I couldn't think of a better spot to put this, so I am placing it here;
Lets say a paladin is being tricked by a follower of some malevolent entity so far as to even joining their faith, lets say a 'good humored' LN cleric of Ruzel for sake of example. The paladin holds no knowledge of the nature of Ruzel except what they have been told by the cleric, and none have have had a chance to correct them. Over time the paladin becomes corrupted, and begins spouting heresies against other faiths and eventually the paladin starts to kill people believing them to be evil.
At what point does the paladin fall, more than likely tipping them off that something is wrong?
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Another thing: on Golarion paladins pretty much always follow a deity of their own. Paladins "of being LG in general" are allowed by the rules (written for all campaigns, not just Golarion) but not so much by the setting. So trying to poach a paladin might make Someone upset.
Also, deities with paladins generally want to keep them and not make them fall. They're valuable champions. If a paladin is moving in a bad direction, it's reasonable (and responsible; we're talking about deities within 1 step of LG here) for a deity to send them signs to set them straight.
This is another scenario that would not happen, given that evil gods can't give paladins power. It's not possible for Ruzel to answer the Paladin's prayers, which should pretty much immediately alert the paladin that something isn't right. Also, someone with even a smattering of Knowledge: Religion should know the alignment of a deity. They're not particularly secretive about it.
To be fair, Ruzel isn't a full deity but rather a relatively obscure Infernal duke. And not every deity and demigod is going to answer every prayer anyway. A wizard who says a prayer isn't going to get a response automatically. Commoners can pray even and have religious observances.
Some deities and demigods trick followers even. It is the bulk of Sifkesh's shtick for instance.
This is an old chestnut, and the main reason why evil gods can't have paladins- they would be easy to fool in that circumstance.
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Woo! Another paladin thread! Time to take a shot!
But in all seriousness, this doesn't seem very likely to work on a paladin. If he's looking into the faith, chances are he's going to get some divine warning signals (i.e. use detect evil) rather quickly. It's really quick and simple to use, so might as well spend a few seconds looking at your potential fellow devotees to see where they stand on the associates scale.
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A paladin does not get their powers from their deity, they get their powers directly from Law and Good. So being unable to grant paladin powers wouldn't necessarily stop a deceitful evil deity from recruiting paladin followers.
That said, it's a pretty tricky con to pull. Even if the paladin doesn't hit any of his religious fellows with Detect Evil (say he has the Oath Against Chaos) and doesn't notice any evil behavior in his associates, and even if the paladin isn't already affiliated with a church that would prevent their falling in with an Infernal Duke, other agents of good are probably going to show up at some point and object. There's some extended chat about whether it's impossible or just unlikely in the previously linked thread.
And in any case, as soon as the paladin willingly commits an evil act they fall. There's quite a bit of debate on whether being deceived about the nature of the act interferes with the act being performed "willingly." For example, if an innocent has Infernal Healing and Dominate cast on them and is forced to attack a paladin, is the paladin at fault for killing someone who is attacking him and also has an evil aura? I tend to use a "due diligence" standard where a paladin falls for committing an act he knows is evil or should know is evil. For example, they would fall for executing a person who is not an immediate threat without convincing proof that that person has committed severe crimes, because they should know that it is evil to kill someone without such justification.
When does the paladin fall? When the DM says he does.
I absolutely hate this grandfathered trait from back in 1st Edition D&D, it may have been necessary back then to bring balance to such a powerful class, but now it's no longer necessary since paladins are more or less on par with the others. All other classes have mechanics to run them, but the fall from grace is completely arbitrary, where sometimes the only things that determines if a paladin falls or not is if the DM has been in a pissy mood that day. It's something that should be heavily changed or even removed altogether.
Rant over.
eventually the paladin starts to kill people believing them to be evil.
That'd be the point. Being tricked while acting in good faith is entirely excusable, and the circumstances exonerate him for most mistakes. At the point of committing murder, he falls not due to evil intent but due to having a lack of empathy and awareness. It's one thing to say things out of ignorance, but to kill out of ignorance shows a critical failure of the paladin's ability to determine right and wrong... and his willingness to take extreme action.
That's not to say there is no circumstance under which a paladin could be forgiven for killing someone who is innocent, but he'd need some pretty extreme extenuating circumstances (like the entire situation was set up with convincing illusion spells) that go far beyond merely being mislead.
