PDA

View Full Version : DMs and Paladins



Ajadea
2011-02-15, 10:14 PM
I keep seeing this. How many DMs really feel a need for the paladin to arbitrarily fall? Personally, I set down the barriers straight at the beginning, write down every line they can and cannot cross. If the lines are meant to be obscure for some IC reason (e.g., the answer for 'are there gods' is Shrug of DM), I don't tell the player. Otherwise, I will tell them.

Is there something appealing about screwing over the paladin? Why don't people do that to the cleric? They are basically like paladins except more so: they are capable of breaking the game, but if they violate their code, as set down by the god or ideal they follow, they lose everything, and become warriors or experts (cloistered cleric) with worse BAB and possibly a better will save.

Is this as common as it seems, or is my view of this skewed on account of the fact that people don't post about problem-free sessions very often?

Jarian
2011-02-15, 10:17 PM
The primary issue is that Paladins have a "Screw me over, DM!" mechanic built into their class. Other classes really don't. Some DMs, whether new or just vicious, will see that as a call to use it against the player, rather than something to add flavor.

slaydemons
2011-02-15, 10:19 PM
because the more beautiful & pure something is the more you wish to corrupt it and drudge it through the mud..... my guess but It could be all the oots comics your reading. other then that I didn't read the paladin class enough yet so I must be missing something

Telonius
2011-02-15, 10:24 PM
There's also a fine line between "presenting a difficult but solveable challenge" and "screwing over the Paladin." Sometimes I wonder how much of the complaints are really due to a miscommunication. The DM gives the player something they feel can be overcome, but the player just doesn't figure it out. The player then jumps to the conclusion that the DM has it in for them.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-15, 10:25 PM
The primary issue is that Paladin's have a "Screw me over, DM!" mechanic built into their class. Other classes really don't. Some DMs, whether new or just vicious, will see that as a call to use it against the player, rather than something to add flavor.

The problem is also that said mechanic is vaguely worded, contradictory, and can also demand conflicting (and even evil) actions from the paladin. For example, a paladin can fall for failing to punish those that harm the innocent, AND for committing an evil act OR dishonorable act. These two things can cause problems with each other.

Yukitsu
2011-02-15, 10:27 PM
I keep seeing this. How many DMs really feel a need for the paladin to arbitrarily fall? Personally, I set down the barriers straight at the beginning, write down every line they can and cannot cross. If the lines are meant to be obscure for some IC reason (e.g., the answer for 'are there gods' is Shrug of DM), I don't tell the player. Otherwise, I will tell them.

Is there something appealing about screwing over the paladin? Why don't people do that to the cleric? They are basically like paladins except more so: they are capable of breaking the game, but if they violate their code, as set down by the god or ideal they follow, they lose everything, and become warriors or experts (cloistered cleric) with worse BAB and possibly a better will save.

Is this as common as it seems, or is my view of this skewed on account of the fact that people don't post about problem-free sessions very often?

My DM tried to do this once, but I was optimized in a way he didn't expect, and so did both halves of the "pick one to save!"

Now he just says my paladins all have to become martyrs. Since he makes it fairly awesome, this is a win for all. :smallsmile:

DeltaEmil
2011-02-15, 10:39 PM
Before 3rd edition, paladins were a powerful class that only few lucky players go to play if they rolled well, and to keep those awesome powers, they had to behave a certain way. That was considered to be acceptable. After all, if you're like a fighter (which back then wasn't that bad), but better, and you'll get a supermagical mount, a few cleric spells, good hit points, and a cool magic sword (yeah, the holy avenger with double damage to evil guys and an at-will anti-magic effect and perhaps even more cool stuff) then it's okay because with great power comes great responsability, as dear Uncle Ben would say in every Spider-Man incarnation. And a few gm even didn't actually try to actively turn the superguy called paladin into a fighter without his awesome superpowers, they just thought that they were cool gms who would give the player roll-playing opportunities. Most of them just sucked, of course, but oh well, at least they didn't try to be assinine on purpose.
Then there's of course the terribad gms who are badwrongandneverfun who just tried to fullfill their god complex, but everybody sucked under them, except for the hot chick they tried to impress.

In 3rd edition, paladins of course suck. Terribad. Which is why making paladins still fall for a set of weak-ass powers is like kicking little newborn puppies. Some mean people would do that in a heart-beat, because that's one of their secret fetishes, but the rest just don't know better and still think that paladins are like in the old stories from pre-3rd edition, where they were those super-awesome superheroes, and had to behave like the adopted lovechild of Spider-Man and Superman, and make life more difficult for them, because angsting and drama and emotional conflicts might mean character development, and that must mean good roleplay or something like that.

Chilingsworth
2011-02-15, 10:40 PM
My DM tried to do this once, but I was optimized in a way he didn't expect, and so did both halves of the "pick one to save!"

Now he just says my paladins all have to become martyrs. Since he makes it fairly awesome, this is a win for all. :smallsmile:

How were you optimized?

rayne_dragon
2011-02-15, 10:44 PM
I think it doesn't happen to clerics more often simply because clerics rely on spells for almost everything, whereas a paladin at least still is a good fighter. I've usually had DMs who are just as picky about clerics following their gods as about paladins, though. Also, it seems like initially the paladin's falling mechanic was a balance for them being better than fighters, whereas the cleric was more balanced without needing such a restriction being somewhere in between a fighter and a wizard (since, IIRC, they could only get up to level 7 spells).

