DM Seeking advice in dealing with a fallen Paladin (Spoilers)

[ReApErMaN8691]

Hey everyone,

Here's the gist. I'm running my group through the Skinsaw Murders, and the player in question is a Human Paladin of Iomedea, himself the brother of the an aasimar cleric of the same goddess.

What happened is this:

Spoiler:

The group was exploring the Hanbey Farm, having a pretty rough time of it. They ended up taking the long way around and getting hit with the three ghoul patrol amidst the the area with the four ghouls strung up--a nasty fight all around.

The paladin did a decent job, I thought. He knew to use his detect evil on the "scarecrows" he saw moving, and knew to be cautious when he felt their evil aura. It put me at ease, because if they had him there they would have a decent way of telling "Hey, this moving, moaning scarecrow's evil. Might be a baddie." or "Hey, this moving, moaning scarecrow's not evil. Might not be a baddie."

But my Player has a bad habit of making snap decisions, sometimes without the prudence one could hope. And so, after the aforementioned fight with the seven ghouls, they hit the curve heading up to the farmhouse and barn, there's the single strung up farmer who'd yet to be turned. They see it moving, groaning. What does my paladin do? "I'm running up and stabbing it with my sword." No detect evil. No question. Just run up and stab. "It's going to suck if you run up and do that and one of them hasn't turned into a ghoul yet," says another of my players, flooding the room with palpable irony.

And so the group has a paladin with the blood of an innocent, helpless farmer on his hands.

So what to do? I felt I had no recourse but to strip the character of his class abilities, but I'm curious if this was perhaps too harsh a course of action? It is true the paladin did kill an innocent by accident, but I feel it was both a sin of wrath (because in his own anger at being ambushed by the ghouls so often he attacked on without even considering it might be a farmer) and pride (because he felt his judgment of the situation was better than that of his goddess', which would have been given to him via his detect evil).

A further question is how should I go about getting my PC redeemed? I personally think it falls within the line of Iomedea's thinking that having him clear out Foxglove Manor sans his powers would be an acceptable lesson in humility, service, and self-sacrifice for her to make sure a decently high level priest passes by Sandpoint to apply an atonement.

I'm happy to hear some feedback on this. I've a relatively new DM with three to four years of experience under my belt, and am always looking for input on how to improve myself and my games.

Thanks, everyone!

[marvin_bishop]

ReApErMaN8691 wrote:

Hey everyone,

Here's the gist. I'm running my group through the Skinsaw Murders, and the player in question is a Human Paladin of Iomedea, himself the brother of the an aasimar cleric of the same goddess.

What happened is this:

[spoiler]

The group was exploring the Hanbey Farm, having a pretty rough time of it. They ended up taking the long way around and getting hit with the three ghoul patrol amidst the the area with the four ghouls strung up--a nasty fight all around.

The paladin did a decent job, I thought. He knew to use his detect evil on the "scarecrows" he saw moving, and knew to be cautious when he felt their evil aura. It put me at ease, because if they had him there they would have a decent way of telling "Hey, this moving, moaning scarecrow's evil. Might be a baddie." or "Hey, this moving, moaning scarecrow's not evil. Might not be a baddie."

But my Player has a bad habit of making snap decisions, sometimes without the prudence one could hope. And so, after the aforementioned fight with the seven ghouls, they hit the curve heading up to the farmhouse and barn, there's the single strung up farmer who'd yet to be turned. They see it moving, groaning. What does my paladin do? "I'm running up and stabbing it with my sword." No detect evil. No question. Just run up and stab. "It's going to suck if you run up and do that and one of them hasn't turned into a ghoul yet," says another of my players, flooding the room with palpable irony.

And so the group has a paladin with the blood of an innocent, helpless farmer on his hands.

So what to do? I felt I had no recourse but to strip the character of his class abilities, but I'm curious if this was perhaps too harsh a course of action? It is true the paladin did kill an innocent by accident, but I feel it was both a sin of wrath (because in his own anger at being ambushed by the ghouls so often he attacked on without even considering it might be a farmer) and pride (because he felt his judgment of the situation was better than that of...

This is definitely an interesting situation, especially for a relatively young paladin. My first thought when I read it was that your paladin has created a fantastic RP opportunity for himself. He got impatient, and screwed up, killing someone he was trying to protect. That seems like something that would eat most paladins alive inside, knowing that they were acting in the name of good but made a mistake. Hopefully you and your group can explore that in future adventures.

