I don't want to be starting an argument here, but what you are describing is a philosophy called Moral Relativism, and it is based on a profound logical fallacy. It is provably invalid as a moral foundation.I'd recommend taking an Ethics class or two at your local university. They're pretty interesting.
What it comes down to is that in order to have any kind of moral foundation at all we have to take as a given that there is such a thing as Absolute Goodness( rightness, morality, whatever). We don't have to claim to know what it is, but we do have to understand that it does exist and that it is universal (i.e. not relative or subjective).It doesn't have to be religious or spiritual, and it doesn't have to be backed up by any kind of consequence, but it does have to exist.
And it exists relatively. The morals of any religious, spiritual, or community are subjective and possibly conflicting. There can only be a non-relativistic moral structure when one exists that is indisputably universal. Which will never happen.
This is the foundation of the paladin. Not necessarily someone who understands the full scope of goodness but someone who is wholly dedicated to the idea of goodness as a concept and an ideal. They have the supernatural ability to detect evil in all it's forms. To me, this would include not just someone's nature or the culmination/stains of their choices, but also something's inherent moral worth.
Sadly, they can't do that. Only 6HD or higher Antipaladins, sufficiently strong Clerics, evil-aligned creatures and spells and undead and outsiders emit an aura of evil. The local slaver? Doesn't detect evil. The tyrant? Doesn't detect evil. The secret assassin or serial killer hiding in plain sight? Doesn't detect evil.
It wouldn't even matter if slavery was good for a society, or the slaves themselves. It is founded on the simple idea that it is morally allowable for one creature to unjustly remove the autonomy of another. That is evil, therefor slavery is evil, no matter the benefits.
Is indentured servitude evil? Shall the Paladin free enslaved Orcs? Bound Demons and Devils? Raised Undead servants?
Paladins deal in absolutes. That's why they're the cause of such arguments.
Because "Evil" isn't absolute - in direct contrast to your assertion at the beginning of the post. If Evil was absolute, there would be no argument about the Paladin.
Most rational people recognize that absolutes can't usually be afforded or believed in,
That sounds like moral relativism! *psst* something is either absolute or relative *psst*
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Your never seen bad Paladin roleplaying until you play with a hardcore male chauvanist pig. This coming from a guy. Let just say the player who had the Paladin one of those "woman stays at home and does what the man tells her to or else".
This was a 2E game a few years ago. We were tracking a vamoire to its hideout. We enter a small manor and come across a servant. Who was female. We tried to be careful in case she was under the control of the vampire. The Pal player before we even start interrgoating the NPC decides to do his whole macho thing trying to intimidate the NPC. While ignoring the rest of the party protests. She refuses to answer his questions. He gets angry takes off his gauntlet and slaps the NPC. He connects and proceeds to lose two levels as the "servant" was the vampire. Being very clueless tries again and loses two levels. Very angry both in character and out of character takes another swing and loses two more levels. Going from a 7th level Pl to a 1st Level one in ine combat.
Finally the player gets a clue gets angry tears up his character sheet and sulks away. Last time I heard gebore I moved away he was banned from the local rpg scene for having insulted anoter gamers girlfriend. Who also ended up beating him up. So in the end Karma worked out.
So, this isn't a Paladin story per se... But it was In Nomine, so the player was playing an angel, which is fairly close.
Two pcs were going to meet. One was said angel, one was a demon. To prepare, the demon (who looked like a teenager), got a bunch of 10 - 14 year old children to follow him to the meeting. So, the angel and demon meet, and the demon's player says, "I'm using the kids as a human shield, so the angel can't attack me."
The angel's player's response: "That's okay. I have a flamethrower."
It's the only time I've ever seen an entire table of players stop and stare in disbelief.
Had he been a paladin he would have lost his powers. In game he became an outcast for his action (which is one step before falling and becoming a demon). I think it's safe to say when even the evil characters are appalled at your callus disregard of life, you're doing something wrong.
Tells us about a self correcting problem :D
You know, the evil part of me would have been sorely tempted to let him keep his one level of Paladin :D. Of course the good part of me would be saying not to let the door hit him on the way out.
I actually heard about a group of players where he'd have probably fit in from my friends that he and his wife went to once when they lived out of state. As an example, before they told the group to grow up and left, he told me that they started laughing at his wife and making fun of her for rolling a d12 instead of a d20, something I'm sure all experienced role players have done (and she wasn't new to RPGs). They didn't make it an hour with that group.
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You know, the evil part of me would have been sorely tempted to let him keep his one level of Paladin :D. Of course the good part of me would be saying not to let the door hit him on the way out.I actually heard about a group of players where he'd have probably fit in from my friends that he and his wife went to once when they lived out of state. As an example, before they told the group to grow up and left, he told me that they started laughing at his wife and making fun of her for rolling a d12 instead of a d20, something I'm sure all experienced role players have done (and she wasn't new to RPGs). They didn't make it an hour with that group.
He kicked himself out. We were too busy trying not to laugh at him. In the end karma and the universe has a way of fixing things.
Still the hobby does have it's share of male chauvnits imo. Either a female gamer get stared at like she is out of place when she goes to gaming events. Worst if she is very attractive. I remember getting kicked out of LGS before it went under because the owner was treating a female customer as if she had walked into the wrong store and acted like she was not buying for herself but her boyfriend. A few unpolite words later both she and I were shown the door.
I could understand the attitude 20 years. Possilby even 10 years ago but now it just disgusting. Then we wonder why the hobby does not have as many female gamers.
