My Paladin PC just slaughtered a village of good alligned creatures.


Advice

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First, if you are one of my party members, please leave this thread. Spoilers ahead. I need this post to make sure I'm not bullying Justin.

Spoiler for Danger 5:

Hey!

I'm one of two DM's, running a party of 5. It's Rise of the Runelords, so there are Goblins everywhere. We introduced a 7th clan of Goblins, the "Ravenroost" goblins, who were progressive, fond of writing, secretive and Neutral Good aligned.

Naulia, under the Guise of "Natalie" was found in the forest (after they killed her guards), unconscious and weakened, due to her partial transformation into a Demon. She told them these Ravenroost Goblins were evil, hid her monstrous arm, asked from some free potions and left. None of the players tried sense motive, detect evil or even pressured her for information about that big bloody bandage around her "wounded" arm, she had tucked into her jacket. She also accused Aldern Foxglove of being a Rapist for good measure ( a lie ), which was refuted by his personal servant.

They then proceeded to ravage these Good aligned Goblins without ANY hesitation. Heck, it was the Paladin that shot first! If they had have spoken to Mayor Deverin, any town Guard, Ameiko or Shelalu, they would have learnt what these Goblins were!

The children Goblins run out from school (learning to write) and were smashed to bits, and the village Elder was put inside a flaming sphere while he begged for his town with tears in his eyes. None of the goblins spoke common. And their Goblin speaking bard, decided to stay in town. No Goblin fought back, they tried to flee and warn the others instead.

The amount of hooks, and deterrents to this outcome that were present, were huge and plentiful. This was not meant to happen.

ANYWAY.

After this, I gave the Paladin -70 Karma, bringing him down to 210 Karma. If he drops below 100, his alignment shifts. (house rule stuff, the Magus scored -120 Karma, putting 5 karma away from being Chaotic Neutral). I also made him an Ex-Paladin at the conclusion of the battle.

Will this atonement spell restore him? http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/atonement.html#_atonement..

What other ways can a 4th level Paladin of Erastil redeem himself within the ruleset?

3000GP is a HUGE price (in our game, gold is scarce), so I was considering the following house rule:

1 Day and 1 Night spent in the service of the community, a farmer or a builder. He must labour until exhausted, praying the whole time to Erastil for forgiveness. Plus 100GP donation to the local church.


In a previous session, they were also told of the 6 Tribes, (Including the now dead, BoneGrinders) in detail, complete with their heroes, and what makes each one special. Three players took detailed notes at this point. Each tribe has a distinctive mark of sorts:

Birdcruncher: Necklace of bird heads
Thistletop: Necklace of spines that cause 1D4 damage to foes grappling
7 Tooth: Necklace of 7 various teeth.
Mosswood: A "Hat" of boar bristles, running down their backs

Etc....

The Ravenroost Goblins were left out. Which they picked up on, but did not pressure for info on later.

Ravenroost: Earings that look like wooden quills, in each ear.


Atonement requires sincere repentance and a willingness to make amends; that's up to you, as the GM, to judge based on the player's response.

How has the player responded to the situation (assuming that he now knows the truth)?


Calybos1 wrote:

Atonement requires sincere repentance and a willingness to make amends; that's up to you, as the GM, to judge based on the player's response.

How has the player responded to the situation (assuming that he now knows the truth)?

Everyone around the table, regretted their actions, and felt genuine empathy, and sadness for what just happened. If they had have known, they would not have murdered them all. Especially the children learning to read and write.

There is no issue regarding sincerity for repentance.


OK. Then, since the gold for an actual Atonement spell is not available, I'd say your houserule proposed atonement makes sense... I assume the paladin will be laboring to restore the Ravenroost community specifically, not just his own hometown? Personally, I'd expect more like a week's effort, in which the other PCs are free to pitch in to restore some of their own karma.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

The Paladin is a mature class and should be treated as such. There seems to be a lot of twisting and turning of plots and moral scales and such by you as the DM so you should probably give the more casual players a warning that you will be doing that from time to time to liven things up.

