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Why do people make these threads?People seek advice and validation. They want to know that what they are doing is the proper way to do things. So they seek the experience of people who have dealt with the same situations.
And then very often in these sorts of threads- ignore it unless it is validation of what they wanted to hear. ;-)
(Not saying the OP is ignoring us, but that does happen- a LOT).
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This does seem like a situation the GM should never have allowed to happen. If the wizard was an NPC, that would be one thing. Allowing this kind of intraparty conflict seems irresponsible--unless the players are into that kind of thing, of course.
to clarify a few points:
to those that have no idea how this can be done, its pretty easy. Ultimate Mercy is the ability to raise dead, programmed illusion is the spell, plus simple numbing agent to make her voice harsh and unintelligible, though programmed illusion could have done the voice too, it can do sound, sent, and visuals in a large area.
The wizard IS an NPC.. the conflict started when he was a PC however.
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The worst thing about this particular Paladin falling thread is that it has NOTHING to do with a Paladin one way or another but about people thinking they have to play a certain way that steps on other PC's toes.
-Why does this Wizard feel compelled to do "bestial" or whatever acts? If that's ok with the party and has been all along, then that's one thing. But there's no reason to be a jerk and hide behind the lame excuse "I'm a Bugbear, so I must be annoying now." Along with a host of other reasons, there's nothing in the rules to justify that.
-If the GM is forcing the Wizard PC to act that way, that's even worse and heaven help the crew till they figure out another game to go to.
The way to resolve the issue, if can be at this point, is out of character talk between the involved people. The whole issue of "falling" is an inappropriate use of rules as cover for a horrible interaction between characters facilitated by the GM.
EDIT: I see after I've written this that the Wiz was a PC and now is an NPC. So now the GM is interjecting interparty conflict by role playing the NPC. Bad form just begins to describe that.
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programmed illusion is the spell, plus simple numbing agent to make her voice harsh and unintelligible, though programmed illusion could have done the voice too, it can do sound, sent, and visuals in a large area.
It cannot match her movements or time her speech. The image is like a video recording playing over the area.
Not that you are really beholden to the rules in this case anymore than usual.
I didn't ignore it. But thanks for the headless comment DrDeth.
"headless comment"???
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EpicFail....you did a fail.. its an npc. People are bad with details aren't they?
The PC who plays a fighter in the group now, went bestial because he figured he had these raging hormones without a lifetime of experience controlling them. He figured he smell man flesh and it smelled good ( he never ate any..but made comments that gave pause ). The characters in the group faded from him instead of pull him through, he left the group and became an NPC. The ringleader of kicking him out was the paladin, he sought revenge as he though his friends turned on him because of his appearance. I let him play it how he wanted.
I forced nobody into anything. The only forced thing was the power loss, and I had my doubts and came here. Of course half of everyone here has taken a turn to insult. I have learned my lesson, I will not ask questions of you all in the future.
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Seeing all of these people saying the Paladin violated his code reminds me why I hate playing paladins with strangers. Stop holding paladins to made up standards beyond their established code unless in your world paladins have a more strict code. If paladins have a more strict code in your world, very clearly establish what that code is to all players (and perhaps even write it down) for any player interested in playing a paladin.
Also, do intentionally engineer situations with the intention of getting the paladin to fall as the GM. If they do it on their own, fine, but you shouldn't be out to "get them" or "teach them a lession". A paladin should never fall without a warning from the GM, because the process of falling is a willing decision, so the player should be making the choice to do so. You don't make that choice for them.
OP, it sounds like you wanted to teach the paladin a lesson by engineering a situation where he would do something that you considered not Lawful Good (though a paladin doesn't have to act lawful good at all times, just one or the other, seems like your expectation was for him to act lawful stupid) so that you could try to justify stripping his powers.
