Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
Helping those in need and Respecting legitimate authority
I thought the reason paladins were lawful good was because spreading and maintaining that kind of civilization was what would lead to the most good for the most people. Therefore, paladins are justified in going off on PFS missions IFF they believe that supporting the PFS will ultimately lead to a lawful good world. In support of the PFS in this way, it seems that they can do almost anything 'for the greater good,' no? And while they may not undermine local authority, it seems that paladins would be absolutely fine in breaking the law, if no one found out.
The other aspect of "lawful good" seems to be to recognize that we have commitments to one another. But the key phrase is "one another," not "the law." Respecting the law is a proxy for respecting one another. And if a law is tyrannical and unfair, paladins may respect the "lawful" aspect of it, but still recognize when it lacks "goodness."
Acting with honor
Honor is an expression of both trustworthiness, and a commitment to higher ideals, meant to inspire (or shame) other people to join you in pursuit of those higher ideals.
How much of that is relevant when someone's trying to stab you in the back? It seems that all bets are off when you're dealing with evil forces that only want to tear people down. Isn't that why paladins have Detect Evil, in order to know when they must put aside their ideals and do what needs to be done?
Will acting with honor against an evil foe help convince it to not be evil? I.e. add some bonus to a diplomacy check? If not, then why not use poison, lies, and subterfuge to remove it as a threat? Is it honorable to not cheat in a fight with the devil, or is it just stupid?
Or is acting with honor less about the bad guys, and more about maintaining the moral and sense of identity of the good guys? Is it essentially advocacy of 'lawful goodness?'
punishing those who harm innocents
I think the priority is to give innocents faith that the world will be fair to them when they have been harmed. Otherwise, they have little reason not to turn to evil or lawlessness themselves. Or am I mistaken, that the priority is actually to harm the criminals? I.e. to use Smite? Is delivering divine wrath the paladins main objective, over all else?
Essentially, will paladins fall if they fail to smite evil?
This is very DM dependant. I would not make a paladin as my first character without playing under a few of the regular dms.
Personally when DMing I advise paladins to keep the murder mayhem and lawbreaking to the absolute minimum possible. If the mission is to smuggle something across the country i give them a pass on that. If they have the option of talking past the duly appointed customs officer or smashing him in the face, they had better be trying diplomacy.
|
My PFS paladin is nearly level 5, so far it's been going well. I've had a couple of situations that were iffish; in Storming the Diamond Gate there's an opportunity to
That's something the GM felt I couldn't in good faith do as a paladin. Fair enough.
I'm also in the Taldan faction, which means some of the faction missions are dishonorable;
I didn't do that one, instead we just beat him into pulp.
On the whole though, so far there's been no missions that was in itself impossible for paladins. We did take the straight and narrow path in Lost Heir without any hesitation (two paladins at the table) while another table nearby running the same scenario was whiffing around on that. (They had "I can't believe they're not evil" CN characters.)
That depends on too many variables to answer.
- His dex, the armor check penalty of his armor, his skills, the weather etc. But it should be similar to a cavalier or a fighter without armor training.
/joke
The Paladin's Code is always pretty clear that committing Evil actions will cause you to fall, but nowhere does it say being occasionally Chaotic will. Obviously "expect table variation" and "discuss it with your GM" are the order of the day.
As for the respecting lawful authority part, there have been a great many discussions about how a Paladin can/should stand up to legitimate but corrupt or evil governments. The best examples of honorable lawbreaking I can think of are Gandhi's. There were unjust laws preventing the Indian people from making salt or weaving their own cloth. So he made it widely known that he was going to make salt/weave cloth, gathered a huge crowd, and then made salt/wove. Openly and with no attempt to hide.
Not every Paladin is Gandhi. It probably wouldn't be fun for players to accept being arrested multiple times and fined/jailed in order to bring about grandual political change. But a Paladin can break laws and oppose authority, as long as they do so honorably and in a way accordant with their god/code. Breaking the law in exceptional circumstances and then atoning and accepting the consequences could be acceptable.
Breaking the law and covering it up is pretty much incompatible with Paladinhood, and could only be justified in the most dire circumstances - e.g. if an innocent person could suffer reprisal.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In my personal opinion, Paladins are suppose to be Lawful Good, NOT Lawful Stupid. As long as the Player is actually TRYING, as in putting true and honest in game effort to be good and lawful, I let minor situations pass. That being said, if a Paladin player detects evil and notes someone as evil and then smites them, I pause the game and have them give me an explanation as to how detecting as evil automatically gives them the right to blatantly assault someone.
IF they can give me a good logical reason their character believes they should fight and kill the evil npc (Such as all hints and clues in the game have pointed to this one person being the bad guy) I will ask the Paladin player to remember that due to his alignment he needs to give the npc a chance to turn himself in.
However if he blatantly attacks, refuses to give an explanation or reasoning other than, "That NPC is detecting as EVIL!" then that violates his Paladin oaths of following the law and he will lose his powers after he finishes his attack.
That is just how I've GM'd it in the past. Paladins are not Murderhobos. They are Good guys trying to do good things, and yes their alignment is one of the hardest to work with for a lot of people but I'll say this, some of my favorite players have at one time or another played a Paladin and have done it well! I am alright with a Paladin falling especially if the player says it's how he plays his character. I'm not going to stop them, but then they shouldn't be upset if they grossly violate what it means to be Lawful Good and become a fallen Paladin.
Just my 2 cents...carry on. :D
It's really no fun when there are multiple people at the table telling me how I should be playing a character, BUT with a Paladin, I've considered that maybe they have a point. Paladins are supposed to act as expected, in part because they're shaping what should be expected. They're not wise men of nuance, but propaganda tools meant to establish general norms which they everyone may then follow (they define what is "lawful good").
So it seems that it's not just enough to be "lawful good," but to be a little "lawful unreasonable" when it comes to upholding standards that the common man couldn't possibly uphold.
Otherwise, you just have clerics and inquisitors, right?