That being said, the Paladin really screwed up! By the rules (an you did come to the rules forum) Atonement should do the trick and should restore him.

If, however, you want advice and you seem to be running a more complex game, I would not recommend a simple spell to make everything good. One aspect of repentance is usually to make restitution for your crimes/sins. How do you do that? Bring the tribe back to life via Raise Dead and such. This may take all of his gold and possessions but it would show that he is truly sorry for his deeds.

In the end, you as the DM will decide what to do. Atonement is the easy rules way out but there are other avenues as well. Some of those might, however, disrupt the campaign and the game. Either way it seems like both the players and the DM learned some lessons out of this event. Hopefully they put those lessons to good use in the future.

Dark Archive

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Um they need to get a loan and resurrect the children. Bring them all back.


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You could throw them a subquest to help them make things right. Could be something like:

Your Paladin gets advised by a Cleric of Erastil/his superiors/some other authority figure to spend a full 48 hours fasting and praying, without sleep, in a local temple. He has to make a couple of fort saves or take temporary Con damage, but also has a vision/hallucination of Erastil. The vision tells of a divine relic that has the power to restore unjustly killed innocents.

Obviously any divine relic like this is going to be one-use-only, lost to the ages and guarded by some nasty creatures. Keep it challenging and low-loot as this is to restore their tattered reputations and make amends.

I'm not sure how to train a party to use Sense Motive and Detect Evil, let alone make them think twice about killing things. If you could work a layer of deception into a couple of upcoming quests, that might force them to use the tools they have. Possibly have two groups both claiming the other is evil, forcing them to think before they strike.


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Hendelbolaf wrote:

The Paladin is a mature class and should be treated as such. There seems to be a lot of twisting and turning of plots and moral scales and such by you as the DM so you should probably give the more casual players a warning that you will be doing that from time to time to liven things up.

That being said, the Paladin really screwed up! By the rules (an you did come to the rules forum) Atonement should do the trick and should restore him.

If, however, you want advice and you seem to be running a more complex game, I would not recommend a simple spell to make everything good. One aspect of repentance is usually to make restitution for your crimes/sins. How do you do that? Bring the tribe back to life via Raise Dead and such. This may take all of his gold and possessions but it would show that he is truly sorry for his deeds.

In the end, you as the DM will decide what to do. Atonement is the easy rules way out but there are other avenues as well. Some of those might, however, disrupt the campaign and the game. Either way it seems like both the players and the DM learned some lessons out of this event. Hopefully they put those lessons to good use in the future.

We are indeed playing a complex game. We've even got some custom software that renders maps via a projector in a dedicated room in my house. I've also got some Phillips Hue light bulbs, to change the lighting for powerful spells. Everyone takes notes, and we two DM's dedicate a whole day each week to preparation.

We are adding more rules every week, and incorporating player actions directly into the world and story. It's hard, but totally worth it.

Resurrection takes 1 10,000GP diamond each cast! There were at least 23 deaths, which makes fixing this cost almost a quarter million gold! But that's a genuine way to undo the wrong. I f-ing love this solution.


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Paladin broke the village, paladin should rebuild village as his atonement.

Not just doing all he can to bring back to life the dead goblins, but then to base himself there as teacher/handyman/guard. I suppose he really ought to be there for the rest of his life, but that's a tad harsh for a PC. He really ought to 'adopt' the place though, and spend his free time (and cash) helping it.


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Mulet wrote:
Resurrection takes 1 10,000GP diamond each cast! There were at least 23 deaths, which makes fixing this cost almost a quarter million gold! But that's a genuine way to undo the wrong.

I hear a place called Xin-Shalast had diamonds galore...

The Exchange

Now that's repentance!


