Friends to Foes, how to care about my nemesis?

[whisperwind1]

Hey all, I'd appreciate some help with a forthcoming DM thing I want to do.

So we're doing an evil campaign (adventure path actually) and the party is supposed to have this nemesis character, a hero to their villains. The problem is he's not very interesting or engaging as written, pretty much just your stereotypical lawful good "FOR GREAT JUSTICE!" type.

My idea to get the PCs invested in this character is to have them meet early on (long before their "official" hero/villain face-off), and for them to hit it off. Neither party knows about the other's background after all, so in this early period, I'm hoping the hero will become friends with the PCs. They talk, they travel for a spell, maybe they cooperate and win a few encounters, by the time he leaves, the hero is an ally to the PCs. Of course the reason i'm doing this is so that the inevitable reveal of the PCs' nemesis is made more dramatic, because this is a guy they're friends with, but surprise! He's a paladin!

My question is, how can I introduce this character and hopefully, not have the PCs outright murder or abuse him (before the appointed fight of course)? Not saying they would do so (these are smart villains, not LOL EVILZ! villains), but they might do morally unsound things around this guy, who'd probably take exception (or mind control him or something, but since they're level 1 they're not too much of a threat). How do I get their relationship to where I'd like it to be? Where they are friends (not the best but friends enough) doomed to fight it out?

[Troacctid]

You'd have to come up with a way to prevent the players from doing anything evil while the Paladin is around. Good luck.

[Lacco]

Maybe I'm being a bit off, but how about not making him a paladin at first? He's a fighter. Friendly, fun to be around.

At some point, they will do something that will cross the line, something he really hates (e.g. kicking a puppy, killing a person he secretly loves) and he will have a change of heart. He will decide to leave the group (during night, leaving only a letter?). To become a paladin. To right the wrongs he did, together with them...and to right the wrongs they did.

[whisperwind1]

You'd have to come up with a way to prevent the players from doing anything evil while the Paladin is around. Good luck.

I should clarify, I don't actually intend for this paladin to be a member of the party or anything. I just want to have him travel with the PCs for a spell, never longer than a full day. Like the PCs keep running into him at several points, and whenever they do, they sort of hang out for a little bit.

Also its fairly important to the story that this character be a paladin from his first level. I plan to play him as a was suggested, fun and friendly to be around but also lawful good. He's not the hard-ass or lawful stupid stereotype of the paladin, sure he follows the code, but he'll drink and carouse and speak irreverently of authority figures as much as he wants. He follows the spirit of his paladin code, without being a total killjoy about it.

Also the thing that sets him against the party is actually written into the module, and it works even better if he is still friends with the party at that point. The idea is he eventually gets orders to pursue a possible evil plot (which the PCs are spearheading) at these ruins, and so he shows up to clean house. That would be the moment he discovers that these sinister, evil bastards are none other than the nice people he's befriended.

[bekeleven]

You could always make him the obnoxious hero, like Captain Hammer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvPfZqEftI).

Or make him become totally twisted like Dellyn (http://www.goblinscomic.org/03022010/) Goblinslayer (http://www.goblinscomic.org/03032010/).

[whisperwind1]

You could always make him the obnoxious hero, like Captain Hammer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvPfZqEftI).

Or make him become totally twisted like Dellyn (http://www.goblinscomic.org/03022010/) Goblinslayer (http://www.goblinscomic.org/03032010/).

Well no, the idea is that the PCs are the villains of this adventure path. 95% of their enemies are good people, and this guy is intended to be a heroic character that will oppose the depravities of the nefarious player characters. This particularly NPC needs to be unequivocally a good guy.

[Keltest]

They could meet him in a bar or similar public institution. He is moderately to highly charismatic and he buys everyone drinks. Perhaps he mistakes them for fellow good guys and inadvertently gives them info they then use to raid a place (if he's a paladin, perhaps his temple outside of the city?)

[whisperwind1]

They could meet him in a bar or similar public institution. He is moderately to highly charismatic and he buys everyone drinks. Perhaps he mistakes them for fellow good guys and inadvertently gives them info they then use to raid a place (if he's a paladin, perhaps his temple outside of the city?)

I thought about doing something like this. The idea involves the party being waylaid by brigands early on, when brigands are still a threat. Its a fight that would be real tough, except the paladin comes to the rescue and allows them to prevail. From there, he accompanies them to the quest destination and parts ways with them there (after getting chummy). Now I have to mention that this guy doesn't introduce himself as a paladin, nor does he wear the armor of his order in any interactions with the PCs before the appointed showdown. As far as the PCs can tell, he's an easygoing wandering warrior who seems to be well-versed in the healing arts.

