|
It's funny that some people think of paladins as these cute huggable people, when in reality (as someone in the thread previously stated) they are the holy warriors of their gods. They aren't there to coddle people, they aren't there to tell you it's going to be okay and put a band-aid on your boo-boo, they are there to destroy evil in every facet of the game and sometimes things get dirty and the choices get hard. That's when the Paladin has to keep to his faith, his code, and his tenets no matter what other people in his adventuring party have to say.
The real deal here is that we have kind of taken this thread off on a tangent. The OP was the CN ninja who wanted to complain to the Paladin's church officials about how the paladin did something he perceived as going too far.
Most of us feel that this is meta-gamey and the player didn't agree with how the Paladin was being played in this regard. The GM hasn't said anything as they haven't been in the forum yet.
Myself and quite a few others have established that the Paladin was in fact acting within his faiths tenets and within the Paladin's Code for his god Torag.
We are now at the point where we are arguing over semantics in the Paladin's code and not whether the OP's original question of what he wants to do to punish the paladin is valid. I still think it's passive aggressive behavior and that a CN ninja wouldn't give a rat's behind what happened to evil creatures helpless or not. He probably wouldn't care what happened to helpless innocent goodly folk either, that's just the way that CN is. They care only about themselves for the most part. They are about the moment.
So in that one moment he felt sympathy for these "poor helpless Morlocks" and told the paladin that he didn't agree with the way the paladin was handling the situation. Paladin noted it and said go ahead and write the church leaders, they won't care because he's doing his duty. It's over and done with unless the CN ninja decides he wants to try to exact some kind of twisted...
Ninja? Fair fight?
Huh?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I am a bit irked by the suggestions that a character can't possibly be bothered about it, just because s/he's CN and of a class that knows how to play dirty. Does every fighter have to be a belligerent thug? Alignments are not a straightjacket of what a character has to like or accept. All being CN requires is that the character puts the demands of the situation above a fixed code of honor and doesn't go too far out of his way to help his better man. Apart from that, the character is quite free to a) not approve the killing (by proxy) of some locked schmucks who haven't and presently can't do anything, or b) dislike conduct he perceives as hypocritical or improper on part of someone prone to claiming moral high ground.
Just because you are chaotic - or heck, even evil - doesn't mean you can't have standards.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
All depends on how you look at mercy...Paladin: Father Torag met some of our most hated enemies.
Torag: Did you destroy them and scatter their familes like I decree?
Paladin: Well, not exactly. They were half starved, half dead prisoners.
Torag: Ah, so you left them in their cells to rot?
Paladin: Oh no, making them suffer a slow painful death of thrist and starvation would have been truely evil. I let them go
Torag: So they could become healthy and kill our people...?
Paladin: Probably, but it was only honorable to let them kill us before I kill them.
Torag: Umm yeah good plan. Why don't you hang up your hammer, you won't be needing that anymore.
Thanks for this great example of what a Straw Man Fallacy is. I understand it better now :-)
The crux of the issue here is that it seems the CN ninja player was playing his character as a LG type of character in the scenario where he thought that Morlocks were innocent beings that needed to be redeemed and felt that the player playing the paladin was stepping over the line, told him so and wants to write a letter to the Paladin's church leaders to have him punished. He seems to feel that the player playing the paladin isn't being LG but doing an evil act and should possibly fall for the killing of innocent morlocks.
Any and every character can have standards whether they are CE or LG. The thing is it seems the two alignments we are dealing with here (LG and CN) are two of the MOST disputed on the forums. Whether it be a paladin killing baby goblins or a CN character being inherently a psychopathic madman.
Ultimately, it is up to the GM and the players at this particular table to come up with what their alignments do. The most we can do here is argue for or against what we believe and in doing so we are giving hundreds of varied opinions on the subject. I hope that the players here can come to a consensus on what to do in the future and that they just have fun hanging out and playing the hobby that they love.
|
Unfortunately for you it seems that most people in (and I'm not going through and actually counting the number of people) seem to view it in the opposite light that you do.
