Nah. The guy was let go in the first place because of extenuating circumstances. Were the murders committed while the cult leader was charmed?
The paladin didn't make the right call, but it sounds like the paladin had to make his decision based on off incomplete info and with the party actively and intentionally giving him bad advice.
The paladin might be obligated to hunt the escapee down once he's got a correct assessment, though. That'd be up to you and him.
The paladin also shouldn't trust any further advice from the player that helped the bad guy escape - after all, that other player gave advice so bad it could theoretically cause a fall from grace.
No. The 'bad guy' was not acting under his own free will/ was controlled by another. And it was after he was let go that the pally found out the exact extent of his what he had done. He should have a very stern talking to by the temple hierarchy to remind him of his vows. Now if he does not go after the 'bad guy' and bring him in and find the one who charmed him/made him do those things, then yes, I would say he falls. But what it boils down to really is, do you think it would cause him to fall.
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Ok, so recently I was GMing a session and the party defeated a evil cult, but let the leader go because they realized he was charmed. After letting them go, the party discovered that said cult leader was responsible for many murders. The party' paladin of Imoedae wanted to report the information they got right away, but another party member convinced them to not report it until later. By the time to city government learned of this cult, the leader has had time to escape
The paladin's code states that one must punish evil. So, because the paladin was convinced to, through inaction, let a murderer flee the city (and said murderer told them they were fleeing the city) did the paladin just break his code and fall?
I'd say NO based on the info given. Playing a paladin is tough when everyone is looking for excuses to make you fall.
If you do make the characters chase after this leader that was charmed, you shouldn't force them to kill him. Read up on the rules for detect evil to see what it actually detects(auras, not everything evil). The paladin may feel obligated to turn in the character and help prove he was charmed to the local government. Did you have the charmed NPC run away because it wasn't actually charmed when it committing these crimes or was it because it just panicked? It looks to me like maybe the Charm spell wasn't properly used either.
Based on the info provided I agree with Zhangar. The paladin got some bad info from his friends, and decided to let what he thought was an otherwise innocent person go (innocent because he was charmed). Later the paladin realizes that the individual was not innocent and he has now let an guilty indivdual go.
The paladin should seek to catch this individual and rectify the "problem" he caused and should also probably be pretty sceptical of anything his friends tell him in the future.
If he ignores the information he has now (that he allowed a murderer to go free) then he should know that such inaction would cause him to lose his powers. However, tell him this is the case before stripping his powers. Paladins aren't perfect and make mistakes. It's how he handles this mistakes that determines if he is truly a paladin.
Edit: Also, was the person magically mind controlled when he committed the murders? If so then he may not be cupable for the murders in the first place. Still, the Paladin should go after whomever was controlling the other person.
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You dont fall for showing mercy and compassion.
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In my opinion, the only time a Paladin should fall is immediately upon performing an action that is extremely contradictory to his alignment and the will of his/her God, and that the Paladin knew or should have reasonably known at the time was wrong, without any extenuating circumstances to justify it. He should not be punished or made to fall at a later time for actions that were wrong in hindsight. A Paladin making a bad call based on incomplete information or poor evidence should not be stripped of his powers. That is holding the character up to unrealistic standards, and as others have said before, it is difficult enough to play a Paladin without constant "gotcha" moments like this.
I agree with the general consensus thus far. "A good talking to" by the temple ministry is a good idea, remind the paladin that he needs to relentlessly pursue evil, etc. would be a good reminder.
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Wow we're in consensus about an alignment question. A paladin one at that. Good job, everyone.
EDIT:spelling
There's always someone who won't let a paladin thread die without insisting that the character self destruct button be pushed. And someone to give me another good reason not to play a Paladin with strangers. Which is why I don't play one in PFS.Yes, he should totally fall because he should strive to know the details even if they're not available. Even if the guy was charmed, that's something that can be sorted out at a trial. Because being Good is hard so taking the easy way by letting him go without all the evidence is taking the easy way out... and Easy is the opposite of Hard, therefore the opposite of Good, therefore he committed an Evil act.Wow we're in consensus about an alignment question. A paladin one at that. Good job, everyone.
EDIT:spelling
I don't know, Kazann presents some pretty concrete evidence to me :D
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I'm going to give a resounding no to this one. But for different reasons:
The paladin here wanted to do the normal paladin thing, but was convinced not to by an ally. This is actually pretty rare. A lot of people playing paladins are convinced they have to micromanage the decisions of the entire party. As a result, paladins are hated by a lot of people.
