

I was going to agree on Cartman as TN but I think he was NE. because of episodes like Ginger Kids, Cancer, the classic revenge episode, deep down he has alot of pure hate, too much hate i think for a TN.

christopher myco wrote:

CE-very tough, not many CE- spree killers,

Riddick

Good call. In pitch black, he is very CE though at the end he seemed to have shifted to CN.

Odin is at the very least Lawful. He is the king, and all the rules and custom of the Gods flow from him. Also he is the source of law and Justice for his people.

Remember much of his questing occured when he was a young God and did not have the responsibities of being King.

some of these are really not even close.

robin hood is NG(with strong lawful tendencies). He opposed a ruler he believed did not have the right to rule and swore feality to the righful king when he returned.

Lawful Good - Sir Galahad (paladin)-superman

another bad one I saw was Achilles as CN. first off Achilles is a
Soldier and a hero- at the very least he is lawful. He refusing to fight because the King broke the established Order. His only chaotic act was draggin the body of hector, but then he was brought to see the order of things. Achilles is most likely LN with Good tendencies

CG- the best example i can think of is Hercules, marvel 616 HULK, Wolverine

LE- lawful evil is quite tough,- most tryants, Dr. Doom,Mordred

NE- almost every bad guy, seriel killers, criminals

CE-very tough, not many CE- spree killers,

christopher myco wrote:

this has always been the case, whether it was a GOD like ZEUS who had many flaws, the Greeks still held that the Justice that flowed from him was perfect, The same with ODIN. I am not aware of any culture that did not believe that thier diety of Justice, delivered any thing but perfect/ideal Justice.

I won't get started on Odin. I'm sure he was pathologically driven to drive a crooked line to his every ends even when a straight one was available. Considering how many times Loki bailed him out of a mess that he created for himself this way and got no thanks for it, one can hardly blame the Trickster for siding with the Giants at the end.

I do believe that the Buddhist-Hindu dieites being more abstract than the Greeks and the Norse are portrayed as perfect ideals as well as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic diety.

I always liked loki personally, true he took the baldur thing a little too far.

It really would be wierd for a culture not to believe that thier gods could not grant divine justice. because even if you believe that man can never get justice right, you kind of need to believe that your diety can.

magnuskn wrote:

Which costs exactly one feat to get back, so yeah, I feel the same.

I prefer a level of Fighter for a free feat rather than wasting one myself. :)

or just be human and save a CL .

I know it is not a very popular idea, but in my opinion, they have really dropped the Cleric too far.

The little that the 3X class did shine, have been changed to not apply.

It lost it's meleeness becasue it was suppossed to be more of a full Caster type, but it doesn't stand with Wizard or Sorcerer when it comes to cool class casting options.

It is the only class that essentually has 18 dead levels, and unlike Wizard Schools or bloodlines, one cleric is still extremely similar to most others (of the same energy).

Aside from that, I think they have done a good job with everything else. Paladin is fairly strong.

I have to disagree with this. Clerics are extremely diverse. Clerics are just like fighters now really, where the choice of the feats is really going to be the difference maker.

Yes they are weaker now, but clerics were beyond strong in 3.0/3.5, the pathfinder clerics is about right in my opinion.

Kevin Mack wrote:

In the matter of fairness I decided to take a look at the product in question (Second darkness endless night if I'm not mistaken.) out of the 30 possible jobs you could end up doing only two I would say may be iffy for a paladin (and even then I would say it is probably streching it) those being Forger (were you forge some documents) and Acolyte (preparing drow rituals although it dosent say what that entails) besides that anything else that is in the adventure has been added in.

Yup... as I've maintained for this entire thread... no Paizo adventure path forces paladins to lose their paladinhood. Some adventures are edgier than others, but we do our best to make sure that even paladins can play. We have no control over tables with traditions of super strict paladin rules, though... so if your table's one where paladin codes are SUPER strict and allow for now gray areas, I suspect that getting stymied by published adventures is only one of several trials your paladin must face during game play. ;-)

I don't see why that is a bad thing. the path of the paladin or the saint, ought to be tough or else it isn't special. If you don't want the baggage that goes along with being SiR Galahad, then don't walk the path of Sir Galahad. Being a Paladin afterall is more than just being a hero, or a good guy, you are the representive and embodiment of justice, and that ought to mean somthing in my opinion.

christopher myco wrote:

I'm pretty sure the decription of Paladin is the embodiment of Divine Justice. Thats a very High standard. That standerd is why pragmatism, ulitarianism, Humes and relativism were born, because it's damn hard to live up to the ideal of Justice.