This would be a very hard con, I agree. The circumstance that would have to line up require a lot of contrivances to get to the point where a paladin falls (committing an evil act).
At my table, he would temporarily lose his paladin status when he joined the cult/accepted Ruziel as his patron. The metaphysical governing power that makes paladins (of no specific faith) would recoil from his decision. If that didn't give him a clue, he would eventually fall for real.
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I avoid this kind of situation in my games, and find the whole exercise distasteful.
If a player wants to run a paladin, I respect that choice and run adventures where she can be a pure-hearted hero that does heroic things.
GMs don't regularly torture wizards by always having their spellbooks catch fire; why do so many GMs love to plot the downfall of paladin PCs? It makes no sense to me to mess with players like that.
If I was playing a paladin and the GM was always trying to cook up a situation where I'd lose my powers, I'd quit playing with that GM.
I avoid this kind of situation in my games, and find the whole exercise distasteful.
I'm going to go out on a limb and wager this is about an NPC's backstory. I don't know a player that would stay on the train tracks long enough for the con to work.
OR this is for a PC who wants to be an anti paladin (or one of the archetypes).
If this is for an unsuspecting player, then, yes, way too much thought has gone into planning for him to fail by "accident."
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Is it possible you could provide more information? Like, I get the impression you're just using Ruzel as a filler example. And it's hard to judge without knowing a lot more little details. Does/did the paladin worship another deity? How do you and the player interpret their abilities as working, especially if not? Does the paladin understand how he's able to heal people, for example? What level are they? How well-known is the faith in question? Is it really the kind of situation where they should be well aware these guys are evil, or is it some obscure and secretive cult that hardly anyone's even heard of before, let alone heard anything bad about?
How much justification does the paladin have for believing these people to be evil and killing them? Did the cleric say "that guy over there was eating babies for fun, look at this decapitated baby I caught him with!", or is he just "smiting" everyone who speaks ill of his new god?
Have they been tipped off in any more minor way than falling that something isn't right here, and ignored it? Have they made an attempt, however failed, to do their research?
How much of this situation is hypothetically predicted, and how much has actually happened already? What does the paladin's player think so far?
If a player wants to run a paladin, I respect that choice and run adventures where she can be a pure-hearted hero that does heroic things.
Because this is a very valid and probably more common take on it, but not the only one. I play a paladin in part because I want moral decisions to be an actual challenge in the game. Yes, I want it to be a challenge I nearly always succeed at, just like combat, but that doesn't mean I never want to face a difficult choice.
Although, I clarified that to the GM well in advance. Haladir's perspective is a very good default, imo. I'm just saying, if the paladin's player ASKED for moral dilemmas and tricky situations, that's also possible.
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My general take on it, without knowing the details, is this: would the paladin fall for the taking the same actions in the service of a LG faith? If they're going around killing people out of zealotry, for example, Iomedae probably wouldn't like that either.
Interestingly enough, the "one-step rule" doesn't appear to be listed in regard to paladins. Books specify some of the Golarion deities accepting paladins, and they're all in accordant alignments, but nowhere in the Core Rulebook entry for paladins are they explicitly required to worship a deity (although they also aren't explicitly given the option not to the way clerics are, either), and nowhere does it mention they can't worship a deity more than one step from LG.
(For that matter, they don't even have the alignment restriction on spellcasting, aside from it being factored into their spell list. Which does, btw, include Corruption Resistance, which can be cast as any alignment. Is it a good idea, probably not. Is it allowed? By RAW, yes! ...sure, by RAW you'd also immediately fall, but you can.)
So, as I see it, it's just a matter of whether they have a valid reason for following that faith (which is totally plausible, even according to RAW: there's specifically a trait for treating Asmodeus as LN for the one-step alignment restrictions, so you can have an LG cleric of Asmodeus), and whether that deity is willing to "sponsor" them.
The rules do explicitly list praying to an evil deity as an evil act, so if you want to agree with the rules on that, there we go, that's when the paladin would fall. I personally interpret that as requiring awareness, though. All the major Golarion deities are pretty blatant about their alignment, but for the minor demigods or homebrew stuff, I don't think necessarily all the gods are going to preface their holy text with a disclaimer about it. (Also, the cleric may well be keeping up Undetectable Alignment, or the specific paladin might not have Detect Evil, so don't start that with me.)