Personally when I run a game I'll warn a paladin before they do something that would cause them to fall. At least until I've had to give them the same warning a couple times in one session, then I'm quiet until it's time to tell them they've lost their paladinhood.

Doc Roc
2011-02-15, 10:44 PM
Not me! Though, to be fair, I use a paladin variant these days that can't fall in the traditional sense. One could argue, though, since I wrote it, that this rose out of an attempt to avoid said rules in the first place.

I think that a lot of this is a myth. A lot of it also stems from the fact that often, paladins seem to attract players with a bizarre concept of morality that can lead to the code being used as an attempt to justify terrifying actions.

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-15, 10:47 PM
Not me! Though, to be fair, I use a paladin variant these days that can't fall in the traditional sense. One could argue, though, since I wrote it, that this rose out of an attempt to avoid said rules in the first place.

I think that a lot of this is a myth. A lot of it also stems from the fact that often, paladins seem to attract players with a bizarre concept of morality that can lead to the code being used as an attempt to justify terrifying actions.

The Knight Templar trope exists for a reason.

Eurus
2011-02-15, 10:47 PM
Not me! Though, to be fair, I use a paladin variant these days that can't fall in the traditional sense. One could argue, though, since I wrote it, that this rose out of an attempt to avoid said rules in the first place.

I think that a lot of this is a myth. A lot of it also stems from the fact that often, paladins seem to attract players with a bizarre concept of morality that can lead to the code being used as an attempt to justify terrifying actions.

Well it's not as if they were attracted to it for the mechanics. :smallamused:

Gamer Girl
2011-02-15, 11:38 PM
I'm not sure where this ever came from. I've been a D&D gamer for years and years and I can say that I've seen the 'screw the paladins' idea everywhere. I Would have to say it's just something in the culture that has people 'hate the good guy'.

After all, starting in say the '80's being good was no long cool. You had to be a anti-hero, or even a good bad guy, to be cool and popular.

Telok
2011-02-16, 12:03 AM
I've never actually seen anyone fall in 20 years of D&D. Of course there haven't been many paladins either.

One time I did make a paladin atone to get his powers back. He attacked a non-hostile LN priest of another faith. There was some provocation, but being a sharp, stabbing, pain in someone's rear end is not an evil act. Definitely a chaotic act, but in a grey area for good/evil. Now if he had killed the cleric's cohort (a lower level LG cleric using Shield Other and lots of healing spells) then he would have fallen.

In my old age I've gotten lazy and now I just use this http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=The_Shining_One for paladin codes.

Yukitsu
2011-02-16, 12:04 AM
How were you optimized?

Ironically, in the manner that let me be in two places at once. :smallsmile:

DM: You can't save them both! You can't be in two places at once!
*Show DM character sheet.*
DM: I guess you can be in two places at once. Gratz.

TalonDemonKing
2011-02-16, 12:12 AM
Maybe DMs don't like Paladins cause they've played with a bad one? One who ruined the fun of the game by breaking up group cohesion? Maybe some sort of left-over-bitterness makes them want to kick paladins.

My instincts tell me that DMs want to make for a good story, and the internal conflict of doing whats right and doing whats Paladin makes for a good story when written properly. Most of the time, however, its not. So while the DM is thinking that it would make for good roleplay, character development, and a good story, all its managing to do is aggrivate the players.

Gamer Girl
2011-02-16, 12:29 AM
You also get the poor copycats.


One out of 100 DM's can have a really great Paladin story line where the DM, the paladin's player and all the other players have a great fun and adventure with some 'paladin problem'. It can be great fun and everyone will remember that adventure forever.

But that is rare.

And when you get the other 99 DM's that try to copy that great adventure, just just comes off as a watered down version of 'paladin hate'.

Kris Strife
2011-02-16, 12:44 AM
Maybe DMs don't like Paladins cause they've played with a bad one? One who ruined the fun of the game by breaking up group cohesion? Maybe some sort of left-over-bitterness makes them want to kick paladins.

My instincts tell me that DMs want to make for a good story, and the internal conflict of doing whats right and doing whats Paladin makes for a good story when written properly. Most of the time, however, its not. So while the DM is thinking that it would make for good roleplay, character development, and a good story, all its managing to do is aggrivate the players.

There's a reason why you're supposed to discuss character creation with the party and the DM to prevent these sort of things.

Plus you also have people who purposely make Evil, or Evil-Lite characters only to screw over the paladin.

Safety Sword
2011-02-16, 12:44 AM
If, as a DM, you need the paladin code to screw with your players, you're doing it wrong. :smallamused:

I love paladins. They take make it necessary to think about the moral implications of the choices made.

If you put them in a lose-lose situation and they make the best choice possible you need to ease up on the stompery.

If you have to choose between saving the village and killing the bad guys, it's easy.

If you have to choose between saving your best friend or the 5 random villagers, it's a choice (hopefully with consequences and role playing opportunities!)