The second time they meet is when your suggestion comes into play. The Paladin is in town on business that coincidentally occurs in the same place the PCs are trying to sabotage. Through more hanging out at the inn, the Paladin unintentionally reveals many potential weaknesses in the objective, and leaves later that same day. Thus he will feel personally responsible for the tragedies that occurred there once he realizes the PCs are evil.

[Drork]

Problem 1: Detect evil. If the players are not paranoid enough to avoid this well paladin isnt going to stick around, unless they start off not evil.
If they start off not evil easy money in making a random stranger friends.
Problem 2: Players will never like a guy the DM throws their way. My advise is make him helpless, a wounded man on a road as a hint of a hidden ambush. His situation means he is unable to detect evil. The PCs arrival disturbed the ambush before they could loot him leaving him with a healing potion he was able to get down in the combat. He can then offer some minor healing from scrolls he has on him. He can even tell the PCs how he got lumped with the mission of clearing the road and he has a reason to buy them a round at the town. If the PCs go all aggressive on him to try to take him for what he is worth potion of heroism which was meant to be used on the bandits.

[Andreaz]

Problem 1: Detect evil. If the players are not paranoid enough to avoid this well paladin isnt going to stick around, unless they start off not evil.
If they start off not evil easy money in making a random stranger friends.
Problem 2: Players will never like a guy the DM throws their way. My advise is make him helpless, a wounded man on a road as a hint of a hidden ambush. His situation means he is unable to detect evil. The PCs arrival disturbed the ambush before they could loot him leaving him with a healing potion he was able to get down in the combat. He can then offer some minor healing from scrolls he has on him. He can even tell the PCs how he got lumped with the mission of clearing the road and he has a reason to buy them a round at the town. If the PCs go all aggressive on him to try to take him for what he is worth potion of heroism which was meant to be used on the bandits. this presumes the paladin keeps spamming the ability. I find it much more likely he never.bothers with it
unless he has reason to suspect. Ecause , you k.kw, he kinda has better things to do in his life than intruding everyone's lives. Hells, detecting evil isn't even a KoS sentence, just a red flag.

[whisperwind1]

this presumes the paladin keeps spamming the ability. I find it much more likely he never.bothers with it
unless he has reason to suspect. Ecause , you k.kw, he kinda has better things to do in his life than intruding everyone's lives. Hells, detecting evil isn't even a KoS sentence, just a red flag.

This is the assumption i'm going with. The paladin won't detect evil unless given a compelling reason to do so. It wouldn't be very telling of a hero (unless he was the Punisher) to second guess everyone's morality and obsessively check to make sure if people are bastards or not. The paladin is a trusting person who wants to believe the best in people, and that's probably why everything goes so tragically in the end.

Just a spoiler alert here. The Paladin is intended to fall late in the Adventure Path, becoming an antipaladin. The idea is that the PCs turned their greatest foe into their loyal ally, and i'm trying to build a more interesting series of events that lead to this, than the frankly boring one presented by the modules.

[Drork]

PHB:
Associates
While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Paladins do and should use this ability regularly they are meant to second guess anyone of not questionable morality, but bad morality it is why it is detect evil not know alignment or such. When a paladin walks into a bar they should be using detect evil. They may not grab their swords and cut them down but they want to know who is who in the bar. Paladins are meant to be paragons of their gods even in Eberron where Morals are lose and questionable Paladins dont get away with a lot (outside of their religion directions some of which are questionably "good").
Although that does give me a good idea you could make the paladin blind after dealing with something and he is still seeking his cure if he had to fight a rust monster you can take away armor and weapons making him more of a blind traveler. That way he can be holier than thou and travel with anyone willing to help him.

As a side note evil campaigns rarely mature as evil is not very good at working together or following a plan. I would strongly advise you do not plot armor the paladin. If the PCs want to kill him when they first meet him have a backup plan but if it fails let them have their day of glory because chances are things will go poorly regardless.

[Susano-wo]

Love the idea of the fun loving. not stick up the ass Paladin. Also, yeah, it would be pretty exhausting, mentally, to be constantly detecting evil.

And then there's the whole issue of A: concentration required, and B: you don't get specific evil auras until 3rd rnd, and only get their location if they are in line of site.

Mechanically, that's half your actions at the very least, meaning you move about half as fast as everyone else, and in terms of an actual character, y'now, living and interacting with people, he'd always be distracted unless he was sure he was with only good people.

No one but the most disturbed zealot will act like this.


PHB:
Associates
While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Paladins do and should use this ability regularly they are meant to second guess anyone of not questionable morality, but bad morality it is why it is detect evil not know alignment or such. When a paladin walks into a bar they should be using detect evil. They may not grab their swords and cut them down but they want to know who is who in the bar.