I agree that we are all free to rule and interpret at our own tables as we choose, and that we must understand that our interpretation, in fact no interpretation, is or can be RAW with the exception of very specific statements in the Paladin codes.
This means that while you're interpretation is valid, so is mine, and everyone else's. However, as I stated, it does seem that more people are interpreting the statements written into Torag's paladin code as justifying the actions that the paladin took.
Most people who?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I am a bit irked by the suggestions that a character can't possibly be bothered about it, just because s/he's CN and of a class that knows how to play dirty. Does every fighter have to be a belligerent thug? Alignments are not a straightjacket of what a character has to like or accept. All being CN requires is that the character puts the demands of the situation above a fixed code of honor and doesn't go too far out of his way to help his better man. Apart from that, the character is quite free to a) not approve the killing (by proxy) of some locked schmucks who haven't and presently can't do anything, or b) dislike conduct he perceives as hypocritical or improper on part of someone prone to claiming moral high ground.
Just because you are chaotic - or heck, even evil - doesn't mean you can't have standards.
Would a paladin of Torag even be okay with taking prisoners in the first place?
What was the context?Did he decide to not let the starve and give them a merciful death?
There is one thing I think everyone in this thread can agree on, and that is: had he not killed them, then Shallowsoul & everyone else would be telling us that the paladin should still fall for not adhering to his paladin code because surely it would have been the right thing to do.
Such is the blatant hyperbole of paladin threads, you can never satisfy some people who feel like a paladin needs to be judged every time he inhales and exhales.
Example:
Step 1) My paladin sneezed.
Step 2) He falls and looses his paladinyness because no one said "god bless you" to him.
I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
What was the right thing to do with these (presumably) irredeemable prisoners?
Most people who?Unfortunately for you it seems that most people in (and I'm not going through and actually counting the number of people) seem to view it in the opposite light that you do.
I agree that we are all free to rule and interpret at our own tables as we choose, and that we must understand that our interpretation, in fact no interpretation, is or can be RAW with the exception of very specific statements in the Paladin codes.
This means that while you're interpretation is valid, so is mine, and everyone else's. However, as I stated, it does seem that more people are interpreting the statements written into Torag's paladin code as justifying the actions that the paladin took.
You have been getting drubbed by at least 6 of us who are disagreeing with you actively. I counted only one or two others who agree with you on a couple of your points. So, yeah Claxon is right. MOST are disagreeing with you about Torag's Paladin Code.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I am a bit irked by the suggestions that a character can't possibly be bothered about it, just because s/he's CN and of a class that knows how to play dirty. Does every fighter have to be a belligerent thug? Alignments are not a straightjacket of what a character has to like or accept. All being CN requires is that the character puts the demands of the situation above a fixed code of honor and doesn't go too far out of his way to help his better man. Apart from that, the character is quite free to a) not approve the killing (by proxy) of some locked schmucks who haven't and presently can't do anything, or b) dislike conduct he perceives as hypocritical or improper on part of someone prone to claiming moral high ground.
Just because you are chaotic - or heck, even evil - doesn't mean you can't have standards.
Would a paladin of Torag even be okay with taking prisoners in the first place?
What was the context?
Did he decide to not let the starve and give them a merciful death?There is one thing I think everyone in this thread can agree on, and that is: had he not killed them, then Shallowsoul & everyone else would be telling us that the paladin should fall for not adhering to his paladin code because surely it would have been the right thing to do.
Such is the blatant hyperbole of paladin threads, you can never satisfy some people who feel like a paladin needs to be judged every time he inhales and exhales.
Example:
Step 1) My paladin sneezed.
Step 2) He falls and looses his paladinyness because no one said "god bless you" to him.
Why did he need to take prisoners? Why not just leave them there to what ever fate befalls them?
We aren't talking about a little inhale exhale here. The problem is you are looking at the situation like this is supposed to be common behavior for a Paladin, which it might be in your games.
We are talking about vanquishing half dead prisoners. Oh yeah, you truly are a badass that day. Even more badass is sending in the earth elemental to do it.
