Non-paladins falling

[Flickerdart]

We've all heard the stories of paladins poorly handled by overzealous DMs who see the code of conduct as license to take away character abilities whenever they feel like it. The overbearing nature of the paladin code (in all its alignment variations) definitely makes it stand out, but it's not as if there aren't other codes out there.

Do you have any good stories of a cleric betraying his faith and falling in your games? A druid who accidentally taught someone Druidic? A samurai that abandoned his lord? Anything more exotic than "my DM said that lying to the BBEG was evil and my paladin fell."

[Hyena]

No. Well, my DM told me that both clerics and warlocks can fall if they displease their patrons (or stop being useful), but that's it - it never happened. We did, however, have a paladin of vengeance falling, but it had less to do with him doing evil stuff and more with him being brought back from the dead with Book of Vile Darkness.

[Flickerdart]

Well, my DM told me that both clerics and warlocks can fall if they displease their patrons (or stop being useful), but that's it - it never happened.
Interesting. Is it because the clerics and warlocks tried to avoid displeasing their patrons, or did they do whatever they want and the DM simply never had the patron care?

[justiceforall]

Its an interesting topic Flicker. I've had numerous NPC clerics fall, but never any PCs, even when they were totally jerk-tacular about it. For instance the player I had that was a Priest of a Neutral Good War deity who kept wanting to assassinate the party Templar (Lawful paladin type) because the Templar kept stopping him from being a jerk when he wanted to - still didn't fall.

My longest running party of all time had a druid who destroyed far, far more nature (animals, forests... you name it) than he helped protect. Come to think of it, he protected zero and destroyed some enormous amount of nature. We even used to make jokes about how destructive his character was. The possibility of him ceasing to be a druid never even came up.

I guess the closest I've got is one of my current players is a member of an organisation that has a prestige class associated with it. He has "fallen" from the organisation by doing something he was banned from doing - ending up in debt to a Godlike being, and whilst he retains his abilities he cannot progress the prestige class until he atones.

[AvatarVecna]

I once played a game where we were all evil characters trying to take over a kingdom, with our more subtle allies manipulating things politically from within while our more straightforward members formed a sort-of terrorist organization that helped the politically-minded of us have an obvious enemy to focus people's attention. My character spent most of the time running the criminal underground while slowly worming the better politicians into my pocket so we could extract favors from them and then reveal their corruption after their purpose had been served. Unfortunately, I got too close to "evil mastermind" one too many times, and the DM declared that I had turned Lawful Evil.

And that's how my bard fell from grace...until I dipped Blackguard and took that Paladin/Bard theurge feat that let's me be a lawful Bard. But it still happened!

[BWR]

Off-hand, I cannot recall this happening. It's certainly possible in my games but I tend to be pretty lenient. I will usually tell a player if they are about to do something stupid (because the PCs will generally know what their patron expects of them even if the player does not or has momentarily forgotten), and I very rarely need to do that.
The closest thing to it was a short period of powerlessness as punishment for failure to prove the patron Immortal's POV as superior to another Immortal's. The PC is a cleric of Valerias, who can best be described as the patroness of the sort of thing that goes on in romance novels. She loves passion and throwing yourself into situations (especially romantic ones) heedlessly and without forethought. Another PC had died and the first cleric they found who was powerful enough to cast Resurrection was of the rival Immortal Khoronus, who likes thoughtful and considered approaches and considers Valerias to be something of a flighty bimbo. Valerias considers him to be a stodgy old buffer.
The NPC agreed to cast the spell but set a series of conditions about the dead PC's future behavior in the form of a bet with the cleric PC. Whoever lost the bet would publicly extol the virtues of the winner's Immortal (they did not have to denigrate their own Immortal in any way). Short version, the PC lost and had her powers withdrawn a short while by her huffy patroness, until she had made a pilgrimage to the central temple and had an Atonement cast.
The PC cleric got her revenge by seducing the other cleric in a whirlwind romance, and they both won/lost by the PC getting pregnant and the two marrying. Neither Immortal is quite sure who came out on top in that contest but the current goal seems to be to see who gets the kid to be on their side.