So that's how I'd handle it - the paladin falls when they do something that would cause them to fall anyway, evil faith or not. If they're being corrupted so definitely, it'll happen eventually. If they still stand by their alignment and code anyway, then it's a pretty good sign they're just misguided but well-meaning.
On a side note, this reminds me of the story of a Barbarian in an old campaign of ours.
We were in a tough battle getting slaughtered and the Barbarian had just got hit really hard but didn't fall because he was raging. He would have rather falled unconscious than staying up and getting risk getting hit again and die, so someone reminds him he could turn off the rage with a will save, which he did.
The ones remaining up manage to win the fight, but after he woke up everybody was like "No way, you're no barbarian" and he said he was no paladin so it was ok, that's when we all looked at the GM and agreed that the barbarian Gods wouldn't stand for it either and cursed him making him lose his barbarian powers, until he could atone for his "sins".
The current goblins has a nice sermon on what being a LG Paladin means
http://www.goblinscomic.org/06242016-2/
I apologize in advance if he updates but it is quite infrequent so this address should be good for a while
Rather than falling, the Paladin simply finds themselves able to prepare different spells and visit suffering upon wrongdoers rather than remove the wounds of the innocent. Although, given the situation involving asking an entity for power without really knowing the full details, they might instead find their healing turned inwards and their magic replaced by the guidance of their god in matters of battle and intrigue.
If a paladin falls in the campaign, does she make a sound?
Rather than falling, the Paladin simply finds themselves able to prepare different spells and visit suffering upon wrongdoers rather than remove the wounds of the innocent. Although, given the situation involving asking an entity for power without really knowing the full details, they might instead find their healing turned inwards and their magic replaced by the guidance of their god in matters of battle and intrigue.
Now that's a thing I don't think you should do to a PC paladin without explicit player understanding and agreement. Players who build a paladin (at least without thorough discussion of the code of conduct) are signing up for the possibility of falling, but going antipaladin seems implied to me to need to be a deliberate choice at least from an OOC perspective. Although by all means go for it if it's an NPC. :D
The fact that Undetectable Alignment is still a Paladin spell should give a clue as to what a Paladin is actually allowed to do. Nowhere does it say that the Code requires you to wear a neon sign that says, “I’m a paladin and I will judge you!”
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If you don't know what god it is, don't pray to it. Also, don't take candy from strangers.
When in doubt, consult with theologians of one of the main LG deities. But truly - if you're already a paladin, why would you take up the worship of an overly obscure deity? Either you already have a deity, or you don't need one. Why get a new one?
I couldn't think of a better spot to put this, so I am placing it here;
Lets say a paladin is being tricked by a follower of some malevolent entity so far as to even joining their faith, lets say a 'good humored' LN cleric of Ruzel for sake of example. The paladin holds no knowledge of the nature of Ruzel except what they have been told by the cleric, and none have have had a chance to correct them. Over time the paladin becomes corrupted, and begins spouting heresies against other faiths and eventually the paladin starts to kill people believing them to be evil.
At what point does the paladin fall, more than likely tipping them off that something is wrong?
So the problem here is you're assuming the paladin gets corrupted. Most paladins should have a good idea of what constitutes law and good. When they spot something that is evil, they're going to stop following and smite the offender. Doing a single act of evil willfully would cause the paladin to lose his powers.
So the problem here is you're assuming the paladin gets corrupted. Most paladins should have a good idea of what constitutes law and good. When they spot something that is evil, they're going to stop following and smite the offender. Doing a single act of evil willfully would cause the paladin to lose his powers.I couldn't think of a better spot to put this, so I am placing it here;
Lets say a paladin is being tricked by a follower of some malevolent entity so far as to even joining their faith, lets say a 'good humored' LN cleric of Ruzel for sake of example. The paladin holds no knowledge of the nature of Ruzel except what they have been told by the cleric, and none have have had a chance to correct them. Over time the paladin becomes corrupted, and begins spouting heresies against other faiths and eventually the paladin starts to kill people believing them to be evil.
At what point does the paladin fall, more than likely tipping them off that something is wrong?
..Yes, I am assuming that. Telling me it wouldn't happen because all paladins are too wise and intelligent to fall, when the corruptor deity/demigod/entity/ect. trope is explored countless times in setting and antipaladins exist with rules to convert paladin levels, is unbelievably unhelpful. Telling me my assumption in this case is the problem here is ignoring the question. Im trying to address when the paladin falls, not the odds of a paladin converting to an evil faith without realizing it is evil.