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

If he can get the resources, raise dead is cheaper....but given the time involved, perhaps Resurrection is your best bet. Undoing this wrong could be this players life goal....and I like Valandil's idea too.

Perhaps raise 1-2 of the goblins as soon as possible, and then spend the rest of the campaign "atoning" for his sin. BTW this AP gives you lots of opportunity to play with sin. Read up on the sin points used late in the AP and also your paladin should perhaps get the Wrath tag for Misgivings in part 2.


He can take the 3.5 vow of poverty and start piling up his share of the treasure to ress everyone. OFC after having rebuild the village.


Dekalinder wrote:
He can take the 3.5 vow of poverty and start piling up his share of the treasure to ress everyone. OFC after having rebuild the village.

3.5 Vow of Poverty was actually really awful. You could get it for free and it would still be awful.

Anyways, working for the village for a bit sounds like it could lead to some good roleplay. The whole goblin thing sounds like a bit of a mess really.


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Calybos1 wrote:

OK. Then, since the gold for an actual Atonement spell is not available, I'd say your houserule proposed atonement makes sense... I assume the paladin will be laboring to restore the Ravenroost community specifically, not just his own hometown? Personally, I'd expect more like a week's effort, in which the other PCs are free to pitch in to restore some of their own karma.

....while I'll agree that an alternative is appropriate due to how you run your games, I think that a 'day' or 'week' is far, far too lenient. Typically "mass slaughter" is the kind of things that requires years of harsh imprisonment to even begin to atone for.

Of course, the atonement spell is a thing, and an 'easy option'. But hey, that is magic. So, since obviously the time frame I mentioned is not appropriate for games (since it basically means the paladin would be thrown out and rolling a new one), then maybe you should make it a quest to find some sagely creature with atonement as an SLA (since that would remove the material component costs).

It is a distraction from the quest... but hey, it would give the players some resolution for their debacle. Make some difficult, no loot quest for them to go on (maybe a nice swamp filled with unintelligent beasts, with a few nice traps/natural hazards), and let that serve as their repentance.


Is this a rules question or an advice question? (You've already gotten plenty of the latter, so nothing for me to add there).


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I would say that there was one goblin child who had happened to be playing hooky that day. As part of his atonement the paladin must raise, protect and edjucate this goblin child until it reaches maturity. Then have the goblin become a cohort, that starts as a liability, and eventually becomes an asset and an integral part of the story (for better or worse depending on how things progress)

Lantern Lodge

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Wouldn't the first order of atonement be defeating the cause of said incident- -this "Natalie" fellow?

Worry about atonements later, deal with immediate threats first, Paladin powers be damned. (Uh, no pun intended.)


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How did they find out that they were good goblins?


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The paladin failed to use all of his Erastil given abilities. He also failed to use his mind, which is part of being a paladin too!

No doubt he should fall.

That said, I do like the way it plays out that he is truly repentant! Restoring the village and bringing each and every one of the goblins back to life is the proper atonement.


Lincoln Cross wrote:
The paladin failed to use all of his Erastil given abilities. He also failed to use his mind, which is part of being a paladin too!

2+ skill points doesn't give you much room for your mind. Its hard choice between diplomacy, sense motive, and knowledge(religion), and you know... all those other skills.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Restoring the village and bringing everyone back to life is a START.

As I was not in the game I'm uncertain how a tale told by 1 person grants sudden license for an entire party to MDK an entire village, sprongs included, that never fought back. Now having played Society I understand it (after all my PFS character was penalized for talking his way through an encounter, convincing the party to not slaughter everyone at a roadside inn, and to advocate evacuating those were supposed to rescue instead of staying, fighting and slaying those who tried to take them back. Killing everyone would have maximized rewards for the scenario. Silly me for trying to play a good aligned character. Granted the party was mostly good aligned on paper...including the paladin who wanted to kill all the bystanders. )

If it's an opinion...in my game if the party wants to play good aligned heroes I make it clear that good means good...not wanton slaughter. Paladins even more so.

