Essentially, she is Lawful Stupid. Like a great many Lawful Stupid characters, she thinks she is Lawful Good. However, do to her obsessive-compulsive behavior and complete lack of mercy, she left Lawful Good territory a good while ago. Her patron deity has abandoned her and a Lawful Evil deity is now granting her the same powers she had as a Paladin to keep her from figuring this out (He is greatly entertained by her behavior). I intend her as an NPC that the party has to deal with.
My question is this: if someone uses Detect Evil or Smite Evil, should she be considered evil? She serves a Lawful Evil deity and her reactions to crimes are wholeheartedly (and usually violently) disproportionate, to the point where they definitely should be considered acts of evil in and of themselves. On the other hand, she thinks she serves a Lawful Good deity, thinks her brutal actions are for the good of others, and is delusional to the point where she is completely incapable of making a well reasoned morality decision. All she can do is kill anything that does something immoral. Does the fact that she mentally ill mean that she cannot have an evil alignment, do to the fact that she does not have the ability to form the intent to do evil? If so, what should be her alignment?
The thing is, she is mentally ill, and has been for a long time. The fact that she isn't all there could conceivably cause her to have trouble realizing that she has changed deities, even with detect evil. People with mental issues people can be highly easy to manipulate, especially when deities are involved, and that's what's going on here. She isn't moronically inept, she's too sick to realize what's going on, which is how the evil deity got to her in the first place. Her brain just doesn't work well enough to make well reasoned decisions anymore, and the evil deity is taking advantage of the situation. That's actually why her original, good deity abandoned her: the deity realized her Paladin was going mad, and had take her powers for the safety of others. Then the evil deity gave them back.
An Anti-Paladin wouldn't work. It focuses specifically on doing evil, and this character doesn't. She does evil unwittingly.
Furthermore, this isn't an "I want the goodies but don't want the baggage issue", it's something I think would be an interesting idea to explore.
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i beleive that alignment should have been removed from the game entirely. it would remove so many pointless headaches. and it would save both a massive amount of page space and the millions of alignment threads.
if some guy wants a mentally ill paladin with a psychotic order obscession. it should be possible. even if driven to evil.
i beleive alignment is nothing more than an unneccessary straightjacket that needs to be discarded for all the headaches it causes. it's just as stupid as the race/class restrictions in 1st edition.
I'd like to clarify what I'm asking in this thread: Can a character be evil if they are mentally ill, and cannot form the intent to do evil or understand that they are doing evil? That is what's going on with this Paladin. She's Lawful Stupid out of bona fide insanity, not out of stupidity or ineptitude. If an insane person cannot be evil, should their alignment be True Neutral like animals not intelligent enough to make morality decisions? If not, how should alignment be handled for the mentally ill?
i beleive that alignment should have been removed from the game entirely. it would remove so many pointless headaches. and it would save both a massive amount of page space and the millions of alignment threads.
if some guy wants a mentally ill paladin with a psychotic order obscession. it should be possible. even if driven to evil.
i beleive alignment is nothing more than an unneccessary straightjacket that needs to be discarded for all the headaches it causes. it's just as stupid as the race/class restrictions in 1st edition.
It would be nice to abandon alignment, but difficult because of everything that relies on it.
I'd like to clarify what I'm asking in this thread: Can a character be evil if they are mentally ill, and cannot form the intent to do evil or understand that they are doing evil? That is what's going on with this Paladin. She's Lawful Stupid out of bona fide insanity, not out of stupidity or ineptitude. If an insane person cannot be evil, should their alignment be True Neutral like animals not intelligent enough to make morality decisions? If not, how should alignment be handled for the mentally ill?
Perhaps Lawful Neutral. However, going by Aristotle's ethics, which is the basis of our legal definition of insanity, if a person is incapable of distinguishing right from wrong they are insane; hence if psychosis makes the Paladin believe they are doing right or they have delusions such as elves are evil monsters that they are incapable of recognizing, then they could still be "good" or "neutral" without venturing into evil. Evil really requires conscious intent. An insane person can be evil in those areas outside their lack of rationality; i.e., a mentally ill person who kills compulsively but has moments of lucidity is evil if they choose to use those moments to cover their crimes and don't turn themselves in. Likewise, a character that is under a monster's mental control doesn't lose their alignment for things the monster makes them do. They may suffer guilt or trauma, but they don't become evil unless someone convinces them that's what they are...