[Ravens_cry]

Druids have it worse than Paladins for temporary removing their powers. As a DM, you could have some really tiny creature (it's totally in-character for a Gremlin or related creature) to slip a really tiny metal shield into their backpack while they sleep, and, if the druid didn't check for, and find, the weird coin with . . . straps on the other side, then they lose their druid powers* for all day.
But, you know, you don't hear about DM jerking around Druids the way they do Paladins, giving them choices where they must burn down the forest using alchemist fire or all the world's babies die.
Nope, it's Paladins who get the kick in the teeth with impossible moral questions and hidden challenges you can't make rational choices about, because there isn't enough information presented, even if it should be available, and third (or fourth or fifth) options are denied by pure fiat!
*Except the extraordinary ones. Yay 'Venom Immunity'.

[avr]

Clerics and druids have been threatened with losing their powers for betraying their religious principles that I've seen, but it wasn't ever carried out. Still, even the threat probably contributed to the general lack of enthusiasm for playing the cleric around here.

[Spore]

Well, my Moradin cleric killed a looting commoner once and lost his powers for that. It was a one-player oneshot and I was okay with the Atonement since it was probably a stupid move to drop onto a burglar from the ceiling with a fricking twohanded warhammer.

I don't know what the protocol says for instant murder of a hungry individual but I don't recall Moradin being on the lenient side for that.


Druids have it worse than Paladins for temporary removing their powers. As a DM, you could have some really tiny creature (it's totally in-character for a Gremlin or related creature) to slip a really tiny metal shield into their backpack while they sleep, and, if the druid didn't check for, and find, the weird coin with . . . straps on the other side, then they lose their druid powers* for all day.

This would've never gone through if I DM'ed that. That is also why Pathfinder changed the wording from "carrying a metal shield" to "using a metal shield". It is stupid, it ruins the immersion of a very basic level and this would only fly in a parody group for me.

[JohanOfKitten]

My wife fell once as a warlock.

In a scenario (in 5E, but the edition only impacts on fluf things), she was a warlock with as patron some otherworldy madness gods venerated by soem wild tribe she helped to fight a while ago. They entered her head and began to instill her with powers and promises.
In the scenario, a mindflayer has attempted to murder the queen and my wife was fighting to save her. The mindflayer, who served directly the same old gods, asked her to stop helping the queen, as an order from a master.

She refused and directly, she fell. She lost her magical powers (but was able to help us for the end of the fight). The DM let her have quickly an opportunity to make a bond with another being to regain her powers and continue to progress as a warlock. In the same time, we leveled up after the fight, but she couldn't progress as warlock, so she dip in warrior (she intended that anyway).


In some way, the falling was provoked by the DM (although he was completely open to have her stopping the fight and have an awkward position between the heroes party and the olds gods), but he tried to make it the least damaging for her, to have a good story without frustrating the players.

[Geddy2112]

I almost fell as a cleric of an LG god. I started out as your friendly evangelical traveling priest-I did the whole talking to snakes, perform good acts to spread the gospel, old time church tent conversion.

Through a series of grimmer and darker events, my character started to lose faith in the goodness of the church doing anything to establish order,or spread the gospel. Time and time again, it came down to force to save the day-so in a remote town, after another failed attempt to convert anyone, I set forth to find a sinner/criminal, take them into a back alley and absolve them of their sins by putting a bullet in their head.

I quickly became LN(one step from my deity), multiclassed into monk and became judge dredd. My DM more than a few times gave me "your deity frowns on this course of action" in response to me wanting to roundup some baddies and play judge, jury, and executioner.
Eventually I retired the character to roll up a new one-I returned back to the king/priest(main government we worked for was a theocracy of my deity) and worked as a personal agent NPC.

My next character in said game was an LN druid, and close to the end of the campaign I almost fell when said king and some other people in the church simply went off the rails and started issuing the death penalty for minor crimes without any real rhyme or reason. They killed several people, and then several innocent people as patsy's because the party had a few of the actual criminals spared, so I flipped out and started a coup, as such a gross disregard for order and harmony really steamed my beans. My plan to overthrow the theocracy and return the world to a more natural state of governance was thwarted by DM fiat, and although my actions were way out of the scope of any LN character nothing happened to my powers.