Story-wise I'd probably play up the psychological shock of being seeing all your friends and family slaughtered before your eyes...and then one of the murderers standing over you, bloodied sword coming down as the last thing you see...and the first thing you see when you are brought back.

If anything this tribe would probably have it's opinions, views and alignment shifted. You know maybe there is something to be said for evil demon-worship after all. At least you have a chance when marauding paladins come destroy your town. Sounds like evil triumphed here, let evil reign.

So now we have a PC-supported village that hides it's new dedication to evil, gradually collecting all the PC support it can until they launch their nefarious plan...whatever that is...and now it's up to the PC to fully redeem the village without slaying any of the villagers. If the PC is truly a good paladin, show them a better way. If the PC uses this as another pretext for MDK...then I'd say that he hasn't really learned anything. Hello fighter class!


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Cripes.

Why in hell were they murdering children to begin with? Why were they sadistically murdering someone begging for their village to be spared?

The fact that they were good shouldn't even matter here. As described, the party was acting like horrifically evil sociopaths, regardless of their targets.

Every PC that took part in the massacre shifts to evil. Genuinely good people who learn the true details of what they did should be horrified. No excuses. They want to atone for this, they need to freaking EARN it.

And maybe not butcher children and fleeing noncombatants in the future.

Scarab Sages

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One thing to consider that I didn't see posted: why were these goblins turned to good? This is completely against their nature to be non-chaotic and good. Did perhaps a good aligned god or goddess have a hand in this change. I am thinking due to the alignment and such Sarenrae is a very likely candidate.

If you chose to go this route, you could have a priestess/priest of Sarenrae show up and demand penance for harming the followers of Sarenrae. This could lead to some good RPing moments or side quests if you chose.

One a separate note, your paladin should be looking at peaceful communities as a good thing. Hopefully you noted for him that this tribe of goblins appeared to be such if you wanted him to have a chance to not commit this sad deed. Yes, the party could have checked out "Natalie"'s story better, but I would think the paladin of Erastil would notice the signs of a peaceful community that worked together. You might have a divine messenger of Erastil point this out to him when he requires the PCs to fix it. Personally, I would have Erastil leave it up to your paladin to "fix things" if he wants to regain his status. If you are playing a more complex game, lay it on the feet of the PC to come up with the appropriate praying, fasting, sacrifice, etc to get a messenger of Erastil to come down and talk to him. Then its up to you what is said, though I really like Corvino's suggestion.

Perhaps there exists an item of ancient power once possessed by Alaznist at one of her towers that could reverse the events of one day, one that might have been used to change the course of major battles that were lost....or in this case reverse a mistaken slaughter of innoncents. But I would still have Erastil mark the paladin in some way, whether it was as simple as a white lock of hair, or the like, to remind the paladin every day of the cost of misusing your power.


Rerednaw wrote:
If anything this tribe would probably have it's opinions, views and alignment shifted. You know maybe there is something to be said for evil demon-worship after all. At least you have a chance when marauding paladins come destroy your town. Sounds like evil triumphed here, let evil reign.

If it turns evil does that mean the party technically had a head start?

I'd advise against it personally, but I don't know the party.


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redcelt32 wrote:
One thing to consider that I didn't see posted: why were these goblins turned to good? This is completely against their nature to be non-chaotic and good.

Uncommon, but not completely against their nature.

Bestiary wrote:
While a monster's size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.


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Also, as far as I'm concerned, your party went full murderhobo. Making that right could take an entire campaign. And the paladin? Yeah, not so much any more. Demonstrating true repentance is going to take more than just 3,000 gp and an "I'm really really sorry". Atonement isn't meant to give a paladin a get-out-of-jail-free card after indulging in mass child murder.