You know, the evil part of me would have been sorely tempted to let him keep his one level of Paladin :D. Of course the good part of me would be saying not to let the door hit him on the way out.I actually heard about a group of players where he'd have probably fit in from my friends that he and his wife went to once when they lived out of state. As an example, before they told the group to grow up and left, he told me that they started laughing at his wife and making fun of her for rolling a d12 instead of a d20, something I'm sure all experienced role players have done (and she wasn't new to RPGs). They didn't make it an hour with that group.
He kicked himself out. We were too busy trying not to laugh at him. In the end karma and the universe has a way of fixing things.
Still the hobby does have it's share of male chauvnits imo. Either a female gamer get stared at like she is out of place when she goes to gaming events. Worst if she is very attractive. I remember getting kicked out of LGS before it went under because the owner was treating a female customer as if she had walked into the wrong store and acted like she was not buying for herself but her boyfriend. A few unpolite words later both she and I were shown the door.
I could understand the attitude 20 years. Possilby even 10 years ago but now it just disgusting. Then we wonder why the hobby does not have as many female gamers.
I find female gamers to be a wonderful change to today's gaming.
Our gaming group acting needs some females in it. XD A friend and I discussed it once, out of amusement. WE decided that a lesbian D&D loving girl would be the most utter perfect addition to our group.
But. I live in Texas. East Texas. LIke. Don't think Houston. Think the closest county to Louisiana as you can possibly get. First, not many people who play D&D, second, not many women who are even interested in the concept. And. Lastly. Homosexuality is still considered taboo by the more ignorant members of the county.
Course, this same county made a petition to reinstate a police officer that got suspended due to DRUNK DRIVING in his police car, in another town, and stealing a hotel's complimentary breakfast.
Yeah. My town... Love it.. >.>
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(long post, sorry)
Funny Paladin Stuff? Yeah, guilty of a few of those here. I love playing paladins *because* of how strange and arbitrary the code is about a lot of things (an old WotC board poster called "K" wrote up an amazing breakdown of the code in a project called the Dungeonomicon. Well worth a read if you can find it.)
My favorite pally of all time was Greyson Caine, a Geshtalt Paladin/Monk in a very high power game. It started at mid-level so I began the character as having left the church due to ideological differences and retired to some frontier town. He was the bouncer at a brothel. He was a drunk (he'd been arrested a few times for public drunkenness, for which he did his time and payed his fines without incident), a gambler (he never cheated, though he did occasionally bluff), an unrepentant womanizer (though never disrespectful about it) and kind of an abrasive jerk to people he didn't know very well (he had a habit of assuming the worst in people, telling them his assumptions, and telling them to either prove otherwise or get lost). He was also every inch the iconic paladin underneath his "old world-weary soldier" coping mechanism.
The game began with a younger church-knight, a prodigy names Nathan, seeking out Caine and convincing him to come back and help right the wrongs that had begun infecting the church. The two began a very odd-fellows relationship, both being paladins, but having very different takes on interpretations on the code and the purpose of their order.
Some of my favorite interactions:
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Nate: "You had sexual relations with a whore!!?"
Caine: "That term's a little derogatory. Just because they're whores don't mean they shouldn't be treated like women."
Nate: "I.. um, what? You didn't answer the question."
Caine: "Well not that it's any of your business, but yes."
Nate: "You paid for sex! That is completely immoral!"
Caine: "Whoah now kid, I said I slept with the lady. Never said I paid her for it."
Nate: "You refused...
Close enough to what happened. Caine was a great character. changed how I looked at paladin's.
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Not a Paladin, but a jedi in the 1st edition of Star Wars (close enough, I would say).
The guy's enemies (or even just obstacles on his way) would meet unfortunate accidents involving a lightsaber. He would explain it away at any higher-up/cop as "he tried to kill me" or even "he rushed on my lightsaber".
He also did torture a wounded thug inside his hospital room by cutting off his fingers one by one with his lightsaber until the thug gave up the name and location of his boss.
He would never use the Force in any evil endeavour, for fear of getting a Dark Side point, but anything else was fair game.
In my gaming group we've tended to sidestep a good chunk of the Paladin morality debate by making them more Lawful Religious than Lawful Good. We treat them as exemplars of their faith, replacing the paladin's code with a requirement to uphold the tenets of their faith.
But on the original topic most the typical "dumb pally" stories from my group have oddly enough ended up coming from rangers and druids, like the time where, while traveling, a bear crashed out of the bush and one shotted the party mage. The party ranger refused to join the fight because "Rangers shouldn't harm animals".
My favorite paladin one though was in a game I ran in a different system. The group had been helping to defend a village from a raiding party that was the vanguard of an invading army of unknown origin. After successfully repelling the raiders the group had one prisoner to deal with. After interrogating the prisoner, the majority of the party, and the members of the village militia wanted to execute the prisoner. After a long (almost an hour) argument where the paladin continually shrugged off arguments such as "We don't have the resources to keep him prisoner, and can't let him return to his army because he knows our numbers and disposition" and so on, without presenting any alternatives. During which the townsfolk were slowly transitioned from being displeased to bordering on a lynch mob.
He finally agreed that they would give him a soldiers death (the rest of the party's stated plan from the beginning), but only on the condition that he do it himself to ensure that it was done cleanly and in a humane fashion. He bent the prisoner over a stump and hefted his bearded axe, and I told him "Just don't fumble" (in this system a 95 or higher on a d100). He did, and rolled a fumble result of "slipped". I told him that his footing had slipped and that his swing had glanced of the spine causing a bloody mess, much to the horror of the townsfolk...
