I never said that Kobolds were evil. I said that they were viewed as evil by others. Big difference. I love my grey areas. My characters go in with the assumption that Kobolds are evil, and Paladins are the embodiment of might makes right. Paladins therefore smite and kill kobolds on site, because that is what is right to do. Other good characters have more leadway. Like I said, my Paladin is Old Testament.Paladins are not what makes right. Paladins are the symbol of Law and Good.
And while a Lawful Good paladin will fight evil, aka kobolds, how he fights them is determined by his alignment and his paladin code, which should support his alignment.
And many good gods in Pathfinder have no problem with slaughtering kobolds on site. Torag and Erastil come to mind in particular, and Iomedae is know for her crusade, and being the primary goddess for Paladins. All of them are Lawful Good, and if you can't follow your gods example and keep your paladin powers I don't know what you can do.
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Ok, off of Raw and game, on to real world=During Old Testament there would have not been any paladin, as the paladin is molded off the Christean knight during the crusades. Even then this was a romantic interpretation of the Knight class, and not a realistic few of what Knights did.
Most of these knights would have fallen under the Fighter, Cavalier, Ranger, or even Rogue class builds if used in game.Now that the Cavalier class has come out, you might want to look into a Lawful Neutral Cavalier, for that Old Testament feel.
And yet the Old Testament god is considered just as good as the one in the New Testament.
The character I am describing is not a Cavalier, Fighter, or Ranger. I am describing a Paladin. One who strikes with righteous fury at all who opose him and shows no mercy to his foes, like the multiple lawful good gods who agree with this philosophy.
And many good gods in Pathfinder have no problem with slaughtering kobolds on site. Torag and Erastil come to mind in particular, and Iomedae is know for her crusade, and being the primary goddess for Paladins. All of them are Lawful Good, and if you can't follow your gods example and keep your paladin powers I don't know what you can do.
If we put real life analogues asides for a moment, a crusade is a holy war, a conquest or a reconquest against heretics. But its still a battle of soldiers against soldiers. Once the enemy resistance is eliminated, the soldiers don't go after the women, the elderly and the children. they may have done it in our world, and believe me it doesn't always make me proud to be a Christian. At any case, these soldiers were not of any Good alignment if we can relate to such a thing...
But in D&D/Pathfinder, we CAN relate to alignment. As a matter of fact, we are bound to. Some class, like the paladin, has a tight restriction about what he/she can do. I like my zones of gray too, but the paladin isn't even allowed to think about "gray" behavior. He/she must be white as snow or fall from grace.
Now it may be something you don't like about the game or the class, and if it works with your DM (or if you are the DM) then change the rules by all means! But as far as RAW is concerned, the behavior of a paladin clearly cannot allow any excess, even if a cleric of the same god can. that might sound strange, but that's how it is by RAW; the paladin MUST be the quintessential embodiment of Good. Yes, the paladin must be Lawful too, but he doesn't fall (irrevocably) for being chaotic. He doesn't have Smite Chaos as a class feature. A paladin is about Good, all the way. And that, I'm afraid, includes mercy.
The character I am describing is not a Cavalier, Fighter, or Ranger. I am describing a Paladin. One who strikes with righteous fury at all who oppose him and shows no mercy to his foes, like the multiple lawful good gods who agree with this philosophy.
I'm not convinced the paladin is the appropriate class after that statement. A paladin is holy fanatic warrior, but not all holy fanatic warriors are paladins...
'findel
Caineach wrote:
The character I am describing is not a Cavalier, Fighter, or Ranger. I am describing a Paladin. One who strikes with righteous fury at all who oppose him and shows no mercy to his foes, like the multiple lawful good gods who agree with this philosophy.I'm not convinced the paladin is the appropriate class after that statement. A paladin is holy fanatic warrior, but not all holy fanatic warriors are paladins...
'findel
I think I just have a completely different definition of good. I see nothing wrong with a good character slaughtering the women and children of the enemy. They are also the enemy. To not kill them will only create problems for others, and pass the responcibility of killing them on. That is not an honorable thing to do.
Mind you, this is not the only way I see Paladins being played. And not all Paladins need to play this way. My point is more that there are many different ways, and not everyone's views are compatible. Its best to have an understanding of what your player thinks, because if I come into your game with my view of a Paladin we would have an issue. I wouldn't play this Paladin in your game, but I would allow him in a second in my game. Straight jacketting Paladins is a mistake though.
I think I just have a completely different definition of good. I see nothing wrong with a good character slaughtering the women and children of the enemy.