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Not only an evil act, but a conciously agressive evil act. Killing fleeing children. Even if the chief was begging in goblin, it's still obvious he's begging. All alignments shift (bare minimum) one step towards evil, and the pally loses his status and is forevermore a fighter. Atonement spells be damned, that's a cheap way out.

My 2cp, from an old-schooler.


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Atonement is the exact and the only method. A days community sevrice is a ridiculous offer for racistly slaughtering an entire village though. I would not accept that, nor 100gp.

If gold is scarce in your campaign then what you need to do is figure out his worth at full market value, and compare it to the character wealth by level chart. If he has 50% of what he would typically have in a normal game, then the spell should cost 50%.

Also, to allow such horrible acts be committed by the most upright of of individuals go by with just a slap on the wrist is horrible role play. If it were my game I don't even know that I'd let him atone for such a thing, but if I did, he'd spend the next several levels chasing atonement, bare minimum. Cleaning gutters and picking up trash for a day is not sufficient for slaughtering a village out of ignorance


Make it an evil game! Maybe some evil deity takes interest in the pally.


Per rules atonement is the key. If I was GM I would add something.

Rebuilding the town and turning it into a refuge for goblins who wish not to fight is a good call.

Finding a loan surviving babe and suggest that the paladin raise it or if it is older he must take the child on "to foster" hence teaching it and if it is of age take it on as a squire.


Since when is it evil to kill good aligned creatures? The alignment of the creature you are killing should have no bearing on whether it is evil or not. It is very possible to kill someone who is Lawful Good without committing an evil act. Whether or not this is evil should depend on the intent of the Paladin. All that aside, if the goblins truly were innocent and didn't threaten anyone at all before the combat began, then sure it was an evil act ableit an unintentional one.

It sounds like he was tricked into doing this, so atonement should work with the 500GP cost as the spell specifically says that it works on unwittingly committing an evil act.

Atonement wrote:
If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you.

Gotcha stories like these are why I will probably never play a Paladin.

Silver Crusade

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This isn't do much "gotcha" as "What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with you people?!"


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I also like (besides restoring the village) that the Pally loses all abilities UNTIL he can come up with the money to have atonement cast on him. That will make him think twice. yea...I like it....hardnose oldschool!

The Exchange

I know that's rules-as-written, but I always feel the group does better if the paladin loses his abilities for refusing to undo what he has done, rather than losing his abilities before he can attempt to.


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Yeah not sure where to start here. I think that the paladin could maybe have been forgiven for the initial shot. Sure, it was perhaps reckless of him not to have undertaken more research, but I think it would ordinarily fall within expectations that the goblins were evil.

However, that doesn't excuse the continued attacks, or the attacks on the children, once it became clear that the goblins were not fighting back. Heck one of my players, when he played a paladin in a former game got annoyed when a soon to be defeated green dragon asked for parley. He was annoyed because he knew he couldn't deny the request within his alignment.

As a GM, I would probably allow him to regain his paladin status at some point (though he would need to take at least a level or two of non-pally while he atones). Honestly though, the only reason I would allow him to regain it is because I try to be generous as a GM and not let one really bad mistake/session completely ruin a character that the player loves. His atonement though, should definitely be a long-lasting act (i.e. he needs to keep acting upon it, continuing to rebuild/educate the tribe, etc.) Failure to continue to do so could result in once again losing his status. Make this clear to him through a vision or something similar. This should be a life defining moment for him -- even realizing that the player may say "screw it, I'm a fighter now".

Note though that I wouldn't let the rest of the party off the hook either though. They are just as guilty as the paladin. I would think that the citizens of Sandpoint probably have a much different view of the party now. "Apparently these weren't the heroes we were looking for." Maybe they are no longer welcome at the inn, and/or prices have shot up for them because there's enough evil in town already. The local ranger likely does not want to associate with them at the moment either (which could make things in Book 3 interesting). When bodies start to show up in Book 2, guess who the town starts to suspect? That sort of thing. Maybe Book 2 is no longer about catching a murderer, but rather, about clearing the party's name -- Note that they'll need to be able to present proof to Sandpoint for this too (meaning that they can't just mdk their way through the book).

