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Is smiting every evil you see really lawful good?
No, it definitely is not, especially for a paladin. They're specifically bound to respect the law, and if there's one thing that evil rulers take seriously its the laws against killing the evil rulers. In a dungeon you can get away with it. In a tavern not so much.
If so, would running to save your life be justification for loss of powers for a day if your deity expects you to always fight, even if it does mean being a martyr?
Any deity that required that would run out of paladins in a week. Sacrificing yourself to save another is noble, sacrificing yourself for no reason is idiocy.
This is one of those things that will vary significantly by table.
I would say smiting every evil you see is NOT good, since the punishment must fit the crime and mercy is an integral part of justice. If the subject hasn't killed or hurt anybody, he doesn't deserve to be hurt or killed.
Running away from a fight you can't win isn't a violation of anything. That's where the 'stupid' in 'lawful stupid' comes from, in large part. Throwing your life away pointlessly is not bravery or honor, it's stupidity.
I threw the paladin class out early in my 3e days, finding it to be problematic and annoying, and needlessly restrictive on the rest of the party, so 'power loss' was never really an issue.
Ah, my 'last time I ever played a Paladin' story ... so, the party gets to this town, and we introduce ourselves to the Captain of the guard. When my character introduces himself as 'A holy knight of (god forgotten)', he starts acting squirrelly. I give him the evil-scan, and he pings. He makes an excuse to go away, and I ask our party sneak to follow him and see what he might be up to. I don't know if what he's done warrants a beating, plus I would prefer to take him nonviolently if possible, plus I have no actual evidence of wrongdoing, plus he might have changed his ways and be redeeming himself, he just hasn't made the scale shift the other way ...
*BANG* Powers lost, because I didn't Smite On Sight.
As far as your first issue, with the unwinnable fights ... give him as much warning as you can. Tell him, point-blank, that his character is certain he cannot win a stand-up brawl with this thing/these things. If he charges in anyway, let the dice fall where they may.
Is smiting every evil you see really lawful good?
No. It isn't. It is, as you said, Lawful Stupid.
This is one of the few things I would (after a warning or two) cause the Paladin to fall for, perhaps deviously by having a flat out Good character be the subject of Infernal Healing for some injury before he meets him.
If so, would running to save your life be justification for loss of powers for a day if your deity expects you to always fight, even if it does mean being a martyr?
No. I don't think there even IS a deity that requires Paladins to fight, fight, fight and never retreat. That seems more Gorum's domain (and even then I don't think so) and he's Chaotic.
If living to fight another day results in a greater Good, a Paladin should do it.
What conditions have come up where a paladin lost powers in your games?
N/A
What conditions have come up where you disagreed with your DM on whether the paladin should have?
While it never actually came up (because the player in question overheard the conversation and "All of a sudden" decided to play another class...) I had a conversation with a player/fellow GM of mine who stated that a Paladin who laid traps or ambushes was liable to Fall because that was a sub-set of lying somehow.
I thought that was stupid, and said so.
I can see both sides, I've known a few lawful stupid pallys and they are very very entertaining to watch in action as another player :) but I can see as a DM that it makes fragile relationships less fragile when he wants to just smite everything evil. So my advice is to let him bite off more than he can chew, but instead of having the situation kill his character, maybe just have him get knocked unconscious, or give him some positive role model NPCs in the campaign that encourage and push for "fair trials" rather than execution etc.
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Smiting every evil you see can totally be a Lawful Good schtick. If the player wants to play that way it is valid, though it will probably annoy some people. But for example Ragathiel is an Empyreal Lord and one of his domains is vengeance and he is the sort of demi-god which would be perfect for this kind of player to workship.
Running away from a fight you can't possibly win isn't against the Paladin code or going to cause him to lose his powers. In fact, you should avoid forcing situations that would cause the Paladin to lose his powers or at least provide warnings. Wanton acts of evil should cause the loss of powers, accidentally doing something not clearly spelled out by the rules should get the player a warning that what he's about to do could cause the loss of powers, especially since you and the player might disagree about how to interpret the Paladin Code and specific code and tennets of his god. I digress though, running away is a sound tactic at times and no god should expect his paladins to die pointlessly.
