A Paladin's Burden


Advice


I'm running a game in which a forced alignment change is being pushed onto the entire party. The alignment comes via magic, so not through deeds, etc.

My question is about my paladin. Normally, if a paladin ceases to be lawful good, he/she is stripped of their powers. In this case, since the change is coming via magic, what should I do?

A fellow GM suggested I switch out his levels of paladin with those of anti-paladin, but I don't feel that suddenly forcing a change on a character (story or no) is fair. I can't really discuss the matter with my player because it may give away part of the story.

Suggestions?


I think your powers are going to lost, unfortunately. Though if the GM is forcing a change to CE, a change to anti-paladin would be a way to keep something similar.

I'd be tempted to play the paladin as someone who is still clinging to their own code, but whose natural instincts have been completely changed. Someone who would still want to offer mercy, but whose initial instinct would be to kill prisoners out of hand, etc.

Could be fun playing the struggle. If you could keep on track most of the time, maybe an atonement would eventually work.

"I'm really sorry about cutting your throat there. I did want to hear your answer, but sword arm was kind of moving by itself. Back in the old days, I'd have been able to heal that before you bled out but...oh, you've pass out...no, no you're dead. Damn. Gonna have to invest in a healer's kit I suppose."

Edit: Hadn't read the Atonement spell in a long time, but it looks like that will be what your paladin is after. As long as he remains repentant, and struggles against the impulses brought on by his magical alignment change, I don't think it would even require the extra offerings.

That said, if he gives in to the evil...then yeah, much more difficult.


This is the type of situation you really need to talk to your GM about. Its a custom, GM-created effect so the results on your powers also need to be a custom, GM-created effect. Express your concerns and ask him/her what will happen, and that you'd rather not lose all of your class features through no fault of your own.


I'd agree with SoulGambit. You really don't want to strip the Paladin down to a featless fighter, especially if you expect the forced alignment shift to be permanent.

Talk with them, and if you're going to do a forced strip of all of their class features, be prepared to let em switch I say.


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Is the change permanent? If it's a temporary problem, just rolelplay through it, but if the alignment change will be permanent, you have a right to be allowed to redesign your character to stay balanced with the other PCs. And decide whether you want to keep playing.


azhureheart wrote:

I'm running a game in which a forced alignment change is being pushed onto the entire party. The alignment comes via magic, so not through deeds, etc.

My question is about my paladin. Normally, if a paladin ceases to be lawful good, he/she is stripped of their powers. In this case, since the change is coming via magic, what should I do?

A fellow GM suggested I switch out his levels of paladin with those of anti-paladin, but I don't feel that suddenly forcing a change on a character (story or no) is fair. I can't really discuss the matter with my player because it may give away part of the story.

Suggestions?

Dont do the alignment change, or try to make it not permanent.. I probably would have told the player about this up front if he was good at not metagaming.


i actually had this exact same situation happen to my paladin in a game a few months ago.

basically, my GM allowed me to keep my paladin abilities but i roleplayed that my character was really fighting the evil impulses for the forced alignment shift. with each decision that would have fed the evil alignment, i made a will save. if i failed a certain number of will saves i completely lost my paladin powers. if i fully embraced the evil, i shifted to an antipaladin.

i thought i worked great. i kept up the fight and stayed a paladin for a few more weeks before i hit the BBEG and chose to sacrifice the lives of my family to free my mind of the madness of the dual nature the forced alignment shift (caused by the BBEG) had on me...then i became antipaladin on the spot and slaugtered the BBEG.

...and thats basically turning a frown upside down. :D

Liberty's Edge

I suppose that the alignment change will translate into temptations or even actions that conform to the new alignment.

I would allow the player to self-cast atonement (as a once a day SLA with no fees) as a kind of soul-searching at the end of the adventuring day. If his god (ie, you the GM) agrees that he honestly tried to stay close to his ideal (LG Paladin of his god), then the god grants him his powers for another day. Of course, if he forgets to atone, he does not get the powers for the following day AND his god is likely to wonder what preoccupied his servant more than the eternal fate of his soul.

This could work for other characters too. Like following how much they embrace their changed alignment or try to reject it so that when the magic goes away, they get their real new alignment which may or may not be the one they started with before the magical change.

Not very keen on the Will saves thing though, as I prefer these decisions to be made in character rather than based off mechanics. YMMV.

Side note : the title of the thread made me think about the "Oracle's Burden" spell and how much I would enjoy a spell that imposed a Paladin's ethos on the target lest they lose all their class abilities (as an ex-paladin does) :-))


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This goes into similar territory as "...I need to capture and imprison the PCs..."

If you are bound and determined to go through with your intention in the OP azureheart, this is one of those moments where you let the most agregiously affected players (paladins, druids if they are losing all N in their alignmebt, etc) see behind the scenes so that they can work with you when the in-game action starts. That way you can work out a situation with those players, such as what Banzial went through. If you can't trust those players to work with you to pull off your desired event sequence gracefully, you really should consider not doing it.


sounds like you are in a case of playing through a novel, let the gm run you on the rail because hes probly going to undermine anything you have to say anyway

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Several responses have implied the OP is the player. He's not, he's the GM.