"You wake up intoxicated and find a creature in your room that looks hideous and is creeping towards you gibbering in a language you do not identify or understand." -note, something reaches for me while speaking a language I don't understand, I assume it is casting a spell
"The creature reaches for you with an outstretched limb, if you would like you make make an attack of opportunity AS IF IT WERE MAKING AN UNARMED ATTACK WITHOUT THE FEAT, though it doesn't seem aggressive" -again, seems like a touch spell, not unreasonable that he would not want to hit by it. Also shame on you for planting the seed and providing contradictory information to suggest the attack
Stop, seriously. Give the paladin his powers back and let him successfully raise his lover. It is your fault that she died, not his. Then let him go out and hunt down that bugbear with extreme prejudice. And don't ever have him flirt with falling for ASSUMING EVIL CREATURES WILL DO EVIL THINGS, especially when one does exactly that (not teaching him a lesson at all, proving his point actually) in a world where some races are just always evil.
Racism is not an evil act in Galorian, it is a fact of life that races just don't like each other. Look in the relations section of the race descriptions, full of racism.
EpicFail....you did a fail.. its an npc. People are bad with details aren't they?
The PC who plays a fighter in the group now, went bestial because he figured he had these raging hormones without a lifetime of experience controlling them. He figured he smell man flesh and it smelled good ( he never ate any..but made comments that gave pause ). The characters in the group faded from him instead of pull him through, he left the group and became an NPC. The ringleader of kicking him out was the paladin, he sought revenge as he though his friends turned on him because of his appearance. I let him play it how he wanted.
I forced nobody into anything. The only forced thing was the power loss, and I had my doubts and came here. Of course half of everyone here has taken a turn to insult. I have learned my lesson, I will not ask questions of elitist snobs in the future.
Read the edit part of my comment. You asked a question about a horrible intervention by the GM and don't like that you got called out for it. That has zero to do with elitism. Don't hide behind non-applying rules to wiggle out of bad GM behavior. Own the mistake and move on.
Teaching the paladin a lesson about the dangers of latent racism: not this way.
You know, come to thing of it, maybe that'd make a good thread on its own...
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EpicFail page two I said I will go with a flicker...that was me owning up and moving on. Now I am just posting because despite it being stupid I feel the need to defend myself, even though I doubt any of you are better or worse than me....different I am sure. The player as he gave up the character said he would do this one day.
This has NOTHING to do with the scenario...but I had to rush this out since the paladin was intend on changing characters as he didn't like playing LG in a CG/LN type party. So I jammed it into the game as I was running out of time to throw it into RP with the paladin. That said I thought I might have been harsh with the paladin, so I came here to get opinions from people more used to dm'ing LG.
Nutshell.....again I don't feel I need to say this as it doesn't change the scenario at all. But if you feel the need to understand...there. it also allowed me to bring his next character a cleric in and have the group indebted to him right away.
Should not have fallen.
That scenario is something every paladin player worries about but seldom ever actually gets.
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EpicFail page two I said I will go with a flicker...that was me owning up and moving on. Now I am just posting because despite it being stupid I feel the need to defend myself, even though I doubt any of you are better or worse than me....different I am sure. The player as he gave up the character said he would do this one day.
This has NOTHING to do with the scenario...but I had to rush this out since the paladin was intend on changing characters as he didn't like playing LG in a CG/LN type party. So I jammed it into the game as I was running out of time to throw it into RP with the paladin. That said I thought I might have been harsh with the paladin, so I came here to get opinions from people more used to dm'ing LG.
Nutshell.....again I don't feel I need to say this as it doesn't change the scenario at all. But if you feel the need to understand...there. it also allowed me to bring his next character a cleric in and have the group indebted to him right away.
I didn't see a post of yours where you owned up to intentional exploitation of non-existent rules to pick on a PC. If your crew likes these kinds of things, and the home rules are clear then by all means enjoy it all of you. As it stands there were underlying issues where the Paladin apparently wanted to change builds. Absolutely nothing wrong with that in itself but this process is sketchy at best and our group would have revolted if the GM pulled something like that.
