[3.5] How to warn your good characters [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

ArcturusV

2013-01-17, 02:07 AM

Well the Thief's friend wasn't really being aggressive. It's one thing if a guy won't surrender in the act of evil. It's another when you're trying to murder a guy's friend and he won't let you do it. He wasn't attacking the party, just trying to stop them from attacking an unarmed (Presumably from the example) friend.

That's the sort of thing that starts the slippery slope to loosing Paladinhood in most of my games. "Killing an unarmed foe". In fact I had a Paladin lose her powers for the fourth time in a campaign due to killing unarmed foes who were also begging for mercy at the time in a cold blooded "but you're evil" execution. In fact if said murdered thief was saying something like "I don't want to hurt you, but I won't let you murder my friend!" or something like that, or was going, "I'll go peacefully to jail for this/return the loot if you just let us go" or the like I'd have considered it a fairly evil act and done something much more adverse.

If this is really the first Neutral/Evil act that the Paladin has done... and killing an unarmed thief might be played off as neutral more than evil, particularly if it's a first offense, or by the circumstances of saying that the thief had a weapon but hadn't drawn it yet and was just waiting for slightly better odds once his buddy was coming, or his attempts to surrender (if he did) weren't sincere, etc. Then you might just want to give him a slap on the wrist. Maybe a few of the parade witnesses going like "Wow... that's excessive..." should be hint enough.

If the thief was avoiding combat but trying to escape with his ill gotten goods when all the murdering rampage happened again that might put him in a neutral camp. Just have some comments like, "You know you could have just knocked him out, he wasn't a threat to you." or the like.

Ideally you should be able to not use something QUITE as heavy handed with it as a mentor NPC or Overseer in his order that witnessed it. I find it a bit more natural and effective if say, you have a Neutral Good or Chaotic Good member of the party (With your permission and maybe prodding to do so) just poke the Paladin and go, "Well that could have been handled better, what's wrong with you, woke up on the wrong side of the cot today?" Same effect, but by having it be a party member rather than a DM saying it through an NPC it gives a feeling to the Paladin that even his allies considered that a bit extreme and out of character. It has less of a big flashing sign that says "Fix this" as DM NPC warnings might.

And I for one always want Paladinhood to be something a player has to fight for the right to have in character. Not just something assumed and if they slip the world will go out of it's way to nudge them back. So subtler hints (But hints nonetheless) are how I'd go. If they don't take the hints and keep on trucking with the quasi-neutral or pure evil acts? Well Atonement is a spell for a reason as I remind them.

I like to save the character sidequest line for when a paladin actually falls. So the suggestion about taking care of the thief's family would be something I'd probably assign as a quest to earn the right for an Atonement spell after the Paladin falls, rather than throwing it at them now. Just keep it in mind as a potential hook for Atonement.

Sacrieur

2013-01-17, 02:14 AM

The code is pretty clear:

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Killing someone who posed no threat and was submitting to the authorities is clearly an evil act. Additionally LG requires that you obey the law, and I'm fairly sure the penalty for thievery in the country wasn't death, and that criminals at least had a right to trial.

Ask yourself what would happen if that situation was real. The paladin's deity saw what happened, yeah? Tell me what he/she would do.

Erik Vale

2013-01-17, 02:22 AM

I skipped the last couple of posts, but given the paladin is religious, start sending him omens [requiring a KS Religion roll for the mor edescrete ones], or have god 'temporarily' fall him. [As in a Day, or for a few rounds in combat forcing him on the defensive]
However, whilst I don't totaly agree, I do agree with TypoNinja's general sentiment..

TypoNinja

2013-01-17, 02:34 AM

TuggyNE

2013-01-17, 02:36 AM

Killing someone who posed no threat and was submitting to the authorities is clearly an evil act. Additionally LG requires that you obey the law

Neither of these is actually the case. LG generally considers following or revising existing law vastly preferable to flouting it, but in unusual cases may go outside it if nothing else will work. (And paladin-brand LG, in particular, is more Good than Lawful.)

And it's not at all obvious that the thief in question was submitting, although it's likely they posed little enough threat.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 02:59 AM

The code is pretty clear:

Killing someone who posed no threat and was submitting to the authorities is clearly an evil act. Additionally LG requires that you obey the law, and I'm fairly sure the penalty for thievery in the country wasn't death, and that criminals at least had a right to trial.

Ask yourself what would happen if that situation was real. The paladin's deity saw what happened, yeah? Tell me what he/she would do.

Don't care to weigh in on the OP's situtation but this isn't quite right.

There are two assumptions being made about the law of the society the thieves were in and a flat-wrong statement about Lawful meaning that paladins -must- obey the local laws.

Classic societies often punished thievery with at least mutilation if not death. That the paladin meted out what may well have been the punishment that the thief would've gotten anyway -can- excuse him from punishment under such a draconian legal code. It saved a judge and a hangman some time and saved the city some money. Such classic cultures also generally didn't bother to punish those that aided criminals unless they were caught in the middle of aiding them. Then they often shared the criminal's fate.

To repeat my point; there's a significant possibility that the paladin didn't act outside of the local law and that even if he did he did so in a socially acceptable manner. Classical societies are rough that way and the OP made no mention of what kind of society they were in at the time.

The lawful aspect of the paladin's alignment means that he respects the concept of law and order that legal codes seek to establish.

The good part of his alignment demands that such a code be placed and enforced for the good of the people that the legal code governs and that any code that doesn't have the parts that are harmful ignored until they're changed so that it does serve the greater good.

It similarly demands that he disregard any legal code put foward by a ruling body that isn't recognized by him, his order, or his god as legitimate and try to replace both that ruling body and its legal code with one that serves the people, rather than one that feeds off of them.

MrLemon

2013-01-17, 03:47 AM

So, to get this right (?)
* Thief A got caught
* Party initiates combat against Thief A, trips him.
* Thief B sees his colleague in dire peril and attacks the party non-lethally. Though he does brandish a sword, he never attacks
* Paladin slaughters Thief B
* Thief A got knocked out

This would warrant a fall in my opinion. It is near impossible to not notice the guy not attacking, both IC and OOC. The thief, SELFLESSLY protecting his friend was committing an act of Good. Killing him is definitely neither lawful (assuming the penalty for pickpocketing is not death), nor good.

If this was really his first offense, send him distressing flashbacks occasionally, when he tries to tap into divine power (i.e. smite, turn undead, spells, etc.), as a nudge from the divine powers that be. In game-terms, I'd probably ask for concentration checks.
Don't stop this, until he did atone for the deed (not atonement), like spending a night in vigil at the temple, or speaking to the thief's family asking for forgiveness, or committing to a (temporary) vow of silence/chastity/self-whipping/whatever.

I get the feeling, many DMs are afraid of letting Paladins fall, in order to not render them (more:smallyuk:) useless, but getting paladinhood back is one atonement and one quest away, IIRC.

ArcturusV

2013-01-17, 03:52 AM

Kane0

2013-01-17, 04:02 AM

My vote goes to "That was not a good approach"

It isnt evil, cause he didn't do it out of his own interests nor have anything to gain, but he did kill someone that posed little to no threat on grounds of petty thievery.

If he was a militant Paladin, that might be acceptable if the target was himself or in some other circumstances, but he witnessed the theft and then killed the thief with a crowd bystanding. It was a somewhat vigilante move in my eyes, since it would have been simple to deal nonlethal damage or just drag him away rather than spill blood at a large event.

Being a paladin is about being better than your opponents, and being better in the right way. He was not acting evil, but it was not good nor lawful of him to act so severely.

As for a warning to give him:
- The authorities will point out his error. It was not his place to outright kill a petty thief at a large event, even if it was for the greater good and if it was within his rights to do so.
- Failing that, let his conscience eat at him as that thief may or may not have had a good reason for his actions, and his friend will undoubtedly come back to haunt the paladin in some way later on.
- Also, It would not be out of the question for people who witnessed this to react with fear or hate towards the paladin too. He should expect a tough time at that place until he can redeem himself in the eyes he was trying to protect.

I wouldn't take away his paladin-ness just yet, but if he does not seriously consider how judiciously he should be with his weapon then do not rule it out.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 04:03 AM

Yeah. You really can't be afraid to let a Paladin fall.

Though as an aside to both Party Harmony (No need to Alignment Mother and Nag) and for the interests of fairness I usually drop the "Associates with..." clauses to losing Paladinhood.

Being held accountable for your actions is one thing.

Being held accountable for the actions of someone else who you don't really control is another.

It might interest you to know that the associates thing isn't actually part of the paladin's code. It's a seperate entry in the class description.

It's role-playing advice that got jammed in where it doesn't belong.

andromax

2013-01-17, 04:04 AM

To repeat my point; there's a significant possibility that the paladin didn't act outside of the local law and that even if he did he did so in a socially acceptable manner. Classical societies are rough that way and the OP made no mention of what kind of society they were in at the time.

I agree with Kelb here. The Paladin's actions could be justified in court.

* Thief B sees his colleague in dire peril and attacks the party non-lethally. Though he does brandish a sword, he never attacks

You managed to contradict yourself there.

Throwing a tanglefoot bag is as much of a hostile act as using the hilt of your greatsword to cause non-lethal damage.

This would warrant a fall in my opinion. It is near impossible to not notice the guy not attacking, both IC and OOC. The thief, SELFLESSLY protecting his friend was committing an act of Good. Killing him is definitely neither lawful (assuming the penalty for pickpocketing is not death), nor good.

I don't believe it would warrant a fall whatsoever. As a matter of fact, since his friend died during the commission of a crime that they were both acting in, he is more at fault than the paladin.

My vote goes to "That was not a good approach"

It isnt evil, cause he didn't do it out of his own interests nor have anything to gain, but he did kill someone that posed little to no threat on grounds of petty thievery.

If he was a militant Paladin, that might be acceptable if the target was himself or in some other circumstances, but he witnessed the theft and then killed the thief with a crowd bystanding. It was a somewhat vigilante move in my eyes, since it would have been simple to deal nonlethal damage or just drag him away rather than spill blood at a large event.

Being a paladin is about being better than your opponents, and being better in the right way. He was not acting evil, but it was not good nor lawful of him to act so severely.

As for a warning to give him:
- The authorities will point out his error. It was not his place to outright kill a petty thief at a large event, even if it was for the greater good and if it was within his rights to do so.
- Failing that, let his conscience eat at him as that thief may or may not have had a good reason for his actions, and his friend will undoubtedly come back to haunt the paladin in some way later on.
- Also, It would not be out of the question for people who witnessed this to react with fear or hate towards the paladin too. He should expect a tough time at that place until he can redeem himself in the eyes he was trying to protect.

I wouldn't take away his paladin-ness just yet, but if he does not seriously consider how judiciously he should be with his weapon then do not rule it out.

I think that sums it up pretty well. While I don't believe he should be in any trouble with his diety (not to say that his deity wont feel 100% comfortable with the approach) the local laws will certainly vary a great deal in how it plays out for him, from a legal standpoint.

Probably wouldn't go over so well in Silverymoon, but in Waterdeep it probably would be forgotten about immediately, especially if the party rogue bribed some guards.

Dreams and visions seem so common, but for the life of me I can't think of a better medium by which to tell the paladin. Does anyone have alternative methods that have worked well for them?

I think the simplest way would be to have some sort of a Court summons. Even if she were arrested. We've had to RP some court proceedings, trials etc, gather info & researching checks can be a pretty fun little side quest.

GolemsVoice

2013-01-17, 04:21 AM

Yeah, I'd say it wouldn't warrant a fall, but you could have either party members, bystanders or other associates react to the killing. Saying "Hey, buddy, I know you caught them red handed, but there was no need for such violence, man, you scared us!" could help.
So people don't see him as the defender of good and righteousness here, but as a scary man who will kill folks for things that could just have ended in prison.

TypoNinja

2013-01-17, 04:31 AM

What a lot of people advocating a fall seem to be forgetting is that in D&D violence and the use of force to solve a problem is far more normalized in the D&D world than it is here.

When's the last time you got hired to go arrest a group of bandits, or marauding (insert monstrous race here) tribe? Published D&D adventures furnish up lots of morally unambiguous ass kicking. This isn't just an observastion of mine based on how the D&D world acts, the Book of Exalted Deeds addresses the use of violence quite eloquently.

Violence is a part of the D&D world, and not inherently evil in the context of that world. The deities of good equip their heroes not just to be meek and humble servants, but to be their fists and swords, their champions in a brutal war against the forces of evil.

"He didn't surrender, so I hit him with my sword" is not an over-reaction in context of D&D. Even in our own violence shy society (compared to D&D anyway) the police will answer the threat of deadly force with deadly force of their own.

"I caught a thief, the dead one attacked us to try and secure the thief's escape, incidentally I do still have that thief I caught, here" is about all the town guard is going to care about the situation.

He's a Paladin, not an Apostle of Peace, he's not going to shy away from enforcing the law, root word force.

Santra

2013-01-17, 04:52 AM

Seeing as he killed a man who posed a threat but was performing a non-evil act give him a stern yet harmless warning. If he is in an area near a temple to his god than have his spells fail to come to him in the morning. Yet all his other abilities still work. He can go to his temple and speak with the priests who will either cast a divination spell of some sort to find out what action may have caused his gods displeasure and speak with him about how to avoid that situation. Afterwards he can pray and regain his spells like normal.

If he is too low to have spells than give him some sort of other warning showing that his abilities may suffer today.

Yahzi

2013-01-17, 04:55 AM

* Thief B sees his colleague in dire peril and attacks the party non-lethally. Though he does brandish a sword, he never attacks

It's D&D. For all you know, the thief is waiting for the shortsword to recharge so he can fireball the entire party into oblivion. It is an entirely plausible scenario.

You can't put the players in a world where shooting first means winning (i.e. all D&D combat) and then blame them for shooting first. The minute the thief drew a weapon (that he probably isn't legally allowed to own) on a higher-status person (who might even count as a noble) he signed his own death warrant. As if stealing wasn't already a death warrant.

There are some good ideas in here about making the paladin responsible for the outcome (orphans, etc.) and I think you should use them. Far more interesting than making the paladin fall is making the player aware of how violent an act he committed, and yet not making him fall.

As if the Gods were saying, "It's on you, man. You have the power; you can use it for good or ill. But you can't pass the buck to us."

Edit: Also, there is no way to brandish a sword that isn't threatening. If it's out of its scabbard, it's threatening.

Krazzman

2013-01-17, 05:02 AM

I have to admit... I am on the same side as TypoNinja and Kelb_Pantera.

Seriously the Tanglefootbag was and is a hostile action (Attack). The main problem is as TypoNinja said Paladins are a FORCE not a minor thing that babbles about how you should live.

A Paladin doesn't say "Please Mr. Necromancer, sir! Don't raise more undeads their corpses were loved ones." No he goes to the Necromancer and gives him an Steelpoisoning flavoured with sprinkles of divine power.

Furthermore as it has been said the Law is much more harsher than it is in our time. Go pick up a Historybook. I believe you find quite some things about torture and harsh judgements... seriously bakers have been nearly drowned if they made bad bread. This might not be the thing in the DnD universe but it was in the universe dnd is based on and instead of this ambiguous stuff about if those marauding monsters are actually evil are ignored and such violence is enforced.

To go back to the example:
The Paladin's actions might not have been good in the sense of killing someone but he killed someone armed. Fact is, sometimes people are fragile. This happens. But the fact is one Thief is KOed and the other tried to attack the party. Even if he hasn't attacked in the heat of battle you don't know if he pulled back for real. Maybe he waited for a more opportune way to strike you and is just too unsure if he should but without yielding there is no way that this was not in the safe-zone for the paladin.

An example from our groups experience. Imagine a normal Barroom with some commoners and a level 2 party of adventurers. One being a Female Dwarf Barbarian. A Barroom brawl breaks loose and well a commoner insulted said dwarf while the rest of the party tries to get somewhere safe and is punched nonlethally by that Dwarf. And died. A commoner just is that fragile and being punched, even nonlethally might kill a commoner. This could've even killed a Rogue. Her excuse to the cityguard was that he shouldn't have pissed her off if he can't take a punch. And remember even when you deal nonlethal damage... you can still roll a crit. And crits tend to kill people. You tried to knock him out and bam skullfracture.

An about the Unarmed... does that mean evil monks can clobber your paladin to death as he should not harm them because they have no weapons on them?

AntiTrust

2013-01-17, 05:02 AM

So, to get this right (?)
* Thief A got caught
* Party initiates combat against Thief A, trips him.
* Thief B sees his colleague in dire peril and attacks the party non-lethally. Though he does brandish a sword, he never attacks
* Paladin slaughters Thief B
* Thief A got knocked out

^That sums up what I said pretty succinctly. Thief A called out for Thief B to help him. Thief B tries to help him by throwing a tanglefoot bag as Thief A (now knocked prone) tries to crawl away from the group, getting AoO's as he moves. Thief B drew his sword, but never used it, although had the opportunity to do so. Thief A gets knocked out completely, Thief B drinks an invisibility potion and tries to escape. Paladin guesses the square he's in and makes his total conceal check. The resulting blow ends up killing Thief B.

To add just a little more detail to the story, the city watch does show up about the time the group is looting them, but don't press charges opting instead to scold the party and warn them that vigilantism will not be tolerated. That they can defend themselves when their lives are threatened, but what they need to do is run and get the city watch.

Yahzi

2013-01-17, 05:08 AM

vigilantism will not be tolerated. That they can defend themselves when their lives are threatened, but what they need to do is run and get the city watch.

That's an appropriately medieval response.

"Hey! You can't kill those thieves! They're our thieves. Only we can kill them."

"Also, I was getting a cut from that one, so now you owe me what he used to pay."

:smallbiggrin:

andromax

2013-01-17, 05:12 AM

Thief B (we'll call him that although the party never saw him steal anything) had opportunities to attack, but never did so. Opting instead to try and help Thief A escape via tanglefoot bag.

Except for the fact that alot of the people responding to this thread all agree that the tanglefoot bag qualified as an attack, and just because he didn't hit anyone with his sword doesn't change the fact that he;

-Had the capability to do so any
-Had the intent to act aggressively toward them (he threw a tanglefoot bag at them and assaulted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault) them with a sword while they were trying to apprehend his accomplice).
-Had the opportunity to attack them

Those are the 3 criteria (intent, capability, & opportunity) that federal law enforcement use in their Use of Force training, and it could be applied here as a demonstration of "Objective Reasonableness."

TuggyNE

2013-01-17, 05:18 AM

An example from our groups experience. Imagine a normal Barroom with some commoners and a level 2 party of adventurers. One being a Female Dwarf Barbarian. A Barroom brawl breaks loose and well a commoner insulted said dwarf while the rest of the party tries to get somewhere safe and is punched nonlethally by that Dwarf. And died. A commoner just is that fragile and being punched, even nonlethally might kill a commoner. This could've even killed a Rogue. Her excuse to the cityguard was that he shouldn't have pissed her off if he can't take a punch. And remember even when you deal nonlethal damage... you can still roll a crit. And crits tend to kill people. You tried to knock him out and bam skullfracture.

OK, that's an unusual houserule. 1d3+4 non-lethal can kill a Rogue? :smallconfused: (Even 2d3+8 lethal only has a 50% chance of outright killing a commoner, nevermind a PC with maxed first-level HP and a Con bonus.)

AntiTrust

2013-01-17, 05:21 AM

Except for the fact that alot of the people responding to this thread all agree that the tanglefoot bag qualified as an attack, and just because he didn't hit anyone with his sword doesn't change the fact that he;

-Had the capability to do so any
-Had the intent to act aggressively toward them (he threw a tanglefoot bag at them and assaulted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault) them with a sword while they were trying to apprehend his accomplice).
-Had the opportunity to attack them

Those are the 3 criteria (intent, capability, & opportunity) that federal law enforcement use in their Use of Force training, and it could be applied here as a demonstration of "Objective Reasonableness."

No disrespect of course, but a paladin and your local PD aren't held to the same standards. At least in my games they aren't. However I completely agree that the paladin shouldn't fall for it, which is why I'm opting for a more subtle nod that says "you should try to find a better way in the future". Hell, the watch saying he doesn't allow vigilantism in his city may be enough, but I thought something a little more personal or religiously related in some way may drive that message home and even give the chance for a little introspection.

TypoNinja

2013-01-17, 05:36 AM

^That sums up what I said pretty succinctly. Thief A called out for Thief B to help him. Thief B tries to help him by throwing a tanglefoot bag as Thief A (now knocked prone) tries to crawl away from the group, getting AoO's as he moves. Thief B drew his sword, but never used it, although had the opportunity to do so. Thief A gets knocked out completely, Thief B drinks an invisibility potion and tries to escape. Paladin guesses the square he's in and makes his total conceal check. The resulting blow ends up killing Thief B.

To add just a little more detail to the story, the city watch does show up about the time the group is looting them, but don't press charges opting instead to scold the party and warn them that vigilantism will not be tolerated. That they can defend themselves when their lives are threatened, but what they need to do is run and get the city watch.

So dude basically went down to one shot, and a blind swing? That's the general randomness of dealing with sharp metal objects, might only disable him, might give him a new hole to breathe through. Its a rough world. **** happens. Unless you've got dedicated grapplers (or some kind of capture focused PrC) its really hard to take prisoners who aren't willing to surrender, the down but not dead yet range is pretty narrow.

(In my group we've house ruled that you die at -con score in HP instead of -10, makes it much easier to take prisoners, and nicely models the fact that big beefy types are harder to put down than weak spindly types. We also switched the stabilize roll from 10% to 10+con mod%, same reason)

Looting the bodies is a little iffy in this situation, but I suppose that depends on the area.

My only question would be the paladins attitude about this, if his reaction was something like "Dammit, I killed him, I wasn't trying to" then its all good. If he was more like "He's down, lets loot his corpse" then you might have an issue.

What I'm trying to get at is that while I think killing this thief is an acceptable outcome, it shouldn't have been the desired outcome.

AntiTrust

2013-01-17, 05:42 AM

Thief B had gotten hit once before by the paladin, and possible the ranger I can't recall, but when he got to about 1/3 hp and after seeing his friend already knocked out he decided to cut his losses, drink the invis potion and run. Unfortunately, 5ft step away from paladin, move action draw potion and standard action drink potion sort of gave his position away pretty easily. The paladin 5ft stepped into the adjacent square and did a full attack, hitting with all attacks.

The paladins reaction was more so to defend her choices rather than anything related to regret or sorrow for his death.

ArcturusV

2013-01-17, 05:45 AM

Yeah, that's less in the Evil and more in the Accidental category from the sounds of it.

Unless the Paladin, as mentioned, was like "Cool, lets loot! Maybe he has another Invisibility potion or something neat in there!"

But there's a world of difference between striking down a non-aggressive guy trying to protect a friend and luck striking an invisible thief trying to escape. I would not even bat an eye at a situation like that. He really didn't have all that much option to do anything else. Not unless your Paladin carries, I dunno, a net with proficiency in it and he could have just thrown it over where the guy was and less than lethally bagged him like that.

That being the other line I'd have drawn. When you have a reasonable means NOT to kill someone who isn't really a threat but you choose to do so. it's not an "Evil" act to kill a criminal or other ne'erdowell who is about to escape or something when you could have otherwise detained him. But it's certainly not Good. Keeping in mind Paladins are supposed to be kept to a higher moral code than most in their setting would follow. If he keeps walking the line of what's convenient rather than what's right. Maybe a warning for drifting towards Lawful Neutral alignment.

But again, doesn't seem to be the case here.

TypoNinja

2013-01-17, 05:48 AM

Krazzman

2013-01-17, 05:50 AM

OK, that's an unusual houserule. 1d3+4 non-lethal can kill a Rogue? :smallconfused: (Even 2d3+8 lethal only has a 50% chance of outright killing a commoner, nevermind a PC with maxed first-level HP and a Con bonus.)

I don't remember it clearly but it was about 15 (2d3+10) damage. (it was a crit, if I wasn't clear enough to elaborate this... I'm sorry).

And not so much outright killing him but enough to bring him into negatives...

And imagine a Rogue with his 10 hp max. being hit to -5 directly and the following 9 rounds is in a condition of saving him with a 10% chance. Chances are he dies after a minute. Don't know if commoners in PF have more than a d4 hd but even then 6 to 8 hp won't help much against 15 damage into his face.

Back to topic:
Again. The ThiefB used magical items to a) help a criminal escape, b) assault the party (which can warrant the protection solely) c) tried to flee execution
Additionally the paladin, with no way to actually see him stabbed him to death. If the paladin did the Tripping then yes, he should have done that instead of simply hitting him.

The thing is if you think he acted outside of several bounds, how he played the paladin before then the nudge from the city guard should be enough. Give the paladin a warning and let them arrest the thiefA. Maybe if such things arise let him have a longer cooldown on his once a week abilities or such things. But only if those things build up without "atoning" (without the spell). Still he shouldn't be fallproof but he has done nothing wrong.

AntiTrust

2013-01-17, 05:51 AM

TypoNinja

2013-01-17, 05:59 AM

At the end of the day my post wasn't an attempt to justify my reaction to it. That's a done deal as far as I'm concerned, I'm just trying to come up with a way to say it could have been handled better.

The City Guard would probably be the best vehicle for that. Something like "We appropriate the help, but High Justice(the power to execute someone) is reserved for (insert Title of local ruler and/or magistrate here), in the future if you wish to intervene please ensure you can deliver live prisoners.

This also sets your Paladin up for possibly having to choose between risking violating the local laws, and letting known criminals escape if he can't secure them without using lethal force.

LordBlades

2013-01-17, 06:04 AM

Initially, I was going to agree with the rest of the people who said that what the paladin did was slightly excessive, but definitely not worthy of a fall. However, in the light of the guy drinking an Invisiblity potion I believe the paladin's use of force was pretty well justified.

The paladin was faced with a guy that threw a Tanglefoot bag, threatened a group of armed men with his own weapon (so he's shown willingness to use violence against the party and take risks in order to help his companion escape) that has just drank a potion of Invisibility. There was no way to know from the Paladin's perspective if he was going to use Invisibility to disappear or to try and stab one of the more frail party members in the back (which depending on the relative levels of the party and thief might have killed him outright) to try and free his friend.

If I was playing a Paladin in the described situation, I would have demanded the thieves' surrender, but when one of them disappeared with weapon in hand, I wouldn't have taken the chance that one of my companions could be injured or killed due to my inaction, and I would have struck a blow at the thief as well.

Amphetryon

2013-01-17, 12:31 PM

The town authorities arrest the paladin for excessive force/bloodshed within the town?

Aegis013's post is filled with wisdom and plottiness. I would heed his sage counsel, in your shoes.

monkey3

2013-01-17, 12:53 PM

Yukitsu

2013-01-17, 12:57 PM

The instant you draw a sword, you are no longer a non-combatant, no matter your actions or intentions otherwise.

What you could do better in that situation, is have thief 2 throw his body over his friend human shield style, but if he's knocked out and getting arrested, he by no means is doing anyone any favours by jumping in there.

Edenbeast

2013-01-17, 01:30 PM

This sounds like one of those questions in a 'what's my alignment test' where you witness a crime being commited in an alley. What do you do:
A. Ignore what you saw
B. Attack those criminals and save the victim
C. Kill the criminals and the victim and take the money
D. Warn the local authoroties

The last one is the most lawful thing to do, I know in some countries it's not allowed to take the law into one's own hands. As a stranger you have to be aware of local laws, your paladin may have broken the rules of this town and has to face court for it.
On a side note, he could have used his weapon to deal non-lethal damage, capture the thieves and turn them in.

Aegis013

2013-01-17, 01:50 PM

Aegis013's post is filled with wisdom and plottiness. I would heed his sage counsel, in your shoes.

This pleases me greatly. It's not like he'd need to be thrown in a dungeon, a quick clarification of circumstance and testimony of some witnesses would probably be sufficient to get him out.

GolemsVoice

2013-01-17, 03:45 PM

Another_Poet

2013-01-17, 03:57 PM

The town authorities arrest the paladin for excessive force/bloodshed within the town?

I second this. Or, like, eighth it at this point.

Bear in mind that the paladin noticed the pickpocketing - did anyone else? Even if so, the paladin isn't off the hook; that just means he might have a witness in his defense at his murder trial.

Imagine if this happened in your town. There's a parade. A stranger shoots one man to death and hospitalizes another. When the police rush to the scene the stranger claims it's okay because "I saw one of them stealing."

AAAAAAhahahahahah welcome to prison my friend.

Best case scenario a respected cleric vouches for the paladin and saves his butt. More likely, he's hanged.

Amphetryon

2013-01-17, 04:07 PM

Best case scenario a respected cleric vouches for the paladin and saves his butt. More likely, he's hanged.
I disagree. Best case scenario is the Paladin's story is found plausible (Zone of Truth in the sheriff's office may be in effect) and he's free to go. Worst case, he and (possibly) his allies are escorted out of the city.

There's no need to execute a murderhobo simply for being good at his job in D&D, especially when he's Lawful Good at his job.

Of course, if the society in which this happened is some flavor of Evil, things get WAY more complicated.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 04:41 PM

Paladins are not police officers. They're held to similar, but not the same, standards in many instances but they're closer to swat than uniformed officers. "Take the shot when its clear" is something that's automatic in regards to hostiles, which thief B clearly was; sword drawn = hostile.

D&D towns are -NOT- subject to US law in any way. They're, generally speaking, independently governed by whoever's at the top of the local food chain; a mayor, a town council, a particularly influential merchant, etc. Large nations with something equivalent to federal law that all settlements must abide are a rarity due to the obstacles in place for actually forming such a nation. Even kingdoms don't generally hold massive territories and the law only applies as far as its enforcers can reach. In the wilds, there is no law.

Classical legal codes were generally roughly outlined affairs with relatively little detail. That thievery is illegal is a reasonable assumption, that there are specific, codified punishments for it is not. Punishments were left to the judge, who was typically a member of the town council or the mayor or some-such, as often as not and when punishments were codified they was usually quite harsh compared to modern sensibilities. That a common citizen caught stealing would be fined, jailed for an extended period, or given community service is a very modern idea. Common punishments were more to the effect of mutilation, forced labor, torture, or death; with forced labor, torture, and death often being nearly equivalent.

Invisibility is as often an offensive measure as a defensive or evasive one. That the theif drank a potion of invisibility only said he wanted to not get sworded. Whether he intended to escape or deliver a sneak attack is something that the paladin couldn't have known.