In the long run, this could be an awesome event for the group as it creates so many opportunities for role play. Note that even the bard isn't completely off the hook here. Sure, he doesn't have the alignment shift concerns that the rest of the party has since he wasn't there. However, the townsfolk are going to associate him with the rest of the party so long as he continues to run with them. "Ye must be evil if ye keepin' with the likes o' them!" Mechanically it doesn't really affect his character but it certainly does from a role play standpoint.


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Seconding Mikaze here (as I always do when I join his threads. Hi, Mikaze!), I cannot agree that there was any trickery here. Just stupidity by the players.

ONE witness the party had never met said, "That's an evil goblin tribe! Go kill them all!"

The party did NO checking on her whatsoever, went to the goblin tribe, did NO research whatsoever, IGNORED the fact that no one was fighting back and the elder was babbling at them imploringly with tears in his eyes...
...as they fed him to a Flaming Sphere.

If it went down as described, there's really no excuse, especially considering we're on a paladin thread and we have yet to have someone say, "Oh, no, he shouldn't fall just for killing goblins!"

I mean, seriously! The egregiousness of the act is measured in the fact that we're around 30 posts into a paladin thread and not in an argument yet!

What's wrong with this picture?


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Mikaze wrote:
This isn't do much "gotcha" as "What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with you people?!"

Depends on how much the GM played up the "please spare me" aspect of the goblins.

Goblins are depicted early in the ROTRL as being particularly sadistic, evil, and crazy. Having someone warn of another "evil" tribe is something that makes sense in this setting, and would be believable as something a paladin would go out of his way to smite.

Sure they could have asked the mayor/sheriff/whoever, but had this been a normal goblin tribe, it would be considered a waste of time. In most campaigns, goblins=evil.

Now I definitely see how the paladin should fall, and need to redeem himself w/ the atone spell. in fact this seems to fit nicely with exactly what the atonement spell does.


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Mulet wrote:

First, if you are one of my party members, please leave this thread. Spoilers ahead. I need this post to make sure I'm not bullying Justin.

** spoiler omitted **...

In Golarion, unlike Eberron goblines are evil little bastards 99% of the time, and most civilizations would not give them much room to be up to anything good. He could ask to be nice, but players do have to metagame to an extent, and certain monster just have certain reputations unless the GM say "not all monsters in my game fit the standard" or something similar.

Unless you gave that warning out they party was sort of setup.

I would also assume that such "nice" goblins would have a reputation for not being troublemakers since they are a rarity, and a knowledge local check if nothing else should have been asked for.


How soon into the act does the Paladin fall? Does he fall after killing the first good aligned goblin, or after everything is said and done?

If he falls as soon as he transgresses, it might have been a hint that the party was screwing up, and his atonement would have been less.


Robert A Matthews wrote:

Since when is it evil to kill good aligned creatures? The alignment of the creature you are killing should have no bearing on whether it is evil or not. It is very possible to kill someone who is Lawful Good without committing an evil act. Whether or not this is evil should depend on the intent of the Paladin. All that aside, if the goblins truly were innocent and didn't threaten anyone at all before the combat began, then sure it was an evil act ableit an unintentional one.

It sounds like he was tricked into doing this, so atonement should work with the 500GP cost as the spell specifically says that it works on unwittingly committing an evil act.

Gotcha stories like these are why I will probably never play a Paladin.

I agree with you to the extent that it applies to the initial shot or three. I wouldn't necessarily expect a group to do extensive research about a goblin tribe in order to confirm that they are, in fact, evil. It's not as though they were told that the neighboring elven community was entirely chaotic evil that merely pretended to be tree hugging farmers.