If what james is saying is the correct interpration, then the wording should be change, because his paladin does not act in accordance to what theologians, moralists, philosophers agree are minimum attributes of divine justice.

I will raise two points here.

1) We are talking about "Divine" justice, as in the justice that is at the will (and perhaps whim) of the deity. We are not talking about the "ideal" of Justice, as understood in the western world today.

2)The phrase in the Paladin description that mentions divine justice does not stop at that concept, it also includes other elements.

core wrote:

Knights, crusaders and law-bringers, paladins seek not just to spread divine justice but to embody the teachings of the virtuous deities they serve

To me, that indicates that not only is divine justice not their only focus, but may not be the most important one, depending on the deity worshiped.

Divine Justice = Ideal Justice=Justice in it's most perfect form

i·de·al Spelled[ahy-dee-uhl, ahy-deel]
–noun
1.a conception of something in its perfection.

this has always been the case, whether it was a GOD like ZEUS who had many flaws, the Greeks still held that the Justice that flowed from him was perfect, The same with ODIN. I am not aware of any culture that did not believe that thier diety of Justice, delivered any thing but perfect/ideal Justice.

the difficulty has always been is can there be true/ideal Justice without reference to the divine or can it even exists at all. This is a major reason why the writing of aethists thinkers will be filled with pages on the nature of Justice.

I am deeply grateful for that. But i wonder if even the anti-paladin will hold similar discussion about what a champion of evil can or can´t do (or even been sympathetic). The paragons of philosophies hold immense power of the imagination of each person, so if there were some room for words to prepare the reader to accept what others can consider...

The difficulty of the anti-paladin, will be giving her purpose. An anti paladin dedicated to destruction and chaos qua destuction and chaos will be unplayable, he will be the spree killer, his every action will be designed to cause chaos and destruction.

The problem with being the embodiment of divine injustice is that you will rebel against nature and order itself. Entropy would be the closest word i can think of.

You would need to create the anti-paladin, such that it were dedicated to injustice and evil but not destruction.

I think the class would need to be focus on destroying some specific virtue tied to law/good, without that kind of limit, you will have the opposite effect of the paladin. instead of being too constrained, the anti-paladin is given too much free reign and will devolve into a spree killing nightmare.

christopher myco wrote:

A lot of stuff in several posts

I am getting the impression that you are more concerned with "Justice" than good. Which leads me to believe that all of your arguments are a very good fit for Hellknights, but much less for Paladins.

I'm pretty sure the decription of Paladin is the embodiment of Divine Justice. Thats a very High standard. That standerd is why pragmatism, ulitarianism, Humes and relativism were born, because it's damn hard to live up to the ideal of Justice.

If what james is saying is the correct interpration, then the wording should be change, because his paladin does not act in accordance to what theologians, moralists, philosophers agree are minimum attributes of divine justice.

If I were running a game in which a paladin was working undercover in an evil society and he avoided saving a creature getting beaten, I would certainly NOT strip the paladin of his paladinhood. I would expect the player to roleplay some guilt and angst and torment, and would expect the player, once the undercover assignment were over, to seek out atonement (or even earlier) from an allied cleric. And if the end result of the undercover assignment results in a step forward for good (such as discovering where the MAIN bad guy is shacked up and what she's up to), then while the paladin had a long dark night of the soul during the assignment I would rule that it was for the greater good and, especially if the paladin came out the other side with atonements and a greater appreciation for society, would see the paladin as having grown better for the ordeal.

Had the paladin stepped forward to save the goblin, and in so doing done so wihtout blowing his cover, I would give the group extra XP points. If the paladin steps forward to save the goblin and in so doing blows his cover and gets the PCs either driven out of town or TPKed or otherwise prevented from finding the key info they were after... that'd be not really an EVIL act but it would certainly be a CHAOTIC act. This situation would likely result, in my game, in the paladin losing his paladinhood just as surely as if he'd stepped in to help torture the goblin.

And finally, in a move that I"m sure will rile things up here even more... I see Jack Bauer of "24" almost as a paladin. He's an intrinsically good and lawful man who's constantly put into impossible situations where he has to make choices for the lesser chaos or the lesser evil, but in the end he manages to save a LOT of people. Yet he's incredibly psychologically damaged and tormented and wracked with guilt and shame over what he's had to do... but I wouldn't take away his paladin powers. Perhaps being wracked with guilt and shame is part of what being a paladin is.