I call no fall, no problem. Mercy is good, its absence is not evil. Without a clear declaration of surrender the thief was an enemy combatant and his life was the paladins to either spare or take. If you don't want a sword stuck into you, don't draw one.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-17, 04:44 PM

The reason I avoid playing paladins is because of DMs like the OP. This is not directed at him, but at the lot of you.

Stop turning your PCs into NPCs.
Stop telling them how they should act.
Stop telling them "your character would not do ___"
As a DM, you have 6billion NPCs, leave your 6 PCs alone!

Hmm, underlying hostility to the situation. The player character has the conditional coolness that comes with being a pally. Reminding the player of these conditions is as much for the benefit of the player as the DM. Furthermore, low-level boundary definition will greatly improve the situations that later will likely emerge, as opposed to giving the player free reign to do w/e with the character and then later coming down hard when an obvious mistake is made.

I think the OP handled it pretty well. Depending on the flavor of the city, a trip to jail pending resolution of legal standing might be justified, or it might not. If the city watch weigh heavily in the execution of the law, then their on-the-spot ruling may be enough to clear his name from a legal perspective.

Regardless, killing people is something that most LG churches have to be warning their worshipers about resorting to as a way to solve problems. LG people usually want society to operate in a way that upholds safety and justice for all, and relying on the combat-dice whims as a way to administer justice is the opposite of enlightened. Even if the courts would deal with the thief harshly, it is ENTIRELY the job of the local legal system to mete out justice. Apprehension of the criminal is the best result from the paladin's perspective, but allowing a criminal to temporarily evade justice might be preferable to the small chance that there was some misunderstanding. Killing someone can't be taken back, and self-defense is not a justification lightly adopted by the virtuous. Scared thieves with strangely valuable possessions shouldn't be treated like retreating orcs brandishing falchions. I believe the OP mentioned that Thief B could have been using the sword to attack, but CLEARLY had not attacked, and if the paladin could see this, then laying it on with the beatstick was probably a little beyond the pale.

In any case, light-handed interventions at first infraction, then a warning of some kind from clergy of the pally's church, then move on to dreams, temporary suspension of powers, etc. Maybe a friendly cleric of the pally's order sends the pally a letter about how she got a visit from the Watch, and wasn't the cleric surprised to hear them claim that the church was officially reprimanded/owed a fine after a paladin of their order killed someone in the streets. Could be some good role play, but probably just want to gloss over this first thing after some minor comments.

Good luck. People poo poo the alignments stuff in D&D, but where is the drama of playing an important role in world events if we whitewash morality out of it? I for one find thinking about what my character should or shouldn't be doing, either by vow or preference, to be highly stimulating and enjoyable. And, even with vows, a change of heart or personal conversion is always possible, so even in classic D&D, alignment is hardly the cold iron chain about the neck that some people make it out to be.

Edenbeast

2013-01-17, 05:04 PM

It's really not that bad. The DM is requesting advice on how to quently remind his paladin player that he is, well, a paladin. He's not "I let a paladin fall for killing a man who maybe wasn't 100% hostile, olololololol"

If you play a paladin, that means you have certain restrictions that, unfortunately, come with the class. The GM is just trying to tell that to his player, remind him that maybe he's overstepped a line there.

Apart from that, behaving like 'normal' people goes for all PC's. I've once had a party going on a rampage in a bar, because one player got into an argument with a drunk dwarf. Now of course something could be said about my decision to have the dwarf slap him in the face, but the player was arrogant, and even after several hints he continued with insults. After the slap he concluded "HOSTILE!", drew his sword and attacked the dwarf. I improvised by sending in city guards to arrest everyone. There I stopped play and asked the players if they were going to attack the guards as well. I told them they had dealt non-lethal damage and wouldn't go to prison as murderers, but if they attack the guards they would stand no chance and die.

Now I agree a GM should leave the PC's alone and should not have to tell the players how to act their PC. And frankly, most players I know come with well designed characters and know how to RP them. As GM you have to be clear about your world and its laws. Attacking a thief and killing him on the street in broad daylight, while there are penalties for theft according to local law, is murder. BAM, paladin falls. Have him pray for mercy for his god has abandoned him.
In the special case of a paladin it's always a good idea to read through the deity's dogma together with the player, and then make sure you both have the same interpretation.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 05:31 PM

Point of order; killing -is- something that can be taken back in D&D. It's just not cheap.

Yukitsu

2013-01-17, 05:37 PM

Apart from that, behaving like 'normal' people goes for all PC's. I've once had a party going on a rampage in a bar, because one player got into an argument with a drunk dwarf. Now of course something could be said about my decision to have the dwarf slap him in the face, but the player was arrogant, and even after several hints he continued with insults. After the slap he concluded "HOSTILE!", drew his sword and attacked the dwarf. I improvised by sending in city guards to arrest everyone. There I stopped play and asked the players if they were going to attack the guards as well. I told them they had dealt non-lethal damage and wouldn't go to prison as murderers, but if they attack the guards they would stand no chance and die.

Now I agree a GM should leave the PC's alone and should not have to tell the players how to act their PC. And frankly, most players I know come with well designed characters and know how to RP them. As GM you have to be clear about your world and its laws. Attacking a thief and killing him on the street in broad daylight, while there are penalties for theft according to local law, is murder. BAM, paladin falls. Have him pray for mercy for his god has abandoned him.
In the special case of a paladin it's always a good idea to read through the deity's dogma together with the player, and then make sure you both have the same interpretation.

I find this all pretty dodgy in all respects. It doesn't conform to modern law, and it certainly completely breaks my knowledge of any past laws. If a man draws a weapon on me, no matter his intent on using it, gives a citizen permission to kill them if they have the means to do so, and they cannot be charged as murderers in that circumstance (only excessive force, which is excusable if you're capable of justifying it). If you're talking about any past law, a thief can be killed off hand if caught in the act, and even more so, if they try to defend themselves. Hell, local magistrates get in more trouble if anyone with any status like a paladin would got robbed for failing to maintain order.

And even in real life, you don't slap a guy in a bar if you don't want a bar fight. That would just be moronic. With a bunch of pseudo professional killers without any specific company regulations, that's going to be amplified. I mean, party aside, WTF did that dwarf think was going to happen? Ask me, if the players slapped a bunch of random adventurers, you'd just as readily have all of them roughed up or killed by the random adventurers, because honestly, that's the response that you should see coming a mile away.

Artillery

2013-01-17, 05:39 PM

I see a lawful-good Paladin doing the usual exchange from an Elder Scrolls game

Stop Right there Criminal Scum...
*Thief Resist Arrest*
Then Pay with your Blood

Krazzman

2013-01-17, 05:47 PM

Attacking a thief and killing him on the street in broad daylight, while there are penalties for theft according to local law, is murder. BAM, paladin falls. Have him pray for mercy for his god has abandoned him.

This is where you are wrong. It is not killing a Thief for thieving it is killing an agressor that assaulted you and remained hostile towards you and had a weapon ready to attack. If he attacked or not is null due to the point the drawn weapon alone has. That he did not attack could be multiple things. Waiting for an opportunity, readying a counterattack etc. you can't be sure. As Kelb said, the invisibility can be either offense or defense.

Imagine this: you see someone picking your friends pocket as such you and your buddies hold him down until someone calls the "police" (guards). While you do this a buddy of his throws something at you and has a blade drawn ready to fight you.

And yeah in the US, at least what we in europe can read in the news, there are laws against such a thing.
@Another_Poet: Yeah, not really you could've said that you were threatened and would've used the same excuse Zimmermann used. And everyone in the crowd could confirm that the one being shot had a weapon drawn. And no the claim wouldn't be "I saw one of them stealing!" that would the int 8 barbarian yell in a happy doofus smiling face. It would more be along the lines of "Hello officers, this man you see there lying on the ground tried to steal, when caught we tried to hold him down so that you can arrest him, while this one here assaulted us with a Tanglefootbag, and tried to attack us with his blade. He further tried to use a Potion of Invisibility. [Introducing stuff, handing waypapers etc.]"
Maybe adding a "I'll heal fugitive and will organise the burial-steps for the dead-guy." But that's not that necessary.

Again. Mercy = Good, missing Mercy != evil.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-17, 05:53 PM

Point of order; killing -is- something that can be taken back in D&D. It's just not cheap.

Jokingly funny, but a practical impossibility for 99% of everyone. Unless the party is going to res a victim, or an npc is extremely well-connected or rich, or it's a high-magic world with res-o-matic, assume that death is permanent. Otherwise, no one fears death and punishing criminals suddenly gets much harder. High-level spell coolness is largely the domain of the pcs, not the common man.

I find this all pretty dodgy in all respects. It doesn't conform to modern law, and it certainly completely breaks my knowledge of any past laws. If a man draws a weapon on me, no matter his intent on using it, gives a citizen permission to kill them if they have the means to do so, and they cannot be charged as murderers in that circumstance (only excessive force, which is excusable if you're capable of justifying it). If you're talking about any past law, a thief can be killed off hand if caught in the act, and even more so, if they try to defend themselves. Hell, local magistrates get in more trouble if anyone with any status like a paladin would got robbed for failing to maintain order.

And even in real life, you don't slap a guy in a bar if you don't want a bar fight. That would just be moronic. With a bunch of pseudo professional killers without any specific company regulations, that's going to be amplified. I mean, party aside, WTF did that dwarf think was going to happen? Ask me, if the players slapped a bunch of random adventurers, you'd just as readily have all of them roughed up or killed by the random adventurers, because honestly, that's the response that you should see coming a mile away.

I don't see grounds for equating laws in a fantasy setting to either present day standards of excessive force or the (largely barbaric) laws of the distant past. World flavor is king, and if the OP DM says that murdering people in the street, even in self-defense, is frowned upon, then it is. End of story. In a standard setting or one where someone else is DM, it could be entirely different.

Moreover, in the past, self-defense was an argument usable only under highly favorable circumstances. Basically, was the culprit well-to-do? Was the victim rich or poor? In real life, the justice systems of the past were only as upstanding as the officer on the scene, and money, corruption, and general poor standards of evidence collection have exonerated many a guilty man and sent many the innocent down to death. So don't equate real life to a world where determining the truth is objectively possible and where the DM's judgement on what is culturally appropriate is the ONLY guideline with relevance.

And that tone was a little more harsh than intended.... Nothing personal.

Yukitsu

2013-01-17, 06:02 PM

I don't see grounds for equating laws in a fantasy setting to either present day standards of excessive force or the (largely barbaric) laws of the distant past. World flavor is king, and if the OP DM says that murdering people in the street, even in self-defense, is frowned upon, then it is. End of story. In a standard setting or one where someone else is DM, it could be entirely different.

You need to sort of establish something, most players will act on one or the other. "Sword gets drawn on you, you can't fight anyway neener neener" is not one that makes sense in any environment, real, fictional, or from a narrative perspective. And really, if you're arguing this when the paladin is doing the completely reasonable thing of attacking an armed foe who has not surrendered, it's clear you haven't communicated that, and simply assumed that your idea on how justice should work was self evident.

Moreover, in the past, self-defense was an argument usable only under highly favorable circumstances. Basically, was the culprit well-to-do? Was the victim rich or poor? In real life, the justice systems of the past were only as upstanding as the officer on the scene, and money, corruption, and general poor standards of evidence collection have exonerated many a guilty man and sent many the innocent down to death. So don't equate real life to a world where determining the truth is objectively possible and where the DM's judgement on what is culturally appropriate is the ONLY guideline with relevance.

And that tone was a little more harsh than intended.... Nothing personal.

In this case, the "offender" is above average wealth, of a specific status being a paladin at all, and the supposed victim was an armed thief with no status, evidently no wealth, and who had not surrendered when attacked. This would be a clear cut a case as any.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 06:05 PM

No offense taken.

But on the killing being reversible, yeah it is the province of PC's. If the PC kills somebody and he's told, in-character, that it's unacceptable he -can- pay for a raise dead spell or perhaps even provide one if there's a cleric in the party or if they have a scroll.

I didn't mean to suggest it was common, only possible and that the people most likely to have to take it back -can- undo a kill or at least get it undone.

On the matter of modern Vs classical legal codes. I was only pointing out that modern codes aren't a given and giving something for them to contrast against. The DM decides what the laws in the society he creates are and assuming that he's modeled it after modern law is a bold assumption. Hell, it's an assumption to think that the DM's actually given any serious thought to the matter at all, rather than just winging it in the moment.

Flickerdart

2013-01-17, 06:20 PM

I'd say this was not an Evil act - defending your property against an armed assailant is strictly Neutral - but it was definitely Chaotic. The Lawful thing to do would have been to use nonlethal damage, beat both of the thieves senseless, and then dump them on whatever passes for local law enforcement authorities. A paladin cannot fall from even repeated Chaotic acts, but they can eventually cause him to stray from his alignment and no longer be able to advance.

Since this is an issue of Law, the best way to address it would be through authority. Does this paladin serve a church or lord? If so, how long has it been since his last performance review/confession/whatever? If he does not, what gives him the authority to mete out justice?

Gildedragon

2013-01-17, 07:06 PM

In this case I don't think a fall is warranted, the character is not Exalted. But one should not be afraid of dropping particularly sanguinary paladins.

The notion of having a guard/noble reprimand the paladin is a good one. It is a call to do kn local to know the laws, and justifies having ranks in the skill. It also provides a hook for the players (example: fine waived in exchange of providing a service to the city).
In the wild with no witnesses, asking for a low will save or concentration check shows the deity's displeasure (also works with clerics). Alternatively, taking away a small class feature (immunity to fear, 1 use of smite evil, lowering CL) is another way.

If the paladin is doing this sort of thing often, offer them a merciful sword, with a cheapening of the enchantment, have it do the same damage both mercifully and not (to drop the price further). Make it "intelligent" having it act as a phylactery of faithfulness, growing hot or cold in hand when unjust or unrighteous actions are taken. If the paladin is in real risk of falling it shatters against the next non-evil target it strikes, dealing no damage.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-17, 07:14 PM

The scene was a parade and a pair of pick pockets were plying their trade on the unsuspecting crowd. The groups paladin caught one doing it and the group initiated combat. The thief got tripped and out from the crowd his friend appeared yelling at the thief to get out of here. He tosses a tanglefoot bag at one the party members and now joins the combat. In about three rounds the friend has had the opportunity to attack the party with the short sword he brandished, but never did, merely defending himself while trying to protect his thief friend. The paladin meanwhile went all out on the thief's friend and killed him. The thief meanwhile ended up getting knocked out.

So, we are quickly approaching the beating-dead-horse point in the conversation. But I thought a couple things needed to be brought back up.

>The thieves do not appear to have been stealing from the paladin or his friends.
>The party initiated the fight.

It seems to me, this significantly reduces the plausibility of a self-defense. The paladin was never in danger from the thieves until the paladin/party initiated combat. That the thieves were committing a crime is up to someone else to judge, at this point the paladin's duty extends only up to capturing the suspects. Instead, an injured thief and his scared (if well-equipped) friend are forced to use desperate tactics to attempt an escape. It's not clear that the paladin ever tried to warn them, offer surrender, etc. While clearly not a case of cutting down a random person or someone that was non-hostile, the thieves did nothing besides pick pockets that wasn't provoked.

A paladin aware of the non-lawful nature of vigilantism should have known better. One that was not aware should be informed of the distinction between intervening in a crime and making a situation worse.

Yukitsu

2013-01-17, 08:30 PM

Deophaun

2013-01-17, 10:33 PM

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-17, 10:41 PM

I'd definitely have the local law enforcement say something, and have people refusing to meet the paladin's eyes in bars, talking as little as possible to them and such as word spread that there's a big guy using live steel on pickpockets.
But I'm apparently a bit weird, 'cause, assuming "the group initiates combat" means they brought out weapons before the thieves did, I'd probably be a lot less hesitant to have that paladin fall (unless I were deliberately making the paladin's code much more lax). Though I'd probably lay that out when someone wanted to play a paladin, rather than in-play - a miscommunication as to what's expected of a paladin (or a Good character generally) would not and should not lead to a fall.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 10:50 PM

I think what you need to accept is that when you're talking about someone like a paladin, they are obligated to directly intervene when someone is committing a crime, whether the judge would agree or not. "Oh I let him rob some people, it wasn't me he was robbing" is worse than trying to apprehend a thief. And when his friend came in with a sword, that's when it became self defense, and that's when they stopped trying to operate non-violently.

Unfortunately, no they're not. Choosing not to intervene upon spotting a non-evil crime is a chaotic act, not an evil one. A paladin shouldn't make a habit of ignoring crimes he's witnessed lest he become non-lawful himself, but he's no more obligated to intervene than any other lawful character.

Picking pockets isn't inherently evil. Robbery at knife-point would be a necessary intervention (disrespect for life, potential for a murder to occur, flouting of authority, bullying) but pick-pocketing wouldn't. Unless the pickpocket takes the last few coppers off of someone that's obviously destitute and mal-nourished he has no intent to harm and likely doesn't cause any.

Drawing a sword, whether you intend to use it or not, declares you to be a combatant. If you don't surrender then your life is forfeit. Seriously, don't draw a sword if you don't want one put through your guts.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-17, 10:56 PM

I'd also be interested in knowing how obvious it was that Thief B was a thief. Depending on what had actually been seen, it sounded a lot like only one thief was witnessed thieving.

Which brings up an excellent point. The guy who died might not have stolen anything. Granted, using tanglefoot bag and invisibility potion and waving a sword is classic bad judgement when confronting an organized party that has just given your friend the beat down, but still, friends are friends, even if your friend was caught doing something illegal.

I'd also like to hear what others think if the roles were reversed. The sketchy member of the party has been caught in some minor lawbreaking in which no one was hurt. A group of people has caught the sketchy party member, and is proceeding to beat him up, apparently with intent to kill (i.e., using lethal weapons). What should the paladin do in this instance? Loyalty to friends over his code? Life being threatened, first stone cast, so let's whale away?

Deophaun

2013-01-17, 11:09 PM

I'd also like to hear what others think if the roles were reversed.
The paladin may well have acted exactly as the theif's friend acted and been in good stead with his alignment. If the paladin was killed in defense of his friend, it still doesn't make his killers evil or any less justified.

It would also be possible to use the term "tragic" in this situation and actually use the term correctly.

awa

2013-01-17, 11:10 PM

Personally i would do nothing becuase the pc did nothing wrong an invisible rogue is more dangerous then a visible one.

if someone points a gun at you and you shoot him no sane police officer would then say oh that was wrong you should have let him shoot you a couple times to be sure he was trying to kill you.

The moment the second thief drew a lethal weapon the party was justified in using lethal force.

otherwise is the pc going to be forced to let every individual orc hit for lethal damge before hes sure this is one of the orcs the dm will allow him to fight.

Edenbeast

2013-01-17, 11:17 PM

I think what you need to accept is that when you're talking about someone like a paladin, they are obligated to directly intervene when someone is committing a crime, whether the judge would agree or not. "Oh I let him rob some people, it wasn't me he was robbing" is worse than trying to apprehend a thief. And when his friend came in with a sword, that's when it became self defense, and that's when they stopped trying to operate non-violently.

They are obligated to intervene, not to kill.. He could have shouted "hold the thief!" or just try to grab him and tie him up or something then turn him in. But instead drew his sword and slaughtered him while his friend definding him, yes with a sword, because a freaked-out paladin is chopping up his buddy. That's not legitimate self-defense for the paladin, but for the thief and his buddy.

According to the basic paladin code, he's "supposed to respect legitimate authority, act with honour, help those in need and punish those who harm or threaten innocents."

Butchering a thief while his friend is protecting him with his short sword falls under harming innocents. There's no honour in that. Besides, pickpockets aren't necessarily evil, they might be a bunch of youngsters trying to survive a harsh world. No, the paladin was not justified.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-17, 11:18 PM

Worira

2013-01-17, 11:20 PM

Also, the paladin didn't kill the thief. He killed the invisible dude with the sword.

Deophaun

2013-01-17, 11:21 PM

Butchering a thief while his friend is protecting him with his short sword falls under harming innocents.
The thief was a thief, and therefor by definition not innocent. The friend was an accomplice after the fact, and therefor also not innocent.

There is a difference between "not harming innocents" and "not harming non-evil creatures."

awa

2013-01-17, 11:24 PM

they have magic items and alchemical items their not poor thieves stealing becuase they have no other way to survive they are professional thieves who have chosen this life style and its associated risks.

a invisible man with a sword is not helpless.

jaybird

2013-01-17, 11:31 PM

Also, the paladin didn't kill the thief. He killed the invisible dude with the sword.

Thief + Invisibility = Sneak Attack to any adventurer who's survived to get a full attack, which the Paladin in this case obviously did. So yeah, definitely a dangerous enemy with intent to kill.

Edenbeast

2013-01-17, 11:34 PM

Thief or not the second NPC threatened the party with a weapon. Standing by your friends is an admirable quality, but it doesn't make you a non-combatant or excuse you from the fact you're waving a sword in someone's face.

Choosing to enter into a combat situation is gambling your life on the idea you're more capable of killing the enemy than he is of killing you. If you know that's not true, you're bluffing but you've still made the bet and if you lose it's your own fault for making such a stupid gamble. This NPC should've folded (surrendered) instead of staying in the game and giving the paladin a chance to call his bluff.

I like your logic.. I'm wondering if those kids in those school shootings were thinking the same while they were shot to pieces. Entering combat isn't necessarily a two way conversation. In fact one guy is running at you with his weapons drawn, and there's hardly any time to think about gambling or bluffing, or or, oh crap! The GM made a mistake, he should had the guy run for his life, while his mate was tripped from the crowd and ran down by the paladin. But I'm quite sure some soldier on Omaha beach made the very same mistake.

Mystral

2013-01-17, 11:49 PM

I'd say that Edenbeast has just fulfilled Godwins Law and this discussion is hereby over.

Yukitsu

2013-01-17, 11:55 PM

They are obligated to intervene, not to kill.. He could have shouted "hold the thief!" or just try to grab him and tie him up or something then turn him in. But instead drew his sword and slaughtered him while his friend definding him, yes with a sword, because a freaked-out paladin is chopping up his buddy. That's not legitimate self-defense for the paladin, but for the thief and his buddy.

That's what they were doing until numbnuts charged a group of people with a sword. They didn't kill the thief, they knocked him out. They killed the guy with the sword.

Unfortunately, no they're not. Choosing not to intervene upon spotting a non-evil crime is a chaotic act, not an evil one. A paladin shouldn't make a habit of ignoring crimes he's witnessed lest he become non-lawful himself, but he's no more obligated to intervene than any other lawful character.

Stealing is evil. If you're going "Oh he's poor, he can't survive any other way." that may in some cases be true. However, the individual they stole from relied on that money, or food that was stolen to survive as well. At the bare bones best, he's (the paladin) helping the person being stolen from, who very much is in need.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-18, 12:04 AM

Whoa...let's count to ten for a moment.

Killing people that posed little threat (tanglefoot bag and scared sword waving for 3 rounds...invisibility potion aside, since at that point the thief, not clear he was even a rogue, was seriously outnumbered by the party, and down to 1/3 health) is bad advice to give a paladin.

I like a real world analogy as much as the next person, but guns and use of lethal force is a totally false analogy. If someone is pointing a gun at you, you can reasonably assume that this person could kill you in one shot. It's a bit of a stretch (if not totally mathematically impossible) to suggest that the nervous thief was gonna drop the pally and his friends. The pally had already knocked the actual criminal unconscious. This would have been a good time to work on diffusing the situation. It's not clear the thief had once used that sword, and was visibly trying to get away as the party beat him to 1/3 health. Again, the second guy only seemed to be guilty of showing up to help his friend and drawing a sword.

Alas, this is clearly an issue where people will tend to differ based on real-life beliefs that are probably not going to vary based on debate. IMHO, killing people is an action that is acceptable only as a last resort, not the go-to option when feeling threatened. Everyone gets scared. A truly virtuous person should learn to tell the difference between a dangerous person (Sense Motive) and a dangerous situation. If it's just a dangerous situation where everyone is justifiably scared and acting out, it's my opinion that the ONLY righteous option is to back down. Killing people because they might hurt you is a very slippery slope that can lead to all kinds of bad choices.

Mystral

2013-01-18, 12:11 AM

Wasn't there a story about a guy with a kitchen knife in New York who was gunned down by several police weapons without even attacking them?

I'm with the "The paladin acted right" crowed.

The man was clearly not poor. He drank a potion of invisibility, which costs more gold most honest folk see in their entire lifes. Hell, even the money a tanglefoot bag costs is worth enough money to pay for food and board in an okay inn for over 2 MONTHS.

He had a short sword Rogues have been killing people with short swords since first edition. He should have dropped the sword and surrendered. If someone keeps fighting with a short sword against a paladin in full armor with a greatsword, the paladin is fully in his rights to assume that this guy is dangerous. If that guy drinks a potion of invis, an item most pc rogues wouldn't shell out money until level 5, even more so.

By the way, the paladin HAS the authority to punish evil deeds and fight against criminals. It has been imparted into him by his diety. The locals might disagree, but this is what he believes and his diety thinks, too.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-18, 12:16 AM

Wasn't there a story about a guy with a kitchen knife in New York who was gunned down by several police weapons without even attacking them?

Again with false analogy, but this is much in the vein of the slippery slope I was talking about. Give someone in a position of authority a quick, easy way to always ensure their own safety and superiority in any situation, and I can tell you that it will certainly be used. Being scared of the threat posed by the thief, whether that fear is justified or not, is not the basis for action that should underpin a paladin's choices. The price for failing to use better judgement is that some day, the easy choice will be the wrong choice, and the paladin will do something terrible and not realize it until it's too late.

Deophaun

2013-01-18, 12:24 AM

A truly virtuous person should learn to tell the difference between a dangerous person (Sense Motive) and a dangerous situation.
It takes one minute of interaction for your Sense Motive check. That's 10 sneak attacks.

Again, there is a difference between "what is not good" and "what is evil." If someone is threatening you or someone else with lethal force, which is what brandishing a blade in this case represents, then, while it may not be good to kill them because you have superior means to control them, it is also not evil if you do so. And for the paladin to fall, the action must be evil. Merely not being good doesn't cut it.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-18, 12:36 AM

It takes one minute of interaction for your Sense Motive check. That's 10 sneak attacks.

Again, there is a difference between "what is not good" and "what is evil." If someone is threatening you or someone else with lethal force, which is what brandishing a blade in this case represents, then, while it may not be good to kill them because you have superior means to control them, it is also not evil if you do so. And for the paladin to fall, the action must be evil. Merely not being good doesn't cut it.

And I was not suggesting that the paladin fall. But merely not being evil is not sufficient for being a paladin. The idea is to be a paragon of virtue, so telling a paladin that barely avoiding evil actions is acceptable would be bad advice.

I was unaware of the time taken to Sense Motive in combat. I guess it does make it impractical to use the skill check, but it's never a bad idea to take a moment and assess the situation. Party ganging up on injured thief is one such moment, and the paladin, of all the different types of characters, is the one that has to stand up and decide when use of violence crosses the line from self-defense into very "not good" behavior.

Granted, the use of the invisibility potion seriously complicated the matter, but the pally was already on shakey grounds when he initiates combat against Thief A with intent to kill, not offering a chance to surrender or other paragon of virtue-type behavior. From there it just turns into one of these things that people on forums will tend to talk about until the discussion descends into monstrous hyperbole and people's feelings get....

Whoa. Anyway, I respect everyone's opinions. The fact is the DM can really interpret his own role in attempting to communicate the rammifications of good/evil and what actually qualifies as such however the DM wishes, such is the purview of the DM. I must take this opportunity to express how truly AWESOME it is to have these kind of talks. Morality debates rock my world, and the more opinions there are, the more fun.

NichG

2013-01-18, 12:37 AM

Whether or not the paladin's actions were neutral, evil, insufficiently good, whatever in terms of the forum's zeitgeist is irrelevant. The point is, the DM wants to communicate to the paladin (and their player) that their actions are not appropriate for a paladin in their setting. Depending on the society, the culture, and the morality of the specific deity, there could be many reasons for this.

The DM is doing this the right way - not just arbitrarily declaring 'that was evil, so you fall', but instead trying to communicate that. Now, that said, the issue that has been asked about is 'what are ways to communicate that that aren't heavy handed or cliche?'.

I'd recommend against a vision or omen - its kind of deity backseat driving. Visions should be reserved for big things I think, since its the deity directly sending a message. Personally, I'd simply use reputation. The town police might well consider the paladin's acts heroic and would make a big deal out of them (well, in the sense that the mayor, etc tells stories 'our streets are safe, thanks to this wandering hero!'). However, whenever the story is told the detail about the particularly merciless act is included, e.g. "Hah, he gave that thief what he deserved!"; "One less scumbag cluttering up our town!"; etc.

So over time, people comment on the paladin in an offhand manner. They start calling him 'the Merciless' or just occasionally ask him if he can deal with some petty crook in a way the town watch isn't willing to ("Hey, you did in that other thief. What's another crook to you, eh?"). He gets a lot of positive attention, but slightly more from the neutral/evil side of society than the good side. Maybe a couple priests just look sorrowful when talking with him, having heard of his deeds and seeing a soul on the decline. Maybe someone actually evil tries to hire him to take out another evil person, and he slips a bit further (or he detects the alignment of the initial person and realizes his actions have gotten him unpleasant attention) or whatever.

Basically, punitive measures turn the person punishing the paladin into the enemy and tend to create these kinds of alignment arguments. But reputation is a lot harder to argue with.

Flickerdart

2013-01-18, 12:58 AM

Reputation's all well and good, but it works really slowly. If a chastising from an authority figure that the paladin respects doesn't get the point across, it's a good plan B though.

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 01:03 AM

It takes one minute of interaction for your Sense Motive check. That's 10 sneak attacks...

It -usually- takes a minute. For sensing something as simple as "they wish to do me harm" it ought to be a standard action at most, opposed to a bluff/intimidate check.
Just saying it needn't be a whole minute to ascertain the danger of a situation

ArcturusV

2013-01-18, 01:08 AM

Yeah, if I was DMing it I would have allowed a Standard Action use for Sense Motive. I mean it shouldn't take THAT much work for a guy to look at someone's stance, how they're holding their weapon, how they are behaving, etc, to determine if they are going to attack or if they are merely going to stand back and go "Don't get any closer!"

