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Minor spoilers related to Grigori below.
So I have mostly finished the Grigori plot line. My players argued for about 2 hours how to "take out" Grigori after they figured out he was essentially a hired anarchist. The debate was mostly centered around stealth kidnapping vs public jailing and trial. Everyone but the druid eventually opted for the kidnapping which admittedly started as just a shake down for information.
The paladin, who is the ruler (in title only, they claim all council members are equal, but he is definitely the face), decided to stay out of the kidnapping so that he could have plausible deniability. Eventually after some torture, the party got what they thought they could out of Grigori, and were debating killing vs paying him off and sending him away, then the idea came up, "hey, we can just put in him in dungeon of the castle, no one will know."
Well, for most of my party, this seems like the end of the story, but should I let the Paladin get away with this. He knows, they have tortured a man and imprisoned him without trial for essentially life. Oh, they also specifically said they will be waking him up every few hours so that he cannot get a full 8 hours of rest, and therefor not have his spells to influence the guards with. That seems like more torture. And really, his only crime was speaking out against the ruling council, and they think (wrongly) he has used "offensive magic" on unwilling townsfolk. Which apparently is a law the council now decided exists. (they make up laws a lot, but hey they are the council)
Should a Paladin allow this to continue? should his god take away some of his powers until he atones? I haven't had a Paladin PC in my group before, and this seems awfully sketchy.
Any help appreciated.
have the populace burn their country to the ground they all sound like real winners there
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that "wake him up every few hours" plan won't work ... the 8 hours do not need to be consecutive.
Daily Readying of Spells: Each day, sorcerers and bards must focus their minds on the task of casting their spells. A sorcerer or bard needs 8 hours of rest (just like a wizard), after which she spends 15 minutes concentrating. (A bard must sing, recite, or play an instrument of some kind while concentrating.) During this period, the sorcerer or bard readies her mind to cast her daily allotment of spells. Without such a period to refresh herself, the character does not regain the spell slots she used up the day before.
Rest: To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.
Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions: If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on his resources reduces his capacity to prepare new spells. When he prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells he has cast within the last 8 hours count against his daily limit.
So they can keep waking him up every few hours, but after 10-12 hours of interrupted sleep, he should be able to regain his spells and when the "wake him up" again, he can charm the guards to release him. And then he can go to the people with true tales of repression and torture ... a fallen paladin AND a large increase to the kingdom's unrest would be a hell of a double whammy.
It would also make for a great foot in the door for a religious group to make a more permanent presence in the kingdom (Erastil at the old temple, the Green God at the mite's tree, whichever diety the kobolds now follow if they are still around, etc.). Give the paladin atonement in exchange for the establishment of a temple within the capital (or a cathedral if you want to make it really hurt on the BP front).
Torture is evil, but not chaotic. As for the paladin, I see an atonement in his future, and a dissociation from that party. Or he goes antipaladin. Lol
Well, I think its certainly close with regard to the paladin falling, but I would probably let him off with a warning from his god since he did at least remove himself from the actual initial kidnapping and torture.
However, as others have pointed out, their plan isn't going to work anyway. First off, the guards are going to have to know about Grigori since the party cannot be at the castle every day to do the waking up themselves. As such, its only a matter of time before one of them slips up and spills the beans over a tankard or four too many. Besides, Grigori will get his spells back anyway, so he'll still have a chance to charm the guards, PCs, etc.
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Well, I think its certainly close with regard to the paladin falling, but I would probably let him off with a warning from his god since he did at least remove himself from the actual initial kidnapping and torture.
However, as others have pointed out, their plan isn't going to work anyway. First off, the guards are going to have to know about Grigori since the party cannot be at the castle every day to do the waking up themselves. As such, its only a matter of time before one of them slips up and spills the beans over a tankard or four too many. Besides, Grigori will get his spells back anyway, so he'll still have a chance to charm the guards, PCs, etc.
having plausible deniability might work in a court room setting, but should never work when deities are concerned, the fact that he knew they were kidnapping him and did nothing to help is not lawful good behavior.
its especially terrible because he was in a place of power and authority and could have done something and instead turned the other way, how is that not a fall from grace?as far as i'm concerned the fall from grace is the warning to knock off the shenanigans:)
Well, I think its certainly close with regard to the paladin falling, but I would probably let him off with a warning from his god since he did at least remove himself from the actual initial kidnapping and torture.