What you have here is a paladin who listens to his party, and even modifies his decisions based on their reasoning from time to time. A cooperative paladin! It's rare and it's wonderful.
Don't make the paladin fall, not because of anything in the rules, even, but because by making him fall you discourage further acts of teamwork amongst the PCs and the players behind them. Make the paladin fall here and you'll lose the interesting PC and get that party police you probably weren't looking for.
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I don't think the OP gave us enough information. I have a few questions before I would be able to accurately adjudicate this myself:
- Did the Paladin in question use his/her Detect Evil power to determine if the cult leader was evil?
- Did the Paladin understand the nature of the effects of a Charm Person Spell? (the spell itself won't make someone act against their nature short of an opposed Cha check - which is reasonable I suppose, but it does not alleviate the cult leader's alignment)
- Were there other pressing concerns that would not allow the Paladin the time to take the cult leader in for prosecution? Say letting an even greater evil live by dogmatically following the letter of his/her code?
- How does the DM wish to run Paladins in his/her campaigns? (I tend to hold Paladins in high regard in my campaigns and the common people fawn over them and make much of their holiness & prowess - I also tend to hold them to a narrow line to walk. theirs is not an easy path and those who wish to do so know that they must carefully choose their actions. I also like to pursue the roleplaying aspects of fallen Paladins and their efforts to redeem themselves - but not all care for that kind of campaign)
I think a lot of these things (and others I cannot currently think of, certainly) are needed to understand the actual situation. Looking at what I do know:
The Paladin was part of a group who were battling a cult and as an extension of this understanding, I must presume that the cult was doing bad/evil things. He or she was justified in doing this.
Given that the person let go was the Cult Leader of the people the Paladin was justified in battling, means that the Paladin was justified in battling the Leader too. Mercy is a good quality in Paladins though.
After defeating the cult and their Leader, he/she/it was allowed to surrender and released afterward.
I must say that I feel the Paladin did indeed violate his or her code (the Leader was definitely bad or evil and releasing this individual is the opposite of punishing evil). Is it worthy of defrocking? Probably not if the DM does not want to be seen as a hard-liner (I'm not even that hard on Paladins - I would probably just refuse the use of the Smite ability until the Paladin role-played some serious penance after question to recapture the Leader). Is it worthy of a strong talking-to by the Paladin's order? Absolutely!
I hope I helped some!
Nifty
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Honestly this is NOT a case where he should fall. He made a desiscion based on information he had at the time. I wouldn't even attempt to taken his powers (or any for that matter) away. Unless he shrugs it off. Just something as simple as talking to authorities in different towns and make slow progress towards finding the cult leader is good enough in my book. (Unless he was some huge threat to the world.)
Falling shouldn't even be a thing, but yeah, definitely a NO. You can't be held responsible for information you have no access to.
The Paladin should be interested in finding and destroying whatever had charmed the cult leader. That is the source of the evil.
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Well now I'm assuming somebody posted something accusatory.
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I think a decent rule of thumb is "If you have to ask, it probably wasn't bas enough to make him fall."
Now, whether he should be punished, have to atone, get chided, have bad dreams, go on a quest, etc., a different and more interesting question.
For other GMs who deal with paladins a lot and don't adjust the original code:
How do you define "relentlessly pursue evil"? Do you expect the paladin to constantly detect evil and immediately slay anyone who detects as evil?
Do you enforce the "lawful" over the "good" or vice versa?
I've only run a paladin once (in PFS), and he suggested acts that were probably unlawful, were blatantly insubordinate to the person who was officially the party's commanding officer for that mission, and had the potential to indirectly cause physical harm to that person.
Technically, the acts weren't "evil", and I didn't think it was right to give him an infraction for being an ass. In a home game, though, I would have slammed him pretty hard.
I wonder how other GMs with more experience would have handled it.