[Florian]

We've all heard the stories of paladins poorly handled by overzealous DMs who see the code of conduct as license to take away character abilities whenever they feel like it. The overbearing nature of the paladin code (in all its alignment variations) definitely makes it stand out, but it's not as if there aren't other codes out there.

Do you have any good stories of a cleric betraying his faith and falling in your games? A druid who accidentally taught someone Druidic? A samurai that abandoned his lord? Anything more exotic than "my DM said that lying to the BBEG was evil and my paladin fell."

A "fall" is always an alignment shift coupled with an "Ex-Class" entry in the class overview.
There´re "hard" and "soft" falls, when an alignment shift either let you lose your class abilities or you simply can´t progress in that class any more.

So far, I´ve had Barbarians and Monk "fall" due to alignment shift and Clerics dropped by their gods.
What I´ve not had are Paladins or Druids falling.

[Ravens_cry]

This would've never gone through if I DM'ed that. That is also why Pathfinder changed the wording from "carrying a metal shield" to "using a metal shield". It is stupid, it ruins the immersion of a very basic level and this would only fly in a parody group for me.

I don't deny it's stupid. What I'm saying is that people pull that kind of **** on Paladin all the time, not from a mature desire to see how a tricky ethical and/or moral situation plays out, with agreement from the player in advance that this could have repercussions for their character, but from what comes across more as a petty and childish, "Oh, ho, how can I make the Paladin fall today?"
I've had a paladin character fall, and it felt like it was, once it happened, completely justified.
I wasn't happy about falling, but I didn't feel it had been a petty griefing, but, rather a mistake on my part.

[Spore]

I don't deny it's stupid. What I'm saying is that people pull that kind of **** on Paladin all the time, not from a mature desire to see how a tricky ethical and/or moral situation plays out, with agreement from the player in advance that this could have repercussions for their character, but from what comes across more as a petty and childish, "Oh, ho, how can I make the Paladin fall today?"
I've had a paladin character fall, and it felt like it was, once it happened, completely justified.
I wasn't happy about falling, but I didn't feel it had been a petty griefing, but, rather a mistake on my part.

I expect a mature approach from my DM if he tries to tempt my character into falling. And boy my Paladin does show a lot of exploitable weaknesses (and by this point the villains should know about them). But it should be a situation where you get tricked into falling easily. "Oh, you disobeyed the law of this lawful evil tyranny? You're not lawful anymore, sorry, you are no Paladin anymore. Too bad."

[Tiri]

In my DM's game, anyone can fall. ANYONE. All you need is to 'originally' be of a Good alignment and changing to Evil (through evil or Evil acts) causes you to lose all class features including HD, BAB and saves (and presumably dying if you have no racial HD).

[Ashtagon]

In my DM's game, anyone can fall. ANYONE. All you need is to 'originally' be of a Good alignment and changing to Evil (through evil or Evil acts) causes you to lose all class features including HD, BAB and saves (and presumably dying if you have no racial HD).

All you really need is a spiked pit trap of opposite alignment.

[Spore]

In my DM's game, anyone can fall. ANYONE. All you need is to 'originally' be of a Good alignment and changing to Evil (through evil or Evil acts) causes you to lose all class features including HD, BAB and saves (and presumably dying if you have no racial HD).

Who is this lunatic and why are you still playing with him or her?

"Oh no, my naive and kind-hearted fighter has become neutral from being constantly exposed to the horrors of war. I guess it's farewell then." said Jack as his beloved Tuergar Trueheart got hit by lightning dealing n+1 plot damage.

[Arbane]

In my DM's game, anyone can fall. ANYONE. All you need is to 'originally' be of a Good alignment and changing to Evil (through evil or Evil acts) causes you to lose all class features including HD, BAB and saves (and presumably dying if you have no racial HD).

man what

That makes no sense whatsoever. Just like alignments in general, but worse.

[The Glyphstone]

In my DM's game, anyone can fall. ANYONE. All you need is to 'originally' be of a Good alignment and changing to Evil (through evil or Evil acts) causes you to lose all class features including HD, BAB and saves (and presumably dying if you have no racial HD).

The sarcasm is strong in this one...

[Xuldarinar]

Conceivably anyone can fall, pending upon one's definition.