He swung again... Critical fumble (00 on a d100), result "worse" then "caught"... He overextended his swing and tore out half of the prisoners throat and caught his neck on the beard of the axe... After the villagers recovered from their shock, fits of vomiting, or faints, the party was run out of town...
Now, while I don't consider myself anywhere near perfect in playing paladins myself, I've seen quite a few poorly played paladins.
Paladins who blatantly work with evil; threaten theft, murder and torture; rumor-mongering; etc.
One, however sticks out most in my mind.
I was myself playing a multi-classed paladin/wizard, and along with another paladin, and some other characters whose classes I don't remember, were looking into signing on to guard a caravan.
The other paladin was a member of and order of knighthood (The Knights of the Merciful Sword).
While we were waiting for the caravan to get ready to go, the other paladin took out his sword and started smashing cabinets in the caravan office.
I took exception to this activity, advising him to desist, and pointing out that I didn't think that behavior was befitting a knight or a paladin. He asked me if I were a knight myself, and when I told him I was not, he point blank told me not to tell him how a knight should behave.
I informed the party that I could not work with the other paladin, and started to take my leave. He tried to apologize for the way he spoke, but I did not feel him to be sincere. I left, went to the inn, and wrote a letter to the Knights informing them of his behavior.
I was visited by one of the senior knights, who asked for a detailed account of what had transpired. When I got to the part about not telling him how a knight should behave, the senior knight informed me that if he was indeed a knight, he wouldn't be for much longer.
I got called to the knight's headquarters later, and asked by yet another of the senior knights to give my account.
Afterwards she informed me, were it in her power, she would have granted me knighthood then and there.
Much later in the campaign my paladin passed his tests and did indeed become a knight, though he was later thrown out for dueling a Sharran wizard, and executing him for his evils.
As to the other paladin, I have no idea what punishment he received for his actions.
No i got the worst paladin EVER. He disarmed a 9 year old with a dagger and proceeded to kill the young gang of kids (they were theifs but like ages 9-13) he even asked me if he could use power attack my response: sure why not.
not only did i strip him of his paladin hood i moved his alignment a tick towards evil.
I have a friend who loves paladins.
We were the only surviors facing Strhad. We finally confronted him. Because of some nasty traps my poor gnome cleric was naked, and raced back to the where the paladin was Strhad was closing in I was brandishing the only extra weapon we had the Sunsword (non-proficient). I was able to get to Strhad and attack. We are almost completely out of spells which is why at this point I am going toe to toe. The Paladin stops just out of reach of Strhad because he would not be able to attack if he closed the distance. My poor gnome has only a few hit points left. On the next round Strhad tore the gnome a new one, he was after all the only target in range. Then the paladin takes his 5 foot step and gets his full attack. Had he closed the distance he would have presented a much scarier target, not to mention give my last attack a flanking bonus. The DM later confirmed that we were within a round or so of damage from taking down the vamp but sadly we both died. Later to return as the next camaigns villans.
Same player different Paladin. We were transporting a McGuffin (special spellbook). We were hold up in an inn for the night. We woke up and notice a goblin thief running off with the book. This time I was a halfling rogue. I hoped up in my jammies grabed my pouch of skip rocks and my shortsword and bolted after the thief. The paladin took the time to don his full plate armor. Needless to say I was once again running headlong to my doom while the Paladin worried about his own skin.
Not really "worst" or bad, but once I found out my paladin had disease immunity and high saves against poison I decided he could eat anything and proceeded to take meat from "everything". Yes, everything. If it moved and had edible parts (and wasn't human) I nommed it.
So, we'd come across a dire boar and owned it, then I convinced the other party members to drag half of it back to camp and dragged the other half myself - GM ruled 1000 pounds of bacon (I admit I wished I actually WAS my paladin when he said that xD).
A day or two later we were out and got attacked by demons, and our rogue died so we carried her back to camp and my paladin (at level 3) said to the GM, "He's going to put her on the altar and pray until either she's rezzed or he gets a message from his god" (He was wanting a reason not to kill his wife's character permanently too :P)
So the paladin's god rocks up and says "Well, I'll rez her as a once off, but in exchange I want 1000 pounds of bacon." I rolled diplomacy and the god settled for 500...SCORE! However, he also made me promise not to take more than I could eat in the future :(
Our rogue would say I was the worst - we were in a dungeon and I grappled her out of a doorway to get between her and her targets. They had crossbows and I was protecting her by becoming the target, but she was sooooooo pissed xD Looking back I'd never force a player to move without their consent OOC, but hey, the things we learn.
So, this isn't a Paladin story per se... But it was In Nomine, so the player was playing an angel, which is fairly close.
Two pcs were going to meet. One was said angel, one was a demon. To prepare, the demon (who looked like a teenager), got a bunch of 10 - 14 year old children to follow him to the meeting. So, the angel and demon meet, and the demon's player says, "I'm using the kids as a human shield, so the angel can't attack me."
The angel's player's response: "That's okay. I have a flamethrower."
It's the only time I've ever seen an entire table of players stop and stare in disbelief.
Had he been a paladin he would have lost his powers. In game he became an outcast for his action (which is one step before falling and becoming a demon). I think it's safe to say when even the evil characters are appalled at your callus disregard of life, you're doing something wrong.