I'd like to clarify what I'm asking in this thread: Can a character be evil if they are mentally ill, and cannot form the intent to do evil or understand that they are doing evil? That is what's going on with this Paladin. She's Lawful Stupid out of bona fide insanity, not out of stupidity or ineptitude. If an insane person cannot be evil, should their alignment be True Neutral like animals not intelligent enough to make morality decisions? If not, how should alignment be handled for the mentally ill?
If they are not being compelled by an external force and do evil things then they're evil. That's like saying serial killers with mental illnesses are not evil, they just need help.
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Without going into interpretations of evil and intent..
another suggestion for the original post is to play a multiclass Fighter/Cleric who insists she is in fact a paladin.
No need to worry about how to behave how you want and still claim a 'LG' alignment.
Well not really, Clerics who stray off the path lose all their spellcasting.
Better just to make an Anti-Paladin who is delusional and get on with it.
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Well not really, Clerics who stray off the path lose all their spellcasting.Better just to make an Anti-Paladin who is delusional and get on with it.
I never said cleric of Iomedae or Saranae. So long as we're mentally ill/delusional, go for a Fighter/cleric 'paladin' of a deity compatable with evil actions.
I never said cleric of Iomedae or Saranae. So long as we're mentally ill/delusional, go for a Fighter/cleric 'paladin' of a deity compatable with evil actions.
Given the nature of how the Gods work with Clerics, praying to Saerenrae and getting spells off (insert evil here) seems even odder than the character concept.
Suppose Oracle could cut it?
Houserule a new curse - 'Mad as a Hatter' which makes the character completely delusional, but has the eventual advantages of them having great will saves against things like confusion as they are already out of their tree.
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I never said cleric of Iomedae or Saranae. So long as we're mentally ill/delusional, go for a Fighter/cleric 'paladin' of a deity compatable with evil actions.Given the nature of how the Gods work with Clerics, praying to Saerenrae and getting spells off (insert evil here) seems even odder than the character concept.
Suppose Oracle could cut it?
Houserule a new curse - 'Mad as a Hatter' which makes the character completely delusional, but has the eventual advantages of them having great will saves against things like confusion as they are already out of their tree.
I don't think you're quite getting it. Cleric class levels would come from a non-good deity. Openly praying to and recieving cleric class abilities from said non-good deity. The character is simply insisting (in character and falsely yet sincerely) that she's of such a pure soul that out-of-character she'd be defined as LG. Not only that, that she's also a paladin.
Her mental illness has made her commit evil acts which have shifted her alignment towards evil. She has, barring an atonement, lost her paladinhood. Do not try to get around the class restrictions by attempting to ascribe motivations and actions to the Gods.
If a good deity can provide a Paladin with power, shouldn't an evil deity have the same ability? It makes mechanical sense, and I think the story of a badly delusional Paladin who doesn't understand what she's doing is worth subverting the class restrictions. I feel it makes for a rather sympathetic villain.
Oh I get it all to well.
The problem is the player in question is looking to be a 'Paladin' and is under the delusion that they are doing 'good'. As such, praying to (insert evil god) and sacrificing babies at the altar would kind of tip them off right from the outset that they are, in fact, Evil. Not slightly mad and misguided, but Evil from day one. They can't even pretend.
Now part two is the suggestion that an Evil god would think it was the lulz to power a lone nutcase as though they were a normal good aligned Paladin... now why would they do that when they could just as easily make an Anti-Paladin; handing the loony a bunch of good aligned powers against evil seems like a bit of a crazy decision.
Basically it makes no sense, mechanical or othwerwise.
May as well just be a straight fighter who has lost their marbles and calls themself a Paladin whilst actiong like a sociopath.
Oracle is the only divine class that makes sense mechanically really, as it isn't specifically defined as to whom/what exactly is shovelling the power in.