A paladin who violates their code of conduct
A druid who stops revering nature or drifts from its favor
A cleric or warlock who displeases their patron
A favored soul who loses favor

Even a binder could "fall", the vestiges forever refusing the binder's call, for any one who is granted power from elsewhere can lose it.

Then we get into a more voluntary kind of fall. An individual loses their ability, not from it being pulled from them (though Karsus could be said to be a wizard who fell), but because they lose the will to use it. A spellcaster who loses the ability to cast spells from ability score loss, or simply cannot bring themselves to prepare them could be said to be fallen.

[yellowrocket]

I don't find enough bull rushed knocked back off a cliff falling in my games.

[Ravens_cry]

I expect a mature approach from my DM if he tries to tempt my character into falling. And boy my Paladin does show a lot of exploitable weaknesses (and by this point the villains should know about them). But it should be a situation where you get tricked into falling easily. "Oh, you disobeyed the law of this lawful evil tyranny? You're not lawful anymore, sorry, you are no Paladin anymore. Too bad."

Is that last part meant seriously? I can't tell. A single non-lawful act does not change your alignment from lawful to neutral on that axis as a rule, and lawful is more and different than simply 'obeying the law mindlessly'. I don't want to turn this into an alignment thread, but I can't tell what parts you mean seriously or not. I agree a DM should use a mature approach, but I've read enough horror stories here of DM's who don't do that, and in so many ways beyond, though including, silly "Let's make the Paladin fall" stories.

[Spore]

Is that last part meant seriously? I can't tell. A single non-lawful act does not change your alignment from lawful to neutral on that axis as a rule, and lawful is more and different than simply 'obeying the law mindlessly'. I don't want to turn this into an alignment thread, but I can't tell what parts you mean seriously or not. I agree a DM should use a mature approach, but I've read enough horror stories here of DM's who don't do that, and in so many ways beyond, though including, silly "Let's make the Paladin fall" stories.

No. Although we have a fellow player that is very strict about Paladins in his own campaign. If you repeatedly refuse to abide to the law, you can drop out of LG very quickly. Keep in mind that is also the DM that cut off my character's ring and index finger making him unable to use bows and give a hefty penalty on sleight of hand because my rogue stole something very valuable. He is fond of consequences for player actions. I hate him sometimes for that but I like him sometimes for that.

This way I can play a Goblin Oracle with the favored class bonus of an Half Elf (because he killed me with a Bogeyman and a druid reincarnated me).

[Bucky]

This would've never gone through if I DM'ed that. That is also why Pathfinder changed the wording from "carrying a metal shield" to "using a metal shield". It is stupid, it ruins the immersion of a very basic level and this would only fly in a parody group for me.

Pathfinder has Beguiling Gift. Which I've seen used like that, but never on a PC.

[dascarletm]

I've caused many many characters of all classes to fall throughout my years. Some classes can cope with it better than others.

Monks have a class feature for coping with falling. Negates the sting pretty well, provided they have something to hang onto.

Wizards/Sorcerers can just use a first level spell to negate it entirely.

[tadkins]

What about a barbarian falling from chaotic grace and somehow ending up as a tool for The Man? Or worse yet, a barbarian learning to read, going to school, and becoming a lawyer? xD

[Deeds]

I had a cleric of Fharlanghn (god of travel, neutral alignment) fall.

The party was on a mission to infiltrate a lich's lair while the lich was away. We knew that if the lich returned we would be screwed since we were about 5th level at the time. We stayed in the dungeon for too long and the lich returned, but it did not detect us immediately. Half of my party tried to sneak past the lich while my group (ya know, the -6 to move silently bunch) stayed behind. The sneaking group was detected by the lich and were forced to bolt out the front door. The lich began to fire rays at the fleeing party. I decided to simply walk up and distract the lich with a good ole' Cure Serious Wounds. The lich didn't like that too much and it paralyzed me with it's lich-touch.

Most of the party escaped but the few of us who didn't were captured and subjected to a flowing river of evil slime. For some reason, Ghost Busters comes to mind when I think of the slime river. Anyway, the slime made our alignments shift to evil and we got the fiendish template applied to our characters. The DM declared that my cleric fell because of the alignment shift from Neutral to Neutral Evil.