As far as BigNorseWolf's post, Paladin's are bound to respect good more than law. That's why they get Smite Evil and not Smite Choas. Paladin's don't care about evil laws, or laws imposed by evil and tyranical rulers, or governments that are invalidated by the method they came to power. The lawful portion of the paladin's alignment represents an adherence to a code, not necessarily the blind obedience to all laws (though a paladin should normally work within the confines of the law to achieve his goals, especially good laws created by a good government).
At Zahyne, Smiting doesn't necessarily mean killing. And mercy is something that would depend heavily on the god the paladin worships. Paladins of Sarenrae would definitely be merciful, paladins of Ragathiel or Torag are not big on mercy at all. Both are gods that lean very much on the "Slay Evil Immeadiately" side. However, evil is relative and remember that below 5th level only Paladins and Clerics will show up as evil. At 5th level or above they've probably done something pretty evil to get to that high a level as evil beings.
Avoid trying to make a paladin fall. It's the worst thing you can do as a GM, even to a "smite first ask questions later" paladin. All that will result in is a gimped character that will get killed off and a new character it its place, or a pissed off player who will leave. If your goal is to purposely piss off a player by doing so than you shouldn't be GMing a game. Paladins should fall sometimes, but all too often it seems like GMs want to take any excuse they can to tell players they're wrong about how to play their paladin without giving any warnings or explainations.
The holy warrior who doesn't tolerate any evil is just as valid as the compansionate one who wants to redeem everyone.
Seriously though, don't do the infernal healing on a level 1 npc trap because that's just a dick move.
This is really a very bad topic, phrased like that. It will start off an endless chain of debates about What is Evil? What are the Paladins Code? Is it Ok for the Paladin to kill baby Goblins? And so forth.
The best way of handling this is to sit down and talk this over with the player like adults. Just tell him about your concerns, and ask him to not run a Paladin.
Do read, carefully, the Detect Evil spell, and see what it REALLY detects however. You’ll find that many really bad guys won’t detect as Evil.
And would a paladin know he has lost his powers? Certainly, during his morning prayers. But in a meta sense, even more so, as you, as the DM would have warned the Player carefully about such a thing. It shoudl NEVER be a suprise to the player.
The very best way is to simply hand the PC a Phylactery of Faithfulness, and have it warn him whenever you think he is close to crossing a line. A paladin with such should NEVER unwittingly fail.
I am glad I got in before the huge fight and unceasing debate got too far along.
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It always amazes me how common sense flies out the window when people start talking about paladins.
No, they shouldn't be required to smite anything on site. Just being evil isn't a crime. Someone can have evil in their heart, but if they don't act on it, even if they're only pretending to fit in with society, then they haven't committed any crime that a paladin should be punishing.
As for running away from fights, as someone else said, any god who won't allow their paladins to retreat from a losing battle is going to run out of paladins quickly. That said, the paladin should try to be the last one to retreat, to cover his allies' escape. That just goes with the noble knight personality.
tl;dr
Smite on Sight = Lawful Stupid
No retreat = dead paladin
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The best way of handling this is to sit down and talk this over with the player like adults.
Definitely.
Just tell him about your concerns, and ask him to not run a Paladin.
Wait... What???
Why shouldn't the guy run a paladin? The GM and player should definitely sit down before the game starts and agree on what it means to be a paladin, but there's no reason to ban the class.
This seems pretty easy. If he is really playing as obnoxious and lawful stupid, then simply put an evil character in front of them that is obviously far more powerful and they obviously aren't supposed to fight. When his PC attacks it, kill him.
Stupid decision leads to dead PC = end of problem.
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I was thinking more, a bearded devil attacking a helpless village as a level 1 paladin watches.
Interfering is certain death, but might buy a few rounds for more innocents to escape. Of course that's a big might, since the devil could sneeze on the pally and kill him, or could even motivate the devil to summon, which then ensures even more villagers would die.
It doesn't matter if it's a paladin or not, no character with "good" in their alignment is going to just sit there and watch that without trying to help save the innocents. Throwing them into impossible situations where they have to try and help, but they'll definitely die if they do is just a jerk move as a GM.
You know, you guys really have to read detect Evil sometime. It doesn’t detect the guy who has ‘evil in his heart” or even the thug who is a killer.
At lower levels it detects Undead, Evil Outsiders, and Antipaladins & such. All three of which pretty much can be Smote on Sight in any civilized area*. That thug who rolls innocents in the alley and has even killed a couple of his victims? Won’t even ping as ‘faint” until he’s 5th thru 10th level.