I agree that it was a moment of wrath and I could see the pride if you wanted to rule it that way. Stripping him of his paladin abilities might be a bit harsh but given what comes next...

Having a paladin that isn't immune to all of the haunts in foxglove manor could actually work to your favor. Additionally, most of the fights in the manor aren't so difficult that the paladin being without his abilities shouldn't burden the party too heavily.

If this were my table, assuming the paladin showed appropriate remorse for his decision and realized what he did wrong, I would have his powers reappear once they were done with the manor without the use of an atonement spell. If he didn't show remorse and/or didn't realize why his powers were gone then it would become something of a spiritual quest for the paladin, trying to figure out why Iomedae is mad at him.

Either way, it should make for good story and good character development. Let us know how it goes

[TerraNova]

I would definitely strip the character of his powers - he committed as evil an act as you can imagine (slaying a helpless innocent because it was more "expedient" and simpler than to make sure).

That being said, i am also a huge fan of not screwing over your player in the long haul - after all, it is more likely that this player will leave the group or make a new character rather than "sticking with a screwup". Thus i would suggest you talk to the player OOC, explain to him why he needs to fall, and how he can redeem himself, if he so chooses.

[Blue_eyed_paladin]

In this case, I think you've done right by allowing him to finish the quest without powers as a teaching tool, then returning them at the end. Often, you see DMs who will gleefully strip a paladin of their powers for reasonably small infractions and then require expensive spells (or, worse, nothing at all) to restore paladinhood.

Unfortunately, I think 3e paladins have really lost much of what made them special, and they just don't seem to be quite as useful or inspiring as they once were [/wipe tear from eye].

But back to it... I think you've made a good call, you've backed it up with sound reasoning and judgement, and you've let the player know how you felt about the action when it occurred.

Overall, I think you've done everything you need to. If the player abandons the character, they may not have suited the paladin role terribly well to start with. Good luck with this, I hope the player feels you've been fair as well.

[Tharen the Damned]

Stripping the Paladin of his powers is ok IMO.
It creates a good RP oportunity.
If the Paladin shows remorse and tries to attone for his evil deed (not the spell but in roleplaying) as a DM I would give back his powers in parts.
First his detect evil might work and then, after a while in a bloody encounter, his smite evil might suddenly work.
It should be clear that even the Paladin is fogiven his deed is not forgotten by his god.

[KaeYoss]

Making him an ex-Paladin was right. It's also right to make it not too hard to regain his powers.

It was an evil act, because he slew an innocent because he was hasty, but there's worse. He didn't do it intentionally, out of cruelty or anger.

The quest to regain his deitie's good graces should not be too hard, and not impossible, either. Something to teach him patience, prudence, and judgement - not just trusting in his detect evil, but in his own judgement as well.

[robin]

It was NOT a Evil Act as the character assumed it was a ghoul .
It was however a thoughtless and so chaotic act .
So, you were right of stripping the character of his paladinhood

What I would do is inform the character of the following choices
* He can go to the Windsong Abbey in order to have a atonement spell cast on him
* He can reserve his experience points till he find an occasion to atone . In effect , stay at the same level while his buddies are gaining levels
* He can become another class

Wait till they come back to Sandpoint and observe what your player do :
* Tries to atone by either giving himself up to the authorities or by trying to take care of the family of the one he killed : Lawfull or Good GREAT Reaction
* Goes to Magnimar with his friends since stopping evil is more important than gaining in personal power : Good reaction if it's not only the player can't stand to miss on battles . I would play the action in the Townhouse before deciding
* Go straight to the Abbey : BAD Choice

For a great reaction , I would give the paladin his powers straightaway
For only a good reaction , that would depend on the way the player plays his character . Does he try to find a cleric of Iomedae in magnimar and so on. At best , I would have a cleric of Iomedae use a parchment of atonement with a sermon
For a bad choice : there would indeed be an atonement cast but I would really up the challenges for the character . Being forced to give 10% of all income to the family and so on

In no case would I give him back his powers because he only kill a big baddy . To destroy evil doesn't compensate for doing wrong
People are not good because they fight evil

[TerraNova]

robin wrote:

It was NOT a Evil Act as the character assumed it was a ghoul .

It was however a thoughtless and so chaotic act .
So, you were right of stripping the character of his paladinhood

So going into a room that has in equal amounts villagers and ghoul, both tied up from the roof and gagged, you should close your eyes, and hack away, because its not evil this way?