Torag is still an honorable god, on top of a paladin is an honorable class. The usually dwarven hate doesn't auto apply and make every action justified.
"Yet even in the struggle against our enemies, I will act in a
way that brings honor to Torag."
So if you think killing half dead prisoners is bringing honor to Torag then I don't know what else to tell you except I wouldn't recommend playing in any of our games.
|
|
I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.What was the right thing to do with these (presumably) irredeemable prisoners?
Oh hell I don't know, maybe ignore that murderous itch and walk away?
@shallowsoul are you sure you aren't a comedian? You have me rolling on the floor laughing at this point. Good try my friend, keep reaching and maybe you will pull the moon down from the sky.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As to the question about what the OP acying alignment...
I guess if it is ok for LG paladin to just go off and slaughter helpless people it is ok for a CN character to care about it.
Oh hell I don't know, maybe ignore that murderous itch and walk away?I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.What was the right thing to do with these (presumably) irredeemable prisoners?
But had he walked away, do you seriously expect us to believe that you wouldn't tell us he should fall for that too?
I think you just have a problem with the fact that he's a paladin, you are very much against the players in every discussion I've ever had with you.So the paladin killed these evil monsters, the other players at the table and the GM probably haven't given it any more thought than that.
These things weren't innocent, they weren't good. A paladin should not fall for killing monsters, especially if they have already been judged and are in prison. GM made a good call, and listening to other players try and screw the paladin out of being able to play his character for something so insignificant would make me not let that player have nice things, because it just isn't cool to do that to someone else sitting at the table.
Ha our Paladin of Abadar regularly set up military courts and executed our enemies as traitors to Korvosa in the later chapters of CotCT.
Your problem is you are playing the Evil can be redeemed game and he is playing Evil is Unredeamable except in extraordinary circumstances game (the default setting).
Any way haven't you seen saving Private Ryan.....execute your prisoners or take them in - if you let them go they will come back to bite you.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh hell I don't know, maybe ignore that murderous itch and walk away?I don't expect paladins to always be nice, but I do expect them to be honorable. Murdering defenseless prisoners does not strike me as honorable. Were they actively endangering the paladin or anything worth protecting, we wouldn't be having this conversation.What was the right thing to do with these (presumably) irredeemable prisoners?
Just leave them alive in the cell where they'll either die a slow death or get free to spread evil again?
Would a paladin of Torag even be okay with taking prisoners in the first place?
What was the context?
Did he decide to not let the starve and give them a merciful death
What does this have to do with Torag or taking prisoners? Someone is taken prisoner if they had been an enemy soldier or a brigand - someone able and willing to hurt you or yours. That lot were already prisoners, and were presently no harm to anyone.
The context, as far as we were given one from the OP, involves the prisoners being in a basement sell of an evil fraction, surrounded by others who had perished of starvation. The paladin, on deciding to pursue his decision, talks about "evil being a choice", so the idea of mercy killing does not strike me as too likely.
Barring the OP skewing the situation majorly, all the paladin went on was his detect evil ability and the races' evil reputation. Hardly irredeemable evil that would bite you if given half the chance.
Would a paladin of Torag even be okay with taking prisoners in the first place?
What was the context?
Did he decide to not let the starve and give them a merciful deathWhat does this have to do with Torag or taking prisoners? Someone is taken prisoner if they had been an enemy soldier or a brigand - someone able and willing to hurt you or yours. That lot were already prisoners, and were presently no harm to anyone.
The context, as far as we were given one from the OP, involves the prisoners being in a basement sell of an evil fraction, surrounded by others who had perished of starvation. The paladin, on deciding to pursue his decision, talks about "evil being a choice", so the idea of mercy killing does not strike me as too likely.
If we are talking about the OP, the issue is about how his ninja feels since the paladin acts like he has the right to tell everyone else what to do and doesn't listen to the party.
The paladin decides that these things weren't judged rightly by his own morals, and that something evil should not be allowed to persist wasting my valuable air. So what?
Again, they weren't innocent, and they were evil.