I have to disagree. This sounds more like a knight concerned with the greater good, than a Paladin concerned with Justice.

First off saving the Goblin is not a chaotic act. To quote on of my favorite thinkers on law and justice. "an unjust law is no law at all". Any rule rule or order that would require a paladin to ignore an obviously evil act is not a valid law or rule of order. Note i didnt say a law he didnt like, or one that was iconveinient, or unfair, but an unjust one, an evil one.

2. The greater good and Justice are not same thing. You can't have a greater Justice. If thing requires commiting an injutice or an act of evil to do, it no matter how much aggragate good it creates can not be considered just.

3. I do not see how a paladin with forethought goes into a place he knows to be evil, and when willingly watches evil be perputated and can still remain a paladin.
4. Jack Baur is a knight not a paladin. Jack is concerned with doing the greatest amount of good, and not in justice.
5. The MEANS are the most important part of Justice, using bad ends can never result in justice. A most basic tenet of Justice is that ends may NEVER be justified by means.

I don't see the point of Paladins if they all have is a code and the greater good. A knight with a code and any good alighment can do the same.

If I were running a game in which a paladin was working undercover in an evil society and he avoided saving a creature getting beaten, I would certainly NOT strip the paladin of his paladinhood. I would expect the player to roleplay some guilt and angst and torment, and would expect the player, once the undercover assignment were over, to seek out atonement (or even earlier) from an allied cleric. And if the end result of the undercover assignment results in a step forward for good (such as discovering where the MAIN bad guy is shacked up and what she's up to), then while the paladin had a long dark night of the soul during the assignment I would rule that it was for the greater good and, especially if the paladin came out the other side with atonements and a greater appreciation for society, would see the paladin as having grown better for the ordeal.

Had the paladin stepped forward to save the goblin, and in so doing done so wihtout blowing his cover, I would give the group extra XP points. If the paladin steps forward to save the goblin and in so doing blows his cover and gets the PCs either driven out of town or TPKed or otherwise prevented from finding the key info they were after... that'd be not really an EVIL act but it would certainly be a CHAOTIC act. This situation would likely result, in my game, in the paladin losing his paladinhood just as surely as if he'd stepped in to help torture the goblin.

And finally, in a move that I"m sure will rile things up here even more... I see Jack Bauer of "24" almost as a paladin. He's an intrinsically good and lawful man who's constantly put into impossible situations where he has to make choices for the lesser chaos or the lesser evil, but in the end he manages to save a LOT of people. Yet he's incredibly psychologically damaged and tormented and wracked with guilt and shame over what he's had to do... but I wouldn't take away his paladin powers. Perhaps being wracked with guilt and shame is part of what being a paladin is.

I am going to have to disagree. You seem at least to me to be equatating hero/knight with paladin.

Prehaps we just have different expectations. Doing the most good is not the same as doing justice.

Your point about whether saving the Goblin is a choatic act is not correct. you are saying it's chaotic because it hurt the mission, but the fact is the mission would be diametrically opposed to justice. It would be like an uncover officer watching another bad guy get tortured and let it go because of the mission.

Second that a paladin would enter a mission with the forthought that he would have watch people do evil for the greater good and then watch the evil be done and go anyway, and allowed to be able to atone for it, destroys everything that is just about the class, not to mention justice.

Second, it would seem to me that LG for the Paladin means that Justice is best attained your Order. I am not sure how deciding that an evil act going rectified being more important than a mission is chaotic? And second as Augustine said "an unjust law is no law at all" an order requiring that a paladin stand by and watch evil, would not be a Just order.

The one thing I know that every philosopher and moralist has ever agreed on about justice is that an unjust act can never said to be justified in the name of justice, because justice has value in of itslef. There is no such thing as a greater Justice.

Jack Bauer not a paladin, knight yes, paladin no. He does far too many unjust things.

If Paladins are bound by the cause of Justice, and only need be concerned with the greater good? why not just called them knights? and allow neutral good alignments.

There is a lot of "worst case scenario" flying around regarding what a paladin could and couldn't do. I'm not sure that I could make a sweeping statement that would elucidate anyone on the "problems" of the paladin, but I know what I would do as a GM specifically in the case of Second Darkness

** spoiler omitted **...

I would have to disagree with most of those statments. A Paladin who watches the goblin slave get beaten has failed.

Being a paladin is hard, being Kant was hard, if you are not up to the task do it.

Nor do i think it is GM cruely. If you are a paladin you either choose to go into the drow city and act according to your beliefs, and you realize that you going there would compramise the mission and you don't go.