To the OP, can you give us some more info? What alignment are you forcing the change to?

Anti-Paladin was mentioned above as an option. Personally I've never understood the fear a CE "Order" of Knights. How orderly can they be. Anyways, if it's to ANY of the Evil Alignments, then consider Anti-Paladin, despite the CE only restriction.

If it's to a Neutral alignment, then consider allowing them to continue on as a LN "Paladin" with more focus on anti-chaos than anti-evil. Or even permitting the anti-evil abilities to be able to be used vs good as well.

I gather that staying Good simply isn't an option, so nothing to discuss here. Remember though, that this character if he becomes evil may go out and commit horrible atrocities, enough so that Atonement may not get his butt back to where he needs to be. That is somewhat unfair to the player who didn't know he was signing up for an evil campaign with a Paladin.


Wow some people really don't read the posts here. The OP is THE GM and is asking for opinions/options in the game he is running.

Now on to the actual question posed. If I was running this scenario where magic was the reason that the players' alignments were changed from good to evil or some variance I'd do it slowly.

Example 1: I'd allow the paladin to keep their powers and slowly warp them when the paladin tried to use them, they'd do things unexpected like when he tried to smite something that was chaotic evil, his blade would glow with a black fire and pass harmlessly through, but when he tried to use it to smite anything that wasn't CE it would burn with a blue flame and hurt them. When he prayed to his deity he'd get chills and sweat profusely, his mind would go blank and he'd fall unconscious only to awaken with his spells replenished and the only memory was that of a fading bad dream.

Example 2: His channel positive energy would swap out to a variant channeling such as Darkness, Destruction, Murder, Trickery, or Undeath.

Example 3: Lay on hands functions as Touch of Rage instead.

Touch of Rage:
Touch of Rage (Sp): At 1st level, you can touch a creature as a standard action, giving it a morale bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and Will saving throws equal to 1/2 your sorcerer level (minimum 1) for 1 round. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

Example 4: Cure Light Wounds would be swapped out to the infernal healing where it burns rather than soothes.

There are just a few things you can do to slowly manipulate the paladin and turn him to the dark side without his realizing it. When the spell/curse wears off his good god will be able to contact him again, but for now however you have it set up where his god isn't really the god he thinks he's praying to and fighting for.


Banizal wrote:


i thought i worked great. i kept up the fight and stayed a paladin for a few more weeks before i hit the BBEG and chose to sacrifice the lives of my family to free my mind of the madness of the dual nature the forced alignment shift (caused by the BBEG) had on me...then i became antipaladin on the spot and slaugtered the BBEG.

Its great storytelling, but effing a man! Its like Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects.


I am the GM of the game. The change to CE is temporary. The spell is ended several sessions down the road.

Like i said, I don't want to eff over my player. That's not cool, but it is part of the story, so it will happen. I like the suggestion above by Zahir. there is a prestige class that allows the paladin to smite chaos rather than evil (Hell Knight if i remember correctly).

I will make it clear to the players that the change is temporary when it happens, but any actions they take (such as purposely committing evil acts), will have an affect on their alignment when the spell ends.

I also might implement the will save idea like Banizal suggested. So my player can keep his powers, but that urge to do evil is ever present. And to be fair, I DID warn my player when he chose to play a paladin that there would be difficulties when we started the campaign. He has the best back story of all my players so far. He is from a long line of paladins seeking to find and redeem his brother who has fallen to evil (he worships Sarenrae). His brother (now an anti-paladin) is under the thrall of Shamira (Book of the Damned vol 2: Lords of Chaos pg 39).

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

azhureheart wrote:
I will make it clear to the players that the change is temporary when it happens, but any actions they take (such as purposely committing evil acts), will have an affect on their alignment when the spell ends.

I'm not sure what a "temporary" change to alignment looks like while it is happening. If you make them CE, you should expect them to act CE. Once they have acted CE, and then having it count against them after the switch back, seems harsh. The Paladin will still be fallen, so he is essentially screwed for forever. If he's going to be held accountable for evil acts performed while he is changed to CE, does he get credit for good acts from back when he used to be LG?

The Atonement spell seems specifically designed for situations like this, where a PC is somehow forced to act outside their alignment. Albeit you are applying a 500gp (or up to 2500gp depending on how you rule the spell) tax against each PC, for things they didn't control. Hopefully there are some 9th level Clerics around.


azhureheart wrote:

I am the GM of the game. The change to CE is temporary. The spell is ended several sessions down the road.

Like i said, I don't want to eff over my player. That's not cool, but it is part of the story, so it will happen. I like the suggestion above by Zahir. there is a prestige class that allows the paladin to smite chaos rather than evil (Hell Knight if i remember correctly).