Doc Roc
2011-02-16, 12:54 AM
If, as a DM, you need the paladin code to screw with your players, you're doing it wrong. :smallamused:

I love paladins. They take make it necessary to think about the moral implications of the choices made.

If you put them in a lose-lose situation and they make the best choice possible you need to ease up on the stompery.

If you have to choose between saving the village and killing the bad guys, it's easy.

If you have to choose between saving your best friend or the 5 random villagers, it's a choice (hopefully with consequences and role playing opportunities!)


I love paladins, as they're mechanically weak enough to almost certainly be unable to save either their best friend or the villagers, leading to the player deciding to try for both, and ultimately causing a TPK.

Hum. Not like that's ever happened to me or anything.

Safety Sword
2011-02-16, 12:58 AM
I love paladins, as they're mechanically weak enough to almost certainly be unable to save either their best friend or the villagers, leading to the player deciding to try for both, and ultimately causing a TPK.

Hum. Not like that's ever happened to me or anything.

Ahhh, bitter tears, a DMs favorite kind :smallsmile:

Yes, sometimes the romantic idea of a paladin doesn't quite stack up game mechanics wise. Still, there are some pretty good paladin "fixes" that let them be a bit better and ultimately more fun.

Strawberries
2011-02-16, 01:31 AM
I keep seeing this. How many DMs really feel a need for the paladin to arbitrarily fall? Personally, I set down the barriers straight at the beginning, write down every line they can and cannot cross. If the lines are meant to be obscure for some IC reason (e.g., the answer for 'are there gods' is Shrug of DM), I don't tell the player. Otherwise, I will tell them.

Well, yes you do. I can testify that. And then you get the players that happily stomp all over the lines all the same, have the time of their life doing it, and give you explicit permission to make them fall whenever you like.

Me, just to name one. :smalltongue:

BG
2011-02-16, 01:38 AM
There are several basic problems that people have, and it's rooted in the poor wording of the Paladin's Code. While any code should have vague things in it like, "do good" or "be compassionate", at the end of the day the player needs concrete consequences.

If I have a paladin in my game, I have a clear list of things they aren't allowed to do, and violating those things can lead them to fall.

A list, for example, might be:
No using poison.
No using coup de grace actions.
No torturing a prisoner
No betraying a host's hospitality

I also think that there's a problem of DMs wanting to construct moral traps for their players, which often doesn't correspond to actual morals or ethics. The problem is that a lot of people see morality as purely ends-based, that is to say, that the results are the only thing that matters. The Paladin's Code strikes me as something that is means-based, and that the ends don't justify the means.

LikeAD6
2011-02-16, 01:58 AM
I have a paladin in my 4e game, and he plays the paladin in accordance with the 3.5 codes. He is always willing to go along with the "find out what these bad guys are doing and stop them" or "save these allies" plotlines. Having a paladin in a party is awesome for DMs, and they all need to realise that paladins are their friends. Many DMs dislike the chaotic evil "I kill everything" player; why not embrace the opposite?

CodeRed
2011-02-16, 02:10 AM
I have a paladin in my 4e game, and he plays the paladin in accordance with the 3.5 codes. He is always willing to go along with the "find out what these bad guys are doing and stop them" or "save these allies" plotlines. Having a paladin in a party is awesome for DMs, and they all need to realise that paladins are their friends. Many DMs dislike the chaotic evil "I kill everything" player; why not embrace the opposite?

Indeed! Screwing over the Paladin is like slaying the Golden Goose or Golden Fish in this analogy as the Paladin will always jump at these sort of hooks.

Ajadea
2011-02-16, 02:10 AM
Well, yes you do. I can testify that. And then you get the players that happily stomp all over the lines all the same, have the time of their life doing it, and give you explicit permission to make them fall whenever you like.

Me, just to name one. :smalltongue:

Of course, considering that in this particular game that we're referenceing, outsiders in general don't seem to be interested in mortals, true gods might not exist, half the 'lines' are stupid contradictory revised rules drawn by mortals and technically can't make you fall, but the other half are sound and crossing those will almost surely require atonement, no one's telling you which part is which, and the whole code advocates varying amounts of genocide for the greater good...

And don't forget this is all in a setting where a 8th level person goes down in history forever, a 12th-14th level person could be mistaken for a god, and most experts top out at 4th or 5th, with some rare few reaching 6th. So atoning is a complicated main quest line in and of itself, cause there's no easily accessible spell that will get you in contact with the local powers that be.

I'm not pretending that I haven't written messy paladin codes myself. But I also take into account that people might try and 'edit' the paladin code to fit their agenda. In a high-magic world, this gets them fried by holy fire in half a heartbeat. In a low magic one...they get away with it. But it doesn't change the essence of what the code was meant to be, and the lines stay the same as they always were, which is simple, neat, and more focused on Good than Law.

It's just weird for me when I hear of people playing as if the local gods accepted the mortal's convoluted editing of the paladin code.

SilverClawShift
2011-02-16, 09:20 AM
Some DMs, whether new or just vicious, will see that as a call to use it against the player, rather than something to add flavor.