I've had several DMs chastise or hint that a paladin shouldn't do certain actions at the table and away from the table. However, this is the only time I've witnessed a character falling and it wasn't even done correctly.

[Tiri]

Who is this lunatic and why are you still playing with him or her?

"Oh no, my naive and kind-hearted fighter has become neutral from being constantly exposed to the horrors of war. I guess it's farewell then." said Jack as his beloved Tuergar Trueheart got hit by lightning dealing n+1 plot damage.

Well, he's a pretty good DM, apart from that one rule. A bit rigid sometimes, but he generally does a good job coping with the unexpected things the party does. I'm not actually sure whether it's any change away from Good that triggers the 'fall' or just becoming Evil. Although I'm not sure he thought the part where we lose all our hit dice through completely.


The sarcasm is strong in this one...

No, I'm not being sarcastic. This is a real rule that we play with.

[tadkins]

Most of the party escaped but the few of us who didn't were captured and subjected to a flowing river of evil slime. For some reason, Ghost Busters comes to mind when I think of the slime river. Anyway, the slime made our alignments shift to evil and we got the fiendish template applied to our characters. The DM declared that my cleric fell because of the alignment shift from Neutral to Neutral Evil.



That shouldn't have happened. Technically NE is a valid alignment for Fharlanghn clerics.

[Ravens_cry]

No, I'm not being sarcastic. This is a real rule that we play with.
That . . . wow! I mean, I get if a DM has a rule of 'You turn evil; you become an NPC' along with the the 'no Evil PC rule', just because a lot of the way many players play evil can be very disruptive. But . . . I think I'd walk.
I'd make my own game. With blackjack, and plot hooks.

[mostholycerebus]

Yes, I had a 1e retired Samurai, dual class Shugenja that was LG-ish. At the end of one major plot arc we found that my daimyo (liege lord) was a huge evil a-hole plotting to destroy the world so he could become an evil lich. I left his service and fell, decided to be a LG ronin instead, actually doubled down and became more good. After a few plot arcs my actions caught the attention of the Celestial Emperor, who took me into his service, so I gained all my abilities back. Plus being a direct agent of the head of the gods was cool.

[P.F.]

One game in college featured my friend's younger brother (a college freshman at the time I believe) playing a druid. Around the second session we were attacked by wolves in a pine forest on the road to wherever ... he decided to cast flaming sphere. Web was also involved. The DM dropped some hints that this might not be the best plan, it hasn't rained in days, these actions could have far-reaching effects, all to no avail. He directs the flaming sphere at the entangled wolves. Well, needless to say, the combo worked fabulously, fire damage to everything, wolves dead, smell of burning fur, the works. Then the woods caught fire.

We later discovered on examining his character sheet that he was wearing metal armor and a metal shield. I drew a little cartoon to commemorate the event, a figure in full plate armor setting the woods on fire. The caption read, "Mark's character gains the ex-druid template."

[Deophaun]

I saw a monk fall, once. It was ok, though, as he was level 20 and next to a wall at the time.

[P.F.]

I saw a monk fall, once. It was ok, though, as he was level 20 and next to a wall at the time.

Reminds me of the time I saw two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff. :smallwink:

[Ravens_cry]

Reminds me of the time I saw two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff. :smallwink:
I've seen that done. It makes the right sound.:smalltongue:

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Do you have any good stories of a cleric betraying his faith and falling in your games? A druid who accidentally taught someone Druidic? A samurai that abandoned his lord? Anything more exotic than "my DM said that lying to the BBEG was evil and my paladin fell."

I've done it to a Cleric as the DM.

In the Dragonlance world, at times of particular strife or peril or upheaval, the gods tend to walk 'round quite a bit as avatars. We were playing right after the publication of Dragons of a Vanished Moon in paperback, and our game was set directly after that novel. The plot involves, basically, the destruction of two major gods. So the major plot of our game was that there were sort of free Divine Ranks just floating around, and the surviving gods were trying to collect them for themselves, with various mortals scheming to become divine and acting as divine proxies and all sorts of nonsense. And, uh, there was a player who had a fairly bad memory. And if my memory serves, he'd read the Dragonlance books. And he didn't pick up on the heavy, heavy hints I was dropping that the well-dressed, outrageously-hatted dwarf he was talking to was actually his dwarf Cleric's own Lawful Good god.