Yes, they were evil. So's a large percent of the human population on Golarion. Yet paladins don't stage mass murders when they see 100 people pinging evil in the same neighborhood (a common sight in Cheliax and hives of scum and villainy elsewhere).
As for not being innocent - innocent of what? I haven't read serpent skull. What were those particular creatures guilty of, and how did the paladin know it? I'm okay with the paladin giving them a swift trial, but I didn't see anything that states or implies there was something like that.
I am writing this under the impression that most people here agree that someone pinging as evil to DE does not itself warrant an execution from a paladin, LG cleric or another lawful and/or good character.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Have you never met a 'devout' religious person? Most of the time they are the most pretentious, and prejudiced people out there, who act holier than thou and pass judgment as they see fit, completely disregarding anyone else's right to an opinion.
Take a paladin who personally believes that evil should not be tolerated, and should be executed, mix a little IRL experience and you get a stubborn, arrogant dwarf paladin that doesn't care what these ninjas and barbarians think, "they aren't devoted like I am!!!"
As far as RP goes, player is doing a great job of being a stuck up, stubborn, dwarf paladin.
And your impression that something that pings as evil doesn't mean it needs to be executed is simply well... it needs at least 5 levels of being evil before it gives off an aura, and you don't make it 5 levels in to being evil without being, well, evil.
Again, why do you want this paladin to fall?
@master_marshmallow you make some very astute points. I agree with you 100%.
Let's even look back in history of the human religions. We have the crusades where these holy men went to war and killed thousands of heathens. Most of human history is filled with the blood spilled by various religions who claimed to be good. Most wars are fought over religion.
The same can be said for Golarion. There are different factions, religions, deities, and ways of looking at things. I said it before and I'll say it again. Paladins aren't cuddle-friendly kinds of people, they are true warriors who have seen all manner of things. They have trained their whole lives to vanquish evil. No paladin would lose any sleep over the destruction of evil morlocks. They don't care if it's a fair fight, a trial followed by execution, or a slaughter of their vile little babies. They need to be put down. Period.
Edit: One more point I'd like to make before I leave for the day.
Paladins have this special power called "smite evil" it's meant to .... yeah you guessed it SMITE EVIL. It's not a special power granted by their gods to "cuddle evil" or "redeem evil" sure some of the gods are about redemption (if possible) otherwise it's about removing all evil from the world when they get the chance to do so. Mostly this is done by adventuring paladins putting their lives on the line to go into dungeons/caverns/wilds and kill the beasts like morlocks or finding evil cults and taking them out before they can unleash powerful demons/devils.
That escalated quickly
-Ron burgundy
Thanks for this great example of what a Straw Man Fallacy is. I understand it better now :-)All depends on how you look at mercy...Paladin: Father Torag met some of our most hated enemies.
Torag: Did you destroy them and scatter their familes like I decree?
Paladin: Well, not exactly. They were half starved, half dead prisoners.
Torag: Ah, so you left them in their cells to rot?
Paladin: Oh no, making them suffer a slow painful death of thrist and starvation would have been truely evil. I let them go
Torag: So they could become healthy and kill our people...?
Paladin: Probably, but it was only honorable to let them kill us before I kill them.
Torag: Umm yeah good plan. Why don't you hang up your hammer, you won't be needing that anymore.
Okay, okay, not to be harsh, but this fallacy keeps being triumphantly invoked all over the forums. It's gotten out of hand.
Taken literally, it's a Straw Man, but there is obvious sarcasm in the post. Hyperbole is a common way to make a point: "to better illustrate why your POV is flawed, let me blow up the picture and increase the contrast." Dismissing such expressions as a Straw Man really just seems like a tactic to brush off an argument while appearing superior. Jodaki made a point in tongue-and-cheek fashion. You don't get the argument prize for crying fallacy.
Very quickly, for a thread that started with the words, "This is not a paladin alignment thread."That escalated quickly
-Ron burgundy
We've been toeing the line for a while now. It had to happen sooner or later :P
Does anybody have any questions for me or tippo before we veer off the cliff of religious knights in the real world. And bashing religion in general
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Very quickly, for a thread that started with the words, "This is not a paladin alignment thread."That escalated quickly
-Ron burgundy
The OP's question was about how his ninja should react to being treated as though his beliefs weren't as important, and that his opinion didn't matter.
