David Bowles |
I look at my duties as a GM a little bit differently than some here. I primarily concern myself with running a fun game session for everyone at the table, adjucating as consistently and fairly as possible so that everyone has an even experience, and keeping the material as interesting as possible.
I tend to caution player's about their PC's actions only if they are obviously straying quite far afield. If your Paladin lies by omission, refuses to acknowledge the law of chaotic nations or laws against good deities, feels that evil doers deserve quarter only if they surrender and ask for it, ect., then I may not necessarily agree with your interpretation, but I won't caution you against alignment infractions until you begin telling me that your PC plans to steal the horse and kill the stable boy so there aren't any witnesses.
If I were a paladin, I would take a chaotic good government over a lawful neutral one any day of the week and twice on Fridays. Chaotic good nations may have few laws or poor organization, but they at least are trying to do right by people. Lawful neutral societies are a perfect breeding ground for lawful evil types to do their thing. Lawful evil is the most insidious thing a paladin can deal with.
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
rknop |
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David Bowles wrote:Lawful evil is the most insidious thing a paladin can deal with.If you go by some of the posts on Paladin threads, the most insidious thing a paladin can deal with is a GM. Hmmm...maybe there's a connection?
...and all this time I thought GMs were the true definition of Chaotic Neutral.
DesolateHarmony |
Can you be a paladin and Worship Calistria?
Calistria is a Chaotic-Neutral god. Paladins must worship a deity within one step difference from Lawful-Good. Lawful-Good, Neutral-Good, and Lawful-Neutral are it.
However, there is the new class Warpriest the might suit your purpose, and Inquisitor is another possibility.
Tsriel |
chris szymanski wrote:Can you be a paladin and Worship Calistria?
Calistria is a Chaotic-Neutral god. Paladins must worship a deity within one step difference from Lawful-Good. Lawful-Good, Neutral-Good, and Lawful-Neutral are it.
However, there is the new class Warpriest the might suit your purpose, and Inquisitor is another possibility.
Where do you get that? Paladins =/= Clerics.
kinevon |
Religion: Characters can elect to worship any deity listed in a table of gods in the Core Rulebook, The Inner Sea World Guide, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Gods and Magic, or any other source listed as an official Additional Resource. Characters may elect to worship an evil god, but must always be within one alignment step of their chosen deity. For clerics, this is an especially important choice, since the deity’s alignment determines whether the cleric channels positive or negative energy, a decision with significant tactical implications for the cleric and her allies. Clerics, inquisitors, paladins, cavaliers of the order of the star, and samurai of the order of the star must choose a deity as all classes in Golarion that receive spells and abilities from a specific divine source receive their powers from a deity. Druids, oracles, and rangers are the exception to this rule. The list is not exhaustive, and divine spellcasters of any future classes whose sources are added as additional resources will be required to choose a deity unless otherwise specified. Otherwise, characters who do not receive powers from a divine source may choose to be atheists or to have no deity at all.
I think that covers it, I think I highlighted the relevant sections for you.
Tsriel |
I personally think its absurd that lawful neutral deities have paladins, but chaotic good ones don't. But it's just another weird PFS thing.
I think its weird that we, as a player base, have to pigeonhole other people's characters into fitting within constructed and socially acceptable parameters.
thejeff |
If you are a paladin with fealty to Ollystra and walk into Taldor you don't suddenly become a member of the Lion Blades. The laws you follow don't change from country to country. If you are worried about lawful activity, get a writ from your lord.
Except that not all paladins owe allegiance to any particular lord. They're not all feudal knights. They're divine warriors, serving their deity or their own conscience. Not necessarily a church hierarchy, even if they follow a deity.
Brandy Lion |
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Then get a priest from your church to issue either an indulgence or a command to adhere to the mission commander. There is no reason to over complicate this simple issue, you follow someone unless you are a king. Find a superior, if it is necessary you will get a work order. If it is - hey I want to xxx for no good reason, they will set you straight.
You are a pathfinder, you have a faction its not hard to find your co. Now I have been in missions where my guy says whoa, I am checking out of this one. Be sensible, its not hard to know the difference.
thejeff |
Then get a priest from your church to issue either an indulgence or a command to adhere to the mission commander. There is no reason to over complicate this simple issue, you follow someone unless you are a king. Find a superior, if it is necessary you will get a work order. If it is - hey I want to xxx for no good reason, they will set you straight.
You are a pathfinder, you have a faction its not hard to find your co. Now I have been in missions where my guy says whoa, I am checking out of this one. Be sensible, its not hard to know the difference.
For a paladin, a secular authority like the Society does not trump his Code. It's not even necessary for him to be affiliated with a church, certainly not to be in some hierarchical relationship with one.
