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My choice would be this on the baby sacrifice issue: "Everyone and everything dies, even gods. If this world must die must die, then let it die with one man saying, 'I will not do this.' There are many worse deaths. Let us chose a moral one."
I was reading through the older posts in this thread and came across this gem. This is a true paladin.
Regarding polytheistic game worlds, I disagree that it means the paladin is suddenly uncertain of his god's ability to back his principles. Being a paladin of a particular god isn't like picking a horse to bet on at the track. It's about faith. And that means having the faith that, no matter how many gods there are, yours will prevail.
Now I can see an argument being made that pantheons such as the Greek or Roman would not support this kind of faith, blatantly flawed as those gods are. And I'd agree with that. But then, a campaign world with those kinds of divinities is no place for paladins.
dammit, I've had the soundtrack to Homecoming for over a year now and have listened to "Alex's Theme" and "One More Soul To The Call" so many times and have yet to actually play the game
I actually imagined One More Soul to the Call being something Sotiria actually hums by herself while using her Death Knell spell-like ability...
...and that game relates to the whole moral dilemma of a mercy kill. You'll see how if you play it. Be warned, the game can be hard at some parts.
Regarding polytheistic game worlds, I disagree that it means the paladin is suddenly uncertain of his god's ability to back his principles. Being a paladin of a particular god isn't like picking a horse to bet on at the track. It's about faith. And that means having the faith that, no matter how many gods there are, yours will prevail.
Now I can see an argument being made that pantheons such as the Greek or Roman would not support this kind of faith, blatantly flawed as those gods are. And I'd agree with that. But then, a campaign world with those kinds of divinities is no place for paladins.
But that's exactly the kind of pantheon that exists in Golarion.
Look at the main pantheon for a second, the major gods:
Sarenrae: One of the few I'd call unreservedly good, a goddess of light and redemption rather than "Smite all the evil!"
Iomedae: An ascended mortal, who IS of the "Smite all the evil!" type of goddess, and on top of that she holds a grudge against another goddess for not telling her about something that she failed to predict in the first place.
Erastil: Encourages followers to shun the comforts and advances of modern society and live "as nature intended". Puts him at odds with other deities and causes conflicts between his followers and other deities followers.
Desna: Whimsically travels everywhere she wishes, seems to have little to no sense of responsibility, holds herself aloof from the other gods (and definitely mortals).
Torag: Sees compassion as foolish and a weakness, and encourages bigotry and genocide.
Shelyn: Another "whimsical" goddess who does nothing much but paint pretty pictures and feel emotions all day. Different accounts paint her as either: Aloof from romantic attachments, extremely promiscuous with other gods, or at worst in an incestuous relationship with her evil half-brother.
And that's just the GOOD gods, don't get me started on the Neutral ones.
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This ties to somethign I said earlier in the thread.
Paladins are kind of outside of their comfort zone. As much as we like to say otherwise, its not until Christianity rolled along that Europe started getting folks anywhere near the paladin (even in its mythology).
Most ancient "heroes" essentially were overglorified murderhobos whose actions were viewed as laudable because if you didn't laud them, they'd light your ass on fire, or turn you into a bug, turn themselves inside out in a snarling warp-spasm rage, or kill you.
The concept of immortality of souls, the shared state of a fallen nature, immortality of the soul, and the intrinsic brotherhood of mankind are touchstones that aren't entirely shared by the ancient pagan view and therefore leave the paladin kind of espousing beliefs and positions the world doesn't support him. I remind that most pagan pantheons I'm aware of in the west basically had death be something horrible and unavoidable. The norse believed they were going to lose the final battle. The greeks believed you either went around in a drugged like torpor or else languished in impotent grayness in the underworld.
Cynical polytheistic systems result in cynical people with cynical outlooks. Not exactly the best place for a paladin.
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In most cultures there is only one pantheon. When one culture conquers another, they generally put their gods in charge, although they may absorb a few of the losers. Christianity absorbed at least two "pagan" gods as Saints, Dionysus and Brigid, of Greek and Celtic origin, respectively.
Appropos of nothing, but Saint Dionysus isn't the Greek deity. Its, I believe, a dude called Dionysus the Areopagite who was I think a contemporary of either Paul or John.
Brigit's a first century nun. Brigit of Kildare.
What's likely is that they were named /after/ the pagan deities and were then converted.
But yeah, in most cases there aren't diverging pantheons. Typically pantheons 'play well' with one another. You might have deities at odds with one another, but the pantheons make it clear where they stand.
DnD seems to have the idea of 'we all worship Pholtas' and then the guys who worship Nerull are the 'foreign' types who are odd and have beliefs that make no sense. Its less like a pantheon and more like 20 odd personalities shoved into the same nearby cosmopolitan area. Most Pathfinder mythos I've heard tends to be like 'our god our god our god, and oh yeah, Cayden Calien was there bartending' as opposed to normal mythologies which have the deities in a complex web with one another. Probably because PF like DnD before it takes the trappings of medieval monotheism and then sort of grafts on polytheistic deities (the usual Thor worshipper in anachronistic platemail thing).