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I asked a question similar to this a while back, and it seems the consensus is that an insane paladin is going to lose their paladin powers.
If, however, you want to play up the "evil deity encouraging her" angle, all you need to do is come up with a new template of sorts to illustrate "pawn of devils" and have it bear enough of a similarity to the paladin's most recognizable abilities, at least in a way that makes sense thematically.
Detect Evil: The voices of imps claiming to be angels whisper in your paladin's ear, denouncing certain people and exalting others as they see fit. Your paladin mistakes this whispering for Detect Evil.
Lay on Hands: Your paladin gains the ability to cast False Life on herself, or Bear's Endurance on an ally, and mistakes the increased vigor for the effect of Lay on Hands.
Smite Evil: Devils secretly replace the paladin's weapon with an axiomatic identical version.
And so forth.
After some thought, I am instituting a new house rule. Any character who is mentally ill to the point where he or she is incapable of differentiating right from wrong or of making reasoned morality choices is of True Neutral alignment. I base this off the fact that animals are True Neutral do to their inability to make moral choices. I feel that the same should apply to those individuals too insane to make moral choices. As such, the Paladin, under this house rule, is True Neutral.
As to the issue of her alignment disqualifying her from Paladinhood, I decree that she is no longer a member of the Paladin class (she now levels up as a Cleric) do to the alignment change brought on by her insanity, but do to the evil deity's intervention her Paladin abilities from the Paladin levels she once possessed still function (though her Smite Evil is now Smite Anything).
Oh I get it all to well.
The problem is the player in question is looking to be a 'Paladin' and is under the delusion that they are doing 'good'. As such, praying to (insert evil god) and sacrificing babies at the altar would kind of tip them off right from the outset that they are, in fact, Evil. Not slightly mad and misguided, but Evil from day one. They can't even pretend.
Now part two is the suggestion that an Evil god would think it was the lulz to power a lone nutcase as though they were a normal good aligned Paladin... now why would they do that when they could just as easily make an Anti-Paladin; handing the loony a bunch of good aligned powers against evil seems like a bit of a crazy decision.
Basically it makes no sense, mechanical or othwerwise.
May as well just be a straight fighter who has lost their marbles and calls themself a Paladin whilst actiong like a sociopath.
As I said before, she is too badly delusional to comprehend the deity change. She would be able to do so if she were sane, but she isn't sane.
As for why the evil deity is helping her, her delusions are causing her to kill a lot of people for incredibly minor things, which is causing a lot of problems, and the evil deity wants these killings to continue.
You do have a point, however. She is mostly fighting good and neutral people, so perhaps her smite evil and protection from evil spells are actually functioning as smite good/neutral and protection from good/neutral?
I asked a question similar to this a while back, and it seems the consensus is that an insane paladin is going to lose their paladin powers.
If, however, you want to play up the "evil deity encouraging her" angle, all you need to do is come up with a new template of sorts to illustrate "pawn of devils" and have it bear enough of a similarity to the paladin's most recognizable abilities, at least in a way that makes sense thematically.
Detect Evil: The voices of imps claiming to be angels whisper in your paladin's ear, denouncing certain people and exalting others as they see fit. Your paladin mistakes this whispering for Detect Evil.
Lay on Hands: Your paladin gains the ability to cast False Life on herself, or Bear's Endurance on an ally, and mistakes the increased vigor for the effect of Lay on Hands.
Smite Evil: Devils secretly replace the paladin's weapon with an axiomatic identical version.
And so forth.
I like this. Thank you.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin
Yet there are others, the dark and disturbed few
Seems as though they take mental instability into account there.
So its a delusional Anti-Paladin then.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin
Yet there are others, the dark and disturbed fewSeems as though they take mental instability into account there.
So its a delusional Anti-Paladin then.
I'm willing to accept an Anti-Paladin under the house rule that they can be of True Neutral alignment and not lose their class abilities if they are insane.
