Paladin Code question?

[Necroticplague]

Was looking over the paladin when i say one ting that I found confusing, was hoping someone else could clear it up for me.



A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate.
What exactly does "willfully" mean in this context? I get that it's their to exclude things like coercion and mind control, but what about acts the paladin is unaware are evil? Sure, you willfullingly acted, and that act was evil, but the act you willfullingly intended and the act you ended up doing are different, so does the "willingness" transfer?

Eg: A paladin is ambushed while unarmed. To defend themselves, they snatch up on of their attacker's weapons and use it against them. Unknowingly to the paladin, the weapon was coated with Black Lotus Extract. When they strike with it, do they fall for having willfully poisoned someone, because the attack that poisoned them was definitely a willful act, or do they not fall?

[J-H]

Short answer: No.
Long answer: It depends on whether or not the DM wants to make the Paladin fall.

[Geddy2112]

Second short answer no long answer maybe.

Willfully generally means that the paladin knows that they are doing an evil act and doing it voluntarily. So no falling for mind control, or doing something they did not know was evil(if they really did not know and acted with the best of intentions).

But you should always talk to your DM before playing any religious/code based class where your powers can be taken if you mess up.

[Red Fel]

Eg: A paladin is ambushed while unarmed. To defend themselves, they snatch up on of their attacker's weapons and use it against them. Unknowingly to the paladin, the weapon was coated with Black Lotus Extract. When they strike with it, do they fall for having willfully poisoned someone, because the attack that poisoned them was definitely a willful act, or do they not fall?

This is what's called a "framing issue." That is, the interpretation of the issue depends on where you set the parameters.

Here are several ways to frame the issue you've presented.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully defends himself. No issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon. No issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon coated in Black Lotus. He willfully uses the poisoned weapon. His use of the weapon was willful. Issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon coated in Black Lotus. He willfully uses the weapon. However, although his use of the weapon was willful, his use of the poison was not. No issue.
It generally depends on the DM's method of framing. That said, in my mind, "willful" also means "knowing;" that is, you can't willfully perform an act if you're unaware of it.

Here's an illustration: The villain has set up pressure pads in his lair. If the hero walks across the floor, each step will kill one of the villain's hostages. The hero, unknowing, walks across the floor to reach the villain.

Has the hero willfully killed the hostages? Well, he willfully walked across the floor. He walked with the intention of doing so. But he did not know, and had no way of knowing, that the act of walking would be lethal to the hostages.

In this case, if the Paladin does not know of the Black Lotus Extract, he cannot be accused of willfully using it. He willfully wielded the weapon (end asinine alliteration), but not the poison; he knew of the former, not the latter.

Now, that said, willfulness may transfer if the intended act was also a bad act. The term "transferred intent" is used with respect to a person who does precisely that - intends to commit one wrong, but ends up committing a different one. Example: Aberforth intends to murder the Prince. He sneaks into the Prince's room at night and stabs him. Miraculously, the Prince survives his wounds; unbeknownst to Aberforth, however, the knife was poisoned, and soon the Prince dies, not of his injuries, but of the poison. Aberforth intended to kill the Prince via stabbing; instead, he did it via poisoning. Because the original intent was bad, we can attribute willfulness to the ultimate action.

In this case, however, the Paladin is engaged in a morally neutral act - self-defense. The Paladin wasn't trying to do anything wrong, so the fact that a wrong (i.e. poisoning) did ultimately occur was inadvertent.

[OldTrees1]

Any action I will to be is a willful action. Essentially this is a judgement of the intended action, not the consequences of that action.

So ask yourself, how would the Paladin have phrased their intent prior to the outcome being known?

In the example the Paladin was unaware of the poison and thus could not have intended to use the poison.

On the other hand, if the Paladin thought the blade was poisoned but someone else swapped the blades without the Paladin's knowledge, then the Paladin would be willfully attempting to poison despite their blade being clean of poison.

[Gallowglass]

I don't really know how I feel about this because it really is an issue by issue deal.

The two examples given, the poisoned sword and the pressure plate super villain trap... my first blush is to say "no, they don't fall."

But there is another well-written trope which is similar: The paladin is slowly weaving through a shadowy chamber. He knows evil is nearby, he can sense it. He followed the den of assassins into this chamber... he is hunting. Suddenly, as he weaves around a pillar, he sees movement. One of them is about to attack him! He turns and swings, his blade bites and the assassin falls. But wait. As the moonlight pierces through a crack in the chamber wall he sees it was not an assassin he just killed, but an innocent. A young woman, an innocent!

When I read that, I think "yeah, the paladin falls." Why do I see these as different? In all the cases, the paladin was acting without full knowledge of the consequences of his action.