This. The dumbest thing my DM ever did was related to this. I had a paladin of Bahamut, and the DM made me fall for refusing to straight up murder a helpless black dragon hatchling because "Black dragons are always chaotic evil".

It turned out okay in the end. The game went epic before we resolved the (universe shattering) issue, and in that time I managed to get a mega-wish from a different deity, wished myself into being a true dragon, and wound up ending the campaign as the dragon deity of forgiveness.

It was STILL a dumb decision though. But we were new.

The Big Dice
2011-02-16, 09:29 AM
The problem isn't GMs who set a Paladin up for a fall. It's GMs who set the fall up, then point and laugh.

I think a Paladin who falls from grace, then finds his way back into the favour of his god is an awesome story. But the means for both need to be put into the player's hands.

Jayabalard
2011-02-16, 09:37 AM
Is there something appealing about screwing over the paladin? Why don't people do that to the cleric? They do; it just doesn't happen as often because the code of conduct required for the cleric (and druid) is more vague than the one for the paladin.

Amnestic
2011-02-16, 10:01 AM
This. The dumbest thing my DM ever did was related to this. I had a paladin of Bahamut, and the DM made me fall for refusing to straight up murder a helpless black dragon hatchling because "Black dragons are always chaotic evil".

It turned out okay in the end. The game went epic before we resolved the (universe shattering) issue, and in that time I managed to get a mega-wish from a different deity, wished myself into being a true dragon, and wound up ending the campaign as the dragon deity of forgiveness.

It was STILL a dumb decision though. But we were new.

The correct response to that is "If I detected a human child as Evil, would you also make me slaughter him/her?"

DMs are dragon racists :smallfrown:

Engine
2011-02-16, 10:26 AM
I played a Paladin several times. Every time except one DMs tried to screw up with my characters. Last time I created a Paladin of the Red Knight, a smart tactician who suffered from war as a soldier, who lost friends and saw innocents die. He was always striving to improve himself so others would not endure what he had to endure.
Even before our first session, when I was outlining my character to the DM we had this conversation.

DM: "So he wants to improve himself, mh?"
ME: "Yup."
DM: "I suppose he seeks this kind of power to protect the weak and the innocent."
ME: "A bit classical, I know."
DM: "Well, he could gain more power, but at the expense of his conscience. He could forget why he fights, and fall from grace."
ME: "Uh, well, could happen, I'm not sure, the campaign it's not started yet."
DM: "Eh, you'll see, you'll see."

I was a bit suspicious, anyway...
...as I said, my Paladin was a smart tactician. So most of the times I tried to play him as a military leader, coming up with some sort of cunning ideas to overcome opponens. But my ideas were always against the Code. In combat I could do just one thing: charging in front of the enemy. I couldn't even do a tactical retreat.
Of course my DM never said what my Paladin could do and what he couldn't do. I was on a constant guess. And my character couldn't be a competent military leader and a Paladin. I had to choose one of them.

(In the end, I chose to leave the group)

IMHO, the Code is really poorly worded. It could be ok in a campaign where the DM has a clearly vision on how a Paladin should behave, and let the players know it. BTW, I think a lot of DMs see the Code as a weapon to use against the players, not as a tool.

Tyndmyr
2011-02-16, 10:33 AM
Not me! Though, to be fair, I use a paladin variant these days that can't fall in the traditional sense. One could argue, though, since I wrote it, that this rose out of an attempt to avoid said rules in the first place.

I think that a lot of this is a myth. A lot of it also stems from the fact that often, paladins seem to attract players with a bizarre concept of morality that can lead to the code being used as an attempt to justify terrifying actions.

I've seen paladins be forced into falling. I've also seen paladins playing party cop and using the code to justify it, including lots o' violence. Oddly enough, these were not the same paladins.

I'm currently playing a "paladin". LG, very religious. Class levels are actually wizard, party has no idea.

LordBlades
2011-02-16, 10:46 AM
Where I play, there is a certain dislike of paladins in general, mostly due to the fact that 9/10 paladins we've had in our groups were just annoying, overzealous p****s. Basically it was 'my way or else' and pointing at the code whenever an important story decision was to be made. Somehow, some people always think the paladin class comes with the right to tell everybody what to do.

In regards to paladins falling, I think most of it comes from misunderstandings between player and DM. Paladin code, as well as how a LG char should behave is a pretty subjective matter.

Amphetryon
2011-02-16, 10:54 AM
To be fair, there are some players who choose to play Paladins because they are attracted to the Fall/Redemption trope cycle. They are rare, but they do exist. As with most player/DM relationships, the key is communicating your expectations when you choose a class, and the DM communicating the expectations inherent to that class in his or her world.

FMArthur
2011-02-16, 11:26 AM
I've played two Paladins under two pretty restrictive DMs. Since I actually do try to hold the Paladin as a champion of good there wasn't a lot of difficulty. Whenever they put me in a situation of The Code versus Saving Lives (and they did this fairly often) I would always choose Saving Lives. One of them just thought it over and decided I should be okay.

The other did make me fall for it but we sort of collaborated to make it into a character development thing - the Paladin refused to atone and gradually grew into a Warblade (retraining), without ever becoming anything less than a champion of Good. While all of it was very fun and we both enjoyed playing out the drama, the unfortunate takeaway is that becoming a Paladin in the first place isn't actually a very good decision for a truly devoted protector of the innocent.