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..Yes, I am assuming that. Telling me it wouldn't happen because all paladins are too wise and intelligent to fall, when the corruptor deity/demigod/entity/ect. trope is explored countless times in setting and antipaladins exist with rules to convert paladin levels, is unbelievably unhelpful. Telling me my assumption in this case is the problem here is ignoring the question. Im trying to address when the paladin falls, not the odds of a paladin converting to an evil faith without realizing it is evil.
The problem is that you're ignoring how extremely unlikely and absurd it would be for a paladin to reach that point and not know something was up before. Now, it's not impossible it's just incredibly unlikely. If this is something you want to do to an NPC, fine. If it's something you want to do with a PC, just don't. As to when the NPC loses their power? Does it matter? Are the PCs going to be there for his descent? Because if they are they should probably notice whats going and warn him.
Paladins aren't necessarily particularly wise or intelligent, but they do have a sense of absolute good and order that fuels them magically. So they should have a very solid idea of what constitutes evil for the purpose of when they should fall.
You're paladin only sounds plausible if it was a person already experiencing a crisis of faith, and thereby made them more susceptible to manipulation.
Paladins fall to antipaladins because they choose to, not because they're manipulated into it. That's the trick to the manipulation, you have to make the paladin choose evil over good by setting up a situation. You can't make the paladin evil, but you can capture his loved ones and some innocent people and set up some sort of crazy trolley problem to try and make the paladin commit evil, but they have to choose it. You have to find the thing (if it exists) that a paladin cares about more than being a bastion of good.
Edit: Oh and remember, if the paladin chooses to do nothing and both their loves ones and the innocents die the paladin hasn't actually done anything wrong. Inaction in this case is a valid non-evil response. The paladin would need to choose to kill innocents to save his loved ones for it to be evil.
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Edit: Oh and remember, if the paladin chooses to do nothing and both their loves ones and the innocents die the paladin hasn't actually done anything wrong. Inaction in this case is a valid non-evil response. The paladin would need to choose to kill innocents to save his loved ones for it to be evil.
at least according to you. as far as reality is concerned, unless you are rendered incapable of acting, inaction is just as much a choice as action. whether or not the choice not to act is morally wrong is another issue, but it is very much a choice. personally, i don't think the trolley dilemma can cause a paladin to fall unless he's choosing to kill someone rather than choosing who to save. (i.e. i think the motivation behind the choice matters more than the choice itself in a catch 22.)
Bottom line: When he commits an evil act.
It would still be helpful to know if this is for an NPC, PC aiming for anti paladin, or an unsuspecting PC.
If it is entirely hypothetical, wel... Boo.
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Paladins gain their powers not through any deity, but by the their own Lawful Goodness.
Should the Paladin decide to worship this being he is still totally fine unless he commits evil acts and breaks his Paladin code, and sinks from Lawful Good.
Also seconding that this whole thing just sounds really dumb.
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I couldn't think of a better spot to put this, so I am placing it here;
Lets say a paladin is being tricked by a follower of some malevolent entity so far as to even joining their faith, lets say a 'good humored' LN cleric of Ruzel for sake of example. The paladin holds no knowledge of the nature of Ruzel except what they have been told by the cleric, and none have have had a chance to correct them. Over time the paladin becomes corrupted, and begins spouting heresies against other faiths and eventually the paladin starts to kill people believing them to be evil.
At what point does the paladin fall, more than likely tipping them off that something is wrong?
Your problem here is that you're having to create a scenario where the player is likely to figure out what is happening. You're also ignoring the idea that the paladin's deity is likely to tip him or her off to what is happening, and even without that, the paladin is likely find something ethically, morally or spiritually wrong with what is being asked of him.
The other major issue here is that the cleric radiates an aura that matches his or her deity's auras. Sure, a ring of mind shielding will prevent the paladin from noticing where the lingering evil aura is coming from, but it wont take him all that long to figure it out if he spend any time in the presence of this cleric. He will likely be looking for the source of the evil in an attempt to protect his new colleague.
To put this a different way: if you're doing this to an NPC, then have fun with it. If you're doing it to one of your players' characters without the player knowing what you're doing, stop it, but if he or she is fully aware of what is going on and is on board, full steam ahead.
