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Hello Pathfinders
So I got a moral/rule quandary I'm sure more experienced players than I would be able to answer.
In a recent PFS game, I was playing as stereotypical aasimar paladin of iomedae and our group was stopped by a city guard patrol and searched for contraband. We suspected the guards were really bandits but they had proper credentials and badges and everyone failed sense motive to disbelieve the guards were up to no good. We allowed the guards to search our caravan and they ended up claiming demanding we pay taxes for use of the trade road and to confiscate some plot goods that we were tasked with transporting.
My paladin offered to pay whatever taxes himself and pay a fine for retaining our goods. The DM had the guards draw swords first to roll an intimidate check against us. Their check wasn't resolved because the party summoner meta gamed had his companion kill the guard leader out of game thinking they were bandits. Initiative is rolled and the guard patrol is slaughtered in 2 rounds without doing any lethal damage. The caravan was ordered on leaving their bodies to rot roadside. We didn't even stop to loot the bodies for identification or evidence of trickery.
So my paladin who refused to participate in the combat acts as if he was just a witness to the murder of a legal contraband patrol. I complained to the GM this encounter was badly botched and he ended up awarding only 1 prestige on the grounds the surviving patrol member reported us and word got back to the grand lodge of the misdeed.
However, the minor loss of fame, doesn't seem like a fitting considering a groups paladin could end up falling if I keep traveling around with murder hobos. I ended up buying a lease and muzzle for the summoners companion and telling him if he doesn't keep his pet under control, I would spend the money for a dismissal scroll. (1 day ban on his companion). I play stupid fighters too so I know the temptation to just bash the door down and get on to the fighting, and people who can resist...
Volunteer to GM a few sessions and pass out alignment changes where warranted (emphasis on warranted). The first 1 or 2 Atonement castings may seem cheap but after a couple, 2-PP a pop begins to add up.
Good old paladins. Standing buy while your getting stabbed, telling you what to do, and threatening your companions!... oh wait.
Paladins are very capable of making a mess in a lot of directions and ways yes. Keep in mind PFS doesn't encourage you to do good things always so its a little rough to play a paladin and telling people not to do their job may not go over well.
Anything further on my part would start acting in the gray PvP zone.
Throwing your friends in jail isn't pvp?
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I have a pally of Abaddon with a day job of Judge. We did a scenario where we enter into a shop. The owner of the shop asked us to leave beginning an upcoming in-counter and my pally left the premises because the owner told me the building was closed and I was trespassing. The owner then asked the rest of the party to leave, they refused, told them she would defender her property, they refused, she attacked, they butchered her and her guards (as per the game)all the while my pally was yelling at them to leave the premises that what they were doing was unlawful. I would have helped the owner but was denied access upon asking permission to re-enter her property. In the end I took them into custody and acted as a lawful escort while they finished the mission then turned them in to be prosecuted on charges of armed robbery and 5 accounts of premeditated murder in the 1st degree. At which point the PFS would pay their fines and be released on pathfinder business for the greater good. All of which is in accordance of the law.
Anything further on my part would start acting in the gray PvP zone.
Abaddon doesn't get paladins. He gets antipaladins, but those aren't Society legal.
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Hello Pathfinders
We allowed the guards to search our caravan and they ended up claiming demanding we pay taxes for use of the trade road and to confiscate some plot goods that we were tasked with transporting.
My paladin offered to pay whatever taxes himself and pay a fine for retaining our goods.
Good! you were stopped by the apparently lawful authority and didn't kill them on sight or try to declare their government illegitimate.
The DM had the guards draw swords first to roll an intimidate check against us. Their check wasn't resolved because the party summoner meta gamed had his companion kill the guard leader out of game thinking they were bandits.
I would have had the sense motive checks be the check for the surprise round, but the rules on that are... less than concrete.
Initiative is rolled and the guard patrol is slaughtered in 2 rounds without doing any lethal damage. The caravan was ordered on leaving their bodies to rot roadside. We didn't even stop to loot the bodies for identification or evidence of trickery.
Not looting the bodies? Now you deserve to lose prestige.
So my paladin who refused to participate in the combat acts as if he was just a witness to the murder of a legal contraband patrol. I complained to the GM this encounter was badly botched and he ended up awarding only 1 prestige on the grounds the surviving patrol member reported us and word got back to the grand lodge of the misdeed.