Callista
2011-02-16, 12:11 PM
The important thing for players and DMs regarding paladins is simply to set down exactly what the DM is having the paladin's deity (or the celestial planes) set as a standard for his behavior. In-game, you can use a phylactery of faithfulness to do this; out of game, you and the DM can just have a quick talk before you start playing the character. It's when they don't communicate that the trouble starts.

As for me, I've played several paladins and never had any issues with alignment (though I did have a paladin fall on a few occasions, all of which I agreed with and several of which I actually declared before the DM had a chance--i.e., "Okay, so my character was too proud to help her friends in a deadly situation, and somebody died; she should probably lose her powers for that.")

I think maybe there are a lot less paladin issues than we think there are. They are just a great way to introduce a morality/ethics discussion, and since people are very fond of talking about these things, the paladin makes a sort of conversation starter on D&D forums. In actual, real-life games, paladins tend to get along pretty well. In real-life games where the DM and player communicate and nobody's trying to combine paladins and evil characters in the same party, I've never seen even one paladin-specific problem.

So yeah--mature players who are working together to have fun will not be held back by the presence of a party paladin, and will likely find that having one in the party is a lot more fun than they thought it was (if only because she makes a great target for the party prankster!).

Saph
2011-02-16, 12:11 PM
Never seen a paladin fall, never had a DM who went out of his way to make their life difficult, either.

Quite a lot of classes have "if you do X you lose your powers" clauses built into them, Clerics and Druids being the other divine ones. There's also the spellbook issue for Wizards. In most cases our groups treat this as a roleplaying thing rather than a weakness to be enforced. As long as the player makes an effort to follow the rules, it's not fair to go out of your way to cripple them.

Besides, most of the "make the Paladin fall" stories involve idiotic interpretations of the Code of Conduct. The Code is pretty clear: you only fall for one of three things:

a) not being lawful good
b) willfully committing an evil act
c) grossly violating the code of conduct

Interpreting that as "you can't use tactics" or "you must kill anything that detects as evil" makes absolutely no sense.

The Big Dice
2011-02-16, 12:32 PM
To be fair, there are some players who choose to play Paladins because they are attracted to the Fall/Redemption trope cycle.
If you're attracted to trope cycles, you need to stop. Shut the computer down, then take an hour away from TV Tropes. When you get back to your computer, erase your broswer history and delete any and all links you might have to TV Tropes. Then use severe aversion therapy to make sure you stay away from tropes of all kinds.

That site just confuses things and reduce everything to "Oh, it's just a <fill in trope>."

Never seen a paladin fall, never had a DM who went out of his way to make their life difficult, either.
This I completely agree with. I've seen GMs do things like set up a situation where the possibility for the Paladin making the wrong choice does exist. I've done that myself. But that's more in the lines of creating a moral dilemma for the Paladin player.

But I've never seen a Paladin actually fall. Though the players usually enjoy the moral and ethical problems.

Calmar
2011-02-16, 12:41 PM
...as I said, my Paladin was a smart tactician. So most of the times I tried to play him as a military leader, coming up with some sort of cunning ideas to overcome opponens. But my ideas were always against the Code. In combat I could do just one thing: charging in front of the enemy. I couldn't even do a tactical retreat.

What you did is exactly what a knight is supposed to do - the paladin is the embodyment of chivalry, after all. :smallconfused:
Charitableness and courtesy are there for dealing with those you protect and with the other sex, not for battle.

Choco
2011-02-16, 12:43 PM
For me it depends on what the Paladin's player ultimately wants. If they don't want to fall, I don't MAKE them fall. Now, that doesn't mean the player being stupid won't make their character fall.

Basically what happens is the Paladin's player has to agree that, even though they are welcome to argue their point, *I* have the last say on where any gray area falls on the alignment scale. But, since no 2 people's moralities are 100% alike, I always give the player a chance to take back an action that would have made them fall (unless it was plainly and obviously evil).

If the Paladin's player wants to do some action that I view as on the evil side of gray, I will tell him that doing this action has a high chance of making him fall, and give him a chance to take it back. Makes sense IMO, the Paladin would know, after YEARS of training, what he is and isn't allowed to do, and it ain't right to punish the player for a simple mistake. No point in making said PC waste money on a magic item when the same effect can be had by simply using common sense.

Also, I generally don't make Paladins fall for unknowingly committing an evil act. If a female orc that attacked him (who he killed in self defense) just happened to be pregnant, resulting in him killing an innocent life unknowingly, that for instance would not make him fall.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-16, 01:14 PM
Ironically, in the manner that let me be in two places at once. :smallsmile:

DM: You can't save them both! You can't be in two places at once!
*Show DM character sheet.*
DM: I guess you can be in two places at once. Gratz.

Wait, did you have a fission, body outside body, or something to double yourself?

BRC
2011-02-16, 01:39 PM
What you did is exactly what a knight is supposed to do - the paladin is the embodyment of chivalry, after all. :smallconfused:
Charitableness and courtesy are there for dealing with those you protect and with the other sex, not for battle.
Agreed.