The Paladin falls the moment he or she renounces his or her dedication to the deity, he does something the deity finds unforgivable (hence the atonement spell) or he begins serving a deity that cannot quality for the Paladin class.
There is another option: change the Paladin to a compatible archetype.
As a general rule, character changes should happen because of character agency, and this goes doubly so for player characters: believable stories revolve around NPCs acting in ways that serve their sense of agency, but this is amplified for player characters because stripping the player character of agency in the game enacts the same action upon the player in terms of the game. To put this bluntly, by setting up this whole scenario where the paladin falls without the player actively knowing that what he is doing to cause it, the player is denied the agency to make the conscious choice and accept the consequences, but instead leaves the player left with the decision to continue playing a character with what is effectively warrior levels, make a new character, or just not play in your game. I cannot stress enough how much people who play alignment restricted classes hate GMs pulling some auto-fall card out of their asses in an attempt to nerf the character.
To recap:
If NPC, full steam ahead.
If PC, if the player is fully aware of what is happening and choosing for it to happen, full steam ahead, but if the player is unaware of what you're doing, WTF are you doing? Shtap. You're only going to make your player feel singled out and harbor an Us vs Them mentality between you and the player.
So in this scenario, the Paladin could end up with a "Surprise, now you're a Nazi like us!" outcome?
So in this scenario, the Paladin could end up with a "Surprise, now you're a Nazi like us!" outcome?
Pretty much, and worse is that he probably wouldn't have the choice to re-embrace his paladin superpowers to murder-hobo all of the nazis.
Since I did not address this earlier, I should do so now; This is all strictly hypothetical.
Hypothetically a paladin can not be tricked into committing an evil act.
She must "willingly" do so that is not the same as unwittingly...
nor does one really preclude the other. if you do something bad because you think its good, you still did it willingly. your ignorance of other aspects of your choice doesn't really change that.
besides, "willingly" only applies to "commit[ing] 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.
though its debatable whether or not you can fall for the failure to do the above. RAW it seems you only fall for the willing evil act.
Hypothetically a paladin can not be tricked into committing an evil act.
She must "willingly" do so that is not the same as unwittingly...
I thought so for a long time, but I'm not sure that's true. If a vampire dominates a paladin and forces him to decapitate helpless innocents, I think he still loses his class features until he gets an atonement spell cast on him.
Re: "Ha ha, this is all hypothetical." Boo, I say. Boo.
This is how you need to line the dominoes up for the con to work:
1. Ruziel has agents make up a false god and religion.
2. Agents recruit legitimate converts to the false religion. The converts gain divine power from their belief in a cause (let's say some LN cause like protecting others from harm).
3. Set up base of power where there are people are clueless about the gods (some remote village).
4. Paladin has some trauma that makes him susceptible to the seduction of community (maybe he worshipped Aroden and this is after Aroden's death, maybe he came from an abusive family, despite which he remained a good and kind person, and is a "chosen one" style paladin who just woke up with abilities, etc.)
5. Paladin meets LN priest of false religion.
6. Defending others seems like a good cause and he joins the church of the false religion.
7. Agents reveal new holy texts to the highest tiers of the false religion. The new texts slowly but directly twist the dogma of the false religion to be more aggressive in its defense and more xenophobic.
8. Over time, the paladin realizes that the scriptures are leading to an evil path and must make a choice: break from the church (potentially keeping his new false god and serving as a champion of the true false faith against the corrupting heretics) or stay with his new family, members of whom he has become close to and fond of.
9. He falls when he decides to stay with the new version of the false religion and/or his first murder the unclean elves raiding party. Dealer's choice.
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As to when the NPC loses their power? Does it matter? Are the PCs going to be there for his descent? Because if they are they should probably notice whats going and warn him.
If the party is supposed to notice what's going on and warn the paladin before he falls, then it's important to establish what questionable acts might serve as a warning sign without causing a fall.
Paladins aren't necessarily particularly wise or intelligent, but they do have a sense of absolute good and order that fuels them magically. So they should have a very solid idea of what constitutes evil for the purpose of when they should fall.
Many GMs do give players this kind of feedback (which I think is a good thing) but if the paladin's sense of right and wrong was so accurate then the Phylactery of Faithfulness wouldn't exist.
Your paladin only sounds plausible if it was a person already experiencing a crisis of faith, and thereby made them more susceptible to manipulation.
Well yeah, targeting people in moments of weakness is the primary strategy for sinister cults pretty much everywhere.