Being a paragon of Justice is a hard thing, and doing all these cheats to wiggle out of the consquences, cheapens the difficulty of taking on the mantle of justice.

The ELH is my all time favorite RPG Book. The book was awesome, flawed, like everything else in life but awesome.

The best thing was the epic spells, that how magic should be, very close to perfect as far as I'm concerned. The idea of the seeds were great, and i liked all the epic metamagic feats.

The big negative was as james mentioned, level cap. Which did hurt the magic system, in that you really need to be about level 100+, because to do the really interesting stuff required very high spellcart checks.

another negative in my view, was not being able to as mage to ad lib with the seeds, and only knowing a limited number seem to be to go against the whole master of magic motiff of an "epic" mage.

Jared Ouimette wrote:

Maybe the kill one innocent to save many debate is too polarizing.

My suggestion to any player that is put in the situation where you have to kill the innocent to save the world by their DM, they should:

1)kill the innocent.
2)have their character commit seppuku, to regain their honor and pay for their transgression.
3)smack the DM over the head with the game book. (figuratively, mostly)
4)leave and find a group without a moron running it.

Of course the most famous and important homicide case in the western tradition of law, comes very close to this situtaion.

Draco Bahamut wrote:

pres man wrote:

My suggestion to any player that is put in the situation where you have to kill the innocent to save the world by their DM, they should:
1)kill the innocent.
2)have their character commit seppuku, to regain their honor and pay for their transgression.
3)smack the DM over the head with the game book. (figuratively, mostly)
4)leave and find a group without a moron running it.

As if it can´t happen in real life. Of course a DM that do that only to annoy the Paladin player is a jerk, but it can happen naturally in a campaing without the DM planning for it.

I have been talking with my therapist about this paladin issue. She says that the problem of good and evil its in really about ethics and thats a lot subjetive, as what is ethical for one society is not necessarily the same for other society.

A paladin can not do evil acts. But he can kill, he can drink alcohol, he can smoke, he can enter armed inside churchs, a male paladin can attack womans (and kill evil womans on sight), many things who many think as evil but are not in Golarion. So the one size fits all is really frustrating for me.

There are a lot of people on the interweb who think that reality is objective, their morality is pure, just and true, and you can draw simple lines under all moral situations.

none of the things you listed is an evil act.

killing is not an evil act in and of itself. killing an innocent and offending person is an evil act.

drinking not an evil act- see the last super
smoking not an evil act- not healthy but certainly not evil
being armed in a church not an evil act- not sure why you would think it is?
again killing a woman not an evil act in and of itself.

none of these things are evil in our world.

Paladins are special because they believe goodness to be objective and by neccassity MUST be universal or it would not mean anything.

Relativism is great danger for the paladin not evil.

Relativism is how even a great and moral man like aristole could think slavery justified.

Your therapist is confusing ethics with the GOOD, which is very common and many philosophers made it. The danger of confusing the two is relativism.

These books by Kant provide an excellent source for understanding Ojective morality.

The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ,The Critique of Practical Reason, The Metaphysics of Morals, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View and Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

christopher myco wrote:

... and it is not evil to let the 100 die, ...

To some, it is in fact evil to allow them to die. I wouldn't agree, I think it would be neutral, and when faced with a decision between an evil act and a neutral act, irregardless of the consequences, I believe a paladin should always choose the neutral act over the evil one (though of course if there is a good choice, that is the one that should be choosen over the others). But when you can't get people to agree on if doing nothing is neutral or evil, well, where can you really go from there.

I'm not sure if i agree its neutral or not but i do think in this case it's not evil not to save them

Whether one agrees that doing nothing is evil or neutral is based upon whether or not one believes there is such a thing as the greater good.

clearly if you belive in the concept of the greater good, you might be inclined sacrafice the 1 innocent to save the 100. of course this is why many people find ulitiarianism concepts of the good unacceptable, of course for others, they argue that people are just being too squimish. however in any case, Paladins would not subcribe to this theory of the good. However it would certainly pose a diffult test for a traditional hero.

there are times when letting someone die is an evil and selfish act. if you see a man dying on the street and you simple walk by and take no action, when doing so hampers you in no way, that is most certianly an evil act.

however in this case, saving the 100 requires an evil act, which in my views, makes it not-evil act when you choose not to save them.

I always propose that people who put up situations that say things like "What if the paladin had to sacrifice 1 innocent to save 100 lives?" aren't seeing the big picture. The paladin would sacrifice the one innocent, save the one-hundred lives, and then go save the one innocent. It's been happening for years in superhero comics: Save the girl or save these innocents! And the hero just saves both.