Her mental illness has made her commit evil acts which have shifted her alignment towards evil. She has, barring an atonement, lost her paladinhood. Do not try to get around the class restrictions by attempting to ascribe motivations and actions to the Gods.If a good deity can provide a Paladin with power, shouldn't an evil deity have the same ability? It makes mechanical sense, and I think the story of a badly delusional Paladin who doesn't understand what she's doing is worth subverting the class restrictions. I feel it makes for a rather sympathetic villain.
Look, the point is if you're playing straight Pathfinder then she's evil. If you're the one running the game, or if you can talk your GM into it, then you can bend the rules any way you want. But if you're asking us to find some RAW justification that you can take to your GM because he's already said "no" then you're going to be disappointed. It doesn't exist.
Her mental illness has made her commit evil acts which have shifted her alignment towards evil. She has, barring an atonement, lost her paladinhood. Do not try to get around the class restrictions by attempting to ascribe motivations and actions to the Gods.If a good deity can provide a Paladin with power, shouldn't an evil deity have the same ability? It makes mechanical sense, and I think the story of a badly delusional Paladin who doesn't understand what she's doing is worth subverting the class restrictions. I feel it makes for a rather sympathetic villain.Look, the point is that if you're playing straight Pathfinder then she's evil. If you're the one running the game, or if you can talk your GM into it, then you can bend the rules any way you want. But if you're asking us to find some RAW justification that you can take to your GM because he's already said "no" then you're going to be disappointed. It doesn't exist.
I'm the GM. What I wanted to do in this thread is try to figure out how insanity effects whether someone can be evil, something I wasn't 100% clear on as far as RAW is concerned. I have my answer now, though I have decided to implement my own house rule on the issue.
[I tend to agree with the Oracle option here with maybe one or two levels of "dead" paladin levels if you really want to go with the flavor. You can incorporate the curse as a part of the mental illness and go from there. At that point alignment no longer makes any difference.
You don't need to be a paladin to make this concept work.
Though fair warning. This kind of concept only works in morally gray to evil groups. Try it in a good aligned group with any common sense and you might find yourself rapidly put down or quickly abandoned to whatever fate you find yourself in.
Though fair warning. This kind of concept only works in morally gray to evil groups. Try it in a good aligned group with any common sense and you might find yourself rapidly put down or quickly abandoned to whatever fate you find yourself in.
This isn't a character that's joining the adventuring party, it's an NPC I'm running as the GM that the (good aligned) party has to go up against and either kill or subdue and somehow find some sort of mental treatment for. She is in no way, shape, or form ever meant to be used as a playable character.
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Actually, I checked the Game Mastery Guide, and there's a section on insanity. It actually has stats for various mental illnesses, including Mania, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, Paranoia, etc. Each week you have to make a Will save, and if you succeed, the DC is reduced by your CHA modifier. When it drops to zero, you're cured. (If only it was so easy in real life)
Psychosis actually changes your alignment to Chaotic Evil, but no word on what that does to a paladin, except maybe force him to be an anti-paladin. Schizophrenia seems closer to what you're describing-- the patient loses connection with reality-- but it has no affect on alignment, it just penalizes your ability to make skill checks and causes you to become confused under stressful situations.
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Actually, I checked the Game Mastery Guide, and there's a section on insanity. It actually has stats for various mental illnesses, including Mania, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, Paranoia, etc. Each week you have to make a Will save, and if you succeed, the DC is reduced by your CHA modifier. When it drops to zero, you're cured. (If only it was so easy in real life)
Psychosis actually changes your alignment to Chaotic Evil, but no word on what that does to a paladin, except maybe force him to be an anti-paladin. Schizophrenia seems closer to what you're describing-- the patient loses connection with reality-- but it has no affect on alignment, it just penalizes your ability to make skill checks and causes you to become confused under stressful situations.
I've looked at those. As a mental health professional, there's a lot I would change about their definition of psychosis mostly. First off, the difference between schizophrenia and psychosis as mental ilnesses makes no sense as stated, since schizophrenia is a disease punctuated by psychotic episodes and often times by chronic psychotic thinking. What they mean is «psychopathy», not «psychosis». And psychopaths are certainly evil, but rarely chaotic in fact.