So, the average Pally can “Ping” to his hearts content in your average city, with nary a “hit”. Few of the populace are higher than 4th level, so it doesn't matter how despicible they are.
* of course, in some areas Antipaladins may be the Authorities, but in that case the paladin wil know that.
3) Please, if you put in a paladin, no characters with quasit, cacodemon or imp familiars. Anyone knowingly doing that in a game with a paladin in it is setting up PVP. Same thing with stupid evil alignments.
... OR you could let the player with the character who has no qualms about team-play actually play THEIR character instead of the intolerant paladin.
You know, instead of pandering to the stupid lawful good paladin alignment code that says their fun means to exclude everyone else's...Sometimes it is ok to say "no paladins" rather than deal with the crazy PvP they seem to require. :)
-TimD
Alignment follows from actions, not thoughts or intentions or feelings. If someone has lots of nasty thoughts, and doesn't act on them, that isn't going to affect his alignment.
3) Please, if you put in a paladin, no characters with quasit, cacodemon or imp familiars. Anyone knowingly doing that in a game with a paladin in it is setting up PVP. Same thing with stupid evil alignments.
... OR you could let the player with the character who has no qualms about team-play actually play THEIR character instead of the intolerant paladin.
You know, instead of pandering to the stupid lawful good paladin alignment code that says their fun means to exclude everyone else's...Sometimes it is ok to say "no paladins" rather than deal with the crazy PvP they seem to require. :)
-TimD
Yeah, I'm definitely with this.
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What you can do to have him not be Lawful Stupid but still get to smite and not fall from grace without being a jerk and forcing him to die or fall from grace, and possibly also have a long-term psychological problem of the trauma of watching a town burn and not saving it is tell him that paladins are ill-advised for the campaign, as they will probably die or fall from grace, and recommend cleric fighter. If you take channel smite and alignment channel, you can still be lawful stupid at a lower risk of falling because if you do a potentially evil act then make up for it with a good deed and give him a time limit before his god cuts him off. this way, he can smite with a different effect, and can still have the tank effect a paladin has. Yeah there are less aura's and such, but you don't have such a strict code.
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Oh great, another week and another Paladin alignment thread.
I'm not going to read over all the old arguments that pop up weekly about what you should do in your game.
My advice is simple: Talk to your group beforehand, get the alignment stuff sorted out and everyone agreed on how YOUR group does things, then as the GM you officiate it if someone breaks alignment. This solves a lot of problems up front if people know what is expected and what has already been agreed upon. Now there will always be grey areas, but this will greatly reduce them. The main goal here is that everyone has fun and can play whatever characters they want and that you don't have to stress out and bicker over the little things that happen in the course of the game.
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Step 1
Sit down, and work out a code for your paladin with the player. In detail. What does a paladin mean in your world. What does a paladin of diety x mean.
The code should cover common situations, you can make it poetic or whatever but make sure its clear what everything means. Make it specific to their diety. If you want examples faiths of purity has them for all of golarions major good aligned dieties.
Once you have the worked out, leave it a while, then talk to the player again about what his paladin is like, what he would do in a couple basic situations based on the code, and then rinse and repeat as much as is need untill you two come to an understanding.
I find Paladins that play the lawful stupid end up dead really quick or lose their Paladin powers. I've seen quite few people play paladins focus on the white whale of evil ignoring the aspect of law leading to losing their power had they actually survived long enough for that to happen.
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I haven't read every post in this thread, so my apologies if anyone else has already brought this up, but one thing to remember is that paladins are dedicated to the eradication of evil. That does not necessarily equate with the killing of evil things and people. Some creatures are evil by nature and may have no choice in being evil or doing evil. Killing or banishing may be the only way to deal with such things. Most evil things in the world, however, are evil either by choice or by environment. A wise paladin will take each evil on a case by case basis when they can. While it may not be practical to try to kill an evil king, it may be possible to undermine their influence, propogate an uprising among his beleaguered people, or try to work your way into the king's confidence and plant the seeds of decency in his head in an attempt to make an evil king become a good king. Evil savage creatures like orcs and kobolds can potentially be civilized. An evil thief might be able to be convinced to use his talents for the greater good and to take pride in using his ability to help others. Any creature that makes a choice to be evil can also potentially make the choice to be good. Of course, if someone is bearing down on you with weapons a-swingin', by all means, let the gods sort through the bodies. But when the opportunity for diplomacy and role-play presents itself, the paladin has a lot of choices in how they try to eradicate evil. Although it wasn't brought forward into Pathfinder, I would recommend consulting the Book of Exalted Deeds from 3.5 for some good rules on redemption and conversion.