But really this situation is so muddied with the particulars and the possibilities that I wouldn't have even stooped to a warning in most cases.

Though I would wonder why guys with enough money to be throwing Alchemical items and drinking Invisibility Potions are necessarily doing with petty pickpocketing. At that level you'd think they'd have higher ambitions than that.

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 01:12 AM

Mikeavelli

2013-01-18, 01:19 AM

This is not an in-character Paladin alignment matter.

This is a situation where the DM and the Player are playing different games, and have different expectations of how Paladins behave. I'm willing to bet the Paladin's player didn't even consider this to be a moral dilemma, it was a straight up combat-themed random encounter with moderate role-playing possibilities.

Discuss it out of game with the player, ask him if he even thought about the morality of the situation, and let him know that's the sort of game you're playing.

TypoNinja

2013-01-18, 01:21 AM

I'm just curious where the idea came from that so many people have that says a Paladin should be a sissy little pacifist.

People seem to think attacking the guy was overkill, making excuses "the guy with a sword didn't mean it!".

So what? Paladins are equipped by their gods to go to war. Every day is a war to a Paladin, they fight the forces of evil, great or small, every day of their lives.

To quote the BoED; Good is not nice, polite, well mannered, prudish, self-righteous, or naïve, though good-aligned characters might be some of those things. Good is the awesome holy energy that radiates from the celestial planes and crushes evil. Good is selfless, just, hopeful, benevolent, and righteous.

A Paladin will grant mercy to a foe who offers surrender, any foe, but he also has no qualms at all about killing one who will not surrender. Because Evil must be stopped. Period. Nothing in the Paladins code requires him to go out of his way to try to capture someone who doesn't want to surrender.

A Paladin is not your town guard, he's not the jolly police constable. He is not a Public Servant. He is a Weapon armed by his God to dispense Retribution in the never ending war against Evil. He's a one man Holy SWAT Team, not the hostage negotiator. If you find yourself at the pointy end of a Paladins blade you have two choices. Yield or be Vanquished.

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 01:35 AM

It doesn't sound, however, that the option to surrender was given. There is a difference between tyranny and righteousness.

selfless, just, hopeful alludes to meting out justice that matches the punishment, as well as a trial and opportunities for redemption. Death for theft is somewhat severe and, I would argue, south of LG, as far as justice systems go. In D&D terms, St. Cuthbert (and certainly Hextor) may be inclined to such rhadamantine rule of law, but Bahamut and Hieroneous would be less swift in their execution of final justice.

As far as indicator systems go, I have mentioned a few before, with my favorite being a litmus-test sword that becomes unwieldly as the paladin teeters on the alignment edge, and breaking or becoming otherwise unusable should the paladin fall. It has mythological counterparts and brings to mind the notion of divinely imbued weapons.

ArcturusV

2013-01-18, 01:40 AM

Well that is a classical example. Didn't the sword in the stone from Arthurian Legend shatter when he tried to unjustly execute someone with it?

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 02:04 AM

I believe that is the case.
There's also myths about weapons harming unrighteous or unworthy wielders.

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 02:50 AM

Hand_of_Vecna

2013-01-18, 02:59 AM

I generally agree with Kelb's stancce on Paladin/LG Morality/Fantasy-Medieval Justice, but as DM you are the ultimate arbiter of morality for your game and as Mikeavelli said; I think the issue is not with the Paladin's actions, but in you and your player's expectations of Paladin behavior.

I think the best solution is to talk with your player about your expectations of Paladins if those are the standards his character has to live up to in your world. The Paladin's code is open to interpretation as several people have illustrated in this thread. Also, a lot of questions of D&D morality really come down to motivation meaning you often need to ask someone to literally explain their character's inner thoughts to know where their actions fall alignment wise.

Zeful

2013-01-18, 03:08 AM

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 03:17 AM

No, Excalibur broke because he fought a king of superior martial talent to himself, Pellinore. Arthur and the knights of the round table were also not exactly of paladin like quality in many respects, the only ones much like one would be Sir Galahad and Sir Percival.

Thanks for the data. Sword in the stone =/= to Excalibur (the latter I believe never broke, being returned whole to the lady in the lake and all). I still have the sensation some other sword did a "get your filthy hands off me" to some king or the like and shattered all over the place. Can't think which one is is though.

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 04:08 AM

Thanks for the data. Sword in the stone =/= to Excalibur (the latter I believe never broke, being returned whole to the lady in the lake and all). I still have the sensation some other sword did a "get your filthy hands off me" to some king or the like and shattered all over the place. Can't think which one is is though.

Depends on the legend. There are some stories that call the sword in the stone Excalibur, and others that don't. The old Welsh story calls them both Calidsomethingorother, so in that at least they are the same sword.

As for that story, it's probably a very modern one. I recall that most old stories other than Greek tragedies, kings were generally considered infallible in matters of moral judgement, unless they were a conquering king, in which case the sword breaking would be due to legitimacy, not a specific act.

ArcturusV

2013-01-18, 04:11 AM

Yeah, too much rewriting of the legends, new versions, etc. Just the one I'm most familiar with (Due to reading it as I grew up) the Sword in the Stone was not Excalibur and it ended up shattering when he tried to execute an innocent man.

But it's been decades since I read that book last so I can't recall the exact particulars.

Still it's a neat enough theme that for something really blatant I wouldn't mind doing it to a Paladin. I mean full on, butchering unicorns to feast on the blood for immortality level evil.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-18, 05:49 AM

I like your logic.. I'm wondering if those kids in those school shootings were thinking the same while they were shot to pieces. Entering combat isn't necessarily a two way conversation. In fact one guy is running at you with his weapons drawn, and there's hardly any time to think about gambling or bluffing, or or, oh crap! The GM made a mistake, he should had the guy run for his life, while his mate was tripped from the crowd and ran down by the paladin. But I'm quite sure some soldier on Omaha beach made the very same mistake.

The message you were trying to get accross here was lost in a jumble of sarcasm and wildly divergent scenarios that don't make the analogous roles of the paladin and his enemy even remotely clear.

Care to try and get your message across again in a clearer, less offensive way?

Krazzman

2013-01-18, 06:06 AM

I like your logic.. I'm wondering if those kids in those school shootings were thinking the same while they were shot to pieces. Entering combat isn't necessarily a two way conversation. In fact one guy is running at you with his weapons drawn, and there's hardly any time to think about gambling or bluffing, or or, oh crap! The GM made a mistake, he should had the guy run for his life, while his mate was tripped from the crowd and ran down by the paladin. But I'm quite sure some soldier on Omaha beach made the very same mistake.

I hope this question isn't against forum rules but... are you comparing a Paladin to a guy running amok?

Deophaun

2013-01-18, 07:18 AM

It doesn't sound, however, that the option to surrender was given.
While it is good to offer surrender, it is not evil or against the paladin's code to deny an opponent additional time in which to harm you or others. Conversely, if you want to surrender, it is your responsibility to signal and perform your intent. You don't wait for an invitation.

There is a difference between tyranny and righteousness.
A difference, yes. Are the two mutually exclusive? No.

Death for theft is somewhat severe and, I would argue, south of LG, as far as justice systems go.
Then your paladins may act accordingly. Other paladins may be played by other people who disagree with your argument. As they are their characters, not yours, their arguments trump yours.

LordBlades

2013-01-18, 08:13 AM

Death for theft is somewhat severe and, I would argue, south of LG, as far as justice systems go.

It all depends on the society. In modern world people have a lot of things (wages, houses, multiple household goods etc.) and it's very hard to steal from somebody so much that it literally endangers their life. So death for theft seems severe to a modern man because theft is not a severe crime in modern times.

Not so in many medieval societies. Steal the horse from a man traveling through a large area without much civilization? you've sentenced him to death. Steal the weapon of a man traveling through a dangerous region? You've sentenced him to death. Steal the money of a peasant? You've probably sentenced him to death as well because he likely has no means to get food&necessities until the next harvest. Theft was a serious crime in medieval societies, and as such it was punished quite severely.

Mystral

2013-01-18, 02:00 PM

Thief B had the option to drop his sword and plea for surrender. Instead, he drank a Invisibility Potion.

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 02:12 PM

It all depends on the society. In modern world people have a lot of things (wages, houses, multiple household goods etc.) and it's very hard to steal from somebody so much that it literally endangers their life. So death for theft seems severe to a modern man because theft is not a severe crime in modern times.

Not so in many medieval societies. Steal the horse from a man traveling through a large area without much civilization? you've sentenced him to death. Steal the weapon of a man traveling through a dangerous region? You've sentenced him to death. Steal the money of a peasant? You've probably sentenced him to death as well because he likely has no means to get food&necessities until the next harvest. Theft was a serious crime in medieval societies, and as such it was punished quite severely.

Not saying that death is an unjust punishment (and I will not go into te particulars of medieval law). What I am saying is that though it may be lawful it certainly is not Good, and a society that has such draconian laws is not one with a Good-aligned legal code.

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 02:23 PM

While it is good to offer surrender, it is not evil or against the paladin's code to deny an opponent additional time in which to harm you or others. Conversely, if you want to surrender, it is your responsibility to signal and perform your intent. You don't wait for an invitation.

A difference, yes. Are the two mutually exclusive? No.

Then your paladins may act accordingly. Other paladins may be played by other people who disagree with your argument. As they are their characters, not yours, their arguments trump yours.

1: you need to know that if you surrender you won't be cut down. Trying to run is an alternative that most people would take, if getting killed by surrendering is the alternative.
2: they are mutually exclusive except when talking about the Greek institution. Otherwise it denotes cruel and excessively severe application of the law. That is to say unrighteous but just rule.
3: fair enough, but player agency only goes so far; if I have a paladin that cuts down people willy-nilly, and steals from any an everyone, and justifies it by saying that by killing people tey are sent to their morally appropriate reward, and that by stealing from people are compelled to do charity to a good cause (eg te paladin's) I'm pretty sure no-one is letting it fly.

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 02:46 PM

1: you need to know that if you surrender you won't be cut down. Trying to run is an alternative that most people would take, if getting killed by surrendering is the alternative.

That's never how it's worked. If you surrender, you take it on faith that they won't shoot you anyway, because you are in a position where you are literally at their mercy. People who ran during combat were free game, and often suffered the worst casualties in a fight, because they couldn't defend themselves, and the winning side was obligated to cut them down. Even in the case of police, if you're caught with a weapon, pulling a runner instead of surrendering would be absolutely moronic.

I can't honestly think of a single institution where you're supposed to wait for the winning side to offer surrender as an option once combat has already broken out. The whole point of surrender is that you do it hoping for leniency, not that it's a guaranteed out when you've gone and done something that would have definitely killed you regardless.

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 03:19 PM

That's never how it's worked. If you surrender, you take it on faith that they won't shoot you anyway, because you are in a position where you are literally at their mercy. People who ran during combat were free game, and often suffered the worst casualties in a fight, because they couldn't defend themselves, and the winning side was obligated to cut them down. Even in the case of police, if you're caught with a weapon, pulling a runner instead of surrendering would be absolutely moronic.

I can't honestly think of a single institution where you're supposed to wait for the winning side to offer surrender as an option once combat has already broken out. The whole point of surrender is that you do it hoping for leniency, not that it's a guaranteed out when you've gone and done something that would have definitely killed you regardless.
Most wars or other forms of organized combat would be such an institution. Though surrender may not be asked for in all cases, the notion that there are rules governing war exists; and among these rules is the provision for mercy following surrender.
In the case of street brawls with an armed maniac that struck first, surrender seems foolhardy and naive (especially for street rats). Someone tries to kill you, you try to make some space and run, without further provoking them. The thieves may have been thieves and may have had a weapon drawn, but the paladin's actions of not encouraging surrender show a disregard for life over law, situating it in a Lawful Neutral place. Furthermore the paladin is not law enforcement, and there is the matter of respecting local laws and authority (which this paladin did not pause to consider)

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 03:34 PM

Deophaun

2013-01-18, 05:43 PM

1: you need to know that if you surrender you won't be cut down. Trying to run is an alternative that most people would take, if getting killed by surrendering is the alternative.
You are now discussing the logic a combatant goes through when determining whether or not he surrenders. This has nothing to do with whether a paladin is obligated to extend a formal offer of surrender.

2: they are mutually exclusive except when talking about the Greek institution.
Alexis de Tocqueville would disagree with you here.

3: fair enough, but player agency only goes so far; if I have a paladin that cuts down people willy-nilly, and steals from any an everyone, and justifies it by saying that by killing people tey are sent to their morally appropriate reward, and that by stealing from people are compelled to do charity to a good cause (eg te paladin's) I'm pretty sure no-one is letting it fly.
And, this is key, you wouldn't need to argue it.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-18, 06:17 PM

Most wars or other forms of organized combat would be such an institution. Though surrender may not be asked for in all cases, the notion that there are rules governing war exists; and among these rules is the provision for mercy following surrender. That POW's should be treated with mercy is a fairly modern institution. Before the treaty of Versaille torturing captives wasn't all that uncommon and it's still something many countries do with both political and simple criminal prisoners. It's certainly a known idea, but it's not one that's universally accepted or even a particularly ancient idea.

That there are formal rules by which individual combatants must engage is a fairly modern notion and only applies to trained soldiers anyway. To try and apply rules that apply to specific circumstances like this to combat in general is foolhardy at best.

In the case of street brawls with an armed maniac that struck first, surrender seems foolhardy and naive (especially for street rats). Someone tries to kill you, you try to make some space and run, without further provoking them. The thieves may have been thieves and may have had a weapon drawn, but the paladin's actions of not encouraging surrender show a disregard for life over law, situating it in a Lawful Neutral place.Foolhardy or not, surrender is the only way that they would've made the paladin's action fall-worthy. As you pointed out yourself, puting justice above mercy is a lawful neutral idea. As long as its balanced by consistently taking other actions that are good, the paladin is in no danger of an alignment shift and can continue to hold that value. See also, paladin of St. Cuthbert.

In this particular case though, it was simply a matter of cutting down a combatant who posed a threat; a true-neutral act. Any argument that he wasn't threatening enough doesn't cut it. He had a sword and implied he was willing to use it simply by waving it in front of the party to hold them at bay. HP's and level are a metagame construct and assuming that someone -can't- kill you with a sword even if he lands a hit is foolish in the extreme and completely unreasonable.

Furthermore the paladin is not law enforcement, and there is the matter of respecting local laws and authority (which this paladin did not pause to consider)

Respect =/= obey. The paladin's god or ideas are a higher authority and when they come into conflict with local laws and customs the rules of the faith win. A paladin is given authority that supersedes any local authority by his god. Naturally, that authority won't protect him from the consequences of breaking the law, but the consequences of mortal law have nothing to do with one's alignment.

hamiltond465

2013-01-18, 06:51 PM

Gildedragon

2013-01-18, 07:43 PM

That POW's should be treated with mercy is a fairly modern institution. Before the treaty of Versaille torturing captives wasn't all that uncommon and it's still something many countries do with both political and simple criminal prisoners. It's certainly a known idea, but it's not one that's universally accepted or even a particularly ancient idea.

That there are formal rules by which individual combatants must engage is a fairly modern notion and only applies to trained soldiers anyway. To try and apply rules that apply to specific circumstances like this to combat in general is foolhardy at best.
Not that modern really. The religious truce the Olympics imposed, the notions of chivalry and honorable combat of the Middle Ages and renaissance, the customs surrounding the taking, treating and ransoming of hostages all point to a notion of a proper way to wage war.

Foolhardy or not, surrender is the only way that they would've made the paladin's action fall-worthy. As you pointed out yourself, puting justice above mercy is a lawful neutral idea. As long as its balanced by consistently taking other actions that are good, the paladin is in no danger of an alignment shift and can continue to hold that value. See also, paladin of St. Cuthbert.
I am not saying it merits a fall, but that repeated actions of this sort would move the paladin away from a position of Good.

In this particular case though, it was simply a matter of cutting down a combatant who posed a threat; a true-neutral act. Any argument that he wasn't threatening enough doesn't cut it. He had a sword and implied he was willing to use it simply by waving it in front of the party to hold them at bay. HP's and level are a metagame construct and assuming that someone -can't- kill you with a sword even if he lands a hit is foolish in the extreme and completely unreasonable. The issue is that precisely. It was a Neutal act, one with severe consequences, in a situation which need not have ended in death had te paladin offered an option to the thieves. Picking Good over Neutrality, despite Good being more onerous IS what a paladin is.

Respect =/= obey. The paladin's god or ideas are a higher authority and when they come into conflict with local laws and customs the rules of the faith win. A paladin is given authority that supersedes any local authority by his god. Naturally, that authority won't protect him from the consequences of breaking the law, but the consequences of mortal law have nothing to do with one's alignment.
The paladin is given no such authority; and the pal code didn't necessarily come into conflict with local laws. That you are a paladin does not make you a judge jury and executioner when in lands with laws.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-18, 08:04 PM

Not that modern really. The religious truce the Olympics imposed, the notions of chivalry and honorable combat of the Middle Ages and renaissance, the customs surrounding the taking, treating and ransoming of hostages all point to a notion of a proper way to wage war. Chivalric courtesy and hostage handling were pretty much exclusively the province of the upper class and even then weren't always observed by those who held them in esteem in all circumstances. I'm not familiar with the truce of the olympics but in being a truce it suggests itself as an alternative to war, not rules by which war is waged.

I am not saying it merits a fall, but that repeated actions of this sort would move the paladin away from a position of Good.
The issue is that precisely. It was a Neutal act, one with severe consequences, in a situation which need not have ended in death had te paladin offered an option to the thieves. Picking Good over Neutrality, despite Good being more onerous IS what a paladin is. Then I don't see a problem. A paladin can never commit an evil act. That's not the same as having to always choose the most good act available. A paladin that lacks mercy in combat can still show mercy in works of charity. As long as he's principled enough to accept a surrender offered, he's under no obligation to ask for surrender.

The paladin is given no such authority; and the pal code didn't necessarily come into conflict with local laws. That you are a paladin does not make you a judge jury and executioner when in lands with laws.

The code is above the law. That's the beginning and end of the story when obeying the law would allow evil to occur or go unpunished. If that's not being granted authority I don't know what is.

It doesn't really apply in this case, but then neither does the code itself. The paladin killed an enemy combatant; a neutral act. That this act may or may not have conflicted with the minutia of the local laws doesn't make it a gross violation of the code's stricture on respecting legitimate authority. It wouldn't even count as a minor violation if the paladin was unaware of local customs, which can vary far too widely to expect him to make any presumptions about them.

He didn't do anything evil. He didn't do anything he considers wrong, and he -may- have done something that the locals take issue with.

I really don't see why any warning is even necessary unless he's not committing any good acts and in danger of an alignment shift in the near future.

Zeful

2013-01-18, 08:11 PM

roleplaying paladins is weird.

In a group I've had in the past, I was a CG rouge with a CN sorcerer, a CG cleric and a pally.
The sorcerer's back story had him being pretty deep in debt. After a dungeon run the party split up in the city to do some shopping, and the sorc gets himself kidnapped by thugs.
The rest of us didn't realize this until we were supposed to meet up and he doesn't show.
We track him down, and listen in on the conversation between the thugs and the sorc. He was on the run from the police force of another city for reasons we never discovered because the pally charged in and slew them.
this launched a discussion much like this thread.
It was eventually decided that our campaign wasn't going to care too much, as we couldn't decide on how immoral a given act was.

At the time, our discussion happened after the session, the Dm went: 'You feel as though someone is disappointed in you.'

Honestly, I find the Paladin to be one of the most interesting class to DM for. Part of your job as the DM is informing the players of things their characters should know about a situation. Paladins let you pretty much act as their conscience because of this, pointing out, "you know this is/that was against your code right?" as warranted.

Of course this is one of those things your going to need to talk to your players about before the game starts, and that doing this isn't trying to railroad the character, but to make the conflict that is part of being a Paladin in gaming-- a black and white character in a morally grey world-- more apparent and visible. It should take quite a bit of action on the player's part to actually fall as a Paladin, as a fallen Paladin isn't as interesting as a Paladin that is struggling not to fall. And out of fairness you should as a DM go over with the Paladin's player just how close he is to falling after big incidents of acting as the conscience. Not during play or even publicly. Talk to him after the game's packed up, or through one of the many other avenues available to you to communicate with him privately. But then you should also do this with clerics that are running roughshod over their god's teachings, or druids complicit with the destruction of nature, as a DM if you are enforcing the Paladin's restrictions, you should be enforcing them for all of the classes that have them, otherwise you're singling out the Paladin's player, and that's not fair.

Amphetryon

2013-01-18, 08:25 PM

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-18, 09:21 PM

The more I read threads on Paladins, the more I'm convinced that people will find virtually any act a Paladin takes or doesn't take to be sufficient reason for a warning from his god, if not an outright fall.

Obviously, different people will find different acts to be justifiable within the Code, but it seems like EVERY. SINGLE. ACT. available to a Paladin is grounds for a stern talking-to from the sponsoring deity in the opinion of at least a vocal minority.

It sometimes makes me wonder if people think that the fall/redemption cycle is the only compelling reason to play a Paladin.

You sure as heck don't pick them for their mechanical strength.

NichG

2013-01-18, 09:31 PM

He didn't do anything evil. He didn't do anything he considers wrong, and he -may- have done something that the locals take issue with.

I really don't see why any warning is even necessary unless he's not committing any good acts and in danger of an alignment shift in the near future.

A warning is necessary because the alternative is letting the player go on thinking there's nothing wrong until they suddenly fall because the DM thinks they've crossed some line they're not aware of. Its just that the warning shouldn't be out of scale with the act.

In the DM's setting, for the deity that this paladin worships, the act was something that was inappropriate. The player shouldn't be expected to just somehow intuit that and know that - its clear that people can strongly disagree about the morality and alignment consequences of such an act. The warning just helps communicate the DM's point of view on the topic without being punitive.

Amphetryon

2013-01-18, 09:47 PM

You sure as heck don't pick them for their mechanical strength.

There are certain builds - and certain book-restricted environments - where this is not true. That said, I don't personally think that it's the binary issue of "If you're playing with a Paladin in the campaign, the Paladin MUST fall or you're Doing It Wrong" that appears to be the underlying belief of the aforementioned vocal minority.

awa

2013-01-18, 09:48 PM

Yukitsu

2013-01-18, 09:54 PM

actually that's a good point it doesn't matter what we think it matters what the dm considers non good.

As a strong example if the dm says kicking puppies is a good act then it doesn't matter what we think the player assuming he wants to play a good character in that setting needs to know that.

so getting to the op original idea personally if that action was something his character should have known was bad i would just tell him out of character.

DMs in my opinion need to have a bit of moral flexibility. I get irritated by DMs that demand everyone acquiesce to their opinion of morality, as I find it preachy and grating. I'd rather the DM adapt to it as opposed to the opposite.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-18, 11:00 PM

I stick strictly to what RAW in BoED and BoVD have to say on morality in these discussions.

My own moral compass doesn't always point to the same north as someone else's and it would be presumtuous in the extreme for me to think otherwise.

The OP's question has turned up most of the useable answers already

Dream visions
Ranking members of the faith expressing dissapproval
temporary loss of individual class features
Divine agents paying a vist to give the paladin his warning

The only good suggestion left is for the DM and the Paladin's player to have a sit down and discuss what's what for the Paladin's code until they're on the same page; something they should've done before play began, really.

TypoNinja

2013-01-18, 11:42 PM

The more I read threads on Paladins, the more I'm convinced that people will find virtually any act a Paladin takes or doesn't take to be sufficient reason for a warning from his god, if not an outright fall.

Obviously, different people will find different acts to be justifiable within the Code, but it seems like EVERY. SINGLE. ACT. available to a Paladin is grounds for a stern talking-to from the sponsoring deity in the opinion of at least a vocal minority.

It sometimes makes me wonder if people think that the fall/redemption cycle is the only compelling reason to play a Paladin.

What is bad can legitimately vary from Paladin to Paladin though, someone severing a God of retribution for example is pretty much got a free pass to tear a structurally superfluous new orifice into anyone who's done wrong, meanwhile a God of Law might be bigger on wanting to see wrongdoers formally Judged.

TuggyNE

2013-01-18, 11:48 PM

Dream visions
Ranking members of the faith expressing dissapproval
temporary loss of individual class features
Divine agents paying a vist to give the paladin his warning

No love for Phylactery of Faithfulness? :smallfrown:

Mystra

2013-01-18, 11:57 PM

Dreams and visions seem so common, but for the life of me I can't think of a better medium by which to tell the paladin. Does anyone have alternative methods that have worked well for them?

I've used 'waking' dreams and visions at lot. The same effect, it just happens during the active game. Or 'real' things. For example, the dead guy is perfect to come back as an undead for revenge as ''the pally did not kill him right''. It can be quite a scary thing for a paladin: unless you kill people in the 'good' way, you will create more evil(the undead) in the world.

On the paladin: I think a big problem people have with the paladin is that they think of them as a Cop. Worse they think of them as a cop in the 21st century. And even worse they think of them as a cop in 21st century in the USA or Europe. Ever watch COPS in Russia? Ever read any news from South America? Well...it's safe to say not all cops act like they do in the USA.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-19, 12:17 AM

No love for Phylactery of Faithfulness? :smallfrown:

That's for warning the paladin -before- he takes a dubious action. It's presence would've obviated the need for this discussion to have ever begun.

It's definitely a good thing to put in a treasure drop early in a paladin's career though.

Deophaun

2013-01-19, 12:27 AM

No love for Phylactery of Faithfulness? :smallfrown:
I actually hate that item. It provides a function that should have been included in a Knowledge: Religion check. DC 15: Paladins figure out what actions the DM will screw them over for taking.

TuggyNE

2013-01-19, 03:15 AM

Yogibear41

2013-01-20, 06:58 AM

I like the idea that was mentioned about the thief having to steal to support his children and how they are now orphans, gives him the opportunity to not only realize he made a mistake and possibly have the thief raised, but also gives him the chance to do further good by helping the family no longer have to steal in order to survive, perhaps even leading into a plot complication were you learn that the local lord is heavily taxing his people or some other possible new adventure! :D No idea whats currently going on in your game but like to let my mind wonder from time to time :D

Oh and since so many others weighed in on the alignment thing figured Id toss my two cents in too. IMO the whole thing about breaking the paladins code revolves highly around a particular characters backstory and their motivations for being a paladin in the first place, which only the OP would know in this situation. Lawful alignment to me is all about sticking to your beliefs and following a set guideline all the time, not just when its convenient.
For example I could see a paladin with an incredibly lawful nature performing evil deads (that were in line with his belief system) if in the long run it was for the greater good. Not saying every Paladin would but certain ones could.

Then again after rereading the players handbook quickly it says that if a paladin commits an evil act or breaks their code of conduct they lose their powers, but what if they have to perform an act that could be considered evil but for the greater good to keep their code intact? or vice versa? sounds like a catch 22

Please forgive my ramblings but I love a good discussion :D

ArcturusV

2013-01-20, 07:10 AM

Typically "Evil Act for the Sake of Good" is Neutral territory. And most DMs I know would take those into consideration as a pattern of behavior towards Falling if not actually falling if it's particularly flagrant in it's execution.

Examples always help -

A Paladin is charged with escorting some pilgrims to a local shrine in the next city over. On the course to the city the pilgrims contract some disease that the Paladin, and his meager 1/week Remove Disease can't really handle, and the disease threatens to spread among all the Pilgrims, possibly resulting in death before they reach the city (Which presumably would have healers).

Now if the Paladin goes, "Damn it all, I'm not leaving a man behind!" and force marches all the pilgrims together to get to the city (And thus curing) in time so no one dies? Lawful Good, fulfilled his duty and has done a good deed. Even if he risked worsening their health by a forced march.

Now if the Paladin goes, "Okay, you all stay here, I heard a rumor about a local priest who might have a cure," and tells them to stay put while he goes to find it... I still wouldn't consider that a failing. While it's slightly less Lawful (You are abandoning the Pilgrims to whatever harm may come to them), it is unquestionably a good act.

Now if the Paladin says, "Okay, you, sick guys. I am going to build you the best shelter I can. Then I'll make sure those that I CAN save get to the city safely. If possible I will try to come back with a healer for you." This is something I'd consider towards falling if it becomes a pattern of behavior. With just abandoning only the sick, your group can move faster. but since everyone you leave behind is sick and weak, it's pretty likely that something is going to happen to them that isn't exactly Good.

And if the Paladin goes, "You'll just slow us all down!" and starts beheading everyone he can't cure at the time. Then yes, evil. Make him fall fast and hard. And Chaotic as he swore to protect those pilgrims on their journey.

awa

2013-01-20, 11:09 AM

having to steal to support his children is not valid once you have magic items. The thief in question used 350 gold worth of consumables if he had used that money at an inn he could have stayed in a nice room with good food for over a year eating out every day.

Personally by the time you have multiple class levels if your stealing it's becuase you don't want a regular job. (exceptions exist if he is some kind of heavily oppressed minority or something)

remember you can use slight of hand to make perform checks dc 20 (the dc required to pick a pocket) is enough to on average acquire 16.5 silver which is enough to feed and house 2 people in good conditions with money left over or 5 people in poor accommodation.
and keep in mind that refers to eating and staying at an inn every day if you don't eat out it's much cheaper

Deophaun

2013-01-20, 11:24 AM

Yukitsu

2013-01-20, 12:09 PM

ArcturusV

2013-01-20, 12:12 PM

Besides, you usually don't have to force it. Eventually your players will do a perfectly fine job of killing someone who is actually innocent. Least in my experience.

Hell, just the countless number of Town Guards that most PCs leave in the dust in my experience makes a better, and more natural hook for "You killed a good man" than killing a pick pocket.

killem2

2013-01-20, 12:21 PM

Any back story on why the thieves needed to steal?

Paladin should have checked into that before slitting some throats.

ericgrau

2013-01-20, 12:33 PM

The act was not only evil, it was chaotic too. The paladin dropped the thief in 3 rounds not 1 with no damage to himself, so the foe's weapon was only an excuse not a reason to use lethal force. There are a thousand shocked witnesses to verify it all too.

Think of what would happen if this happened IRL. The town guards should take him in for manslaughter and vigilante justice. Then they try him and fine him. The paladin should fall and require an atonement. Murder should not be taken lightly even (especially?) in the course of justice. The fact that it was a thief and that the main motive was excessive zeal should be the only things barely keeping the paladin away from a death sentence.