On a game perspective, I am personally a huge defender of alignments, even though they should be more consequences of roleplay than guidelines to a character's evolution. Here's my take on the two axis:
Good vs evil shows the importance of self vs the importance of others. A good character tends to believe (emotionaly at least) that it's worth sacrificing herself if at least one other benefits from it. A neutral character believes you need to weight your loss against others' benefits and make moral deals. An evil character believes the whole world is not worth her own self. There's a continuum between pure good and pure neutral, and between pure neutral and pure evil.
Just to make something clear, torture is not an aligned thing, it's a way to have fun. An evil sadistic person will get all fun possible from her hobby; a good sadistic person might be masochistic instead, directing the impulse against herself. A neutral sadist will weight her fun against the others' suffering.
On that axis, situating your character is very interesting, but tricky. I would say he started out as a benevolent person, but gradually started blending his conceptions of himself and God. So he became a defender of principles only coming from himself and doesn't care anymore about weighting his actions against a morality - he only does what he needs to feel good. Ergo, evil.
I'm less assertive regarding law vs chaos, but IMO it refers to how deeply a character feels the world can be predicted. A lawful character believes she can get benefits from following the world's order; a chaotic character believes she'd be very dumb to play by the rules when anyone can break them at any time. A neutral character believes circumstances is the key, some situations being rules-friendly and some others not.
To use the sadism example again, for extreme alignments: LE = torture inside legality; CE = torture as long as no one can stop you; LG = hurt yourself for principles; CG = hurt yourself as long as it keeps being fun. Etc.
Wrap-up: Mr lawful stupid here is in fact lawful evil. He believes in principles that are worth following and he alos believes that he earns some points following them (lawful), but has long stopped weighting his ptinciples against others' interests and only follows said principles them to feel good about himself (evil).
Hope it helps.
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Actually, I checked the Game Mastery Guide, and there's a section on insanity. It actually has stats for various mental illnesses, including Mania, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder, Paranoia, etc. Each week you have to make a Will save, and if you succeed, the DC is reduced by your CHA modifier. When it drops to zero, you're cured. (If only it was so easy in real life)
Psychosis actually changes your alignment to Chaotic Evil, but no word on what that does to a paladin, except maybe force him to be an anti-paladin. Schizophrenia seems closer to what you're describing-- the patient loses connection with reality-- but it has no affect on alignment, it just penalizes your ability to make skill checks and causes you to become confused under stressful situations.
I've looked at those. As a mental health professional, there's a lot I would change about their definition of psychosis mostly. First off, the difference between schizophrenia and psychosis as mental ilnesses makes no sense as stated, since schizophrenia is a disease punctuated by psychotic episodes and often times by chronic psychotic thinking. What they mean is «psychopathy», not «psychosis». And psychopaths are certainly evil, but rarely chaotic in fact.
I'm no professional, but even a few entry-level college courses in psychology was enough to show me a few holes in this section. For one, their stats for Amnesia is the kind where you forget everything but can still form new memories, when the more common form of amnesia is the one where you remember everything up to that point but can't form new memories. I'm just grateful they recognize a difference between Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder.
I do wish they'd dug a little deeper into the DSM-IV and fleshed this section out a bit, but I suppose Int, Wis, and Cha damage are rare enough that most characters will never actually need to know any of this. As for insane paladins, a "psychotic" paladin would pretty much have to be an anti-paladin. A paranoid paladin could work for what TheFace is looking for, though it's kind of hard to reconcile paranoia when you have Detect Evil at will and can verify that most people aren't evil-- that might be worth some roleplaying gold. Schizophrenia would also be a good choice, but if your disconnect with reality causes you to violate your code of conduct, then it gets messy. Fortnately, Schizophrenia doesn't force a character to do anything like that RAW, even though as roleplayed it probably should.
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I absolutely loathe character concepts like this. Paladins are the champions of justice and good. Upholding just laws, protecting the innocent, serving the greater good. Insane or not, if the character is not doing this, or worse, they're causing harm, they aren't a paladin. They may think they're one, but they aren't, and shouldn't get the abilities tied into it. If you want a champion of evil, use an Anti-Paladin. Otherwise, they're a fighter or cavalier with delusions.