Perfect? a few things would have worked. Since she just stood there for a bit before approaching he could have used detect evil, called for help, left the room, subdued her. He had some options. It was a tough situation, but he DID have a lot of ways out of it.Seriously what would have been the "correct way" to not to fall in this situation?
Start preaching the gibberish thing? completely ignoring the fact there is a demon in your room on the middle of the night?!
Let me ask you one thing. As a DM if you play an npc paladin what would have been the natural reaction in this situation?
like this?:
"Howdy demon wazzup have you seen my gf? Hey you are touching me that tickles! Ow demon you are so fun i love you"
Detect Evil would detect evil as it was caster by a evil caster.
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I'm curious why the Paladin never considered detecting evil when the monstrous beast made no attempt to attack him.
At the one right above me who ninja'd me :P
I don't think so. It's an illusion, correct? Unless the spell had an Evil indicator, I don't believe the spell itself would detect as any alignment at all, at best, and shouldn't impact the alignment of that beneath the illusion. At least, not unless it's a pretty powerful illusion.
It made noises and gestures- spellcaster? It reached out to touch= touch attack!
And like we said detect evil doesn't always work. It also could provoke an Attack of Opportunity.
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Perfect? a few things would have worked. Since she just stood there for a bit before approaching he could have used detect evil, called for help, left the room, subdued her. He had some options. It was a tough situation, but he DID have a lot of ways out of it.Seriously what would have been the "correct way" to not to fall in this situation?
Start preaching the gibberish thing? completely ignoring the fact there is a demon in your room on the middle of the night?!
Let me ask you one thing. As a DM if you play an npc paladin what would have been the natural reaction in this situation?
like this?:
"Howdy demon wazzup have you seen my gf? Hey you are touching me that tickles! Ow demon you are so fun i love you"
So the sugestions are...:
Use detect evil on a demon/aberration
Standing doing nothing while the demon/aberration potentially smacks you
Subduing the demon/aberration (wat)
Escaping from the demon/aberration and possibly taking aos
Calling for help in the middle of the night across the rooms in the inn witouth magical help
Well this seems the typical paladin way to deal with demons
or just smite
I dont know i vote for smite
Aparentely "smiting a demon is not something a paladin should do, yeah he should fall"
....
wat
Tangent Time:
Someone mentioned no sense motive was rolled by the paladin and that got me thinking. If you are the GM and you allow this and you don't suggest to the player something is off, not with the creatures actions but as the GM going, "Dude your character would realize that this is not normal behavior for this creature."
This could easily be the GM's fault for not stressing to the player what he was attempting to pass along in character. Especially if it's something the GM feels the character should have realized.
and:
If you are one of those GM's that insist on rolling his player's sense motive and perception in secret so the player doesn't know if it was a success or failure this is the sort of thing you should roll on without being told to by the player. If you tell me you are going to roll my skills for me then I fully expect that when a situation comes up you will roll without me having to tell you to, because you have made my rolls your responsibility.
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EpicFail page two I said I will go with a flicker...that was me owning up and moving on. Now I am just posting because despite it being stupid I feel the need to defend myself, even though I doubt any of you are better or worse than me....different I am sure. The player as he gave up the character said he would do this one day.
This has NOTHING to do with the scenario...but I had to rush this out since the paladin was intend on changing characters as he didn't like playing LG in a CG/LN type party. So I jammed it into the game as I was running out of time to throw it into RP with the paladin. That said I thought I might have been harsh with the paladin, so I came here to get opinions from people more used to dm'ing LG.
Nutshell.....again I don't feel I need to say this as it doesn't change the scenario at all. But if you feel the need to understand...there. it also allowed me to bring his next character a cleric in and have the group indebted to him right away.
So... The player wanted to change characters. Perhaps because he didn't like playing in a CG/LN party, or perhaps because he felt the environment of the game itself was paladin unfriendly.