You might argue that all the PCs ever do is "vigilante justice", but when there is a town with laws nearby, capture is easy and the PCs execute for every small non-murderous crime, that's when the line is crossed.

That said, you should deal with it quickly in real world time. Don't rub it in too hard, the player probably wasn't thinking. You don't want to create bad feelings with your real life friends. Make it clear that the party can't go on random murdering sprees in the town, paladin or not, vs. bad guys or not, and move on. The paladin should be tried, fine gp deducted and atoned before the game session is 1/4 over.

awa

2013-01-20, 01:05 PM

Should the pc be required to perform back ground checks on every orc that attacks them?
should the pc be required to allow ever foe to stab them a few times to make sure they really meant it?

Hes not "slitting throats" he took down an invisible thief who refused to surrender and was heavily armed (he made use of expensive magic consumables.)

edit
irl a pick pocket was confronted his comrade then pulled a lethal weapon and was then killed after a brief struggle clear self defense with lots of witnesses

Yukitsu

2013-01-20, 01:43 PM

The act was not only evil, it was chaotic too. The paladin dropped the thief in 3 rounds not 1 with no damage to himself, so the foe's weapon was only an excuse not a reason to use lethal force. There are a thousand shocked witnesses to verify it all too.

The reason no one with any sense cares when a police officer with a shotgun and 50 buddies riddle a man armed with a pen knife and a refusal to comply with orders is that the relative disparity of strength is entirely irrelevant to the fact that the guy with the pen-knife and refusal to comply with orders could very well harm someone that isn't a police officer armed with a shotgun and 50 buddies. Criminal grabs a guy and demands the party surrender their weapons and release the thief? Well, that guy is now the party's responsibility. You take the armed guy down because you're strong so that he can't hurt the people who aren't.

Think of what would happen if this happened IRL. The town guards should take him in for manslaughter and vigilante justice. Then they try him and fine him. The paladin should fall and require an atonement. Murder should not be taken lightly even (especially?) in the course of justice. The fact that it was a thief and that the main motive was excessive zeal should be the only things barely keeping the paladin away from a death sentence.

In real life, if someone pulls a knife on you, you can justifiably shoot to kill without any murder charges. The only charge they can hope to level against you is excessive force charges, but having a gun when the other guy has a knife is not by default excessive force.

You might argue that all the PCs ever do is "vigilante justice", but when there is a town with laws nearby, capture is easy and the PCs execute for every small non-murderous crime, that's when the line is crossed.

Pulling a weapon is not a small non-murderous crime, and despite the clause that states you can't be a vigilante, if you catch a thief in the act it isn't a specific felony to perform a citizen's arrest, which was what the encounter initially was.

That said, you should deal with it quickly in real world time. Don't rub it in too hard, the player probably wasn't thinking. You don't want to create bad feelings with your real life friends. Make it clear that the party can't go on random murdering sprees in the town, paladin or not, vs. bad guys or not, and move on. The paladin should be tried, fine gp deducted and atoned before the game session is 1/4 over.

I'd walk if this was your attitude. I'd recommend the OP's players walk if he decides to go that route as well.

Gildedragon

2013-01-20, 03:50 PM

@Yuki: People do care when counts of police brutality and excessive force come up. As an aside: shotguns aren't really meant for civic use, way too aoe to be safe.

@Kelb: didn't notice before, but on your comment regarding mortal law: it does affect the Lawful component of a paladin's alignment. Regarding hostage taking et al: sure they weren't always followed, but the notion that a proper procedure existed, and that certain actions in war were immoral, shows that notions of a morally correct conduct in combat.

@Deophaun: Note too that the paladin did not state their authority before attacking; how would the thieves know the paladin to be an agent of any law (mortal or divine)? It is not resisting arrest or interfering with justice if you are not aware of the identity and intent of the executors of said justice. Regarding AT, sorry don't know the person. Sounds like a 18th C. French philler though.

@No one in particular: Ultimately I am starting to find this discussion a bit cyclic and tedious.
In the end I think it isn't a fall worthy action but one that, if repeated, can edge the paladin away from virtue. I think that the grayness of the need puts the onus on the DM and player to talk about the code and what it means to be LG.

Ciao

PS: Mighty fun back and forth Kelb, thanks

ericgrau

2013-01-20, 04:03 PM

Stuff
Uh, no, a policeman would immediately lose his job like that and even someone claiming self defense can get into serious trouble if the court doesn't believe it's justified.

Even complaints about police brutality are for actions that aren't nearly that bad. They are for actions that are on the border of how much physical violence is acceptable. And yet even this level of police force is very controversial and spawned decades of debate & regulations limiting the police. Going way past that line into unjustified murder is an obvious cause for dismissal and criminal charges as well. Justified violence, even lethal force, is acceptable at times but only under certain circumstances and it is always subject to close scrutiny.

If someone not only shot a shoplifter who had a knife, but hit him 3 times even though he didn't fight back, he'd be in jail so long he'd be getting gray hairs whether he was a civilian or officer. I was going easy on the paladin for the sake of moving forward with the game and to err on the side of assuming that the player made an honest mistake.

TL;DR: No lol police can't kill willy nilly are you serious? What kind of warped society would we have? They are human & corruptible too.

Yukitsu

2013-01-20, 04:05 PM

@Yuki: People do care when counts of police brutality and excessive force come up. As an aside: shotguns aren't really meant for civic use, way too aoe to be safe.

This is false on several counts. For one, shotguns don't actually spread more than a fist size, they are not an AoE weapon. Second, shot causes less collateral than bullets, as shot can't penetrate a house. Bullets do. Police do use shotguns and have access to shotguns, and would use them if they felt it more efficient than a pistol. Not that that matters at all, as a standard pistol demonstrates the point just as well. Third, those people that are outraged about police brutality are either very much outlier cases of very uninformed outrage, or are complaining about unarmed people getting tazed then beaten, not about armed men getting shot. The reality is, by policy, they fire until the individual is completely down and very likely they will be dead, they don't shoot to capture in those situations.

Uh, no, a policeman would immediately lose his job like that and even someone claiming self defense can get into serious trouble if the court doesn't believe it's justified.

I have never once seen a police officer lose a job over an incident of an armed man failing to comply with police orders being killed. Ever. I haven't even heard of an officer receiving an official reprimand. I'd love to see a news article of a situation where one did for the reason that he killed a definitely armed man that failed to comply with orders.

And for people, yes they can get in trouble, but he said it was murder, manslaughter, blah blah. It's not, it is at the very most, a fairly minor charge of excessive force (and I say minor because it is literally a trial over a life or death incident.) Generally cases I've seen of excessive force have been punitive at worst unless it was clearly evident that the person who died was provoked into attacking, where the individual who was attacked was committing an offense other than armed assault or where the attacker wasn't armed.

Every single other word of your post is a completely irrelevant tangent that doesn't have a single thing to do with what I said, because a petty thief is not by default someone with a weapon who is refusing to surrender to the police.

Garwain

2013-01-20, 04:28 PM

awa

2013-01-20, 04:30 PM

it seems to me thief 2 is unusually stupid. My buddy has been grabbed for pick pocketing by a group of heavily armed individuals with large weapons.

I know! I will charge at them waving a slightly smaller weapon clearly they will be terrified and flee for there lives and my actions wont escalate the situation in any way! :smalltongue:

edit it's not murder if the other guy initiates hostilities and is wielding a deadly weapon.

Yukitsu

2013-01-20, 04:31 PM

I can't believe you're all still having this discussion. The thief should be handed over to the local authorities. Nothing else. Killing is only a last resort when confronted with deadly opposition. Since this wasn't the case here, Mr. Paladin murdered a living person and should have fallen. Arrest the paladin immediately, enough witnesses.

The thief was simply captured. They were attacked by a second armed individual who was then killed.

Amphetryon

2013-01-20, 05:31 PM

I can't believe you're all still having this discussion. The thief should be handed over to the local authorities. Nothing else. Killing is only a last resort when confronted with deadly opposition. Since this wasn't the case here, Mr. Paladin murdered a living person and should have fallen. Arrest the paladin immediately, enough witnesses.

Does this mean a Paladin who deals the lethal blow in the first and only round of combat by dint of the Initiative roll should fall? Because it would appear to.

TuggyNE

2013-01-20, 05:47 PM

Does this mean a Paladin who deals the lethal blow in the first and only round of combat by dint of the Initiative roll should fall? Because it would appear to.

Heh. I thought that was Knights that couldn't attack flat-footed enemies.

killem2

2013-01-20, 07:10 PM

The thief was simply captured. They were attacked by a second armed individual who was then killed.

If that's the case, i would make the call on if the paladin tried to resolve it with out violence and if it didn't work, bad guy has got to die.

Rukia

2013-01-20, 07:37 PM

I came on to this a bit late but it's an interesting dilemma. Firstly a lot of assumptions have been made for the group's benefit, but little to no assumptions on the others' behalf.

Thief A is caught pick-pocketing, attacked by group and tripped.
> Group initiates combat.

Thief B tries to protect Thief A who did NOT initiate combat and was trying to escape. Assuming Thief A and B are of the same party(obvious) then this is still self defense on their part.
> Group is the aggressor, not the thieves. If someone in the group had been attacked randomly, then the group would have no doubt felt that attacking in response would be "self defense".

Thief B uses tanglefoot bag, which while being considered an attack, is non-lethal and draws his sword. He is then apparently engaged in combat for multiple rounds, never once using his sword.
> Would it not be obvious to anyone in the party assuming an even average int score, that this thief was no actual threat?

I won't even go further in the list of events as it actually doesn't matter. Whether or not the thief had turned invisible or not he would have been killed, so using it as a justification is pointless. It was already mentioned that he had been attacked multiple times and was low on hp which is why he died so easily on the final attack. Being concerned about a possible "sneak attack" is laughable at best, and as a DM would be an eye-roll moment. Multiple combatants all ganging up on a single rogue, who has not swung his weapon ONCE even though he had multiple rounds to do so, then acting as if it was a life or death situation is a bit ridiculous.

Here is my issue specifically regarding the Paladin:

> Pick-pocketing is not evil, not even in the slightest.

If it were then no Rogue who actual roleplays being a Rogue could ever be anything BUT evil. "But if you only stole from the bad guys, then you could still be good!". Major problem here is, and this is important guys: What if the guy thief A pick-pocketed from WAS a bad guy? We don't know, and the PC's absolutely did not know unless the Paladin personally knew that person.

What if the rogues were actually sent to retrieve an item that had previously been stolen from the supposed "victim"? Whether or not that's true has no bearing, the fact is the PC's wouldn't know so taking such an action would be a bit risky in a crowded city where they may or may not know the laws.

The other issue about brandishing a weapon constitutes as threatening. What if it were a monk? He'd be brandishing deadly weapon without even holding one. If the PC's couldn't somehow realize that the thief who was not returning their lethal attacks with his own, then surely they'd probably consider anyone who was unarmed to be a possible threat as well? "We don't know if this guy is a monk, attack him!"

The whole "what if" situations can get stupid quickly, but the point is the PC's reacted very aggressively to a situation they actually didn't know anything about other than witnessing a theft, which is NOT an evil act. The fact that it ended in the murder of a person that did 0 damage to anyone, nor attempted to do ANY actual damage to any member of the party, would say that it was a ham-handed way to handle the situation and if I were DM there would be consequences. D&D is a violent world, but as a DM do you want your PC's simply initiating combat in every situation that it is a possibility without any heed to repercussions?

It's probably too late now, but if I were DM I'd work on the guilt angle with the Paladin. Make it so that the person initiating the theft was not actually committing the crime they thought, and instead was acting on behalf of a higher authority or being payed to retrieve an item that had previously been stolen. The person protecting that thief was in fact his brother.

Now the Paladin should have some deep introspect on the encounter. He reacted to a minor crime, which wasn't actually what he thought it was, and it ended in the death of someone who never once swung his weapon or did any sort of damage to the party and was simply protecting his brother. The fact that he was obviously not aggressively fighting should have given the party a 2nd thought on his motives for protecting the fallen thief. Protecting one's brother would be more a valiant act than slaying a petty thief who was defending himself. Yes they got hit with a tanglefoot bag, which would probably be considered "non-lethal force" and not necessarily worthy of an all out lethal force attack by the entire party.

I wouldn't make the Paladin fall, but I'd make him feel guilty to where he would absolutely think twice about the situation next time. Honestly I think the party severely over-reacted due to the thief not having swung his weapon even though he had several rounds to do so. The defense of the party sounds like a sneaky defense lawyer that is trying to get his client off on a technicality. The bottom line is the party initiated combat, was met with non-lethal force, and responded in a lethal manner. Outside of town maybe this is a non-issue, but in a crowded town square I'd say there'd be consequences.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-20, 08:27 PM

The party initiated combat, yes. There should be in-character consequences, yes.

However, the party started off non-lethal and only escalated to lethal force when the second attacker drew a lethal weapon. 3 rounds is only 18 seconds and every swing of a blade is not represented in an attack roll. Simply waving it back and forth to keep attackers at bay, something he'd absolutely have to have done, can easily be seen as attempted attacks. Saying he didn't make an attack roll is metagaming and there are extremely effective reactive combat styles.

Drawing a lethal weapon is equivalent to painting "I intend to kill you, so you better kill me first," on your forehead. Had he -only- thrown the tanglefoot bag, then killing him would be a lot more questionable, but he didn't. He drew a sword too.

For witnesses, some will be appauled, certainly, but others will feel it's a "good ridance to bad rubbish" scenario that played out the instant they hear that the fallen men are thieves (thief B will be judged guilty of thievery by association with thief A in the minds of most people.) This is especially true when it likely comes to light that they were guild thieves (tanglefoot bag and potion). More than a few will be completely indifferent as long as they didn't know the fallen personally.

Btw, to those of you calling "Murder!" it's not. Murder has a specific definition in D&D; the killing of an intelligent creature for a nefarious purpose. The paladin certainly had no nefarious purpose in mind when he struck down his foe, so it's definitely not murder as far as the alignment system is concerned. He may be charged with murder under mortal laws, but his source of divine power will continue to function.

A paladin is the righteous sword of his faith, not a cop. As long as he never commits an evil act and maintains a lawful good alignment, he's under no obligation to offer quarter in combat or even to be a particularly nice person, though he must accept a surrender genuinely given (a reactive sense motive vs the foe's bluff can determine if its genuine or a trick).

Breaking the laws of a settlement is only chaotic if it's done knowingly and without reason. There's been no indication whatsoever that the paladin even broke the law, much less that he did so knowingly. This was not a chaotic act. Neither was it lawful. If the settlement's government was known to be corrupt, the paladin wouldn't be required to heed the law by his code anyway, and breaking it in service to a good cause would be a lawful act; a continuation of the pattern of behavior of doing good in the world and crushing evil where it's found, in-spite of any consequence; in-short: obeying the code.

Deophaun

2013-01-21, 01:34 AM

@Deophaun: Note too that the paladin did not state their authority before attacking...
I was unaware that you needed "authority" to stop a crime.

ArcturusV

2013-01-21, 01:52 AM

Or rather as the Paladin would say, my Authority is mandated by the Gods and Ultimate Powers of Good which grant my my skills and abilities. I don't need to explain myself to random thieves and other ne'erdowells.

GnomeGninjas

2013-01-21, 11:22 AM

In real life, if someone pulls a knife on you, you can justifiably shoot to kill without any murder charges. The only charge they can hope to level against you is excessive force charges, but having a gun when the other guy has a knife is not by default excessive force.

In most developed countries *cough*basically anywhere but America*cough*you would be charged for possession of a deadly weapon and face a steep fine/time in jail.

I don't think that (by dnd morality) there is anything wrong with the paladin's actions. I think the party would run into trouble with the law though. No one else noticed that the attacked person was a pick pocket. They just saw a group of people draw weapons and (non-lethally) maul an unarmed guy, get rushed by a suicidally stupid guy with a sword, and kill the suicidally stupid person after the suicidally stupid person disappeared.

Amphetryon

2013-01-21, 11:25 AM

I was unaware that you needed "authority" to stop a crime.

In many places, doing so makes you a vigilante. Vigilantism is often a crime in itself.

awa

2013-01-21, 11:51 AM

grabbing a pick pocket would likely not be considered vigilantism.

D&d lands virtualy never have laws against carrying deadly weapons so that has little relavence

Amphetryon

2013-01-21, 11:57 AM

grabbing a pick pocket would likely not be considered vigilantism.

D&d lands virtualy never have laws against carrying deadly weapons so that has little relavence

Individual DM opinions may vary. The above experiences (and those above them, and so on) may not accurately represent the way D&D lands handle laws in your campaign.

Pandiano

2013-01-21, 12:35 PM

The code is above the law. That's the beginning and end of the story when obeying the law would allow evil to occur or go unpunished. If that's not being granted authority I don't know what is.

Wait, what? How many of you play/DM that way actually? The Code of a random Paladin is by no means above the local law. He can't take justice in his own hands without being legitimately allowed to do so by the local government. Why would any leader of any nation/city/town allow this?
Capture and drag them to jail, sure, but no random street cutting. (Which it would be in he eyes of most non LG-fanatic citizens I'd think)

ArcturusV

2013-01-21, 12:42 PM

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-21, 12:46 PM

To those asking if Paladins are expected to stand around being attacked for multiple rounds before being allowed to attack in return: of course not. Personally, I'd expect them to use non-lethal attacks until they received lethal ones unless fighting people they have significant reason to believe are going to use lethal force (or creatures immune to anything less than lethal damage, or that are far too difficult to reasonably take alive (due to excessive size, massive strength, magical means of escape, etc.)).

In the situation presented, the party initiated combat in a town and took down one thief non-lethally. All well and good, I have no problems here. When they start lethal attacks on an opponent for three rounds straight without a counter-attack of any kind, I start to have a problem (if nothing else for the fact that they're in a town, and killing someone is going to draw a lot of unwanted attention) - I'd expect the Good characters in the group to at least switch to non-lethal when it became clear they weren't fighting back. I'm willing to give them the assumption that the person who drew a sword meant to use it, when there are people around who couldn't just take a sword to the face without issue, but if they go for three rounds without taking an attack something is very obviously up. Even an assassin's Death Attack requires not being recognised as an enemy for the three rounds. At that point, it's not just failing to think clearly, it's being wilfully ignorant. I'd expect a Good character to be at least showing some kind of doubt as to whether they needed to kill, not just looting the corpse.

That's just the way that I'd run it, of course, and ideally I'd lay out ahead of time that I expect Good characters to take the "respect for life" thing seriously if they want to stay Good, but it's far from "get smacked around for a couple of rounds before being allowed to do anything."

Ultimately, any way works so long as everyone at the table understands one another, and accepts a single way of doing it (whether that's decided through "the DM's word is law" (which obviously invites the players' voting with their feet if they can't or won't agree) or discussing it and coming to an agreement that everyone can deal with).

Pandiano

2013-01-21, 12:51 PM

The reason why they can get away with being all Judge Dread, "I AM THE LAW!", is because of divine mandate. And honestly, "We are executing the champions of your faith" typically don't stand well with most people. A Lawful Evil, or Neutral, society may try to arrest, try, and execute a Paladin for breaking it's laws. But they wouldn't do so lightly.

Why should any authority care about their entitlement? If I rule a city and have a legitimate code of law it is up to ME to judge, not some guy who comes along. They are following a code they are interpreting themselves, so they are basically killing on an opinion!
Aside from very religious authorities of the same faith or very weak ones I cannot see how a government should let Paladins get away with this interference in sovereign law enforcement.

I am now really interested on how people here handle this matter in their games and if my opinion on this is odd :-)

ArcturusV

2013-01-21, 01:02 PM

It's because it's a matter of Risk vs Reward, and Effort vs Output.

Arresting a character, traveling in the company of adventurers who, in most settings, are probably going to be tough enough to be able to slaughter dozens of guards before they can be apprehended (And they WILL. They aren't likely to go down without a fight in my experience). So the cost in bloodshed vs enforcing your laws needs to be weighed. Particularly in a "Grey" case like the above where you had an invisible foe armed with a potentially deadly weapon you are likely to let it slide as the local authorities. It's frankly not worth potentially losing 24-32 good men to enforce such a thing. Now if they make a PATTERN of it, and continually flaunt your laws? Well then the Risk vs Reward tilts further to the point where you consider losing a few dozen guards well worth it. Of course the fact that the one they killed was a decently skilled combatant (He had adventurer items that a typical street tough wouldn't have), and the circumstances suggest that they probably did you a minor favor by killing off a career criminal. You might intimidate them, give warnings about "WE are the Law here, NOT you." but you're not going to go throw down over it yet.

Not to mention on the Risk factor? Paladins are typically seen in a good light by average folk. In a typical Fantasy Feudal Society the usual Code of a Paladin is one of the few authority figures and champions the average guy has. They look up to him. If you start executing Paladins on thin grounds, particularly if said Execution was in a grey matter like this, it'll upset people. It might not matter the first time. Or maybe the second. But people tend to get upset when you are killing off their heroes. Martyrs lead to unrest. Unrest leads to revolts. Sure you can probably crush a whole village of rebellious peasants with your men at arms (Though hapless rebels like that DO tend to draw the attention of powerful adventurers, and we already know they can rack up a huge body count compared to your men). But you lose out on the prosperity from that village until it recovers. you lose men, coin, supplies in the campaign. It might spark other incidents. It might be a sign of weakness that another kingdom will try to prey upon.

In the end, until Adventurers and Paladins get to be a more flagrant example of anarchist (By your local legal code) and trouble makers it just usually isn't worth the effort you'd have to take, and the risks you face, to bother trying to keep them under thumb. At least not in a direct arrest, trial, execution sort of method.

Now if the Paladin actually FALLS from his acts... Then a lot of the Unrest risk can get canceled out. Not to mention without his powers he is a lot easier to take down as a fighter without bonus feats. Though still a tough opponent and you might want to take a wait and see approach, see if he's embracing his fall or if he is going to atone.

awa

2013-01-21, 01:11 PM

also keep in mind if bob the peasant knows that they are always lawfully good and can literally see evil if they squints at it hard enough
the knight is shining armor is going to get the benefit of the doubt and the scruffy guy with the short sword who is a known accomplices to a criminal will not

Yukitsu

2013-01-21, 01:21 PM

In most developed countries *cough*basically anywhere but America*cough*you would be charged for possession of a deadly weapon and face a steep fine/time in jail.

I can tell you right off the bat, I don't live in the U.S. but can possess a firearm. Laws relating to owning weapons are not what people assume they are, it's possibly to carry a weapon or have in your possession a weapon in a lot of countries so long as you have registered everything correctly and don't bring them into any area that would restrict or prohibit their carry.

Asheram

2013-01-21, 01:39 PM

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-21, 01:40 PM

Wait, what? How many of you play/DM that way actually? The Code of a random Paladin is by no means above the local law. He can't take justice in his own hands without being legitimately allowed to do so by the local government. Why would any leader of any nation/city/town allow this?
Capture and drag them to jail, sure, but no random street cutting. (Which it would be in he eyes of most non LG-fanatic citizens I'd think)

His code may or may not be above the law in the eyes of the government that issued that law (depends on the society in question). In regards to the fundamental forces that are law and good that empower him, however, following the code is everything. Any major violation of the code or series of minor violations or simply ignoring the divine mandate to stomp out evil for too long leads to a break from his divine power.

When societies law conflicts with the code, the code wins unless the paladin is willing to cease being a paladin. Naturally, the dogma of whichever god, if any, the paladin follows can color this a bit. Cuthbert the Cudgel, for example, would take a dim view of breaking the laws of men, providing that the issuers of the law aren't evil, except in extreme circumstances. A paladin of Sune Firehair, on the other hand, could get away with blithely ignoring most minor laws as long as noone gets hurt. All paladins, however, -must- break the laws of men if failing to do so will lead to an immediate and obvious act of evil being commited, regardless of what god they follow.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-21, 01:54 PM

1. First of all, a tanglefoot bag as a hostile action? Phah! The guy made no other offensive movements than throwing that at them, holding a sword and positioning himself between the party and the poor thief who is about to be murdered by unknown assilants.Positioning yourself infront of armed men while wielding a deadly weapon -is- a hostile action. 3 rounds is a pittance of time. In that time he could've tried any number of things, such as shouting out to the crowd that this madman was attacking his friend, unprovoked, or tried to talk the group into letting them go. Instead he just waved his sword at them hoping they'd go away or be distracted by the guards until they whacked him a couple of times. Then, instead of pleading for mercy, he downs a potion which any tactically thinking mind would immediately equate to a sneak-attack in the making.

2. The party should know that not every town is as lenient when it comes to killing suspects of crimes. Even if the paladin didn't fall, just about everyone who didn't witness the robbery would say that "It was horrible! The man in iron plating suddenly shouted out and drew his sword, assailing that poor fellow who was sent to the clerics. That brave soul who jumped in between them should have a medal!"

You're right in that the party -should- know that they can't just cut down whomever they please whenever they please, but with the kind of money these two were sporting, they were career criminals and probably known as such. You don't just randomly find 300gp potions laying around. Either you're an adventurer that bought it at ye-olde magick-mart, or your boss gave you one for use in necessary circumstances. Either way more than a few people are going to see the world as better off without them. People are not a homogenous mass and opinions on circumstances will vary. In a world with dragons, goblins, and other nasties, death is a common enough occurence that people generally won't give it as much weight as modern folk who almost never hear about it, much less see it in the street every once in a while.

Edenbeast

2013-01-21, 01:58 PM

I can tell you right off the bat, I don't live in the U.S. but can possess a firearm. Laws relating to owning weapons are not what people assume they are, it's possibly to carry a weapon or have in your possession a weapon in a lot of countries so long as you have registered everything correctly and don't bring them into any area that would restrict or prohibit their carry.

You can have everything registered correctly, having a liscence to carry gun or firearm doesn't mean you're allowed to shoot people.. For hunting or sport, you're allowed to bring your weapon for that specific purpose. In any other circumstance you are supposed to have locked your weapon safely away, with weapon and ammo separated.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-21, 02:01 PM

You can have everything registered correctly, having a liscence to carry gun or firearm doesn't mean you're allowed to shoot people.. For hunting or sport, you're allowed to bring your weapon for that specific purpose. In any other circumstance you are supposed to have locked your weapon safely away, with weapon and ammo separated.

This depends on where you live. Different nations and different states/provinces within those nations have differing weapons laws. Making any assumptions about which ones apply is a fool's errand. The same goes for the details of self-defense laws.

Yukitsu

2013-01-21, 02:06 PM

You can have everything registered correctly, having a liscence to carry gun or firearm doesn't mean you're allowed to shoot people.

You're right. Having a gun doesn't entitle me to use it on a person. That person waving a knife at me however, does.

Odin the Ignoble

2013-01-21, 02:19 PM

One of my favorite ways to warn players is to have an NPC congratulate them. Have a known evil NPC, compliment them on their bloodymindedness.
"Good job mate! I didn't think you had it in you. Cutting down a fleeing man for trying to protect his friend! Haha! Here, let me buy you a drink!"

Alternatively, if their in the middle of a crowd, have the crowd's reaction be appropriate. Babies screaming, women fainting that sort of thing. Have the crowd recoil in fear, possibly even starting a stampede and having the young and or elderly trampled.

If other men in the crowd didn't see the thieves stealing, the might jump in to protect the thieves from the party's sudden aggression.

Edit:
I also like the idea of getting the dead thief's family involved, either as a further chastisement or a new plot hook encounter.

Having the Thief's wife show up in ragged clothes with her children in tow, half mad from grief. Maybe even have her attack the Paladin, to see if he's willing to kill a mother in front of her children.

Or other family relations become upset that the party killed a family member:
Have them influence/threaten/blackmail the authorities into arresting and trying the Paladin.

Have the extended family show up armed to the teeth and and demanding justice/compensation.

Have the innkeeper of the in the party's staying at be a cousin. While the party's out he "appropriates" their treasure, or poisons their food, or wakes the party up with a handful of crossbow bolts.

awa

2013-01-21, 02:52 PM

Deophaun

2013-01-21, 02:54 PM

In many places, doing so makes you a vigilante.
No. Vigilantism occurs only after the commission of the crime, not during. Those places that would call you a vigilante for stopping a crime in progress are, in fact, committing a crime against the English language.

Asheram

2013-01-21, 03:24 PM

Then, instead of pleading for mercy, he downs a potion which any tactically thinking mind would immediately equate to a sneak-attack in the making.

... After hitting this guy for three rounds, with him making no move for a counter attack, he downs a potion and you think he's making a Sneak Attack?

Really?

Odin the Ignoble

2013-01-21, 03:42 PM

except none of those things tell the pc what he did was wrong. serial killers can have families to. the criminal had hundreds of gold to blow on magic items so either he was not poor or he was negligent letting his family suffer so he could be a thief.

A mother attacking the pc may very well kill her even if shes unarmed in a world of monks and touch attacks he cant take the risk.

The pc will not think oh what have i done this man had an extended family hell think yup thieves guild looks like i still have work to do to protect the innocents of this fine town.

Even the inn keeper was a member of this thieves guild it goes deeper then i thought.

Showing the thief had a large extended family all willing to die for him just makes it look like hes part of an large scale criminal organization and that killing him was even more justified because you have proven that the local law enforcement is unable or unwilling to stop actual criminals which seems the opposite of the intended message.

Only the first part about being congratulated by an Evil NPC was really meant as a reprimand.

Everything else is meant as morally grey consequences.

If the Paladin kills a mother in front of her children, I'd definitely rule that as in instant fall. I don't think that a unarmed attack would count as dangerous enough to warrant killing the attacker, even if monks exist. How would you defend yourself in front of a judge. "I had to cut her in half with my broadsword, she was trying to punch me!"

Since many PCs can take balista bolts to the face without having to worry about death, it's hard to imagine that a unarmed opponent or even one armed with a short sword is dangerous enough to warrant killing.

Whether the party thinks it's the acts of the Theives Guild depends on how you play out the rest of the family. If the NPC's are clearly stating that they're angry because you killed their son/cousin/brother/nephew then it's less likely that it'll look like organized crime.