Specifically if writing a letter to the paladin's order would do anything about it, and the consensus was: "probably not, since it is the deity that judges the paladin, not the order."Then SS jacked the thread with his usual "the OP says don't do x, so I'm gonna do X!" For some reason, capitalization makes it not matter that x wasn't meant to be the focus of the thread, but if you keep arguing about it maybe they will give up and let me be right about something, right?
Does anybody have any questions for me or tippo before we veer off the cliff of religious knights in the real world. And bashing religion in general
Sorry I didn't mean to sound like I was bashing religion in the real world. I was making a point off of how a lot of the Golarion races/classes are based off of real world peoples. There are religious zealots in both, there are gun toting swashbucklers in both and there are sagely old men in both.
My question to you Lobolusk is how your GM felt about all of this? We haven't heard about how he/she handled the situation and if the Paladin in your group toes the line (as you seem to think) in other situations?
I admit as to only reading the first page so something to this effect may have been mentioned.
After reading in another thread about a "must kill all evil" paladin, I have been wanting to run across one with my CN sorcerer. I want to slap a random person with an infernal healing and then point the paladin in his direction to watch the comedy. Imagine the paladin's horror when he found out what happened.
If your ninja has UMD, you can go this route for the low price of a 750 gp wand.
I admit as to only reading the first page so something to this effect may have been mentioned.
After reading in another thread about a "must kill all evil" paladin, I have been wanting to run across one with my CN sorcerer. I want to slap a random person with an infernal healing and then point the paladin in his direction to watch the comedy. Imagine the paladin's horror when he found out what happened.
It actually sounds fun, to trick a paladin into killing someone innocent. May have an NPC do that in the future.
I still think it's passive aggressive behavior and that a CN ninja wouldn't give a rat's behind what happened to evil creatures helpless or not. He probably wouldn't care what happened to helpless innocent goodly folk either, that's just the way that CN is. They care only about themselves for the most part. They are about the moment.
Okay, so I totally agree with you over the unrelated paladin argument, but let's try to drift this thread back. Neutral people can be quite varied. Lawful Evil people can be quite varied.
Why are we trying to impose a single firm rule on Chaotic Neutral, arguably the most flexible alignment in the game?
Chaotic Neutral people can still want to avoid bloodshed. A lot of thieves, conmen, politicians and merchants are Chaotic Neutral.
Forget paladins. Do Chaotic Neutral people have a code of conduct? One that bans them from caring about prisoners or showing altruism?
EDIT: And let's keep in mind that half the reason the ninja is ticked is because of the paladin's hypocrisy. It's not all just "don't hurt the poor pathetic evil creatures".
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, they were evil. So's a large percent of the human population on Golarion. Yet paladins don't stage mass murders when they see 100 people pinging evil in the same neighborhood (a common sight in Cheliax and hives of scum and villainy elsewhere).
The difference is NPCs and Monsters, One group are inside and part of the Paladins community and the other are an outside group members of evil races who goal is to destroy Demi/humanity.
If you want to dig scary deep - Your race and those that are accepted by your race get a pass if they are evil those that fall outside the boundaries set by your society don't get that pass.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Have you never met a 'devout' religious person? Most of the time they are the most pretentious, and prejudiced people out there, who act holier than thou and pass judgment as they see fit, completely disregarding anyone else's right to an opinion.
Actually, I think the above works even better to describe a fake religious person. Also, religious people can be of any alignment. Paladins must be lawful good. If a person believes that all people who might consider harming her and hers should be executed, I doubt that person will have a long career in the LG democraphics. In pretty much any moral system, punishment has to follow a crime. Something being done. Here the closest to that was drow or merlocks being likely level 5+ and of evil alignment.
As for people having to be lvl 5 to ping as evil, well, it means they've done something (or the DM didn't read the rules) to reach level 5. It does not show the depth of their evil or conviction, just that they are capable of doing something well.