I *really* think now that you need to talk to your player.
Sure, he is starting a new character, so his old one falling should not matter now, right?
However, when I put myself in his place, I think about how much I had invested in all my previous characters. Even when I had decided to leave them, I tried hard to leave them in a good place, story-wise. They were retiring from the game, but moving on to other purposes and challenges in my head.
I would want a great send-off for a character that I was letting go -- a chance to do something really heroic and meaningful, and to tie up loose ends of my story. I would feel awful if instead the opposite happened... my character lost the love of his life, by killing her with his own hands, and then fell and lost his connection to his god.
I think that you are worried about your player and how he might have felt when his paladin fell, or you wouldn't have posted here. It's hard as a GM to balance needs of the story over the needs of the party, especially the needs of a player that might not sync with the group's overall playstyle.
Please talk to your player. I think that it is time to give his paladin one last shot at a great storyline by allowing him to come back from this and achieve the right kind of closure for his character's personal story.
Hmm
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The paladin in this case should not fall.
In about 99.9% of "should the paladin fall?" threads the answer is: No! And in about 50% of those cases the longer answer should be: No! And get a new GM.
I had a case where it was discussed if the paladin should fall for killing an unconscious rust monster after it destroyed the party's only magical armor (we were level 6 but VERY low on cash and equip. And the reason some thought the paladin should fall was because the party wizard had said he's like to keep it but lacked any way to secure it in a way that it could not attack us again. The paladin in question was a dwarf with the deep warrior alternate trait (used to battle aberrations) and a campaign trait giving him a bonus vs aberrations who saw aberrations as his racial enemy.
So really? Killing a monster of animal intellect that severely damaged the party makes a paladin fall just because the wizard wants to keep it as his pet?
If falling was that easy for a paladin there would not be any left.
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EpicFail page two I said I will go with a flicker...that was me owning up and moving on. Now I am just posting because despite it being stupid I feel the need to defend myself, even though I doubt any of you are better or worse than me....different I am sure. The player as he gave up the character said he would do this one day.
This has NOTHING to do with the scenario...but I had to rush this out since the paladin was intend on changing characters as he didn't like playing LG in a CG/LN type party. So I jammed it into the game as I was running out of time to throw it into RP with the paladin. That said I thought I might have been harsh with the paladin, so I came here to get opinions from people more used to dm'ing LG.
Nutshell.....again I don't feel I need to say this as it doesn't change the scenario at all. But if you feel the need to understand...there. it also allowed me to bring his next character a cleric in and have the group indebted to him right away.
Understand the angst isn't against you directly. It's just this apparent vendetta against Paladins has played out daily on these threads since I've started reading them.
I do feel you lost control of your players, but lets face it, sometimes I'd rather herd cats than players. A major conflict happened that could have cost you players (I've seen it over less). At the end of the day its a game. If the players are happy, that all that matters (nobody cares about the GM's happiness anyway...)
As an outside observer, I suspect the Paladin was influenced to abandon the character because his current one was "broken". Regardless, the party has shed blood with this individual and should have an emotional connection. Please consider rolling the character as an NPC into your story line later. Maybe seeing the Paladin as a depressed drunkard (play up the grief bit, this should not be comic relief) and then later in a redemption story where he gets his mojo/groove back and give him a place of honor in the kings guard or something.
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This thread makes me think of Good is Not Soft
If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.
and Good is Not Nice
Good is not nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, though good characters may be some of these things.
— The Book of Exalted Deeds, Dungeons & Dragons
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This thread makes me think of Good is Not Soft
If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.and Good is Not Nice
Good is not nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, though good characters may be some of these things.
— The Book of Exalted Deeds, Dungeons & Dragons
+1
My LG characters are always all about putting down evil.