However, assuming that it went down as described by the OP and that it was clear that the goblins a) were not fighting back, b) appeared to be babbling/pleading albeit incoherently, c) were running away rather than standing their ground, and d) had plenty of children present that were also applying a) through c) above, then it clearly becomes an evil act as the party is slaughtering a tribe of helpless, unarmed, creatures that are not resisting.

Now, is it possible that the GM could/should have tossed more warnings out there? Sure. "Hey Sir Smitesalot, you notice that suddenly your holy symbol has become extremely heavy, causing you to stoop even and looking down you notice that its also tarnished and cracked." However, I don't think its really necessary for the GM to hit the party over the head with this either.

So yeah, while the initial attack shouldn't have made him fall (imho) the continued attack most definitely should. As I said, from a game standpoint, I think this could actually turn out to be a positive long term as now there are all kinds of different story elements for the party the grab onto.


wraithstrike wrote:
Mulet wrote:

First, if you are one of my party members, please leave this thread. Spoilers ahead. I need this post to make sure I'm not bullying Justin.

** spoiler omitted **...

In Golarion, unlike Eberron goblines are evil little bastards 99% of the time, and most civilizations would not give them much room to be up to anything good. He could ask to be nice, but players do have to metagame to an extent, and certain monster just have certain reputations unless the GM say "not all monsters in my game fit the standard" or something similar.

Unless you gave that warning out they party was sort of setup.

I would also assume that such "nice" goblins would have a reputation for not being troublemakers since they are a rarity, and a knowledge local check if nothing else should have been asked for.

I believe they were given information on all the tribes of goblins, of which 3 party members took notes


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I don't think paladins should every be tricked into falling, and that's what this feels like. Based on a previous thread from this same OP, I'd highly suggest dropping a lot more hints to the players, especially if they are young IRL or new to the game. They may not understand the situation as it has been described to them.


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Robert A Matthews wrote:

Since when is it evil to kill good aligned creatures? The alignment of the creature you are killing should have no bearing on whether it is evil or not. It is very possible to kill someone who is Lawful Good without committing an evil act. Whether or not this is evil should depend on the intent of the Paladin. All that aside, if the goblins truly were innocent and didn't threaten anyone at all before the combat began, then sure it was an evil act ableit an unintentional one.

It sounds like he was tricked into doing this, so atonement should work with the 500GP cost as the spell specifically says that it works on unwittingly committing an evil act.

Atonement wrote:
If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you.
Gotcha stories like these are why I will probably never play a Paladin.

Dude.

Fleeing.

Children.

The Exchange

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It is said, "Do not attempt appeals to reason or emotion with someone who begins their argument with, 'Since when is it evil to kill good-aligned creatures?'"

Just... back away slowly and ignore the thread.


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Ransaq wrote:
I believe they were given information on all the tribes of goblins, of which 3 party members took notes

To be fair, the OP stated that the good aligned goblin tribe was left out of the description. As such, I certainly as a player would not have assumed that meant that this tribe was, in fact, good. Nor would I have necessarily felt the need to do more investigation. It does perhaps raise the question as to why the good aligned tribe was left out of the description, and hopefully there was a good reason for it (i.e the party asked for information about the tribes that attacked Sandpoint as opposed to all the tribes around Sandpoint).

This is also why I do not fault the party for the initial attack. It was the continued attack and extermination in the face of what were clearly helpless and unresisting creatures that makes the act evil.

So was the party set up with regard to the initial attack? Yes, by the NPC. Was the party set up by the GM? Eh, maybe yes, maybe no. I agree with the notion that merely killing one good-aligned creature in and of itself should not necessarily cause the paladin to fall. However, when considering the facts and circumstances (as they have been presented to us) in their entirety, it clearly appears to be an evil act.