However, as others have pointed out, their plan isn't going to work anyway. First off, the guards are going to have to know about Grigori since the party cannot be at the castle every day to do the waking up themselves. As such, its only a matter of time before one of them slips up and spills the beans over a tankard or four too many. Besides, Grigori will get his spells back anyway, so he'll still have a chance to charm the guards, PCs, etc.
having plausible deniability might work in a court room setting, but should never work when deities are concerned, the fact that he knew they were kidnapping him and did nothing to help is not lawful good behavior.
its especially terrible because he was in a place of power and authority and could have done something and instead turned the other way, how is that not a fall from grace?
as far as i'm concerned the fall from grace is the warning to knock off the shenanigans:)
Well, as I said, its certainly close. :) That being said, I think the issues of alignment in general, and paladins in particular are rarely well hammered out amongst a group at the start of a campaign. This becomes problematic because everyone has differing opinions as to what each particular alignment truly means. As such, barring something that is clearly over the line (burning down the orphanage just to see the pretty flames while the kids are still locked inside as an extreme [and not only] example) I tend to try to err on the side of caution.
I realize that there are means by which to make the issue of the paladin falling "easily" resolved (at least for a tidy sum) but it is still a pretty drastic impact on the character -- particularly if they cannot afford the spell. Granted, I would probably had the warning come while the party was discussing their options, but, I also have the advantage of being a Tuesday Morning QB and not having to make the call as it happened. To be fair, I would also think it might depend on how much the paladin has pushed the envelope in the past.
I've also found personally (and I realize everyone's game and group is different) that the godly warning can have a great roleplay effect as well.
GM: "Steve, you notice that the faint song of your deity that is normally in the back of your head seems to have gone deathly silent. Looking down, you also notice that your holy symbol has become tarnished and extremely heavy."
Steve: "Oh crap."
All in all, I think in the OP's situation though, its a fairly moot point as I don't see their plan working at all. Having the plan fall through in spectacular fashion is going to be a greater punishment to all the players than having the pally fall. However, I do understand that this is a completely different issue. In the end, to each their own. Maybe I'm just too much of a softy. :D
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First, thanks all for the great discussion. Keep it coming.
The way it played out in game, the paladin could easily be excused from the initial torture session issues. The party really only debated the kidnapping part vs public arrest. Everyone thought once he was kidnapped he would just tell them what they wanted.(why do my players feel just cause they are the PC's, the bad guys will spill all their secrets?) The torture for information came from the party members without so many morals, away from the paladins upfront knowledge. However, I am certain he has heard about what happened, and certainly is aware of Grigori's current treatment. That can't be ignored.
I am heavily leaning towards a strong warning from his god. (Erastil btw) I will be doing this in two ways. First, I will be providing a dream sequence or two (thanks Pennywit). His paladin powers came to him in a dream sequence, and so I have some good material to draw from. The initial dreams involved him as a young stag in a herd of elk growing up to protect and lead his herd. So i will build off that metaphor and he should pick up on the problems. Second, if he doesn't take the hint, He will begin to have difficulty using his paladin powers. Perhaps a lay on hands only works half way, or a fear effect gets through. The longer it goes on, the worse these effects are.
Now, while all that will be going on, Grigori will start plotting his next move from behind bars. Instead of an immediate jail break, i think he will "befriend" a few guards into spreading rumors through town. This should be fun.
Sounds like you have a good plan in mind. But since you have players who have already shown they are willing to do the expedient thing, you may want to consider what you'll do if (when?) one of those players decides all on his own to just go down to the dungeon and execute Grigori. Will you have the guards try to stop him? (Would they really have any chance of success?) Will Grigori happen to have just made his escape in the hours right before that PC goes down there? What if a PC goes to "talk" to Grigori and then decides to execute him on the spur of the moment?
Probably you can make any of these work - it would be kind of fun if one or more of the PCs' "loyal guardsmen" suddenly quit and take Grigori's place telling the populace what the ruling council is up to. Just pointing this out so you can think about it ahead of time and not be blind-sided.
And ultimately, if there's any way to bring the "punishment" more against those who actually committed the torture, rather than just the paladin, that could be good, too. For example, if a PC does go execute Grigori without discussing with the others, that sounds like an excellent time for Grigori to come back and haunt one particular PC...
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Kingmaker paladins should have some room to err on the side of their kingdom. Frankly, I don't think any paladin can really rule a kingdom of any size or difficulty without atonements. And how fun is that to set your pally player up to fail while everyone else laughs their way to emperor status.
I talked with my paladin player in our Kingmaker game and explained to him that I was going to give him a lot of leeway in judging his paladinhood as long as he was able to clearly show how something "not good" to an individual would directly correlate to specific greater good in his kingdom. Running a kingdom is not a shiny happy business but full of grit, hard decisions, and choices between two or more evils more often than not.
In the case above, the torture was over the top unless he had some key piece of information. This he should have stopped if he knew or suspected. However, killing or imprisoning him long term would be fine. After all, they were sanctioned lawfully to kill bandits back when they didn't even HAVE a kingdom.