As I see it, a Paladin's Code of Honor should not invalidate good tactics. There are SOME tactics I would deem are "Dishonorable" enough that they would go against the Paladin's code, but those would be very specific tactics.
For example, I would not let a Paladin disguise themselves as a civilian in order to get close to, and then attack an enemy.
I would let them do that to sneak past or escape an enemy. I would let them approach the enemy under an invisibility spell or mundane stealth, or distract the enemy, or launch a surprise attack. I would let them approach the enemy while the enemy is unaware of who they are (for example, a paladin runs across a group of bandits who are robbing a merchant. He talks to them and walks close before drawing his sword). I would say they could disguise themselves as the enemy (Provided they don't make a habit of it), but they could not disguise themselves as a neutral third party. Basically, they don't need to start every fight with a loud declaration of who they are and what they intend, but they shouldn't do something that would make the enemy start stabbing civilians in case they turn out to be paladins in disguise.

I would not let them attack an enemy under a flag of truce (or some equivalent). This does not mean they must always agree to such a truce, or that they cannot be armed in case the enemy attacks them. But they should not be the one to break such a truce. I would not let them attack an enemy who has surrendered and disarmed (Disarmed means different things for different people.A fighter disarms by dropping his sword. A Wizard disarms by letting you bind his hands and gag him). you can do plenty of things to them, knock them out, tie them up, hit them with a hold person, but you can't attack them.

I would not let them abandon their allies unless they are convinced said allies cannot be saved, or if the ally in question is making the sacrifice willingly (Holding the Line as it were). They do not need to personally help said ally, and they do not need to succeed in saving them, but they shouldn't just twiddle their thumbs or turn tail when an ally is in trouble and they could help.

If it is a "Greater Good" type of situation, like if the Paladin has to choose between saving an ally from a skeletal dragon, or stopping the lich from completing a ritual that will create an army of such dragons, he can let the ally die in order to stop the ritual, but he will feel bad about it.
Same goes for if the Paladin's intervention would do nothing but get them both killed. Honor and Virtue do not mean pointless self-sacrifice.

Edit: A big thing to remember, in my opinion anyway, is that a Paladin should be judged by what they do to the best of their ability, including their ability to know what is right and wrong.

If an evil spellcaster creates an illusion of an army of demon ogres and a Paladin retreats, he will not fall, because he honestly believed that attacking the spellcaster would do nothing besides result in his death.
At the same time, a Paladin COULD fall for failing to properly investigate a situation before acting. He may be deceived, but they cannot deceive themselves or act without trying to figure out what is the right thing to do.

For example, if a Paladin comes across two people fighting on the road, he could try to break up the fight. He could act after making a reasonable judgement (One of them is wearing the uniform of the local watch, the other has the symbol of the local clan of bandits on his armor), he could Detect Evil. But he could not just pick one combatant and random and decide "He looks like a nice guy, I'll help him!".

Gnaeus
2011-02-16, 03:16 PM
Before 3rd edition, paladins were a powerful class that only few lucky players go to play if they rolled well, and to keep those awesome powers, they had to behave a certain way. That was considered to be acceptable. After all, if you're like a fighter (which back then wasn't that bad), but better, and you'll get a supermagical mount, a few cleric spells, good hit points, and a cool magic sword (yeah, the holy avenger with double damage to evil guys and an at-will anti-magic effect and perhaps even more cool stuff) then it's okay because with great power comes great responsability, as dear Uncle Ben would say in every Spider-Man incarnation.


Where I play, there is a certain dislike of paladins in general, mostly due to the fact that 9/10 paladins we've had in our groups were just annoying, overzealous p****s. Basically it was 'my way or else' and pointing at the code whenever an important story decision was to be made. Somehow, some people always think the paladin class comes with the right to tell everybody what to do.

In regards to paladins falling, I think most of it comes from misunderstandings between player and DM. Paladin code, as well as how a LG char should behave is a pretty subjective matter.

These three reasons basically sum up the problems. Where I have seen it, it is almost always one or a combination of these 3.

1 (edition shift in power) is a DM issue. If it can't be solved by demonstrating to the DM how crummy paladins are, choices are not to play a paladin or find a new DM. As Delta says, paladins in 3.x are weak enough with their powers INTACT.

2 (opinion that paladins are prats with sticks in uncomfortable places) is something that you can work with. Suggested solution: Talk to your DM/party before hand. Something like "I want to play a paladin. I don't want to be a jerk about it. Can we metagame our way to a place where this will not be a problem? (like, by having a lenient code, or other PCs who do not stomp on a paladin's code)"

3. (What does it mean?) This one requires a good communal understanding of what things like alignment mean. You don't have to be right (in some kind of RAW sense that you could get people on the board to agree to) but you have to be on the same page. My solution: Houserule that paladins, like clerics on some worlds, have to serve a specific Deity, or very occasionally a paladin Order with a much clearer code and objectives. Then, you can spend a lot less time arguing about the nebulous "is this lawful good?" and jump right to "would this action piss Moradin (or other deity of choice) off"? IMHO, that is usually a much easier question to answer. A god of honor is going to get angry about different actions than a god of mercy, but both may have paladins, and those paladins should not be punished for acting differently.