Lemme guess... Malakite of Gabriel?
I played a pugilistic Gray Guardian once.
His party got dumped in Ravenloft and everyone proceeded to look at him expectantly when we realized someone would need to wield a sun sword to deal with Strahd. Poor Gray Guardian had no applicable feats and pretty much got torn apart by an amused Darklord. /facepalm
Had a friend who's pally shield-bashed a king, on his throne, in full view of court; because he felt the king was being deliberately misleading.
No i got the worst paladin EVER. He disarmed a 9 year old with a dagger and proceeded to kill the young gang of kids (they were theifs but like ages 9-13) he even asked me if he could use power attack my response: sure why not.
not only did i strip him of his paladin hood i moved his alignment a tick towards evil.
Uh, yeah. That's nearly about the worst I've ever heard, too. I would have moved him more than one tick towards evil, that's for sure.
Franchisse (Frankness, basically plain speaking and open dealing with fellow knights)
Interesting...I've always interpreted Franchise being more "walk the walk" than about being plain speaking. In other words, a knight should act like a knight is expected to act - its not enough to hold to the ideals of chivalry, but to hold to them openly and plainly in the sight of others, that they might be inspired by your example to be likewise chivalrous.
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I have 2 bad paladin stories.
1. This was a convention game. We were 8-9 level. AdnD. Where are going through the dungeon. The pally goes down a hall, opens a door. The DM told him he sees a room with all kinds of touture equipment with demons torturing human females. So what does pally do? Since he was not seen, he shuts the door and comes back to party, tells us nothing is there.
2. ADnD Temple of elemental evil when it first came out. One of the PCs was an half orc assasin. He played him like a thief. We as players knew he was an assaian but he was playing him really good. He helped us through lots of hard fights in temple. He bleed with us.
New player brings in a paladin, comes up to us in Hommlet and says "I wish to join your party, but he (pointing to half orc) is evil so kick him out"
The fallout was not pretty. DM though we should have taken pally into party. Got so bad the DM quit the group.
Also interesting to know black clothing equals=EVIL.
Zawisza Czarny would certainly object.
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The Sturm Quote from the first page is just perfect. I'm actually reading thru the dragon lance chronicles for the first time right now.
As for worst paladin I've ever seen, There was one guy in our group who only ever played paladins and monks. he was a decent player, knew the rules well and usually didn't get in the way of the party, except for 2 things
His monks ALWAYS had a vow of poverty for the overpowered goodness involved.
And his paladins were always not of a faith related to the game world at all. They were christian, and by christian I mean crusades era preaching everywhere he went including to the party. At one point he even went out of his way over a month or so worth of weekly gaming sessions trying to convert the NG cleric of elhona. The last session the cleric finally had had enough and told him to bugger off, so the paladin player takes it as on offense and declares a duel must be held to the death. The cleric refuses so the paladin just attacks anyways. He forgot to take into account though that said cleric was well liked for keeping the party alive so a round later he had 3 axe wounds, broken kneecaps from the dwarf rogue, a pounding headache from the monks flurry, and 10 arrows protruding from his chest thanks to a pair of rangers.
The player was very upset over this and wanted to see some consequences, but the DM pointed out that everyone else had RP'd perfectly, even down to the LG monk stopping what he saw as an unprovoked attack. since the rest of the group was CG or CN nobody else really needed a reason besides being very annoyed.
Afterwards he was asked to refrain from playing paladins anymore. =)
Asta
PSY
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don't know about "worst" I've ever seen, but some fun things that have happened to Pally's in our games.
3.5ed, White Plume Mountain, one of the final rooms, with an enormous Crabbymonster guarding the magic doohickey.
Paladin/Monk goes first, (among the party) and proceeds to dash across the room, trying to secure the Macguffin. He runs (flat-footed, remember) clean past the Huge (possibly Gargantuan) Crabbymomster o' Doom.
Of course, he catches the AoO, what with being a Monk/Paladin who is running full-tilt past a gigantic claw-wielding-grapple-beastie. Claw/Claw/Constrict/Constrict later, and <snip> goes Lando.
He was reincarnated as a Halfling, and proceeded to spend a LOT of money getting sizing enchanted onto his collection of longswords.
PF, Council of Thieves, just after the culmination of the first adventure. Paladin (same player as above) decides he's going to go hunting "Shadow Beasts" to make Westcrown a safer place. He goes out, at night (bad idea at that time, in that AP), with next to no backup. The beasties come from the darkness, tear him a new one, and so falls the Paladin.
He is reincarnated as a Troglodyte (his "punishment" from Iomedae, in his own estimation) and soon becomes known as the Lizardin of Westcrown. Downside: he stinks, BAD. Upside: almost nothing in the AP can now touch him with attacks, as well as the usual Paladin "I save" abilities.
I had a Paladin that was reincarnated into a Bugbear. Try walking around telling people "But I am a Paladin, I was once human."
Mine is actually pretty fresh, from our current campaing. Our group consists of a "Divine Special Ops" team of sort. 2 Paladins, (1 archer and 1 mounted), 1 cleric, 1 Inquisitor and 1 rogue (wich was "sentenced" to help us in our quest. We all worship Iomedae. The cleric is our church apointed leader, and the archer was ordered to protect him at all cost.
The player of the archer paladin likes confrontation and to stir-up trouble, to a fault some would say. His character is described as "a paladin yes, but also a very narcissistic, overconfident, hot-blooded Taldor noble".