Or the half orc redeemer archtype of the paladin.....
Man I miss the good old days when casting or using detect alignment/ evil was an insult worthy of getting yourself killed!
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Why is everybody convinced that the paladin must play a redeemer?
Personally I hate redeemer Paladins. To me they just don't fit the concept of Paladin, but in the world of Golarion they are valid, just as valid as the holy warrior who's desire to eradicate evil from the world is valid too. This doesn't mean that you're only option with evil is smiting everything the moment it detects as evil, but mostly because you don't have enough smites per day to do that. I prefer a paladin the same way I prefer most of my martial characters, stab first ask questions later. Would you expect the fighter to do something besides stab? The barbarian? Why should the paladin not be allowed to stab evil?
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Why is everybody convinced that the paladin must play a redeemer?
Personally I hate redeemer Paladins. To me they just don't fit the concept of Paladin, but in the world of Golarion they are valid, just as valid as the holy warrior who's desire to eradicate evil from the world is valid too. This doesn't mean that you're only option with evil is smiting everything the moment it detects as evil, but mostly because you don't have enough smites per day to do that. I prefer a paladin the same way I prefer most of my martial characters, stab first ask questions later. Would you expect the fighter to do something besides stab? The barbarian? Why should the paladin not be allowed to stab evil?
Nobody is saying that a paladin has to be a redeemer. I'm saying that the old concept of the paladin as always and only stab first, ask questions later is unnecessarily limiting and narrow in scope. If your campaigns are nothing but combat all the time, every time, then that's a fine approach, but if you your campaign has room for role-playing (as opposed to roll-playing), then your paladin can be a lot more dynamic than that, and should be. They're not one-dimensional characters.
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Any paladin that kills any evil runs the risk of becoming evil himself.
Example: A Lawful Evil lawyer is traveling through the woods with 2 bodyguards. You meet him. The lawyer has NO scruples and ZERO moral compass. By definition he is EVIL. His bodyguards are not. To kill him, you have to kill them.
What will the Paladin do? Kill the bodyguards to kill the unarmed lawyer?
Killing him, simply because he detects as EVIL will have several consequences. The Paladin has now murdered 2 non-EVIL Knights (bodyguards, with widows and orphans left behind) and an unarmed lawyer who has never broken a law in his life. The Paladin is now a wanted man and will be killed on sight by every person of law as will his party members who assisted in the murder.
Heck, even a group of other Paladins may be sent to kill him for his crimes by the LG King of the Kingdom in question, since the lawyer was the personal Minister of (whatever) for the King.
The rules for Paladins are not that ridiculous. And smiting evil, just because you detected it, doesn't make you GOOD.
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this is a very simply answer. Let him be lawful stupid and make him pay for his actions. He sees a guy on the street evil. Guy has not broken any crimes at all. Lawful stupid runs and smites him. Witnesses see the whole thing. Next thing you know lawful stupid is wanted for murder or assault/attempted murder. His/her god no longer listens to their prayers for being lawful STUPID. This teaches players to be more responsible for their actions. Or even lead them to the dark side. Force alignment change on someone who does actions like that. IF it looks like a duck, walks like a duck....its a Duck. As a DM I have to look for the overall enjoyment of the game for everyone. If one guy is making the game worse for others then pull him aside and talk about it. If the other players enjoy pulling lawful stupid aside and saving him from being kicked from the church then have at it.
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If he wants to play the lawful stupid paladin after knowing that it risks either death or falling from grace, and you allow paladins, then let him die and learn a lesson. If you say he can't play lawful stupid paladin then you are insulting his style of play and you can't force him to play a single way. If his lawful stupid becomes effective because he doesn't detect evil because that spell sucks and he just smites the obviously evil. Let him try and he will be able to learn his style is ineffective or you will learn his style is effective. This all requires some perspective of his side. Maybe he has some experience with paladins and found that to be effective. I can't say I've had much experience with paladins because in my gaming groups paladins are seen as funkillers that don't allow it to be usefull to the rogues, barbarians, and fighters, that have permission to take as much collateral damage as needed because of no real hold that PFS has in that area of Golarion. The kill all evil sounds semi-fun because you can then kill first ask later. See if it works and let me know if it does if you don't mind. I'd like a fun way to play paladins without taking stonelord or hospitaler.