I will make it clear to the players that the change is temporary when it happens, but any actions they take (such as purposely committing evil acts), will have an affect on their alignment when the spell ends.

I also might implement the will save idea like Banizal suggested. So my player can keep his powers, but that urge to do evil is ever present. And to be fair, I DID warn my player when he chose to play a paladin that there would be difficulties when we started the campaign. He has the best back story of all my players so far. He is from a long line of paladins seeking to find and redeem his brother who has fallen to evil (he worships Sarenrae). His brother (now an anti-paladin) is under the thrall of Shamira (Book of the Damned vol 2: Lords of Chaos pg 39).

Thanks for all the suggestions!

There is a difference between warning a player that being a paladin will be difficult, and being a paladin will be nearly impossible. It would be very hard for the paladin to not fall here unless you jump through some serious hoops. If he is CE he should act CE, if he resists the evil tendencies hes something else, but he certainly isnt LG. His actions if they matter later on will cause him to fall. DM fiat the paladin falls isnt reasonable or ok no matter what your story is.

Unless the paladin doesnt actually have to play his alignment during this CE period and can somehow still follow his code, you are ffing over your player. If you give him a save each time he needs to do a bad thing, you are still fing over your player. Heck I would be annoyed at such a 'story' element in a game where i was a normal class let alone a paly.


azhureheart wrote:


I will make it clear to the players that the change is temporary when it happens, but any actions they take (such as purposely committing evil acts), will have an affect on their alignment when the spell ends.

If you were to say that any actions they commit during the temporary change affects how people view them, or their standing in the community, or other things such as this, I would be fine w/ it. But causing their alignment to be affected seems...odd and unnecessarily punishing. What I mean is that they didn't choose to suddenly be chaotic evil, so I find it odd that you would punish them for acting out the alignment this spell forces them to be.

I find the idea of a temporary alignment change an intriguing one, and I could see how the role playing opportunities could be interesting (feeling regret for their actions after they change back?), but if the paladin (or any of the other players) see their alignment shifted after the spell ends...not a huge fan of that.


My temptation would be to say that the divine power of the Paladin's connection with a God partially overrode the magic. Keep the Paladin levels as they are.

Alternately, the arcane magic temporarily masked or warped the divine connection, and the paladin is now an antipaladin.

Just keep it simple. Don't let the mechanics bog down your story.


Hmmm, as I've been thinking about it, i'm not gonna force the alignment change. It is too much of an issue and could ruin the pc. Instead, I think i will just go with an urge to do evil and put in will saves during certain role playing moments. He's got pretty good saves being a pali, so that would make things interesting without forcing him into evil.

Question is, if i go this route, should i vary the saves based on each players will saves?


Compulsions are part of the game, if you want to go that route thats more or less fine. As for altering for will saves i'd say no, you dont change a monsters attack based on the players AC do you? You shouldnt change the save of the effect based on the character's will save.


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Kolokotroni wrote:
Compulsions are part of the game, if you want to go that route thats more or less fine. As for altering for will saves i'd say no, you dont change a monsters attack based on the players AC do you? You shouldnt change the save of the effect based on the character's will save.

Mind you so are helms of opposite alignment.

Liberty's Edge

In Medieval times, being possessed by a demon and forced to do evil things did not taint your soul. However, appropriating these things as your own (for example by trying to justify them) did. Same as temptation really : being tempted is not a sin, succumbing to temptation is.

Will saves or act evil is ok. But that evil act should not taint the PC's actual alignment. However, if the PC comes to relish his evil action or think that it was justified after all, then the alignment should start shifting.

I would say same saves for everyone but no Divine Grace bonuses on this specific roll.


An alignment change doesn't change a person's desires or goals. The character should still want to be a Paladin.
Going by the description of the atonement spell, alignments are sort of your deep down feelings, or instinctive nature. A CE person when faced with a problem and getting angry, might lash out without a care. He may consider harming innocents to get his goal met.

But if his goal is to still be a Paladin, then if he has any time to deliberate, he'll go against his "new" nature and try and do the right thing (remember, we aren't locked into only doing our alignment).

I'd go with this being a temporary magical change, and thus an unwilling change, so the powers aren't lost. However, I'd put in a will save in high emotion moments (kind of like they have for werewolves) to see if he resorts to making the CE action.
If he does anything to break his code, I'd then have him lose his powers until the effect wore off, then automatically have them back once he's LG again.

Note that the atonement spell can be used to counter a magical alignment change anyways.


Thank you Kaisoku. I appreciate your input. However, after reading through the spell again that I thought would change his alignment, I was mistaken.

The spell merely makes his alignment appear to be Chaotic Evil for the purposes of detect alignment and detect evil spells. I feel kinda dumb for misreading the spell as it was laid out in the adventure path.

Thank you all for your input just the same. New GM here (:P), so I will likely have questions in the future.

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