NichG

2013-01-21, 04:31 PM

There's a lot cities can do between 'lock up and execute the Paladin' and 'clap him on the shoulder for a job well done'. I imagine that if there are Paladins around taking the law into their own hands, those Paladins are going to be very unpopular with rulers even if they're okay with the populace. And honestly, most of the populace may not be okay with it if their end of it is that everything is fine but every so often the Paladin comes by and chops off three of their heads for no apparent reason (they detected as evil...)

At the lowest level of response, probably about the scale that is appropriate here, the city can just publically censure the adventurers. Or can be uncooperative, not giving them the quests and leads but instead handing them out to more respectable groups. This is essentially the reputation damage method, and is good when there's just one group that's causing trouble and the others are more or less okay.

If all adventurers and paladins are behaving like this, it calls for a more wide-spread response. A city could very well treat visiting adventurers such as the Paladin as they would a foreign nation, if we're going under the assumption that the city doesn't themselves have heroes who could successfully curtail the activities of unruly adventurers. That is to say, they don't just try to arrest them, but they bar entry, impose sanctions by posting public notice that their citizens are not allowed to trade or associate with the adventurers, impose taxes at the gate, or even just make adventuring illegal in the town (but have it be a hollow law). A paladin that stops being Lawful will have problems, and a city can easily create a situation where the only Lawful choice in the long term for the paladin is to not adventure around there. Breaking the law to stand up for Good (or avoid the 'insufficient Good' part of the code) is one thing, but breaking the law for the sake of personal convenience is another thing entirely.

If the paladin really gets out of hand, the city sends out wanted posters for the adventurers and lets other heroes eventually try to take care of it. They exile the Paladin's church (this deity isn't making the guy Fall for his actions, so the deity is complicit and should be treated as a hostile deity just like all the gods of evil) or stop/reduce donations, specifically stating that it is the Paladin in question that is the problem, and if the Church disciplines him, banishes him, or heck, even just controls him then they're be happy to rescind the sanctions. Cities aren't at their best using lethal force, because scores of guardsmen suck in D&D, but they can be good at politicking.

Furthermore, a smart deity doesn't piss off their worshippers by giving someone carte blanche to commit a lot of public relations nightmares. The Paladin represents their deity in the world - if the Paladin appears to be tyrannical, its not long before the deity's worshipper base also shifts. A deity shouldn't really be saying 'well you called yourself a Paladin so I'm going to be totally hands off now', they should be shaping the Paladin's morality and ethics to match their own (or more importantly, to match what they want their Paladins to be). This can mean a spectrum of responses below the pass/fail 'Was that bad enough to Fall' criterion. Most of the time this will probably be something like, a cleric of the deity has a dream that the Paladin will be visiting and will be lost in the woods, and thus should guide and counsel the Paladin.

Amphetryon

2013-01-21, 04:38 PM

No. Vigilantism occurs only after the commission of the crime, not during. Those places that would call you a vigilante for stopping a crime in progress are, in fact, committing a crime against the English language.

So, your argument is based on how a fantasy setting, which uses a language called Common, or Chondathan, or what have you, chooses to use a term based on one of the definitions of that term as it evolved in English?

Fascinating.

EDIT: Dictionary.reference.com definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vigilante)

Deophaun

2013-01-21, 04:49 PM

So, your argument is based on how a fantasy setting, which uses a language called Common, or Chondathan, or what have you, chooses to use a term based on all of the definitions of that term as it evolved in English?
FIFY. Yes, surprisingly, I actually do believe words have meanings.

awa

2013-01-21, 04:54 PM

keep in mind the post says three rounds of not stabbing not three rounds of standing there drooling while a pc hits him
so
round 1 tangle foot bag
round 2 ?
round 3 potion of invisibility

a sneak attack is far from improbable

and even if the criminal just stared at me for 3 rounds id start worrying i was fighting an intensely stupid assassin and that a death attack was coming my way.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-21, 05:22 PM

... After hitting this guy for three rounds, with him making no move for a counter attack, he downs a potion and you think he's making a Sneak Attack?

Really?

Hey, for all I know he's taking total defense and waiting for backup. It's not really suprising that it wasn't enough to keep out the attacks of at least two attackers one of whom, the paladin, is a trained warrior.

Also, this guy took more than one hit from a trained warrior. That's not a common cut-purse trying to get by. That's a hardened street fighter. So yes, a sneak attack would seem imminent after he downed an expensive consumable item to conceal himself.

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-21, 05:50 PM

Edenbeast

2013-01-21, 05:57 PM

This depends on where you live. Different nations and different states/provinces within those nations have differing weapons laws. Making any assumptions about which ones apply is a fool's errand. The same goes for the details of self-defense laws.

I totally agree. However, I made the statement for the exact same reason: carrying/using a gun is different for every nation. And where I'm from you'll be in trouble when you:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Edenbeast View Post
You can have everything registered correctly, having a liscence to carry gun or firearm doesn't mean you're allowed to shoot people.
You're right. Having a gun doesn't entitle me to use it on a person. That person waving a knife at me however, does.

I think I made clear in the second part of my statement, that you're allowed to use your gun for the purpose of hobby, be it hunting or sports. So don't just copy the part that suits you. Shooting a man with a knife is not the reason that you have a liscense, at least not over here.. In fact you are supposed to have that gun locked away when you are just walking in the streets. Unless you are a police officer in function.

Anyway, it's hardly of any importance. what is important is that the DM should be clear about the laws in his setting/state/city. He doesn't need to rub it in, but his players should be aware that when they are visiting a place, different rules may apply.
If one man walks free after killing another man in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded street, whether he was justified to do so or not, sounds like a very chaotic/lawless city. If there are laws in this city, then at least an investigation should take place. There are witnesses who didn't know these guys were thieves, what they did see was the party drew their weapons and murdered the victim. It could just as well be a gang war execution. So DM, does your city council allow these things to happen in the streets? Roleplaying can be tricky, and both players and DM's make mistakes. I don't think your paladin should fall for this, but be consistent in your setting.

GnomeGninjas

2013-01-21, 06:50 PM

I can tell you right off the bat, I don't live in the U.S. but can possess a firearm. Laws relating to owning weapons are not what people assume they are, it's possibly to carry a weapon or have in your possession a weapon in a lot of countries so long as you have registered everything correctly and don't bring them into any area that would restrict or prohibit their carry.

I was exaggerating with "basically anywhere but America". You're right about them being legal in most countries if you fill out the right paperwork.

Zeful

2013-01-21, 06:53 PM

The reason why they can get away with being all Judge Dread, "I AM THE LAW!", is because of divine mandate.

You mean DM mandate. Because I never ran Paladin orders like that in my games. After all, the "I AM THE LAW!" attitude is one of a tyrant, befitting the type of rule typical of Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil societies, where personal power or prestige can easily influence or bypass the rule of law.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-21, 09:15 PM

You mean DM mandate. Because I never ran Paladin orders like that in my games. After all, the "I AM THE LAW!" attitude is one of a tyrant, befitting the type of rule typical of Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil societies, where personal power or prestige can easily influence or bypass the rule of law.

Don't misunderstand. I'm definitely -not- saying that the paladin is above the law. I -am- saying that the laws of the gods are above the laws of men and the laws of reality are above the laws of the gods. What is good and what is evil are laws of reality. A paladin is more beholden to these higher laws than any laws of men.

He is the righteous sword of his faith, commanded by conviction or dogma to seek out and destroy true evil whatever the personal cost. That means suffering no evil to occur in his presence if it is within his power to prevent it, even if it means breaking the laws of men.

Even if you remove most of the conviction from the equation, if you're given the choice between making your god happy and making your king happy, which do you pick? Even for many completely mundane characters that's a no-brainer. The king can send his men after you and can punish you how he sees fit until your body gives but the god can strike you down where you stand -then- punish you for an eternity or until your very soul gives (god's choice). If you have to pick, you keep the god happy. Add into this that a divine caster genuinely believes that his god is wiser and that divine law is more important than men's and it's even less of a question.

Even if you're beholden to no god, there's still a set of fundamental laws that govern what constitutes an aligned act. Consistently taking chaotic acts weakens the paladin's connection to law until his ethical alignment becomes neutral and that connection breaks. A single act of evil has the same consequence for that divine connection.

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-21, 09:39 PM

Don't misunderstand. ...snip... divine connection.

Are you sure you're playing DnD and not Judge Dredd.

In the real world there has been Kings that have destroyed religious orders, when they have opposed the King.

awa

2013-01-21, 09:43 PM

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-21, 09:58 PM

You do realize that a typical d&d character has far less oversight then a judge dread judge?

Not only does that get into both real world politics and religion it has no bearing on a world where the gods followers have verifiable magic powers and an army of outsiders at there beck and call.

What Kings cant call their own forces to deal with an uppity religious order, and when a King calls for something the nobles and guild masters are going to come running for the favors that the King would give out. The other religious orders are going to call them heretics.
So tell me would a religious order fight a kingdom to stand for the wrongs committed by their paladins?

awa

2013-01-21, 10:15 PM

You realize that is incredible setting dependent right? becuase we cant use the real world for example like you attempted to both becuase it would be against forum rules and becuase it has no bearing on a world where god can arrive in person and sort things out.

AntiTrust

2013-01-21, 11:12 PM

Mind you i have skipped a few pages.

This encounter that the paladin was in, what was he wearing at the time when he killed the person.
Did the crowd at the time know what was happening and how did they see the actions of the person that the paladin killed.

If the paladin was not wearing the holy symbols of his order or if the crowd did not know the religion the served, wouldn't the crowd see the action of a heavy arm thug killing a person in cold blood. The crowd would probably not know the paladin and may attack the murder.

The paladin (of Mayaheine if anyone was interested) was wearing her fullplate, a buckler and a longsword.

The players arrived to the parade fairly late and as such were in the very back so most people weren't looking in the right direction and many didn't hear the action due to the parade.

For those asking what the thief did in the second round of combat,he had used the aid another ability to grant his prone friend an AC bonus.

The reaction by the crowd wasn't really an issue, soon after thief A was knocked unconscious and thief B was killed a chimera in a cage at the parade broke free was in the process of attacking its handlers. The crowd immediate stampeded away from the parade in all directions. The group stayed to take care of the chimera

Mystral

2013-01-21, 11:27 PM

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-21, 11:30 PM

I'm just saying is that a Paladins belief in his gods teaching shouldn't overrule the local and national laws of the area. A Paladin should not have the right to go willy nilly killing everything.

Lets take a made up a human kingdom. For a few decades the King has a treaty will the goblins to mine this one mountain range, Both sides are happy about this and been on friendly terms. The players are traveling through this kingdom from one nation to another because this is the shortest way, one day they are passing some mountains and see a small goblin village, the Paladin player goes goblins are evil and we should kill them, the bard in the group has heard that the goblins and human live peacefully here and we shouldn't do it, the wizard and the cleric agree with the paladin and they go and slaughter the goblins. After the goblin killing the players continue their journey without knowing they started a war between the goblins and humans that is going to last many years.

In this example the paladin stops being lawful good, but may not have violated his gods teachings, going by the rules he is an ex paladin and loses his spells and abilities.

There is some people in this forum, that believe that a random npc has a angry reaction to the players, that npc must be out to kill them and is secretly a monk or has touch spells, So that means it is alright for the players to kill the npc, even if the npc was just a level 1 commoner and could pose no treat to the players.

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-21, 11:36 PM

Zeful

2013-01-21, 11:38 PM

Don't misunderstand. I'm definitely -not- saying that the paladin is above the law. I -am- saying that the laws of the gods are above the laws of menWhich for your table is fine, but it's not the reality of every table. That statement "The laws of the gods are above the laws of men" would only ever hold true at my table in nations where the land is ruled in the name of a particular god, and even then, mostly only in the larger cities. Out in the boonies or other nations entirely? Doesn't hold that much weight.

He is the righteous sword of his faith, commanded by conviction or dogma to seek out and destroy true evil whatever the personal cost. That means suffering no evil to occur in his presence if it is within his power to prevent it, even if it means breaking the laws of men.

Even if you remove most of the conviction from the equation, if you're given the choice between making your god happy and making your king happy, which do you pick? Even for many completely mundane characters that's a no-brainer. The king can send his men after you and can punish you how he sees fit until your body gives but the god can strike you down where you stand -then- punish you for an eternity or until your very soul gives (god's choice). If you have to pick, you keep the god happy. Add into this that a divine caster genuinely believes that his god is wiser and that divine law is more important than men's and it's even less of a question.

Even if you're beholden to no god, there's still a set of fundamental laws that govern what constitutes an aligned act. Consistently taking chaotic acts weakens the paladin's connection to law until his ethical alignment becomes neutral and that connection breaks. A single act of evil has the same consequence for that divine connection.Man, being a Paladin in your world kind of sucks.

The interest in playing a Paladin, is as much the dogmatic zeal of acting in their god's stead as it is the conflict between the baser nature of a man, and the purity of the mission. The least interesting part of a Paladin is the Fall, either totally avoided or totally embraced. That struggle, to continue following through with his god's mission or his code. His nature, in holding to a black and white morality, is that the greyness from both sides seeks to overwhelm him.

crazyhedgewizrd

2013-01-22, 12:12 AM

For those asking what the thief did in the second round of combat,he had used the aid another ability to grant his prone friend an AC bonus.
The reaction by the crowd wasn't really an issue, soon after thief A was knocked unconscious and thief B was killed a chimera in a cage at the parade broke free was in the process of attacking its handlers. The crowd immediate stampeded away from the parade in all directions. The group stayed to take care of the chimera

The player should have known better from the actions in the second round, showed that the opponent was no treat. If the paladin don't trust the man he should have done an non-lethal hit and knocked the person out to be questioned later.
It was good that the chimera broke out and caused a since because it diverted the attention away from the murder.

Mayaheine is a demigod of protection, justice and valor. The way some people people speak it sounds very valorous and just to kill a person protecting his friend from being murdered.

Rukia

2013-01-22, 12:40 AM

The paladin (of Mayaheine if anyone was interested) was wearing her fullplate, a buckler and a longsword.

The players arrived to the parade fairly late and as such were in the very back so most people weren't looking in the right direction and many didn't hear the action due to the parade.

For those asking what the thief did in the second round of combat,he had used the aid another ability to grant his prone friend an AC bonus.

The reaction by the crowd wasn't really an issue, soon after thief A was knocked unconscious and thief B was killed a chimera in a cage at the parade broke free was in the process of attacking its handlers. The crowd immediate stampeded away from the parade in all directions. The group stayed to take care of the chimera

This pretty much seals the deal for me. If thief B would have been more aggressive in the 2nd round(which none of us knew until now) then I would have said both parties were acting stupid and the Paladin would have had at least some grounds for her actions. The fact that he willingly threw himself in front of his friend, was not only a purely defensive action in itself but a selfless act as well, yet the Paladin and party continued to slaughter him unfettered.

Attacking a man who is obviously just trying to defend another, who may have done an immoral but not evil act, does not deserve to be killed in that manner. Especially by a Paladin, who by the way if anything should have been the one to notice thief B's bravery and willingness to help a comrade and at least called off the onslaught. The fact that she lent a blind eye and continued doesn't sound very valorous to me.

Unless the party has an average intelligence of 8 then they should have absolutely realized what was going on and not continued the slaughter of a man trying to defend his friend. Can you honestly tell me that any God of said Paladin would have looked upon this situation and have been proud? If anything thief B was acting far more like a Paladin than the actual Paladin. I don't know if I'd call this situation grounds for a fall, however that Paladin would get a stern warning that if they ever did something like that again then it'd be over.

As much as I dislike the lawful stupid roleplay, at least in this situation it would have made sense. The thief should not have had to cry for mercy as his actions were deserving of it in themselves.

NichG

2013-01-22, 12:51 AM

Well, that should take care of any public relation issues for them.

Also, maybe kings in the real world have crushed religious orders they didn't like. But those orders in the real world had no people being able to cast earthquake, storm of vengeance or similiar crushing deterrents. At least not that I'm aware of. And that's not even mentioning that most dieties don't react very pleased when their religion is crushed for fullfilling its tennants. So yeah, that argument falls flat.

The thing is, there are already people like that out to get these cities and kingdoms. If you're an ally of Tyr you're an enemy of Bane, and so on. The question is, between good or evil religious orders, which is more likely to pull out the Earthquakes the second you as a king have an objection to the behavior of the priests.

If the answer is 'its the same' then there's no reason not to execute the random paladin that questions your authority, because it just means you're picking red over blue. If the answer is that Good isn't going to Earthquake your cities just because you publically censure a Paladin, then you can go ahead and call a disruptive influence what it is, and you've got no real reason to let it go unadressed.

Krazzman

2013-01-22, 06:41 AM

The thing is, there are already people like that out to get these cities and kingdoms. If you're an ally of Tyr you're an enemy of Bane, and so on. The question is, between good or evil religious orders, which is more likely to pull out the Earthquakes the second you as a king have an objection to the behavior of the priests.

If the answer is 'its the same' then there's no reason not to execute the random paladin that questions your authority, because it just means you're picking red over blue. If the answer is that Good isn't going to Earthquake your cities just because you publically censure a Paladin, then you can go ahead and call a disruptive influence what it is, and you've got no real reason to let it go unadressed.

As you spoke about Tyr and Bane... wasn't it Torms Dogma to do something if the laws of a place are evil? He has to swallow it for a short time until he can achieve a change? Yeah no this Dogma clearly is far less important than Slavelabour and opression. The Paladin actually is Bound by both. Law of Good/Evil and Gods and the Law of Man. Unless the Law Of Man is evil/opressive he is bound to uphold it at least. The difference between Manslaughter and the thing that happened is minor but significant.

What you all seem to forget when talking about the course of actions:
Someone throws something at you rushes to the guy you incapacitated (no lethal harm done) has a weapon drawn and drinks a potion. In those 18 Seconds this all happens you expect the PC's to grasp that this thief is not a threat? Hit Points are a meta-game construct. InTime the Paladin still thinks the shortsword as a Deadly weapon. Hit Points work like your Luck is running out, you get bruises. You don't take a Balistabolt to the head, you nearly dodge it and it bruised your face. A Hit or a connected strike can either be a minor wound that needs to be treated, a bruise or a lethal hit that knocks you out. And as such it WAS self defense the moment the second guy draw his sword.

Rukia

2013-01-22, 07:14 AM

As you spoke about Tyr and Bane... wasn't it Torms Dogma to do something if the laws of a place are evil? He has to swallow it for a short time until he can achieve a change? Yeah no this Dogma clearly is far less important than Slavelabour and opression. The Paladin actually is Bound by both. Law of Good/Evil and Gods and the Law of Man. Unless the Law Of Man is evil/opressive he is bound to uphold it at least. The difference between Manslaughter and the thing that happened is minor but significant.

What you all seem to forget when talking about the course of actions:
Someone throws something at you rushes to the guy you incapacitated (no lethal harm done) has a weapon drawn and drinks a potion. In those 18 Seconds this all happens you expect the PC's to grasp that this thief is not a threat? Hit Points are a meta-game construct. InTime the Paladin still thinks the shortsword as a Deadly weapon. Hit Points work like your Luck is running out, you get bruises. You don't take a Balistabolt to the head, you nearly dodge it and it bruised your face. A Hit or a connected strike can either be a minor wound that needs to be treated, a bruise or a lethal hit that knocks you out. And as such it WAS self defense the moment the second guy draw his sword.

Who drew their weapons first? I don't get the whole idea of the Paladin and group being scared for their lives. It was an entire group against a pair of thieves, neither may I remind you had done any actual harm to them and one was already incapacitated. A valorous, heroic paladin in full plate with a shield and longsword... scared of a thief with a shortsword obviously protecting his buddy.

Seriously guys? At least come up with a decent argument. 18 seconds is plenty long enough for all but the slowest minds to distinguish an actual threat versus someone desperately trying to protect someone else, all the while getting brutally attacked by AN ENTIRE GROUP of adventurers and STILL not retaliating.

Proper, simple course of action.

Paladin - "Drop your sword and surrender and we'll cease our attack. If not then taste my blade."

Set readied action to attack thief if he makes any offensive action towards a member of the group.

If thief doesn't oblige then it's his own fault. If he does, which he probably would have, then the problem is solved.

Wrong course of action:

Thief has done no actual damage to any person in our group. Has made it ridiculously obvious that he is trying to defend the person we're trying to apprehend. He's obviously outnumbered and has no chance of defeating us.

OMFG he's gonna kill us all!!!!!!!!! Kill him!

Everyone seems to concerned about the group fearing for their lives.. but what about the thief on the ground being beaten senseless by multiple strangers? If anyone had the right to feel threatened and actually had a good reason to raise their swords it was the pair of thieves. Again, simple pick-pocketing is not an evil action that should be met with lethal force by a Paladin. Regardless if the town itself punished thieves with death, that is their law to enforce, not the Paladin or the group.

The more I read people trying to justify this situation the more I wish that the DM would make the Paladin fall. I'm asking this serious question again, though I doubt any of the enablers will answer it.

Would the god who gave the Paladin her righteous power be proud of the actions they witnessed on this day? True evil exists in the world, yet the Paladin would slay, in cold blood, a person that was exhibiting more honor by protecting his comrade than than that of the actual Paladin?

Krazzman

2013-01-22, 08:16 AM

Who drew their weapons first? I don't get the whole idea of the Paladin and group being scared for their lives. It was an entire group against a pair of thieves, neither may I remind you had done any actual harm to them and one was already incapacitated. A valorous, heroic paladin in full plate with a shield and longsword... scared of a thief with a shortsword obviously protecting his buddy.

Seriously guys? At least come up with a decent argument. 18 seconds is plenty long enough for all but the slowest minds to distinguish an actual threat versus someone desperately trying to protect someone else, all the while getting brutally attacked by AN ENTIRE GROUP of adventurers and STILL not retaliating.

Proper, simple course of action.

Paladin - "Drop your sword and surrender and we'll cease our attack. If not then taste my blade."

Set readied action to attack thief if he makes any offensive action towards a member of the group.

If thief doesn't oblige then it's his own fault. If he does, which he probably would have, then the problem is solved.

Wrong course of action:

Thief has done no actual damage to any person in our group. Has made it ridiculously obvious that he is trying to defend the person we're trying to apprehend. He's obviously outnumbered and has no chance of defeating us.

OMFG he's gonna kill us all!!!!!!!!! Kill him!

Everyone seems to concerned about the group fearing for their lives.. but what about the thief on the ground being beaten senseless by multiple strangers? If anyone had the right to feel threatened and actually had a good reason to raise their swords it was the pair of thieves. Again, simple pick-pocketing is not an evil action that should be met with lethal force by a Paladin. Regardless if the town itself punished thieves with death, that is their law to enforce, not the Paladin or the group.

The more I read people trying to justify this situation the more I wish that the DM would make the Paladin fall. I'm asking this serious question again, though I doubt any of the enablers will answer it.

Would the god who gave the Paladin her righteous power be proud of the actions they witnessed on this day? True evil exists in the world, yet the Paladin would slay, in cold blood, a person that was exhibiting more honor by protecting his comrade than than that of the actual Paladin?

It's 12 Seconds. The first 6 seconds are sacrificed for the Tanglefootbag.
Obviously the Party caught a Thief in a unlawful act of criminalism. The drew their weapons to enforce that he does not escape (Trip attack + subdual damage). OF COURSE you can grasp the situation of this protective thing but people, especially players that sense cool an encounter to resolve, can be rather dull sometimes.
The second Thief had "Honor". But only so far to protect his buddy not to live a honorful/just life. We all don't know what dialogue has been spoken between "Make a Spot check" and "The Chimera breaks loose".
Again as it has been said: Mercy equals(==) good. Absence of Mercy does not equal(!=) evil.
About the proudness part: this depends on dogma. If one hates thieves, yes it would be proud. If it on the other hand focuses more about caring for each other and protection then it's a corner case of did she actually violate any of the gods dogmas and as such wouldn't be proud nor angry or sad about the course. The Paladin's god in this example is, if the Rogue has her a patron god, probably going to pick him up since he died defending someone, even if he tried to chicken out but would remain indifferent about the Paladin. (At least that is a guess[as nearly ever argument here is] as I don't know the EXACT Dogma for this God.)
Again it was NOT a kill in cold blood it was a reaction. The player might have planned to kill the Thief but the Paladin did not plan to murder, it was a reaction.
Your reaction shows exactly why the Paladin class was a bad idea to do it the way WotC designed it. It is not a funny sidequest to blow a huge chunk of money on a spell. That's like yeah the DM stripped me of all my nice stuff and I have to buy it again... wohoo.

About your definition of Wrong or Good Course: Saying something and planning to murder the thief is actually better than killing him in a reaction? seems odd to me. And again 1 against many is most likely that one of the PC's could die. One of her companions could get attacked by a wild swing from the Thief and that could be a fearful experience for the paladin, as such she tried to protect her group.
And about the outnumbered... well how many Goblins did the paladin singlehandedly kill? Probably more than one.

awa

2013-01-22, 08:54 AM

Asheram

2013-01-22, 09:32 AM

Seriously, set yourselves in the Lawful Good mindset.
Is this really what a Good person would do? Someone steps up in front of you and the person you is assailing, he looks worried about his compatriot and attempts to shield him from your vicious strikes while doing no harm to you.
Is this really the time to... The DM specifically said that he took a full round attack which implies that the Paladin was atleast L6 or higher... mindlessly slaughter him?

awa

2013-01-22, 10:06 AM

put your self in an adventurers mind set you detect a pickpocket who you then detain. and suddenly from out of the crowd a second man waving a sword and throwing an expensive alchemical items worth well over a years paycheck (500 days) for a common man. (thus clearly indicating he must be a professional thief rather then one who merely doing it in order to survive). He then takes a suboptimal combat choice suboptimal does not mean you should immediately surrender and allow the first thief to go free or even consider the second thief a non threat . after words he drinks a potion of invisibility an expensive consumable even for a 6th level adventure (and equivalent to 3000 days work for an average man) so a presumed rogue now invisible and likely a fairly high level one who has shown no interest of surrender.

good is not required to be stupid and if our pc dropped his guard at this point and had an ally get killed because he let the rogue go we would be calling him stupid and he would deserve it.

Now if he had actually thrown himself on his friend shielding him with his own body (going prone and dropping his weapon i doubt the pcs would have killed him) but that's not what he did.

Asheram

2013-01-22, 10:14 AM

awa

2013-01-22, 11:07 AM

a criminal waving a sword is not innocent and if he can blow hundreds of gold on consumables hes not weak either.

by your logic the paragon of good and law would be required to allow every criminal to go free if he resist arrest becuase you might hurt him otherwise.

Paladin are good not stupid hes not required to put him self and others at pointless risk on the off chance the hardened career criminal might be a nice guy when hes not causing innocents to starve to death becuase he stole there wages.

Now if he was a starving begger stealing a loaf of bread i might have a bit of sympathy but by the standards of a commoner he is willing to throw the equivlent of several years wages at an armed man rather then be taken to the town guard.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 04:01 PM

Which for your table is fine, but it's not the reality of every table. That statement "The laws of the gods are above the laws of men" would only ever hold true at my table in nations where the land is ruled in the name of a particular god, and even then, mostly only in the larger cities. Out in the boonies or other nations entirely? Doesn't hold that much weight. What you're talking about isn't the laws of the gods being more or less important than the laws of men, but politics between the local government and the local branch of the church. For the common man there's definitely a mental weighing of which entity is more likely to level punishment and which punishment will be more severe. For a cleric or paladin though, there is no such pause. If he had so little faith in the idea that his god knows what is right better than his king, then he wouldn't be fit to wield that god's power. Sometimes acting on your god's laws will bring you into conflict with men's. Sometimes these conflicts will be prevalent and deep enough to bring the church into conflict with the nation. That's politics.

Though of special note is the idea that a paladin should let evil slide because the nation's law says that particular evil is legal. In that case we're almost certainly -not- talking about a LG nation to begin with, and his church is quite likely already in conflict with the government making the "piss off the government" argument moot.

Man, being a Paladin in your world kind of sucks.

The interest in playing a Paladin, is as much the dogmatic zeal of acting in their god's stead as it is the conflict between the baser nature of a man, and the purity of the mission. The least interesting part of a Paladin is the Fall, either totally avoided or totally embraced. That struggle, to continue following through with his god's mission or his code. His nature, in holding to a black and white morality, is that the greyness from both sides seeks to overwhelm him.

Actually, I'm well aware of this conflict and generally seek to play it up if that's what the paladin's player wants. That the laws of the gods are above the laws of men is an idea that any divine caster should have. Whether the church is powerful enough to withstand the government's wrath should those laws be in conflict is another matter entirely.

To borrow an historic example, Henry VIII's renounciation of the Catholic church. Many of the english population were called on to make a choice between obeying their god and obeying their king and both the english government and the church had to tread very carefully so as not to alienate the people. If Henry had been too forceful in enforcing his will he could've sparked a peasant revolt and not only would've failed to get what he wanted but might even have gotten himself dethroned or killed. The various church officials had to tread just as carefully to avoid charges of treason against england while at the same time upholding the idea of the church's supremacy. This conflict was a result of a conflict of laws in a place influenced by two power-groups, when the church didn't have men like clerics and paladins that could call down an immediate and visible manifestation of their god's will.

A paladin or cleric should strive to obey the laws of their god -and- the laws of men wherever they can but, if those laws come into direct conflict, choosing to obey the laws of men over the laws of your god will have reprocussions for that cleric both in his standing with the church and, if the violation of his god's law is grave enough, can lead to him suddenly not being a divine caster for a while.

The laws that govern reality trump all, period. If you commit an evil act there's no trial. There's no appeal. Your alignment shifts a little more toward evil and that's all there is to it. If you're a paladin, you lose your divine power until you atone, period. These laws are as immutable and uncaring as the laws of nature and just as self-enforcing.

Rukia

2013-01-22, 04:46 PM

by turning invisible the thief proved they were not just some random pickpocket but a real threat turning invisible up's the ante when dealing with someone assumed to have a sneak attack.

And real it's only 6 seconds of not taking a hostile act because turning invisible when you have sneak attack is hostile.

Your logic has a simple flaw. The potion happened on the third round after the thief had already lost the majority of his hit points, meaning the party was intent on killing him(had already been attacking him for 2 rounds) before the potion was ever brought into the situation.