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I'm going to say no mostly because punishing being reasonable and merciful is a bad idea (especially if the situation was unclear to the paladin), but I have a few questions:
Ok, so recently I was GMing a session and the party defeated a evil cult, but let the leader go because they realized he was charmed. After letting them go, the party discovered that said cult leader was responsible for many murders. The party' paladin of Imoedae wanted to report the information they got right away, but another party member convinced them to not report it until later. By the time to city government learned of this cult, the leader has had time to escape
1) Do they know whether the cult leader committed the murders they found out about later under the influence of charm person or whether he performed them out of their own free will? If the latter there is a much greater requirement to find and/or report the cult leader since they initially let him go under the assumption he did not act out of his own free will. (Note that Charm Person doesn't turn you into a puppet so you're not totally absolved of responsibility, but a good manipulator can make you do all kinds of things while charmed since you're inclined to trust them.)
2) Was the city government a trustworthy agent to report this information to? If the party had reason to believe the government was corrupt, evil, or did not have the ability to properly adjudicate a case of crimes committed while under the influence of Charm Person, it might be a good idea to wait to inform the government. However, if the government was goodly and trustworthy it probably should have been reported - unless there was a very good moral reason not to which I haven't thought of. A paladin (or a party!) doesn't always have the luxury of letting a good government handle trying and punishing criminals, and should be encouraged to make use of it where available.
3) Is the paladin/party doing anything to track down the originator of the charm, or the cult leader now that they know he's less innocent than they thought?
If the paladin found out that murders were committed outside of the influence of charm person, and failed to report that fact to a trustworthy government without a very good reason not to, and isn't tracking down either the charm caster or the cult leader - that's potentially fall-worthy. I still wouldn't have him fall after the fact, but it would definitely warrant a very stern warning and an OOC discussion with the paladin and party about moral decisions and how you will handle them in your game.
You don't want the paladin to be the morality police, but on the other hand the party members shouldn't drag the paladin in obviously immoral directions. (I'm assuming the other party members were aware of and OK with the presence of the paladin.)
Good>lawful. Always everyday IMO.
Also RAW. A paladin falls for a single evil act but does not fall for a single chaotic act (unless it's a specific violation of the code) - they have to be chaotic enough to lose the LG alignment to fall.
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In our Runelords campaign, Abadar (who is LN)has made it clear to my Paladin, that he can de-emphasize the anti-good thing, and empathize the anti-chaos thing. No mechanical changes, although I'll admit that having received that guidance, I did consider asking the GM for detect chaos and smite chaos to replace the anti evil abilities.
I would wager that a Melnibonean campaign could similarly be more anti chaos than anti evil.
My current campaign has this flavour of paladin, complete with Smite Chaos - conscious departure from RAW since the whole world is skewed towards Law/Chaos conflict instead of Good/Evil conflict.
Not the standard assumption, but, like all things Paladin, probably something to discuss either way because people are so used to their own interpretations that they aren't likely consider the fact that other people might have different ones.
Thank you for the information all.
I decided to not have the paladin fall, but I did suggest he seek a Atonement spell for what occurred. To answer what some of you have asked, I present the fallowing:
1) The cult leader was only charmed for a recent series of murders. This was a cult to Norborger, said leader has had a past of committing murder. Part of reason the party was reluctant to report information on this cult was the leader was also a city official. However, they did figure out who charmed the cult leader and killed them, as said person was the villain of that part of the adventure.
2) The paladin has so far not used their Detect Evil ability ever. This is despite him reading the fact he has it repeatedly. I am actually getting half tempted to in the future change the alignments of some evil monsters he tries to use Smite Evil on to Neutral, to see if I can convince him to remember to using it in the future.
3) I spoke to the player who convinced the paladin to not directly report the info on the cult to the government. Said player's character is a grizzled old druid sailor who has recently begun to grow distrustful of the paladin as said paladin recently died and was resurrected, and the druid is the superstitious kind of sailor. Recently the two characters have been arguing over the party's course of action, so I am interested to see what results.
I just realized something, but to be safe
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I'm going to weigh in here.
I think that you made the right call, Heavenfluff, but there is some misleading information that has been presented in this thread.