This level of thoughtlessness is evil, it puts your own sloth before the very life of another person.

[Charles Evans 25]

There was a thread at the end of 2007 where several posters discussed the paladin code of conduct. I supply a link to it here, in case it may be of any interest to the OP: Paladin's Code

EDIT:
My personal opinion is that some violation of the way that a paladin ought to behave has taken place; as others have observed, there is no particular time pressure on the Paladin in this case, since the 'scarecrow' is secured and not charging at him raving or moaning; Detect Evil, unless it has been house-ruled to only a limited number of times per day by a DM, is an at-will ability for Paladins if I recall correctly.
As far as Pathfinder sin themes go, I would agree that a case could definitely be made out- for 'sloth'- on the grounds of a Paladin not being bothered to make sure; it might be arguable whether it would count as a sin in this case for other alignments and classes, but Paladins are supposed to be 'shining examples', and that leaves little or no remit for lazily not being bothered to check.
As to the question of atonement, I like the suggestion that the Paladin at the very least ought to acknowledge that he has made a mistake and offer to the civil or religious authorities to be held accountable by trial (if necessary) for what he has done. Such authorities might prefer to defer action, until he has tidied up the current threat of the murders happening in the Sandpoint area, and this would give them the opportunity to frther monitor his behaviour. If the authorities decide that death or sentences or jail-time are out of the question (fairly likely I would think unless the character has been bhaving very badly since his fall) they would at the least require compensation to the man's family (possibly a sum that has to be paid for their support on a regular basis for the rest of his life) possibly combined with some sort of 'trial by ordeal' option as part of the atonement process in the case of religious authorities to find out if his deity regards him as truly repentant- only if he is, does the spell work and his paladin status get restored.

Further Edit:
It has occured to me that resurrect magic and the like exists in fantasy campaigns. A DM could present the paladin's player with an option to borrow money from his church or some other approved institution to pay for a powerful cleric to come out to resurrect the farmer in question, or if a 'trial by ordeal' is hazardous enough and the paladin sincerely repentant, the deity might be moved *just this once* to intervene with one.

[robin]

That's not what I said .
If you think of it and don't take precautions: it's evil , it's a murder
If you do it by ignorance ONCE : it's not , its just manslaughter

And let's face it , the adventure is made to make good but thoughtless person falter there . This is the fifth time at least that you meet ghoul tied up and they present exactly the same look ( burlap sack on head)
So either you DM describes the reaction of the living people a little diffently , either you're trapped.
Don't get me wrong , it's a great way to teach caution to players but it can be a little harsh .

[ReApErMaN8691]

Thanks for all the great feedback, guys. It definitely helps to give some perspective, as well as some inspiration.

Our game goes down Wednesday, so I'm glad to get some ideas.

I try to enforce the idea that the divine classes have a very individual link with the deities so as to better justify the slight roleplaying restrictions they have. I usually do this through dreams, visions, and feelings given to them to let them know they're in touch with their higher-power.

I'll probably use something like this to communicate to my PC what he needs to do to get himself back on track. Perhaps a passing conversation with a dark-skinned stranger who only he can see--something like that. I think facing Foxglove Manor without his powers will be a decent lesson in courage and humility, and I'm going to try and fit something extra in there to send home a lesson about better judgment and prudence as well.

I like this approach because it isn't impossible for the PC to accomplish (although he'll certainly be feeling the hurt in Foxglove Manor without his abilities) and won't punish him for too long. I want this to be an early lesson that he has be smart about his character.

It's also good that I can use this as a dual lesson, as the player running the paladin's brother, the Aasimar cleric, almost had the same thing happen to him when he came real close to killing the unarmed diseased man (I forget his name) in the straight jacket at Habe's Sanitarium because he went into a rage and attacked him. Hopefully he'll also learn from the paladin's mistake.

As a side note, does I know we have Desna and Lamashtu covered, but have the devs posted any general ideas as to what the other deities look like? I'd be nice to know so I know a general idea of how to present them in visions, dreams, imagery and such. It might be misguided, but my first impression of how Iomedea looked was something close to the paladin iconic... but that might be just because she just looks so damn awesome...

Also, thanks for the link CHarles, I'll definitely look over that post. I had also not thought of his mistake as one of sloth. That's actually a good fit, maybe better than pride. Maybe all three? I dunno. I still need to work on it a bit.