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I must say that I just LOVE unbending Paladins (and I suspect so does Asmodeus). Because they will do ANYTHING (or NOTHING) before breaking their precious code. Gods forbid that they should fall !!!
This kind of absolute worldview is the easiest to manipulate.
What does not bend breaks.
"Vanity, it really is my favorite sin" (not Asmodeus, but a worthy brother in corrupting the holier-than-thou)
If it sends another cursed Paladin thread to the Boneyard, yes, anything goes ;-)
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Sometimes it is. That's the thing about moral decisions, there's always individual complications that muddy up nice quick formula answers.So is it OK for a paladin to kill someone to save them from a fate worse than death?If the someone requests it sure, but it's not his decision to make.
For example, what if a person is unable to make the request? The person who has been cocooned up and attacked by a facehugger, or who is in a location being swarmed by daemons, is unconscious, and the Paladin is unable to do anything else to help?
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I must say that I just LOVE unbending Paladins (and I suspect so does Asmodeus). Because they will do ANYTHING (or NOTHING) before breaking their precious code. Gods forbid that they should fall !!!So I've seen this kind of viewpoint in this thread a couple of times now, and I have to say, I think it's missing the point. The idea being presented is that the paladin follows his code because he's stubborn, vain, and afraid of falling.
Such was not my idea, I was just poking a little fun at posters who are 100% sure of what a Paladin should be and how he should act and that the Paladin they play will always do the right thing ;-)
But I don't think that's why a paladin follows his code at all, nor do I see that a paladin needs to be able to formulate his code as a set of rules. I believe that it's really as simple as this: the paladin wants to do things that are morally right. That's all it is. I think that the paladin would act according to the code even if he derived no benefit from it at all. And I note that it's not that things that are against the code are morally wrong, it's that things that are morally wrong are against the code.
Nope. The code as external strictures is inherent to the Paladin class. it is precisely what absolutely meshes with the Lawful restriction on the Paladin's alignment, as all you have stated above could apply just as nicely to a NG or CG character.
I don't beat up random strangers for money. That's not because I'm afraid of the consequences, it's because I believe that it's wrong. The paladin is precisely the same, but with a higher standard of behaviour than mine.
I do not agree with this PoV. Sure, there are Paladins who are like this (or believe it anyway), but I do not like this very much.
In a Paladin, it strikes me as both naive and a sign of hubris/arrogance. I always wonder how characters like this will react to other characters who do not share their view of the world and I easily envision a witch hunt, or even an all-out war, against such "non-believers" in the Paladin's holy ways. Even though a difference in point of view does not necessarily makes the other side Evil.
I prefer to think of the "proper" Paladin as someone who has chosen to follow an ideal, knowing quite well that it is NOT an easy and natural thing to do and hoping and praying that he will be worthy of his deity's trust.
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Yes- I don't give a copper as to what happens to ME. But I don't, don't, DON'T kill innocents!!! If this is vanity- ok, let me be damned, but I won't be damned with a baby on my conscience!
Yes, the code is, mechanically, a set of external strictures on the player. But I think it's silly to envision a character saying "I've signed up to be a paladin, and I have to follow the rules if I want to remain a paladin." That seems like a rather metagame perspective, for one thing. And it doesn't seem like a particularly good perspective, inasmuch as acting in a certain way because you don't want to suffer the consequences of acting in a different way isn't altruism, it's fear. On the other hand, "I live my life according to a strong moral code, and because I do, I am a paladin" strikes me as more coherent.
I agree completely. Paladins are born, not made. Some of the most intriguing paladin concepts I've come across are for paladins that didn't even know they were such and, in some cases, hated that they were. :)
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The gist, though, is that "I do this because it is morally right" is good, while "I do this because it's the rules" is lawful. Since the "good" aspect of the paladin's alignment is paramount, that has to be reflected somewhere.
Yes, the code is, mechanically, a set of external strictures on the player. But I think it's silly to envision a character saying "I've signed up to be a paladin, and I have to follow the rules if I want to remain a paladin." That seems like a rather metagame perspective, for one thing. And it doesn't seem like a particularly good perspective, inasmuch as acting in a certain way because you don't want to suffer the consequences of acting in a different way isn't altruism, it's fear. On the other hand, "I live my life according to a strong moral code, and because I do, I am a paladin" strikes me as more coherent.
I absolutely agree with this.
I also think that this viewpoint fits very well with a non-deontological paladin, the kind for whom doing the right thing sometimes means prioritizing his or her values and occasionally bending on the minor points (eg honesty) in order to uphold the core ideals (eg protecting innocents).