First and foremost... With regard to paladins in general, the advise that states that "Good > Lawful, every day" is rubbish, unless you're house ruling that paladins can be Neutral Good characters that generally lean toward Lawful in their every day actions. Playing a Lawful Good alignment is as difficult as playing Lawful Evil, and it was meant to be that way. In general, most laws allow for mercy, as does many a paladin's code, so your player's paladin was not violating his code when he was convinced that they should let the cult leader go free. However, there's a misconception that Lawful always means "follows the letter of the law". Lawful is specifically stated that it means that you follow a code of rules, not that you specifically follow the laws of any land that you operate in. The notion that your player's character always has to prioritise Good over Law is, simply put, bad advise. You prioritise both Good and Law (in this case, his deity's code, not the laws of the land), and failure to do both is both what makes the class more interesting to play (due to the moral challenges of being a paladin) and more difficult to play. The apparent confusion over conflict with your code and the laws of the land is often what gets paladin players into trouble (or conflict) with other players at the table and can cause paladin players to devolve into playing "Lawful Stupid".
Second, the idea that you don't fall for showing mercy and compassion is not universally true, either. Sarenrae's code has a caveat regarding mercy, as does Torag's. Torag's code specifically states the following:
Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families. Yet even in the struggle against our enemies, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
That's a pretty strong caveat there, specifically commanding his followers to show no mercy. It's unambiguous. It's important to know that not every god(dess) expects their paladins to be merciful.
Thirdly, the notion that if your player's paladin falls, they should kill them off and roll up a new character is extremely bad advise. There is atonement for good reason, and it can be part of the paladin's personal journey (or the group's) to restore the paladin to the good graces of their god(dess). It's like advising players of fighters to completely trash their characters if their weapon is sundered, or advising players of wizards to slit their own throats if they walk into an anti-magic field.
Next, the notion that a paladin's fall must be more fun than a paladin not falling is also rubbish. It is certainly ideal that playing through a paladin's fall should be more fun for players than not doing so, but it's not a requirement. If your player's paladin violates their code or commits an evil act, then yes, they should probably fall, even if it's the twentieth time that this has happened and the other players are sick of it. That extreme of a case would, of course, be an issue of "If this paladin is such a screw-up, why are you still running around with [her/him], and why hasn't their god(dess) completely forsaken them by now?" It would seem mighty suspicious if a paladin had fallen that many times that they were truly repentant. However, this is beside the point. The point is, when a paladin is a part of the group, playing through a fall (and assuming a subsequent rise) is an explicit possibility that all players must be prepared for. When other players complain about this aspect of game play, it isn't specifically something you must eliminate because it might "spoil their fun". Talk it over with your players before you run a game with a paladin in it and let them know that this is a possibility. Most players are very reasonable and will understand how this is intended to work.
I agree that the paladin should now seek to right the wrong of the cult leader getting away (charmed or not), and I wish you well in your campaign.
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He should have fallen. Case closed.
*Gallivants off to correct other mistakes*
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@Bodhizen - generally very good post, but the point about Good > Law was not that a paladin can ignore law. While a paladin should always strive to uphold both, in a pinch a paladin falls for committing a single evil act, but is safe committing a single chaotic act (unless that chaotic act is one of the specifics forbidden by the code eg lying and even there some table variation exists). For example, a paladin is able to respectfully disobey a legitimate authority figure if obeying that authority figure would be evil.
2) The paladin has so far not used their Detect Evil ability ever. This is despite him reading the fact he has it repeatedly. I am actually getting half tempted to in the future change the alignments of some evil monsters he tries to use Smite Evil on to Neutral, to see if I can convince him to remember to using it in the future.
Not using Detect Evil is probably better than spamming Detect Evil on everything, but when you inform the paladin about the Atonement, you might mention that using Detect Evil on the cult leader would have been helpful (though not conclusive) in determining whether he was actually innocent.
Torag's code specifically states the following:
Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families.
To me, that's completely contrary to the Paladin code, what with mercy being an integral part of justice and all. That tells me Torag shouldn't have Paladins.
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To me, that's completely contrary to the Paladin code, what with mercy being an integral part of justice and all. That tells me Torag shouldn't have Paladins.Torag's code specifically states the following:
Against my people's enemies I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them, and I will scatter their families.
Sense when was justice merciful? Justice is harsh on the wicked. As it should be. Avenger paladins would ask why show mercy To evil when it would cause thousands of deaths later.
Lawful good =\ lawful nice. If a man has committed an crime he should face the punishment.
Where I ask does the paladin code state that mercy should be shown to those undeserving?
Lawful good =\ lawful nice. If a man has committed an crime he should face the punishment.
An appropriate punishment for the crime he committed. As I said, I consider mercy an integral part of justice. I cannot see any situation where 'merciless' can be considered a good thing.