As for "being fooled by the gods", I just don't see that working in a world where the Gods are distinct entities with defined domains, and where good and evil are objective forces. A paladin's ability to detect evil would go off like an air raid siren inside their head in the presence of an evil deity.
Shes an anti-paladin or an ex-paladin. She is not LG and she violated the code. Hell shes to crazy to stick to the code, so she falls. A evil god can not power paladins, they may power Anti-paladins, well some of em can.
A paladin is not a Holy warrior of a god..that is called a cleric or a inquisitor.
That is true, there are a lot of poorly played one dimensional Paladins kicking about, it is a fairly misunderstood class.
I'd recommend digging out the 2nd ed Paladins handbook for a lot of players to go and have a look at what the class is actually all about.
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This goes against the entire point of the paladin class.
This goes against the entire point of the paladin class.
The big dog called it right.
+ooodles.
Greg
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This goes against the entire point of the paladin class.
There's a visceral satisfaction in seeing the pure and noble fall or be corrupted from within. The "not so holy after all" makes for a compelling story and a tragic character. Add to that the fact that most gamers have had experience with a hardass Paladin player who exemplifies what Shifty is talking about, and it's not hard to see the appeal in the idea of a Paladin brought low.
But this raises another question. RAW, paladins don't choose a deity, or at least they don't have to. If the paladin's powers are really coming from a deity, why do paladins have to be Lawful Good? There's deities for every alignment; why not a Paladin of Asmodeus? Or Irori? What makes the Lawful Good deities different from other deities in that they can empower paladins and deities of other alignments can't?
And if paladins aren't really getting their magic from a deity, like rangers aren't, then why does ceasing to be LG strip them of their power even if they believe they're still LG? If their own conviction and righteousness is what's empowering them, then it should be a Magic Feather deal-- as long as they still believe, they're still paladins, right?
Paladins are sociopaths who go around all day wielding 15 pound weapons and wearing 50 pound armor looking for things to kill. I don't see why they must even be good, much less Lawful. The alignment should be like the Barbarians no Lawful restriction, just no Evil.
No, they really aren't.
This just illustrates how poorly the class is both played an understood.
It's like saying every rogue is an murderous kleptomaniac, every fighter is an immoral killer, every cleric a zealous fundamentalist Jihadi...etc.
I think I'd be much more impressed with this kind of character if it was not a paladin. The evil paladin set up seems just too weird and mechanical, a fighter (or fighter/oracle) that thinks she is a paladin feels much more interesting to me without raping the paladin class with dubious motivation.
There's a visceral satisfaction in seeing the pure and noble fall or be corrupted from within. The "not so holy after all" makes for a compelling story and a tragic character. Add to that the fact that most gamers have had experience with a hardass Paladin player who exemplifies what Shifty is talking about, and it's not hard to see the appeal in the idea of a Paladin brought low.
-You have to figure out how to climb to the heights before they can take the plunge.
Oh come on. You want the "nuanced" silly version of Dungeons and Dragons, where you've got to parlay with every Ogre before you slam it with a greatsword, or in Pathfinder, turn it into a friggin' pincushion. Put that high charisma score to good use and reason with the Erythnul worshiping cannibals and serial rapists.
Man, monsters have alignments and Paladins have Detect Evil for a reason.
I'm just pointing out that the flippant portrayal of Paladins is misleading, simplistic, and inaccurate.
This entire thread is what you said Shifty.
I believe that such a character would never even start as a paladin. It's not something you just blunder into. You don't just decide one day to be a paladin and bam!, there you go. These are characters that have spent likely years preparing and getting tested by their respective church or temple. They are dedicated and faithful. Then the deity has to personally accept this character and grant them their powers.
I really have a hard time believing that such a character would get through all that without one of the above realizing this person isn't cut out for it.
A fallen paladin is (or at least should be) a big deal. It shouldn't happen often or without a good reason. Things like this are what undermine the class and give people such a bad impression of them and why so many DMs aren't sure how to handle them. Which is really too bad I think.