His claims his actions are dictated by honor, a point to which I (the inquisitor) generally responds that his conception of "honor" is more fitting of a Gorum-worshipping barbarian.
In any case, he's constantly stirring trouble, generally by attacking first and asking questions later, and considering that every challenge should be handled by smiting, considering sneaking about and negociating with the ennemy to be an unnaceptable way of action. Even (especialy?) when the odds are clearly against us.
Over the course of the campaing he:
- Attacked a NPC that just teased us by saying he was holding our cleric captive, before even learning where the cleric was kept (context: we are in their keep, the nobles are our cleric's family, afflicted with some sort of lycanthropy. Aka, they're all werewolves, and there is a LOAD of them wandering around the estate.
- Recently, while going underwater to retrieve an evil artifact from a Sahuagin temple that we want to destroy, we are trying to swim up to the temple without being seen to figure out the opposing forces and maybe get in without attracting attention, after spotting some guards mounted on sharks he deliberately cuts his hand so the blood would get the sharks (and the guards attention), saying: Sneaking is dishonorable, and we suck at it anyways, better to kill them all now). Of course, chaos ensues.
- After slaughtering a bunch of guards, we get into the temple and face a literal army and the head priestess. I manage to negociate a bit, almost convincing the priestess to hand over the artifact, since we plan on destroying it (altough they are evil, the sahuagin were actually guarding the aftifact, to prevent the return of a powerful wizard-tyrant whose essence was partly sealed in said artifact). The priestess almost agrees to cooperate, asking us what we plan to do in attonement for her slaughtered kin (hinting that she'd take a life in return). The rogue said something so stupid we were all astounded (proposed to sacrifice our crew left on the surface) and the paladin respondes by yelling "You can take me but it won't be free by@$ch!". I should probably mention that our mission is crucial, that the archer's role is to protect the priest, and that we were underwater (fighting there is hell), in a 15 ft wide corridor (with a 15 or 20 ft high ceiling), and before us is a room with about 20 sahuagin guards, all mounted on sharks and armed with lances, 1 mutant captain, and 3 priestesses. An all-out fight would quickly devolve into a literal sphere of lances around us, and a TPK under 3 rounds. (For those who care we managed to stop the paladin from firing and defused the situation, succesfully negotiating to resolve the issue by a duel, which our mounted pally quickly won).
- The final straw was during our last session. Back on the surface our boat had been taken by pirates. A legendary pirate queen and her army no less. We manage to escape to the shore, but find out our look-out (a kid with extraordinary eyesight (powerful magical lenses)) had apparently defected to her side and was helping her find us. While trying to rest to recover her strenght, we are set upon by about 15 or so pirates (more like very strong viking types fighters) led by the turnover look-out kid. The archer pally gets up, aims and yells "Now, let's see if your eye is faster that my arrows" and proceeds to full-attack the kid in the face. After the archer exlaiming "60 dmg! Take that!" the DM mentions that attacking and killing this kid is the last straw and will result in him being stripped of his powers.
His answer? "Now, that does'nt change my damage, does it?" With a smirk.
Dotted for keeping me awake longer that I should have been.
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I ran a one-shot adventure patterned after the Saw films while deployed to Afghanistan. This was a demonstration of the game for my commanding officer at the time. He, of course, was playing the paladin.
At the end of the dungeon, the party had collected everyone trapped in the dungeon, while slowly suffering Con damage from the poisoned air. In the final room they found an inactive portal, with the phrase 'Sacrifice opens the path' on the frame. In Infernal.
After a brief discussion, the rogue suggests killing the one NPC that had survived. The paladin's response?
"Sure, kill the elf."
The session ended after they chased the NPC down, killed him, and used his blood to activate the portal.
DM's answer: No but it changes whether you can come back next session.
It's going to take more than this to ban a player, as we all are long-term friends. The archer's player and I go back over 20 years. We used to be boy scouts together, and would pull stunts like dueling with wooden swords, that we previously set on fire. And refused to allow some other kid to do the same with us, because it was too dangerous...
Anyhow, we knew he was on his way to falling, he knew it (I suspect it was his plan), and he figured "If my paladinhood's gotta go, it might as well be in style". We actually all cheered seeing how epicly ballsy it was of him to say that.
I've got one. Our group heres about a bandit hideout up at a lake, and after fighting off the giant frogs that were trying to eat us, we find an old shack that was falling apart. On the other side of the door we can hear humming. I was all for sneaking around and looking in a window or something.
Paladin: "What condition is the door in?"
GM: "It's pretty old and moldy."
Paladin: "I break it open with my warhammer!"
The entire party was almost killed by a wasp swarm. The humming we heard was the nest on the other side of the door.
Here is one. I have a Paladin of Freedom in my game (CG version of a paladin)
The Paladin of FREEDOM found a Half-Troll Orc with an artifact level slave collar attached to a rod of ownership named "Dog".
A. He plans to find a way to release Dog. Good on him.
B However he is using the heck out of him. They just went on another adventure and took him with them.
C. They still call him Dog and order him around and make him "Tank" for them.
What do you think... is he slipping?
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The DM was running an introductory game at the local college, where anyone could come in and roll up a 1st level character to play. There was no overarching plot, just a band of adventurers roaming the countryside encountering creatures and exploring wilderness. The dedicated players had characters in the 5-7th range, and there were plenty of 1-4th characters that showed up randomly.
The DM decided to let another player run one night so he could roll a character and play. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but this player got permission, and then talked to myself and another player during the week. The thing about this game was, no one died. Any time a character went to negatives, the DM said 'you are unconscious'.