Ergo the potion was irrelevant. You also still seem to believe the party was made up of barely sentient beings. Any mildly intelligent person in the party could have put 2 + 2 together and realized that the thief did not intend to harm anyone and was merely protecting a comrade. The example of it only being 12-18 seconds of time and therefore difficult to judge is made worse by the "potion defense". The potion was drank and used in mere seconds on the final round of the thief, so by that logic the PC's would have even less time to consider this person as more than a common thief due to being able to afford such an expensive potion. You can't have it both ways. Either it was not enough time to make a simple observation at all, thus completely negating the potion part of the situation, or plenty of time to make a logical decision about the potion in which meant they had 2-3x more time to survey the actual situation. Which is it?

Look at it how you want, but anytime a thief exhibits more honor than a Paladin you really have to scratch your head no?

Amphetryon

2013-01-22, 05:01 PM

Your logic has a simple flaw. The potion happened on the third round after the thief had already lost the majority of his hit points, meaning the party was intent on killing him(had already been attacking him for 2 rounds) before the potion was ever brought into the situation.

Ergo the potion was irrelevant. You also still seem to believe the party was made up of barely sentient beings. Any mildly intelligent person in the party could have put 2 + 2 together and realized that the thief did not intend to harm anyone and was merely protecting a comrade. The example of it only being 12-18 seconds of time and therefore difficult to judge is made worse by the "potion defense". The potion was drank and used in mere seconds on the final round of the thief, so by that logic the PC's would have even less time to consider this person as more than a common thief due to being able to afford such an expensive potion. You can't have it both ways. Either it was not enough time to make a simple observation at all, thus completely negating the potion part of the situation, or plenty of time to make a logical decision about the potion in which meant they had 2-3x more time to survey the actual situation. Which is it?

Look at it how you want, but anytime a thief exhibits more honor than a Paladin you really have to scratch your head no?That may be how Players plan at your table; at others, the plan may change round to round, or even from Initiative count to Initiative count. If I missed the declaration that the party categorically said they NEVER had any intent to offer surrender, please highlight the post for me.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 05:15 PM

The fallen thief's intent was -not- obvious. You're inferring a reading of body language that you have no reason to infer. There's been no indication that he was described as obviously fearful. Nor was there any indication that he was obviously inept with that sword. For all we know he was a fifth level rogue that was quite capable, looked as fierce as he could, and had his blade veritably dancing in a defensive pattern. That it wasn't good enough to save him doesn't mean he wasn't like that just as much as the fact he got himself killed doesn't mean he was obviously fearful and inept.

As I said, he could easily have been fighting in a total defense and expecting backup at any second. The first thief had backup, why on earth would you just assume they don't have a few more buddies that are just a little further away headed in your direction? Moving through a crowd can significantly slow your movement so 3 rounds to cover as little as 60 feet isn't remotely impossible.

All we have to go on is a handful of game mechanics choices and a few clearly stated conditions, none of which can be said to clearly show any character's intention; party or enemy.

awa

2013-01-22, 05:18 PM

have you confused stealing with honorable behavior? They are really not the same thing.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 05:31 PM

Which brings up the point I always seem to have to make in these discussions. What is honorable, exactly?

Honor is defined by culture. Whether a given act is honorable, dishonorable, or simply not covered by the honor system is dependent on the culture in question. The only definite consistency is that holding to an honor code (or any well-defined code of behavior really), whatever it calls for, is lawful behavior.

You want honorable thievery, how's this grab you; a ninja loyal to his master steals the documents outlining the battle plans of the rival lord. Bushido sees this as dishonorable, but nindo would call it a very honorable act. Two different honor codes from the same culture define this act in opposite ways. For the law-chaos check though, it can be seen either as both a chaotic and lawful act or a neutral act if he took the originals, but it's just a lawful act if he made a copy and left the original. In any case, it's a morally neutral act since it doesn't address any of the things that define good and evil in D&D.

Edenbeast

2013-01-22, 05:36 PM

Although my opinion is still that the paladin was wrong with his action. I would like to address another point: how to roleplay a wounded NPC. Does he beg for mercy while he's going down? Does he stoicly take the hits and goes down quietly? Does he cry? I also make the mistake sometimes by just stating "alright monster 1 is down" But how much more helpful is it to also roleplay your NPCs in combat? I think you make it more personal, and I think the paladin would have had an easier time to consider his actions had his victim cried or begged for mercy. Maybe something like "oh please stop I have children to feed" would have stopped the players. Instead combat is resolved in a series of actions without much roleplaying, where aid another is not a clear hint to change the player's mind.

Odin the Ignoble

2013-01-22, 05:40 PM

I think that addressing the costs of the items is a bit metagamey. I'd probably chuck something at a player, if their character exclaimed "He just used 3,500 in consumables! He's got to be at least a level four rogue!"

Besides, if the character is a thief, it's entirely possible that they stole the items they used. There's allot of good reasons that a potion of invisibility might be more useful then the equivalent amount of gold. You never know when you're going to be attacked by a homicidal paladin for example. :smalltongue:

From a less system relevant standpoint. The group of adventures, (Later shown to be capable of handling a rampaging chimera) is faced with two criminals. One is incapacitated. The party has the one remaining "combatant" outnumbered and outgunned.

The Lawful Good(tm) course of action would be to offer the thief a chance to surrender or possibly subdue the criminal in non-lethal manner until the authorizes could take over.

While killing the thief isn't as Evil as say knocking him out, torturing him to death, looting his body, desecrating his corpse and tracking down his relatives and doing the same thing to them, it still isn't a Lawful Good action.

Would it warrant a fall? Imho no, but it does warrant a warning or a slap on the wrist.

If you're not willing to the morally right thing, even when it's inconvenient, you probably shouldn't be playing a hero. Maybe anti-hero or villain is a better fit.

Yukitsu

2013-01-22, 05:56 PM

Complete pacifism is considered the exalted route. Paladins don't need to follow that. In the standard setup, a good aligned person doesn't have to be a pacifist.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 05:57 PM

I think that addressing the costs of the items is a bit metagamey.Not in regards to comparing magic items to basic sustenance it's not.
I'd probably chuck something at a player, if their character exclaimed "He just used 3,500 in consumables! He's got to be at least a level four rogue!"That's definitely metagaming. However, "he just drank a potion that cost enough to feed a family for years," certainly isn't. The 300gp that an invisibility potion costs could buy 100 live pigs.

Besides, if the character is a thief, it's entirely possible that they stole the items they used. True, but if you're barely scraping by, you fence anything that valuable ASAP. Even getting 1/10th what its worth will ensure your family's survival for months. Concluding that the character that has such a device isn't starving isn't even a stretch of logic.
There's allot of good reasons that a potion of invisibility might be more useful then the equivalent amount of gold. You never know when you're going to be attacked by a homicidal paladin for example. :smalltongue:That's simply not true. Gold is an immediately liquid asset. If you have an equivalent amount of gold you can buy that potion, or a different potion, or enough food to last months. In this particular scenario, a single CLW potion, nevermind the 5 more that could've been purchased, could've got thief A back on his feet and they both could've made an escape.

From a less system relevant standpoint. The group of adventures, (Later shown to be capable of handling a rampaging chimera) is faced with two criminals. One is incapacitated. The party has the one remaining "combatant" outnumbered and outgunned.

The Lawful Good(tm) course of action would be to offer the thief a chance to surrender or possibly subdue the criminal in non-lethal manner until the authorizes could take over.

While killing the thief isn't as Evil as say knocking him out, torturing him to death, looting his body, desecrating his corpse and tracking down his relatives and doing the same thing to them, it still isn't a Lawful Good action.

Would it warrant a fall? Imho no, but it does warrant a warning or a slap on the wrist.

If you're not willing to the morally right thing, even when it's inconvenient, you probably shouldn't be playing a hero. Maybe anti-hero or villain is a better fit.

Again, a paladin has to be lawful good. That doesn't mean he has to always choose the most lawful most good course of action.

TuggyNE

2013-01-22, 06:12 PM

While killing the thief isn't as Evil as say knocking him out, torturing him to death, looting his body, desecrating his corpse and tracking down his relatives and doing the same thing to them, it still isn't a Lawful Good action.

Would it warrant a fall? Imho no, but it does warrant a warning or a slap on the wrist.

I do agree with this; it may or may not be entirely justified, but it's pretty clearly counter-productive in this case, not to mention excessive, to immediately tell the paladin "lol you fell". I think we can all agree that this is enough of a borderline case for a warning to be in order, or perhaps more than one.

NichG

2013-01-22, 06:34 PM

Again, a paladin has to be lawful good. That doesn't mean he has to always choose the most lawful most good course of action.

However I'd be very dubious of a paladin who consistently tries to skirt by on formalities and only does the minimum amount of behavioral adjustment to technically hold by their code. That doesn't say to me 'this is someone who zealously believes in divine law and good', it says to be 'this is someone who is in it for power and authority, but who has to pay lip service to a higher ideal to obtain that power and authority'. Which is more 'disillusioned cop' than 'holy knight' to me.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 06:36 PM

I do agree with this; it may or may not be entirely justified, but it's pretty clearly counter-productive in this case, not to mention excessive, to immediately tell the paladin "lol you fell". I think we can all agree that this is enough of a borderline case for a warning to be in order, or perhaps more than one.

A warning from society that taking the law into your own hands is a risky proposition, sure. I have no problem with that.

That the paladin's god should give him a warning; no. The paladin was protecting himself and his friends from an armed assailant, no matter how inept that assailant might've been.

Every argument, in this thread, that's said the paladin should fall because of this is basically demanding that for a paladin to not fall requires him to be able to read his opponents' minds, at least, or even the DM's mind in some of them. This is completely unreasonable.

Hell, for all we know thief B didn't even like thief A and only intended to put in enough effort to make it look like he was protecting thief A because someone was watching. Criminal organizations value loyalty, or at least the appearance of loyalty, too.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 06:41 PM

However I'd be very dubious of a paladin who consistently tries to skirt by on formalities and only does the minimum amount of behavioral adjustment to technically hold by their code. That doesn't say to me 'this is someone who zealously believes in divine law and good', it says to be 'this is someone who is in it for power and authority, but who has to pay lip service to a higher ideal to obtain that power and authority'. Which is more 'disillusioned cop' than 'holy knight' to me.

Holy knights can be disillusioned too, ya know. They even made a class around the idea; the Gray Guard in complete scoundrel.

Even a raw recruit can believe that enforcing the church's law is more important than showing mercy as long as he remains good. He could even believe that simple justice, regardless of law or mercy is the most important thing, though that one's a bit of a slippery slope.

There's more than one way to play a paladin that's both believable and follows RAW.

NichG

2013-01-22, 07:21 PM

Holy knights can be disillusioned too, ya know. They even made a class around the idea; the Gray Guard in complete scoundrel.

Right, its a separate class with its own special exemptions from the code to help enable the concept. I wouldn't be surprised at a Grey Guard doing something like this nearly as much as I would from a raw paladin.

Edit: Looking at the text of Gray Guard, it suggests very much that the paladin code is stricter than the interpretation here. It gives examples of two acts, both of which cause a fall, but only one of which causes the Atonement to still cost XP for a Gray Guard. The 'redeemable' act is beating a heretic for information. Beating, not even killing. Note that this still causes the Gray Guard to fall, its just easily reversed. The non-redeemable act (well, inasmuch as it costs XP to redeem)? Starting a bar brawl.

Even a raw recruit can believe that enforcing the church's law is more important than showing mercy as long as he remains good. He could even believe that simple justice, regardless of law or mercy is the most important thing, though that one's a bit of a slippery slope.

There's more than one way to play a paladin that's both believable and follows RAW.

I guess the question here is 'what is a Paladin?'. Does the church select the paladins on its own terms, or are paladins chosen by their deities. That is to say, is a raw recruit who believes in church law necessarily the same thing as a paladin, or would they more be modeled by say a fighter or even a cleric (who have far less stringent codes and standards)?

I think its also a mistake to assume that a given deity in a highly polytheistic, and even poly-pantheonic world would be able to be above politics. Its not just that there's politics between the cities and the church, but the deity themselves is at risk of losing friends and allies if they insist too strongly on a particular absolute standard such as 'you cannot allow any evil creature to live'. Good gods will often have Neutral allies, and those Neutral allies can in fact have Evil priests.

In this particular case, Mayaheine is described as being strictly subordinate to Pelor. So even if the Paladin was following Mayaheine's code of Justice by killing a thief on sight, if this comes into conflict with the priest of Pelor in town who is preaching (from wikipedia's Pelor section): "Justice and freedom are brought about through charity, modesty, perseverance, and self-sacrifice." and "the truly strong don't need to prove their power." then he has done something that harms his deity's cause. Its not something that would cause a Fall. Its not even necessarily something that Mayaheine personally disapproves. But its something that Mayaheine could easily end up giving a friendly warning about for what amounts to political reasons (by which I mean the politics between gods, not the city versus the church).

awa

2013-01-22, 08:22 PM

you realize beating a heretic for information is a nicer way of saying torture right?

The difference between the bar room brawl and the torture at least as i read it is one is furthering the goals of his faith while the other is just cause he felt like it that's why one is punished more.

Phelix-Mu

2013-01-22, 08:52 PM

Hard to believe that this discussion continues. Clearly, as I mentioned before, people are going to have a tendency to disagree on this point about just what is implied by the paladin code, strictures of duty, what are "reasonable" risks to take in the name of being good.

I play my LG characters that are strongly attached to that alignment as being good-to-the-hilt, so to speak. While they may be persuaded or forced into doing something of questionable moral/ethical nature, they will first try to avoid it by wit or wisdom, and if it can't be avoided, will be very unhappy with the situation, seek repentance, and try to make amends. Most of my LG characters have decent wisdom and are aware that too much self-righteousness (I am right because I know I am right) can be worse than just being reckless.

But that is just me. I haven't played paladins, but if I did, I'd be cautious about it because one of the DMs I play with tends to be very by-the-book and might not know how to warn my character about possible alignment broaching behavior. At least not until it was too late.

Which brings up the crux of the matter. This bit of alignment role play is up to the player, but the DM has the final say on how to interpret compliance with the code, and the player pretty much has to live with how the DM handles it. Lo and behold, the price of power.

Now, we might discuss if the paladin class really is cool enough to justify the role playing strictures that may or may not be brought into play. The druid, or even the extremist cleric gets far more for a far less restricting behavioral code. In particular, a true neutral druid can royally screw up on each alignment axis before any loss of powers are incurred, and in settings where there is no druid god or druid organization authority, anything less than total loss of powers can be very hard to enforce from a thematic standpoint.

Personally, in my setting I have adopted some of the thematic elements of Green Ronin's holy/unholy warriors, since having only LG-pledged alignment classes along the lines of paladin always irritated me since 2e. This moves role playing impetus away from the exact wording of the paladin code by RAW and makes it more an issue of what power the un/holy warrior serves or what order he or she belongs to. Basically, if someone wants to play one of these classes, they pick an alignment and I set forth what gods or knightly orders are available. Then, before the game starts, I make the player aware of what the character should be very mindful of, the full extent of impact of any code for that type of un/holy warrior on expected behavior of that character. Full disclosure, possibly with examples of historical heroes belonging to the same code as the characters. If the player ever wants to know if something sounds like appropriate behavior, then a lowballed DC int or wis check at the most; the character might already have been specifically warned against certain behavior as part of training.

In-game role play is tricky, though, and differences in perspective are inevitable. OOG clarity in communication is a must, though, since simple misunderstandings irl often snowball and become IG issues (and vice versa), affecting role play, which swings around and affects OOG session dynamic. Nip it in the bud.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 10:09 PM

Right, its a separate class with its own special exemptions from the code to help enable the concept. I wouldn't be surprised at a Grey Guard doing something like this nearly as much as I would from a raw paladin. But gray guards come from paladins. If a paladin wasn't headed in that direction already, it makes no sense that he'd become a grayguard. Something like fist of raziel would be more appropriate.

Edit: Looking at the text of Gray Guard, it suggests very much that the paladin code is stricter than the interpretation here. It gives examples of two acts, both of which cause a fall, but only one of which causes the Atonement to still cost XP for a Gray Guard. The 'redeemable' act is beating a heretic for information. Beating, not even killing. Note that this still causes the Gray Guard to fall, its just easily reversed. The non-redeemable act (well, inasmuch as it costs XP to redeem)? Starting a bar brawl.As they have a habit of doing, the good folks at WotC made examples that break their own rules. Starting a bar-room brawl isn't a fall worthy act to begin with. It's definitely a chaotic act but it's not evil and it's nowhere near enough to cause an alignment shift on its own. Beating someone for information, on the other hand, is torture; an unquestionably evil act. If a grayguard wasn't dead-certain that the "informant" actually knew something, he'd be putting himself at risk for expulsion from the grayguard order of his church and possibly being excommunicated.

I guess the question here is 'what is a Paladin?'. Does the church select the paladins on its own terms, or are paladins chosen by their deities. That is to say, is a raw recruit who believes in church law necessarily the same thing as a paladin, or would they more be modeled by say a fighter or even a cleric (who have far less stringent codes and standards)?While intending to become a paladin, or cleric for that matter, is something a person can aspire to, the final decision on whether you actually gain supernatural powers is up to the god you seek to serve. If you're a cause cleric or paladin that simply upholds the ideas of Law and Good, without a deity, it's a matter of your conviction being so powerful that the universe itself responds by granting you power.

I think its also a mistake to assume that a given deity in a highly polytheistic, and even poly-pantheonic world would be able to be above politics. Its not just that there's politics between the cities and the church, but the deity themselves is at risk of losing friends and allies if they insist too strongly on a particular absolute standard such as 'you cannot allow any evil creature to live'. Good gods will often have Neutral allies, and those Neutral allies can in fact have Evil priests. Of course the gods have to play politics with each other, as do their churches in nations where both they and their allies churches are accepted. That doesn't change the fact that clerics and paladins of a given religion must follow the dictates of that religion religiously if they want to remain divine casters. If they believe the other church's teachings to be more in line with their own thoughts, conversion is possible and between allied gods shouldn't be particularly difficult. Note also, and this is important, I never said the highlighted phrase was a rule for anyone to follow. Redemption is one of goods guiding principles. If you detect evil but don't actually see them do anything evil going the smite-on-sight route is probably going to result in a fall. For one, being evil doesn't necessarily mean that you actually serve the forces of evil, much less that whatever evil thoughts or deeds you have committed warrant immediate and summary execution. Indiscriminately slaying every peasant that pings on evil-dar means you -will- eventually cut down someone who is evil in spirit but innocent in deed and fall hard enough to leave a crater. Ignoring an evil act in progress, however, is being complicit in that act. It makes you just as guilty as the party committing the act and -that- is why a paladin must step in or fall.

In this particular case, Mayaheine is described as being strictly subordinate to Pelor. So even if the Paladin was following Mayaheine's code of Justice by killing a thief on sight, if this comes into conflict with the priest of Pelor in town who is preaching (from wikipedia's Pelor section): "Justice and freedom are brought about through charity, modesty, perseverance, and self-sacrifice." and "the truly strong don't need to prove their power." then he has done something that harms his deity's cause. Its not something that would cause a Fall. Its not even necessarily something that Mayaheine personally disapproves. But its something that Mayaheine could easily end up giving a friendly warning about for what amounts to political reasons (by which I mean the politics between gods, not the city versus the church).

I can't say as I'm particularly familiar with this deity. Since it's a good deity though, I can say with some confidence that there's probably no slay-on-sight targets outside of undead, evil outsiders, and servants of evil (read; clerics and blackguards of evil gods).

Slaying the thief was a neutral act and, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't conflict with Pelor's dogma. Even if Mayaheine's dictates -did- say that thieves should be put to summary execution, that wouldn't conflict with the quote you've given. Unless the society in question was a theocracy under the church of Pelor, the pelorites thoughts on the matter don't weigh into the equation either.

The only leg that a potential warning has to stand on is the DM deciding to enforce his own beliefs on the issue of violence.

NichG

2013-01-22, 10:43 PM

But gray guards come from paladins. If a paladin wasn't headed in that direction already, it makes no sense that he'd become a grayguard. Something like fist of raziel would be more appropriate.

As they have a habit of doing, the good folks at WotC made examples that break their own rules. Starting a bar-room brawl isn't a fall worthy act to begin with. It's definitely a chaotic act but it's not evil and it's nowhere near enough to cause an alignment shift on its own. Beating someone for information, on the other hand, is torture; an unquestionably evil act. If a grayguard wasn't dead-certain that the "informant" actually knew something, he'd be putting himself at risk for expulsion from the grayguard order of his church and possibly being excommunicated.

My point here is that Gray Guards, who are supposed to be the jaded and questionable extreme of paladins, still fall for something as minor as a bar brawl. Of course torture would cause a fall as well, but thats a no-brainer, whereas the bar brawl thing is much, well, 'pickier' than most people are treating the Paladin's code as being in this thread.

The thing with Gray Guards is that they are a special order that exists in only certain churches, mainly the militant justice types, where the Gray Guard's specific mandate is to straddle the line of their code. Its not just "You're jaded so you're a Gray Guard", its "I see you're jaded; thats inappropriate for our Paladins but we have this special order of people we don't really like but who we admit are sometimes necessary for the greater good." Even within such churches, Gray Guards are called out as being suspected by others of the order, being looked down upon, etc.

Slaying the thief was a neutral act and, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't conflict with Pelor's dogma. Even if Mayaheine's dictates -did- say that thieves should be put to summary execution, that wouldn't conflict with the quote you've given. Unless the society in question was a theocracy under the church of Pelor, the pelorites thoughts on the matter don't weigh into the equation either.

The only leg that a potential warning has to stand on is the DM deciding to enforce his own beliefs on the issue of violence.

You don't think its reasonable for someone's boss to say "Hey watch it, you're causing problems here" when, look at that, they're causing problems? A warning is not the same as a Fall. It doesn't have rules text, so talking about the laws of reality, etc, etc is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with laws. Its the deity saying "I have this subordinate who is misbehaving or who has a bad habit - not enough to fire them, but I am going to stop this." Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Zeful

2013-01-22, 11:06 PM

What you're talking about isn't the laws of the gods being more or less important than the laws of men, but politics between the local government and the local branch of the church. For the common man there's definitely a mental weighing of which entity is more likely to level punishment and which punishment will be more severe. For a cleric or paladin though, there is no such pause. If he had so little faith in the idea that his god knows what is right better than his king, then he wouldn't be fit to wield that god's power. Sometimes acting on your god's laws will bring you into conflict with men's. Sometimes these conflicts will be prevalent and deep enough to bring the church into conflict with the nation. That's politics.That really only works with settings where the gods take very active roles in the management of their portfolios. And even then there would be gods that do not possess such "laws" focusing instead on other things the diety sees as more important.

Though of special note is the idea that a paladin should let evil slide because the nation's law says that particular evil is legal. In that case we're almost certainly -not- talking about a LG nation to begin with, and his church is quite likely already in conflict with the government making the "piss off the government" argument moot.That's not what I mean, as has been established, a single evil act does not make one evil, so a Paladin, in seeing an otherwise righteous man take an evil act, and then regret it (either the action itself, or the necessity of it, situation permitting) can afford to be lenient in responding to it, regardless of what his or his god's laws say (which is likely a difference of perspective on my part, as I wouldn't consider a god's laws as anymore binding than man's). But I admit that such a situation is possible, based on circumstances that would make doing so worse than other options.

A neighboring prince, in a fit of rage, cuts down a farmer for whatever reason (the why doesn't matter), and the Paladin sees this. Later the same prince is present when their King is having the party search for one of the prince's handmaidens who mysteriously vanished. Turns out he was raping her, and she ran away. The prince's nation is, while not necessarily more powerful militarily, he's part of an alliance of three other nations, that combined easily have triple the military power of this single nation, and slighting his honor would slight his father's honor, and the four nations will invade and conquer this one.

The prince is clearly evil, but if the paladin acts like a Judge Dredd wannabe, he will destroy this nation, and many thousands of people will die. But yet not doing so is almost as bad, condemning a woman to the attentions of a terrible rapist, while ignoring an act of murder (or near murder depending on how the dice fall). At this point the Paladin should be looking outside the presented scenario to figure out what the just and right answer is, because there is one, but it tramples on his ideals.

Actually, I'm well aware of this conflict and generally seek to play it up if that's what the paladin's player wants. That the laws of the gods are above the laws of men is an idea that any divine caster should have. Whether the church is powerful enough to withstand the government's wrath should those laws be in conflict is another matter entirely.

The laws that govern reality trump all, period. If you commit an evil act there's no trial. There's no appeal. Your alignment shifts a little more toward evil and that's all there is to it. If you're a paladin, you lose your divine power until you atone, period. These laws are as immutable and uncaring as the laws of nature and just as self-enforcing.

I don't agree with either of these. The first because I see blind dogmatic faith as a bad thing, and would strip clerics acting to such extremes of their divine powers, and because I don't believe any god in a polytheistic setting would have such "laws", they'd have ideals and expectations, but no laws. And the second because the "one act of evil" thing losing a paladin their powers is not very interesting as it makes paladins fall to easily. And a fallen paladin is a far less interesting paladin than one struggling with their faith.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-22, 11:49 PM

My point here is that Gray Guards, who are supposed to be the jaded and questionable extreme of paladins, still fall for something as minor as a bar brawl. Of course torture would cause a fall as well, but thats a no-brainer, whereas the bar brawl thing is much, well, 'pickier' than most people are treating the Paladin's code as being in this thread. And again, the designer made a bad example. Starting a bar-brawl isn't a fall worthy action by RAW. It's not an evil act. It -may- be a dishonorable act, but not a major one. It's almost certainly not illegal, meaning it's not disrespecting legitimate authority. There's simply no justifying it as a legitimate example of a fall-worthy action.

The thing with Gray Guards is that they are a special order that exists in only certain churches, mainly the militant justice types, where the Gray Guard's specific mandate is to straddle the line of their code. Its not just "You're jaded so you're a Gray Guard", its "I see you're jaded; thats inappropriate for our Paladins but we have this special order of people we don't really like but who we admit are sometimes necessary for the greater good." Even within such churches, Gray Guards are called out as being suspected by others of the order, being looked down upon, etc.I really don't see the distinction you're trying to make. Some paladins become jaded or are simply not particularly nice and choose to emphasize the lawful over the good in lawful good. This doesn't conflict with the code as long as they don't commit evil. Gray guards are a special case of paladins that -can- commit evil if they deem it necessary, but they still lose their powers and have to atone until they hit the class's capstone.

You don't think its reasonable for someone's boss to say "Hey watch it, you're causing problems here" when, look at that, they're causing problems? A warning is not the same as a Fall. It doesn't have rules text, so talking about the laws of reality, etc, etc is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with laws. Its the deity saying "I have this subordinate who is misbehaving or who has a bad habit - not enough to fire them, but I am going to stop this." Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
It would -if- it was causing a problem. There's no problem here. Even if there hadn't been a distraction immediately afterward the reaction to the thief's slaying could've been utterly tepid, and it was a clear-cut case of self-defense even by modern standards. Again, the only justification this "warning" has is that the DM doesn't like the fact that good is okay with violence as long as the violence isn't indiscriminate.

That really only works with settings where the gods take very active roles in the management of their portfolios. And even then there would be gods that do not possess such "laws" focusing instead on other things the diety sees as more important. The only gods that sponsor paladins that aren't lawful are the NG gods and Sune Firehair. The idea that a lawful god's dogma isn't written as a codified system is absurd. Even with the neutral good deities their paladin sects will have codified rules that are ascribed to the word of their gods as will the church in general if it's large enough. Any paladin and most clerics will naturally treat these as inviolable laws.

That's not what I mean, as has been established, a single evil act does not make one evil, so a Paladin, in seeing an otherwise righteous man take an evil act, and then regret it (either the action itself, or the necessity of it, situation permitting) can afford to be lenient in responding to it, regardless of what his or his god's laws say (which is likely a difference of perspective on my part, as I wouldn't consider a god's laws as anymore binding than man's). But I admit that such a situation is possible, based on circumstances that would make doing so worse than other options. If he found out after-the-fact, sure. If he saw the evil act as it was happening and did nothing to stop it, he's as guilty as if he'd committed the act himself and falls on the spot.

A neighboring prince, in a fit of rage, cuts down a farmer for whatever reason (the why doesn't matter), and the Paladin sees this.If the initial blow doesn't kill the farmer then the paladin -must- attempt to stop the prince, providing that his attack was prompted by anything other than the farmer attacking first. The why very much does matter in determining if an act is evil or not. Given the status of the prince, he'd have to do so in a non-lethal fashion and face any reprecussions that resulted but simply allowing the prince to unjustly kill the farmer when he could've stopped it is fall-worthy.

Later the same prince is present when their King is having the party search for one of the prince's handmaidens who mysteriously vanished. Turns out he was raping her, and she ran away. The prince's nation is, while not necessarily more powerful militarily, he's part of an alliance of three other nations, that combined easily have triple the military power of this single nation, and slighting his honor would slight his father's honor, and the four nations will invade and conquer this one. So the paladin hides the handmaiden away and "regretfully" reports his failure to find her. While lying is often against the code (again, depending on what honor system is in place), it's a minor transgression and the circumstances make it necessary. Handing her over to the prince would be condemning her to further torture or even an unjust death and -may- constitute an evil act at the DM's discretion (it falls into one of RAW's gray areas where a DM call is absolutely necessary).

The prince is clearly evil, but if the paladin acts like a Judge Dredd wannabe, he will destroy this nation, and many thousands of people will die. But yet not doing so is almost as bad, condemning a woman to the attentions of a terrible rapist, while ignoring an act of murder (or near murder depending on how the dice fall). At this point the Paladin should be looking outside the presented scenario to figure out what the just and right answer is, because there is one, but it tramples on his ideals. Again, I never said that a paladin should kill anything that pings on detect evil. Doing so is going to result in evil eventually. The paladin's duty in this instance is clear. Follow the prince for the duration of his stay and do everything possible to mitigate the evil the prince would do if left unchecked. If this means occasionally conking him over the head and telling him some ruffian struck him from behind when he comes to, so be it. It only becomes necessary to kill him if he tries to commit a grave act of evil such as calling a demon or such. At which point he has evidence to back his claim of justification; the magic circle and the prince's arcane notes.

I don't agree with either of these. The first because I see blind dogmatic faith as a bad thing, and would strip clerics acting to such extremes of their divine powers, and because I don't believe any god in a polytheistic setting would have such "laws", they'd have ideals and expectations, but no laws. If you really believe lawful gods don't have laws, I really don't know what to say to that. The idea that a cleric should think his gods ideas are anything less than ideal is also baffling to me.
And the second because the "one act of evil" thing losing a paladin their powers is not very interesting as it makes paladins fall too easily. And a fallen paladin is a far less interesting paladin than one struggling with their faith.