Robert A Matthews wrote:

Since when is it evil to kill good aligned creatures? The alignment of the creature you are killing should have no bearing on whether it is evil or not. It is very possible to kill someone who is Lawful Good without committing an evil act. Whether or not this is evil should depend on the intent of the Paladin. All that aside, if the goblins truly were innocent and didn't threaten anyone at all before the combat began, then sure it was an evil act ableit an unintentional one.

It sounds like he was tricked into doing this, so atonement should work with the 500GP cost as the spell specifically says that it works on unwittingly committing an evil act.

Atonement wrote:
If the atoning creature committed the evil act unwittingly or under some form of compulsion, atonement operates normally at no cost to you.
Gotcha stories like these are why I will probably never play a Paladin.

Its not directly evil to kill good creatures no, but indirectly yes.

Good creatures only kill out of necessity or to carry out judgement. The first part of that stops them from killing each other unless the case of judgement. As far as that goes, sure some good creatures may commit punishable acts, but not typically deserving of death. So its not directly evil to kill good creatures, but yes it usually is. This is all beside the point though. It wasn't the alignment of the goblins that mattered, its the slaughter of a village for no reason.

A paladin can not just outright slay anything he wants for being evil. Evil is basicly a degree of selfishness and in itself is not a crime. The default action for a paladin who runs into an evil person who has committed no apparent crime or who's crimes are unknown should be to convert him from evil to good. Only if his crimes are known is he punishable, and then they must be fitting for the crime. Not all evil creatures commit acts punishable by death.

Exception to this is irredeemable creatures such a demons, devils, and undead. A paladin can typically slay such creatures on sight. In this particular case, they were not tricked at all. They were bloodthirsty, which IS evil.


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Ransaq wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Mulet wrote:

First, if you are one of my party members, please leave this thread. Spoilers ahead. I need this post to make sure I'm not bullying Justin.

** spoiler omitted **...

In Golarion, unlike Eberron goblines are evil little bastards 99% of the time, and most civilizations would not give them much room to be up to anything good. He could ask to be nice, but players do have to metagame to an extent, and certain monster just have certain reputations unless the GM say "not all monsters in my game fit the standard" or something similar.

Unless you gave that warning out they party was sort of setup.

I would also assume that such "nice" goblins would have a reputation for not being troublemakers since they are a rarity, and a knowledge local check if nothing else should have been asked for.

I believe they were given information on all the tribes of goblins, of which 3 party members took notes

You missed my point. Goblins as a whole are considered to be up to no good. In most campaign settings you can kill them, and not even get in legal trouble. Most players know this so they wont ask questions. That is why I said if the GM is running things so monsters step outside of the normal alignment he should let it be known up front, and no information was given on this "good" tribe according to the OP.


Gargs454 wrote:
Ransaq wrote:
I believe they were given information on all the tribes of goblins, of which 3 party members took notes

To be fair, the OP stated that the good aligned goblin tribe was left out of the description. As such, I certainly as a player would not have assumed that meant that this tribe was, in fact, good. Nor would I have necessarily felt the need to do more investigation. It does perhaps raise the question as to why the good aligned tribe was left out of the description, and hopefully there was a good reason for it (i.e the party asked for information about the tribes that attacked Sandpoint as opposed to all the tribes around Sandpoint).

This is also why I do not fault the party for the initial attack. It was the continued attack and extermination in the face of what were clearly helpless and unresisting creatures that makes the act evil.

So was the party set up with regard to the initial attack? Yes, by the NPC. Was the party set up by the GM? Eh, maybe yes, maybe no. I agree with the notion that merely killing one good-aligned creature in and of itself should not necessarily cause the paladin to fall. However, when considering the facts and circumstances (as they have been presented to us) in their entirety, it clearly appears to be an evil act.

Ah yes I see, I didn't catch that the good tribe was omitted. In that case I would certainly not hold them accountable for the initial blow either, but the end result is the same because he rest is certainly on them.

You do have a valid point though, they could have gotten out of it if they would have stopped when the goblins didn't attack back

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