Definitively. I have a problem with Good and Slaughtering children and woman being used in the same sentence.
Again, its a matter of how far you (and your DM) are willing to diverge from RAW, but don't be surprise if that concept doesn't fly with most DMs...
I don't think being evil justifies being killed. I think being a proven threat justifies being called regardless of alignment though. Someone can be evil, but also be too much of a coward to go through with any impulses.
I think a good party would be morally obliged to leave the children and the mother. The Paladin could actually kill the Kobolds because he would be morally obliged to "destroy these monstrosities". Paladins should in fact kill the eggs because they are evil beings and Paladins must smite evil. If he saved the eggs and mother it coulld also be a good act. I think the Paladin has some more options with this moral dilemma. The other party members should not kill the eggs though, they can kill the Brood Mother if provoked. The good party shouldn't leave the eggs alone; they should bring them into town and given to someone they could trust. But if the PC's can give some reason to kill/leave/help the children, take it into consideration.
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After giving it a wee bit of thought, with a little more experience under my belt, you can totally attempt to raise the kobolds as your own people. Take them to a civilized town, definitely good, and put them all under the care of someone trustworthy, qualified for raising kids, and powerful enough to make them stay in line. Then have that person raise them, if that has to be me, then so be it.
If the kobold babies did detect as evil would the party be justified in killing them even though they were not a threat to the party?
No. Deeds count. At least if you don't want to live with the idea of a "race of evil"
(Rise of the Runelords
You don't want to pigeonhole the Paladin's player by assuming that there is only ever one right answer to every situation. As long as the player is hand-wringing about doing the right thing, I would cut him/her some slack.
+1
the paldin has faith that the "right" god will get his hands on the recently dispatched souls ;)Kill em all let your god sort it out ;)LOL = ya but which God ?
My childe, experience the eternal bliss that is the afterlife! *ZWASSHSHSH!*
...what? I'm a chaotic-nuts paladin of madness!
Having never embraced the idea of mortal races being inherently tied to a specific alignment, I can't see baby killing and genocide as anything other than baby killing and genocide.
Yeah, but you can't just use these words on fantasy characters, I mean, their job is already tied with omnicide and the baby could be possessed by Cthulhu himself ^^
(plus, they are no humans - from the rules, we know that kobolds are sentient but what does the paladin know? A character in a world with medieval technology would not think twice about killing the mouse babies in his barn)Well I'd take it this way... if a bunch of Ogres slaughtered a town down to the last child, your adventurers would be heading up into the mountains to destroy the savage evil brutes wouldn't they?
Whats your point? That some kobold heroes will come after the party? Did someone put poisonous shrooms in the Ogres wells and captured their children and a halfling bard?
I guess my Paladin is more Old Testament than yours.
One counter example for you: David and Saul. David would make one quite nice paladin if you ask me.
Another good question to ask is how would a druid, who sees all life (or just most life) as part of nature and having its own special niche in the environment, would they protect the baby kobolds or kill them?
He'd eat their hearts to consume their souls, lay death on their forests and return to his home of Nidal. (or put in another way: druids can be quite different)
With that concept of good, the heros would spend their entire career ferrying humaniod infants and al fronteir towns would be fully racially mixed. I hope your game world supports that. Good most certainly can go with mercy in death, they are not required to be flawless saints.
Don't argue with pragmatism if it is about the absolute morals of a paladin.
Additional complication: kobold eggs are delicious, and a brood that size could easily feed a small village for several weeks.
Discuss.
Depends. Is the paladin we are talking about a goblin by any chance?
Funny though how this question changes if those eggs were some other creature type, like aberrations. Would you leave the eggs of the Xenomorph race from the Alien franchise to live?
That's a problem of the race design of xenomorphs. I do not quite understand WHY they kill (ok, I understand the facehuggers but what's with the grown ups?) - don't argue with sloppy designed species from horror movies.
Were I in this scenario I'd leave them alone but I would leave a warning, something written in ink and in a language they could understand, telling them to behave themselves and to not make us come back here. Ever.
So, you leave the message in... babyscript? You know, since babies usually do not know how to read.
And if they could, what would you do if it were goblins instead of kobolds who think writing steals stuff from your head?
During Old Testament there would have not been any paladin, as the paladin is molded off the Christean knight during the crusades. Even then this was a romantic interpretation of the Knight class, and not a realistic few of what Knights did.
While that's of course true for the name "paladin", characters don't know their class, the rogue class can be used for archeologists for instance - which means a d20 Old Testament character could be a paladin, he just never heard that word (d20 paladins are not modeled after the medieval paladins)