It really doesn't. There are -very- few acts that are categorically and always evil. Most things that get called evil in these discussions really aren't. They're gritty and unpleasant, to be sure, but rarely evil; the OP's situation being a prime example.

I doubt you could come up with any situation that I couldn't find a non-evil solution to without making the situation completely contrived.

VariaVespasa

2013-01-23, 01:22 AM

I actually hate that item. It provides a function that should have been included in a Knowledge: Religion check. DC 15: Paladins figure out what actions the DM will screw them over for taking.

What makes you think its functions ARENT including in a K:relig check? The knowledge skills are for all things involved in the given subject, regardless of whether or not its specifically included in their list of examples. Those lists are not, and were never intended to be, complete and limiting. The DM is supposed to use their common sense in the application of the skills, and this is an example. Holidays arent included in the religion list forinstance- Does it seem even remotely reasonable that the guy with 10 ranks in K:religion somehow would have no way of knowing about christmas or easter? Does it? But thats what rigid and blind adherence to whats written and only whats written will mean. No, the DM absolutely must use judgement and common sense, rather than just blindly following a book. Its inexcusably unimaginative and lazy in a game built on imagination. The rules are a *guideline* and framework ONLY, now as back in 1.0, and it remains the players and especially the DMs job to fill them out as needed.

So a character with K:rel can rely on that to guide him through questionable decisions. One without, or who does not want to risk error (Ack, I rolled a 1!) can wear a phylactery. Since he burns cash and a magic item slot to do so I really cant see a problem with it. So, problem still?

Unrelated- Er, did the previous poster really just say that starting a bar brawl is probably not illegal? Name a country where it isnt. Just one....

TypoNinja

2013-01-23, 01:24 AM

I think that addressing the costs of the items is a bit metagamey. I'd probably chuck something at a player, if their character exclaimed "He just used 3,500 in consumables! He's got to be at least a level four rogue!"

An adventurers budget is orders of magnitude larger than the entire wealth of some small towns/villages. Using any consumable magic item at all would single out an NPC as somebody special.

SRD puts the Invis potion at 300gp. That's almost 3 years of wages for a skilled worker, unskilled laborers can be had for even less.

Its not that they can match WBL to what they see coming at them, its that adventurers budgets are in a class of their own compared to any other more mundane profession. ANY use of consumables represents such a huge expenditure for a non-adventurer that it is remarkable, that thief for example could have sold that invis potion and lived quite well of the proceeds for more than a year.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-23, 05:27 AM

What makes you think its functions ARENT including in a K:relig check? The knowledge skills are for all things involved in the given subject, regardless of whether or not its specifically included in their list of examples. Those lists are not, and were never intended to be, complete and limiting. The DM is supposed to use their common sense in the application of the skills, and this is an example. Holidays arent included in the religion list forinstance- Does it seem even remotely reasonable that the guy with 10 ranks in K:religion somehow would have no way of knowing about christmas or easter? Does it? But thats what rigid and blind adherence to whats written and only whats written will mean. No, the DM absolutely must use judgement and common sense, rather than just blindly following a book. Its inexcusably unimaginative and lazy in a game built on imagination. The rules are a *guideline* and framework ONLY, now as back in 1.0, and it remains the players and especially the DMs job to fill them out as needed.

So a character with K:rel can rely on that to guide him through questionable decisions. One without, or who does not want to risk error (Ack, I rolled a 1!) can wear a phylactery. Since he burns cash and a magic item slot to do so I really cant see a problem with it. So, problem still?

Unrelated- Er, did the previous poster really just say that starting a bar brawl is probably not illegal? Name a country where it isnt. Just one....

I did indeed. It was only very recently, in a historic sense, that fighting in general was outlawed except as a sporting event. For most of human history a bar-room brawl was simply a matter of course for some bars and only if someone got seriously hurt did the authorities even take notice, much less do anything about it. It was simply seen as one of the costs of owning a bar or pub.

So yeah, absent some idea what kind of government is in place, it's a broad assumption and application of modern sensibilities to say that bar-brawling is probably illegal.

NichG

2013-01-23, 06:49 AM

And again, the designer made a bad example. Starting a bar-brawl isn't a fall worthy action by RAW. It's not an evil act. It -may- be a dishonorable act, but not a major one. It's almost certainly not illegal, meaning it's not disrespecting legitimate authority. There's simply no justifying it as a legitimate example of a fall-worthy action.

I see it as a reason not to take the existence of Gray Guards as implying anything more than 'some designer wanted a more fall-proof Paladin'. Going too deeply here requires discussing designer intent which is hard to know unless they decide to respond here of course. I don't take Gray Guards to be Judge Dredd types that answer to no authority but themselves, since the way the class is written does indeed have many many things that can still get them into trouble.

I really don't see the distinction you're trying to make. Some paladins become jaded or are simply not particularly nice and choose to emphasize the lawful over the good in lawful good. This doesn't conflict with the code as long as they don't commit evil. Gray guards are a special case of paladins that -can- commit evil if they deem it necessary, but they still lose their powers and have to atone until they hit the class's capstone.

Ah, but what I'm saying is that the code isn't all there is to the Paladin. This is the core point - a Paladin must not violate their code, but they should try their best to behave in certain ways, generally ways that are consistent both with their deity's ideals (beyond the generic do-no-evil clause) and with their deity's interests (e.g. don't start holy wars over things that don't matter). The 'should' is not codified in rules text, because it has nothing to do with mechanically altering a Paladin's abilities - instead, its merely the recognition that Paladins of a deity ostensibly serve that deity, just as the Clerics of a deity do. Pissing off a king without real cause, or failing to even care about things that the deity considers to be important virtues are examples where the Paladin may not be in trouble with their code, but may well be going in a different direction than would best serve their deity. And unlike kingdoms afraid of high level adventurers, the deity has no real reason to use a light touch with their own paladin.

It would -if- it was causing a problem. There's no problem here. Even if there hadn't been a distraction immediately afterward the reaction to the thief's slaying could've been utterly tepid, and it was a clear-cut case of self-defense even by modern standards. Again, the only justification this "warning" has is that the DM doesn't like the fact that good is okay with violence as long as the violence isn't indiscriminate.

The problem with this statement is that it assumes something on behalf of the DM's motivations, which is really unfair to do in a discussion like this where we have no way of knowing them. It would be akin to if I assumed that the paladin killed the thief "because the player was there for a beer and pretzels game and not a deep philosophical exploration of the nature of good". It doesn't really get us anywhere.

My assertion is that there are many settings and situations in which the Paladin's behavior was sufficiently thoughtless or inappropriate to either be directly damaging to their deity's cause and ideals, or to indicate to the deity that the Paladin is beginning to stray. Yes, the DM decides to a great extent how to play a given deity, and so yes, the DM could decide arbitrarily 'this deity will react because I want to react', but the DM could also decide that the Paladin's behavior is inconsistent with elements of the setting or pantheon simply letting it go.

The reaction to the thief's slaying could be tepid, but it could also be extreme. A priori there's no reason to assume one or the other. Modern and medieval standards both are bad representations of a D&D world. The quality of life of people in a D&D world can be much higher than the quality of life of people in the modern world (even without going as far as Tippyverse) - you can regenerate lost limbs, have any disease cured, and can obtain employment entirely regardless to your situation simply by utilizing a Profession or Perform skill; you have a more cosmopolitan society in most D&D worlds than in the modern world, with multiple different species coexisting in relative peace. But at the same time, there's much more personal power in a lot of D&D worlds, with individuals capable of doing things simply off-hand that would require government-scale budgets and military hardware in the modern world. What does that mean for how a given city will react to an act of 'citizen justice'?

I think the answer depends a lot on who and what rules in the city. If its a council of low level folk, then they have to have some way of retaining that power in the face of random Lv9 parties wandering around. Perhaps its 'there's just nothing worth taking over here', in which case they let the Paladin kill the thief and don't care at all. Perhaps its trade agreements, alliances, and the like, such that a party could kill anyone on the council but would find themselves the target of other high level parties. In which case they absolutely would want to make an example of a Paladin, because otherwise they can't prevent other, worse adventuring groups from doing other, worse things. If the city is run by a solitary or small group of high level characters? Then the Paladin had better walk on eggshells and be careful, because he could at the extreme put his entire order in mortal danger.

... If he found out after-the-fact, sure. If he saw the evil act as it was happening and did nothing to stop it, he's as guilty as if he'd committed the act himself and falls on the spot.

This is a little cross-topic, but I think this gets at the main objection to holding the Paladin not only to a strict code, but also to a broad standard of 'overachieving at good'. There's a chance that the secondary standard can put the Paladin in a double-bind, where any action they take or fail to take will lead to them falling. So people angle towards zealous and then justify it based on 'Well if I didn't I'd fall!'. The solution is twofold:

1. Atonement spells exist, and if the Paladin really is damned both ways then their deity will understand. In a true situation like this, the Paladin does the best they can and thats that.

2. There are always many options. The Paladin in this example decided firstly to engage the thieves in combat rather than, say, try to negotiate with them, repay the victims and track them to their headquarters, call the guard, attempt intimidation, etc. Even further, the Paladin could have used grappling to subdue them rather than direct attacks with a lethal weapon. A large number of Code-okay options existed, and of those the Paladin chose to kill. Here is where previous posters have argued 'but the rogue used expensive things and could have been a serious threat!'. I say to that, this is again a matter of the Paladin's attitude and falling short of an ideal: a Paladin should have the kind of mindset to risk themselves to obtain the best outcome rather than take a darker outcome just to avoid risk; its not required of them, but a Paladin that lacks that is not being a very powerful example to the rest of the world. They just become Fighters that happen to have some minor deific support.

awa

2013-01-23, 08:03 AM

why do people keep using judge dread as an example for people with out any oversight?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_%282000_AD%29
"The Judges themselves are not above the law – a violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso-Cube would get a Judge a twenty-year sentence, to be served as hard labor on Saturn's moon, Titan,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd#Dredd.27s_world
"Street Judges act as police, judge, jury and, if necessary, on-the-spot executioner. Capital punishment in Mega-City One is rarely used,[51] though deaths while resisting arrest are numerous. ."
from Wikipedia
edit
unless your optimized fro grappling it is a very bad option to try against an armed foe whose power level is unknown

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-23, 11:51 AM

-snip- unless your optimized fro grappling it is a very bad option to try against an armed foe whose power level is unknown

Non-lethal attacks, meanwhile, are a -4 to attack rolls or using a backup weapon. That is not at all unreasonable to use against a target who has taken no lethal actions toward you. (For clarity, the use of an invisibility potion may or may not be reasonable grounds to assume they're going on the offensive rather than escaping, and I'll not argue it either way - before the potion, however, I'd expect less disregard for life from Good.)

awa

2013-01-23, 12:27 PM

Maybe but the use of expensive consumables implies a highly dangerous foe. just because he failed to attack for one round does not mean he is a push over.

Combined with the fact that many dms don't tell you the hp or the ac of the target in question he has at this time no reason to expect the thief is anything less then level appropriate and in that situation voluntarily lowering your accuracy may be the difference between stopping the attacker and losing a more fragile pc to a sneak attack.

Asheram

2013-01-23, 12:32 PM

Maybe but the use of expensive consumables implies a highly dangerous foe.

Or a government agent. The more I read about the scenario it sounds more like a spy novel than two pickpockets.

The whole fact that they use something valuable should be tip-off that this is something out of the ordinary, but not necessarily something dangerous

ArcturusV

2013-01-23, 12:35 PM

Entirely possible. Particularly if the campaign setting supports it. The other thought jumping to mind is that if there were pickpockets, and a rampaging Chimera who escapes during the Parade... what ELSE was going on? That'd be a lot of distraction to keep the eyes of people busy on scuffles over missing wallets and the rampaging beast later on that all sorts of things could have been missed.

Yukitsu

2013-01-23, 03:05 PM

Or a government agent. The more I read about the scenario it sounds more like a spy novel than two pickpockets.

The whole fact that they use something valuable should be tip-off that this is something out of the ordinary, but not necessarily something dangerous

Government agencies wouldn't have jumped out in that idiotic fashion. First guy gets made, second guy slips away, first guy ends up without a charge mysteriously, doesn't even have to get past the guard house. If government agent 2's response to number 1 getting arrest is run out like that, the government needs better agents.

NichG

2013-01-23, 03:24 PM

unless your optimized fro grappling it is a very bad option to try against an armed foe whose power level is unknown

Maybe but the use of expensive consumables implies a highly dangerous foe. just because he failed to attack for one round does not mean he is a push over.

Combined with the fact that many dms don't tell you the hp or the ac of the target in question he has at this time no reason to expect the thief is anything less then level appropriate and in that situation voluntarily lowering your accuracy may be the difference between stopping the attacker and losing a more fragile pc to a sneak attack.

Sometimes the only right thing to do is to take risks in the name of an overall better outcome. There are many situations where the game theoretical equilibrium where everyone plays in a personally optimal fashion is the worst case not the best case (Prisoner's Dilemma has this, as the classic example, but there are other such games). The Paladin has a chance here to improve the greater good by being self-sacrificing (exposing themselves to increased risk). Their code doesn't require them to take it, just as it doesn't require them to give large fractions of their WBL to the poor (unless they are explicitly presented with 'someone in need' I guess), but a Paladin that systematically doesn't do good deeds and that always takes the easy way out isn't much of a Paladin. I'd be just as leery of a Paladin that avoids marketplaces so they aren't forced to give handouts to beggars - its missing the point.

awa

2013-01-23, 03:39 PM

NichG

2013-01-23, 04:13 PM

there is a fine line between stupid and self sacrificing. The pc needs to pick his battles taking extra risks to save an innocent is noble taking extra risks to to take a criminal with an unknown power level alive in the midst of combat is stupid.

Or noble. Or idealistic. Both qualities that make for stand-out paladins.

But okay, lets look at the broader situation then. Starting a combat in the middle of a public area to stop some pickpockets was a stupid risk compared to the alternatives I suggested (negotiate them down, etc). They could have been wizards or had wands of fireballs, capable of causing the death of many nearby innocents. They could have been - as they were - rogues of significant level with more resources than initially anticipated.

The bias in this thread seems to be 'its okay to take risks if it means kicking ass, but not okay to take risks to highly value life', but thats one hell of a double standard.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-23, 04:16 PM

I see it as a reason not to take the existence of Gray Guards as implying anything more than 'some designer wanted a more fall-proof Paladin'. Going too deeply here requires discussing designer intent which is hard to know unless they decide to respond here of course. I don't take Gray Guards to be Judge Dredd types that answer to no authority but themselves, since the way the class is written does indeed have many many things that can still get them into trouble. It was never my intent in showing the grayguard's existence to do anything more than show the fact that disillusioned paladins don't automatically stop being paladins by holding up an example of the idea taken to its extreme.

Ah, but what I'm saying is that the code isn't all there is to the Paladin. This is the core point - a Paladin must not violate their code, but they should try their best to behave in certain ways, generally ways that are consistent both with their deity's ideals (beyond the generic do-no-evil clause) and with their deity's interests (e.g. don't start holy wars over things that don't matter). The 'should' is not codified in rules text, because it has nothing to do with mechanically altering a Paladin's abilities - instead, its merely the recognition that Paladins of a deity ostensibly serve that deity, just as the Clerics of a deity do. Pissing off a king without real cause, or failing to even care about things that the deity considers to be important virtues are examples where the Paladin may not be in trouble with their code, but may well be going in a different direction than would best serve their deity. And unlike kingdoms afraid of high level adventurers, the deity has no real reason to use a light touch with their own paladin. I'm not in disagreement with the principle here, just its overzealous application. Taken too far this line of reasoning is what leads to an impossible standard that no thinking character could live up to.

The problem with this statement is that it assumes something on behalf of the DM's motivations, which is really unfair to do in a discussion like this where we have no way of knowing them. It would be akin to if I assumed that the paladin killed the thief "because the player was there for a beer and pretzels game and not a deep philosophical exploration of the nature of good". It doesn't really get us anywhere.

My assertion is that there are many settings and situations in which the Paladin's behavior was sufficiently thoughtless or inappropriate to either be directly damaging to their deity's cause and ideals, or to indicate to the deity that the Paladin is beginning to stray. Yes, the DM decides to a great extent how to play a given deity, and so yes, the DM could decide arbitrarily 'this deity will react because I want to react', but the DM could also decide that the Paladin's behavior is inconsistent with elements of the setting or pantheon simply letting it go. As long as we're in agreement that the DM -is- making an arbitrary judgement call, I don't really need to argue this point. His motivation for doing so is irrelevant. All that matters is that almost no deity will be concerned with an obvious act of self-defense. I find it difficult to believe that a divine warrior would hold faith if he was being constantly told violence, even in defense of yourself and your comrades, is unacceptable, especially in such a mind-bogglingly dangerous world as the typical D&D campaign setting.

The reaction to the thief's slaying could be tepid, but it could also be extreme. A priori there's no reason to assume one or the other. Modern and medieval standards both are bad representations of a D&D world. The quality of life of people in a D&D world can be much higher than the quality of life of people in the modern world (even without going as far as Tippyverse) - you can regenerate lost limbs, have any disease cured, and can obtain employment entirely regardless to your situation simply by utilizing a Profession or Perform skill; you have a more cosmopolitan society in most D&D worlds than in the modern world, with multiple different species coexisting in relative peace. But at the same time, there's much more personal power in a lot of D&D worlds, with individuals capable of doing things simply off-hand that would require government-scale budgets and military hardware in the modern world. What does that mean for how a given city will react to an act of 'citizen justice'?

I think the answer depends a lot on who and what rules in the city. If its a council of low level folk, then they have to have some way of retaining that power in the face of random Lv9 parties wandering around. Perhaps its 'there's just nothing worth taking over here', in which case they let the Paladin kill the thief and don't care at all. Perhaps its trade agreements, alliances, and the like, such that a party could kill anyone on the council but would find themselves the target of other high level parties. In which case they absolutely would want to make an example of a Paladin, because otherwise they can't prevent other, worse adventuring groups from doing other, worse things. If the city is run by a solitary or small group of high level characters? Then the Paladin had better walk on eggshells and be careful, because he could at the extreme put his entire order in mortal danger. Again, I'm not saying a paladin shouldn't watch his step in civilized territories. I -am- saying that a paladin is under no obligation to obey the laws of an illegitimate authority and that he's obligated to flout the law if obeying it means allowing an act of evil to take place in his presence. This is a well-known property of paladins and a major reason why many governments are reluctant to allow paladin orders to establish halls in their cities.

This is a little cross-topic, but I think this gets at the main objection to holding the Paladin not only to a strict code, but also to a broad standard of 'overachieving at good'. There's a chance that the secondary standard can put the Paladin in a double-bind, where any action they take or fail to take will lead to them falling. So people angle towards zealous and then justify it based on 'Well if I didn't I'd fall!'. The solution is twofold:

1. Atonement spells exist, and if the Paladin really is damned both ways then their deity will understand. In a true situation like this, the Paladin does the best they can and thats that.As I said in my last post, there are very few situations that are not completely contrived in which the paladin simply cannot avoid a fall. Even in the completely contrived instances there's usually a third option that the person posing the scenario simply didn't think of.

2. There are always many options. The Paladin in this example decided firstly to engage the thieves in combat rather than, say, try to negotiate with them, repay the victims and track them to their headquarters, call the guard, attempt intimidation, etc. Even further, the Paladin could have used grappling to subdue them rather than direct attacks with a lethal weapon. A large number of Code-okay options existed, and of those the Paladin chose to kill. Here is where previous posters have argued 'but the rogue used expensive things and could have been a serious threat!'. I say to that, this is again a matter of the Paladin's attitude and falling short of an ideal: a Paladin should have the kind of mindset to risk themselves to obtain the best outcome rather than take a darker outcome just to avoid risk; its not required of them, but a Paladin that lacks that is not being a very powerful example to the rest of the world. They just become Fighters that happen to have some minor deific support.
This goes back to that impossible standard I mentioned. Some paladins are shining beacons of virtue for the world to admire. Others, however, are the sword and fist of the faithful that exist solely to smite the wicked no matter how unpleasant it gets. Demanding that all paladins must play to the former role makes paladin orders far weaker than any political damge the latter might do. If you can't slay the leader of a cult of Asmodeus because he's a prominent noble, then the city is in dire jeopardy and you can't do anything about it. Some righteous sword.

awa

2013-01-23, 04:46 PM

But okay, lets look at the broader situation then. Starting a combat in the middle of a public area to stop some pickpockets was a stupid risk compared to the alternatives I suggested (negotiate them down, etc).

ah ha i have seen you pickpocketing now please come surrender or i will be forced to politely repeat my request you wouldn't want that now would you. oh he ran away. hmm they keep doing that. Its almost like polity asking criminals to turn them selves in is ineffective if you are unwilling to back it up with the threat of force. naw that couldn't be it.

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-23, 05:14 PM

ah ha i have seen you pickpocketing now please come surrender or i will be forced to politely repeat my request you wouldn't want that now would you. oh he ran away. hmm they keep doing that. Its almost like polity asking criminals to turn them selves in is ineffective if you are unwilling to back it up with the threat of force. naw that couldn't be it.

And force means lethal force why, exactly? A paladin is a warrior, but they're also Good. Not even trying to spare someone's life is very far from the latter.

awa

2013-01-23, 05:18 PM

see sparing their life means you have them at your mercy not that you are in the middle of an active combat and your target is invisible.

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-23, 05:45 PM

see sparing their life means you have them at your mercy not that you are in the middle of an active combat and your target is invisible.

At the time I'd have expected them to be using non-lethal attacks the target was perfectly visibly protecting his friend. After the invisibility potion I'd expect some kind of remorse for having to use lethal force, or questioning if it was the right thing to have done, but would accept their using it.
Presumably the death would have been prevented by two rounds of non-lethal damage instead of lethal, and if it wouldn't have been then they'd have done all that they reasonably could have (while ensuring the crowd's safety and that the criminal didn't escape).

Story

2013-01-23, 05:50 PM

And force means lethal force why, exactly? A paladin is a warrior, but they're also Good. Not even trying to spare someone's life is very far from the latter.

They did use nonlethal force against the pickpocket they were trying to arrest.

NichG

2013-01-23, 07:34 PM

It was never my intent in showing the grayguard's existence to do anything more than show the fact that disillusioned paladins don't automatically stop being paladins by holding up an example of the idea taken to its extreme.

Right, nothing I've been talking about involves the Paladin actually falling. Its all about how there are actions and guidance which can help the Paladin not go in this direction, but it requires recognizing that this direction is a bad one to go in to recognize that it needs correction. This isn't 'you're fired because you screwed up' its 'You're always walking in the door a few minutes late - it doesn't really matter that much, but it looks bad when everyone else is on time.'

I'm not in disagreement with the principle here, just its overzealous application. Taken too far this line of reasoning is what leads to an impossible standard that no thinking character could live up to.

As long as we're in agreement that the DM -is- making an arbitrary judgement call, I don't really need to argue this point. His motivation for doing so is irrelevant. All that matters is that almost no deity will be concerned with an obvious act of self-defense. I find it difficult to believe that a divine warrior would hold faith if he was being constantly told violence, even in defense of yourself and your comrades, is unacceptable, especially in such a mind-bogglingly dangerous world as the typical D&D campaign setting.

Again, I'm not saying a paladin shouldn't watch his step in civilized territories. I -am- saying that a paladin is under no obligation to obey the laws of an illegitimate authority and that he's obligated to flout the law if obeying it means allowing an act of evil to take place in his presence. This is a well-known property of paladins and a major reason why many governments are reluctant to allow paladin orders to establish halls in their cities.

As I said in my last post, there are very few situations that are not completely contrived in which the paladin simply cannot avoid a fall. Even in the completely contrived instances there's usually a third option that the person posing the scenario simply didn't think of.

I think we're relatively in agreement here now.

This goes back to that impossible standard I mentioned. Some paladins are shining beacons of virtue for the world to admire. Others, however, are the sword and fist of the faithful that exist solely to smite the wicked no matter how unpleasant it gets. Demanding that all paladins must play to the former role makes paladin orders far weaker than any political damge the latter might do. If you can't slay the leader of a cult of Asmodeus because he's a prominent noble, then the city is in dire jeopardy and you can't do anything about it. Some righteous sword.

Again, I wasn't suggesting a fall for these actions, I was suggesting guidance from the order and the deity might be appropriate. Saying 'heres an impossible standard, do your best' is a reasonable thing to do, so long as its not 'heres an impossible standard and I will abandon you if you fail to meet it all'. The Paladin can go into a marketplace and outright kill, say, a nobleman who is beating his servant. They can also go and kill the leader of the cult of Asmodeus who happens to also be a noble of the same rank. Both are allowed of the Paladin according to their code. But the former is just bad judgement in the bigger picture, whereas the latter might be worth the outcry. But yes, in a world where Paladins regularly do the former and are not given guidance to do differently, cities and kingdoms are going to prohibit Paladin orders and exile known Paladins and the like. And then it becomes much harder to unearth that head of the cult of Asmodeus when the good-aligned gate guards refuse you entrace to the city in accordance with the city's law.

ah ha i have seen you pickpocketing now please come surrender or i will be forced to politely repeat my request you wouldn't want that now would you. oh he ran away. hmm they keep doing that. Its almost like polity asking criminals to turn them selves in is ineffective if you are unwilling to back it up with the threat of force. naw that couldn't be it.

"Hey sir, you look hungry. Let me buy you a meal and a drink and lets have a little talk." (no lies here, and this allows the Paladin to try to maneuver the situation to a place where there are no bystanders).

But okay, lets say the Paladin cannot capture the thieves this way. I would say that the Paladin's responsibility is to stop the pickpocketting but go ahead and let the thieves go if the alternative is an open combat in a crowded marketplace. It is more important that the Paladin not kill or cause the death of bystanders than it is that they actually apprehend the thief.

see sparing their life means you have them at your mercy not that you are in the middle of an active combat and your target is invisible.

Sparing their life means sparing their life. It means not killing them, which can indeed include if they're trying to kill you. To a high level group of PCs, a random rogue, even one with an invisibility potion, is like a kid holding a knife. Yes, the kid could give you a lethal wound with that knife even if he doesn't know what he's doing. But I think most ordinary people, even those who are trained in the use of lethal force, would try to remove the knife from the kid's hands rather than just shooting the kid 'in self defense'. And even above that there does exist a higher standard of 'even if it risks my life I will try to preserve yours'.

Suddo

2013-01-23, 07:37 PM

I'll weigh in because I feel like I should.

I think that after a certain point people forgot how the situation played out.

Parade, NPC ThiefA is pickpocketing the crowd.
The Paladin see the Thief.

At this moment we all can see that the paladin should do something along the lines of stop him. This can range from yelling "Stop thief!" to grappling him. In this case the party manages to trip the thief and is going to subdue him (non-lethal damage). It should be noted that the statement "initiated combat" only means that we are going down to 6 second turns and initiative order, shouting "Stop thief!" might cause this to happen.

At this point NPC ThiefB sees his friend getting arrest, or something along those lines, and wants to try and get him out. There are several reasons for this the main one I can think of is that two thieves can work a crowd better and these two thieves had gain each other trust so they considered each other a valuable resource. So he decides to do something about it.
//Note: This is where things start to get hairy and the disagreements start.
This would have been a fine action but he threw alchemical stuff and he drew a weapon at which point the party knocked out ThiefA and turned his attention to his friend. ThiefB gets hit a couple times and get scared, he then drinks a potion of invisiblity after backing away.
Paladin attacks get's kind of lucky and drops ThiefB.

Now let's look at the situation after the note. Up to this point everyone is cool with what the paladin is doing. He's capturing a pickpocket with the intent of non-lethal damage. Now afterwards he sees another person who seems to want to defend the pickpocket come out of the crowd with a sword. He finishes with ThiefA and turns to ThiefB who the party has been keeping company with arrows. Now ThiefB seeing that he pissed off the wrong people turns and runs an act that could easily happen to a thief in a time of fear, but instead of running (what I would consider smart) he decided to use an expensive potion. The paladin saw someone who had been associated with a thief go invisible which tend to be a terrible thing.

This is my point: The paladin attacking an invisible armed individual while he could is not evil. We weren't told that he attacked a dude who was running through the crowd, or ThiefA, it was the invisible guy with a shortsword.

If you want to give the paladin any advice I would say you should state you are a paladin and the opponent should surrender, and do this OoC or from a Priest. That's the only thing as the paladin I could see myself doing better in that situation, after ThiefA is knocked out "You're friend is not dead and if you drop your weapon I promise you won't be dead either." Hear that would cause ThiefB to consider surrender a much more viable option compared to just running.

Okay that's my two cent I wish I could have been a part of the discussion earlier.

GnomeGninjas

2013-01-23, 07:54 PM

My (new) take on the situation: The "pickpockets" are actually secret agents. They have been supplied with alchemical items and magic gear in order to steal important documents from specific people in the crowd. One of the "pickpockets took the documents and was about to leave, then the party attacked him, he is knocked out but his "friend" (actually another agent) rushes into to retrieve the documents from his body. The "friend" goes over to his fallen comrade and stands over the body "protecting" him (actually retrieving the documents). He grabs them (not noticed due to good sleight of hand), chugs his potion, and runs. A paladin stabs him. Other agents release the monster in an attempt to cause a diversion while they retrieve the documents from "friend".

I think that lethal force was justified in preventing important documents from falling into enemy hands and the forces of good will forgive the paladin.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-23, 08:13 PM

Right, nothing I've been talking about involves the Paladin actually falling. Its all about how there are actions and guidance which can help the Paladin not go in this direction, but it requires recognizing that this direction is a bad one to go in to recognize that it needs correction. This isn't 'you're fired because you screwed up' its 'You're always walking in the door a few minutes late - it doesn't really matter that much, but it looks bad when everyone else is on time.'Except that if paladins are regularly being guided away from this position by their gods, then no paladin should ever take this path to its logical extreme. If the gods are constantly giving divine guidance directly and obviously to their divine agents, then those agents should -never- act outside of their gods wishes and intent. I don't have a problem with the church or the government or even a lynch-mob of common folk giving the paladin a talking to. It's when the god (in this case goddess) takes interest in such an utterly trivial and mundane matter that it strains credulity beyond the breaking point.