Engine
2011-02-16, 03:17 PM
What you did is exactly what a knight is supposed to do - the paladin is the embodyment of chivalry, after all. :smallconfused:
Charitableness and courtesy are there for dealing with those you protect and with the other sex, not for battle.

My Paladin wasn't a knight. He was a Paladin of the goddess of strategy and tactics. There's no evidence in the PHB that a Paladin should always do a straightforward charge. As someone else said, I agree there are some tactics that should be avoided. Mostly because they're not lawful and good.
Maneveur so he could flank an enemy isn't evil, isn't chaotic. So why not?
The Knight class is another matter, the Knight class must fight in a chivalrous manner. You could say that the Paladin must fight in this manner aswell, but the Code of Conduct, as it is worded, doesn't say a word about that.
So if a I play a Paladin of the Red Knight, a goddess of strategy and tactics, I feel I could play him as a smart tactician and not be stuck with the straightforward charge.

Swordguy
2011-02-16, 04:07 PM
I end up viewing a Paladin's Code as a sort of Chekov's Gun. The game shouldn't include a code of behavior if the Paladin never, at some point, has to be confronted with what the code really means and make difficult decisions based upon it. If the Code never comes up, then it's not really a disadvantage or a limitation.

It's really no different than playing a Lion Samurai in L5R, or a character with the Code of Honor disadvantage in GURPS. If you don't want to deal with the code, don't play a Paladin; it's that simple. The Code is an entirely voluntary roleplaying restriction (in that you volunteered to play a character whose archetype is practically defined by that Code).

The frustrating thing as a GM is players tend to take ANY instances of being placed in a difficult situation as "the GM wants me to fall!". No - most of the time, the GM wants you to seriously think over the situation and come to a decision based on roleplay, not what the most "obviously optimal" solution is. This is not to say there aren't bad GMs out there who will try to make paladins fall on purpose...but that's a Bad GM and that's an out-of-game personal issue.

When a player wants to be a paladin (or, conversely, when I want to play one in the rare instances I get to play a game), there's always a short discussion with the GM. I point out that, "at some point in the campaign, your faith and willingness to stick to the Code, even if it's not in your best interests, WILL be tested" (Druids and Clerics get a similar talk - especially Clerics). "It wil not be a no-win scenario, but may not be one with an obvious solution, or one that leaves everybody feeling happy. That's the price of being a paladin." They know up-front what they're getting into.

My all-time favorite RP moment was playing a Paladin, below, in spoiler:


Playing AD&D, I had a Paladin of name level (11th-ish) with a small keep out in the wilderness. Usual stuff. Sir Brimmer was married to another paladin of moderate level (Elara), and had two young sons.

As it turned out, he had to leave for a few years (5-ish) to the ends of the earth on a major save-the-world-style quest line. When he came back, he found that a really big kingdom had sprouted up around there area where his landhold was. It was a pretty nasty place; human-run, with some elves and dwarves as members, and some of all "good" humanoid as slaves. He's trying to figure out what's happened so he can do the "good" thing and bring down the Evil Empire, and journies in secret all the way to the center to the kingdom. In the middle of the great city there was his keep.

Trying to sneak in, he was captured and brought before the king. Only, the king was his wife. See, while he was away, a whole big mess of savage humanoids (Gnolls, mainly) had attacked his lands, sacked them, and killed both his sons. Elara totally lost it. For years, these savage humanoids had pricked away at civilized lands, killing and maiming for the sheer pleasure of it, and enough was enough. She was going to wipe them out. All of them. So she formed an alliance of men and dwarves (adding in elves later) of neighboring states to wipe out the gnolls and such. When the alliance started to fracture, she unilaterally terminated the other leaders and took over as sole ruler. Of course, since the war effort required far more resources than even the small alliance could muster, so she started conquering other lands nearby to use their populations and resources in the fight against the savage humanoids. It was an "if you aren't with use, you're against us" sort of thing. Along the way, she barely even missed her paladin abilities leaving her, so consumed she was by the need for revenge.

So that's what Sir Brimmer walked back into. One one hand, his wife whom he loved dearly was pursuing a venture that really would benefit all the civilized races, and striking back against those whom had murdered his family. On the other, she had become an evil, power-mad tyrant who enslaved or killed everyone who wouldn't help her toward her goal of genocide. On the other, other hand, he still loved her and swore an oath to love her and guard her always. On the other, other, other hand, he also had sworn an oath to defend against evil.


So,gentle readers...what does a Paladin do? What would YOU do?

(What did I do? That's a tale for another time, I think.)



I simply cannot see that situation being as poignant and heart-wracking with a character who isn't a Paladin, and whom doesn't have to work within the code.

Yukitsu
2011-02-16, 06:42 PM
Wait, did you have a fission, body outside body, or something to double yourself?

Trickery devotion. Create an image that can save the girl from the horrible bizarre trap thingy while I beat the **** out of the BBEG. I could in theory also do it the other way around, but it's a lot less likely to work.