The temp DM wanted to change that. And he enlisted our paladins to do it.
Of this group, there were three of us. One player had a straight 6th level paladin, my friend's rogue had been subjected to a helm of opposite alignment and turned LG and started talking paladin levels, while my CG scout had taken his first level of paladin of freedom after traveling with the 6th level paladin for so long.
The session ran normally until the party bedded down for the night. It was then that the paladins each had a dream.
The single-classed paladin was greeted by a beautiful woman, who offered power and....more, if you know what I mean. The poor new player agreed immediately.
The rogue-paladin was greeted with a similar dream, offered a return to his old alignment, power, and more power. As I knew he would, he accepted.
My elven paladin was greeted by a beautiful elf, and offered power and more. However, he didn't buy it. Demanding to know who she was, she morphed into a drow, and attempted to force him to submit. Before rolling the will save, I inquired as to what bonus he got for being part of an order formed and dedicated to fighting against drow. In any event, he made the save and, being unarmed, broke her nose.
The party then awoke in disarray, the paladins having been magically transported out of the encampment, to find goblin spider-riders attacking. Hopelessly outmatched, the low level characters began to fall, the high level characters struggling desperately against the goblins until the new blackguards turned on them.
The battle ended with all but the two blackguards dead, discussing what to do with my unconscious elf. With no way to heal him awake in order to force him to convert, they slew him.
The next session the original DM killed the blackguards with a roc and had a druid reincarnate everyone back to the status quo, minus a few racial adjustments.
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Here is my worst experience of a Paladin played:
The paladin was stripped of his powers due to several incidences.
a) He fought an evil goblin who only wanted to surrender when the paladin promised his live would be spared. The paladin said I don't have to promise or give my word - I'm a paladin. A day later he handed him over to elves - knowing they would hang him immidiately. He was even told by the elven leader - if you hand him over then we kill him.
The player felt - he hadn't given his word - and anyhow it wasn't him killing the goblin.
b) Directly after the incident he caused a genocide of a lizardmen tribe. To be honest - this was a misunderstanding and not planned. They had killed a dragon whom the lizardmen worshipped as their god. Trying to use diplomacy and getting them to follow the group he proudly announced that he and his fellow comrades had killed the dragon and liberated them.
Somehow the Lizardmen didn't feel that way and badly underpowered they still attacked the group until the very last of them was killed.
c) He had been given an artifact (Gods favoured weapon) by the temple of his god but finding a different weapon that seemed slightly stronger (actually I did the math and it was weaker under most circumstances - just the player got it wrong) and rejected the weapon of his god for a run-of-the mill weapon.
So taken all this together I felt an attonement was in order - and stripped him off his paladinhood. This should not have been a problem. After all - they had a focus (the sword after all was an artifact of his god and I would have allowed that) and a high enough cleric was around as well.
Reaction of the player: I haven't done anything wrong with my paladin. I don't do an attonement. And if you don't give me the powers for my paladin back then I will slit the throats of all my comrades when they sleep next night.
So adding d) to it - being blackmailed by the paladin - he didn't get his powers back and it was the end of the campaign.
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And here is the most pitiful
The group is on a boat down the river. With them are a few thieves. They try to get the group gambling during the day. Off course they use loaded dice. The dwarf takes it as it is and loses a few coins. The paladin berates the thieves to change their live and gets quite annoying.
So in the night the thieves look for a target to steal something. The whole group is under deck - so they are safe - apart of the paladin who wanted to save money. A bad roll (to be honest due to the way he behaved he got minuses) he was targeted and I stole a minor item from him.
I asked for his sheet and took out a rubber and erased an item. The face of the player was priceless as he didn't know what I had rubbed off (something in the 10-50 gp range - he was level 8 or 9).
Next night - the same happens again. He really riles up the thieves during the day using the out-of-character knowledge. So he is targetted again. I think a potion of Cure-Light-Wounds was stolen this time around.
The player is furious as OOC he knows but IC he doesn't know who the cuplrit is. But he really, really annoys the thieves this day on the ship. So third night he sleeps with his backpack in his arms. He fails his fortitude to stay awake all night and perception wasn't his strong skill anyhow - so he wakes up with his backpack slid open and a third item missing.
He then goes on and commands the captain in a not very diplomatic way to make a strip search of all people on board. Done in a diplomatic way I would likely have done it - but the way he played it he really riled up the captain and was send off the boat to follow on foot.
Trying to teach the player a lesson I had him meet a trader and his wife who looked for protection. So he walks with them to the city where the rest of the group waits for him. Half way they encounter three lowly orcs. The idea was that they would give him 5 gp as thanks for their lives - the same amount the paladin didn't wanted to spend and stay save on the boat in a cabin.
This should have been a very simple fight - 3 orcs and a 4 needed to hit them and one hit likely to take them down while they needed a 15 to hit back. The rest of the players annoyed that the paladin more or less had played solo all night an event that should have just been use the boat from a to b were allowed to role dice for the orcs.
Two go for the paladin, 1 for the trader and his wife. The paladin goes defensive (don't ask me why). So instead of a 3 or 4 he now needs a 5 or 6 to hit and misses twice in a row - only to be hit with two ciritical hits. And a crit on a great axe can really, really hurt.
Three combat rounds later and the level 8 or 9 paladin is down - being killed by two run-of the mill orcs. The trader and his wife did survive him - but not very long.