Would he have to obey orders from such superiors, even from a non-lawful good superior?
Brandy Lion |
Why do you need to follow this nuance to an extreme?
You have to choose to put yourself beyond help. Having an affiliation and ordered hierarchy is a benefit to being a lawful character. Being both lawful and good gives you access to help. You can ignore it, refuse it, etc. You choose what you like.
Your DM should help you navigate this path and move forward, not impose distractions to the game.
BigNorseWolf |
kinevon wrote:I think that covers it, I think I highlighted the relevant sections for you.KK, so it's PFS specific then.
Its Golarion specific.
In Golarion Paladins are powered by deities.
In Pathfinder in general you can only gain the benefits of worshiping a god one step removed from you.
thejeff |
Why do you need to follow this nuance to an extreme?
You have to choose to put yourself beyond help. Having an affiliation and ordered hierarchy is a benefit to being a lawful character. Being both lawful and good gives you access to help. You can ignore it, refuse it, etc. You choose what you like.
Your DM should help you navigate this path and move forward, not impose distractions to the game.
Mind you, I agree that the GM's take in the OP is wrong. There's no auto-fall in this scenario.
I just don't agree that paladins need to sworn to some particular Lord or other and more importantly that such Lord's order would have any real effect on the paladin following his Code.
David Bowles |
Tsriel wrote:kinevon wrote:I think that covers it, I think I highlighted the relevant sections for you.KK, so it's PFS specific then.Its Golarion specific.
In Golarion Paladins are powered by deities.
In Pathfinder in general you can only gain the benefits of worshiping a god one step removed from you.
But in homebrew, I can choose to ignore this. Or make exceptions. So it is PFS specific. Although for CG deities, I would bring back holy liberators from 3.5 to avoid this issue entirely.
thejeff |
BigNorseWolf wrote:Tsriel wrote:kinevon wrote:I think that covers it, I think I highlighted the relevant sections for you.KK, so it's PFS specific then.Its Golarion specific.
In Golarion Paladins are powered by deities.
In Pathfinder in general you can only gain the benefits of worshiping a god one step removed from you.But in homebrew, I can choose to ignore this. Or make exceptions. So it is PFS specific.
In that sense, all rules are PFS specific. Even if it was explicitly stated in the Paladin class mechanics, you could choose to ignore it or make exceptions in any home game.
Lormyr |
If I were a paladin, I would take a chaotic good government over a lawful neutral one any day of the week and twice on Fridays. Chaotic good nations may have few laws or poor organization, but they at least are trying to do right by people. Lawful neutral societies are a perfect breeding ground for lawful evil types to do their thing. Lawful evil is the most insidious thing a paladin can deal with.
While I would tend to agree with most of that, it just circles back to different folks have different interpretations. Ours is not necessarily more valid than others.
David Bowles |
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I'm not try to force anything on anyone. I'm just showing why I give paladins a lot of leeway. If a paladin steals a horse in order to advance the greater good (pursue a very evil NPC), and then pays the owner back (maybe with interest) when she/he is able, no atonement is necessary in my book. That's just one example. Not all laws are created equal and not all dubious actions are created equal.
If paladins have to break mortal laws to protect people, then so be it. I'm not going to penalize them for looking at things on a bigger scale than the local sheriff.
Andrew Christian |
pauljathome wrote:And nothing I said in my statements contradicts anything you just said. I used the words legitimate difference in interpretation and abuse for a reason.trollbill wrote:Let me try to illustrate my last statement in another light.
I mostly agree with you but I think that you're going a LITTLE too far. Part of the GMs responsibility in PFS (and in most home games) is to do at least a little enforcement of the alignment rules.
So, Situation C :
Player: After barring the doors so none of the poor children can escape my paladin burns down the orphanage.
GM: WTF? You do realize that there are dozens of innocent children inside and you have absolutely no reason to do this, right? That its an evil act, right?
Player: Nah, I'm a Paladin of Sarenrae so fire is holy to me. The kids will all go to their appropriate place. Not evil. Holy fire is always good.
GM: I disagree. That is an evil act. You do it and you'll fall.
There are some actions so egregious and some justifications so thin and some players so clueless that the GM MUST step in.
Interesting note. In discussions about over powered builds and interpretations of ambiguous rules, you often are on the side of letting the player interpret as they will. Largely because you say that common sense and obvious intention is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet here you expect folks to know what a legitimate difference is.
To point, I generally agree with you. But I found the dichotomy here interesting.
Teatime42 |
There are too many comments to respond to everyone, so to summarize: no, I did not insist that a paladin fall for "arbitrary" reasons. I think my reasons are solid, and 100% on target, and 100% by the rules, and I think anyone who classifies "help with smugglers and hide the evidence" as OK is breaking the paladinhood rules. I also insist that smugglers are not innocents, and helping them is not helping an innocent person. They are deliberately breaking the law both by smuggling, and by coming into the country to promote illegal worship. These cultists are bad people (or more accurately, people sowing chaos).