BG
2011-02-16, 06:42 PM
Besides, most of the "make the Paladin fall" stories involve idiotic interpretations of the Code of Conduct. The Code is pretty clear: you only fall for one of three things:

a) not being lawful good
b) willfully committing an evil act
c) grossly violating the code of conduct

Interpreting that as "you can't use tactics" or "you must kill anything that detects as evil" makes absolutely no sense.

I think the problem is, as I've seen in a lot of arguments on these threads, there's a lot of argument of what does or does not constitute an evil act or violating the code of conduct.

big teej
2011-02-16, 06:50 PM
RE: clerics falling

I personally am just as big a stickler for "clerics following dogma" as paladins being lawful good.


example, in a campaign I'm playing in, we have a cleric of bahumut

the player is incapable of playing anything other than chaotic stupid. under me, this would have led to him being unable to replish spells IN A HEARTBEAT


under the other GM? not so much.

but its not my game, so I'm cool with it.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-16, 07:10 PM
If you're attracted to trope cycles, you need to stop. Shut the computer down, then take an hour away from TV Tropes. When you get back to your computer, erase your broswer history and delete any and all links you might have to TV Tropes. Then use severe aversion therapy to make sure you stay away from tropes of all kinds.

That site just confuses things and reduce everything to "Oh, it's just a <fill in trope>."

I think you're grossly misinterpreting what's being said. A player can know and be attracted to the cycle of fall and redemption without ever having heard of TV tropes or their jargon. The cycle has existed in stories, and in D&D, before that site even existed. It's not any wonder if it holds allure to some roleplayers - it's pretty archetypical.

Saph
2011-02-16, 07:31 PM
I think the problem is, as I've seen in a lot of arguments on these threads, there's a lot of argument of what does or does not constitute an evil act or violating the code of conduct.

I agree that you can have reasonable disagreements over what is and isn't an evil act, but if you look at actual cases where it's been a problem, it's usually because someone (most often the GM) isn't reasonable.

I mean, look at the two examples in this thread:


This. The dumbest thing my DM ever did was related to this. I had a paladin of Bahamut, and the DM made me fall for refusing to straight up murder a helpless black dragon hatchling because "Black dragons are always chaotic evil".


...as I said, my Paladin was a smart tactician. So most of the times I tried to play him as a military leader, coming up with some sort of cunning ideas to overcome opponens. But my ideas were always against the Code. In combat I could do just one thing: charging in front of the enemy. I couldn't even do a tactical retreat.

The problem in both cases isn't the class, it's the DM. We've never had a paladin fall in one of my games, and I don't think it's because our group is especially lenient about alignment - it's just that we don't treat alignment as an excuse to punish players.

Sine
2011-02-16, 07:41 PM
I've never seen a paladin fall, or seen paladin related drama in an actual game, but one of the guys in my group refuses to play LG characters on principle.

And we play 4e, where it doesn't even matter. :smalleek:

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-16, 07:43 PM
Does it count if they intentionally walk into morally questionable territory? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187577)

Telasi
2011-02-16, 07:49 PM
I let my players define the terms their own paladin codes, subject to my approval and interpretation, and just run with that. This ensures that there is no extended argument about whether a particular action is or is not in violation of the code, and maximizes the amount of control the paladin player has over his own actions.

That said, I personally feel that it's good to have to make hard decisions once in a while.

FMArthur
2011-02-16, 07:51 PM
Hard decisions should be hard because the character is torn between conflicting options, not because the character's player is worried about losing abilities.

Telasi
2011-02-16, 07:54 PM
Hard decisions should be hard because the character is torn between conflicting options, not because the character's player is worried about losing abilities.

Yes; I never meant to imply otherwise.

Grelna the Blue
2011-02-16, 08:07 PM
Powerwise, 3.5 paladins are terrible, while Pathfinder paladins rock. But flavorwise, they've always been potentially great. It's not the fault of the class concept that most players don't know how to consistently play Lawful Good (or any other alignment). It's the game designers' fault that none of the alignments are very well defined. Moreover, the paladin's code doesn't map perfectly to Lawful Good. It's not inconsistent with LG--it's just got some extra "honorable warrior" stuff added in (Note: it's perfectly possible to have a dishonorable LG PC; it's just that such a person would not qualify for paladin status).

Even when players have paladin PCs who totally rock, they have to worry as to whether the GM's interpretation of the rules is exactly the same as their own. However, my experience of GMs is a bit different than a lot of the posters above. I've seen a lot more examples of paladins, rangers, and (especially) clerics who should have been stripped of their powers than I have of PCs who were stripped but should not have been. Almost all of the GMs I've played with were afraid of upsetting their players and would threaten to bring down the hammer but never actually do it. I remember one ranger (back when they had to be good) who carried hacked off human arms in his backpack and attacked PCs with no provocation. Never lost his rangerhood.

Amphetryon
2011-02-16, 08:59 PM
I think you're grossly misinterpreting what's being said. A player can know and be attracted to the cycle of fall and redemption without ever having heard of TV tropes or their jargon. The cycle has existed in stories, and in D&D, before that site even existed. It's not any wonder if it holds allure to some roleplayers - it's pretty archetypical.

Indeed. Given that the site didn't create the term or the archetype, I can only apologize for apparently inflaming the issue by choosing the word 'trope' instead of 'convention', primarily for ease of reference.