Actually my current LG character is a Samurai with the Blade of Mercy / Enforcer combo, so he often he ends up with unconscious foes after a fight. (If the pali in this case had said combo - this whole discussion would be a non-issue. :P) He then proceeds to make sure they weren't under compulsion etc. (His father had had issues in that department so he's wary.) Assuming no compulsions etc, he then proceeds to execute the lot.
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Actually my current LG character is a Samurai with the Blade of Mercy / Enforcer combo, so he often he ends up with unconscious foes after a fight. (If the pali in this case had said combo - this whole discussion would be a non-issue. :P) He then proceeds to make sure they weren't under compulsion etc. (His father had had issues in that department so he's wary.) Assuming no compulsions etc, he then proceeds to execute the lot.
One must deserve mercy to receive it.
I like it.
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Actually my current LG character is a Samurai with the Blade of Mercy / Enforcer combo, so he often he ends up with unconscious foes after a fight. (If the pali in this case had said combo - this whole discussion would be a non-issue. :P) He then proceeds to make sure they weren't under compulsion etc. (His father had had issues in that department so he's wary.) Assuming no compulsions etc, he then proceeds to execute the lot.One must deserve mercy to receive it.
I like it.
Isn't that the opposite of what mercy means though? It's the kindness you don't deserve.
Hm... okay so it is only one of many definitions of the word.
Still it's a very odd phrase in my mind.
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Actually my current LG character is a Samurai with the Blade of Mercy / Enforcer combo, so he often he ends up with unconscious foes after a fight. (If the pali in this case had said combo - this whole discussion would be a non-issue. :P) He then proceeds to make sure they weren't under compulsion etc. (His father had had issues in that department so he's wary.) Assuming no compulsions etc, he then proceeds to execute the lot.One must deserve mercy to receive it.
I like it.
Isn't that the opposite of what mercy means though? It's the kindness you don't deserve.
Hm... okay so it is only one of many definitions of the word.
Still it's a very odd phrase in my mind.
Not in mine. Giving out mercy like candy makes you weak and dead, not good. And redemption seldom works, really.
In the real world we have few options but to try. In PF we can kill them all and let Pharasma sort them out.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Kill them all and let Pharasma sort them out.
I'm working on a naked crazy warrior character. I believe this will be his new catchphrase.
This does seem like a situation the GM should never have allowed to happen. If the wizard was an NPC, that would be one thing. Allowing this kind of intraparty conflict seems irresponsible--unless the players are into that kind of thing, of course.to clarify a few points:
to those that have no idea how this can be done, its pretty easy. Ultimate Mercy is the ability to raise dead, programmed illusion is the spell, plus simple numbing agent to make her voice harsh and unintelligible, though programmed illusion could have done the voice too, it can do sound, sent, and visuals in a large area.
The wizard IS an NPC.. the conflict started when he was a PC however.
I assume you meen programmet image it is a filmene. Figments dosent really allow what you have described. The paladin Girl should have stopped the second all she could see was the inside of a deamon like girl. Remember Figments create 3D pictures with Sound Spell amd every thing they dosent change anything and dosent make anything invisible. And programmed image need to be programmed and will then play the program when it is triggered no matter what else May happen.
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Just throwing my 2cp in.
No. The fall of a paladin should be a conscious, informed choice by the paladin's player. It doesn't matter whether the paladin knows or not, if the player isn't aware that his actions are fall-worthy, then they're not. It's GM fiat of the "rocks fall, everyone dies" variety.
EpicFail....you did a fail.. its an npc. People are bad with details aren't they?
The PC who plays a fighter in the group now, went bestial because he figured he had these raging hormones without a lifetime of experience controlling them. He figured he smell man flesh and it smelled good ( he never ate any..but made comments that gave pause ). The characters in the group faded from him instead of pull him through, he left the group and became an NPC. The ringleader of kicking him out was the paladin, he sought revenge as he though his friends turned on him because of his appearance. I let him play it how he wanted.
A shame. That one time where you Roll 01 on a reincarnate Spell and then you over do the transformation trauma and make the character become a NPC.