I guess its because in the third scenario, the paladin acted rashly. He made an assumption and acted in a way that he -could- have been more careful and -could- have foreseen a consequence to his rash act. Whereas in the first two... I feel the poison sword is an obvious "no fall" He is actively being attacked by an evil power, he is defending himself with the available weapon. That seems pretty obvious to me. But lets talk Red Fel's super villain lair: Is this the first time the Paladin has fought this guy? Does he know the tactics the villain uses? Did he know the villain had hostages? Should he have expected the villain to use them in some way to stop him? I feel like there are other questions, other variables that affect the formula in this one. Assuming in the set up, there was no way for the paladin to know about the hostages or how the villain may use them, then no, no fall. But really, in that situation, wouldn't the villain have said "Come on! Come get me. But know that every step you take leads to oblivion for my hostages! sneer! sneer!" Otherwise, what's the point of the evil trap.

[hamishspence]

I'd go with "poison is only usually evil because it supposedly causes Excessive Suffering" - if you can convincingly make a case that it doesn't - then it's only a "violation of the Code" rather than "an evil act"

And if the violation is not gross, no automatic Fall.

If you go by the description of the Atonement spell:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/atonement.htm

it is possible to commit an evil act unwittingly - but that might not cause a Fall.


But wait. As the moonlight pierces through a crack in the chamber wall he sees it was not an assassin he just killed, but an innocent. A young woman, an innocent!

When I read that, I think "yeah, the paladin falls." Why do I see these as different? In all the cases, the paladin was acting without full knowledge of the consequences of his action.

I guess its because in the third scenario, the paladin acted rashly. He made an assumption and acted in a way that he -could- have been more careful and -could- have foreseen a consequence to his rash act.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

Though a paladin must always strive to bring about a just and righteous outcome, she is not omnipotent. If someone tricks her into acting in a way that harms the innocent, or if an action of hers accidentally brings about a calamity, she may rightly feel that she is at fault. But although she should by all means attempt to redress the wrong, she should not lose her paladinhood for it. Intent is not always easy to judge, but as long as a paladin's heart was in the right place and she took reasonable precautions, she cannot be blamed for a poor result.

[LoyalPaladin]

This is what's called a "framing issue." That is, the interpretation of the issue depends on where you set the parameters.
It's also called "being a jerk", if you did it with the intent to fall the paladin for it.


Here are several ways to frame the issue you've presented.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully defends himself. No issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon. No issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon coated in Black Lotus. He willfully uses the poisoned weapon. His use of the weapon was willful. Issue.
The Paladin is unarmed, and willfully snatches up a discarded weapon coated in Black Lotus. He willfully uses the weapon. However, although his use of the weapon was willful, his use of the poison was not. No issue.
It generally depends on the DM's method of framing. That said, in my mind, "willful" also means "knowing;" that is, you can't willfully perform an act if you're unaware of it.
Agreeing with all of the above.


Here's an illustration: The villain has set up pressure pads in his lair. If the hero walks across the floor, each step will kill one of the villain's hostages. The hero, unknowing, walks across the floor to reach the villain.
That would be disgustingly evil of the villain. Not only would he be smote, but I'd then sue his estate for the money to pay for revives for each of the hostages. That sounds lawful, right?


In this case, if the Paladin does not know of the Black Lotus Extract, he cannot be accused of willfully using it. He willfully wielded the weapon (end asinine alliteration), but not the poison; he knew of the former, not the latter.
Yes. This is exactly it. You can't willfully wield something you don't know about.


In this case, however, the Paladin is engaged in a morally neutral act - self-defense. The Paladin wasn't trying to do anything wrong, so the fact that a wrong (i.e. poisoning) did ultimately occur was inadvertent.
Depending on how beefy the opponent is, I would probably just smite them with my unarmed strike haha. Why waste an action on a weapon, when I can just smite someone to death?

[Nibbens]

Interesting aside: This is why I call for the use of atonement periodically for my pallys. (Not Atonement the spell, but atonement the act)

Being a black and white character in a grey world is hard and conundrums like the above should weigh on the pallys consciousness over time. Trying to be perfect and failing due to an imperfect world should drive the pally to greater roleplay heights of what he does to act out his atonement. Some of my PCs greatest rp moments were what he did for his periodic atonement (little a) during downtime. Being a jerk DM and using the black and white "you did a no-no therefore I take away all you pally-wally powers," is a waste of good story and fluff potential.

Playing a paladin should be a roleplay experience, not a constant barrage of fear of no-win situations that you may wind up in, like a wet coat that you constantly wear - checking all your hypothetical what-ifs before you act.