It took the rest of the party a week to miss him and they never found his body.
And all of this because the paladin couldn't spend some gold to travel in more comfort and safety and decided to 'play lawful stupid' in the way he really riled up NPCs.
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Lemme see...paladins are an interesting thing. I remember one character who played a 3.5 knight (not really a paladin, but still) who was strictly LG. He even created a set of codes for himself that he MUST obey, and if he ever failed, he must be punished. It made giving him loot a terrible chore, since he considered taking from the dead to be graverobbing. Still, he was the most good-aligned character in the bunch and stuck well to it...just kinda sucked when he failed in a quest and cut off his finger in recompense...
In my opinion, Paladins should be like the romanticized knights of old. They should be kind and gentle, yet firm in their convictions to fight against evil. They should be virtuous and brave, loyal and courteous, protect those who cannot protect themselves, and never allow evil ends to justify good means. Someone like Michael Carpenter from Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files is, in my opinion, anyway, the epitome of what a true paladin ought to be like. Hell, really, any of the knights of the sword are good descriptions...even the easy-going russian guy whose name escapes me...
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The best game with a spluttering paladin in it was that time when we clawed our way through hordes of undead to reach the top of a high-tower where a necromancer was lurking.
And then, as the heroes emerge in the throne room, the necromancer faces them:
- Boy, did you make quite a mess !
- Evil wizard, now you die !
- Evil ? Who says I am evil ?
- We do ! You deal with death and reanimate corpses.
- Sure do. Is it forbidden ?
- You desacrate their bodies !
- Actually, I bought them from their families. I have contracts, if you wanna see them. Their relatives will be none too pleased to see you salvaged their long-dead uncles and grandfathers, though.
- Err... what ?
- I hope you have means to reimburse me for the damage you caused. Also, I would appreciate if you gave me back all those magic items you plundered from my chests. It's called robbery, you know.
The paladin was so confused, it was funny to behold.
"My honor is my life"... so if I loose my life I loose my honor... I think it says it all.
Est Sularus Oth Mithas
How very Solamnic! :)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Was in a game, where the paladin bossed around the party, expressed absolutely no sense of humour. When the chaotic neutral barbarian swiped a holy symbol of Lamashtu and hid it in pants (it was worth something, and he had seen the power of them before). The paladin had him restrained, and then fished around to find it. Female paladin, male barbarian. Kept fishing around, couldn't find it.
Then gave char a glare and a sermon. Barbarian thought she was insane.
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We had one pally who was always slipping on his vows. For example if torture was happening we would ignore it or "leave" the room. We had a paladin meter for him after awhile.
Another one was a funny and not totally his fault (different player). We were fighting something and the pally was defending a farmer but the pally fumbled and got a critical result of hit friend. Yep hit the farmer and off went his head. He felt bad but then the druid reincarnated the farmer into a badger and it got even more interesting. The druid and pally and been banging heads for awhile even before this.
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I would have to say the worst paladin story I have is about the DM being bad.
DM tells us to make Good heroes, and the campaign is post-apocalyptic. I and a friend make paladins. Campaign starts, and the first major encounter we have is with a group of strange, material plane demons from another reality. They state that they hate the gods, because they were persecuted in their reality. That sucks, we reply, but our gods are good. We're paladins, after all. The demons get irate and insist gods are evil inherently. We tell them they are not; and though we think they can find the protection and respect they want, they should try worshipping ours.
They respond to this by announcing they will never worship gods, and they and their children will go forth and kill all believers in gods, to disrupt prayer and weaken the gods themselves, once they have rebuilt, and nothing will ever change their minds; it was bred into them, to the bone. Us paladins didn't take kindly to this, and decided all we could do (regretfully) was to kill them all right there. There was a defenceless settlement nearby, they would have been the first to fall. So we began the cleansing, killing every demon and whelpling.
At which point, the DM broke down into arguments about how the demons were only neutral. He couldn't see how a pair of paladins would have a problem with a race who were biologically programmed to kill the gods.
Needless to say, the campaign ended there, after two sessions.
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Man, here I thought this was going to be a light-hearted thread about paladins doing goofy non-heroic or amazingly dumb things, not version 23,456,984 of the paladin code debate . . . ;)
I like your story. How old are the kids? Cool to see Dad DMing.
I used to run a game for some neighbor kids (12,10, little sister was 7 or so...she just hung out and would draw, and I made sure that nothing killed her character). That was back in...sheesh, 1987 or so (I was 17 or 18).-Uriel
I would have to say the worst paladin story I have is about the DM being bad.
DM tells us to make Good heroes, and the campaign is post-apocalyptic. I and a friend make paladins. Campaign starts, and the first major encounter we have is with a group of strange, material plane demons from another reality. They state that they hate the gods, because they were persecuted in their reality. That sucks, we reply, but our gods are good. We're paladins, after all. The demons get irate and insist gods are evil inherently. We tell them they are not; and though we think they can find the protection and respect they want, they should try worshipping ours.
They respond to this by announcing they will never worship gods, and they and their children will go forth and kill all believers in gods, to disrupt prayer and weaken the gods themselves, once they have rebuilt, and nothing will ever change their minds; it was bred into them, to the bone. Us paladins didn't take kindly to this, and decided all we could do (regretfully) was to kill them all right there. There was a defenceless settlement nearby, they would have been the first to fall. So we began the cleansing, killing every demon and whelpling.
At which point, the DM broke down into arguments about how the demons were only neutral. He couldn't see how a pair of paladins would have a problem with a race who were biologically programmed to kill the gods.