But just to be clear. Did he leave the group or was he kicked out?| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Actually my current LG character is a Samurai with the Blade of Mercy / Enforcer combo, so he often he ends up with unconscious foes after a fight. (If the pali in this case had said combo - this whole discussion would be a non-issue. :P) He then proceeds to make sure they weren't under compulsion etc. (His father had had issues in that department so he's wary.) Assuming no compulsions etc, he then proceeds to execute the lot.One must deserve mercy to receive it.
I like it.
Isn't that the opposite of what mercy means though? It's the kindness you don't deserve.
Hm... okay so it is only one of many definitions of the word.
Still it's a very odd phrase in my mind.
I'm going to have to guess that Abraham has never read the Earth Angel series of Supergirl. The Earth Angel is the ultimate expression of mercy because at the beginning of the series, Linda Danvers is certainly a classic example of someone who receives a second chance even though by all accounts, she didn't "deserve it" by classical measurements.
In fact the whole Christian paradigm, is that Christ sacrificed himself for mankind because of divine grace, not the sense that mankind "deserves" salvation.
He said, that one must deserve mercy to receive it.
I said that seemed like the opposite of what mercy actually means.
Then I pointed out that there are many definitions of the word and the one I was thinking of (being that mercy is the kindness you get and don't deserve) is only one of them.
So um... maybe you misunderstood my position?
I'm well aware of the different paradigms that Christianity has appropriated over the years. I honestly don't mind that it has happened either. A good idea is a good idea.
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EpicFail....you did a fail.. its an npc. People are bad with details aren't they?
The PC who plays a fighter in the group now, went bestial because he figured he had these raging hormones without a lifetime of experience controlling them. He figured he smell man flesh and it smelled good ( he never ate any..but made comments that gave pause ). The characters in the group faded from him instead of pull him through, he left the group and became an NPC. The ringleader of kicking him out was the paladin, he sought revenge as he though his friends turned on him because of his appearance. I let him play it how he wanted.
A shame. That one time where you Roll 01 on a reincarnate Spell and then you over do the transformation trauma and make the character become a NPC.
But just to be clear. Did he leave the group or was he kicked out?
He was kicked out by the Paladin, well in the sense the paladin was going to kill him.
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Just to point out a lot of things people would consider part of the paladins code are explicitly forbidden in inner sea gods. Sparing surrendering individuals or prisoners you take causes you to fall as a torag paladin. You must execute them.
That's an oversimplification, but you're correct that Torag's standard procedure is no quarter.
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Just to point out a lot of things people would consider part of the paladins code are explicitly forbidden in inner sea gods. Sparing surrendering individuals or prisoners you take causes you to fall as a torag paladin. You must execute them.
Well, there is no part of the CRB code saying that you are forbidden from executing guilty enemies. Which is good BTW as it allows the Paladin to carry out justice even when lost in the wilderness or deep in an inhospitable dungeon.
Far too many people IMO subscribe to the concept of Torag being the LG god of genocide without actually reading Torag's commands to his paladins and what they mean. Remember that all the specific paladin's codes are in addition to (and not in place of) the CRB code.
In fact deliberate effort and careful wording were used to make sure that a specific god's code does not contradict the CRB code.
In fact deliberate effort and careful wording were used to make sure that a specific god's code does not contradict the CRB code.
I think you're overestimating the amount of effort involved, since the CRB Code is infuriatingly vague and simplicistic except for the few parts where it's annoyingly specific for no reason.
All the "effort" involved was basically "Okay all we gotta do is make sure none of the other Codes say Paladins can lie, steal, or use poison and we're gold".
The paladin of Torag doesn't get to be a bloodthirsty loon, but he is also within the decree of his deity in executing enemies. Within context he is only required to do so against enemies attacking his "people". So a wandering paladin of Torag may not be required to kill all enemies, but Torag isn't going to be upset if he does (as long as the enemy was culpable).