Not entirely true. They have to respect legitimate authority, that's not the same as follow or obey.
It's pretty meaningless if all it means is that you have to use their full title and honors when you run screaming into the throne room to cut their heads off.
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Not entirely true. They have to respect legitimate authority, that's not the same as follow or obey.It's pretty meaningless if all it means is that you have to use their full title and honors when you run screaming into the throne room to cut their heads off.
It's pretty meaningless to be a Paladin if you have to respect evil authority and can't act against them.
"Sorry there Sheriff of Nottingham, didn't see the badge. My bad, let me just untie you so you can go about your evil ways." - No Paladin ever
On a more serious note respecting legitimate authority has different ways of being interpreted. One way is to say that evil authority is never legitimate. The other is to say that respect means dealing with them civilly and will not resort to blackmail, assassination, or other sorts of actions and instead deal with them in a straightforward manner. But at no time are you required to obey them.
If you a really insisting that a paladin in Cheliax needs to obey every law of House Thrune then we're not even anywhere close in our spectrum of alignment and I don't think we could ever resolve our discrepancies.
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It's pretty meaningless to be a Paladin if you have to respect evil authority and can't act against them.
Respecting authority in no way forbids you from acting against it. You just act against it in appropriate channels.
Sometimes those channels are the court, sometimes those channels are in personal combat.
Luckily many societies justify honorable dueling!
It's pretty meaningless to be a Paladin if you have to respect evil authority and can't act against them.Respecting authority in no way forbids you from acting against it. You just act against it in appropriate channels.
Sometimes those channels are the court, sometimes those channels are in personal combat.
That's my point. BigNorseWolf is the one that seems to be indicating that if you're a paladin you have to let Queen Abrogail have her way.
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It's pretty meaningless to be a Paladin if you have to respect evil authority and can't act against them.
You can act against them. Legally. With honor. Through the system. It's not as silly as it sounds (Abraham Lincoln wound up freeing a lot more slaves than john brown for example)
"Sorry there Sheriff of Nottingham, didn't see the badge. My bad, let me just untie you so you can go about your evil ways." - No Paladin ever
Robin hood's methods of dealing with the sherrif and prince john make him the literal poster boy for chaotic good.
A more lawful good approach would be raising money for King Richards Ransom, joining the crusades in the hopes of taking a similarly high value target from the opposition to trade, or a more overt rebellion with the lords of the land.
If you a really insisting that a paladin in Cheliax needs to obey every law of House Thrune then we're not even anywhere close in our spectrum of alignment and don't think we could ever resolve our discrepancies.
If Law absolutely conflicts with good the paladin picks good.
The problem is that lawful good is NOT extra good, good plus, or really good. Its good with the idea that order is either it's own reward or the best way of achieving goodness. if ALL you care about is doing good you are by definition neutral good.
It's pretty meaningless to be a Paladin if you have to respect evil authority and can't act against them.
You can act against them. Legally. With honor. Through the system. It's not as silly as it sounds (Abraham Lincoln wound up freeing a lot more slaves than john brown for example)
"Sorry there Sheriff of Nottingham, didn't see the badge. My bad, let me just untie you so you can go about your evil ways." - No Paladin everRobin hood's methods of dealing with the sherrif and prince john make him the literal poster boy for chaotic good.
A more lawful good approach would be raising money for King Richards Ransom, joining the crusades in the hopes of taking a similarly high value target from the opposition to trade, or a more overt rebellion with the lords of the land.
If you a really insisting that a paladin in Cheliax needs to obey every law of House Thrune then we're not even anywhere close in our spectrum of alignment and don't think we could ever resolve our discrepancies.If Law absolutely conflicts with good the paladin picks good.
The problem is that lawful good is NOT extra good, good plus, or really good. Its good with the idea that order is either it's own reward or the best way of achieving goodness. if ALL you care about is doing good you are by definition neutral good.
Who said the paladin in question was dealing with them in the same way Robin Hood did? Just because I mentioned Sheriff of Nottingham doesn't mean the other character is Robin Hood. I used the sheriff because he was an "evil" lawful authority.
There are plenty of ways a Paladin could proceed that are plenty lawful and good without being chaotic. And those options could involve courts or combat. The paladin is bound not to ignore the oppressive evil of the Sheriff if it is within his power to do so, but there is leeway in how he does so.
I also never said that the paladin only cares about good, but he definitely prefers good over evil, and is going to be more concerned about doing good than being lawful when forced to choose. The paladin code saw he loses his powers by committing an evil act, not a chaotic one. He only loses his paladin power if he stops being lawful for long enough that he stops having Lawful Good on his character sheet and instead moves to Neutral (or Chaotic) Good.
Edit: As to how the paladin might try to deal with the Sheriff of Nottingham:
1) Use diplomacy to try to show the sheriff how his actions were negatively affecting the people and convince him to change
2) Form a coalition of other legitimate authorities (lords nearby) to force him to change, either by decree or by sword
3) And failing those options, fight the sheriff himself.
That's my point. BigNorseWolf is the one that seems to be indicating that if you're a paladin you have to let Queen Abrogail have her way.
Didn't say that. Toz spotted the difference.
Didn't say that. Toz spotted the difference.
That's my point. BigNorseWolf is the one that seems to be indicating that if you're a paladin you have to let Queen Abrogail have her way.
Not entirely true. They have to respect legitimate authority, that's not the same as follow or obey.It's pretty meaningless if all it means is that you have to use their full title and honors when you run screaming into the throne room to cut their heads off.
That's what I took away from that statement.
I said "you don't have to follow or obey" and your response was satirical (maybe, not sure what you were shooting for), but implied to me that you thought paladins were required to follow and obey any legitimate authority even if they were evil.
This is true of essentially anything posted in the PFS forum. That's most of why it exists in the first place. If it didn't have special rules constraints that make the same question substantively different when asked in a PFS context it would need a forum only for organizing and would not have subfora.
The rules of the game are not pfs specific rules. If they were then EVERYTHING would go in the PFS forum. If your definition of something is everything your definition needs a little work.
We now return you to your regularly schedueled alignment debate , because for once that's actually quasi on topic...
Debating paladins isn't on-topic as the OP plays a monk. That said, Lawful does not mean "Respects and follows all laws of the land, full stop". As there are no Monk codes available we must default to issues of alignment which can be very subjective despite Golarion's often objective approach.
Lawful Good characters may resort to action if they have reason to believe that the legal system is unjust or corrupt. Lawful Neutral characters would likely not feel strongly enough about the situation to take significant action, so I'd expect them to give me a reason (doesn't have to be complex, just make sure you actually have a reason). You have to consider the other alignment component with issues such as this one.
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Lawful is basically deontological thinking. There is a right way to do things, and you adhere to it. What that right way is, does not always map to the community you are dealing with. A Lawful Evil character might believe that murder is a proper course of resolving disagreements and see no reason not to bludgeon someone death, if he can avoid those wrong-thinking judges that say he shouldn't.
So, now that's it's not late at night I think BNW and I are actually generally in agreement. I think we just misunderstood one another.
Anyways, in general lawful does not mean follows the law (of the land they are in). Although, it is not an invalid concept for a character, especially a Judge Dredd type. This typy of character focuses on strict adherence to law, but this is commonly going to a LN type character as a LE or LG character is likely to put evil or good concerns above law (but isn't required to).
Damn it would be so much better if Gygax had just called that part of the alignment spectrum Order vs Chaos instead of Lawful vs Chaos.