If you're a paladin and you're faced with a lose/lose situation, choose the third option and save both.

this is a cheat situation. Personally it's not that difficult a choice for the paladin, because there is no greater good. and it is not evil to let the 100 die, if the cost is the murder of 100. you try to save the 100, and if you fail, so be it.

A paladin would never committ an evil act for the greater good.

1. paladins are not pragmatists, the end result is not what is imporatant to the paladin

2. paladins are not utilitarains- there is no measurement for the good.

3.paladins are not humians, feelings and goodness are not the same nor is it subjective

4. paladins are not artistolians goodness is more than virtue to them

5. paladins are in fact kantantians, there is objective right and wrong, moreover the only justification is the good itself. the good does not need to be reference to any result. a goodness is equal to ever other goodness.

The essiential and most important point made earlier, is that EK melee is severly lacking, so the class is not balanced. What is need are more powerful buff spells that can up an EK's fighter ability faster and quicker. so instead of moderate caster, fairly week fighter as it is now, it can be moderate caster and moderate fighter which would make the class balanced.

The MT is balanced in my opinion because even though you give up a lot of power, you gain alot of versitility, which is fair trade. 5 tool utility players are needed on every championship baseball teams.

The problem for the EK is that it is not versitile, because it;s fighting skills are weak, and current wizard buffs are not efficient enough to make them viable, so you just end up being a caster 95% of the time, which makes the class pointless.

I dislike optimization as much as the next person, but taking the EK is just silly to me. You don't add any flavor because you don't really ever get to become a battlemage, just second rate caster for the vast majority of your adventuring career.

The EK is a Weak prc class. There really is no good reason to pick it. However the problems are not structural. The problem is that the current wizard/sorceror spell list is not really tailored for the EK. What is needed are buffs geared specifically towards the wizard that wants to be a warrior.

Brodiggan Gale wrote:

Both of which are a very simple <conditional clause> + <effect> pairing.

You'll noticed that unlike Cleave, neither at any point says "as a full round action" instead they trigger off of the full-attack action. The only conditions for their use are "Are you making a full attack?" and "Are you using a bow/ranged weapon?" If you are, there's really no leeway in the wording.

Unless of course this is another example of poor wording. This new interpretation diverges a lot from previous use of the feats and thus a clarification under a Special: header would have been usefull.

a single melee attack is the same an attack action

an attack action is not the same as a single melee attack
an attack action is not the same as a single ranged attack
an attack action is not the same as a singe unarmed attack

for the same reasons as all squares are rectangles but not all rectanges are squares.

an attack action is a standard action
a mellee attack is a standard action
a ranged attack is a standard action
an unarmed attack is a standard action

cleave uses the word single melee attack because it only affects melee weapons and it does not work with a full round attack

vital uses "attack action" because it applies to melee attacks, ranged attacks and unarmed attacks but not full round attacks,

so spring attack would work with vital attack/cleave/deadly stroke

you can't use cleave or vital attack or deadly stoke on the same attack

an attack action is just standard action that is any type of attack, but not a full round attack.

ShadowChemosh wrote:

You defiantly have good points. So going by the next step with this logic does this mean I can't feint a target and next round use Vital Strike against them? The wording of Feint in the combat section reads "If successful, the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)."

The highlighted section says melee attack so then I couldn't use vital strike as I am already using my standard action for the melee attack?

You could indeed feint, then use vital strike to make the attack the following round (or this round if you have improved feint). Vital Strike may only be used when you use the Attack action, but it does still involve "making a melee attack" so you get the bonus from feint. But since it's an Attack action (which happens to be a standard action, seriously, top the Actions in Combat table in the Combat chapter) you can't just substitute it anywhere a feat or ability says "a melee attack."

ShadowChemosh wrote:

Melee attack I take to be the generic wording for doing an attack and that is what the wording in Spring Attack has. So just like you could use Vital Strike after you feinted a target you should be able to combine Spring Attack and Vital Strike.

I'm sorry, but you're mistaken, "melee attack" and "attack action" both have specific defined meanings, which can be found in the Combat chapter. An Attack Action can involve a melee attack (or a ranged attack, or an unarmed attack) but a melee attack cannot just be replaced by an Attack Action, otherwise you could replace all the attacks in a full attack with Attack Actions (which would have allowed you to spring attack multiple times in 3.5, and would allow you to vital strike with each attack in Pathfinder, both of which are clearly illegal and have been stated as such). You'll...

think you are wrong. all attack action means is that it can either be a melee attack, a range attack, a range touch attack etc.

vital attack can be a melee attack, or a range attack etc

merely because spring attack excludes range attacks, it therefore does not follow that it excludes vital attack.