Any paladin that kills any evil runs the risk of becoming evil himself.
Example: A Lawful Evil lawyer is traveling through the woods with 2 bodyguards. You meet him. The lawyer has NO scruples and ZERO moral compass. By definition he is EVIL.
Killing him, simply because he detects as EVIL will have several consequences.
He doesn't detect as evil. Read the spell.
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After a major disaster in town, with numerous injuries, it's time for the authorities to break out their stockpile of Potions of Infernal Healing and pass them around. Then watch the hilarity ensue...
"Well the good news is we've gotten most of the orphans stabilized and...oh, my god, what is that lunatic doing?!?"
Any paladin that kills any evil runs the risk of becoming evil himself.
Example: A Lawful Evil lawyer is traveling through the woods with 2 bodyguards. You meet him. The lawyer has NO scruples and ZERO moral compass. By definition he is EVIL. His bodyguards are not. To kill him, you have to kill them.
What will the Paladin do? Kill the bodyguards to kill the unarmed lawyer?
Killing him, simply because he detects as EVIL will have several consequences. The Paladin has now murdered 2 non-EVIL Knights (bodyguards, with widows and orphans left behind) and an unarmed lawyer who has never broken a law in his life. The Paladin is now a wanted man and will be killed on sight by every person of law as will his party members who assisted in the murder.
Heck, even a group of other Paladins may be sent to kill him for his crimes by the LG King of the Kingdom in question, since the lawyer was the personal Minister of (whatever) for the King.
The rules for Paladins are not that ridiculous. And smiting evil, just because you detected it, doesn't make you GOOD.
None of this happens at all because you actually have to commit evil acts to be evil, none of this "evil in his heart" and "no moral compass" bull. He's got to do evil stuff like robbery, murder, and kick puppies. Besides that, as DrDeth metioned, unless he's level 5 or higher he can't possibly detect as evil, unless he's also an evil cleric. So the paladin will meet him, think he's probably a jerk (as I assume most lawyers are), and then be on his merry way never knowing the guy is evil (mostly because he isn't).
Imagine two armies meeting for peace agreements.
One representative is thoroughly evil, and perhaps, is even a Cleric of an Evil god. One is not, maybe even good.
Both sides looking for peace.
Paladin is there as a bodyguard for the representative of one of the sides.
What does the Paladin do?
The paladin knows the man before him is evil and would gladly smite him into oblivion, but not today, not at this time. Peace serves the greater good (probably) more than fighting does. He will protect the nuetral/good representative in the event of bloodshed but will not instigate a fight. He will try to foster peace using all his diplomatic powers even if he begrudges the evil cleric in front of him. Paladins are about the greater good and self sacrafice and that means sometimes you have to put your desires behind you and do what is best for everyone.
Just take them through Cheliax for a moment. That should be fun to watch.
Just take them through Cheliax for a moment. That should be fun to watch.
For my Paladin it would simply remind him that he needs to work on putting together a large army of paladins and the angelics hosts of heaven to remove the devil's taint of Cheliax. But, since one paladin alone cannot destroy all of Cheliax's evil, it is better to use some discretion. Probably by avoiding Cheliax entirely as a Paladin, unless of course your GM wants to railroad you into it.
Here's a thought:
Does casting infernal healing on a paladin remove all of their abilities?
The spell says that the target detects as an evil creature, and they can sense the evil in the magic, but has no affect on alignment.
And since paladins can't be associating with evil...
I think at the most though, the paladin would just get pretty upset.
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Claxon, it sounds like you play a Paladin in a reasonable manner.
I think the OP was addressing this thread to situations where Paladins are played in a less enlightened fashion.
I have nothing against Paladins as a class, but I, too, have seen players who feel the need to play Paladins as crazed, vigilante, serial killers with no regard for the Law in Lawful Good.
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Here's a thought:
Does casting infernal healing on a paladin remove all of their abilities?The spell says that the target detects as an evil creature, and they can sense the evil in the magic, but has no affect on alignment.
And since paladins can't be associating with evil...
I think at the most though, the paladin would just get pretty upset.
To paraphrase Herman Cain, "Smite yo-self!"