Needless to say, the campaign ended there, after two sessions.
I like that story. The demons sure didn't sound neutral, but let me guess, the dm was an atheist and naïve? Yes not the type to see annihilating all religions and their agents as an evil act. He would have to be. Of course by being so committed to the genocide of any religious believer, they aren't even close to neutral. It gets funny when a dm's views leach into a game, when they should be presenting npcs and not excusing any crazy ideas about murder and destruction they might have.
Alas a dm can always refuse to listen to sense, but that could have been solved by consulting the alignments and the examples of what they represent. Neutral is not under un-ending genocide against all gods, faiths and believers no matter their ideological hue.
Lol, just because an actor thinks they are in the right, doesn't make what they are doing any less evil. Ah, basics.
I'm an atheist (dnd can sure teach us a thing or two about mythic creation), but a dm that can't objectively play characters, I have seen that before. Now usually it is from a religious player--suddenly npc paladins are mighty and heroic, over-shadowing the players, the churches never lose and they are always prepared. Thus endeth the lesson. I can just see it going the other direction. If the dm really thinks demons are neutral, and that attempting anti-deist genocide is neutral he needs to check the material. Perfect player response would be something like "if the demons are neutral, shouldn't they settle down to a quiet life without destabilising violence, and try not to upset the balance?"
Didn't the dm know that demons are, by default, evil, and what wanton destruction entails? Sure, one demon might not be evil (if we want to push the good individualist line) but a whole group of them are not going to develop doctrine based around peace and love (good) or stoic detachment (neutrality).
I don't want to be starting an argument here, but what you are describing is a philosophy called Moral Relativism, and it is based on a profound logical fallacy. It is provably invalid as a moral foundation.I'd recommend taking an Ethics class or two at your local university. They're pretty interesting.
What it comes down to is that in order to have any kind of moral foundation at all we have to take as a given that there is such a thing as Absolute Goodness( rightness, morality, whatever). We don't have to claim to know what it is, but we do have to understand that it does exist and that it is universal (i.e. not relative or subjective).It doesn't have to be religious or spiritual, and it doesn't have to be backed up by any kind of consequence, but it does have to exist.
And it exists relatively. The morals of any religious, spiritual, or community are subjective and possibly conflicting. There can only be a non-relativistic moral structure when one exists that is indisputably universal. Which will never happen.
This is the foundation of the paladin. Not necessarily someone who understands the full scope of goodness but someone who is wholly dedicated to the idea of goodness as a concept and an ideal. They have the supernatural ability to detect evil in all it's forms. To me, this would include not just someone's nature or the culmination/stains of their choices, but also something's inherent moral worth.Sadly, they can't do that. Only 6HD or higher Antipaladins, sufficiently strong Clerics, evil-aligned creatures and spells and undead and outsiders emit an aura of evil. The local slaver? Doesn't detect evil. The tyrant? Doesn't detect evil. The secret assassin or serial killer hiding in plain sight? Doesn't detect evil.
It wouldn't even matter if slavery was good for a society, or the slaves themselves. It is founded on the simple idea that it is morally allowable for one creature to unjustly remove the autonomy of another. That is...
So what your saying is absolutely positively that all morality every where is Relative? isn't that an absolute statement unto itself.?
I once played a paladin in 3.5 and was a total A-face about it we captured an evil guy (i was 15 at the time and less then sober allot of great full dead shirts I was wearing hint hint) the bad guy had a pile of treasure and we had tied him up i took a nice suit of armor form the pile and proclaimed it to be mine. I lost my Pally levels for "stealing". now as I am wiser i see why but back then I was like ....but the is evil......!!!(whiny voice)
The Sturm Quote from the first page is just perfect. I'm actually reading thru the dragon lance chronicles for the first time right now.
As for worst paladin I've ever seen, There was one guy in our group who only ever played paladins and monks. he was a decent player, knew the rules well and usually didn't get in the way of the party, except for 2 things
His monks ALWAYS had a vow of poverty for the overpowered goodness involved.
And his paladins were always not of a faith related to the game world at all. They were christian, and by christian I mean crusades era preaching everywhere he went including to the party. At one point he even went out of his way over a month or so worth of weekly gaming sessions trying to convert the NG cleric of elhona. The last session the cleric finally had had enough and told him to bugger off, so the paladin player takes it as on offense and declares a duel must be held to the death. The cleric refuses so the paladin just attacks anyways. He forgot to take into account though that said cleric was well liked for keeping the party alive so a round later he had 3 axe wounds, broken kneecaps from the dwarf rogue, a pounding headache from the monks flurry, and 10 arrows protruding from his chest thanks to a pair of rangers.
The player was very upset over this and wanted to see some consequences, but the DM pointed out that everyone else had RP'd perfectly, even down to the LG monk stopping what he saw as an unprovoked attack. since the rest of the group was CG or CN nobody else really needed a reason besides being very annoyed.
Afterwards he was asked to refrain from playing paladins anymore. =)
Asta
PSY
A perfect party response. Just because you are a paladin doesn't mean you get to push other party members around, declare duels on players that disagree with you.
Ha ha! He wanted to see some consequences? A seemingly insane paladin attacks the party cleric, party kills paladin. The world goes on. Gah, I've seen that before, someone play the arrogant di*k, lose badly, and then want the dm to take their side. Once sadly, I've seen the dm do just that. It got quite ridiculous and worthy of mockery, so I obliged.