I do not have this scenario, nor have I played it, so everything I say after this is based off of ONLY what I have read here. Please keep that in mind if I should come across as an idiot. XD
It sounds like these people are not smuggling for evil, or to sow chaos, it could very well be that they are smuggling people or materials to aid the worship of Sarenrae in Taldor.
This has real world parallels. People smuggle aid and religious materials into countries that have forbidden both of those all the time (Was real common for Christian missionaries to do this with the USSR). Can it destabilize the government? Yes, probably. Does that mean it's evil? NO.
It could very well mean that the government ITSELF is "evil", and opposing it would be the morally right decision.
Does this mean that Paladins should uphold laws in such places as Cheliax? Or any other corrupt despotic location they may find themselves?
Paladins are not JUST Lawful, they are also GOOD. They are equally both, and both need to be considered before any alignments issues need to be inflicted, as well as their codes and whichever god they may follow (If they do).
Teatime42 |
I would argue that the good part of the paladin's code necessarily trumps the lawful part.
I wouldn't disagree. XD
But, most of that's due to everyone playing up the Lawful portion so highly, but only caring about the good when it comes to orc babies and orphanages. And I get a bit sick of it. :/
Next Pally I play, gonna play up that Good a bunch.
Finn Kveldulfr |
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Eh, I've always played up the Good part, and left the 'lawful' part to display itself in my character's being self-disciplined, responsible, and generally respectful. I have been "accused" of playing lawful GOOD, rather than Lawful Good, pretty much every time I've played a Paladin. ;)
As for this scenario, I'm gonna say something I've said before:
If, say, I were playing a Paladin of Sarenrae-- who (by character background and etc) is not beholden to any mortal lord but rather owes his allegiance to Sarenrae (period), I don't think he's going to feel bound to follow any mortal law that seeks to outlaw his Goddess or punish her worshipers for their devotion to her. And, I don't think that makes for any "breach of code" in refusing to obey such laws.
If I were playing a Paladin who is sworn to a mortal lord and/or is dedicated to some nation/group or another... if that lord/nation is not Taldor, he or she is not going to set Taldor's laws above his own lord's or nation's laws.
kinevon |
As I mentioned, there are several scenarios that can cause some GMs to think strangely about Paladins.
The Heresy of Man trilogy, along with Port Godless, since the Pathfinders are going to be in Rahadoum, where divine magic practitioners, i.e.e deity worship, is, flat out, illegal.
You Only Die Twice, where the PCs masquerade as undead to travel within the country of Geb, where living beings are considered, at best, cattle, and the rulers of the land are intelligent undead.
Requiem for the Red Raven, where, IIRC, the PCs will wind up in Galt at some point. Is there an actual lawful authority in Galt? Definitely not much Good left there, that's for sure.
And, as mentioned, there are plenty of scenarios where the Pathfinder Society is, at best, unappreciated, if not outright outlawed itself.
"Do not let anyone know you are Pathfinders."
Finn Kveldulfr |
Being a Paladin in the Murder-Hobo Pathfinder Society is kind of difficult anyway-- but it's possible.
For all I've said otherwise-- there are PFS missions where one should really play other characters-- and for my part, although I've played Paladins many times in many editions over the years, the only one I've tried creating and playing in PFS has already taken advantage of 1st level rebuild and been recast as a different class before reaching 2nd level.
(also, my Silver Crusade Fire Oracle already routinely makes wisecracks about "the Murder-Hobo Society" in character when Venture Captains deliver less-than-savory orders and/or his PFS compadres display excessive bloodlust and-or greed...)
trollbill Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne |
Interesting note. In discussions about over powered builds and interpretations of ambiguous rules, you often are on the side of letting the player interpret as they will. Largely because you say that common sense and obvious intention is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet here you expect folks to know what a legitimate difference is.
To point, I generally agree with you. But I found the dichotomy here interesting.
I am not sure I see the dichotomy you are referring to. My comments along these lines have always been in response to the typical GM knee-jerk response that if a player is interpreting a rule in a way that seems cheesy to the GM then the player must be deliberately trying to cheese/brake/abuse the system rather than simply having an honest difference in interpretation of the rules.
I suppose you could argue that it was inconsistent for me to not give the PC in pauljathome's example the benefit of the doubt, but it seemed to me he was trying to give an example of someone deliberately trying to abuse the system rather than simply having an honest difference of opinion. Still, the GM should always try to make sure that's what's going on before taking punitive action.
Netopalis RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32 |
Netopalis RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32 |