I think we're relatively in agreement here now.We're getting close anyway.

Again, I wasn't suggesting a fall for these actions, I was suggesting guidance from the order and the deity might be appropriate. Saying 'heres an impossible standard, do your best' is a reasonable thing to do, so long as its not 'heres an impossible standard and I will abandon you if you fail to meet it all'. The Paladin can go into a marketplace and outright kill, say, a nobleman who is beating his servant. They can also go and kill the leader of the cult of Asmodeus who happens to also be a noble of the same rank. Both are allowed of the Paladin according to their code. But the former is just bad judgement in the bigger picture, whereas the latter might be worth the outcry. But yes, in a world where Paladins regularly do the former and are not given guidance to do differently, cities and kingdoms are going to prohibit Paladin orders and exile known Paladins and the like. And then it becomes much harder to unearth that head of the cult of Asmodeus when the good-aligned gate guards refuse you entrace to the city in accordance with the city's law. Here's the point where we're disagreeing.

It's never reasonable to ask someone to meet an impossible standard. That's condemning them to guaranteed failure. Setting a lofty standard that will be difficult to meet and demanding it be met is reasonable.

For your example of a paladin slaying a master for beating his servant, that's a fall. He needs to stop the man, but killing him is excessive force unless there's a good chance of him killing the servant because he's using a lethal weapon or otherwise clearly doing lethal damage. Killing the thief in the OP was okay because he had a sword. If he'd been armed with a sap or a truncheon instead, then I might've sided with the crowd saying the paladin should've fallen, or at least asked the OP for further detail before weighing in.

"Hey sir, you look hungry. Let me buy you a meal and a drink and lets have a little talk." (no lies here, and this allows the Paladin to try to maneuver the situation to a place where there are no bystanders). This would've been a good way to handle the situation but, again, how the paladin handled thief A has never been questionable. Non-lethal subdual of someone doing something illegal is simultaneously showing concern for life and proper respect for authority. It was only when a second assailant jumped into the combat already in progress that things turn questionable and he's the one who turned the combat lethal by drawing a sword.

But okay, lets say the Paladin cannot capture the thieves this way. I would say that the Paladin's responsibility is to stop the pickpocketting but go ahead and let the thieves go if the alternative is an open combat in a crowded marketplace. It is more important that the Paladin not kill or cause the death of bystanders than it is that they actually apprehend the thief. Open combat with melee weapons is far more contained and less dangerous to bystanders than ranged combat. A master swordsman doesn't hit anything with his sword he doesn't intend to. I agree that if it's impossible to catch the thieves without putting the crowd at risk they should be allowed to escape, but a typical melee combat doesn't generate a significant threat to the crowd unless someone starts taking hostages.

Sparing their life means sparing their life. It means not killing them, which can indeed include if they're trying to kill you. To a high level group of PCs, a random rogue, even one with an invisibility potion, is like a kid holding a knife. Yes, the kid could give you a lethal wound with that knife even if he doesn't know what he's doing. But I think most ordinary people, even those who are trained in the use of lethal force, would try to remove the knife from the kid's hands rather than just shooting the kid 'in self defense'. And even above that there does exist a higher standard of 'even if it risks my life I will try to preserve yours'.

That higher standard isn't something all good characters, including some paladins, ascribe to. All good characters are supposed to value life, but putting the lives of others ahead of your own is a personal choice. This goes triple, at least, for putting your foes life above your own.

Citing the potential difference in level is straight metagaming. Any random rogue could be just some rank and file guild thief working his street or it could be an infamous gang-boss keeping his skills sharp. Without using some metric to guage an opponents ability, making any assumptions about their capability and intent is foolhardy.

Fortunately, the sense motive skill offers just such a metric. A successful sense motive check can determine if an opponent is a push-over, a viable threat, or a serious danger with some margin of error for nothing more than the skill-points invested. The rules for this are detailed in either complete warrior or complete adventurer in the expanded skills section. However, it's not reasonable to expect every paladin to spend skill-points on this skill and he shouldn't be penalized for choosing not to do so, just as he shouldn't be penalized for a flubbed check making him severely over-, or underestimate a given foe.

NichG

2013-01-23, 09:10 PM

Except that if paladins are regularly being guided away from this position by their gods, then no paladin should ever take this path to its logical extreme. If the gods are constantly giving divine guidance directly and obviously to their divine agents, then those agents should -never- act outside of their gods wishes and intent. I don't have a problem with the church or the government or even a lynch-mob of common folk giving the paladin a talking to. It's when the god (in this case goddess) takes interest in such an utterly trivial and mundane matter that it strains credulity beyond the breaking point.

Yeah, I think this is mostly the responsibility of the Paladin's order and the Paladin's superiors rather than something that the god should be constantly intervening in. If we put scale in here, I'd say the sequence of events would be something more like:

- This paladin (and several others) end up giving in to rage too often and tend to use bloodier methods than necessary.
- The deity sees this and sends a vision to the head of the paladin order about the consequence of giving in to rage.
- The head of the paladin order sends commands down the chain to inform everyone of his vision and that the paladins in the field are to be encouraged to be emissaries of peace as well as justice.
- The individual paladins that go a bit over the line get some advice, counselling, and guidance from their direct superiors.

We're getting close anyway.

Here's the point where we're disagreeing.

It's never reasonable to ask someone to meet an impossible standard. That's condemning them to guaranteed failure. Setting a lofty standard that will be difficult to meet and demanding it be met is reasonable.

I'd say in a world of gods, cosmic forces of ideology, and so on, its even more reasonable to set impossible standards than in the real world (where we absolutely are asked to meet impossible standards all the time). Writing without bias is considered an impossible standard but at the same time could also be considered a worthy goal to attempt to uphold. You can never achieve it, but the closer the get the better you are doing.

For a holy warrior, I see this being pretty much a given. Simply put, the impossible standard they are asked to reach for is basically 'do as their deity would do in their position'. Every Paladin will fail to meet that goal 100%, but that doesn't mean that the one who manages 90% is called a failure. It does mean however that the 5% guy down there could rightly be asked to try harder when everyone else in the order is pulling off a 60%.

For your example of a paladin slaying a master for beating his servant, that's a fall. He needs to stop the man, but killing him is excessive force unless there's a good chance of him killing the servant because he's using a lethal weapon or otherwise clearly doing lethal damage.

See, I'd argue differently. I'd say its not necessarily a fall, but its worthy of reprimand. It could be a fall in some cases and not in others, but if the master is actually (sufficiently, I suppose) evil, the paladin knows that, the action is taken in an honorable way (e.g. not with the paladin randomly backstabbing the nobleman), then in all technicality it isn't a fall. I suppose one could argue lawbreaking but there are ways around that that would still make the act disproportionate (for instance, the Paladin could call for a formal duel if the law allowed such things).

Killing the thief in the OP was okay because he had a sword. If he'd been armed with a sap or a truncheon instead, then I might've sided with the crowd saying the paladin should've fallen, or at least asked the OP for further detail before weighing in.

Here I differ, but it seems to be mostly that I'm trying to avoid an excluded middle. Killing the thief isn't fall-worthy for this reason, but it could still be considered careless or disproportionate and thus be behavior that should be corrected.

This would've been a good way to handle the situation but, again, how the paladin handled thief A has never been questionable. Non-lethal subdual of someone doing something illegal is simultaneously showing concern for life and proper respect for authority. It was only when a second assailant jumped into the combat already in progress that things turn questionable and he's the one who turned the combat lethal by drawing a sword.

Considering the Paladin was using a sword to subdue, this is arguable:

The paladin (of Mayaheine if anyone was interested) was wearing her fullplate, a buckler and a longsword.

The players arrived to the parade fairly late and as such were in the very back so most people weren't looking in the right direction and many didn't hear the action due to the parade.

For those asking what the thief did in the second round of combat,he had used the aid another ability to grant his prone friend an AC bonus.

So by the OP's account, the Paladin displayed lethal armaments first. By a very muddy reading of some of the arguments in this thread, one could argue that anyone in the crowd could consider either the Paladin or the thief a hostile, armed combatant and thus be justified in applying lethal force to either side of the encounter. Intent to harm is a necessary component in determining the appropriate response, and Thief B did not make an actual damaging attack at any point.

Open combat with melee weapons is far more contained and less dangerous to bystanders than ranged combat. A master swordsman doesn't hit anything with his sword he doesn't intend to. I agree that if it's impossible to catch the thieves without putting the crowd at risk they should be allowed to escape, but a typical melee combat doesn't generate a significant threat to the crowd unless someone starts taking hostages.

Its something to consider when taking these actions though. Hostages weren't taken, but they could have been. And a melee attack could swing wide and hit someone, unless you take up the metagame consideration that there's just no way to miss that badly. Generally a person needs a clear 5ft square to fight - if you're pressed, such as when crawling through a small passage or surrounded by a mob, then the rules look a lot more like attacking in/into a grapple. The DM would have been in their full rights to stat the crowd up as a Mob, have it sort of passively attempt grapple checks against the combatants, and have that risk be present. In this case they did not do that, of course, but that becomes more of a metagame than an in-setting consideration.

That higher standard isn't something all good characters, including some paladins, ascribe to. All good characters are supposed to value life, but putting the lives of others ahead of your own is a personal choice. This goes triple, at least, for putting your foes life above your own.

In some sense, all adventurers who quest for anything other than mercenary reasons are at least approaching this standard a little bit. Adventuring is dangerous business, and most adventurers could retire with tons of wealth even at very low levels. I don't see a problem with asking Paladins to try to stand out even above adventurers. I'll grant, not every Paladin will rush to throw away their lives at the first opportunity. But the risk in this situation was fairly minor, given the disparity of forces involved (two thieves, one of whom had already been knocked out versus an entire party). Its hardly as much risk to try to subdue rather than kill here, compared to the risk that is taken to go into the dungeon of X to get the magical MacGuffin of Y that will stop the demon lord's resurrection. You could argue of course that there's a big difference in the payoff, and I won't disagree (how many times so far have I said the Paladin shouldn't fall for this?). But at the same time I don't think much of a Paladin who won't bother to try.

[qupte]
Citing the potential difference in level is straight metagaming. Any random rogue could be just some rank and file guild thief working his street or it could be an infamous gang-boss keeping his skills sharp. Without using some metric to guage an opponents ability, making any assumptions about their capability and intent is foolhardy.
[/quote]

The thief missed with a tanglefoot bag and used Aid Another to protect his ally, both actions that would give some gauge of the thief's level of ability. As far as intent goes, its just a matter of looking at the situation and taking a moment to think about it. Thief B had taken no lethal actions, which is a fair amount of information right there. Adventurers are sharp individuals, and have many tools at their disposal to evaluate the situation. Three rounds is a long time, as well.

Fortunately, the sense motive skill offers just such a metric. A successful sense motive check can determine if an opponent is a push-over, a viable threat, or a serious danger with some margin of error for nothing more than the skill-points invested. The rules for this are detailed in either complete warrior or complete adventurer in the expanded skills section. However, it's not reasonable to expect every paladin to spend skill-points on this skill and he shouldn't be penalized for choosing not to do so, just as he shouldn't be penalized for a flubbed check making him severely over-, or underestimate a given foe.

This is just one of the ways. The other way is to read the situation. Its exactly what you'd do in a serious fight against a powerful foe - you look where you're going to move, you think what the enemies might do, you think what your allies might be able to do to help you and how you could help them. You do all this without a single skill check usually. The skill check lets you get more absolute information to confirm suspicions and strategies, but really this kind of analysis is something that can be done (and basically almost always is done) without direct mechanics to back it up.

And thats another point - if the whole reason here is because the Paladin's analysis really was that far off, then it makes sense for the Paladin's order to require him to undergo some training and actually learn to read situations. At that point it isn't about morality anymore, its about competency and giving him the skills he really needs to have to be in the field.

awa

2013-01-23, 09:13 PM

to bad its a standard action opposed by bluff (a skill rogues are known for) and unless you beat the check by 5 it isn't very accurate giving a fairly large level range.

and like you said with 2 skill points a level (likely already used up by knowledge religion and ride) not ever paladin can be expected to have the skill

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-23, 10:32 PM

Yeah, I think this is mostly the responsibility of the Paladin's order and the Paladin's superiors rather than something that the god should be constantly intervening in. If we put scale in here, I'd say the sequence of events would be something more like:

- This paladin (and several others) end up giving in to rage too often and tend to use bloodier methods than necessary.
- The deity sees this and sends a vision to the head of the paladin order about the consequence of giving in to rage.
- The head of the paladin order sends commands down the chain to inform everyone of his vision and that the paladins in the field are to be encouraged to be emissaries of peace as well as justice.
- The individual paladins that go a bit over the line get some advice, counselling, and guidance from their direct superiors.This seems much more reasonable. I don't know that the deific "heads-up" to the head of the order is really necessary, but the rest follows logic and the scale of the situation quite nicely. If you're still reading, OP, this is probably your best bet for handling the situation.

I'd say in a world of gods, cosmic forces of ideology, and so on, its even more reasonable to set impossible standards than in the real world (where we absolutely are asked to meet impossible standards all the time). Writing without bias is considered an impossible standard but at the same time could also be considered a worthy goal to attempt to uphold. You can never achieve it, but the closer the get the better you are doing.

For a holy warrior, I see this being pretty much a given. Simply put, the impossible standard they are asked to reach for is basically 'do as their deity would do in their position'. Every Paladin will fail to meet that goal 100%, but that doesn't mean that the one who manages 90% is called a failure. It does mean however that the 5% guy down there could rightly be asked to try harder when everyone else in the order is pulling off a 60%.I'm sorry, but no amount of debate is going to ever convince me of the idea that an impossible standard is reasonable. Just because it's regularly demanded of people IRL doesn't change that, it just means that people are given unreasonable demands. Given the far more complete view of reality that the gods have and the fact that they must compete for followers, it makes no sense for them to set unreasonable demands on their followers. The deity with the most reasonable dogma gets the most followers, and under certain interpretations of divinity more power. They have to strike a balance between difficult enough standards that they get worthwhile individuals to grant divine power and reasonable enough that their field of prospects isn't too narrow.

See, I'd argue differently. I'd say its not necessarily a fall, but its worthy of reprimand. It could be a fall in some cases and not in others, but if the master is actually (sufficiently, I suppose) evil, the paladin knows that, the action is taken in an honorable way (e.g. not with the paladin randomly backstabbing the nobleman), then in all technicality it isn't a fall. I suppose one could argue lawbreaking but there are ways around that that would still make the act disproportionate (for instance, the Paladin could call for a formal duel if the law allowed such things).It's allowing torture to go unchecked; unjust punishment too. Sitting idly by is just as bad as if he struck the poor servant himself. Killing the man on the other hand, providing he's not doing lethal damage to his servant, is a direct disregard for the value of life without just cause. It runs afoul of the indiscriminate killing rule, in addition to being unjust punishment because of the far greater weight of the punishment compared to the transgression. Simply tripping the man, or stepping between him and the servant, however, would put a stop to the evil act in progress without causing undue harm. If the fellow then commenced to beating on the paladin, the paladin could knock him out without running afoul of anyone. Alternately, if he's a less pleasant, less prudent paladin, he could simply knock the fellow out in a suprise attack from behind. (again, honorable is very subjective and some honor systems have -zero- problems with sneak-attacks).

Here I differ, but it seems to be mostly that I'm trying to avoid an excluded middle. Killing the thief isn't fall-worthy for this reason, but it could still be considered careless or disproportionate and thus be behavior that should be corrected.

Considering the Paladin was using a sword to subdue, this is arguable:

So by the OP's account, the Paladin displayed lethal armaments first. By a very muddy reading of some of the arguments in this thread, one could argue that anyone in the crowd could consider either the Paladin or the thief a hostile, armed combatant and thus be justified in applying lethal force to either side of the encounter. Intent to harm is a necessary component in determining the appropriate response, and Thief B did not make an actual damaging attack at any point.That the thief thought the paladin had lethal intent doesn't weigh against the paladin. It gives a logical explanation for why the thief drew his sword but it doesn't change the fact he did and it doesn't change the fact that the paladin had no way of knowing he didn't have lethal intent. Tactical choices in the metagame say nothing about body language or the overall tactical situation beyond what's obviously in front of you. Using only the round-by-round game actions as an indication of anything is ignoring a huge portion of how one goes about reading a situation.

Its something to consider when taking these actions though. Hostages weren't taken, but they could have been. And a melee attack could swing wide and hit someone, unless you take up the metagame consideration that there's just no way to miss that badly. Generally a person needs a clear 5ft square to fight - if you're pressed, such as when crawling through a small passage or surrounded by a mob, then the rules look a lot more like attacking in/into a grapple. The DM would have been in their full rights to stat the crowd up as a Mob, have it sort of passively attempt grapple checks against the combatants, and have that risk be present. In this case they did not do that, of course, but that becomes more of a metagame than an in-setting consideration. Unless the press of bodies is tight enough to warrant counting the combatants as squeezing, swinging wide isn't something that's done that easily. It's also entirely possible to stick to short chopping strokes and thrusts while being aware of what's to either side and behind your opponent. Accidentally hitting someone that's not occupying the same fighting space as your intended target requires a certain degree of recklesness that you just don't see in particularly skilled swordsmen. That or the enemy creating a deliberate misdirection of the attack.

Had the situation turned into a hostage situation the ending would've been dramatically different than it was. Too much speculation is required to make this a meaningful point of discussion for this particular thread.

In some sense, all adventurers who quest for anything other than mercenary reasons are at least approaching this standard a little bit. Adventuring is dangerous business, and most adventurers could retire with tons of wealth even at very low levels. I don't see a problem with asking Paladins to try to stand out even above adventurers. I'll grant, not every Paladin will rush to throw away their lives at the first opportunity. But the risk in this situation was fairly minor, given the disparity of forces involved (two thieves, one of whom had already been knocked out versus an entire party). Its hardly as much risk to try to subdue rather than kill here, compared to the risk that is taken to go into the dungeon of X to get the magical MacGuffin of Y that will stop the demon lord's resurrection. You could argue of course that there's a big difference in the payoff, and I won't disagree (how many times so far have I said the Paladin shouldn't fall for this?). But at the same time I don't think much of a Paladin who won't bother to try.This statement completely ignores adventurers who are in it for the glory, for conquest, or to achieve the goals of their non-good masters. It's also a completely different matter to put yourself in harms way for a comrade and friend that will have you back if the situation is reversed than it is to put yourself in harm's way for a stranger who you'll likely never see again, and it's wildly different from putting yourself in harm's way to save an enemy in the hopes of redeeming him.

The thief missed with a tanglefoot bag and used Aid Another to protect his ally, both actions that would give some gauge of the thief's level of ability.If you consider above subsitence level (having alchemical and magic items) and unlucky (we have no idea if he missed because of a low modifier or a low roll) and less than tactically ingenous (took an aid another to raise the AC of someone who's unconcious and can be auto-crit) a guage of anything, I don't know what to say. There simply isn't enough information here to accurately guage anything about this thief except that he's probably a career criminal.
As far as intent goes, its just a matter of looking at the situation and taking a moment to think about it. Thief B had taken no lethal actions, which is a fair amount of information right there. Adventurers are sharp individuals, and have many tools at their disposal to evaluate the situation. Three rounds is a long time, as well.That he didn't attack with the sword in his hand doesn't say anything about intent in that small a window. 3 rounds is nothig, especially if it included both the tanglefoot bag and the potion. At most it's 18 seconds and skilled combatants regularly take that long or longer feeling out each other's range and movements. The only thing in this scenario that could be construed as presenting relatively clear intent is the sword. The same thing on the other side may have led to him coming to the same erroneous conclusion about the paladin's group, but that's simply what virtually all people think when they see someone holding a lethal weapon in a combat situation.

This is just one of the ways. The other way is to read the situation. Its exactly what you'd do in a serious fight against a powerful foe - you look where you're going to move, you think what the enemies might do, you think what your allies might be able to do to help you and how you could help them. You do all this without a single skill check usually.Accurately predicting what an opponent may do, what he can do, and what he's going to do are three different things and only the first does't require a skill check the second does require the sense motive check I mentioned and the third is nothing but educated guesses based on the first two.
The skill check lets you get more absolute information to confirm suspicions and strategies, but really this kind of analysis is something that can be done (and basically almost always is done) without direct mechanics to back it up. Only in the very broadest sense, though. Until you've been fighting for at least a few rounds it's nearly impossible to accurately guage an enemy's level outside of metagaming. While you can take a stab at class by asking for a detailed description, the typical description for a rogue could just as easily describe a scout, spell-thief, ninja, or bard and all of those have significantly different sets of mechanical possibilities and several sets of permutations within those posibilities. Outside of which save to aim for it doesn't really tell you much.

Asking anyone to come to the conclusion that the enemy was not lethally hostile after three rounds of combat when 2 of those were used to take aggressive action is completely unreasonable.

And thats another point - if the whole reason here is because the Paladin's analysis really was that far off, then it makes sense for the Paladin's order to require him to undergo some training and actually learn to read situations. At that point it isn't about morality anymore, its about competency and giving him the skills he really needs to have to be in the field.

Except, as I keep saying, there's simply not enough information present in the situation to make a definite call on the thief's intent. We can question the thief's competence after the fact but in the heat of the moment it would have been impossible to reasonably conclude that he wasn't a genuine threat.

NichG

2013-01-23, 11:43 PM

I'm sorry, but no amount of debate is going to ever convince me of the idea that an impossible standard is reasonable. Just because it's regularly demanded of people IRL doesn't change that, it just means that people are given unreasonable demands. Given the far more complete view of reality that the gods have and the fact that they must compete for followers, it makes no sense for them to set unreasonable demands on their followers. The deity with the most reasonable dogma gets the most followers, and under certain interpretations of divinity more power. They have to strike a balance between difficult enough standards that they get worthwhile individuals to grant divine power and reasonable enough that their field of prospects isn't too narrow.

Perhaps a better term for this is an 'open-ended standard' rather than 'impossible standard'. If I say to someone 'the standard is: be radical!' then one guy can get himself a fake mohawk, another guy can get a tattoo, and the third guy can jump a car across a river. All three guys are attempting to attain the standard I set, but clearly the third guy is doing a lot more to get there.

The same goes with servants of a deity. The deity says 'here are my teachings/what I represent/etc' in the form of visions, omens, holy works, whatever. The mortals in the order, lacking for the most part a 50 Int and Wis score, millennia of experience, and the like must do what they can to live up to that. But they can't actually achieve it, and that doesn't exclude followers from the pool at all. The 'I got a fake mohawk' guy isn't as good of a follower as the jump-the-car guy, but he's still a follower.

Saying on the other hand 'this is all you have to do to be my servant' encourages people to do the minimum necessary to be over the line. Instead of encouraging excellence, it encourages mediocrity, because there's no perceived benefit for reaching further once you've attained the minimum.

That the thief thought the paladin had lethal intent doesn't weigh against the paladin. It gives a logical explanation for why the thief drew his sword but it doesn't change the fact he did and it doesn't change the fact that the paladin had no way of knowing he didn't have lethal intent. Tactical choices in the metagame say nothing about body language or the overall tactical situation beyond what's obviously in front of you. Using only the round-by-round game actions as an indication of anything is ignoring a huge portion of how one goes about reading a situation.

This is misleading, because the round-by-round game actions are what the players are using to decide the actions of their characters. Everything else is post-facto justification and it gets pretty weird when you start inventing the details to fill in the gaps afterwards. I mean, in that case you can get justifications like "Oh, well Sir Siegfried did that because the guy was giving him an evil look and tilting to the side like he was going for a weapon" when the DM has just said "There's a scruffy looking guy over there." and nothing else. All we have to go on is the scenario as described and the round by round actions.

But even with that limited information, we're talking about levels of certainty here. You're saying "The Paladin had no way of knowing he didn't have lethal intent". I say that 'knowing' isn't the standard here - its not that the Paladin must 'know' that the person didn't have lethal intent. The Paladin, and all people for that matter, must deal with uncertainty in life. Someone who values life will put the decision boundary at a different place than someone without regard for life.

In this scenario, the thief performed actions that would be highly inconsistent with attempting to kill the party. All the arguments are that the Paladin was just acting rationally because the thief could be a serious threat. Well from that point of view, the thief was by no means acting rationally if his intent was to kill the party. Its possible the thief was simply improperly choosing his actions to optimize his 'kill the party' goal but the more likely interpretation is that the thief was not trying to kill the party. There was plenty of evidence to suggest that the thief was not a threat, far more than the evidence that the thief was indeed a threat. Even if the paladin could not 'know' that the thief was not intending lethal force, the paladin could easily deduce that there was a large chance that the thief was not a threat. The choice to kill the thief was explicitly a choice to ignore that large chance in fear of the small chance that the thief was a threat (or, much more likely, getting caught up in 'Roll Initiative! Fight!' mentality and forgetting to call nonlethal)

Unless the press of bodies is tight enough to warrant counting the combatants as squeezing, swinging wide isn't something that's done that easily. It's also entirely possible to stick to short chopping strokes and thrusts while being aware of what's to either side and behind your opponent. Accidentally hitting someone that's not occupying the same fighting space as your intended target requires a certain degree of recklesness that you just don't see in particularly skilled swordsmen. That or the enemy creating a deliberate misdirection of the attack.

How tight the press of bodies needs to be to count as squeezing is somewhat ambiguous here. The rules don't require the DM to stat the crowd as a Mob or anything like that, so its hard to give the RAW answer here. On the other hand, if we look at real life examples of crowd behavior, it doesn't take much to turn a crowd into a lethal press of bodies. Once people start to panic, people get trampled, crammed into tight confines, and the like. It doesn't take much - a fight breaking out, people pushing to get into an area where there's no safe exit, etc. So I could easily believe squeezing conditions. Really though, this is scenario information we lack.

Had the situation turned into a hostage situation the ending would've been dramatically different than it was. Too much speculation is required to make this a meaningful point of discussion for this particular thread.

Thats fair, though I still think this possibility contributes to the recklessness of initiating the fight.

This statement completely ignores adventurers who are in it for the glory, for conquest, or to achieve the goals of their non-good masters. It's also a completely different matter to put yourself in harms way for a comrade and friend that will have you back if the situation is reversed than it is to put yourself in harm's way for a stranger who you'll likely never see again, and it's wildly different from putting yourself in harm's way to save an enemy in the hopes of redeeming him.

In all these cases, we still have examples of adventurers - by and large not necessarily idealists - having some drive or push beyond 'subsistence' and 'survival'. Glory is an ideal. Conquest is an ideal too. Except for very meta campaigns, adventurers aren't in it because 'its what we do Saturday night'. So yeah, I expect a Paladin to have some exceptional ideals and drives. And if they fail to actually have anything remotely like an actual ideal they believe in, well, thats not actually going to make them fall. But it does mean they're a pretty crummy Paladin.

If you consider above subsitence level (having alchemical and magic items) and unlucky (we have no idea if he missed because of a low modifier or a low roll) and less than tactically ingenous (took an aid another to raise the AC of someone who's unconcious and can be auto-crit) a guage of anything, I don't know what to say.

I don't think I'm parsing this sentence correctly, because I'm not actually sure what its saying. Yes, the thief could have rolled low or rolled high or whatever, but this information certainly impacts relative likelihoods. Its no different than fighting some unknown creature and determining when it does 5 damage to you with an attack that it isn't really a threat, or when it does 80 damage with a single hit that yeah, you should watch out for that guy's full attack.

There simply isn't enough information here to accurately guage anything about this thief except that he's probably a career criminal. That he didn't attack with the sword in his hand doesn't say anything about intent in that small a window. 3 rounds is nothig, especially if it included both the tanglefoot bag and the potion. At most it's 18 seconds and skilled combatants regularly take that long or longer feeling out each other's range and movements.

In D&D this is not at all true. Most fights are done in 3 to 5 rounds.

The only thing in this scenario that could be construed as presenting relatively clear intent is the sword. The same thing on the other side may have led to him coming to the same erroneous conclusion about the paladin's group, but that's simply what virtually all people think when they see someone holding a lethal weapon in a combat situation.

Accurately predicting what an opponent may do, what he can do, and what he's going to do are three different things and only the first does't require a skill check the second does require the sense motive check I mentioned and the third is nothing but educated guesses based on the first two. Only in the very broadest sense, though.

Until you've been fighting for at least a few rounds it's nearly impossible to accurately guage an enemy's level outside of metagaming. While you can take a stab at class by asking for a detailed description, the typical description for a rogue could just as easily describe a scout, spell-thief, ninja, or bard and all of those have significantly different sets of mechanical possibilities and several sets of permutations within those posibilities. Outside of which save to aim for it doesn't really tell you much.

I'm not really sure how this is relevant to the conversation. The guy had three chances to do something bad to your party and systematically failed to do so. It doesn't really matter if he failed to do so as a wizard or a rogue or a monk. I mean, lets say this guy was secretly an 18th level wizard who could melt reality. He threw a tanglefoot bag. That establishes a scale for the encounter. Yes, you could go around thinking that every peasant is actually an 18th level wizard and taking precautions just to be sure, but its crazy to do so. If an 18th level wizard throws a tanglefoot bag, aids another to try to increase an ally's AC, and goes invisible I'd still say you shouldn't default to lethal force. If its a 3rd level rogue or a 9th level hexblade, it remains the same - none of the actions communicated a serious threat. The situation did not demand the response used.

Asking anyone to come to the conclusion that the enemy was not lethally hostile after three rounds of combat when 2 of those were used to take aggressive action is completely unreasonable.

Calling a tanglefoot bag and invisibility potion 'aggressive action' is completely absurd. They're both clearly escape-enablers. In this case, ones that backfired ridiculously.

Except, as I keep saying, there's simply not enough information present in the situation to make a definite call on the thief's intent. We can question the thief's competence after the fact but in the heat of the moment it would have been impossible to reasonably conclude that he wasn't a genuine threat.

Here unfortunately I don't see any real utility of discussion or debate. I think you're simply wrong, and the information was more than enough. I'm not really sure how to discuss it beyond here, since it feels like it will degenerate to 'yes it is'/'no it isn't' back and forths. To me your required level of confidence to take a risk of dealing nonlethal is so absurdly high that I can't imagine taking it seriously or using it as an actual rule of thumb in any sort of real situation.