Assuming there was an actual survivor on the map that got away fair and square and not some GodMing by the DM to say that someone got away from the Eidolon and your archers, good. The point is to be DISCRETE and well.. killing a whole bunch of guards and leaving their bodies on the side of the road in uniform? With a survivor to give your descriptions to the authorities? That isn't.
However, the minor loss of fame, doesn't seem like a fitting considering a groups paladin could end up falling if I keep traveling around with murder hobos.
Welcome to the pathfinder society! You are a group of murder hobo archeologists. Doing the right thing will be hard. Doing the legal thing will require keeping an atonement spell on retainer.
I ended up buying a lease and muzzle for the summoners companion and telling him if he doesn't keep his pet under control, I would spend the money for a dismissal scroll.
Bad paladin! No doughnut.
That would hands down be PVP. You cannot act as the morality police for your party through the use of force.
Netopalis: pretty sure he means Abadar.
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Alignment. Its not just there for the Paladins. I would probably mark on their chronicles an alignment shift towards either chaotic or evil, possibly both. Randomly killing guards because they are there, that leads to problems. As a GM, I would start to make quick social encounters out of every guard patrol, and see if they continue to kill everything described.
Alternatively, the GM (or another player) could have looked at the meta-gaming player and said "what in-character events and rolls are you basing your actions on?". If they continue to metagame...well, then the GM goes into territory that no one likes to be in.
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Good old paladins. Standing buy while your getting stabbed, telling you what to do, and threatening your companions!... oh wait.
Paladins are very capable of making a mess in a lot of directions and ways yes. Keep in mind PFS doesn't encourage you to do good things always so its a little rough to play a paladin and telling people not to do their job may not go over well.
If the paladin is actually doing that (and is played by someone who has any business playing a paladin to begin with) it's because you're doing evil things and/or are evil. And that's not PFS-legal either.
There's a group of "Chaotic Neutral" murderhobos who regularly attend the local meet here, and have with some regularity driven off new players after a session or two with their antics. I play a paladin. Glass River Rescue spoilers:
To the OP, the general hazard of organized play is that you can and will get party members you're not used to who will behave in unpredictable and often very destructive ways. It can get to the point where it's very hard to not break the PVP rule and still obey the part of the code about punishing those who harm or threaten innocents. As far as I can tell you did the right thing. It's important to remember that, quote, "Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil." Strictly speaking, your fellow Society characters shouldn't be evil-aligned (at least on paper), so if you pick your missions carefully it shouldn't be impossible to do.
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I love the first line:
In a recent PFS game, I was playing as stereotypical aasimar paladin of iomedae
The Fact that the Aasimar are now the stereotypical Paladin are mindblowing!
+ Strength + charisma. Start the congo line.
I think they have a celestial brothel down in the basement next to the Kyra cloning tanks.
yeah that one Abadar, guess i should learn the name of my deity :DAin't got no skillpoints for ranks in knowledge religion!
Ain't nobody got time for that!
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It's tricky! I always play with someone who tends to play very high DPS, aggressive characters.
My little chaotic good Andoran sorcerer gave the ranger such an in-character scolding after she walked into a room and opened fire on a dwarf who turned out to be a slave, killing him in one round, that the ranger agreed to, in future, always let me initiate combat.
My paladin of Saranrae's code focuses on providing a good example, leading others to the light, and granting mercy to those who seek it. She is aware that every being must make their own moral choices, and others may not agree with her code. She's fine with that, but will intercede to save lives when she can. She always uses non-lethal force, in any situation where her opponent is not immune to it, so that combats can be ended without killing.
I've been in one group where the GM told the people who had attacked a neutral creature in order to take it's treasure that he would be imposing an alignment change, and then let us 'ret-com' back and talk to it instead.
I just played a scenario in which the Secondary Success Condition included not killing our local guide, who we'd been told would be contacting us in the initial briefing. I was a bit stunned - is that how low Pathfinder Society is setting the bar these days? "We are sending you to meet Christian Alber, a young noble. He has important information for you. Do try not to murder him."
Honestly, role-playing a devout priest of Pharasma is just as bad. Do you know HOW MANY scenarios encourage, or even require, grave-robbing?