This is a way a Paladin can act, but it is by no means the only way. The association requirements specify knowingly. Not only does this mean that they don't have to Detect Evil to protect their Paladinhood, it can lead to one being possibly afraid to do so (if they love someone they suspect is evil, for instance). Different Paladins are going to behave differently depending on their outslook and personality.

EDIT: and on a different note, I don't know the Adventure Path, but you can be evil without killin for the luls, or being dishonorable toward each other. Not every evil character is a murderous sociopath. They can simply have bad goals and/or be willing to harm innocents to achieve their goals.

[BilltheCynic]

Personally, I would introduce the paladin like Madeline (http://rustyandco.com/comic/level2/level-2-2/): tough, good, and very naive. Introduce the paladin as stronger than the PCs or having something that the PCs need, but have the paladin be very naive and trusting of the characters. Try to arrange it so that the players manipulate the paladin without her knowing what the PCs are doing. The paladin will most likely need an atonement cast on her to bring back her paladinhood after a few times traveling with the PCs. If you play this right, the players should like the paladin for her niceness and general good nature and actually feel bad when the palading discovers what they really are. This betrayal can instill quite a bit of cynicism and wariness in the paladin who would now be utterly determined to bring the PCs down.

As for the fall, perhaps the post-betrayal paladin can be the powder keg of justice (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Powder_Keg_of_Justice). Have there be something really, really bad that the paladin can only stop by falling. Once the paladin has fallen she sees herself as beyond redemption, perhaps even thanking the PCs for teaching her what the 'real world' is actually like so long ago. Presto, one fallen paladin ally for the party!

[Drork]

Detecting is mentally exhausting but if you think before you perform a spot check when your scouting around you turn on detect evil you do not have to be doing it constantly to detect that people your around are evil. Also you do not need to go to round 2 or 3 unless you detect evil in your field of view (60 foot cone). Also spending half your action detecting evil and moving half as fast as normal is not an issue outside of combat given that you are not hustling though the streets etc which is what you are doing in combat. Paladins get their boons with a price, you dont have to be a stick up the butt paladin but flagrantly ignoring the directions of the class costing you your paladin abilities is exactly the price.
Also it is not ONLY good people it is NOT evil people. It is not detect evil action its detect evil, which works on a persons alignment.

About saying that associates in the players handbook is a way to play a paladin I would remind you Paladin is the only core class that has EX-paladins section for a reason. Paladin is what it is. It is not designed for rules arguments about morality. They have rules for code and associates because of the extra stuff they get over other core classes. When ever a player talks to me about a technicality in the code of paladin hood I just ask them to read the code out aloud so they can be reminded that is is not about a set of rules it is about the spirit of the rules behind it.

Protecting their paladin hood is exactly why they get detect evil as an at will ability.

I know it is possible to have a successful evil campaign however I warn all DMs who look at it knowing there are a lot of pitfalls and most players who want to play evil dont want to play different flavor of good or neutral. They wish to step into the evil arena exactly because they can perform destructive actions. My advice about removing plot armor is exactly to this end if the PCs an evil campaign has to be one where every option is open and the players themselves find stability. If you try to force restrictions on them they will fight against it.

Making the guy a cleric is more likely to get him into their good graces because they tend to be more useful to people than paladins.

[Susano-wo]

Sorry, maybe I should have been more specific about the quote. I wasn't contesting the associations section, but that Paladin's "do" and "should" use detect evil, like, all the time.

I am saying that they by no means have to do so to be a paladin. You can easily have a laid back Paladin who only scans if they feel it necessary. Hell, they may feel that it gets in the way--it colors your reactions to people. the victim of an assault might ping as evil while the perpetrator doesn't, so using detect evil might cloud your objectiveness. Better to use your keen insights on people (mechanically represented by sense motive as a class skill) to determine who was at fault.

So, you are free, even without a lenient/understanding GM to play a Paladin as a paranoid spammer of detect evil (yes, I know, my characterization, not yours), or. they may take any number of other stances on the ability.

RE: detect evil as paladinhood protection: it my no means protects your paladiness. never using it will make you no more likely to violate the code, in letter or spirit.

But i think I am done with this in this thread at least--I think its veering far afield of the OP's question

[Drork]

If victims of an attack "ping evil" you need to worry about this (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends) from code of conduct. Well I will not argue that paladins are not lawful stupid alignment restriction as many play them. Alignments are not meant to lie about people (unless they invest to make sure they do lie about them). People either reflect their alignment or their alignment reflects them depending on how you play with the alignment system. Having a paladin who is lose with the code or other directions of paladin hood pushes them towards chaotic which is as bad for a paladins health as going evil, arguably worse because there is a lack of chaotic paladin classes to become a fallen paladin with.