I wouldnt punish the paladin at the moment.. just make a note of what he did or didnt do.
Did he know bout the torture? What was his involvement?
Step back and look at the whole situation from an outsiders point of view, analyze what he did ( including if he pulled the typical player move of covering his ears and singing, 'lalalala' )
Provided he wasn't in the thick of things, I wouldn't punish him, just make that note. As was pointed out earlier, it's a slippery slope to evil. This sounds like a great first step for him.
I think the paladin should be bad about this.
I like the pennywit idea of letting grigori work against the council and the paladin.
After all, we have Grigori alive, talkative in the jail.. let the rumours spread :)
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Best thing you can do is go to the paladin code for Erastil (Faiths of Purity and Inner Sea Gods both have Erastil's code in them, I believe) and measure the PC's actions up against each of the tenets of that code.
Based on what you have stated his actions are, he would fall because his reputation as a leader of his community is no longer wholesome and unsullied and could no longer stand up to scrutiny - after all, if he is willing to allow a dissenter in the kingdom to be kidnapped and tortured for information, what else is he willing to let slide? As the word gets out that he has let this happen (which only requires Grigori to use charm person on the guards who keep watch over him to let the rumor of Grigori's unjust persecution and treatment spread beyond the confines of the dungeon cell), the paladin's reputation amongst the people will fall, and as such so will he (part of Erastil's code for paladins is all about the maintenance of one's reputation).
While plausible denial as a defense works with most people, it doesn't work with a god, because Erastil knows that he knew about it and chose to do nothing, risked his reputation and his honor as a paladin. I would rule that the PC in this case has fallen (particularly because you say that only the druid's player was against the kidnapping in the first place, meaning that the paladin's player was ok with it) and requires an atonement spell in order for him to restore his paladin-ness. He would also have to work at restoring his reputation amongst the people in order to fulfill the part of the paladin's code that he broke in the first place.
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Paladins are actually supposed to live up to their ideals, not just put forth a virtuous front.
I consider it a trespass, like others.
Resolving it..hmm..
I'd make all of his class abilities fail in his next encounter and persist gone the rest of that adventuring day. That night, assuming he hasn't gone and sought atonement from a cleric of his god, i'd give him a dream where he would be in a wooden cabin, with an old one-eyed man sitting by the fire oiling a bow. They could make small talk about anything the PC wants for a bit, but if the PC asks about why his powers were gone, Old One-Eye would give him a sad smile, and say: Sorry, he knew nothing about it. Must have happened when he wasn't looking. One bad eye, you know.
Then he'd wake up and find a arrow with loose fletching starting to fall apart next to him.
His powers would be back at that point.
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Kingmaker paladins should have some room to err on the side of their kingdom. Frankly, I don't think any paladin can really rule a kingdom of any size or difficulty without atonements. And how fun is that to set your pally player up to fail while everyone else laughs their way to emperor status.
I've been playing a long-running Kingmaker campaign, where I am both a paladin and the monarch, with a mildly antagonistic GM, and a degree of bloodthirst and sadism with the rest of the party, and I've never once had to choose between the lesser of two. I've had plenty of choices between evil and serious inconvenience, but that's something entirely different.
With Grigori, we actually ended up in this exact same boat as described here. We had a pretty decent code of laws worked up, and couldn't decisively prove him to be in violation of any of them. The rest of the party was working on various plans to discreetly snatch him up and prevent him from ever making his speeches again.
Being legitimately lawful good, I pointed out murdering/deporting/imprisoning someone whose only crime was saying mean things about you in public is a ludicrously disproportionate response, and that he totally had the right to voice his opinions, offensive and baseless as they were.
A long stretch of terrible dip checks mean it took something like 3 years before we finally managed to out-debate him into a laughing stock. In the meantime, we just dealt with that 1 point of unrest getting generated (and effortlessly cancelled out) every kingdom turn. High road taken, no real meaningful repercussions for doing so.
Now, if I were the GM in this position, I'd point out the moral realities of the situation when the party was first proposing this. "Are you seriously going to kidnap and torture someone to find out why he was saying mean things about you?"
I'd assume the ship has sailed on doing that, but you still have a chance to go double or nothing here. Grigori's a REALLY well-established public figure with a lot of connections and well-wishers. If the party caused him to suddenly disappear, people are going to question what happened. Let that blow up in their faces. People demanding the PCs look into this mysterious disappearance, holding big ol' protests to have him set free when it comes to light what they're doing. Really hold up a mirror to the party, and see how they react. It should either cause them to reconsider their course, or double down and get into some really clearly evil governance.