And then he tried to sell his god a kid as a slave. And so the focus of the game shifted to "what quests can we do to make up for this huge, huge mistake?", and it ended up being rather memorable and definitely a good time.

[Malimar]

True story: I once made a barbarian fall. Out a window in the Skyway in Sharn, so he reached terminal velocity before he hit the ground. He just tanked the damage and walked it off.

Sadly, I don't have any stories about what this thread is actually about.

[LTwerewolf]

In the game I DM'd for a few days ago we had a cleric of pelor fix a vampire's coffin and help bring him back to undeath. He lost his all of his divine abilities, including the devoted spirit stuff he had from his crusader level. In my campaign you're required to take a deity, not a concept, and all divine abilities come from said deity. The game ended soon after so it gave me time to figure out ways for him to get it back, and ways he can go if he doesn't.

[Starbuck_II]

Conceivably anyone can fall, pending upon one's definition.

A paladin who violates their code of conduct
A druid who stops revering nature or drifts from its favor
A cleric or warlock who displeases their patron
A favored soul who loses favor

Favoted Soul's don't even have know (religion), they only guess which god empowered them. And no, they have no fall possible.


Even a binder could "fall", the vestiges forever refusing the binder's call, for any one who is granted power from elsewhere can lose it.
.

Seeing as the vestiges need the drug pusher that is the Binder, they will very unlikely to leave him. They need their reality fix.

[Tjallen]

Once played a LG pacifist core only healbot cleric, didn't even own a weapon.
One brush with deck of many things later and I was suddenly CE.
Then quicksand happened, only to me of course, and I was suddenly playing a spell and gear less cleric.
Bad times.

[Sian]

Only actual fallen character i've seen in play was a NG Cleric (of ... Pelor, i think), who slid to CN, dropping into Chaotic and Neutral at practically the same time, by being to much of a selfish thieving LOLrandomAction!1! who disrespected a superior one time to many ... and was quickly (and mainly handled out of game, since the player in question had some minor mental disability ... can't remember if it was mild Asbergers or what, but something among those lines ... and the type of player that mainly attended because thats what the rest of us was doing) scooped up by Olidammara and we moved on.

[hamishspence]

Favoted Soul's don't even have know (religion), they only guess which god empowered them. And no, they have no fall possible.


They do have the "Must be same alignment as deity (or within one step) and "May not be neutral unless deity is neutral" requirements.

If they no longer qualify - then at the very least, they can no longer advance (like non-Lawful monks).

[SangoProduction]

Technically my guy was a paladin, but it was the closest thing to a Neo-Dragon Knight in flavor. "Oh, these guys are attacking and starving your party, but you hit them, so you lose your powers, because Lawful Good now means pacifism. Let's lop off an arm while we're at it...and take away all your equipment...and make you walk at half speed." But you know the story. Not having a game is better than playing a paladin with a group you don't know.

No, never have I seen someone not a paladin lose their abilities.

[Telok]

They do have the "Must be same alignment as deity (or within one step) and "May not be neutral unless deity is neutral" requirement

I wrote a backstory geting around that once. The character claimed that he'd won a bet with a trickster deity, gotten an infinite caster level Nystul's Mystic Aura, and become a NE favored soul of a LG god.

In game it was set up a bit differently by the rules. The character was played as a slightly delusional practical joker with mildly disturbing anectdotes about war crimes and a strong law & order moral philosophy that he couldn't quite live up to. There was no alignment written on the sheet and it had a custom magic item that cast one spell a week which was any of the four Protection from Alignment spells. Because of the spells the item radiated all alignments, the caster level on the item made the auras all overwhelmingly strong, and the custom magic item restriction rules made it very cheap at the price of being completely unusable by almost anyone.

[the_david]

I was wondering if there was anyone who changed his religion after falling, either becoming a blackguard/anti-paladin or a cleric of another deity? Or perhaps a blighter or ur-priest?

The closest I came was just background story. An aasimar cleric of Asmodeus who used to be an acolyte of Mitra.