[whisperwind1]

Sorry, maybe I should have been more specific about the quote. I wasn't contesting the associations section, but that Paladin's "do" and "should" use detect evil, like, all the time.

I am saying that they by no means have to do so to be a paladin. You can easily have a laid back Paladin who only scans if they feel it necessary. Hell, they may feel that it gets in the way--it colors your reactions to people. the victim of an assault might ping as evil while the perpetrator doesn't, so using detect evil might cloud your objectiveness. Better to use your keen insights on people (mechanically represented by sense motive as a class skill) to determine who was at fault.

So, you are free, even without a lenient/understanding GM to play a Paladin as a paranoid spammer of detect evil (yes, I know, my characterization, not yours), or. they may take any number of other stances on the ability.

RE: detect evil as paladinhood protection: it my no means protects your paladiness. never using it will make you no more likely to violate the code, in letter or spirit.

But i think I am done with this in this thread at least--I think its veering far afield of the OP's question

Lol yeah I don't mean to start a paladin argument (though the subject makes that difficult).

Anyway just want to provide an update. The party seems to have done as I wished more or less of their own free wills. I set it up like I said, with the paladin rescuing them from a sticky situation, and they were grateful. I have him pegged as this easygoing guy whose quick with a laugh, and he was honestly impressed with the PCs' ability to defend themselves. I kept their association short, less than three hours of in-game time, but it looks like the party like this guy. The player's at least have mentioned that they think he's fun. He bonded with the melee character over combat styles and there may be indications of a future romance between him and the arcanist girl.

In addition to just being a friendly, nice guy, I was also purposefully vague about his background. The party think he's a knight from one of the realm's orders (which he is, just the one whose knights are all paladins). I've explained this in-game as him being self-effacing about his job, downplaying it because honestly, he doesn't want people to see him just in terms of it (paladins tend to attract that sort of hero worship after all). Basically I want to insinuate subtle hints about his class as the campaign progresses, but I want the reveal to be a surprise. I'll be curious to see how the party will take their next meeting, as they are going to be attacking a military base commanded by the Paladin's father.

As for the overall narrative, I do have a good idea of his character arc, given what the module tells me about him. The main idea is that for the longest time, he sternly opposes the PCs at every turn (not directly, but he's always there and ends up dealing the party setbacks). The catalyst for his fall is that he loses hope after opposing them so many times, yet always being unable to stop them from committing their deeds (he's always just a little bit too late). I'm going to add another layer to that, because since they were once friends, the paladin doesn't WANT to kill them if he can help it. He hopes (in vain) that he can take them alive, maybe get them to reform, which might be a reason they are able to escape him all the time (its not really, but the paladin doesn't know that). He also grows increasingly cynical about his cause since a) he has no real friends amongst the good guys, and b) the more he learns about the history of the conflict in the AP, the more he comes to think the kingdom brought these calamities on themselves (even if that's not an entirely fair observation).

By the end of it, assuming it all plays out like this, the paladin will fall of his own volition (after one final defeat in combat against the PCs). When he does become an anti-paladin, I picture a man who has grown terribly bitter and disillusioned about his previous cause, and decides that the kingdom deserves what's happening to it. I still picture him as making jokes and generally being laid-back, but there'd be a noticeable undertone of bitterness and lack of empathy to people he doesn't count as his friends. Ironically he'd probably abandon any accumulated hard feelings to the PCs and be their staunchest friend, because they showed him the truth of the world, as was mentioned in this thread.

Funnily enough the Adventure Path as written sees this character get redeemed in the final book when he gets an epiphany from the ghost of his dead mom. In my version though, he'll likely reject this chance at redemption outright, likely blaming his former cause for all the bad things that happened to the people and himself. And let's be honest, even as an evil and bitter black knight, this guy would still die before betraying his friends.

[LoyalPaladin]

I had made an Epic Cleric that would probably do this well if you're interested. He serves an LG sun god and has a friendly disposition to most people. I did something similar to a table I was running. They had some issues keeping on track and becoming murder hobos. So I ran them into this guy a couple of times, they like him so much that one of them straight up converted to Amaunator.

I think it is important to keep an LG character friendly and open. This guy would chastise them for being evil when they crossed a line, but he didn't murder them. Plus, when you have a guy tanking/healing for you there isn't much to hate.

Here is the sheet. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/acfb0aln5d6v2pp/Sun%20Cleric.pdf?dl=0) It's been a while since I used him and you'll have to bring him to their level, but he is a good one.