In this case, I think this paladin should fall for killing without necessity or sufficient justification other than "choosing to be evil." Actually, my main point was to disagree with all the posts telling the OP that his CN character is pretty much not allowed to feel any resentment or annoyance with what the paladin did. Neutral characters don't necessarily have to approve a ruthless decision, especially when they consider the matter to smack of hypocrisy as well. Whether the character decides to confront the paladin about it personally or "snitch" him to his superiors and let the forces of order and justice handle it later is a matter for his tastes and character.
edited to elaborate on the ninja point
Oh, and before my edit gets misinterpreted, I'm not saying the paladin is being a hypocrite. We're speaking from the ninja's perspective here.
EDIT: I have an important question, actually. Should the ninja be apathetic because he's Neutral, or because he's Chaotic?
"Both" is not a valid answer. A True Neutral guy who turns Chaotic (Or Chaotic Good guy who turns neutral) does not magically also convert into a sociopath. There has to be a culprit. Either Neutrality (i.e. the "don't stick your neck out" alignment) or Chaos (i.e. the "don't tell me what to do" alignment)
So which half tells him, "I will not care if these wretched prisoners are killed in cold blood."? Ambiguous Morals or low Ethics? Which half bans him from being bothered?
P.S.: How did the whole discussion of Toragite dogma start, exactly? I can't find any statement that the paladin of the OP was a paladin of Torag.
The OP stated the paladin was a Stonelord. That's an alternate class thingy from the ARG.
YET ANOTHER EDIT: Oh, and here's an elaboration on my previous question. If it's either one, that must mean other renditions of the alignment will feel the same way. So will a Lawful Neutral character also be disallowed from caring? Or a Chaotic Good character?
I'm not even saying they should care. I'm saying they should be allowed to without their player being called a metagamer. I don't think all CNs are alike. But if they are, what half makes them like that?
Yes, they were evil. So's a large percent of the human population on Golarion. Yet paladins don't stage mass murders when they see 100 people pinging evil in the same neighborhood (a common sight in Cheliax and hives of scum and villainy elsewhere).The difference is NPCs and Monsters, One group are inside and part of the Paladins community and the other are an outside group members of evil races who goal is to destroy Demi/humanity.
If you want to dig scary deep - Your race and those that are accepted by your race get a pass if they are evil those that fall outside the boundaries set by your society don't get that pass.
Not to mention that if 100 people registered as evil in the same neighborhood then that is one scary neighborhood, becuase it has 100 people who are either priests of evil deities or 5+HD and evil.
And no i don't think that Egorian has that kind of neighborhoods, i don't even think that the capital of Nidal has that kind of neighborhood.
i think my big issue is that
Assuming it is true that the pally HAD to kill the morlocks because they are evil then he HAD to kill the drow because it is evil also.
It just seems wrong, unless i misread that a while back and he killed the drow too
Eh, I can see a large Chelish neighborhood having around a hundred priests of Asmodeus. The occasional high-level citizen (or concealed devil, of course) would pad it out.
Here's something I just thought about: Isn't slavery universally evil too? I mean if killing a helpless evil person is always evil, shouldn't slavery always be evil? Shouldn't the Paladin also fall for not freeing the slaves?
i think my big issue is that
Assuming it is true that the pally HAD to kill the morlocks because they are evil then he HAD to kill the drow because it is evil also.
It just seems wrong, unless i misread that a while back and he killed the drow too
No, the god Torag makes exceptions if they provide useful information.
The way I'm seeing it, imagine a business district with a few dozens of merchants, hundreds, possibly thousands of artisans and laborers, several dozens of guards, some clergy etc. In a mostly evil society I'd expect roughly 40-50% of the people to be evil, and 5-10% to be of level 5 and above. Get 2000-3000 Chelish and you may well have several dozens that ping on the Paladar. Clerics are on top of that. There are likely to be other such places as well, especially where more seasoned travelers, sailors or soldiers gather.
Edit: the point is this - if Paladins do feel that everyone who registers evil is an enemy of all goodness best removed preventively before they can do great evil, it might boast a significant number of mass murderers.