Jason words were that vital attack was just a standard action, as opposed to a full round action.

so i don't understand were you are deriving this limitation from. if cleave works with spring attack, then vital attack should also work. vital attack unlike cleave has to use the words "attack action" because it applies to all attacks. cleave only applies to melee attacks.

I think you are not understanding that the greater includes the lesser. there is nothing special about an attack action, other than it be ANY type of attack, while a melee attack must be a melee attack, there is no other distinction to made between them, if jason is correct in calling an Attack action a standard action.

So long as an attack action is a considered a standard action, you can use a spring attack and vital attack, so long as the vital attack takes the form of a melee attack.

The average human doesn't see in the dark. The average human doesn't keep fighting once they reach negative one, let alone their negative con. Half-orcs suffer no penalties outside of Orc Blood trait or any in game prejudice that might be applied to them. The 3.5 half-orc was +2 Str, -2 Int, and -2 Chr. If you want them to keep the strength then they suffer no penalty. So I think the stuff that half orcs get from their orc heritage, both positive and negative, makes up for sharing the +2 to any stat they get from their human ancestry. Oh and they get weapon proficiencies which humans don't even get, but had during the beta. Not really seeing a down side.

Edit: Woot, top of page.

Whether or not human see in the dark does not have much to do with anything. if the starting propositions are orcs are stronger than humans. humans are not on avg 6' 6" then it does make any sense internally to have humans and half orcs have the same avg sense.

if see did it for balance then they should have removed the race, because the race is non sensical. merely because somthing is fiction or fantasy does not excuse from adhereing to an internal logic. if darth vader hugged han solo at the end of empire strikes back, we all would walk out of the movie, or if sauron decided on well lets be friends.

the half orc is the same problem as the death spells. who writes a spell name slay living or finger of death, that doesn't actually kill you in any other way than normal. it's one thing to say nerf a firball to less damage, it's quite another to say that a fire ball no longer ignites objects.

my point is not that the orc is unbalance, my point is that the half-orc like many of the death spell, is not consistant with the internal logic of the game, and they stand out and say, we did this just for purely game balance, which ruins some aspects of the RPG. they should have just been removed from the game, instead of being poster childs for balances.

Tumbling was also reblanced, but it makes sense in terms of the logic of the world, death spells and half-orcs do not.

christopher myco wrote:

3. the half orc race is illogical and immersion breaking, either the half-orc is stronger relative avg than a human or it's not. it's current states make ZERO sense logic based upon the internal rules of the game. as it stands the avg orc and the avg human have the same strengh. if you can't balance the race logically, take it out the game.

The half-orc makes perfect sense, as a half-orc could just as easily inherit human weakness from their human parent just as easily as they could gain the strength from their orc parent. Not to mention that some aspects of strength are considered to be what has been acheived through training or the continuation of training. Fighters tend to continue increasing strength as they level which makes sense since they are running around in heavy armor and swinging heavy weaponry.

what you write above would make sense if and only if humans did not also get a plus 2 bonus, but they do, which means that the avg human is the same strengh at the avg half orc. where the avg half orc is 6' 6" inches, this borders on absurd even for a fantasy game. if they couldn't find a way to make them work, they should have just taken them out of the game.

1. I don't like the changes to the death spells. either have them or don't, death spells that don't kill you are silly.

2. spike chain makes no sense logically even in a fantasy world, spike chains are that powerful in real life, see the kurasme-game, take it out the game, instead of making an illogical weapon that violates the game internal rules.

3. the half orc race is illogical and immersion breaking, either the half-orc is stronger relative avg than a human or it's not. it's current states make ZERO sense logic based upon the internal rules of the game. as it stands the avg orc and the avg human have the same strengh. if you can't balance the race logically, take it out the game.

4. shapechange nerf unjustifed.

5. the tumbling change is fine so long as you are able to deny the target it's dexterity after a successful feint, otherwise it's too punative and unrealistic in terms of how combat would play out given the game rules. wether your a cat or barry sanders or mike tyson you almost always feint before attempting to juke someone.

6. swimming should be a class skill for no one or everyone.

7. it makes no sense that perception is not a class skill for a fighter, seriously, the first thing any fighter would learn would be to observant of his opponent and his surroundings. really bad logic here